A Hot-Ass Mess

This is going to be a short post today, because I'm tired...

Some of this week was great. Another Fulbrighter and her Argentine roommate visited, and we met up with an older couple also from the States who are living in Córdoba.

And some of the week was frustrating.

I'll reiterate again what it says at the top of this page: this is not an official site and any of the experiences or opinions I express are not endorsed by the US State Department or Fulbright Program or anything. This is just me.

But I've been frustrated by the lack of support we have offered, and more than that, I'm frustrated that I so easily fall into the trap of blaming myself for things that aren't my fault. I still don't have gas in my apartment, I still struggle with my role at school, I still struggle with getting my plans and goals to come through to fruition. I still struggle with aloneness and and I still struggle with the anxiety of speaking to people in Spanish on a daily basis. I still feel confused by the different account of politics in this country, and I still feel uncertain about where it is my place to speak and where it is not.

My fellow Fulbrighter in Córdoba has had a rough time of it lately... my favorite catchphrase of his is "well that's a hot-ass mess." The more I talk amongst all of the Fulbrighters the more I realize how we have all felt like we are not provided with the tools and structure we need to succeed. That doesn't mean we haven't all sought these things out and made wonderful connections and had life-changing experiences anyways... I just question why there has to be an "anyways."

And it's not like we haven't done anything about it. Because this seems to be a structural problem, and not something we can solve by going to the administration, we brainstormed ways that we can make things better for the next Fulbrighters, and all of us are in the process of compiling guidebooks for our cities-- recommendations for housing, safety, food, classes, everything we can think of to pass on to the Fulbrighters who come to Argentina after us.

Additionally, I have become the Argentina Country Representation for the Fulbridge Program, which is a program started by a Fulbrighter from Korea several years ago who wanted to build community between the different countries and different eras of Fulbrighters-- current, past, and future:

https://fulbridge.org/

I guess the bright side of this is that we are building resilience, and that we are working together to make change possible and to begin to provide some of the tools and structure that we found lacking in our own experience for the grantees who come after us. I think that says a lot about us as people, and I am truly proud to be part of this group of 20ish grantees in Argentina.

I especially enjoyed the opportunity to talk to the Fulbrighter who visited this week, who is very similar to me in some ways (and also has a special connection to the SF Bay Area), and who I haven't seen at all since orientation in March (basically a lifetime ago).

Last night we went to the Feria de las artes (one of my favorite parts of Córdoba, as I have mentioned) and then walked up the street to Papanato, my favorite dinner place where every dish involves a creative use of potatoes. Having another person with me who also spoke Spanish and who always asked wonderful questions led to a lot of conversation, and we actually got to know one of the artesans and the waitress at the restaurant. The waitress recognizes me by now, because I literally bring every person who visits me there, but this time we actually had a conversation with her-- found out her name, how she learned English (she's lived in Austin TX, Australia, and New Zealand, and is planning to go to Ireland next!!), and that her favorite sauce on the menu is the humus de berenjena (eggplant hummus).

Earlier in the week, as I mentioned, we had dinner with an older couple from the States who are doing a trip similar to ours... but in their 60s! They were so amazing. They were from Idaho, which was hilarious (how is it that in Argentina I've met someone who lived in Tri-cities, WA and people from Idaho, of all places??). It was incredible to hear the story about how two pretty average white folks from the middle of Idaho ended up traveling the world-- first to Germany, then many other countries, before settling down in Lake Tahoe with their kids.

Now, though, they're adventuring again, and even with limited Spanish they've learned things about Córdoba that I still haven't figured out... like where to buy real Mexican tortillas and tortilla chips!

Our dinner was incredibly Argentine. We started with fiambres (meat and cheese plates) and tragos (drinks) around 9pm (after I got off work), chatted quite a bit, actually began eating dinner sometime after 10pm, and our sobremesa (literally over-the-table, the socializing period that happens after a meal) lasted until 3am!

Maybe this is silly, but it was so reassuring to hang out with this couple. I truly loved talking with them (seriously, we talked for almost 6 hours), and they reminded me that life's adventures aren't limited to our early twenties.

