additions

Hey guys,
So we will be leaving argentina in less than five days to fly back home to the states. It is wierd to think it is so close to being done and that I´ve been away from home for two months now. It has gone by incredibly fast.
Well, the past couple of days in Salta have been wonderful. A man named David, who we met at the beginning of our trip has been taking us around the city and the province to different places that are famous and special to this area. Three of the students from the church have accompanied us on these outings, which made it a lot more fun. He took us to see the foothills of the Andes yesterday where there are a lot of famous vineyards. They are some of the best vineyards in all of Argentina. We went to a winery, took a tour, tried some wine and wine flavored ice cream, and enjoyed the beautiful veiw fo the moutains. The drive to this village was about four hours, but it passed much faster than I expected. The terrain changed drastically throughout the drive from a valley surrounded by mountains to being within and winding through the mountains, to being in a desert again surrounded by mountains. THe landscape reminded me of a combination of Glenwood Springs canyon in Colorado, northern New Mexcio, and Wyoming. The mountains were all different colors of red rock and some were covered with vegetation while others were bare. We stopped in several different spots along the drive to go rock climbing.
Today we went to were the Amazon rainforest begins in northern argentina or to where it ends, depending on your perspective. We hiked in the forest for a little while, winding from one side of a river to the other. We also drove to a lake on a road that was the old Incan highway. The Incans used it to capture and conquer the indigenous people of Argentina and later the Spanish conquistadors used it to transport goods and armies.
So I can know say that I´ve seen the Andes, the Amazon, and an Incan highway. All of which I did not expect to see and think is very neat and special to have had the privilege of seeing.
I hope you all are well. We leave tomorrow to begin our two day drive back to Buenos Aires. I will then see my host family again on Saturday and prepare to fly home Sunday. I look forward to talking with you all soon. Lots of love.

I just don´t know

Hey friends who read this!!!!!! Hello!!!! We miss you all!!!!!! It´s crazy to think this fun adventure might be ending soon. With all the traveling we´ve been doing for a month now it seems like we just got here and don´t know anything at all. It´s strange to know that all I own or need is in a duffel bag and I still overpacked but desperately miss my black puffy best. This time here will surely go quickly and it´s bittersweet. I miss my family a lot, especially Anna and I now have a lot of really good advice for her when she goes to Costa Rica in a month, but I am exploring South America with good friends and my favorite boy in the world and for that I don´t want to leave. My way of living and appreciation of comfort have been interestingly challenged. At this point I value a working toilet so much more than a car and sanitation is more precious than nice clothes. Oh the things you never knew you never knew you always had. Can´t wait for all of you to come to my room and lay on my memory foam with mea nd drink from my whale mug and listen to tango music and look at my pictures and hear about this place, this crazy, scary, amazing, beautiful, haunting, and fabulous place.

Salta

The past two and a half days in Salta have been more challenging than many of us expected it would be, but now that the camp is over i am very glad that i am here and that we had the opportunity to come. in essence the camp was a wonderful way to see the ways that other believers view the church and their role in the world. it was definitely a cross-cultural experience and i enjoyed being forced to interact with many different cultures. we talked a lot about the difference between a leader and a facilitator. it was really interesting because their definition of facilitator is our definition of a good leader. but in their cultural context, leader has only negative conotations. their past with incredibly abusive and power hungry leaders along with the tight hand of the catholic church has shaped their conception of leader. in their minds leaders are power hungry people who are oppressive, abusive, and do not listen to the intersts or the needs of the people in the community. therefore , they used the word facilitator to describe the way that people should be interacting with those around them and using their abilities to give a voice and power to others. the camp was also really interesting because it reminded me of the emphasis that many other cultures place on the hope we have in christ. almost all of their songs and messages came back in the end to the hope. we took communion this morning and several of the students and leaders said we do not need to be said or to feel really down and melancholy when we take communion. we need to refelct on our own sins and christ´s work for us, but then to move on and remember that he is alive and gives hope to a dark world. i thought that was so beautiful because often i focus too much on the suffering piece of the gospel that i forget the hope and the celebration we have because of what christ did for his children.

tonight we are going to watch argentina play brasil in the final american cup soccer game. tomorrow we are going to an art market and later to explore more of salta. on tuesday we will be going to a pueblo that is famous for their wine and we will stop to see harry potter. then on wednesday we begin our drive back to buenos aires. it is wierd that i am on the last week. the trip has been fun, but i am also looking forward to coming home. i love you all.

