Que Vida!

What a whirlwind life has been lately! We made it back to Cordoba in time to pull ourselves together a little bit (but actually mostly just hung out with the Brazilians as it was their last few days in the city as well), before our friends Mick and Chris from NDSU flew in to spend a week with us, over their spring break. And from the second those two set foot in the country, I don't think we sat down for more than 5 minutes, and we DEFINITELY never slept more than 5 hours at a time. Lucky for us the guys were eager to join in on the Argentina lifestyle, as well as the backpacker one. So we spent the week cooking up chorris, drinking

mate, tasting the wines, and exploring the country. We overnight bused 3 times that week, and visited 6 different cities... can you say crazy?! The first day in Cordoba we walked the centro, ate in the park, showed the guys our house, and stayed in an awesome foreigner hostel- complete with beer pong. Can't say I'd played that down here yet! The next afternoon was spent in tranquila Santa Rosa, soaking up the sun by the big lake and grilling chorizos. Then we shopped and ate empanadas in Bahia Blanca, before taking a van to our mountain destination, Sierra de la Ventana. And wow, was it worth the trek. We did a mountain hike,

explored the friendly little town, and spent the rest of the time catching up, playing cards, and cooking up feasts for each other in the cozy, lime green cabana we rented out. From there we bused over to Mar del Plata (just in time to watch the sun come up over the ocean, I might add), for a day on the beach. It was a bit windy but sunny nonetheless, and we topped off the night by jumping in the ocean in all our clothes when it turned midnight.... I had made it to my birthday!!!!! We traveled one last time that next day, to Buenos Aires, where we ended up finding a random (but awesome) Israeli hostel to stay in, before heading out to eat and dance to celebrate my birthday. I don't think turning 23 gets much more epic than that.

A quick word on turning 23...

Gotta say I was a bit sad to see 22 go, just because it really has been my absolute favorite year yet. I graduated college, ran my first half marathon, and traveled Ecuador and Argentina. I swam in both the Pacific and the Atlantic, survived a jungle trek, and hiked in the Andes. Sure I also got stung by jellyfish, robbed in a bus station, and have been lost more times than I care to count, but it's all been part of the greatest adventure. Lucky for me I feel younger than ever; more than ready to tackle this 23^rd year. And believe me when I tell you I have not the slightest idea what it holds for me. And that is the best part! Bring it on.....

To get back on track, the guys sadly had to fly home to return to “normal life” on Saturday, and Renae and I have been hanging out in Buenos Aires ever since. The city is absolutely GORGEOUS so instead of getting caught up on sleep, we have been trying to do everything in the few days we have here. We shopped in the San Telmo market, saw La Boca, La Casa Rosada, and the port, and even walked through the streets during a political rally. Luckily for us, we bought bus tickets today, to travel all the way to Lima from here starting Thursday morning (70 HOUR BUS RIDE!), so I guess we will have lots of time to catch up on sleep soon. In case you are wondering, this specific bus ride puts us on the other side of the Argentina border at exactly day 90, out of the 90 we are allowed to spend in the country. So as usual we are cutting it pretty close, but assuming the bus doesn’t break down or something, it’s all good!

With all this craziness going on, it’s hard to explain my mindset. I miss Cordoba so, So, SO much- the roomies, the newfound Brazilian friends, and especially the KIDS- but at the same time am so very excited to get to Peru and start the last part of the journey. As my heart opens up more and more it gets harder and harder to say goodbye and leave people behind, but at the same time gets easier to connect with new ones, so I have to be thankful for the change. Also, I can’t even explain how wonderful it was to see friends from home, and how much we miss them already, yet at the same time how right it felt to send them on their way while staying down here to continue on ourselves. All I can say is the days are flying by, I cannot believe our time in our beloved Argentina is already up (I WILL be back!), and I’m left praying that the days ahead are as amazing as the days behind, because there is nothing else I could possibly hope for!

Hoping 3 days on a bus doesn’t make us crazier than we already are,

Jenna Flynn

1,200 blessings

For anyone holding their breath waiting to hear if we made it out of Mendoza, don´t worry; Everything is better than ever...