I feel like me and most of my friends feel a lot of pressure to have our adventures now, because once we start on "The Career Path," we'll never be free. It gives me this fear that I'll never be able to accomplish all of the things that I want to do, that I have to choose one life and that's it, that somehow at a certain point everything becomes static. And I see many people who let this narrative dictate their lives. It's easy to get caught up in it. Adventure stories are never written about people who are old enough to have grown children...

But they DO have adventures!

They can decide to go teach English in a country at the bottom of the world and learn a new language and meet new people and educate themselves about a new culture!

They can hike Machu Picchu, they can be radical and progressive, they can make positive change in the world.

I don't know, it's a comfort to me, to know that it really is true that it's never too late to follow your dreams... and it's never too late for dreams to change. I don't have to have it all figure out now, or even 10 years from now.

I've been thinking a lot about stories. The stories of my own life, the stories I want to tell, the stories that aren't told that I wish existed. I want to write vignettes about my family and my time in Idaho. I want to write literary post-apocalyptic fiction about queer traveling circus performers creating community for people who have always been on the outskirts. I want to write adventure stories where the protagonists are in their 60s and that doesn't make them any less interesting or capable of change and heroism.

I think that, regardless of how much of a hot-ass mess the past several months have been, the real power of an experience like this is getting to meet so many different people. Even when we just cross paths for a night in a hostel, or if I talk to someone once at an art gallery, or chat casually with the waitress at the restaurant I frequent... I get to hear so many stories that I never otherwise would have heard. It's one thing to look at a map of the world and see the different countries, but it is something else entirely to live in a different country and actually meet the individuals and become more aware of the sheer multitude of unique conscious being that make up our world...

Our world is a hot-ass mess. I see that now more clearly than ever.

But it's pretty incredible to learn how each person navigates their way through the mess.

I can't live amongst people and NOT want to write all of these stories... I can't live amongst people and NOT feel the beautiful power of our difference from each other as much as our sameness... I can't live amongst people and NOT want to make this world a better place for those who have constantly been pushed down.

I can't live amongst people and NOT care.

I Like What I Am Going To Do

Heyy it's Sunday!

This week was weird... For some reason all of the homesickness I felt at the very beginning of my grant came back to hit me real hard.

But yesterday I went to the Mercado de arte, a pop-up art gallery in the central plaza three blocks away from me, and walking through the gallery helped pull me out of my funk.

This collection in particular was the catalyst:

Architecture of Collapse - Mariana Bersten

I had been walking around, kind of mopey and moody, being all serious while I looked at the art... and then I rounded a corner and saw the first three photos shown in this collection on the wall and I literally started laughing out loud.

The "I-don't-give-a-f***" expression on these women's faces as the house seems to be falling apart around them is perfect.

Also the cat's expression in the third photo:

This is my favorite... I considered buying a print until I realized how expensive they were

These photos just looked exactly how I felt, and seeing that expressed in art made me suddenly feel a lot better.

Some more pictures from the day:

Afternoon in Plaza San Martin, the pink blossoms say that spring is starting... that white tent along the side of the plaza is where the gallery was set up.

Everyone was really really into this artist's stuff... it was cool (photographs that had be cut into slices)

Ameeericuh

There was a whole section inside the building, too, with free drinks and this crazy looking screening area!

Zona Habitada: Inhabited Area

"focus your phone's camera on the remote control and see the invisible"... basically I think they were just trying to get me to take a picture. They succeeded.

Little polar bear buddy looking at his reflection in the mirror

I had to take a picture of this photo because I have NO IDEA what the point is but I assume it is about the States/California/Florida/Idaho...??? the paper on the person on the right says "IDAHO," by the way, if you can't read it.

There was a bunch more art, but I felt bad taking pictures of all of it so I don't get to show you-- but there were cool neon signs (displayed by my own apartment owner, who represented several artists), these beautiful jungle images that were manipulated so that they were vertically invertible (almost like a mirror-image but not quite identical), some abstract paintings of light blues and greys that my parents would have loved... so many other works.

