Saturday, November 9, 2013

Traveling in Argentina

Curious woodpecker in the mountains
After our six weeks of volunteer work in Salta we are now exploring the northwest corner of Argentina, and enjoying wonderful weather, good food and wine, comfortable lodgings, and long hikes in interesting and beautiful mountains and valleys.

Our last few days of work in Salta were quite hectic. Lin made purchases of educational games and books as a donation to the foundation where she was working. Sandy gave his final lessons and established plants in the garden at his two comedores. We both had touching farewells and presentations of mementoes. We hope that our work will have a more than transitory effect – certainly the signs for sustainability are good. We also had an enjoyable farewell lunch on Saturday with our FSD friends.

We have been struck over and over with how safe Argentina feels and how friendly the local people are. In the little town of Cafayate where we stayed for three nights, doors are rarely locked and bicycles are left leaning against trees or walls apparently without any fear that they will be gone when the owner returns. 
Confusing keys
Argentinian house and room keys are rather peculiar…they appear symmetrical, but they only “work” if inserted correctly in the lock. We have had two incidents when we could not get into our lodgings and had to climb in through the window. At our home in Salta the lock was “stuck”, but luckily there was someone inside who kindly opened the shutters and passed out a chair which we put on the sidewalk so that we could climb in through the window. It was a little trickier in Cafayate, where the hostel owner had forgotten to give us a key and had locked up for the evening. No one answered our frantic hammering and shouting, so eventually Sandy removed some screen and squeezed into our room through the window. Several people saw us but nobody seemed to think it was out of the ordinary.

Getting ready to sample some local products
Cafayate is about 3 hours from Salta on a bus which takes you through a spectacular canyon to a high dry valley that boasts 320 days of sunshine a year and a large wine industry – reputedly the highest vineyards in the world with some at over 2000 meters (6,500 ft.). We spent our two days there hiking up the sides of the valley through vineyards and desert-like scrub, and visiting bodegas, wine bars, and a museum devoted to wine and grapes. They are famous for a strong white wine that smells fruity and tastes dry and crisp called “Torrontes”, which we had never tasted before we came to Argentina, and we have become big fans. We hope we’ll be able to find it in the US at an affordable price. Here it is the equivalent of US $3.50 a bottle, though some are much more. 
Loud parrot
Cafayate also had some interesting bird life, including a nonstop screeching chorus of rather dull-colored burrowing parrots, which descend on the town at dawn every day and go back to their nests in the mud cliffs of the canyon at 5 PM sharp.

Our second stop was Tafi del Valle, even higher in altitude, and accessed by bus over a somewhat terrifying 3000 meter (10,000 ft) mountain pass appropriately called “Infiernillo” (Little Hell). Tafi is a spread out little town of mostly summer cottages, where people escape the heat of the pampas. It is very green. We are regularly surprised by the amount of water, streams and springs in areas which seem to have little rainfall. Most of the rain appears to fall in the mountains and then flow underground down into the valleys. As a result there is plenty of pasture for horses and cattle and water for lawns and gardens. Again we spent our days on long hikes in the cool mountain air. We are nearly always the only people walking on the trails, though we regularly see local people in small adobe houses and farms. On one hike up to a beautiful waterfall we were thrilled to see two huge (10 ft. wingspan) condors soaring above us. 
Jesuit cheese
We also happened on a small “estancia” founded by the Jesuits in 1779, where they still make delicious cheeses from the milk of the local cows. We could not resist buying a half-kilo cheese and eating large chunks then and there. Local buses to and from the high valleys stop when flagged down and are full of friendly people curious to see two elderly gringos with backpacks. Another walk along the shore of a small lake took us to a huge cemetery with graves covered in vividly colorful plastic flowers, most likely especially abundant because the locals have just celebrated the Day of the Dead. 
Menhirs, from about 1,000 BC
In a small town with an archaeological park we saw over 100 “menhirs”, of which the meaning and purpose has been lost in time. They were quite similar to menhirs we have seen in Brittany, but not so old – the Stone Age went on far longer here than in Europe.

