Spring break plans are being made, I didn’t wear my jacket to school the past two days.  Well, I’d say spring has sprung!  It’s weird to be hearing about football games at home when it’s so blatantly not fall here.  As fall is my favorite season of the year, I’m disappointed that I will be missing it altogether.  No trees are changing colors, the apples aren’t crispier, and Halloween is unimportant.  I don’t get it.  

Let’s talk about how I have to speak in Spanish for TEN MINUTES next week.  This, the girl who shows up late to dinner because I can’t figure out what my host dad tries to tell me.  It’s a topic of my choice so long as it’s about Argentina.  I think I’m going to stick with what I do best, informing others about how we need to accommodate those with disabilities.  This is the topic that can really fire me up in English, so I’m going to hope that I have enough vocabulary to manage in Spanish.  

Three things about Friday:

First, I have fallen in love with the balcony on the 12^th floor of my IES center.  On a warm spring day, as so many are becoming, it is the ideal place to relax on a bench drinking in the afternoon sun, sipping on tea or munching on a couple of humita empanadas.  Looking out on the major artery of the city, Avenida 9 de Julio, it’s seems so far away.  It’s the perfect place to spread out and not be afraid to think or to just be.  At noon on Friday, the IES center is deserted by students, most too hungover from the night before, others gone from the city for the weekend.  I was there to get a head start on my homework for the following week, but my plans to stay inside and watch an old Argentine film for my cinema class crumbled when the DVD refused to work.  Oh bother, I thought, now I must simply relax and take in this perfect day.  

There are worse things.  =]

(2) In the afternoon, I had the opportunity to take a special workshop provided by IES.  We took a van to the outskirts of the city where the buildings aren’t washed daily and the sidewalks mimic the surface of the moon, dusty and full of craters.  It was refreshing to be away from fancy brass door knockers on the skyscrapers and fighting against throngs of people to cross the street.  

This music school hosted about 15 IES students for a lesson in theory of African drumming, a few performances, and a chance to practice our skills.  This is the part of the blog post where I would conveniently sum up what the theory section entailed, but as my Spanish is still on the minimal side, I didn’t understand too much.  Just the unimportant words like “early”, “type”, “fast”, and “possible.”  These words are certainly a start, but unfortunately without context mean very little.  

The performances entailed 3 drummers, one of which doubled as the vocalist, and a dancer who used different costumes and props to help her communicate through her motions.  It was a stomping-sort of dance, but very controlled.  She was intentional with her movements and was unafraid of getting in our faces. 

The practicing part was a a really pretty cool.  We strapped on two different size drums, one comparable to a snare and one that looked like a bass drum on its side.  We made some beats and split into two groups and had a conversation with our choreography and rhythms.  The guys working at the construction site next to the school were definitely enjoying the show and adding vocals.  

It wasn’t as dramatic as Drumline, but I was entertained by the fact that some of the IES students were really into it and thought that they were fantastic.  This one girl in particular was grooving with her drum and walking around in the center of the circle to draw extra attention to herself.  When she had the chance to play solo, we all discovered that she wasn’t playing the pattern the rest of us were following.  It was close enough though, that I think she thought she was playing it correctly.  I wanted to be embarrassed for her, but thought that maybe I was the foolish one for not breaking out of the pack.  It was complicated, but now that I’m thinking about it, she really had little skill (NOT that I have any), but she definitely had fun.  

(3) That evening, I decided to crash a volleyball game.  IES has some agreement with a college in Buenos Aires that its students can play for many of their sports.  I think it’s weird that as long as you want to play, you can represent a random college.  Regardless, I got the opportunity to warm-up with my future teammates.  I wasn’t permitted to play on account of I had just met the couch 5 minutes before the game, but she’s excited to have me at practice this coming week.  I think it was mostly because the next tallest girl on the team is 5’8″.  

The team is pretty relaxed when it comes to participation and practice.  Maybe that’s why we’re so bad.  But, it looked like so much fun and I can’t wait to get on the court and play with them.  Everyone tries their best and that’s what is appealing to me.  

After the match (which we lost, but hey, it’s not about winning), the men’s team invited us out for pizza.  Wanting to get to know the team better, I decided to go.  That was a spectacular decision.  I got to spend an evening with a group of porte�os chatting about this and that (slipping from Spanish to English fluidly) and eating good food.  Once you play college volleyball, apparently you can keep playing for as long as you would like at this university.  So, the guys team ranges in age from about 22-35.  I happened to be sitting by two of the guys and their wives.  They were so funny and such knuckleheads joking around with all of their friends.  I wondered, how lucky am I to have found such nice people?  The evening continued with pizza after pizza and more laughter.  Eventually, everyone in the restaurant had left except the waitstaff who was also in on the conversation by then.  The evening came to a close and we bade farewell until next week.  I don’t know that this is a regular occurrence, but I’m happy that I was apart of it for one night, nonetheless.  

The next morning, I tried to make spring break plans with my friends, but after fighting the website for many hours, we postponed our booking plans and went to the rugby match at San Isidro Cub (SIC, pronounced “seek”).  It was a beautiful day that reminded me so much of the PIAA playoffs.  A Saturday afternoon spent in the bleachers.  You pull your scarf just a bit tighter when the wind blows, but the sun keeps you warm.  

I don’t understand rugby at all, but it is pretty entertaining to watch.  These wide and thick men run around a field and slam into each other while trying to expel the oversized football from their opponent.  It’s much more fluid that football in the US and distinctly different from soccer, but they merge together to form a pretty cool game.  The short shorts and the striped shirts made me wish that the US had more diversity in its gaming interests.  

Returning to my friend’s house to resume the battle with the bus website (it wanted some document number that no one seemed to have), I grew tired of the fight and hungry.  We went for Chinese at a place close to my school and sipped on some herbal lemonade drink.  I was like lemonade with a sprinkle of mat�.  So, pretty strange, but the food was excellent.  

Later, I met a group of people at my new favorite place in my neighborhood, where the waiter named Juan is kind and Happy Hour is pretty much whenever we’re there.  It’s nice to sit and laugh “early” in the night and be able to go home and sleep peacefully while those who want to continue can go to a club later.  I’m not interested in clubs or not remembering how I got home.  I’ve heard too many stories lately about students in risky situations.  My safety is far too important to me to risk becoming drunk and incoherent.  This place offers the opportunity for me to be social and safe, an ideal combination.  

Unfortunately, my lazy Sunday morning has digressed into a lazy Sunday afternoon and my homework will not complete itself, so I’m off to the land of research and word documents for a while.  Maybe I’ll surface later and take a trip to the grocery store or something exciting.  The best part about being here is that nothing is predictable.  Not bus routes, not classes, not people.  The only thing I’m sure of is that I will have lots of fun.  

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina