A good class

Dan: This morning I was asked to help the teenage son of one of my students prepare for a big test he has tomorrow. It´s for some kind of certificate of English. We spent two hours looking at the types of writing tasks he may be asked to perform in the composition portion of the exam. It may be the two cups of coffee I drank during the lesson, but I feel really good about what we were able to accomplish. It seemed that he wasn´t familiar with the schema we all were taught to use in constructing essays. We made outlines for reports, a letter of application, letter of complaint and narrative short story. He remarked how easy it was to write a paper after having done the outline first, like it was a new concept.

Coming into a classroom for a one-time session is always a little awkward at first, figuring out the level of the student, what he wants to do, what can be accomplished in the given time. But as I do it more often I am more confident, and luckily, I had learned some things about teaching writing from working with some real pro GED teachers in Hopkins who, as students come and go, pretty much walk into a different classroom every week.

Brand names that probably wouldn't be successful in the U.S.

This entry is dedicated to the strange, funny, ironic and/or confusing stores and brands we've come across over the past 7 months.


The women's clothing store on our block.



























































We saw this one in Chile last February. Those Chileans think they're so much better.













A real estate company.















A florist.










































Mmmm.

An afternoon walk

On Friday we tried going to the zoo with our friend Federico but the zoo was closed. It was Students Day. Go figure. Then we got a flat tire. We got it fixed pretty quickly, then Fede took us on a little driving tour. We saw a sign for a Reserva Divisadero Largo. Our friend has lived here all his life and never knew about it, so we went in and had a little hike around the nature preserve. We were barely out of the city. In fact, we could see the city most of the time, but it felt like we had gotten out of town. And we needed that.


There´s Cerro de la Gloria in the foreground - the city of Mendoza behind the hill.

Snowboard Video

For all our friends in the northern hemisphere, here is something to get you excited about the coming cold weather.

National Identity

When I saw this at school, I decided that I needed to bring the camera. In the past seven months I´ve heard statements saying pretty much all these things. Whether they are true or not is debatable

La Lepra vs. Instituto de Cordoba

Dan: Sorry I don’t have any pictures, but everyone always tells me to not take anything of value to a soccer game. I’ve been told to not even bring a phone. And it does feel a bit scary upon entering the stadium area. First of all, there are tons of young people, which is scary enough for a guy of my age, and many of them are chanting things that I assume are about soccer. We buy our tickets then go through 4 or 5 police cordons. At each police checkpoint, we are asked to show our tickets, and at some of them we are frisked. Today we didn’t get felt up at all, there being more troublesome-looking people to check than Federico, Turco and me, I suppose. There were cops on horses, cops with dogs, cops with riot helmets and shields. Oh yeah, and guns. I always wonder who is protecting the rest of the city when I go to a game – there are so many cops at the stadium. I always figured they were just keeping out contraband and keeping fans from one team from getting into stuff with the fans of the other team. But there weren’t any visiting fans to be seen today. It seemed to be a 100% Independiente Rivadavia (known as la Lepra) crowd. I suppose, who the heck would travel all the way from Cordoba to see the B-level team play another B-level team, risking life and limb to get through the local fans? Today I got a better idea of what the cops are for.

At about half time, the “barra bravo” (the super, mega fans of the team, who are often paid or at least get free tickets), having not been allowed to bring their drums into the stadium, decided to protest. This was going on outside the stadium. Soon there were loud explosions heard. I assumed it was fireworks. People in Mendoza always seem to be blowing up m-80s to protest or celebrate. But apparently what I was hearing this time was the sound of the police shooting hooligans with rubber bullets outside the stadium. People in the ‘popular’ section of the stadium, where I was sitting, started to move either 1) toward the edge of the stadium, or 2) away from the edge of the stadium. We were among those moving away, hoping not to get caught in any crossfire. The others were moving to the top of stadium to see the action going on outside the bowl. I don’t know where they got the projectiles, but somehow out of thin air these kids had rocks and big pieces of cement they were throwing over the edge of the stadium, presumably at the riot cops. There’s no jumbo-tron screen, so I don’t know what happened or if I was in the section that was suppose to cheer for the hincha or the cops. Eventually the the second half started, and the rest of the normal fans could continue to sing futbol-related songs and shout insults at the opposing team, the home team and the officials. The crowd tended toward comments about the sexual habits of the players and their mothers. There was a particularly precocious 8-year old fan in front of us whose comments I will always consider my primer of soccer obscenities. I won’t bother to translate for you. Since the cops were watching other things, many people decided it was a good time to move to the slightly more expensive ‘platea’ section. So we crawled under some barbed wire and watched the rest of the game from a better vantage point.