Today (Saturday) we traveled from the high mountain valleys down into the plains for a long bus ride through endless countryside – with a few cultivated areas and some with huge herds of cattle. It really brought home how empty this country is with only 40 million people in a country with 1/3rd of the area of the US, and most of them live around Buenos Aires. (Argentina has 38 people per square mile compared with the UK’s 650 and the US 84). We spotted three greater rheas – huge flightless ostrich-like birds nearly 6 feet tall in the shade of a tree. Pity we couldn't get a photo.

Tomorrow we are off to Cachi -- another small mountain village -- for more hikes and relaxation before spending a couple of days in Salta and then heading home.


Argentina is full of freely wandering animals, like these horses



...and these donkeys, near our favorite icecream shop
...and this fierce looking bull, which turned out to be quite docile.




Monday, October 28, 2013

Last Days in Salta

Our last week of volunteer work in Salta is now upon us, and we have a lot to do before we finish – complete our projects, write final reports, have our exit interviews, and more.

Tea on the patio with Isabel
Argentina on Sunday was again in the grip of election fever, this time for the national elections, after weeks of campaigning. Every flat surface was been plastered with posters, which were then covered over with rival posters or defaced with unflattering amendments. Interestingly, all politicking ceased, by law, on Thursday night, presumably to allow two days of quiet reflection before the vote.  It looks like the Kirschner party has lost some seats, so the prospect of a change in the constitution to allow Christina to run for a third term has receded. The local political scene is still firmly in the grip of the pro-Kirschner/Peronist party which, to the outsider looks like a family affair. The State Governor’s brother, and the city mayor’s daughter have both been elected to the national Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to the House of Representatives) – very cosy. Argentinians are compelled to vote in their elections, so many were traveling on Sunday to the place where they are registered, and many businesses were closed.

Planting herbs in the comedor garden wall
This past week we planted herbs and ornamental plants in “our” comedor garden and started work in a second comedor in a more distant and more deprived barrio in the south of the city. Our presentations are becoming more polished. At least, the audience does not wince quite so much at Sandy’s grammatical errors and wayward pronunciation in Spanish. Next week, after delays awaiting FSD approval and appropriate signatures, Lin hopes to be able to purchase the instructional books and games that she plans to donate to her before-school program.

Children at play at the ANPUY center (where Lin works)
We continue to enjoy Salta and its varied and sophisticated cultural life, with two incredibly inexpensive chamber music concerts and a trip to the ballet in the past week. The ballet – Giselle – was remarkably well performed before a very appreciative audience. The chamber concert of challenging music by Prokofiev and Shostakovitch was excellent, and the audience was mostly young people – unlike audiences at the Kimmel Center, where graying and bald heads predominate.


Ancient wine press made of leather, designed for stomping
On Saturday, we visited the excellent Museo del Norte, in the old Cabildo building -- the residence of the Spanish Governor during colonial times. It has a good collection, and explanation of the life in pre-colonial times when many stone-age tribes, and eventually the Inca, inhabited the area. The Inca, who were like the Romans of South America, were only here for about 60 years before the Spaniards came along and changed all the rules.

Rail line to Chile through the mountains

Today (Sunday) we took the local bus (US $0.30 for a 55-minute ride) to the little town of Campo Quijano at the foot of the Andes. It is particularly well known as the place where the Tren de las Nubes (Train to the Clouds) starts its ascent of the Andes, from 4000 feet to over 14,000 feet in about 80 miles. The track is used only once a week by a train designed for tourists – the rest of the time it makes an excellent hiking trail, though few people seem to take advantage of it. Incidentally, the track, which is a marvel of engineering was designed by a Philadelphia-born engineer, Richard Maury. We enjoyed a peaceful and gently rising hike along the track, surrounded by interesting birds, trees in flower, small farms, and increasingly desolate mountain slopes. We were told that condors are occasionally sighted, but we did not walk far enough into the mountains to reach their habitat.
Railway bridge over raging river

With the prospect of our work coming to an end, we are looking forward to 12 days or so of traveling round northwest Argentina. We will travel by local buses and stay in the clean, comfortable – and cheap – hostels of which every town seems to have a wide choice.

















