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Bittersweet Seraneras

Confused about the title? Well over the semester a friend of mine on the program has been hashtagging her instagram photos with funny things people say throughout our trip and when saying goodbye to a group of my friends one day, instead of saying “sayonara” my overtired brain must have been thinking about pasta because instead the word that came out of my mouth was “seranera.”  Needless to say it was funny enough in the moment that it made the hashtag list and stuck around.

This is it folks, the last blog of my crazy semester abroad.  It’s been a weird first week and half of being back in the freezing cold town of Keene, NH where the sun sets at a lovely 4:15pm instead of the 8pm I’ve been used to.  While it’s been really nice to be home with my family at this time of year, to sleep in my own bed again, to eat what and when I want, and to exercise, it’s definitely been an adjustment not waking up to a roommate, hopping on some form of public transport, and getting to see 29 of my closest friends.  It’s been fun to be able to follow each other’s travels in South America or back home via social media and the group chats are still alive thus far, but knowing it won’t ever be quite the same is still a little hard to wrap my head around.  But anywaaaay, it’s time to look back at my final week of this semester. (This is about to be emotional and gooey and very long so just be ready…)

The first two and a half days of the last week were our final days in Buenos Aires.  We had our last class on Monday and spent most of our free time finishing up our final presentations for the semester.  For all the case study groups it was the best round of presentations by far.  Since we had to present on both the Argentina data we collected and do a cross-country comparison, the presentations were each 40 minutes long with a 20 minute q & a session afterwards.  It was an interesting, but long day.  It was also our last night in the city and our host mom treated us to a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant before we gave her our last round of homestay gifts.  The following morning we hopped in a taxi to meet at the school and head towards our final retreat in Luján about an hour and a half outside the city.

We stayed at a religious retreat center, similar to where we started the program outside of D.C., but this time it was not so much cabins in the middle of the woods, but rather a dorm/summer camp type vibe right outside a small town.  We were able to pick our finals roommates and spend our free time enjoying our last moments together as a complete group.  Each day at the retreat was given a loose theme: looking back at the program, where we are now, and moving forward, with Saturday left to pack and say our goodbyes.  

The town we were staying in is known for a beautiful cathedral so that first afternoon after some lounging outside in the beautiful weather I went for a run there.  That evening we had a session during which our program director (who flew in to join us for the final retreat) lead us in a reflective exercise that she guided by reading a story that walked through almost everything we did this semester.  The ups, the downs, the newness, and excitement.  It was an important reminder of all that we’ve done this semester and that even the littlest of moments matter.  That night we organized a movie night where we watched a classic, She’s the Man.  Way back in August at the first retreat, on the second night of program which happened to be my birthday, we had a group movie night and it was one of the things that made my strange, strange birthday into something very special.

On Thursday we had our last community building session where we did two activities that I really enjoyed.  The first was rose-bud-thorn of how we were feeling in that moment and a similar theme was reflected among the group: huge excitement to be going home to see family or on to post-travels, but also sadness and not quite understanding the fact that in a few days we’d all be parting ways. We also did an activity where we had to narrow down a list of twenty values that were the most important to us from a larger list.  Then we had to cut to 10, then to 5, then to our top 2.  It was interesting to go around the group and share which two were most important to us and to see who picked what; mine were playfulness and authenticity.  Later that afternoon there was a session where people could choose discussion topics set up in conference style so you could go between the different rooms if you wanted.  The best one that I participated in was “favorite memories of the semester” and it was SO fun to look back and hear people’s favorite things from each country.  It was also good to remember some of the littler, but really cool moments throughout our time away.

On Friday, we had a useful session to brainstorm how to talk about this trip with friends and family because it’s kind of hard to convey the experience in a few sort sentences.  We then went over how to frame it on a resume or in a job interview.  That night, one of our wonderful resident photographers Carlie, suggested people look nice for a last round of picture taking, so we got to do a bit of a photo shoot which was super fun.  After dinner, Dani, who throughout the three countries made music videos out of video clips she took of everyone, showed the Argentina video which was extra special because she videotaped everyone saying the three things they were going to miss the most from this semester and attached it at the end and of course it got us, an already emotionally unstable group, very emotional.  We also got to watch one of my Vietnam roommate’s AMAZING extended version of a one-second-of-the-day video, that captured both the people and the landscapes from the trip in a literal work of art.  (I can’t post this online, but if you want to see it reach out to me!!) Afterwards we had a bonfire with marshmallows and music before retreating inside to play hot seat one last time.  One of the two cabins in our initial retreat played that game (where basically you ask each member of the group questions for around 2 minutes and they’re supposed to answer truthfully) so to end our semester we did the same thing.

By Saturday, the artistic part of our group had created a banner with a map of the world that said “Never let the extraordinary become ordinary” and we all painted our hands and put our handprints around the map.  As far as I know, Carlie took the banner with her and when she returns home from post-travel she might start a “Sisterhood of the Traveling Banner” type situation so people can have it for a few weeks at a time before sending it on to the next person.  With the banner spread out on the floor, our staff explained the last activity we were going to do.  Whoever started held on to a ball of string and said a few things about how they were feeling and basically got to say goodbye to the group.  Then they passed the string on to whoever wanted it next so in the end, we were all connected by the string which we cut up and made into bracelets.  I LOVED hearing what everyone had to say and was especially touched by my pal Jodie who made a joke about her finally knowing everyone’s names and then said she was going to say everyone’s names one last time.  Boy if people weren’t crying before they sure were then.  I talked about how the first few days of the program I would go back to my room in the cabin and my face and cheeks would ACHE from all the nervous smiling and laughing I was doing in the midst of meeting new people, and how now, in the last few days, I was feeling the same feeling in my cheeks again, but this time from being so overwhelmed by the happiness and good times we were all sharing together.  People seemed to really appreciate that.  