adventures continue

hey guys,
i dont have much time to write, so i will try to fill you in on what i can. we got to rosario on monday and guess what? it snowed in argentina for the first time since WWII. it did not snow in rosario, but it was still really cold and none of us have the proper clothing for super cold weather. we toured around the city for two days and had great discussions with dr. toly about everything and anything including urban studies. we had an interestidng time getting to the bus station to catch our bus to salta. well, it began when the city does not believe in being able to call taxis or in reserving them. we did not find this out until we saw the bellhop of the hotel attempting to flag down taxis for us. so we left the hotel and walked to a major street corner. please picture twelve gringos with their lugage standing on a corner attempting to hail a taxi for 20 minutes. rather hilarious. then the bus was late arriving to the station. when it did arrive they told us the luggage carrier was full and we would have to ride for 17 hours with our luggage on our lap. luckily they managed to squeeze almost all of our luggage in so we rode a little more comfortably. the ride was easy and relatively relaxing, except for the crying babies and the cold temperature.
we arrived in salta thinking we would be going to a camp for college students about how to do mission work and about tough issues the church is dealing with. well, we were wrong. it tyurns out it is a camp for college students who are interested in working with children in the church and in the community to bring them to Christ. it is a cool idea overall and the students are from all over latin america. however, since many of us are not interested in working with children, the camp is only two days, and we did not know what we were doing until we arrived the past two days have been slightly stretching and challenging for us. dr. scott put me in charge of the group after we left brasil. i did not exactly know why except that i am organized. i am beginning to suspect that he knew the salta part would be hard and that the group would need an encourager. needless to say amy and i have been the encouragers of the group. it is also hard for many of us because we are so close to going home and the homesickness has definitely hit. but salta is really pretty and next week will be better when we are traveling around the city with a little more freedom. all in all it is rather entertaining if you chose to see it that way.
i love you and miss you all.

Rio de Janeiro

Well it finally feels like summer here in sunny and 85 degrees Rio, and its probably one of the prettiest cities i have ever seen! Its on the ocean and there are mountains surrounding it... just beautiful!

Two days ago we hiked up to see the Jesus statue that over looks the city, and it was quite an adventure! we didnt know that we would be hiking it that day, so i was wearing flip flops and a skirt. it was definately the hardest hike ive ever done! and by the time we got to the top, clouds came in and it was freeezing and we couldnt see the statue or the magnificent view of the city! oh well! we might take the train up another day so we can actually see the stuff.

Rio is a really interesting city. For those of you who dont know much about it, it is one of the largest cities in the world and the second largest in brazil with about 15 million people. It is one of the weathiest cities in brazil, but also has some of the worst slums. they say that the greatest gap between rich and poor is here. This makes for an interesting dynamic of tourism and rich living, with poverty and danger. If you have seen the movie city of Gods, you have an idea of what its really like here, although we dont really see that stuff because we stay in the touristy areas where its relatively safe.

Fabulous Food!

For those of you who know me well I love food and I remember places by where I eat. Well last night we ate at a restaurant that was incredible and will be fondly remembered by me for many years. Jen, this would be one that I would write up in my travel guide book that you and are going to write one day. It came close to competing with that shrimp shack. Anyway, it was our last night all together as a group and most importantly with one of our beloved professors. He will be leaving Wheaton to go to Whitworth College in Washington. In order to honor him we all went to a Brazilian steakhouse. It was amazing. The salad bar had a wide variety of vegetables, cheeses, and fruits, which was a joy. As Amy wrote, we have been deeply missing our greenery in our meals. I could easily have only eaten the salad bar and still thought it was a great restaurant. But then the even better part came around. Each waiter carried skewers with different cuts of beef, chicken, and pork. The continually came around to your table and if you wanted it you nodded and then indicated how much. If you did not want it, you just politely waved them away. You need to know that I like meat, but it would not be my choice meal. Well, this restaurant changed my opinion of meat. It was probably some of the best meat I have ever eaten and all of it was very tender, flavorful, and melted in your mouth. In addition to the fabulous meat, we also had fresh squeeezed passion fruit juice, which was also incredible. We sat there laughing, eating, talking, and enjoying one anothers company for about three hours. It was a lot of fun and maybe one of my favorite memories so far on the trip, besides the waterfalls.

We are seperating tonight, as Amy said. So whatever you hear from Hillary applies to her and three other students. Amy and I along with 11 other students head back to the Brazilian side of the falls tonight in another bus ride. Then we cross back into Argentina to explore Rosario and Salta. I hope you are all doing well. I am sure we will have more funny bus ride stories to tell you soon!

pretty

Hello there,
Brazil has been so so so beautiful with the Iguazu Falls and Curitiba. It is sad that Hillary will be leaving us but she is very good at reminding us all as we head back into winter that she only brought summer clothes. poo. Several things here are just down right better than Argentina like the traffic, the scenery(which means that the houses are prettier and bigger but more on that later and theres not as much garbage and we saw really amazing waterfalls), and to all of our delight and health the food actually comes in varieties of greens, fruits, and quality meats here not baked or flavored with vegetable oil. Oh the joy of the open buffet!!! We have learned so much about this one city because it is so called a model city but as the good college investigative christians we are we have tried our very hardest to find fault with this place in the many informative talks we have had with government organizations and are trying to understand the gray area between the ministries we visited, the famous amount of parks here, information from the government, and then our observationa and interaction with poverty in Buenos Aires. Its very interesting is all I will say right now. Very interesting indeed. The bumer part is that we are on the road so much now with the longest stay being 5 days somewhere in some country but we are getting very good at buying snacks. Oh the great Adventure!!! We will miss you Hillary, try not to get too burnt and stay away from Drew, dont want to prime the engine or anything. hehehehehehehe.

