Love Me Argentina

I am less than 48 hours away from being in the sky, on my way home.

There were 5 people at my going-away party (the friends version, not the family version) and I feel like that’s a good number. I made 5 good friends here, and I’m satisfied. Surely I will see them again in the future.

At the end of the 5 months, what can I say?

I am amazed that God has used this opportunity to meet me halfway and make this experience worthwhile. I am thankful that I was able to overcome (but not always win) every struggle. I am pleased with myself, for the most part.

I am taking back 12 pounds more than I originally had on my body, and I’m struggling with that, but I’m going back to the gym and shedding them soon. I realized here that life is enjoyable no matter what size you are.

I learned to slow down and enjoy. I learned that life is too short to work all the time. Life is too short to do anything all the time.

I’m honestly not in the mood to reflect. I would like to come back to this blog but I don’t know if I will. The memories are safely tucked in my heart and I intend to keep them there.

Let me direct you to my latest project: Numbered Confessions.

Just in case you haven’t heard about it, www.soulpancake.com is a great website. I can spend a good chunk of time reading the questions, the topics, and most importantly, others’ responses. I came upon this question today, and I don’t want to forget my answers.

If a revolution took place in your mind and heart, what three opinions and sentiments would it entail?

From the department of I’m still trying to figure myself out, voila!

1. I will love myself no matter what. At whatever height, weight, hair color, age, in whatever place, realationship, or situation. I will not talk bad about myself.

2. I will pursue the things that seem too good to be true. I will never say I can’t.

3. I will be more responsible with my finances. I will write stuff down and keep receipts. I will not get in debt.

Okay, so each of those had more than one snuck in there, but I’m complex! I even considered going for a 4th one. Waaatch out.

Quote by Che Guevara

“To be demanding is to be so human that you only reach for the best of being human, that the best of man may be purified through work, study, and continuous solidarity with the community.”

Anyone up for a personal revolution?

Hold on tight.

Lately I’ve been thinking often of how I would summarize this experience. How can I fit every frustrating, exhilirating, disappointing, awesome moment (they weren’t all pretty!) into words, or at least into a blog post? I don’t know. But I’m here, aren’t I?

But honestly, that’s not what I want to do. I still have two weeks to summarize 5 months. And I hate summaries. I prefer the novel. Never did the whole SparkNotes thing, for reasons of pleasure.

In all sincerity I have nothing impressive to say. I spend my days going for walks on these sunny winter days, practicing guitar, cooking with Tabitha, reading the gospel of Matthew with Tabitha, bothering Tabitha while she works, speaking French and English and Spanish, getting frustrated with myself and then laughing at it. All of it.

I drink lots of hot tea. I’ve become quite the connoisseur, actually. Subsequently my teeth are turning yellow and my insides are always warm.

Last night I went a birthday party which I thought was going to be free food and fun and festivities (the 3 F’s!). It was Not free food, which I  was a little caught off by. Don’t invite me to your party and then make me pay for all the beef I ate that eventually made me sick blegh I hate parties anyway I’m gonna become a vegetarian blegh blegh blegh.

David and I, exercising our candidness at party.

Afterward we went to a bar. I do like all of the people I was with, with the exception of one or two girls. I’m still trying to decide if I don’t like them because of the way they act (annoying and obviously promiscuous), or because they’re prettier than me. Ha. Probably both.

Anyway, I’m sitting at this bar with 8 other people and I just want a diet coke because I can feel the heartburn coming on. No diet coke. Not even gassy water. But it wasn’t just the lack of good carbonated beverages that made me unhappy. Something inside me said,

“you have no business being here. This is not fulfilling or exciting or joyful. It’s not extraordinary. Everybody goes to bars. It’s not *really* fun. There’s no diet coke. It’s late. Go home. Go home. Go to bed. Go to bed and don’t feel bad, it’s okay. But just. don’t. be. here.”

Eventually I left. And I don’t regret leaving. I do regret not listening to that voice early on in the night, when I could have left the party without paying. I understand that there are some things that please other (young) people but they don’t please me. I like hot tea and books. I like writing about how low my self-esteem is sometimes. I like buying scarves and wearing them when I read books. I like to feel good when I play a whole song on the guitar. I like to accomplish, to use this time to become a more well-rounded person.

Rounded I have become, with about 10 extra pounds going back to TX. Such is life. You win, you lose, you eat a lot of pastries. Someone empathize, please!

Last week I saw THE purse of my dreams but I was short on cash to buy it. Today I am on a quest.

MORE beef, anyone?

I am playing the anti-social card tonight and sitting in my room, blogging, while my host family and their family (about 10 other people) are jolly-ingly (?) playing ping-pong in the living room. Yes, we got a ping-pong table. In our living room. I am up to here with the kids and the jumping and the “yes!” and the cheers. Get out.

