It's been awhile Part Dos

Welcome back to part two of my last blog: youth group and random cultural stuff. Let us begin:


Youth Group (and stuff with people from the youth group)

During this month, the youth group suffered through three birthdays – and by that I mean we had an absolute blast! First was our friend Cande’s birthday which was a huge ordeal – I’d guess around 50 people – and we ate some incredible food: homemade fried empanadas (my new favorite), tongue sandwiches (actually not too bad), homemade pizza, and a cake that Cande herself made that was layered with dulce de leche and might or might not be the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. The night was great and included writing and performing a birthday song for Cande, having pyramid-building competitions amongst the guys and the girls, and me having a really good conversation with some of the older youth (of course, I later realized I was the only individual sitting with three couples: one seriously dating, one engaged, and one married – I knew I should have brought JR along!) The next set of birthdays belonged to Vic and our friend Ana. At youth group we made them a cake and sang happy birthday and Cande and I attacked them with shaving cream  The next night, we were going to go out to eat at a Pizza Libre (all you can eat pizza for $15 pesos) but the cashier had a seizure right when we walked in, so that didn’t really work out. Instead we went to Burger King (have I mentioned the fast-food restaurants are really nice here?) and later to the mall to play pool.

Later on, Vic and I enjoyed a day of coffee, mate, medialunas, and chatting with Abi and Flor (two of the older “girls” in the youth group, who are now both married). Getting there was a complete mess, though. It was pouring rain; we missed one bus stop which made us go a couple miles out of our way; we had to walk in the rain, flooded streets, and mud for about an hour and a half before realizing that we were walking the wrong direction; and to add insult to injury, a colectivo driving past completely drenched us as it splashed through the puddle. In the end, I didn’t even want to talk to the girls at first because I was so wet, tired, and frustrated, but it was definitely worth it – we got to hear how both of them met/started dating their husbands, they shared their passions and talents for God, and asked us what our dreams were for the future.

Our last big adventure before Vic left came when we went to Boca with the Bachinis. (Boca is a famous neighborhood where many immigrants arrived; also contains the home field of my favored soccer team here). It was fun to see the colorful buildings, watch couples dancing tango and milongas (folk dances) in the small shows the restaurants offer, and admire all the Boca soccer gear. We were enjoying ourselves thoroughly and decided to take a picture of Krystal and Anne with their faces in a poster board of a couple dancing the tango. Bad idea. What we didn’t see was the tiny, 2x2 inch sign that said “Pictures $5 pesos”. As we walked away, this dude comes out of nowhere and starts demanding his money. We were clueless but Pablo starts arguing with the guy saying no way are we going to pay. I offer to erase the picture but by this point Pablo finds out the guy isn’t even Argentine and then he really gets ticked. He starts yelling stuff about this being his country and the guy threatens to call the police, to which Pablo responded, “Go ahead, see if I care!” I don’t know what happened next but somehow he let us guy but not without sending a threatening gesture Pablo’s way…oh boy. That night, though, things got better when Marcela made nine homemade pizzas for seven people – and they were the most delicious pizzas I have ever tasted in my life! I think I might kidnap her and have her open up a pizzeria in the U.S. Oh, but did I mentioned we didn’t get done eating dinner until one in the morning? I’m definitely in Argentina…

On that note, a small side comment: have I mentioned that going to the movies here might mean the movie starting at midnight? We went to a movie with a couple of guys, got out at 1 or 2 in the morning, and they laughed at us for being tired because it was “early”!

Random Cultural Stuff

The first tale I shall share involves a wedding. I went to my first ever Argentine wedding with Ana and Vic (didn’t even know the couple – awkward) and it was actually quite similar to most of the weddings I’ve seen back in the U.S. The first difference was that they didn’t have a wedding part. Apparently that’s not common at all here. The second is that they had a time when the couple kneeled and the parents came up to pray over them and give a blessing of sorts. The last is how much they talk about children, right there in the ceremony! In most U.S. weddings I’ve been to, the pastors wouldn’t dare assume that the couple would have kids and they certainly wouldn’t make that one of the main sermon points. Not so here! Basically the second point of the pastor’s message was about the family the couple would start and how they should raise their kids in the Lord. Oh, the other funny thing was that the ring bearer came buzzing in driving a little electric kiddie car, which was absolutely adorable! (I don’t think that’s typical Argentina, though). The funniest part, though, was after the ceremony. I call it “Miguel strikes again.” You all remember Miguel, right? The guy who unabashedly tried to set us up with his sons when he first met Vic and I? Well, he cornered us after the wedding and starts on a ten-minute discourse on how beautiful marriage is and how it can bring people from two different “worlds” together, and even goes so far as to say how Argentines respect marriage more and have less divorce than Americans (Dang, I think to myself, he must really be desperate for his sons to marry some gringas). Then he continues with, “Yeah, and it’s great how those two worlds can come together and create a wonderful new world to raise children in!” That’s when the light bulb came on – Grandchildren! That’s what he wants. The poor man is desperate for grandchildren. Unfortunately for poor Miguel, Vic and I didn’t even talk to his sons before booking it out of Dodge and escaping the wedding.

