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Published: June 26th 2007
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To all my viewers who sent worried messages about my heat situation, um, I think that was about two of you, I would like to say thank you for taking an interest and for you two (and only you two) here is an update.
We still have no gas, which still means no heat, hot water nor use of the stove. The guy who runs the building (I am blanking on the word in English) told us it will be another 25 days before we get the gas back. To add to a great situation, in the past week the cable and Internet were down, the water was briefly shut off and the electricity now goes out at least once a day, or
at least we can not "cook" with the microwave and keep the heater on
at the same time because the apartment is not capable of using that
much energy. I know I sound like I am complaining, but really, I am not. I actually find it sort of funny. The other day I was in the middle of cleaning my room and the power went out. I laughed out loud, dropped what I was doing, walked
out of my apartment and went to class. I figured the problem would fix itself, or at least my roommates would fix it (good ol' Germans, so handy they are). It is not just this apartment, it is the whole building, and in reality it is the whole city. Initially, I complained about the lack of heat, until I found out that most homes in Buenos Aires do not EVER have internal heating, most people use electric or gas heaters and wear their winter coats in doors at all times (or at least I do). When I visited a classmate at her house and saw that the burners on the stove are kept on at all times to keep the kitchen warm (it doesn't work too well, by the way) I stopped complaining, and started really appreciating this experience as a something I can learn from. Because I am truly living life here I see the way things are and it makes me appreciate how easy we have it back home. We rarely have the
inconveniences that a lot of the world lives with permanently. I am not trying to say that Argentina has it that bad either, they are
living very well comparatively speaking.
Today I went to class and it took over an hour to get there because there was a protest on the bridge. The minute I got there, my professor, who was standing outside with the only two students who managed to make it to class (I arrived an hour and a half late and no one else was even there, other than these two students), said to me "Welcome to Argentina" and then he walked out of the school and went home. I asked the kid in my class where he went and he said the professor went home because there are only three of us and it is not worth while to hold class. The same thing happened on Friday due to an accident on the bridge. Come to think of it, I haven't had a full week of classes since I started school two months ago. So again, I laughed out loud, walked out of the school, got back on the bus and went home.
Those of you who actually bother to read this thing, please don't take the sarcastic tone of these blogs as complaints. Despite what it seems, I
am having a very good time here. Argentina is a very interesting place. On the surface it has a lot in common with the U.S., especially New York, but beneath that superficial level it is really really different, culturally speaking, it is another world.
As you guys know, I don't know how to deal with free time very well, so I filled up my days with extracurricular activities and now I feel like I am back at home again. I have been volunteering at the Argentine Foundation for Liver Transplants, leading play time class (yes, it actually is called a class) for the sick children. The foundation is a really cool organization that helps all types of terminally ill people, not just people who need transplants. In Argentina health care is free but the provinces (small towns far from BuenosAires) do not have the resources to conduct transplant operations or care for people with serious illnesses. The Foundation transports these people to BuenosAires where they can get the care they need. In BuenosAires they live in the foundation (a big building in La Boca), they get free housing, food, clothing, education, physical therapy and all their medical care arranged for them. They can stay there until they fully recuperate. Additionally their family members get to come with them and stay in the foundation for free as well. Though Rotary I was introduced to the founder and now I go there weekly to hang out with the kids. The future plan is that I am going to translate the website into English and make an institutional documentary about the Foundation for fundraising purposes.
So that's about all for now. I am adding a few pictures of BuenosAires that Ryan took when he came to visit.
Enjoy!
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dieu ha
non-member comment
holy shit dude. first of all, I want you to know that I totally read your blogs and that I hope you have lots of warm clothes. I'm also sending you an email JUST FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. ps. I'm in MD, I went to DC/Bmore this weekend and I'm going to NYC on saturday. I also added arinze on myspace cause he sent me a message about it all and I thought it was funny. I should delete him and see if he notices. pshhhhh. heartless!