Gaucho girl in Salta's central square


Curious cow near the railroad track

Old steam engine from Peru-Chile line


Making dough for empanadas in Campo Quijano

Odd birds beside the railway line
Guaria cuckoo

Whistling heron - though it did not whistle for us.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Work and Play in Salta

It is hard to believe that we have been living and working in Salta for 4 weeks and that we have only 2 weeks left to work on our projects. In addition to our work we are getting to know the city of Salta and its environs better, and appreciating more of the qualities of Argentine life.

Sandy’s Work
Sandy is working for the “Subsectretaria de Relaciones con Organizaciones Sociales de Acción Voluntaria de la Gobiernio de la Cuidad de Salta” (Subsecretariat for Relationships with Social Organizations of Voluntary Activities of the Government of the City of Salta) -- a very long name for a small Department in the municipal government of Salta. Local government, indeed all levels of government in Argentina, is reputedly rife with favoritism, nepotism, and corruption and there are certainly stories in the papers and stories passed around in conversation on the topic. “His” department, however, is staffed with dedicated and hard-working people who are working with volunteer organizations and NGOs to improve the life of the most deprived sector of Saltenos.

Children with pots of seeds at comedor
Initially, it looked as if his work would be technical and involve developing a web site to allow the local organizations to learn about and communicate with each other. However, this was soon thrown over in favor of a more practical, and from his point of view more directly satisfying, project.

Around the city, in the poorer barrios, are about 70 small food kitchens (comedores) which provide local children with at least one nourishing meal per day. The food leans heavily towards the standard Argentine carbo-carnivorous diet. Vegetables are in short supply, partly because they are expensive to buy, and partly due to lack of familiarity. So, Master Gardener diploma in hand, he was asked to develop a short course on vegetable gardening, and to create small gardens in two of the comedores, to serve as models for others.
Sandy talking to the mothers.


For the past couple of weeks and for the next two, he has been drawing up lesson plans (in Spanish!), creating visual aids, and buying seeds and tools. So far he has given 2 lessons at one comedor, with Lin’s help, to enthusiastic children and their equally encouraging mothers. The children have planted tomato, pepper and zucchini seeds in little pots and watched them sprout, and have helped to lay out a small raised bed in the back yard, where they have planted more vegetable seeds. A couple of the mothers are particularly interested and are getting a bit more training, so that they will be able to spread the word to the other comedores sometime in the future. Overall it has been very rewarding and fun, though it stretches his Spanish to (and beyond) its limit.

Lin’s Work
Kids playing at ANPUY center
Hugo - one of Lin's pupils

Lin works with disadvantaged kids attending an NGO in the north of the city. They are selected from their schools to attend a daily program that compensates for their poor or dysfunctional family life, with the goal of keeping them in school and raising their grades so that their educational future is more secure and successful. They are given breakfast, help with homework, and sporting or educational games and activities all morning, since school is open only in the afternoons. They depend on city and government funding, as well as on volunteers and sponsors for support. They have their own property, a large schoolroom with a couple of smaller rooms and an office, outdoor restrooms, and a playground with a jungle gym.


Evenings and Weekends
We are trying, along with the other two FSD interns, to take full advantage of Salta and its environs, which have a lot to offer. Once our six weeks with FSD is over we look forward to taking more three-and four-day bus trips to more distant tourist sites in Argentina’s northwest, before we head back to Philly in mid-November.

Music
We were really impressed with the local orchestra, which is reputedly one of the best in Argentina. 50 pesos ($6 US at the unofficial exchange rate) got us front and center tickets for an excellent program of classical music, which was completely different from the advertised program – very enjoyable nevertheless. The highlight was a virtuoso performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto by a Kazakh musician, who followed up with 5 encores with an increasingly Argentine flavor, ending up with tangos and a folk tune that had the audience humming along.
Trio after Albinoni performance


A few days ago, there was a free concert by a chamber trio playing 6 suites by Albinoni – again well played and enthusiastically received.