I do love them all, though. It’s just that every corner of my round head is congested with mucus and it all feels very compressed and hot and uncomfortable. And I just took some more medicine, and now my eyes are itchy, I won’t stop typing to scratch them, no I won’t.

3 weeks until I return to TX, which I hear is more like an oven than a place. I found an apartment to live in  and I’m sooo excited to go to IKEA and buy new cheap furniture weee!! I love IKEA the way I love good, reliable hair scrunchies. A lot. And I live with a Swiss person who loves IKEA too. Needless to say, I visit the website….often.

I found myself yet another struggle to plow through. My program is only going to pay my host family for the amount of days I’m here in July, and keep the rest of the money for rent that I already paid for themselves. What is it with the constant attempts to rip me off? Are they purposely looking for a review more terrible than the one I’m already going to give? I just don’t understand.

Through all of this I’m learning to be polite-aggressive. (Commonly mistaken with passive-aggressive, but they are cousins that don’t talk to each other much.) It’s a sensitive balance. You go too far one way and you’re a mushy push-over, you go too far the other way and people think you’re mad, you have some terrible rabies-like South American disease, someone call the CDC.

Every day (read:moment) here is bittersweet. I visit my own blog page even when I know I don’t have new comments just to see it. I know, totally self-absorbed. Bah. Today I was thinking about my blog title, and how much time I spent in February coming up with a title. I came up with “Love me Argentina” and I wasn’t totally satisfied, but I went with it because I figured something else would come along. Nothing ever came and it grew on me, not because time passed but because I realized it’s cheesy, but it’s just the right amount of cheese. And I’m okay with that.

I’m actually going to give a stupid movie a chance (bad idea, but I’m siiiick [in whiny voice...is it allowed to put brackets inside parentheses?]) and watch Confessions of a Shopaholic. I bought a version they were selling on the streets but I won’t go into the details of the manufacturing.

I saw this quote on soulpancake.com – a site I think you should go to, and like, bookmark or something.

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” -Cecil Beaton

I spent the greater part of my morning in the immigrations office, that melting pot of people from all over the world just trying to live in this country. (Mostly Bolivians, which are to Argentina what Mexicans are to the US.) There is a musky sense of agitation and impatience in that office – it is probably no bigger than a high school classroom and there are only about 5 people helping over 60 immigrants. It’s a disaster if I’ve ever seen one. I waited 3.5 hours and was “helped” for 1 hour. I had to go to the corner Kodak store to get some pictures taken and then take them back to the office only to find out I’m not. actually. done. yet.

I need the residency permit to get credit for my classes. That is the only reason I’m doing this, not because I actually want residency in the country. It’s a nice country, don’t get me wrong, but I’m going to go ahead, open my big arrogant mouth and say that the US is way, way, mucho better. I miss my memory foam, my duvet cover, and my 4 varieties of SunChips.

I am all done (smile) with my classes, and Thursday I’ll go pick up my certificate from the hospital. Did I mention I saw 2 C-sections and 4 natural labors last week? That was like, whoa, I’m never having kids, ever, ever, I don’t care what they say! Beautiful and miraculous and all that, but oh my, the rivers of blood! I told the head nurse this (about the blood) and she said, “Better blood than poop, my dear!”

I agreed.

I went to Villa General Belgrano this past weekend – a small caricature-like German town about 1.5 hours from Cordoba – there are still Germans there that came to Argentina during WW2. We saw them at the polka show, dancing away, all happy and shakin’ it.

Native American Chic 2009 - Los Reartes, Argentina

We tried to enjoy nature by visiting a nearby river called Los Reartes. I really just wanted to go shopping for little souvenirs, but I went along with the whole “let’s love nature” thing and later I bought myself some edible souvenirs.

Speaking of souvenirs, my French is improving and tomorrow I plan to learn all the parts of the body in French. I’m tres tres excited! I’ll do like Erin Badley did in Anatomy class: she wrote all the names on her body. That was genius!

Less than un moi before I return to ma maison!

5 weeks until I’m back in America, friends!

The past few weeks have been hectic and I just haven’t felt the spark to write about anything, even though a lot has happened.

Last weekend I went to the northwest of Argentina (almost touching Bolivia) and met all of the summer students that come to Cordoba for 6 weeks. (I actually added myself to their group, the program advisor invited me to go.) I enjoyed being with them but at first it was a shock to be around so many Americans, all at once! And to think I’ve been doing it all my life…

The region is gorgeous, I do recommend you go or that you at least go look at my pictures.

Arms open wide!

I tried to sign up for French classes but they won’t let me because I can only complete one month of the course before I return home and the French academy won’t allow it. Well, I took matters into my own hands, bought a learn-French book and a Spanish-French dictionary and I carry it everywhere. Tabitha helps me with the lessons in the book (she speaks French) and then I annoy her all day long, asking her comment se dit this and comment se dit that.  I love it.