We spent the next few hours packing, eating lunch, and sitting with each other for the last few times and then it was time for people to go their separate ways.  My group (who was taking the last group flight back to Miami because we weren’t extending our travels) had the most goodbyes to say because we left a few people at the retreat (some of my closest friends) and then had to say goodbye to those that took the bus to the airport with us, but were continuing on the a hostel in BA, and THEN had to say goodbye to the airport folks that were taking direct flights home, and THEN had to say goodbye to each other once we landed in Miami, and THEN I took a flight back to Boston with one friend who I said goodbye to last of all.  The first two rounds of goodbyes were the absolute worst as I said goodbye to my closest friends and ugly cried uncontrollably.  I knew it wasn’t going to be the last I was seeing or hearing from them, but the full group will never be back together in the same circumstances again and that was so weird to think about at the time.  I was emotionally drained by the time we got on that plane.  Luckily the under 9 hour flight to Miami and the under 3 hour flight to Boston were a BREEZE after some of the flights we’ve endured this trip.  It was so weird traveling with only part of the group after traveling in such a large pack for so long; I kept hearing the voices of friends who weren’t there throughout the airport.  On the Boston flight I made the decision to read the little letters most of us wrote to each other before leaving the retreat.  I was expecting to cry again, but the things people wrote made me incredibly happy to know that things I’d done or said to them were meaningful.

Since being home things have been nice, but simultaneously weird.  I’m so glad to be back to my family, couple of home friends, and dog; in charge of my own eating, sleeping, and exercising again, with the chance to relax and take time to myself, but it’s weird getting back into the swing of work and getting ready for future school plans.  Having this semester was like being able to put my regular life on hold and now having to think about classes and summer jobs and the future again is a bit stressful.  Having so much time to myself is nice, but not being busy and surrounded by the group of 30 I’ve been so used to the last few months feels foreign.  I miss my friends, but so far we’ve all done a great job of keeping in touch, checking in with each other, and keeping the Person of the Day updates going.  I don’t think I could have lasted a single day more “on program” (classes/lectures/visits), but the people and the places I wouldn’t have given up so soon.  Things and people have changed here and I’m back with people who know me, not wandering around a city with the anonymity I’ve become accustomed to.  The jump into the cold and darkness has also been a shock.  It’s also hard to explain the trip in a few short sentences and explain how fun and great an experience it was, while also expressing how incredibly challenging and hard it was.  If you’ve been keeping up with these blogs you know my week to week updates, but the harder moments and the bigger learning pieces I’ve taken away have been left out.  It’s also a weird dichotomy of me wanting to talk about my semester and hating to talk about myself too much or not wanting to sound entitled or stuck up. If you want to know more about how the trip was and don’t feel like I’m doing a good job of explaining it to you I hope you know I’m trying my best and that more specific questions help me than just a general “How was the semester?”

I feel so grateful for this experience and for all of you that have kept up with me and with these posts along the way.  Thanks for all the kind words you have passed along to my family who have then passed them along to me about my writing and storytelling and for taking the time to tune in.  It’s been so appreciated.  So, if you’ve stuck in here for this long and made it to the end of this especially long, detailed, and emotional post, thank you.  It’s been so much fun writing these posts throughout the last four months and has really rekindled a love I once had for writing.

For those of you that I haven’t seen yet I’m looking forward to sharing stories and pictures with you if you’ll let me and I can’t wait to hear about how things have been for you.  I’ve missed you and it’s wonderful to know I’ve also been missed.

Lots of love and thanks again,

Em

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It’s the Final Countdown (do do do doo…)

Last full week of classes and activities - check!  Last full week in the city of Buenos Aires - check!

Last week was a biiiig work week filled with our last round of classes and site visits, interspersed with periods of free time to get all of our assignments done.  We conducted interviews with different health professionals (nurse, doctor, psychologist) to get better insight into those professions within the context of Argentina.  We visited a villa (shanty town/informal settlement) on the outskirts of the city and learned about some ways in which they work to support their immediate community that is not necessarily supported by the city government itself.  We had our last case study day and had the opportunity to get a pro-legalization point of view on the abortion debate from two really cool, educated highschoolers from the area.  We also talked to a woman who is currently pregnant and got some insight into her care throughout that process.

Throughout this semester Maternal and Child Health has learned that we work a lot differently than other groups when it comes to our case study presentations.  We typically have a meeting after our last case study day where our group (composed of a BIG range of personalities) throws a bunch of ideas out all at once and then we break up to do our separate slides and come back together afterwards.  For our last attempt at this process it was even MORE ridiculous than usual because with the G20 Summit approaching the subway system was shutting down within the hour and everyone was worried about getting home so this time we literally stood, on a sidewalk, in a circle, frantically throwing out ideas and taking notes on our phones.  Talk about a mess and half, but we pulled it off!  

This week I organized our last birthday celebration with some popsicles and ice cream bars.  We also had our second to last community building session and at the end, our staff member lead this really amazing exercise where we all sat in a circle facing out with our eyes closed and he would tap people on the shoulders to go to the middle of the circle.  Then he read different prompts like “Who is someone you’d like to get to know better”, “Who is someone who has a fun personality”, or “Who is someone who has made you laugh” and the people in the center go around and tap the people with their eyes closed on the shoulder in response to the prompts.  Everyone got a turn to be in the middle and it was a fun way to spread a huge amount of love for the people we’ve become so close with over the past semester.  If you could have seen my face as I received taps in response to prompts that were really important to me, you would have seen a beaming idiot on the verge of tears.  Really really needed that.