After the game, I saw a few of the sour fans spraypainting things against the general manager on the side s of their home stadium.

What? The game? 1 –1.

Oh, and there was a 4.1 earthquake during the first half. I didn’t notice a thing but one of my companions did. Lou said it was more evident in the apartment.

Walking home

Text messages

Lou: Here is one for you Spanish speakers or avid text message users! I am pretty oblivious to the text and email shorthand that abounds in English. Well, I guess that it makes sense that text and email users everywhere are creating a new shorthand language. Check out this text message that I received from an acquaintance as a response to my message asking her if she would like to get together sometime:

Hola!Me encataria te aviso, xq mañana rindo 1parcial y sta semana stoy a full xq me atrase xq viaje el find semana pasado. Y parece q el prox viajo al sur

I had Dan help me decipher it! Notice the use of xq for porque and q for que. Why not just type in the “e” in esta or estoy? I have no idea. Do you get it? So it appears that tomorrow she has some kind of test and this week she is busy (“a full”) because she is behind because she traveled last weekend.

Food: Chimichurri, its not just for Disney songs anymore... Chimichurri comes as a dry seasoning mix to rub into meat or as a vinegary condiment. The one we bought includes: water, vinegar, hot pepper, oregano, garlic, red pepper parsley, pepper, and some preservatives. We weren’t too fond of it at first, but once Dan started making himself a steak every once in a while, he decided it really was great with meat. We’ve also found that, with a little help, we can use it is like Salsa Lizano for making Costa Rican style beans and rice.

Holiday. Celebrate.

Dan: What?! Another holiday? This country has more holidays than anyone can count. It seems that every month there is at least one day, sometimes more. One time with one of my classses, to practice saying dates, we counted all the days off we could expect in a year in Argentina. I think we came up with 12. But I think there are more than that, holidays that sneak up on everyone. I almost never know one is coming up until the week before. So there are maybe ten national, patriotic holidays; Independence, constitution, San Martin’s death day, Malvinas War, Flag, Labor (these are just the ones we’ve had in the past six months) and then there was a local holiday for the area’s patron saint. Everything is closed a couple days during Semana Santa. Students and teachers of course have the two-week mid-winter holiday, and I think a good 3 months in the summer/ Christmas holiday. But there are also occupation-specific holidays. My class of workers from Obras Sanitarias stayed home on Obras Sanitarias Day. Today I have no classes due to it being Teachers’ Day. I think next week there is a Students’ Day, but I don’t know what happens then. I suppose this would be a boon if I had a regular job which gave me some pay for those holidays. But as it is, I do at least get a chance to sleep in on a Tuesday. I also get to wish all my teacher friends around the world a happy Teachers’ Day. Sorry you don’t have the day off.

Internet

Dan ¡ One thing that was kind of hard at first was the increasing distance between me and my best friend, the Internet. In the States, like most most people my age, turn to the Internet whenever we have a question. Hmm, what’s the weather going to be like tomorrow? What’s on TV tonight? Who is the current hot-dog eating champ? Is a bandoneon the same as a concertina? Or if I need directions, to check out the news or a recipe for thai peanut sauce. It’s all there and I took it for granted. Now sometimes I go, literally, DAYS without even checking my email (please take a minute for stunned gasps). Just last year I don’t think I ever went more than 5 or 6 hours without checking it. So, weaning off the cyber-teat was a little difficult at first, though I can’t say I’m completely independent.

I remember in 1993 when I was in Costa Rica for 6 months, when I said, ”adios” to my friends and family, it was really, “adios” for half a year. We wrote occasional letters that took three weeks to arrive, but that was about it. Now instead of postcards we’ve got this blog for everyone to check on from time to time, and emails and skype calls. What a difference a decade makes.

At first when we moved into this apartment we were able to use some stranger’s wi-fi to get free internet access during the daytime. I think they got wise to us, because we are no longer able to connect. So, for the past two months we’ve had to adjust. There are dozens of “cibers,” or internet cafes around the downtown area. I hesitate to use the term “internet café” because they don’t necessarily sell coffee or anything to eat or drink. They are usually just storefronts with 5, 10 or 100 computers for use by the hour. They vary in price, speed and equipment available. Many have webcams, headphones, mics, printers. For the blog, we usually type up a word document on the laptop at home, put it and any pictures on our USB pen drive, and bring it to a ciber to post it. It’s kind of a pain and it’s one reason our blog entries aren’t very regular. Roughly once per week I also take our computer to a restaurant that has wi-fi. There, I buy a coffee or a beer and hang out for a couple hours, getting updates, podcasts and sometimes Skyping with someone. I’m always very nervous about toting our laptop around town. I know of at least two situations in which a person was using his/her laptop at such a restaurant when a fellow came in with a gun and took their computers. But I padlock ours to the table and I NEVER sit by a window. That’s just silly.

We never buy newspapers, we rarely catch the local news and, since we pay for every minute of internet time, checking out world affairs is usually the last thing we do. Of course being out of the media loop is a blessing and a curse. Paris Hilton was already out of jail just as soon as I found out she was in. I don’t think I would be any the worse if I hadn’t learned about that at all. Sadly, we get most of our news from a comical standpoint from NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me via podcast, usually a week or after the news is new.

extra coins

Dan: Just when I was pretty sure I had everything figured out, I am surprised by something on the way to the Cyber. It is a beautiful Spring day, I was feeling good, I had 20 cents in my pocket. I very rarely give away money here. But today I decided to hand it over to a little lady who is always selling something from her chair on the Peatonal. I handed the change to her and she refused, but asked me to please buy what she was selling. It was, of all things, band-aids. I asked how much they were. They were more than 20 cents, and she asked if I could please just buy half a box. I asked if I could just give her these coins. A flat out, "no" was her answer. The big, arrogant gringo will have to keep his coins for now.

If I could do my senior picture over again

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Dan: This was the first time I´ve ever celebrated my birthday on a school day. I usually have the day off, it being before the school year begins. But yesterday I had four classes to teach. But it was still a nice birthday, all in all, especially since I was able to drag it our over 3 days. Maybe I´m just using a birthday as an excuse to justify spending money on fun things. Snowboarding on saturday was blast. On Sunday we went to a restaurant i´ve been fantasizing about for the last 5 months. At Las Tinajas they have, among other things, all-you-can-eat grilled meat. It lived up to all my dreams.

Last night we ended up having a party at our place. We met some friends at their art show, and expecting that some would come home with us afterwards to celebrate, we picked up some drinks and ice cream cake. Later that night there were 20 or 25 people in our little apartment, some making various runs to buy more beer and pizza. I think we had to wash all our dishes twice to keep up with demand. It´s amazing how many people appear out of the woodwork on a Monday night when there is a party. We got some complaints from the neighbors after midnight. So we moved to a bar nearby and sat outside until about 3. Really not too bad for a school night.

Boarding at Vallecitos

Dan:We finally got out to the slopes! It turns out it was the last weekend of the year at the two closests resorts. Lou and I, and a friend named Aaron headed to Vallecitos, about two hours away. This particular ski center is know as just about the wussiest and smallest one around here, ie. about our speed. It being the last weekend of the year, most of the runs were closed. We were left with pretty much a beginner slope and a difficult slope. I guess that was OK given that Lou had never tried snowboarding before, and Aaron had done so only once. I was impressed with

Lou’s ability to pick it up.

I think the physical strength she has gained from doing capoeira helped a lot. She believes her new-found comfort with falling down made her less fearful. I think she's still a little scared of chairlifts though.

There were not many people at Vallecitos. Most of them were families. We were worried about trying to find a locker of something for our things, but we felt comfortbale just making a pile on the side of the slope. Anyway, this place didn’t have much in the way of services. They had a restaurant with three items on the menu, a rental shop and two St. Bernards. We ended up with quite a pile of stuff as we peeled layer after layer off. We had no idea what to expect up in the mountains. The last few times we got out of town it was damn cold. So we wore pants AND snowpants, and many layers up top. By mid afternoon the sun was brutal. We never thought to bring a hat with a brim. After lunch, it felt like we were snowboarding through Andean glacial gravy, the snow was so wet. Today Lou realized that she had sunburned eyelids (no picture available) from squinting so much, I guess. She is pink, puffy and sore today, but we had the day off so we went out for lunch and watched bad movies on TV.