“Our” Isabel continues to encourage us to go to one of the folk music clubs in the center of town to hear the local traditional music, but the start time for live music is midnight -- a little too late for us oldies.

Trips
Last Monday was a public holiday, one of Argentina’s nineteen per year. In a politically correct progression, it used to be the “Day of Discovery”, commemorating Columbus’ arrival in the New World, then it became the “Day of the (Hispanic) Race”, and now it is the “Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity”.

Our cabana in Tilcara hostel

We decided to take advantage of the 3-day weekend to visit Tilcara, a small desert town high in the mountains about 135 miles north of here. (We are still trying to get used to the idea that “north” means “hotter”). After an interesting 5-hour bus trip in a very comfortable air-conditioned double decker, we were dropped off at the side of the road into a scene that was straight out of a western movie – blazing sun, blue skies, dust blowing through the streets of low adobe houses, and organ pipe cactus on dry rocky hillsides in the background. Our hostel, where we were at least 40 years older than most of the guests and the owners, was charming and our accommodation was “upgraded” to a beautiful little cabana, with its own solar heated running water, in the corner of the garden.

Multicolored rocks in Tilcara

Tilcara was fascinating. We thought it was like Santa Fe in New Mexico must have been 50 years ago, with a burgeoning artists’ colony, fascinating Spanish colonial buildings, pre-Columbian archeological sites, a mixture of native languages and cultures, low adobe buildings, and desert mountains on all sides under an intense blue sky. We spent our two and a half days visiting the Pucara – a restored pre-Inca fort on a hill outside of town, the Devil’s Throat – a slightly terrifying gorge reached after a 5 km uphill hike, and various historical and archeological museums. 

Making a bee line for a cactus flower
The town also boasted some excellent restaurants, though we did not partake of the local llama-steak specialties. However, we must admit that we spent quite a lot of time relaxing in the hostel garden, which overlooked the town and had some lovely birds we had never seen before.


Other day trips have involved more hiking, with a bus trip to the Quebrada of San Lorenzo – a gorge about 10 miles out of town, and a longer trip to the Dique of Cabra Corral – a huge man-made lake about 30 miles south. Our trip to the latter was on a local bus through fertile countryside, with tobacco farms, cattle ranches and gauchos on horseback, dressed in wide black sombreros, leather waistcoats and chaps, with elaborately decorated knives in their belts and ropes on their saddles. Sadly the bus whisked us past before we could take any photos.

Musicians in Tilcara playing pan-pipes made from plastic plumbing supplies

Dique de Cabra Corral - huge man-made lake in a very dry area




Tuesday, October 15, 2013

On the streets of Salta

As we walk round the streets of Salta – and we are doing a lot of walking – we are struck by many interesting and unusual sights. Rather than write a long blog this week we are sharing some photos with a few comments.

For Sale 
Would you buy this car?


If you want to indicate that your car is for sale, no words are needed. A bottle on the roof, often filled with a brightly colored liquid is all you that is required.

Wrecks



The Argentine government has a strict policy of making everything in Argentina and importing very little. There are a few foreign – mostly French – car companies with subsidiaries in Argentina, but even their products are very expensive. As a result the streets are full of old cars, as well as wrecks from which pieces are slowly cannibalized.

Election Posters

Would you vote for this man?

 Last Sunday was the day of the provincial elections, which everyone looked on as not very important compared with the upcoming national elections in 2 weeks. Those will tell if Cristinita’s government has enough support to continue its increasingly unpopular and risky policies. We enjoy looking at the posters of the candidates, which invariably have a photo plus a banal and meaningless slogan. Some of the candidates look as if they do not bother to shave or have something to hide.

Strawberries



It is strawberry season here and at many street corners there are barrows piled high with dark red strawberries, which fill the air with an intoxicating scent. 20 pesos for 2 kilos = US $0.80 per pound.

Dogs


There are a lot of dogs, and evidence of dogs in Salta – and very few cats. Dogs are everywhere. Some people keep them on their roofs or balconies, from where they bark at unsuspecting pedestrians. Because of all the dogs, the trash is put out for pickup in elevated baskets. 