After blogging from the hostel last Friday, Jen and I waited around until finally the money came through, and we hopped on the next bus out into the Andes. We rolled into a town called Cacheuta and pitched our tent in a campground for the night and passed out. The next day, discovering the better views and hikes were in another town close by, we hopped on a

bus to Potrerillos. We spent the whole weekend there, in an ACA (Automovil Club Argentino) campsite right next to a beautiful mountain lake. The entire area was surrounded by hills and snow-capped peaks. The most amazing place I have ever camped, hands down. We enjoyed the naturaleza, swimming in the lake, hiking the mountains, and cooking chorizos and rice over a fire. 

The most amazing part about the weekend, though, is what happened on the inside. Right when we got there, we swam out into the lake, and staring at the epic views all around, reflecting on how we had made it this far into the trip, I knew I could not waste one more second being sad about our stolen things.  I realized God brought us to that bridge for a reason: To show us how to be strong in a tough situation, looking at the positive side, and to remind us that we are SO blessed. I could not ask for anything more. All the love and support and generosity we´ve been shown throughout this journey, from back home and down here, adds up to a BILLION times more than all that we lost. To feel better about losing those things, we compiled a list of all the acts of generosity we´ve received along the way, and it humbled us to the core. There is no way we could ever fully repay any of the people who have been in our lives or along this trip, but we´re going to try to pay it forward as much as we can. We want to show God that we trust Him; Losing so much, but continuing on and giving even more. 

Another amazing thing happened this weekend too. We went to mass at a church overlooking the lake on Sunday evening, and the message, straight from God, was written in the gospel: "No sólo de pan vivirá el hombre, sino toda la palabra que sale de la boca de Dios" or, in

English, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word thats comes forth from the mouth of God" Matthew 4:4. The Obispo (Bishop) went on the explain that it is not money that makes us rich, but our spiritual values and being blessed by God, family, and love. Jenna and I looked at each other like, whattt?!! Just in case we missed the message, He had to make it clear. During the offering then, we pulled out all the small bills we had. We missed the basket going around, so at the end of mass, I ran up to the man carrying them and dropped it in. We walked back to the campsite after church, wondering what we could make for dinner, when the offering collector guy walked up to our site."You two really made an impression on the Bishop and I, how about I buy you guys some empanadas for dinner?" We of course could not turn it down, so we went with him. He ordered the food, and started talking. He asked us about our journey, the things we´ve learned, etc. He went on the emphasize the lesson we had already started learning: You have to prepare yourself for the bad times in life. Know what is important, and keep God and all the people you love close to you, so that when bad things do happen, (like losing a backpack in South America) you will be able to pick yourself back up in no time. He eventually told us that he was suffering from a terminal illness, and though he was reciving a transplant in a few days, I don´t think he was convinced he had much time left. He sent us off with a bag of tomatoes and a number to call him if we ever needed anything. I don´t want to freak you guys out, but I think he might have literally been an angel. Another little message from God to make the lesson we learned this past week permanent. What an experience...

We had to say goodbye to Potrerillos, and then after one last day of hanging out in the city, to Mendoza as well. We hopped on a bus to Córdoba last night, and arrived back in our city $1,200 poorer, but richer in all the best ways. I think the travellers luck is back on track. 

Seeking a new backpack,

Nae

P.S. I forgot to add this in to the last blog, which would have been just way too sad at the time on top of everything else, but Mala Ala, our pet egret, died during our last week before Mendoza. She got sick and wouldn´t eat anything, and though I consulted everyone I knew in the bird-bio area, we couldn´t figure out what it was. The zoo guys assume it must have been internal damage from the fall. I buried her in the yard of the foreigner house. At least she got to live for a few more weeks with a bunch of awesome foreigners rather than get immediately eaten by a lizard on the zoo sidewalk...? RIP Baby Egret

How to be the worst traveler

Yesterday was the 150th day of the trip. Only 102 days left. I cannot tell you how fast time is flying. Already having survived 5 months down here, you would think things would become a little more relaxed, that we might get used to goodbyes, that we would be better travellers, and that maybe we would not be completely surprised around every corner we turn. The thing is, this is US I am talking about, so of course it is the exact opposite...

For starters, a week ago on Friday was our last day living in Cordoba and it was the most hectic day ever. We decided to invite some of the older kids from Los Sauces over to our house for lunch. Only Marco and Pancho could come, and the two Brazilian volunteers, Yuri and Roberto, cooked an amazing lunch and we all ate and hung out before rushing to the bus to head out to our last day in the community center. As we walked up the street for our last time, the kids ran towards us, a few of them carrying little presents for Jenna and I. I already had to choke down tears during the first 10 minutes while opening the gifts of earrings and bracelets and reading their cards thanking us for being there this summer. If only they knew exactly how much it meant to us. We are the ones who were so

blessed to spend 7 weeks with them. We spent our last day playing everyones favorite game: Quemado ("burned", a more brutal form of dodgeball) and then the dreaded goodbyes... Yuri and Roberto got us a bucket of Bon-o-Bons to hand out as we hugged the line of the best kids in the world. Jenna and I were both in tears. Those kids had become our best friends in Argentina, and I cannot explain how much we love them. Jen and I made a pact to each other, and for the kids, that we would try our very hardest to save enough money to come back soon, and I really hope we can. I would give those kids the world if I could, but instead, once again, its me who is getting an unexplainable amount of love, my heart being so humbled yet again. 

We finally had to tear ourselves away from the kids and hop on the bus back to Cordoba. Without a minute to spare, (we had a ticket to Mendoza that left in an hour!) we sprinted back to the house, shoved everything into our packs, and said a temporary goodbye to Joaquin and the foreigner house. We grabbed a taxi to the bus terminal and met Yuri and Roberto at the last second. Us four were about to have an amazing time at the Mendoza Wine Festival.

We pulled into the station the next morning after busing 8 hours east towards the Andes. We were talking about hostel options and looking into festival events in the station when disaster struck: My backpack was stolen. I had set it along the wall with all the rest of our packs and things and went to talk in the tourist office. Even though Jenna and Yuri were standing not even 3 feet away from it the whole time, someone snuck by and snatched it up without them noticing. I felt SO dumb. How could I have set it down?? Why did I not tell Jenna to keep her eye out for it??? To make things worse, it had EVERYTHING in it. We had transfered over a lot of pesos when the monetary crisis was going on in Cordoba, and so we had about $1,200 worth in it. Usually we split our money between bags, but because we were in such a rush the night before, we had it all in one. I also lost my ipod, Kindle, cell phone, passport, bank cards, and the other worst thing: my journal from the entire trip. Yep. Cannot get much worse than that... I filed a police report, called my parents to cancel all the cards, and then there was not much else we could do. Thank God we were travelling with the worlds nicest guys, and they lent us money to still be able to enjoy the weekend. We had only met them a couple weeks ago and without hesitation they calmed us down, "We are in this together, well figure it out". Their generosity, and the supportive emails from my family, reminded me: They were only things. A lot of things, but not even comparable to the amazing people God has put into our lives to help us through situations like that. As my time in Cordoba was coming to an end, I told God " I am ready for whatever else you need to show me along this journey". Apparently this time it was a petty theft lesson. Not exactly what I wished for, but I know the more important realizations that come with it mean more than a backpack of stuff.

Luckily, we were able to quickly put that behind us and enjoy an awesome weekend. A wine festival in southern Argentina with two super fun Brazilians celebrating their Carnaval. Despite having lost so much, we could not cut out the things we had budgeted for all of Cordoba. I mean, how many times do you get to experience things like this?! We went to a wine tasting and a winery tour ( I mean, this is wine country), a traditional music and dance concert in the park, an Italian food and culture event in the plaza, and night-rafting down a river in the Andes Mountains (which now tie the rain forest and the Pacific ocean as the most goregeous places I have ever seen). People from all over the world are down in Mendoza right now for this event. Hearing all the stories and sharing ours has been so fun. The main events of the festival are still to come this weekend, but the guys unfortunately had to head back to finish their time with the kids. Jenna and I are going to head out to camp in the mountains for a few days and then we are planning to head back for the final concert day on Monday before also heading back to Cordoba. One glitch in this situation is that, if you have forgotten, we are the worst travellers in the world, remember? Instead of checking up on our money transfer site before the guys left, we went there today and there is a delay on the transfer. We currently have about $80 (not even enough to get back to Cordoba) and are stalling for time in the hostel until the money comes through. If we cannot get it, our plan is to beg people for money until we have enough to get back to Cordoba where we can stay for free at our house again. A little stressed out, but I know we will figure something out. Also we are pretty crafty, so building artwork to sell out of rocks and sticks is not beyond our abilities. If you are scared for us, please dont be, well be totally fine. (A prayer would not hurt though.)