Last weekend was a long weekend because of the G20 Summit, but as my friend put beautifully we were “restricted by the movements of Donald Trump.” Public transportation was mostly shut down and our program implemented some pretty strict rules of where we could and couldn’t go because of worries about anti-G20 protests. We had 500,000 assignments to work on as well so we were basically on house arrest.  It was frustrating at first, but we tried to make the most of the weekend and escape when we could.  On Friday night my closest group of friends had a little reunion at one of our houses after not seeing each other for a couple days because of the way the program worked out.  We planned to have a movie night, but ended up talking and catching up for a few hours and getting home around 3am.  On Saturday, my homestay partners and I and a few friends went out to dinner to a steak and wine place and it was SO good and super fun!  It was hilarious though because besides me and Madeline, no one knew what type of meat to get so everyone was either calling or texting their parents for advice.  (We are truly not adults.)  On Sunday, a few of us met for lunch and I got Mexican food for the first time in forEVER and then we walked around the Recoleta Cemetery and talked about life and death.  This cemetery is made up of mausoleums (above ground tomb structures) that form a sort of city with little streets that we got to explore and it was beautiful.  You can look inside and see caskets and spiral stairs down into the earth and it’s very cool and interesting, but I guess dark as well and not for everyone. Anywaaay that’s the update!

Onto the final week! 

Em

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Weirdest. Thanksgiving. Ever.

Welcome to the last rural week installment of this blog! Sorry it’s taken me a while to get around to writing it…in the midst of the final crunch these days.

To start off last week - Monday was a national holiday and because of course we still had class, we got to experience an empty city.  There may have been minimal lunch options available, but we were thankful for an empty bus ride in the morning.  We had a cool opportunity that night to interview our host mom as part of our research methods class and we got to learn a lot of things about her life here in Argentina that we wouldn’t have otherwise.  On Tuesday we headed off to our final rural stay in the town of San Antonio de Areco, about two hours outside of the city of Buenos Aires.  Unlike our last two rural stays this one didn’t feel quite as authentically “rural Argentina”.  The most rural parts of Argentina aren’t accessible by a couple hour bus ride so we settled for this town, known as the Capital of Tradition for its gaucho heritage which is their version of a cowboy.  It felt sort of like a cross between a ranch town and a beach town in the midst of its off-season.  We got to see some gauchos in action, running with horses and wrangling a cow, and heard a little about their history.  We participated in a traditional asado (barbecue), getting to see how they cook the meat, and then getting to taste the DELICIOUS food.  We met with members of the municipality who talked to us about the three pillars of their strong local government which work to try to keep members of the community within San Antonio de Areco.  They do this through initiatives regarding housing, education, and job opportunities.  

In general, the week was a nice break from the usual schedule…for once we had a decent amount of free time and minimal assignments to work on! The group was divided up into two hostels for the week and it was so much fun to be living with more of the group again. We had a lot of group meals, played games after dinner (if you want a super fun game look up Salad Bowl and get on playing that ASAP), went on runs, and my hostel had a tiny little pool which we utilized at the beginning of the week when it was a scorching 92 degrees out!  Those first few nights in a 10 person room with that heat were something else, but it was nice to be surrounded by some of my closest friends again.

Thanksgiving also fell during this week and boy was that a day from start to finish (or what I’m going to refer to as “The Thanksgiving Shit Show”.)  For reasons that I can’t disclose because they aren’t my story to share, I was up for most of the night on Thanksgiving Eve and had to deliver some unpleasant news to the larger group in the morning.  Because of this discussion, my lack of sleep, everyone being a weird place from not being with their families for the holiday, along with starting the day with a “what we’re thankful for” share that made me especially sad, the day was off to a bit of a rough start.  It was also the first day it had rained the entire week and by rained I mean torrentially downpoured.  Half of the group had to walk in the rain to visit a clinic and my half of the group visited the local hospital, but the combination of having a not very informative tour, on top of all the other things that had already happened that day, everyone was in probably one of the lowest spots collectively we’d been at this entire semester.  But wait the day is only half over!  After we had lunch things were starting to look up as we headed to our case study visits.  Maternal and Child Health got to meet with a woman who spoke to us about the “respectful delivery” program that Areco uses as its birthing model.  Women are giving a lot of power over their deliveries and are able to choose not only who is with them while they give birth in terms of support, but in what way they want to deliver: the traditional method of lying down, squatting holding onto suspended fabric, or seated on a type of chair.  This was an incredibly cool interview and was full of all the things that get me SO excited about women’s health.  The woman touched on a lot of what I’d learned and read about for a research paper I wrote my freshman year of college, the business of birth in hospital settings and unnecessary interventions, and it got me JAZZED.  After coming out of that meeting I was beginning to ponder if being a doula or having a job that is more directly involved in this niche of women’s health would be something I’d consider in the future.  Who knows, but very cool!

As you can see the day started to turn around from there and it ended up containing one of the most fun memories I think I’ll have of this trip: our makeshift hostel Thanksgiving.  When I hopped out of the shower, some of the girls in my hostel were busy decorating the place with balloons and candles and drawing those hand turkeys for everyone that you make as like an art project in elementary school.  Music was playing and everything was all of a sudden incredibly festive.  People from the other hostel started to arrive and then our country team showed up with loads and LOADS of chicken, salad, bread, mashed potatoes, and apple crumble that they had gotten catered especially for us to simulate the holiday.  We ate and drank wine together, sitting on the floor and laughing about how the day had completely turned around. Throughout the week one of the student-run committees had decided to organize a superlative/paper plate awards ceremony for the dinner and had sent out a form called The IHP Dundies (for you Office lovers out there) so people could fill it out and vote for their fellow peers.  They presented the awards after dinner and the range of tailored awards based on peoples personalities and inside jokes was absolutely HILARIOUS.  I got the “most likely to be reincarnated as an otter award” because of my love for water and the way I rub my eyes apparently?  Sam has been telling me throughout the entire semester that when I rub my eyes I look like a small mammal and everyone always FREAKS out when I do it so it was hilarious and fitting that I had to do a demonstration for the whole group once given that award. After that, another girl organized an activity where we all attached papers to our backs and wrote messages to each other (kind of like a year book) which just kept the love right on flowing.  Even the clean up process was fun as Tess and I worked an assembly line of dishes and others cleaned up the dinning room area.  It was honestly some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time and I was so grateful to be able to be celebrating Thanksgiving in this non-traditional way with this group of 30 that I’ve gotten to know so well over the semester.  For a day that started off with tears and included so many bumps in the road, it sure did turn out to be an a-okay day and for that I am thankful.