Tabitha also knows of a hotel in France that takes students each summer to work at the hotel in exchange for room and board. We are trying to get in contact with the lady in charge of the whole deal, and my dream is to go to France next summer. The idea itself is really just a zygote but I hope it will grow to fetal and neonatal status!

I finished my two weeks in the neonatal service at the hospital and tomorrow I start a new round. Not sure what it will be, I’m assuming maternity. Soon I will be posting about watching a birth, eeeeeww.

I’m getting better at guitar and concurrently developing small calluses on my fingertips. How attractive! I practice as much as I can without annoying everyone around me. It’s a balancing act, this life of mine.

Did I mention…5 weeks!

Empanadas cooked in that oven, I wish that was for dinner again and again.

I forgot to mention in my last post a few very interesting things.

-On my bus trip to Santiago, Chile, I met 3 English boys. They were on their way to Chile as part of their 5 month South American voyage. We talked and entertained each other on the bus ride, then went our own ways. On Friday afternoon I was walking in downtown Cordoba (Argentina) and I ran into them! The coincidence! So I had lunch with them, went to the “cinema” (like they said) with them, then the next day ate together again and went to some local museums. Tabitha says I am a lucky girl to have a triple date so many times.

-I started going to a gym close to my house and I’m pretty sore. 3 months of no strenuous physical activity and it SHOWS. I got pretty frustrated with the instructor today because she basically broke every rule I ever learned when I used to teach aerobics and kickboxing. I didn’t say much because at this point I don’t look like I know anything about exercising (I’m look more like a pastries kind of girl), and I didn’t want to start an argument in the middle of class. But if I get her alone…

-Tried to make a meatball stew that my mom makes called “albondigas” and I couldn’t find ground pork. I could get pork, but the meat man wouldn’t grind it for me. He said I won’t find ground pork anywhere in Argentina. BAH! I have moments when I absolutely hate this country.

- I am currently obsessed with the French language and I have vowed to learn it well within a year. (And someday live in France?) Tabitha speaks French – I help her with Spanish and she helps me with French. Mornings are in Spanish and evenings are in French, and if we get tired we say screw it, English is the way to go.

-I have a humongo paper/project (that slash should be a plus sign) due next week…that’s all I have to say about that.

-This morning, I randomly ran into the guy who lives with my old host mom. He was wearing a Texas hat and I creeped up to him and asked him if he lived at 254 Pablo Mirizzi. We made some small talk and marveled at the chances that we would run into each other. (He was near the hospital, which is near the old house.) Now he is my Facebook friend!

- I got to start working in the pediatrics section of the hospital this week. It’s amazing! I got to bottle-feed a baby waby this morning and then watched a few other more gruesome things like inserting a tube in a little chest and measuring urine. :-\ So far, it is my favorite department.

I’ll definitely start that paper tomorrow, promise!

Today is the end of my 13th week in Argentina, and I sit here like I have many times, with my stomach still full from lunch and my hair a mess from a 2- hour siesta.

My new family is hilarious and caring and easy-going. We have settled into our roles as “Swiss/Argentinian host parents” and “American daughter who washes dishes.”

Eduardo and Tabitha

Eduardo works for a business that his family owns – they rent and sell construction equipment. Tabitha translates the footnotes of the Recovery Version Bible from English to German, but she does it from home, so we basically do life together. She has become such a good friend to me that it will be hard to say goodbye (but not for 7 more weeks!) Eduardo is playful and he acts like I’m his real daughter. He xays, “we didn’t adopt you at 19 for nothing!” and when we are out he says, “We’ll talk about this at home, young lady!” I’m really thankful that there’s no awkwardness or tension between us. I live comfortably.

School is finishing up soon – if I knew an actual date I would tell you, but my teachers have managed to be supremely vague regarding the subject. So, June-ish is all I know. I have a huge final project for my culture class titled “Social Issues and Medicine in Argentina” and that’s all I have as of now – the title. I am a little overwhelmed by the broadness of it but I promised myself (right now) that I’ll start tomorrow. :-\

The last 7 weeks I would prefer to spend just living daily life and not leaving town much, but I still have a few places to see, particularly Iguazu Falls near the border of Paraguay and Brazil and Mar Chiquita, the tiny ocean about 4 hours away. (Google it!) We will see how far I can stretch my allowances.

I can actually see the finish line from here. It’s pretty foggy in Cordoba, but I can see these last 7 weeks slipping away quickly. I am really, really excited to go back home and see my family. I miss them the most because I lived with them for 2 months before coming here and I got a wittle bit attached to my mommy and daddy. In my selfish ways what I really want is some home-made Mexican food with a real salsa and some real beans and lots of tortillas. I miss clearing up my plate and telling my mom, sarcastically, “I didn’t like it.” And I miss my dad’s hearty laugh, the one that comes deep from his belly and doesn’t let you hear anything else. It used to be annoying, now it’s just precious to me.