So yea, only about a 100 days left, and still being thrashed around by the universe. I would not have it any other way though. How else can you learn the hard lessons? I mean I guess some people learn from other peoples mistakes, but how boring does that sound. Just trying to keep a positive attitude here... :)

Hoping our travellers luck didnt completely run out,

Renae

The “No-Plan” Plan Lives On

Up until this weekend, the past week was pretty uneventful (at least as uneventful as a week in a foreign city can be, that is). Here are some updates for ya:

-There are only five of us in the house now; us girls and three Argentinian students. It's pretty quiet, and we miss the rest of la familia like crazy. But we are trying to soak up the last few days of having our own room, a kitchen to use (however small and cockroach-filled it may be), and consistent internet.

-Renae and I both racked up over 30 volunteering hours this past week from all of our different gigs, of course gaining experience and falling more and more in love with the kids each day. We are still loving it all, and even though the seven or so work hours plus two more walking/bussing back and forth every day doesn't leave time for much else, we are dreading having our last days on Friday and having to say more hard goodbye's. Especially those kids... HOW we are going to drag ourselves away from them, I have no idea.

-Two more volunteers had their last days at the community center this week; Alice then Elcio (or Elfio, as the kids think his name is) both headed back to Brazil. That leaves just four of us. It is definitely an end-of-summer feel around here! Elcio did have a pretty fun going away party though- we got to have some of the classic Cordobese drink “fernet” with coke, learn some new card games, and attempt to improve on our Portuguese since everyone around here seems to be Brazilian.

-No one probably cares about this but I have to complain for one second: there is CONSTANT construction going on in the building attached to ours, starting at 8:30 every morning and going straight until 4:00 pm. It is SO insanely loud we can't hear anything, can't talk to each other, and don't even think about sleeping. Very annoying to all of us, especially to Joaquin when he tries to study. It's hard not to laugh at him because he freeeaks out every time he walks in the door and the drills start up.

-On Sunday we woke up and decided to head out to a nature reserve called Los Chorillos, where one of the researchers Renae knows is working on a project with reptiles. We had an email from the biologist, Nico, saying to catch a bus to Tanti and then another to Flor Serrana, from where we could find the nearby reserve. This was plan enough for us so off we went. We arrived just fine in Tanti, but then were told there was no bus to Flor Serrana. They told us to take a taxi, which if you have read our last couple blogs you know is NOT in the budget. So, we looked at the map, decided it didn't look too far, and took off walking. We made it maybe twenty minutes before having to ask if we were going the right way. We flagged down a truck to ask, which happened to be a family of five heading to the same place we were. “Hop up in back!” they said, and off we went for the bumpiest, most painful truck-bed ride EVER. But, we got there in I'm sure a fourth of the time it would have taken us to walk, and the family was super nice, stopping to show us an awesome little river spot on the way. No plan plan still functioning? Yes. We walked through the park a bit, and it was GORGEOUS. The trail leads up a big mountain, from which you can see all the surrounding little sierra towns. From there we met up with Nico, who told us to head to the waterfall while it was still nice, so we hiked another half hour or so to the most gorgeous sight we've seen in a while- a huge waterfall coming down from the mountains. We got to swim, sit on a rock in the sun, and it was amazing. Afterward we spent a couple hours helping Nico and his girlfriend make traps to capture the reptiles out of tarps, dirt, string, and sticks. We were busy working, and by the time we looked at the time, it was already 8 pm! The park was closed, there was no one to drive us back out, and it was starting to get