Our House



This is the house we are staying in. The front is still under construction, and may always be. The back half and upstairs are new and mostly finished. Isabel is our hostess -- a sweet, clever and entertaining lady with strong opinions. Lin and she get on very well.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Living and working in Salta

Lin admiring Simpsons' influences
We are enjoying Salta’s warm spring days and cool nights. Everyone here tells us that Salta has a perfect climate and so far we cannot disagree. We have had no rain, so we mostly walk into town and round the city streets, which keeps us fit and allows us to learn more about the city.  There are lots of street-events in various public squares, with music, craft and food stalls, clowns and costumed characters, usually collecting money for some charity or NGO. There is a lot of individual enterprise, too, with people selling socks or jewelry, fruit from a cart, or woolen hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters and blankets.

Sandy admiring carved convent door
The bus system is extensive and inexpensive. You have to be ready to flag down the bus or the driver will drive right on past. The tickets work a bit like EZ-Pass in Pennsylvania. You wave your prepaid card at a little yellow box when you get on the bus, and a ticket magically appears. A ticket inspector may appear at any moment, too.


Crossing at the intersections involves taking your life in your hands and hoping you can get to the other side before you get hit. Apparently drivers give priority to the right, but the rule is mostly ignored when they approach an intersection, and only occasionally will a driver stop for a pedestrian. Surprisingly we have seen only a few accidents, but many near misses.
Salta's wedding cake cathedral at night

Our Work
With encouragement from the FSD office, we are beginning to put a project together, and rely on Google translation to help us express the ideas in Spanish. We have been reading books FSD recommends and lends us about aid and development in poor countries. 

Sandy is working on a plan for small community gardens at food-kitchens which provide children from poor areas with their only meal of the day. He is also developing a social web site for the more than 500 NGOs in the city, so that they can share information about who they are and what they are doing.
Sandy can walk to the municipal offices where his boss is based, but because of the disruptive upcoming elections he finds it easier to work on his laptop from home. His business meetings usually take place in a café over a breakfast consisting of juice, coffee, seltzer and mini-croissants.

Lin’s work is a long commute, with a twenty-minute walk and a thirty-five minute bus ride. She is helping with underprivileged children at a center which serves as a safe refuge for them to play and study in when they are not in school. The public schools are open for half days only, and many children drop out of school with poor literacy skills. The program helps to keep them in school and some get scholarships to high schools. They may also benefit from a sort of 4-H program and small vegetable garden for learning about nutrition and growing healthy foods. We’ll see what we have time for.

Food
The food in Argentina is largely protein and carbohydrates, though we have seen a wide variety of fruit and vegetables in stores and markets, and salads on restaurant menus. It is strawberry season and there are carts piled high on many corners with the most delicious dark red fruit – 20 pesos (3 dollars) for 2 kilos! Of course, they eat a lot of beef, and pizza is very popular. Salta is famous for its empanadas -- little semicircular pies filled with cheese, corn, chicken or ground beef, which are then grilled and served with a tomato and onion sauce. Argentinians drink a lot of Tang and soda, and all drinks (except the delicious local wines) are loaded with sugar – they even add extra sugar to their soda. They think we are rather weird to drink coffee or tea without sugar. 

Selling mates and bombillas
The local social drink is mate, which is served with great ceremony. The mate (a small wooden cup or gourd) is filled with yerba (the leaves and stems of a bitter herb related to holly) and some sugar. They then add boiling water, which you suck from the bottom of the cup with a metal straw called a bombilla. The same cup and straw are refilled many times and passed around among the guests. The drink is bitter, sweet and stimulating.

Breakfast is a token meal of tea or coffee with toast or crackers. Lunch is a big meal eaten at about 2:00 PM. You are then meant to wait until dinner which is usually eaten after – often well after – 9 PM. However, there is usually a light snack at around 6 PM to tide you over.