As I continued to walk around the Mercado de arte, I found a series of journals on the wall displayed by one artist. The journals were filled with drawing and musings, and one of the lines felt particularly relevant to me:

"Me gusta lo que voy a hacer. Aunque no sé lo que es."
 I like what I am going to do. Although I don't know what it is.

The whole page was filled with similar contradictions, taking the uncertainties and losses and anxieties of the artist and turning them into something hopeful.

It's nearing the end of August, and it's less than 3 months until my grant term ends. In a way three months is kind of a lot, but in a way it's also not. I've been thinking more and more about where my life will take me after the Fulbright grant, and the truth is I have no idea.

I know that I want to come back to the Bay Area. Other than that... what I have are a lot of passions and interests that have followed me from home to Argentina and back, things that I want to incorporate into my life (in no particular order):
- equity through education
- activism and social justice
- circus and aerial arts
- creative storytelling, especially digital storytelling and video games
- technological literacy
- bilingual environments/existing in and using both Spanish and English
- music, both listening to and playing it (I'd like to begin playing the cello again, which I haven't done since I left for college at the same time that my cello teacher passed away)
- food... cooking, baking, learning new recipes, sharing food with others, cultural exchange through food
- mindfulness and meditation
- personal health and wellbeing, mentally and physically; self-care
- critical and reflective consumption of media
- family
- working with and learning from kids
- exploring and enjoying the natural world

I don't know how these interests will combine exactly, or what they will lead me to. But I know that they are what drive me, and because of that, I like what I am going to do, although I don't know what it is.

And I also am continually reminding myself that this "what I am going to do" doesn't only begin when I get back, it is happening now. This is my life, too. It's weird how this grant can almost feel like a break from life... like nothing I'm doing is real, or like everything else is on pause and I'm just hanging out on the other side of the world until someone presses the play button again.

But that's not what this is. Life is still happening in the world. I still have to process and respond to everything that happens, from the things that happen within my family, to the things that happen within my country, to the things that happen throughout the whole world.

And I'm also real, and what I am doing is real.

When I think about it, each of those items I listed is something I am actively seeking to make part of my life in Argentina...

Equity Through Education: My fellow Fulbrighter and I are working to use education as a tool for empowerment by discussing diverse representations of the United States in our classes. He's doing a series of lessons on the film Moonlight, discussion race and sexuality, and I recently led a presentation and discussion on gender and language focusing on the use of gender-neutral pronouns in English. I spent today researching articles and videos about the housing crisis and gentrification in San Francisco so I can create a lesson on it for next week.

Activism and Social Justice: I am doing as much as I can to read and listen and educate myself about everything that is happening in the United States so that I can do what I am able to from afar and have somewhere to start when I am able to be present in person.

Circus and Aerial Arts: I am loving my aerial rope lessons, and learning new techniques and growing as a rope artist every class. Last class we learned an inverted descent (way to get down the rope upside down) that basically looks like you are sitting upside down and walking down the rope... it hurts like asdl;fkj (like everything on rope) but it is SO COOL.

Creative Storytelling: I'm working on writing a bit on my own, but also re-reading Harry Potter in Spanish is giving me a renewed understanding of the storytelling elements that made (make) that series so captivating. And, of course, I've got this blog!

Technological Literacy: I've been working through Khan Academy classes on HTML, CSS, and the basic workings of the Interwebz (seriously, you should check out some of their videos about how the internet works, it is really powerful to understand the internet as it exists physically, in wires and radio signals and routers and all of that!)

Bilingual Environment: I switch between Spanish and English so much that when I was asked over the phone to use words as examples for each letter in a 6-letter code, I couldn't think of a single English word starting with "P" except for "Pea," which is UTTERLY USELESS. (Idk if I can blame this on the bilingualism, this might just be the fact that words are a struggle for me... but to be fair I did a far better job in a word-association game in Spanish the night before). Also, I recently met with folks at the Bi-national Center in Córdoba and am hoping to organize some activities with them before I leave.

Music: Spotify helps me keep up on all of the new releases... Lana, Lorde, Kesha... I can't get over Praying, which is amazing. But this weekend, I have had the most random songs stuck in my head... first "Hit Me Baby One More Time" (where did you come from all of a sudden, Britney??), then "Turn the Beat Around" (um. why!?), and then "Where Is The Love" (that one made a little more sense).

Food: WEeeeell... since my gas is still off right now, I've been stuck to a lot of salads and microwaved scrambled eggs, but last night I went out and tried what is supposed to be the best sushi place in Córdoba... which did not compare to SF sushi, but was not too bad and it was a really nice change from the usual food I have here. But seriously, I am dying without a stove!! I can't wait until I can start cooking again and try out new recipes! I really want to host an American Breakfast at my apartment before I leave... I even brought the pancake mix!

Mindfulness and Meditation: Still meditating every morning. :)

Self-Care: This blog, honestly, is one of the best forms of self-care... it gives me the space to reflect on where I am and what I am doing and remind myself of my motivations and purpose. But also, the fact that I have continued to go outside and engage even though I've felt pretty bleh is also a kind of self-care, and it led me to those awesome photos.

Critical and Reflective Consumption of Media: That one is easy. Well, not easy, but rather something that has become such an ingrained part of my day-to-day existence that I can't imagine living without it. I'm making more of an effort than ever to stay up-to-date on world news. I even watched the address that Pence gave in Buenos Aires this past week (yep, Pence was here in Argentina...) to a bunch of businessmen, and then discussed the rhetoric he used. And I also read lots of articles about all of the TV shows I watch and am constantly thinking about how to improve the representation of minorities in media.

Family: They're my rock. Even halfway across the world, they're the ones I call when I don't know what to do, when I'm having a bad day, when I just need to vent. And I am SO excited to be helping my parents plan their trip down here! Seriously, I've spent hours researching plane tickets and coming up with an itinerary and even calling airlines... none of those are things I enjoy, but I'm happy to do them to help my parents get the most out of their visit to the country where I have spent the last half of the year.

Working With and Learning From Kids: My students at the tertiary school aren't kids, but some of them do have kids. Did I mention that I went on a wonderful family outside with one of my students and her family?

We went to the German-style village La Cumbrecita in the sierras... absolutely stunning

The kiddos were adorable, and since the schools were preparing for Tree Day, every single time we passed a tree (which was a LOT), they would say "arrrrrrrrboles!!," rolling the r for as long as possible... I don't know why but it was so hilarious, they had us all saying it by the end of the day

Exploring Nature: In addition to trips to the areas around Córdoba, I have just planned a trip to finally see Iguazu Falls-- in just two weeks! I promise I will take pictures to share. :)

I know that the way I engage with all of these different interests is always changing, but I'm excited to see where it all goes in the next three months and beyond.

Picture Perfect/Rugged Reality

It's hard to write today... Probably for a lot of reasons. 

One of them is that an hour after I watched the documentary 13th on Netflix (we had discussed the US Civil War and its continuing repercussions in one of my classes on Thursday and I brought up the film for students to watch, and wanted to review it myself), I checked the news and saw what had happened in Charlottesville. It's not shocking or unexpected but it still hurts and it's exhausting and I can't even imagine how it feels to be a person of color in the States right now... the rampant racism (also sexism and transsexism and homophobia and classism and hatred of all kinds) both in the US and in the world makes me feel sick and frustrated by how little I can do/am doing to change things.

• (Side Note: For those who haven't already read it, I highly recommend Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I read it about a week ago and will probably bring up quotes from it at some point because it was amazingly written and the way that Coates phrased some things honestly reshaped the way that I understand the world. You can also check out this document for more recommendations related to racism in America, including the documentary 13th that I mentioned, which is on Netflix)

Another reason that I am having trouble writing today is that-- well, obviously, I am back in Córdoba again, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about that over the last few days. I think I am still trying to process the emotional whiplash of Córdoba--Rio--Córdoba--Bolivia--Buenos Aires--Northern Idaho--Córdoba (18-- yes, eighteen-- different plane rides) in the past 4 weeks.