dark. So, Renae and I took off running (literally) back down the trail. Luckily we made it out before it got too dark, hopping over the gate at the entrance just in time. Unfortunately we were still faced with the problem of how to make it back to the city, without a bus back to Tanti. We stopped at a little family-run campground to buy much needed water and cookies, and asked the older woman running it how we could possibly make it back without the bus, phone service to call a taxi, or light in which to walk. Somehow it just so happened that her son had to drive to nearby Carlos Paz later on that night, from where we could catch a bus. As always, someone was looking out for us, and we had found our ticket out of there! We spent the next couple hours sitting at a little plastic table on the family's patio, under a roof made of vines with the most delicious grapes, talking about life, travel, and the BeeGee's with the woman and her son. So, needless to say that although we were worried about ourselves for a bit there, and wondered if we'd have to sleep under a tree without food or water, everything turned out for the best and instead of learning our lesson from our lack of planning it was further cemented in our heads that this is how the best adventures come to be.

Well, that's all I've got for now; it's time to go love up on the kids for one of the last times :(
Hope everyone's doing great back home in the cold, if it helps it's been raining pretty much every day here so unfortunately we're not soaking up 100 degree weather anymore either.

Wondering how two whole Cordobese months passed without me noticing,
Jenna Flynn

One half of a journey

Well, we made it to the half-way point. We're still living in the foreigner house in Cordoba, on a very small weekly budget, trying to save up money and energy for when we continue moving around every couple of days again. We were busy all last week filling up every possible time-slot with volunteering. I am still working with the Applied Zoology Center in the zoo during the weekday mornings. We started a part of the project to look at hormones in the egg-yolks of the Rhea, so I spent hours last week thawing frozen dinosaur-sized eggs and taking yolk samples. The I got to see some of the labs on the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba campus to complete some other steps of the experiment (all of which most of you do NOT want me to go into depth about, so I'll spare you). The university is starting to become full of students returning from summer vacation, and it makes me miss school like crazy! Who would've thought...


An Update from Jenna: I am still going to the Ronald McDonald sala every morning. The parents are starting to use the facilities, one by one, and I'm loving seeing the whole thing develop. I have gotten to know the parents, the other volunteers (including Juan, the 65 year old volunteer who gives me Spanish poetry lessons), and the cleaning guy Esteban. I even got to run the sala by myself for one whole day this week, which I am pretty proud of. So other than the morning I had to make the half hour trek to the hospital in the pouring rain, all is good.


For both of us, it has been an eye-opening experience to learn about some of the inner-workings of the hospital, the zoo, and science labs of this Argentine city. The standards of quality and cleanliness here, for example, are completely different from those in the states. To give you some examples: the entire zoo has only one veterinarian, there are stray dogs and homeless people roaming the children's hospital, as well as families posting up the halls with folding chairs, and, while we were running our experiments in the biochem lab on campus, the power kept cutting in and out forcing students and researchers to pause experiments and lose data. Some things you would never imagine being negotiable, we definitely take for granted in the U.S. Consider yourself VERY lucky.

During the evenings, we still do 5 hours with the community center kids, with whom, after weeks of tag, poster-making, games of ninja and lightning, we've become best friends. We only have 2 weeks left with them before we head south, and we're already dreading having to leave them. We'll also have to say goodbye to our pet bird in a few weeks, as we probably can't get away with taking an egret on the bus. She is growing like crazy though, and will hopefully be able to fly before we leave. I couldn't afford to fill her huge appetite with hamburgers anymore, so I switched to chicken entrails. I'm not sure what kind of a killer-bird I'm raising by feeding it other bird parts...

Mala Ala also learned how to jump out of her box. In this picture Jenna caught her hanging out in the closet with our packs.