When the week was over, we traveled back to the city and got some lunch at a fun dumpling and beer restaurant, then attempting to go to a sports bar to watch the 2nd game of a rivalry fútbol series that was taking place in the city.  Unfortunately, some rowdy fans threw things at one of the teams’ busses and the game got delayed and rescheduled which was a bit of a bummer because we wanted to take part in that part of the culture here before leaving, but what can you do.  That night we did the full on Argentine going out experience which started with me leaving my house at about midnight to start meeting friends and ended at about quarter to 6 in the morning with the sunrise before heading home to sleep.  Glad I can check that experience off my list - not a sustainable lifestyle at all!  Finally on Sunday, after approximately four hours of sleep (from 6:30am-10:30am) my roommate and I ventured to the San Telmo market to explore for a bit, and then later, joined by my pal Carlie, we head to La Boca to see a colorful street called Caminito that was reminiscent of the original immigrant housing that once stood there.  There we ate empanadas, looked at art, and talked about the semester thus far.  

It’s really crazy to me that in a few days I will be starting the final week of this program and I’ll be back home with all you people and the cold, cold weather once again.  I’m really looking forward to being back, but know that the transition is going to be hard, especially because some of my closest friends will now be dispersed all over the U.S. and across the globe.

I’ll post the blog from this week in a few days, thanks again for reading.  Love you!

Em

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The Paris of South America

Morning everyone!  Writing the first part of this blog from the second level of a double decker bus, how cool is that?!  I bet this is what it feels like to own a monster truck.

This first full week in Buenos Aires was a lot of fun, from both a city exploration and learning point of view.  So far we’ve learned about the setup of the health care system, getting to visit public primary health institutions in different neighborhoods around the outskirts of the city.  We’ve also started to conduct more case study research, first interviewing two moms about their perspectives on being working mothers in Argentina, and then hearing from a man who works as part of a group of NGOs against the legalization of abortion here in Argentina.  This has been a big debate here over recent months and we’ll be hearing perspectives from both sides so it will be an interesting opportunity to explore this issue outside of the context of the United States.

One of the most important things we’ve been learning about, both in the classroom and outside of it, is the last dictatorship here in Argentina.  I’d heard the phrase ‘los desaparecidos’ before, but otherwise didn’t know or understand the context of it.  For those of you are that interested, I’m going to give a brief summary of what we’ve learned about it so far, but it’s not very uplifting information so just be warned.  

Argentina’s last dictatorship, from the years 1976 to 1983, began after a military take over.  In the time period that followed, a time of state terrorism, anyone who was considered to be politically dissident was kidnapped, held in clandestine detention centers all over the country, and then likely tortured before being killed.  Pregnant women were held until they gave birth, and while they were “disappeared”, their children were appropriated by families with connection to the dictatorship.  The people of Argentina were kept hugely in the dark during this time and many of these appropriated children grew up not knowing where they truly came from.  From this time of fear and unknowing, a human rights movement was sparked.  Mothers demanding information about what had happened to their children banded together to create Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, marching in front of the Casa Rosada (Argentina’s version of the White House, but pink.)  Since this time, kids who suspect they might be children of los desaparecidos have taken part in genetic identification to match them with their true grandparents.  The estimated number of people who were disappeared under this dictatorship is around 30,000 people, but with some bodies never recovered, Las Madres continue to march every Thursday at La Plaza de Mayo, now split into two groups, a more political group, and the original founding line.  On Thursday we had a half day free and had the opportunity to go see them march in front of the Casa Rosada.  It was particularly powerful, knowing the history behind what was going on.  A handful of very old women wearing white scarves around their heads, exited a van and were met with chanting, singing, and embraces.  This group continued to sing and march, while the other group marched and read all of the names of the disappeared who fell under a certain letter of the alphabet.  That week, we additionally visited one of the ex-clandestine detention centers in the city that was housed in an old naval academy, but has since been turned into a museum and space of memory and reflection.  I’m passing this information along because, as the woman leading our tour told us, we must know about these things so as not to allow history to repeat itself.

In more uplifting news from the week, it was my friend Colette’s birthday on Monday and we were lucky enough to have her mom treat us to gelato!  On Thursday night we went to a really cool speakeasy that was NY subway themed to celebrate as well.  You had to walk down the steps like you were entering a subway and then you walked through a corridor with posters and a turnstile and then you walk though a subway car thats doors open into the bar area…SO COOL!  On Friday, I went to meet a work friend of my dad’s who lives in BA down the Green Line from where I’ve been staying.  Nice to have connections all over the globe :)  I’ve been running every now and again to keep sane and get my body moving a little bit, although to get to the pretty park/plaza area that I’ve been running loops around, I have to run down several city blocks and due to some stares I’ve been getting I haven’t determined how social acceptable that is…oh well.

Over the weekend, although it was the optional time for travel, we decided to stay and explore the city more because we haven’t really had much of a chance to thus far.  It’s been uncharacteristically rainy on the weekends here, but when it cleared up on Saturday afternoon some of us went to check out a market in my neighborhood to do some shopping there.  On Sunday, we visited the Bosques de Palermo, specifically the rose gardens which were beautiful!  The group of us rented a paddle boat around a pond area and on the way back had the very exciting realization that a wedding proposal was about to take place!! We rushed back to return our boat and joined the huge crowd that was forming on the bank of the river.  The family was lined up on this bridge over the water, each holding the letters to spell out ¿Te casas conmigo? and as the couple paddled down the river the family yelled the woman’s name, getting her attention as her boyfriend pulled out a ring.  Everyone on the shore was cheering and people were crying (including myself!!) and it was super sweet to witness.  Afterwards, to console our single selves, we got some delicious ice cream that my dad’s friend recommended to us.