The next cultural bit involves an explanation I should have given long ago. Yoly (Vic and now Bailey’s sort of host mom/sister) invited us over for mate and a time to chat with Suzy, a young woman who went to Grace but the married an Argentine and came back to live in Buenos Aires. Well, the conversation was great getting to hear about her love story and just her experience in general that we could definitely relate to. But, what I want to explain is mate. Mate (pronounced mah’-tay) is the most popular and traditional drink here and it consists of some fairly bitter herbs and almost boiling water (and sugar for some). An individual buys a special cup (also called a mate I believe) and a straw-looking filter thing (bombilla) and fills the cup about half-way full with the dry herb. Then, they pour very hot water to fill it the rest of the way up, and each person drinking mate together takes a turn sipping it down before they add water and pass it down the line. A lot of people drink mate together basically as an excuse to chat and spend time together. The first time I tried it back in the States I absolutely hated it, but I’m proud to say I have grown somewhat fond of it and even prefer it amargo now (“bitter” a.k.a. without sugar). I’m going to try to buy some to bring back, so unless it gets confiscated since they think it’s marijuana, feel free to stop buy and try some with me!

My last anecdote is a short and very humorous story. After spending the night with Vic a few weeks ago, I had just finished eating breakfast and was heading off to class when Norma asked me “Estás engordando?” (“Are you gaining weight?” also translated, “Are you getting fat?”) Since I’m not gaining weight, I wasn’t offended by the question, but it cracked me up how direct people are here! I’m definitely going to have to re-learn tact when I get back to the States.

Well, that’s all for now, folks! Hopefully before too long I’ll get around to writing what I like to call “The parents arrive!”

It's been awhile...

Well, I now have about a month’s worth of blogging to make up, and that won’t even include the time I spent with my parents when they visited. So, fasten your seatbelts because I’m going to run through the past few weeks in category form, so at least you can read what you want. Let us begin:


Classes: The month of February brought a second intensive Spanish course with a brand new professor – one that we weren’t terribly fond of. Don’t get me wrong, she was very nice and tried extremely hard to improve the class and make it more interesting for us. Unfortunately, she lacked one very important talent: the ability to teach. Her explanations made us more confused; she loaded on the homework over stuff she had never taught, we never reviewed, and we never learned from; and to teach a new word, she either went on a 20 minute long rabbit trail of an explanation or (the worst option possible) she simply told us in English. At one point we went to the program director to ask her to help us out and she talked to the prof, so at least after that it was somewhat bearable. Needless to say, we found other ways to entertain ourselves. For instance, Vic and I wrote pages of notes about what was going on in our lives, what God was teaching us, etc., and we wrote it all in Spanish practicing the verbs we had learned. In the end, that might have been the most valuable part of our class…

Sports: In addition to classes, the past month brought us more opportunities to play futbol. The first time we played, we got run off our normal “field” by a swarm of mosquitoes and ended up renting a small indoor field for about $7 pesos apiece. [Side story: when we were leaving the park – that is, fleeing the mosquitoes – a group of guys playing soccer literally stopped in their tracks to stare at us and yell at us to join their game. One yelled to Vic, “Che, en la campera negra, te hago marco personal!” (Hey, you in the black jacket, I’ll man mark you!) After all the unoriginal pick up lines we had received, we at least gave that guy points for incorporating futbol.] The last time we played before Vic left, we played girls vs. guys with the guys adding a couple of 12 year-old kids who wanted to play. At last, as if it were a parting gift for Vic, the girls won! And Vic even scored the winning goal! Beyond soccer, I also got the chance to watch the Colts in the Superbowl. But, despite the fact that I donned my Manning jersey, put on war paint, and screamed my head off, the Colts couldn’t pull out the win. What’s worse, Pablo still brings it up (a month later) and mocks me for it. The last sport of the month was basketball. We “played” with some of the youth group guys but it was extremely different than a pickup game in the States. Only one of the guys really knew how to play, and the rest…well let’s just say they dribbled with their heads down and shot with two hands as if making a chest pass – two cardinal sins one would see only in elementary schools back in good ole Indiana. The most painful part was watching the enormous, over 6’6” “Marcelito” shoot from 10 feet out when he had a wide-open layup! If he had stood on his tiptoes, he practically could have dunked it! Anyway, we still had a blast, but I now know how Argentine’s must feel when they watch most Americans try to play futbol.