Last Thursday, we decided to take advantage of another opportunity to help. A group called g.a.n.a.s. (I put the foundation details under our time-line tab in case your interested) meets every Tuesday and Thursday nights in a plaza near downtown to hand out food to the homeless in the streets of Cordoba. On Thursday we showed up, not exactly knowing what it would entail, but were immediately humbled by the long, patient line of men, women, and children, with all their belongings in duffle bags, backpacks, and plastic bags, waiting to be served a meal of rice and sausage out of big serving coolers. After feeding this bunch, we rolled the coolers around the streets downtown, looking for others who needed dinner that night. Many of them were regulars, and we could see that the g.a.n.a.s. volunteers had developed genuine friendships with them. Everyone receiving food, which was a small plastic tray filled with rice and a chunk of bread, was very gracious. Some of the people we served included families with small children. On Tuesday we went again, and this time hopped in a car with some volunteers to go to other parks and plazas further away. We met people living on mattresses in the streets, on benches in the park, and in cardboard boxes under bridges. With this opportunity to go up and actually get to know them, our hearts were blown wide open. These people were as nice as anyone else we've met along this journey: telling jokes, asking about our trip, and opening up about their stories. We woke up one man sleeping on a piece of foam in the middle of the park to ask him if he wanted to eat. As he was eating, the volunteer asked him, concerned, if the rain bothered him, as his foam and blanket were wet from the rain earlier that day. The man answered, “What rain?!” and then smiled and continued to eat his meal. The whole experience is one we will never forget. Just when we thought we had seen the worst of what life can deal, God put another realm of people in need in front of us. Experiences like that definitely make us look at life through a new lens by humbling our hearts and opening our eyes to other struggles. I am constantly realizing just how blessed I have been during this life, and I hope God can continue to show Jenna and I the ways we can give back. 


127 days, the half-way point of our journey, and still we're being surprised by the things put in our path, our expectations never failing to be surpassed. With everything we've already learned, all of the things we've experienced, and everyone we've met, I cannot believe were only half-way done. What else does God have to show us? What other crazy plans and people can we stumble across? Whatever it may be, bring it on. I don't think any plan, situation, or dream would be out of the question now. That being said, a huge part of our strength and courage to do all this comes from the love, support, and prayers we get from back home, and for that, at this half-way mark, I want to say thank you. I couldn't be more grateful. It has been a blessing in disguise to be so far away from everyone I love, showing me just how important they are in my life. And guess what... now there's only one half of the trip left until we're back to squeeze the life out of everyone we've been missing!! So watch out, the countdown has begun...


Love,
Nae



P.S. This week we had to watch some of our housemates pack up and head back to their countries. Kanya from Australia and Marcia and Renato from Brasil completed their 6 weeks of the volunteering program in what felt like the blink of an eye. We had an asado the night before their flights to top of the amazing adventure of living in this United Nations household. We all stumbled through our spanish goodbyes, and even though it is hard to say exactly what you want to say in another language, the message was clear: we had all come to learn from one another, and love one another. As Jenna said as we said our last goodbye, “Something very special happened in this house”. Cultures were shared, language barriers torn down, and, in only 6 weeks, we made close friendships with people from all across the world, and we will always remember our time in Cordoba for that especially.

More Birds....

So birds seem to have become a pattern in our lives right now, they just keep popping up! Like Renae said, she's been working on another bird project at the zoo. She and a couple university students have been busy taking care of 80 some baby dino-looking things, and she comes home every day with new stories as well as new cuts all over her knees from chasing the little guys around in the dirt. But yesterday she came home with something more: a baby snowy egret with a broken wing that had fallen from its nest in a tree up above the zoo. The zoo workers planned on leaving it to die and get eaten by a lizard, so obviously it is now living in a box in our room. It's only about a week old, and is still pretty ugly looking if you ask me, but what can you do. We didn't really expect it to make it through the night, but we got it to eat a bit of raw meat and sugar water last night, and when I peeked in her box before work this morning she was looking pretty chipper. Her wing is splinted, and the zoo workers said if we can keep her healthy for a month or so she'll be WAY bigger and ready to fly. So yeah, as of now it's looking like we have a new pet! Or maybe two.... last night walking home from the centro we discovered another bird in danger. A pigeon was having trouble flying, and was about to be stomped on by some punk little kids, so we scooped her up and brought her back home as well. She's recovering out in the yard, and will hopefully be able to fly again soon. Not exactly sure when we became bird whisperers, but it happened.

I've been spending my mornings working at the Ronald McDonald house, located next to the children's hospital. There are fourteen families currently living there, and I'm loving getting to know them a bit while hanging out and helping out with whatever needs doing. Most of my time, however, is spent in a new room for parents in the hospital. I was lucky enough to have my first day volunteering on the day the sala opened, so I've had the unique opportunity of helping them get it started. Basically it's a room to be used by the parents of children in intensive therapy while they wait for the kids to be done for the day. It has a tv, fridge, washing machine, couch, everything. Yet it's been open for a week and for some reason no one wants to use it, even though it is absolutely pristine and gorgeous compared to the rest of the scrappy hospital. Why? The rule is that only one family member at a time can use the sala, and it's the culture here that the WHOLE family comes along to therapy, even though there is only one visiting hour in the morning and one in the afternoon. Every morning, here come the moms, dads, grandmas, cousins, neighbors even. They bring lawn chairs and toys and mate to drink, and hang out in the dirty hallways all day long. This is something the hospital wants to change, since it is unnecessary and potentially dangerous for the sick kids, so they paired with the Ronald McDonald house to open up the sala. So, Andrea the psychologist and I spend the mornings getting everything in order, organizing and hanging up pictures. We talk with the parents when we can, and try to encourage them to start to utilize the space. The first day we had one mom come in for about 10 minutes, but today I talked with about 5 of them, and one even stayed for half an hour. So it's going to be a slow process changing everyone's views on the way a hospital should be, but Andrea says it was the same when the hospital in Buenos Aires opened up a sala and we just need to keep chipping away. So I'm excited to be there for the next month to see the story unfold, and in the meantime am enjoying getting an inside look on the Argentine culture.

Another part of the culture we got an unexpected and not necessarily wanted lesson on is the economy... We found out last Thursday that the Argentine Peso crashed, and that the people would have access to U.S. dollars starting on Monday. The economy here has been sketchy to say the least for the last few years, and dollars have been in high demand since everyone thinks they are more dependable but have been inaccessible at the banks. Finally last week, the deflation of the peso got so out of hand that the president gave up on prohibiting dollars, which meant that the amazing exchange rate we had been getting the whole time we've been here was about to drop out the bottom. So needless to say we freaked out for a minute (or maybe an hour) at being caught in the country at its craziest economic times; but after enlisting both of our dads for their advice and spending a few hours researching everything there was to read about it, we quickly figured out how much money we'd need for the rest of our time in Argentina and transferred it before the rate had time to drop. It was a bit scary and a loooong wait until Monday to be able to pick it up, but luckily everything worked out and we're back in the clear. Phew! PS- sorry for the boring informational paragraph, but believe it or not this is only 5% of what we now know. Again, not exactly sure when we became economists, but it happened.

Other than these few things I've gotta say life has felt strangely normal lately. We've been in the same place, in the same house, with the same people for a month now. We've got the neighborhood figured out, have ventured outside the city for trips to the river a few times, and are getting settled into our volunteer jobs. On top of the zoo and the Ronald McDonald house, we have both been going every afternoon to hang out with the kids in the community center on the edge of town with our roomies, Kanya and Marcia. So we spend our days working and our nights barbecuing and playing cards with friends, just like we would be doing back in the states. Our Spanish is good enough now that we can have comfortable friendships with people who don't speak any English, and I even somehow made it through an interview in Spanish last week. And yes, we still eat ice cream on the daily. Life is good.







Feeling like I fit in (even though I still don't look like it),
Jenna Flynn

Birds

Yes, you´re on the right page. I changed up the blog look to keep it interesting ;)

Okay, so I left off at the part where I found out I would be taken out to a field-house for two weeks to work on an ecology project...