And another reason is that having not written a blog post in a month, I've kinda lost the groove and it's hard to figure out where to start again. So much has happened-- I used to have trouble picking something from the past week to talk about, and now I have a whole month to cover!

I didn't mean to take a whole month break from blog posts, but I had a month break from school and during my travels I had very little access to wifi and 0 access to my computer, so that's what happened.

Since I'm not fully adjusted to being back, and I don't feel capable of writing anything more meaningful or eloquent than has already been written about what is happening in the States, I'm going to spend this post backtracking a bit and focusing on my trip to Bolivia, which was the bulk of my travel.

We're gonna do this in two sections, because that's kind of how this trip felt.


Section One: Picture Perfect

Let's start with a game: Guess which of these picture-perfect panos shows snow/ice, which is salt, and which is borax?

(Click on images to view full size)

Pano #1

Pano #2

Pano #3

Okay, made your guesses?



Pano #1 is the Lagunda Colorada, the Colored Lagoon, one of our last stops. The reddish color that gives it its name comes from algae and some pigmented rock, and those white islands in the middle that look like ice are actually borax. Yeah, the stuff used in some cleaning detergents. Apparently it creates the perfect environment for flamingo's favorite snacks.

Pano #2 you probably guessed: it shows the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flats and the main attraction during our trip. Giant prehistoric lakes evaporated long ago, and left behind 10,000 square kilometers of salt up to several meters thick. It's one of the flattest places in the world-- Bon Iver's song Holocene felt quite appropriate here:
"And at once I knew that I was not magnificent... and I could see for miles, miles, miles"

Pano #3 shows the natural geysers in the mountains of Potosi, Bolivia, at an altitude of around 5,000m (over 16,000 feet). As it is winter, those icy spikes sticking our of the ground are indeed snow. I was curious as to why the snow melted in such a way that it made those slanted spikes-- my guess was that it had something to do with the angle of the sun on the mountainside at the warmer points in the day... apparently these little snow-ice spikeys are called penitentes (an appropriately spikey word) and their formation has to do with the high altitude, dry air, and sublimation.

The panos really don't do justice, though, to the incredible sights we saw.

We originally flew into Cochabamba, Bolivia-- unfortunately I didn't take many pictures in Cochabamba, but it was beautiful and completely different from Argentina. Bolivia has much more surviving indigenous culture than Argentina, and also much higher poverty. In Argentina, I more or less match the average skin tone and hair color. In Bolivia, it was very clear that I was a white tourist. In my jeans and tank tops, I stood out from much of the population that wore traditional clothing, including the colorful cloth used as a sort of backpack-- you can get an idea from this wall art on the left of this picture:

Why are there so few indigenous people in Argentina in comparison to Bolivia, you ask? They were actively wiped out throughout Argentine history, and ongoing policies continue to contribute to the erasure of their voices and culture.

After staying in Cochabamba, we traveled down to Uyuni where we began a tour traversing over 900 kilometers in three days, from the town of Uyuni all the way down toward the southern border between Bolivia and Chile and back up to Uyuni.

It was an incredible, breathtakingly beautiful experience, and here are some of the pictures to prove it...

We went to the "Train Cemetery," where abandoned trains sit like an adult playground...

Um of course I climbed on... also I can tell you I do NOT believe those movies where the heroes are running across the top of a moving train! I was worried about balancing just standing on a completely still train!

We held some salt

Stood on piles of salt

Meditated on salt

Took silly pictures on the salt

Climbed an island of cacti in the middle of the salt

Made a human pyramid on the salt

Eventually left the salt and saw some flamingos

Pretended to be a flamingo... (I know I know, it's tree pose- one foot though!)

Basically got to walk through the Land Before Time 

Climbed this rock because climbing things is fun and totally not dangerous when 400 kilometers from civilization

Also saw this baby ostrich (emu? rhea?)

