Staring down the home stretch...

Greetings Readers,
Last week I went to school like normal. English was absent and I met the priest for my weekly meeting on Wednesday. On Thursday I was sick and thus I stayed home from school and then went to the doctor to get a prescription. I did not go to any activities and missed a football game. Friday I stayed up late doing nothing but talking with my family and slept until 9:00 on Saturday when I woke up to go to a friends house fro German lessons in the morning (the grammar and explanations help my Spanish). Saturday I had a quicenera to go to and stayed up until 5 in the morning. It was a good quiencenera and this time I wore my clothes and RENTED NO SUIT. Sunday we had the elections where Kirchner got thrashed by candidate de Narvaez. Nestor Kirchner resigned as the head of the Peronist Party, and the media, which is heavily against him, declared the end of Kirchner...I went to the Colavitas (the neighbors) for dinner, and then discovered HOW to use MSN Messanger.
Monday was REALLY boring until I went to the neighbors again. We did not have school because it was the day after the election and the schools had to clean up after hosting the election. Tuesday I went to school only to learn that it was my suprise last week of school because they are cutting school due to the Swine Flu...that is the government's excuse for everything. They wait until after the elections to do anything and then when they do they start shutting down the basic institutions...governement officials use closings as the first option because they do not know how to give simple advice about how to mitigate a basic mutation of a virus with a very low mortality rate (only killing those with very compromised immune systems those that are probably killed even by a regular flu) Anyway the education here has suffered from government inaction across the board from the overuse of strikes to the poor facilities to the government neglect for the health of its citizens. Today I started adding addresses in my book because I have only 3 days left of the school. The priest did not show up (even though they kept telling me to wait on him because he was in a mass) and after 2 hours I just left.

I am a little tired of the complete lack of communication and the lack of respect (among most Argentines) for time. Some attribute it to a more laid back lifestyle, but this does not excuse the lack of communication. If one is going to be absent one should at least communicate it, or apoligize when one fails to (as I did when I was sick and did not notice the messages of Gustavo about an invitation to the soccer game (although he was also late in telling me about the game as well). Usually I have a five minute return policy (max) of returning texts. My family is good about communications and like me laments the lack of communication in Argentina. I am ready to get back to a more structured society in the US where times are set and there is hell to pay if you are 10 minutes late without warning.

Other than that, the food has been good, and will miss the mate. I am frusturated that I have to say goodbye more quickly than I thought. Iguazú should help me though. I probably will cool down about the time issue later on. Who knows something exciting might happen with the two free weeks.
Sincerely,
Fellow Citizen of the World,
Travis Knoll

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Part of trip: AFS Foreign Exchange

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