I got picked up early the next morning by the project adviser, Susana, who is a researcher and professor at the University Nacional de Cordoba. We drove a half hour outside the city and into the country. After a few miles on a gravel road off the main drag, we pulled up to the little yellow cottage I would be living in. Inside there were 4 mattresses on the floor, a small table, and a bench with a portable stove-top which was the kitchen. The walls and other tables were covered in tools, notebooks, bird guides, and buckets of worms. The showers, toilets, and sink were a few steps away outside. And in case you don't get the picture, definitely no wifi. Susana had me leave my bag and we walked the mile out to the “campo”, field, to meet the crew. When we got to the edge of the forest, I quickly learned that the vegetation in this region of the country is brutal. Their main defense: spines. I cannot tell you how many times during the following weeks I pulled a needle out of my clothes and skin. We finally found the students though, and they started in on a Spanish biology vocab explanation of the work they're doing and reported the observations of the day to Susana. I was a little lost. We all went back to the field-house and Susana said goodbye. She'd come back for all of us in two weeks when the project was completed. So there I was: no internet, no English, a whole new vocab to get down, sleeping on a mattress on the floor with complete strangers... “Right, I got this.”

Fortunately, I did get it, and it was awesome. The two students living at the field-house with me, Alejandro and Giovana, turned out to be the nicest, most patient people ever, and they taught me an amazing

amount about biology, ecology, the bird species of Argentina, how to cook some delicious fried food, and some Argentinian card games. Oh, and they fed me my first Mate (a tea-ish drink EVERYONE drinks here, no joke, people bring their Mate cup and a thermos full of hot water to work, to church, to the library, to the park to each others' houses, to just go for a walk down the street...). Within the day I arrived, I was drinking Mate, studying the bird guidebook, and making lists of new vocab. I also quickly remembered how much I missed biology. The project itself was very ambitious, and I learned a mountain of field-study factors: data collection, observation, project design, etc. To keep it simple, the project looked at differences in habits of adult birds feeding their hatchlings under pressure of food supply and/or risk of predation. Every day at 5:30 am, Ale, Gio, and I would chug some coffee and head out to the nests. We spent 4 hours during the morning, and 3 more at night setting up predator recordings, refilling bird-feeders, observing behavioral changes, and then weighing and measuring the hatchlings. It was the nerdiest fun ever.

During non-bird hours, I got to enjoy the gorgeous Argentinian countryside. I went for runs beside fields of corn and cattle, read my book in the tall prairie grass, hung out with the property owner's horses, and, at night, stared up at a wide open sky chuck-full with stars. Every evening, Ale, Gio, and I would drink Mate, play cards, and talk about the birds, biology, music, culture, politics, love, and anything else you can find to talk about. Also, after I explained how beautiful it was, Jenna found her way out to the campo for a day to soak up some fresh air, help with some observations, and catch me up on city life and our new crazy roommate situation. She said I would love it, so when I had to pack up and leave the a few days later, I wasn't too bummed, but those weeks to get some bio experience and soak up the simple life were definitely two of my favorite so far. Thank you God.

I had to re-enter civilization at some point though. I missed my weirdo blondie partner-in-crime, and it had been forever since I talked to my family. I got back, met everyone at the house, talked to Jen for hours (a little English recap), and then skyped my whole family (minus Trev in North Dakota). When I unpacked that day getting back to Cordoba, it felt so different to know I wouldn't be moving camp again for over two months. All we did in Ecuador was bop around. I think this will be nice though, a little change of pace to get settled in for more than a week. We already have friends, picked a church, our favorite fruit store, our favorite coffee shop (which happens to be McDonalds... I know, I know, but they have AC and free wifi, don't judge), and our favorite brunch place (We are very loyal

customers. Wherever we walk into first usually gets our business the entire time we are there. Lucky fruit-shop owner right across the street...) For the next couple weeks, we are going to keep busy doing whatever comes our way. For starters, I will be working at the zoo a couple blocks away on a Rhea breeding project working with more baby birds. Jenna has her first day at a Ronald McDonald house this coming Monday. The two of us have been going with our roommates to their community center program for kids three hours every weekday evening, and we also are hoping to get involved with a home-building program and spend some time at the local animal shelters. Jenna will have to get back to you on how juggling all of that goes. ;)

Yep, everything is great. Except the heat. I know, most of you just took a Polar Vortex beating last week, and I'm sorry, because that sounds awful, but for one second just close your eyes and imagine the dog-days of summer. And now take away the AC. And add more heat. A little more. That is what we're living in. I'm not saying it's worse, but it is. Be thankful for snow.

Way too sweaty to put on a shirt (even in public, I don't care),

Nae nae