Hola!
Title = directions to the L.I.F.E. office from my apartment on Marcelo T. de Alvear... sounds easy enough, right?!
When I left you last I was about to head out to do some exploring. I decided to visit El Cementerio de la Recoleta. It is an above ground cemetery where many of the most famous and most wealthy Argentines have been laid to rest. Each person/family/group has its own mausoleum (burial chamber) with statues, engravings, and the whole works. The whole place is surrounded by a tall brick wall and the inside resembles a city with sidewalks in-between the rows and rows of small buildings. It seems like the perfect spot to play ghosts in the graveyard... maybe next week!
Yesterday (Thursday) was my first day of volunteering with LIFE! I met up with the other volunteers (one German, two Australians, and a woman from Scottland) at the office at 2:00 and after taking a public bus and a private bus we arrived at a pueblo called Laferrere at 4:30. While on the busses, however, I watched the cityscape change as we moved further away from downtown Buenos Aires. Downtown BA resembles a modern bustling city very much comparable to some modernized cities in Europe. As you drive away from downtown, the quality of the buildings decrease and the amount of graffiti and trash increase. Upon driving past the area right before arriving in Laferrere, I noticed that the only place not completely littered with garbage was the a)churchyard, b)playground, or c)soccer field. You guessed it! C) Soccer field. No joke, everywhere else was covered with trash.
Once arriving in Laferrere, we walked with our supplies (games, worksheets, pencils, and crayons) about a half a mile on dirt roads between shanti houses. Some were made of brick with tin roofs others a bit different... all falling apart. The place where we set up the work area is the house of an elderly couple. We set up two homemade wooden tables and two benches in the courtyard and waited for the kids to come. Around 4:45 they started trickling in. Four girls and three boys between the ages of 5 and 10 arrived, greeted the volunteers, and sat down at the tables ready for worksheets. Depending on their ages, they did math and language worksheets of different levels and a bit of coloring. All the excitement, however, took place on the back of the worksheets where they were drawing detailed pictures of the volunteers. They weren't half bad. The kids are dolls laughing and playing and teasing one another. One boy, about 9 years old, finished a math worksheet with no problem so we gave him a more difficult one. Even though he didn't want to do it, I tried to convince him in Spanish of how smart he was and how he could show us his brain power. Reluctantly, he gave it a try until the hot chocolate and cookies arrived. All the cookies with frosting disappeared in no time. It was so wonderful to see their shining faces and hear their giggles. The program leader, David from Germany, told me that our goal is not to make them A+ students, but rather to give them a break from life and allow them to laugh and play. They are oh so sweet!
I am planning on going to a different volunteer site today, so there will be more news to come!
A few housekeeping items:
Let me know via email (wendy.nh222@gmail.com) if there's anything you would like me to write about!
If you have tried to text me at 7124800736, I have not received it as the lady at U.S. cellular was mistaken and I cannot text while I am here. I can, however, receive and send texts for free from my computer at the number 1-224-202-9589 using the program HeyWire.
If you have tried to Facebook chat me and I have not responded it is because I was not there. Also, it does not show who sent the message, so I cannot get back to a mystery person!
Abrazos!
wendy
No comments:
Post a Comment