Hmm, well it seems that I am running out of time and energy for the night, so you’ll have to tune in next time for the next two chapters entitled “Youth Group” and “Random Culture Stuff”.

The Micro Fiasco

Well, folks, it’s been a while….I’ll start with dedicating a whole blog to the tiring and crazy adventure that was our trip back from the beach. Here’s how it begins: we’re traveling back by ourselves in the micro (a bus that travels in between cities) and it’s the first time we 've taken that particular form of transportation. As a result, we don’t know that there is more than one micro station in Buenos Aires for this particular bus (and no one from the church told us…thank you high context culture), so, we get off a stop early. In our defense, it was absolutely pouring rain so we easily mistook the place we stopped for another street we knew. When we give the driver our tickets and ask for our bags, he gives us a weird look (now we know why) but doesn’t say a word warning us, “Hey, you’re at the wrong place.” He just asks us where we were from and smiled when we said we were from the U.S. Thanks Mr. Bus Driver Man.


After the micro leaves, we look around a bit more and realize we don’t recognize anything. We ask a kind old woman how to get to Maipu (the street where we were supposed to get off), and she says, “Well, you’re about 30-40 minutes from there.” “Oh, walking?” “No, driving.” Awesome. We call one of the host dads and he simply recommends a colectivo. That’s great…except it’s ten o’clock at night, pouring rain, and we are in a neighborhood we’ve never been to. As we begin walking, we realize…we’re not on the best side of town. Victoria looks at all of -five gringas with suitcases and white faces - and says, “I feel like I have a sign on my back saying, ‘I’m a gringa, please kill me.’“ Fortunately, no one took us up on that unspoken offer (as you probably gathered from the fact that I’m writing this blog). Anyway, we get to the street that’s supposed to have the colectivo and at first we can’t find the stop. Once we find it, we see one coming and jump on, only for the bus driver to tell us, “No, this bus doesn’t go as far as you want to go.” Wonderful.

We hop back off, feeling the pound of the pouring rain and the weight of the looks from the men standing on the sidewalk. Finally, we get on the bus we need and breathe a partial sigh of relief….until we hear Krystal say, “Shoot…where’s my cell phone? I just had it.” I try calling it and right about then two guys behind us start chuckling and hop of the colectivo sharing secret smirks. Yup, Krystal’s phone had been stolen. Well, we make it to our stop and have to get off and walk to another colectivo. Once we get off the second colectivo, Elisabeth was going to use my cell phone to call her host dad and tell him when to meet her at her bus stop. That’s when I discover, my phone doesn’t have credit. Splendid. Fortunately, we’re standing right next to a locutorio, a place where you can use the internet or make phone calls. She makes the call and gets on the colectivo. And (finally) we know where we are. All that’s left is for Vic and me to walk another fifteen minutes under the pouring rain. (Oh, did I mention that my rolling suitcase had a broken handle, so I had to awkwardly drag/lug the thing everywhere we went?)

We finally make it to Vic’s house and crash for the night, but I have to get up early the next morning to take a bus back to my house, shower, and walk to the university in time to start our first day of our second set of classes. I actually surprise myself and am heading out the door on time – when I get a call from Vic saying she had been so out of it the night before she had set her alarm for U.S. time instead of Argentina time. Needless to say, she was going to be a bit late. I walk to the bus stop to meet her, slipping and almost falling several times because the rain on the ridiculously smooth tiled sidewalks makes for a great skating rink. Finally, after waiting several minutes, Vic comes walking up apologizing. Apparently she had been told the wrong stop for the bus plus had fallen down on the treacherously slick sidewalk. We speed walk to the university only to realize – we don’t know where our class is. We search one floor, go to an office to ask, and finally slide into class about 10 minutes late. All in all, not bad for the crazy day last few days we had experienced.

During those crazy couple of days, all I could think about was how much I wished the day would just end and I could be home in my warm dry bed. Looking back, though, I know God had a lesson in it for me (a lesson I’m still definitely learning). Right before we had gotten off our micro and had started our crazy, tiring escapade, I had passed the hours of the bus ride spending some awesome time with God, feeling close to Him, and praying about being able to trust Him. But as soon as I got off and saw that things were going wrong, I stopped praying and just got angry, frustrated, and irritable. I know now that God had given me a clear opportunity to put into action what I had prayed about, but I refused. I’m realizing that oftentimes when I pray for more faith, what I am actually hoping for is an easier set of circumstances. But that’s not what we’ve been promised as Christians. We haven’t been promised a God who grants endless sunny days, but we have been promised One who is ever faithful through the storm. And that’s the truth in which I find rest.