It’s again so crazy how fast this last country is continuing to fly by.  Today officially marks the halfway point of Argentina.  I also can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow and that there’s snow at home!  Today in our rural stay it was 92 degrees and I typed part of this while sitting in a pool.  Whaaat?!  

Thanks for tuning in as always and can’t wait to see some of you soon.  Love you!

Em

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¡Bienvenidos a Argentina!

Hola a todos!  Coming at you from our last country - Argentina!

After the longest travel day(s) ever we arrived in Buenos Aires around dinner time on Tuesday night.  Exhausted we traveled to the hotel where Audrey, Sam, and I showered and passed out as soon as our bodies hit the beds.  The following day was mostly free, in order for us to rest and deal with jet leg, with a brief introduction to the program staff that afternoon.  Thursday we had our official orientation, getting our peso stipend, talking about Argentine culture, the city of Buenos Aires, and how to navigate public transport.  It’s been fun so far flagging down taxis and using the bus system and the subway, all the while struggling to communicate with very, VERY rusty Spanish.  It’s nice to be able to read and understand, for the most part, what people are saying, but the responding remains to be pretty challenging (sorry Señora!) Also the double L sound that is typically pronounced as a “y” is pronounced “je” here!

Thursday night we met our host families and my roommates and I are living in a very nice apartment with our host mom Roye, a kind, retired woman who greets us with cheek kisses and hosts students to keep her company and to learn from them.  Really loving the cozy room we’re in that has a view of the city streets around us.  On Friday we got situated with some lectures on Argentine history and identity in order to frame the learning we’re going to be doing in this last country.

Not only is the Spanish something to get adjusted to here, but many aspects of the city as well.  Everyone greets each other by a kiss on the cheek, personal space on public transport does not exist, dinners are much later (our host mom has kindly bumped up dinner for us until 8:30pm) with a merrienda (snack) typical in the late afternoon, and nightlight typically starts around 1am and ends around 6 or 7am, sometimes with a breakfast!  Lots to get used to!

The weather yesterday was incredibly gloomy with thunder and pouring rain for most of the day, but we celebrated our friend Colette’s birthday with lunch at a cute, vegetarian restaurant, then wandering around the city in the rain and stopping at a flea market.  Last night was La Noche de Los Museos where entry to the two hundred plus museum locations in the city is free!  We stopped by the MALBA (Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires) and a planetarium.  Of course we weren’t thinking about the fact that the planetarium show would be in Spanish and we weren’t exactly taught any space-related Spanish words in school…oops…but still cool to experience!  After getting drenched walking between the two places we called it a relatively early night, getting home a little before midnight to our host mom’s surprise :) 

Today we’ve just been hanging out around the house and now a cafe, trying to get things in order, but tonight we have an optional event that includes a dance concert and dinner, along with a tango lesson!  Should be fun and interesting to see the dancing abilities of our group.

The weather, along with adjusting to the time change, has me feeling tired and a little discombobulated, but excited for the adventures this week is likely to bring!

Sorry for the short update, but a short and relatively tame week will do that to ya. 

Missing you all.  Love,

Em

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Some good, old-fashioned rest and relaxation

Hello again and welcome to part two of this week’s blog installation, this time about our vacation week here in South Africa!

This past week a small group of us utilized the hostel that our program provided as optional break housing and we used the time to explore more of Cape Town and relax. On our first full day we did a hike up Devil’s Peak, checking that one off the list of mountains to summit in Cape Town.  That night we went to a taco place that also happened to be doing trivia and get this!  At one point the man asking the questions goes “Residents of a town in New Hampshire, in the U.S., have collectively carved how many pumpkins?” and then proceeded to list three options, which I obviously got right because he was talking about the Keene Pumpkin Fest!  How crazy is that? Halfway across the world and the restaurant I was in was talking about my home town! Wild.

On Wednesday morning we took a choppy boat trip out to Robben Island, the old home of both political prisoners and other criminals.  We had an AMAZING tour guide for the bus portion of the tour who pretty much summed up everything we’ve learned over the past month, about the history and inequality of South African society, in a short monologue.  We then proceeded to take short prison tour from an ex-prisoner himself, which included seeing the cell in which Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.  It was a powerful tour and we were so glad we did it.

Thursday I went back to Salt River to visit and have lunch with my Auntie.  Thinking it’d be a quick visit, my friends and I planned on hiking later in the day, but as it always turns out, we had lunch, caught up, and played with her grandson for over two hours.  It was lovely to visit her again. When I finally got back to the hostel Colette, Jodie, and I re-hiked Lion’s Head (where we did the sunrise hike) for exercise and cranked up to the top in 37 minutes.  When we got back down, we headed to the grocery store and organized a picnic to go along with a sunset viewing at a popular local spot, Signal Hill.  It was a very chilly and windy picnic, but fun all the same.  We also had a movie night in the hostel and watched Call Me by Your Name, which I would recommend if you haven’t seen it yet!

On Friday morning I went on another small wine tour because it was cheaper for those who hadn’t gone yet if I tagged along.  When we got back we headed to Camps Bay, one of the beaches nearby.  I had only walked on the Cape Town beaches thus far and when I went in for a quick dip I was frozen almost immediately.  Muuuch colder than in Arniston, and similar to New Hampshire water, but with a much cooler air temperature.  That day more of the larger group came back to the hostel after their vacation, so it was really nice to see some of them again and relax on the shore.

On Saturday we went to Maiden’s Cove which is a swimming area that has tidal pools which are basically cemented off pool areas that fill with water from the ocean, and we hung out there for the afternoon.  That night Sam’s Salt River host family hosted a birthday party for her 21st birthday, so a bunch of us went over there to celebrate with her which was a lot of fun and so nice of her family to orchestrate.  