Hurray for me!

So I want you all to cheer for me and to be incredibly excited for what I did today. I rode a bike! Okay so everyone should be rejoicing with me. For those of you who do not know I had a bad bike accident a year ago and have not been back on a bike since then. But this afternoon a bunch of us wanted to go for a bike ride to better see the city of Curitiba and to see the condition of their bike and pedestrain path that runs throughout the city. It was a lot of fun and the bike path is in wonderful condition.

We have spent the past two days getting aquainted with this city and seeing the ways the governmental leaders are addressing problems and issues of urbanization. Curitiba is world reknown for its environmental sustainability and friendliness. It has over 55 square meters of parks per resident. Consequently, the city is beautiful and is covered in parks and greenery. I will admit the parks and green spaces were very refreshing to see after living for a month in Buenos Aires. The city is also very wealthy. The government claims there are no poor people in the city and that there are no beggars or homeless people. In one sense this is true. You do not see beggars or even many people attempting to sell things on the streets. You also do not see stray dogs. However, when you talk with nongovernmental people, you quickly realize that the story the governmental leaders tell is not exactly true. They end up giving huge incentives to the poor within the city so that they leave the city and go to the rural areas. They are told they will receive land and a house. They do receive both of these, but it is in a squatter settlement or shanty town. A further problem with this solution is that once people live in shanty towns they cannot get out. No one will want to give them credit or to hire them in high paying jobs even if they possess the needed skills. In some ways the city feels like it is too good to be true. It kind of reminds me of the Truman Show. It is a beautiful place and all of the residents love to live here, but I am wondering if they have really addressed issues of urbanization. I am also beginning to wonder if you can address all of the issues, or if you begin to address one do the others fall behind.

The other cool thing for me over the past two days relates to some discussions that Michael and I have had with two of our professors about the HNGR program. These two professors have been previous or current HNGR advisors so they know more then I do about how the internship plays out. We have to design a project for the internship. But they said in many ways you only have a vague idea of the project and you dont really begin to design your project and make it more concrete until about half way through your six month stay in a developing nation. Your project comes out of your interests and most importantly from listening to the organization to see what their interests are and what their needs are. For example, one of the ministries we saw yesterday did not know how their work was changing the feelings and impressions between the poor and rich. So a HNGR intern could use their skills in anthropology or sociology to research the effects of the program and to see if they are having the results they want. Also we met a girl from Germany who has been here for about 5 months. She came here not knowing any Portuguese and she now can speak profficient Portuguese and even translate from it into English. It was very encouraging.

I hope you are all well. Happy forth of July. Please set off some fireworks for me!

Oy Brazil!

Well we are finally in Brazil as our adventure continues. It has been two crazy days and i honestly don´t know if i´ve ever been this dazed!!! Yesterday began very early, I got to go see the Brazilian side of the falls because I wasn´t going to be going back that way with the rest of the group (whish has now changed... but i´ll explain that later) and they were incredible, again like sheryl said, it´s just almost impossible to put into words what an incredible and amazing place it is. Then the whole group crossed to boarder and we were supposed to get on a bus to take us to Curitiba around 6. Being the efficient and smart travelers we are, we arrived an hour and a half early just in case. However, around 5:35 we were told that the bus we wanted wouldn´t stop at that station, so we went to this ¨VIP¨ lounge/bus stop where it would pick us up. I think the only reason they called it VIP is because you didn´t have to pay to use the bathrooms!!! While we were there, we started talking with a guy about places we should go and see and we were telling him our itinerary and he kinda gave us a funny look. Turns out, the route we were planning on taking to get back from Rio to BuenosAIres would take just under three days by bus!!!! we´ve begun the process of looking for other options! Oh and in case you´re wondering, only three other students and myself are going to Rio. Sadly, our bus didn´t show up till about 815. The last time we had eated was about 1pm, so we were all hungry by that point, and they told us we´d stop in two hours. WE did stop in about 2 and a half hours, but not for food. The police got on the bus and started checking through our stuff, pretty much touching all our bags, and shining flashlightsin our eyes. Later Dr. Scott explained that they were searching for riffles. Apparently the government is affraid of revolutionary actions occuring, and this is their way to deter it.

We finally stopped for dinner around 1, however we all found it quite difficult to order food in portugues under the influence of heavy sleeping pills! Most ofus wandered around for a while untill someone else would get up the courage to point at something through glass and then we´d all follow, even if you didn´t really want that item! WE finally arrivedin Curitiba around 6:45am after pretty much no sleep!

Once we got to the place at which we´ll be staying for the week, the lutheran theological seminary, the adventure got much better! Turns out this is a beautiful city! WE walked to a park that used to be a quary that they fixed into an incredible ecological reserve! Then we went to a delicious restaurant where I had ranch dressing for the first time im 5 weeks... God is good! Afterward we walked to another park that also used to be aquary and we played ultimate frisbee, the first realy exercise i´ve had in 5 weeks. It was a beautiful day... probably about 73 degrees-ish. Tomorrow we´ll be taking a tour of the city and attending some classed in portuguese... we´ll see how that goes!