CarolynSA

I cannot believe that I leave tomorrow! I am sad because I now feel like I am starting to know the city, how to get around, where to go, and it is time to go. But, I also miss all of you and am excited to get back to Boston, at least I don´t have to go straight back to work! The weather here has cooled down and gotten gorgeous too, sunny skies and 60s. Yesterday I did a little shopping, and then headed to La Boca for volunteering. First I tutored the same 17 year old girl, reviewing excel equations and english pronouns. Then it was on to literature with different girl, helping her summarize a play and work through the conflicts. Then on to the little ones, where I organized numbers from high to ... read more

Starting off my last week strong. Last night I went to Milanga, where locals go to dance Tango. I felt a little bit like I was back in dance class in 7th grade, because there were tables around a dance floor and most of the men were sitting on one side and women on the other! It was great to watch though. It is so elegant and graceful, and the music is fantastic. Unfortunately, you can´t really dance it without lessons, so only Stacey, who took lessons the last couple weeks got up and danced. Today I started off the day with breakfast at Cafe Tortoni, an old cafe on Avenida de Mayo, with three girls from the house. After stuffing myself on churros dipped in hot chocolate, and coffee, I was ready to explore! First ... read more

I typed the following, but hadn´t finished, so you are getting it late...Well, after the late night Friday the exploring did not start Saturday until about 2pm when 5 of us headed to markets in Recoleta, followed by a LATE lunch at 5pm. Saturday night we did a pub crawl run by a guy from Atlanta who moved down two years ago to start them. We started at a restaurant/bar in San Telmo with pizza and beer and wine. We were the firsts ones there at 10pm, but by the time we headed to the next bar at 11 there were about 150 people! Most were foreigners, though some were expats living in Buenos Aires and some were locals. Each time we moved bars it was a HUGE line of people over a block long going ... read more

I had a great first week of exploring the city (mostly at night) and my first tutoring session. I was teaching english to a 15 year old girl Lucia, who was really sweet but timid, probably kind of like me at her age. Unfortunately, all I had to go on was the notes she took in class last year, no book, no exercises. To make matters worse, the notes were completely in english because they are not allowed to write in spanish, and she did not know the majority of what it said! So we spent some time going through a couple pages of notes with me translating to make sure she understood and then I gave her some sentences along the same lines we had just gone over. Hopefully it was helpful, I wish I ... read more

Hola from Buenos Aires! After about 28 hours in route, I finally arrived at the Voluntario Global Volunteer House and went straight to bed at noon. Two hours later I made myself get up and ventured out for some coffee and empenadas at the cafe downstairs. There is definitely not a shortage of good food here! There are tons of cafes, bakeries and restaurants all of which have been good so far. I would like it to cool down about 10 degrees, but other than that, things are going great! I just got back from orientation at the community center in La Boca and I am going to be teaching math to 13-17 year olds. Originally I was going to be teaching 6-12 year olds so I figured I would like teaching math, but when they ... read more

What a fabulous week. Other than lack of sleep due to sailing at night and a lack of baked goods on the boat because of a broken oven (a blessing in disguise), I have no complaints! Lidia even got the cook to have his brother bake me a birthday cake on his boat the last night! The diversity of wildlife still overwhelms me, and I definitely saw nature in action, from mating turtles to sea lion pup carcasses it was quite an eye opener. The sadest was my new best friends, the sea lion pups. There mother leaves them for days at a time to go fishing and the pups wait with the rest of the group for her return. However, while she is gone (and if the mother is eaten by a shark or meets ... read more

Wow, so many sharks! Lidia and I were safely united in Baltra, and then we made the journey to Porta Ayora where we are staying for two nights. Even the wildlife in the town is awesome. There are sea lions, giant iguanas and pelicans all along the coast. We watched one pelican as it sought food in a hotel pool, while an iguana and sea lion lounged nearby. Then we went and watched the sea lions and pelicans waiting for scraps from the fisherman cleaning their fish at the dock! The sea lions were precious, they looked like dogs standing up at the counter with their little flippers on the counter! It was also cool to see how the pelicans "throat" hang down and see the food sitting there, while it waits to see if it ... read more

Greetings to all from the Guayaquil airport! I am currently awaiting my 2 hour delayed flight to get to the Galapagos! Lidia and I were supposed to be meeting here (or so we thought), but the airline has the brilliant policy of numbering two flights to the same location, but with different origins with the same flight number. So, while Lidia arrived on time to refuel in Guayaquil (from Quito), the plane departed, much to her dismay, without me on board. Luckily, we will be united soon. In the meantime, I got myself into the first class lounge to update you all and have some coffee :) When I last wrote, I was in Arequipa, nicknamed the "white city", originally because the people there were lighter in complexion, but now because of the white color of ... read more

Wow, another great place! No pictures right now as I don´t have time, but before I leave for my next excursion, I thought I better say hi. I took a two day trip on Lake Titicaca and it was amazing. There were 3 americans who were very nice, two from Maryland so there was an instant connection :) We started out with a visit to the floating islands of Uros. These are islands that they made and live on. It is pretty amazing. It feels a little skuishy and in some places looked like water was getting through, but they add more reeds on top, and then eventually build a new island, but that takes a lot. We visited one group and they gave a demonstration of how they built the island and then we got ... read more