Sunday was the last day of our break and we started it off with an ENORMOUS hill run.  The hostel was at the bottom of a huge hill that Colette was adamant about running up.  And so we did...about 17 minutes to get up to the road where you start to climb Table Mountain from, and then back down again.  We did an abs circuit when we got back as well and it felt amazing to exercise that hard again.  My living on top of hill back home and my middle school cross-country hill training days, came back to me as we were making our way up to the top.  Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with a well deserved brunch.  That night the whole group went back to Salt River for a farewell dinner with our host families.  One of the host dads organized an opportunity for us to march in a parade with a marching band that was walking through the area so we had a really festive and fun sendoff! Madeline had the great idea of buying our Auntie flowers from the two of us, so we gave those to her and stopped by her house afterward to get the rest of Madeline’s stuff.  We had a final chat and cup of tea with Auntie and her close friend that she brought as her plus one to the dinner.  They were complimenting us, wishing us the best of luck, and genuinely very sad to see us go, as were we to be leaving.

We spent Monday organizing, wrapping up some program related stuff, and packing, and flew out towards Dubai around 6:15pm.  We’re currently on the longest flight I’ve ever been on, fourteen and a half hours to Rio, a touchdown there for an hour or so, and then a few more hours to Buenos Aires.  Getting a little stir crazy, but I lucked out because there was an empty back row that enabled a few of us stuck with middle seats to spread out to aisles.  We have about 6 hours left until we touch down in Rio and should be in the Buenos Aires airport around 8pm/6pm EST.  I’m looking forward to being able to go to sleep almost right away and not having to suffer through a day like we’ve had to do in the past two countries.  

I’m so glad some of us decided to keep this week so relaxed.  We made our room feel like home, got to be away from the larger group for a bit, with no staff, and really got to experience some much appreciated relaxation and independence again.

We’ll be in the hotel for two nights and meet our host families and find out our new homestay partners on Thursday evening.  Excited to see what the city is like and also to be able to try to speak some Spanish again…that’s gonna be a interesting as I haven’t taken a class since my first semester freshman year, but fingers crossed!

Thanks for bearing with me and my lateness on these last two blogs!  I can’t believe this is the last country and I’ll be home in about a month!  Crazy how fast time is flying while the start of the program simultaneously feels so long ago.

Talk to you all soon.  Lots of love,

Em

[fourcountriesfourmonths]

[fourcountriesfourmonths]

A Week by the Sea

Hey all! Long time, no see.  Sorry about that, I was too busy trying to make the most of our break this past week to sit down and write, but now, trapped on an airplane, I’ve got all the time in the world.  Let me catch you up on our rural South African stay in the small fishing village of Arniston.

We left on a Sunday, taking two vans and heading about three hours east, driving through vast landscapes, and fields and fields of grain.  We arrived in the home town of one of our staff members, Eben, where we were met immediately with blustering winds coming off the sea and greeted by our host families for the week.  My friend Audrey, one of my case study group mates Emily, and I were met by our host parents, a retired couple named Auntie Olga and Uncle Danny.  Upon entering their cottage I felt immediately at home as it reminded me so much of the Cape House.  The entire week they cooked and cared for us, laughing about our love for peanut butter and tea, and at me especially, during a conversation about cow tongue (a holiday treat) when I asked if each person gets an individual tongue.  Whoops.  

Throughout our week, we learned about the complex history of the area.  Originally dominated by fisherman, during apartheid the area was threatened as the government wanted to move the fisherman inland and away from the source of their livelihood.  Instead, they were granted land that continues to this day to be a heritage site controlled by the Fisherman’s Union.  Residents own their homes, but not the property it resides on because of this. The fishing village itself is called Kassiesbaai with the greater area being known as Arniston.  Arniston includes an additional historically white section, which houses a controversial hotel and many pristine “holiday homes”.  The difference between the two sides is drastic.  We would walk to our classroom away from tiny cottages with thatched roofs and as we approached the hotel (the only place in the area that had WiFi) you could see the line where the two parts of the town intersected, as streets and houses began to change.

The area is very rural, with only a handful of restaurants that are run out of people’s homes, and a thirty minute drive to the nearest grocery store, and throughout our time there we learned firsthand about the hardships the town faces.  Talking to both a panel of fisherman and domestic workers, the two main professions of the residents there, we heard the difficult realities these people face.  The hotel brings money and tourists into the area, but most of that money never reaches the residents of Kassiesbaai.  Domestic workers don’t get paid enough for the work they do cleaning the holiday homes, foreign nationals are often hired by the hotel so they can pay them less for their work, and the hotel owner has stopped the construction of a building that would provide the residents of Kassiesbaai with information and resources, and allow them to share their history with tourists coming to the area.  Meanwhile, the fisherman have very tough jobs, made even tougher by the recent scarcity of fish and conflicts with an ammunition company that tests military missiles in the ocean, screwing up fishing patterns and work for the fishermen.  While we had an incredibly busy week with most of our assignments being due, I am so grateful for the time we had there getting to learn about the complexity of such a beautiful place.

In the midst of all this, we made sure to make time to explore the beautiful place we were in.  One morning a few girls and I went on a run out to a little lighthouse.  PSA do NOT attempt to go on a run that is 50% on sand.  It’s BRUTAL!  Luckily, it was beautiful and ended with a dip in the Indian Ocean so it made it worth while.  The water was definitely cold, but substantially warmer than the New Hampshire coastline, and I was so happy to be in the ocean again.  That same afternoon we had free time and spent it at the beach.  I had SO much fun swimming around, playing in the huge waves, and body surfing until I was the last one in the water.  On Saturday, Eben took us to a nearby cave that you can enter at low tide and then most of us took a trip down to the southernmost tip of the continent where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet.  On Sunday night after turning in all of our assignments and doing our group presentations, all of the homestay families got together for a farewell dinner to celebrate our time with them.  The following morning, after a failed attempt to watch the sunrise due to unaccommodating weather, I took a short walk on the stormy beach by myself where I danced around in the sand and water, looking like an idiot I’m sure, if anyone had been around.