And some llamas

I had never planned to go to Bolivia. It was only because a few Fulbrighter friends had planned the trip that I decided to go... and it makes me think of how many other amazing places there are that AREN'T on my list that I would love to see.

It's easy to talk about how amazing an experience is, and in the age of Instagram and social media and blogging, it's easy to let the picture perfect moments be the only ones we share. Buuuut this trip was not just natural beauty and so I give you...


Section Two: Rugged Reality

I know rugged reality isn't a thing but I had to think of an alliterated section title okay?

As fun as it was, this trip was really exhausting and the conditions were often not what we were used to.

First of all, that Jeep that you see in some of those pictures? We spent a LOT of hours in that Jeep for three days. Traveling 900km (about 560 miles) in 3 days means an average of 186 miles a day... that's a lot of time, especially when you are traveling on dirt roads (or nonexistent roads, or slushy snow roads) that are extremely bumpy and you have had to go pee for the last three hours.

Most of the bathrooms were typical hole-in-the-ground bathrooms... and you had to pay to use them. There was one that was so gross that a whole group of people left to go pee behind a rock instead. Not all of them were that bad... but I have to say I have never before appreciated how amazing it is to have a clean bathroom available when I need to use it.

It was super cool to get to stay in a salt hotel the first night... in all senses of the word "cool." There was no heating, and it got really chilly. The second night the temperature dropped below -15˚ C (about 5˚ Fahrenheit). Luckily we had rented sleeping bags from our tour company, and those kept us insulated. We slept with all our layers of clothing, inside our sleeping bags, with additional blankets piled on top of us.

And when I say "breathtakingly" beautiful... I mean literally breathtaking. I've never been at altitude before, not really-- I've been to Lake Tahoe, but Lake Tahoe's measly 1,897 m altitude doesn't compare to Cochabamba's 2,558 m, let alone the 5,200 m altitude we reached at the highest points during our journey.

That rock that I climbed? It looks like it barely counts as a small boulder, but I was winded just from the walk up to it. I knew theoretically what being at altitude would be like, but knowing in theory was completely different from the actual experience of feeling like I had to concentrate on each inhale, like walking 10 m was the equivalent of a mile, like my heart wouldn't stop pounding, like an ant was playing a mini drumset in my ears.

Luckily I didn't get altitude sickness too badly-- a little bit of a headache, but that could have been slight dehydration because I didn't want to drink too much water because I was afraid of having to go pee thirty minutes into a 4 hour drive in the middle of a dessert of salt. :/

We made an effort during the trip to document some of the less picturesque moments, so here you go:

That photo of mini-Lauren standing on my hand? Might have taken a few tries and some help from our tour guide to get it right...

There was a lot of packing and unpacking, and you can tell from my face that the constant moving was draining

There was a LOT of sitting in the car... with no seat belts... no wifi... no heat... and did I mention it was cold?

We really had to bundle up...

Especially at 4:30 in the morning as we set out on our last day to catch sunrise at the geysers... and for some reason I thought it was a good idea to attempt to photograph us in the dark without flash

The shower situation was very limited (electric showers available for a limited number of visitors for a charge), and while we weren't able to work up the motivation to completely undress in freezing weather to swim in the hot springs and rinse off, Lauren took the chance to warm up her frozen toes

The meals that our tour guide and hosts prepared were actually really good... but the seats were a little short at this table and made all of us look (and feel) like children trying to sit at the adult table

Walking through the snow was occasionally a bit of a struggle...

As was trying to get all of the sweaters we bought to fit in our suitcase... and then having to open that suitcase at customs and attempt to force it closed again...

By the end, I got a stomach bug, made it through a nauseous 4 hour plane ride back to Argentina, and curled up on the floor of the Buenos Aires Ezezia airport for 5 hours feeling thoroughly dead...

But, as our unshowered, sunburnt, sleep deprived, but still-smiling faces show in our "After" picture, we made it through

And we all agreed, it was worth it.