I will continue to sit here with my belly still full from lunch, but now I’ve added some chamomile tea and a really high-level reading Spanish book that’s been avoided for a few weeks now. Later I will walk to the plaza and buy myself a gassy drink so I can finally burp.

Another picture from Chile:

On the way to Vina del mar, a.k.a. loving life, a.k.a. I have nice collarbones.

I returned from Chile yesterday morning, and I spent a big chunk of yesterday doing nothing. That was nice.

Chile was probably the best trip I’ve taken since I got here. My friends picked me up from the terminal, and we went out for Peruvian food. The next day we went to Valparaiso, took tons of pictures with the graffiti/art on the streets, then headed to Vina del Mar, the beach! We had seafood there then headed back to Santiago.

The fish says, "Chile"

Sunday I went to Cajon del Maipo with my friend Omar. We rode horses and zip-lined across the Maipo River. The best part was lunch – a “parrillada” – lots of meat and potatoes for two. Yummmm.

With my horse, Dummy.

The best part of my day.

The rest of the trip was spent in the city of Santiago, sight-seeing and hanging out with my Hungarian room-mate Klara. She was so glad that I spoke Spanish and I was so glad to have someone to roam with. There are TONS more pictures on Facebook, so go take a look.

The people of Chile weren’t quite as nice as the scenery or the food. They were a little closed-off, not talkative, not friendly, generally jerk-ish. Oh well. You can’t have everything!

I post the link to this blog on my Facebook in hopes that maybe someday a distant friend will click and maybe, just maybe, read something. But I know that doesn’t happen often, and I know that most of my readers (yes, all 3 of you) are good friends that have known me for years. I trust you and I’m willing to be honest on here because I know that you will not judge me but encourage me.

In my literature class, we talked about an author who writes about “initiation trips” – trips that make a person see who they are or who they’re not. I didn’t think this trip applied to that category until I realized that I’ve seen and done things that I never expected.

This is going to seem random, but I promise it’s all going to come together somehow. I have a little lace to tie this all up.

I’ve always had problems with my weight, my body, my self-image, and my relationship with food. Since the 3rd grade when I found out I was chubby, I’ve been on a rollercoaster of emotional and psychological stress. I had an eating disorder when I was 14-16 and I thought I had recovered. Back then I had extreme control over my eating habits, today I have no control. I am a compulsive eater, I don’t listen to my body, and occasionally I binge. And in realizing this, I came to the conclusion that I still have that same disorder from 5 years ago, it has just morphed into something else. I experience a lot of shame, guilt, frustration, and anger about it. I am angry at myself, to this day, for still struggling after all these years. It angers me that I can excel in every other part of my life, and yet I can’t get a grip on this.

Since I started college I always thought it was a matter of determination – you know, the ol’ “eat less exercise more” bit that probably does work when you don’t carry a lot of emotional baggage into your meals. But in my time here, I have noticed that my angry attitude towards myself hinders me from enjoying my life to the fullest, and I am not alright with that. I have to stop thinking that this is a personal flaw and accept that it’s a problem with my mind, my feelings, and my relationship with food. I am tired of being so hard on myself. I am bruised by my own hammer, and that’s unacceptable.

So, I called a UT counselor and she talked with me and suggested I find a therapist here in Argentina. I found one and I will start meeting with her as soon as I return from Chile. Honestly, I’m humbled to be doing this, because I have a big head about being who I am. I am proud of my accomplishments and being “the girl who goes to therapy” shrinks my ego a bit. (Okay, okay, a lot!) I am fine with that as long as I can have my sanity back. Pride is only good in small portions, like cake and ice cream.

In the busy-ness of life in Austin, I don’t think I would have ever sat down and talked to myself (or anyone else) about this. Argentina has given me that. Argentina has showed me that I do not have it all together and that I need help. I’m definitely a little heartbroken that this isn’t something I can just plow through like I do with anatomy tests, but I also know that it’s an opportunity to learn more about myself as a woman, a student, a daughter, a Christian, a friend.

Aaaanyway. Too much information, I know. Hey! I’ll be in Chile on Thursday afternoon unless the roads get closed because of snow. Snow! I will make sure to take lots of pictures. I see oceans in my near future!

Oh oh! This is something I read recently. Excuse the language and the sharpness, but I really like it.

“Self-loathing is not a fucking character-builder. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you better. It’s just an ever-deepening, creepy-ass trap; a trap that is a huge moneymaker for corporations that do not have and never will have good intentions. You’re not disgusting. You’re not freakish. You’re not ugly. And you’re never going to be perfect. And holy shit, that is so okay. —Jane from Casual Blasphemies