It felt strange to enter someone’s home and village for such a short period of time, but the week was full of meaningful learning and experiences that we’re really lucky to have had.

Thanks for tuning in, more info to come about our vacation week!

See ya,

Em

[fourcountriesfourmonths]

Heigh-Ho Heigh-Ho to Arniston We Go

Sorry this is a few days late, but hey everyone!

As I write this we are traveling by bus to Arniston, a rural fishing village about three hours from Cape Town where we will be spending our last, incredibly busy week on program here.  After that we will come back to Cape Town where people will go their separate ways for our vacation week.  I’ll be spending that week with some girls in a hostel that the program provides as optional housing and we’re going to take advantage of the area in and around Cape Town, probably spending time at some beaches, doing some hiking, and exploring more of what the area has to offer.

This last week in Salt River was full of lots of busy days as usual.  We spent two of our days in Khayelitsha, one of the largest and fastest growing townships outside of Cape Town that houses both formal and informal settlements.  We attended a series of talks there and visited a community garden that helps to show children, who aren’t exposed to nature within the confines of Khayelitsha’s informal settlements, that food can be grown from what appears to be nothing.  Because one of our staff members is from Khayelitsha, he arranged some traditional Xhosa performers who are friends of his to perform for us.  They taught us a few songs and dances and afterwards my face hurt from smiling.  We also spent part of an afternoon there collecting information for our case study groups and maternal child health got to visit an organization called Philani that runs a program called Mentor Mothers.  This program trains women who have successfully raised their children despite the poverty of Khayelitsha, equipping them to go door to door seeking out pregnant women who they will follow and support throughout their pregnancy and beyond, in order to help fight malnourishment in children.

The time we spent in Khayelitsha was an interesting learning experience for the whole group because we felt like we were intruding in a community that we weren’t a part of and didn’t belong in.  In the midst of learning about poverty tourism there, which is literally when tourists ride through the slum areas on buses and take pictures, we felt like we were consuming culture in a similar manner.  Our country coordinator facilitated a discussion about how she and the staff members who are members of the communities we are visiting, work really hard to create and maintain relationships within these communities.  This helped us to better understand that it’s a lot different for us to be interacting with community members and engaging with people for a learning experience, rather than simply exploiting the community for pictures.  While not completing comforting, it was a good and important discussion to have.

Back in Salt River, maternal child health had our second “Ladies Cafe” with homeless women from the area.  We went into this meeting with some nerves because of how our last meeting went, but it went so much better this time around.  A smaller group of women showed up and following the suggestion of one of our case study facilitators, we started off with some more general questions about pregnancy among their community and then allowed them to bring it more personal if they wanted.  They were much more willing to talk to us and were really receptive to the body mapping exercise that we were told to attempt as a new type of research method.  We broke the women up into groups and had them trace one group member’s body on a big sheet of paper.  We then asked a series of prompts during which the women could draw on themselves, write thoughts and emotions, or pinpoint a part of their body where they experienced a response to the question.  It got women who weren’t initially as talkative to participate and everyone seemed to be really enjoying the process.  Afterwards we had some snacks for them and handed out little care packages to thank them for participating and they were so incredibly appreciative, giving us hugs, asking when we had our next meeting (even though this was the last one), and taking a photo with us.  Such a great experience overall.  

Additionally this week, we had a guest lecture was from a man who works as a paramedic in the area and it was super interesting to learn about the intricacies of that line of work in the South African context.  The system is completely understaffed so calling for an ambulance can sometimes mean a wait time of half a day or more because they have to prioritize the calls they receive according to their severity.  Being an ambulance worker is also an incredibly dangerous occupation because you never know what kind of situation you might be getting yourself into.  Some areas are flagged as “red zones” so if a call is within one of those areas, an ambulance will not go in without a police escort because in the past something has happened that has flagged the area as particularly unsafe.

In fun news for the week I signed up for a free trial week at this gym that runs an INTENSE bootcamp class, and when I say intense I mean intense.  I went four times with friends and my body, and sweat glands, have been worked to their max.  One night this week a group of us went to my first ever trivia night and while as a whole we didn’t know a lot, it was super fun and I knew a few obscure facts that helped boost our team’s score.  Birthday committee struck again thanks to Sam’s cake organizational skills and the South African birthday celebration was a big success on our last day in the Salt River classroom.  On Wednesday we had our community building on a boat! Our staff booked an hour on a catamaran and it was so incredibly relaxing to be out in the sun looking out at the ocean.  I hung my legs off the edge and sat as close to the front spray of the boat as I could so I could get my feet wet.  Later that day Sam and I got haircuts from the host uncle of some of the girls here.  He was the cutest man, may or may not have given us the cuts for free, and just a bit ago when we were saying goodbye to our host families, he wished us safe travels.  Happy to have a shorter, refreshing haircut again :) Also on Wednesday morning, part of the group who didn’t get a chance to do the Lion’s Head sunrise hike over the weekend, did it that morning.  So at 4am we were up and subsequently Ubering to the trail head for a hike that was so worth it!  A lot different than Mt. Norwottuck back home (miss ya Erin), with views of the city, surrounding mountains, and sea on all sides.  Some parts of the hike were so cool with chains and handholds along the steeper, top section, so hurray for sunrise hikes! It’s such a peaceful time to be awake and there’s nothing quite like heading to class at 9am having already hiked a mountain.

Tangent: I can NOT believe that this, the year I’ve started to actually pay attention to baseball, that I’m ABROAD while the RED SOX HAVE MADE IT TO THE WORLD SERIES!! That is all.

This morning we said goodbye to our Auntie who said besides this one girl who she talks about all the time, we are some of her favorite students that she’s hosted and she thanked us for being adorable and for eating all the food she made for us.  She then proceeded to hand us matching shirts and clutches which was the sweetest gesture ever! We gave her our homestay gifts and cards in return and she was super happy about receiving them.  I’m sad to be leaving her, but she wants me to give her a call when I’m back in town for break and maybe have lunch together or something.  We’ll also have a goodbye dinner with everyone the night before we leave for Argentina so I’ll see her again then as well.  It is really nice to know that she appreciated us being there as much as I appreciated being in her home.

This week is going to be a stressful one because we have the majority of our country assignments due, but we’re currently driving through fields and fields of grain to get to a seaside town and it’s beautiful and the sun is going down and life is great.

As always missing you all back home, especially when thinking about the Red Sox and all the fall actives that I’m missing, but am still loving my time here.  Sending love back home.  Talk soon,

Em

[fourcountriesfourmonths]

[fourcountriesfourmonths]

Another week, another blog

Cape Town week two and still going strong!  Sorry I’m a bit late on posting this one, very packed days and lots to get done.

We had a lot of very exciting school related events this past week.  To start off, we spent a day at a local mosque where we heard the Imam talk about the history of Islam in South Africa along with the missions of their specific mosque which include my favorite, gender equality within the mosque in terms of incorporating women in the prayer space and also into the administration of the mosque.  The Imam, secretary of the mosque, and one of the men in charge of the youth development programs, were all so intelligent and the work that they do was progressive and inspiring.  This mosque is viewed by parts of the Muslim community as pretty out there with its ideas and, as we were warned, it was incredibly interesting to come home to our homestay to discuss some of the ideals of the Claremont Main Road Mosque with our Auntie and hear her be puzzled by the incorporation of women there.  After we had those lectures, we had the opportunity to sit and watch the midday prayer.  It was such a new and interesting process to witness in general, but on top of that it was so cool to see the range of people who come in, in the middle of their work day, to pray together.  That afternoon we went to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to enjoy the surroundings and do some team building.  

Later in the week, we had a woman come in from an organization that works to advocate for the health and human rights of sex workers in South Africa.  She did an AMAZING presentation on the decriminalization of sex work and what that means and looks like.  We also spent a day at the Lwandle Migrant Labor Museum where we learned about an area that used to be made up of hostels meant for about 500 male migrant workers, which, during the Apartheid era, became incredibly overcrowded with living conditions unfit for the people who lived there.  Now a township exists there, some homes made out of the original hostels along with additional informal settlements.

My case study group had a very interesting first research day here in Cape Town.  As I’ve mentioned before, our classroom is housed in a homeless feeding center.  The man who is in charge of the building, along with our country coordinator, organized a “Ladies Cafe” for my case study group to talk with future, current, and past homeless mothers in the area.  The first meeting was supposed to be a get to know you session, so we could build a relationship with these women and have them want to come back to meet with us the following week, but we went into this not exactly sure how to facilitate a discussion or build a rapport with these women.  After an icebreaker it seemed to be going okay, but when we opened the floor for the women to share memorable parts of their pregnancies, things got very deep very quickly.  We heard some incredibly tragic stories about life on the streets and then at some point an older woman tried to get some other people in the group to speak up and participate.  Unfortunately, this caused an uproar among many of the women and there was lots of yelling in Afrikaans and visible uncomfortableness and tension.  It was explained to us that many of the women didn’t feel comfortable sharing personal information about their lives because they didn’t know who in the group they could trust and things that they shared could come back to bite them when they went back out on the streets.  Things eventually calmed down, but now we have to navigate how our next meeting with them will go.  It was a draining, stressful experience, but as our country coordinator said, that’s how research goes sometimes.

In other news this week, I finally got some exercising in here, which is proving to be crucial in this country where I’m eating a lot more and the food more resembles an American style diet.  After a run around the streets of Salt River, my friends and I went to the park next to our classroom and did some stretches and core work.  While we were doing that, two little kids came over and joined in, imitating our stretches and exercises.  I raced them and watched them on the slide, and got two big hugs before they headed home for the day.  Just another example of the kindness this community has to offer.  On Friday, instead of going to ultimate frisbee with the UCT students, a group of us went, but did a track workout on the makeshift grass track outside the frisbee field.  It was a lot of fun to do a group workout like that, haven’t done a track workout in SO long, but it felt great and nothing can beat doing a workout in the shadow of a beautiful mountain.

On Saturday, a group of us went on a wine tour!  It was never something I pictured myself doing, but it turned out to be SO fun!  We kept commenting on how it felt so classy and like we didn’t belong there, but the wine, cheese, and chocolate were amazing and the day was beautiful and so fun.  We ended the day at the Waterfront where we stumbled upon a band that was just starting their set.  We sat there for an hour listening to them perform because they were so talented, some members of our group might say attractive, and genuinely happy.  A great way to end an already great day.

Sunday was a much more relaxed day and I spent some time at a cafe getting some stuff together.  Almost immediately when I sat down, these two guys at the table next to me looked over at me and one turns to me wearing my UMass Club Swimming sweatshirt and says “Does your shirt say ‘ass’?”  It launched into a whole conversation of them making fun of my shirt that apparently said “UM-ass” not “UMass” and also making fun of the way Americans pronounce things like herb, oregano, and aluminum.  Side note: did you know that here they call traffic lights robots?  Also there are taxis that look like suspicious white vans and the people inside call out their destination from the window while yelling at you to come inside.  Not quite Vietnam’s craziness, but getting there.

This week is our last one in Cape Town with our homestay families!  On Sunday we head to a remote, rural, seaside village a few hours away where we spend our last week before coming back to the city to be set free for our break week.  Can’t believe how time has flown here, guess I must be having fun or something :)

Talk to you all soon,

Em

[fourcountriesfourmonths]