Living
Business students promoting their entrepreneurship
We are loving our new home-stay. The family is warm and welcoming. They are well-educated and enjoy talking to us in Spanish, which is helping us to become more fluent. They live in a large house they have been remodeling for the last couple of years. Like most houses in Argentina, it seems to be in a permanent state of construction  Sandy and I share a good sized room, with two single beds, a small table and two chairs. The floors and bathrooms are tiled, and there is a grass area in the back patio. They have two sons, of 19 and 13, living here, though they also have grown-up children in college and elsewhere. Their puppy is an adorable one-year old brown pit-bull who is very strong and friendly.

We have been here only two nights so far, having moved house after a week with a single working mother and her sixteen-year-old son, two dogs, a borrowed cat, and problems with keys, meals, and internet access…a distinctly forgettable experience. Our new host family provides a good Wi-Fi connection, and delicious meals, with fresh fruit and vegetables.

We are going to a classical music concert of the renowned Salta Orchestra in the municipal theater with the other FSD interns on Friday night. It starts at 9:30 PM and we have been warned to expect some audience participation that would be frowned upon in Verizon Hall in Philadelphia. We will probably take a bus ride outside the city over the weekend, as there are parks and canyons to visit not too far away.


This weekend Argentina is holding the first of three elections in the next two months. This one is for the provincial governments, and posters with photos of many more or less trustworthy-looking characters are plastered around the town. Voting is obligatory and citizens may be fined or suffer other sanctions if they do not vote.

Street happenings

More dancing in the street

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Salta: First Impressions

We are now living with a family in Salta in Northwest Argentina, where we have completed our orientation for six weeks of volunteering under the auspices of the Foundation for Sustainable Development.

The City
Salta Main Square
Salta is a beautiful city…often called “Salta La Linda” (Salta the Beautiful) by Argentinians. It is in a wide, flat valley in the foothills of the Andes at about 4000 feet above sea level (Click for map). We are not far from some very high mountains, but we have not seen them yet. The population of the city and its suburbs is about 600,000, so it is quite small by US or South American standards. The first thing that strikes you is the straight streets and the low, colorfully painted colonial buildings. Salta was founded in 1582 and is full of reminders of its Spanish colonial past. It feels quite quiet and safe after the bustle of Cusco and the crazy chaos of Jodhpur – our two previous volunteering venues.

Salta: San Francisco Church
The Weather
We arrived in Salta on the first day of spring -- it was warm and dry, and the air clear and fresh. However, it is still early spring: the trees have no leaves, and spring bulbs and tree blossoms are just starting to emerge. The next two days brought a nasty shock: it became cool, breezy and cloudy with nighttime temperatures in the low 30s. We are glad we brought our thick socks, sweaters and windbreakers. However, today is already warmer and drier, and we expect it to continue to warm up as the summer approaches. The climate is classified as “subtropical highland” with a decent amount of rainfall, though there are areas quite close that are high desert like in southern Arizona.

Where we are staying
Our first night in Salta was in a charming and comfortable B&B opposite an ancient and still active convent, with equally ancient and still active nuns. Our next two nights were in a hostel on a noisier street, where we were put up courtesy of the FSD – we had about 40 years on the other guests, who were friendly and from all over the world. Although the word “hostel” conjures up Spartan conditions, we had a comfortable private room with a large bed and plentiful hot water. Finally, a few hours ago, we moved to the house where we will be staying for the next 6 weeks, with our host, Liliana, her son Santiago (age 16), 2 dogs and one cat. Like many Salta houses, it is small and all one story, and is about a half hour’s walk from the town center. Time will tell how this will work for us.

Eating out
This is Argentina, so dinner is very late, though not as late here as it was in Buenos Aires. Our first night, we went to a restaurant which turned out to be fantastically popular, with a line outside waiting to enjoy the excellent and very plentiful food. Argentinian food has many influences – especially Spanish and Italian, and of course the main ingredient is beef. They drink a lot of lager-type beer, and strongly flavored red wines like Malbec, which are grown in this region and to the south in Mendoza. The past two days, we have been eating in various restaurants courtesy of the FSD. Notable is the absence of vegetables and correspondingly large amounts of carbohydrates and protein. Yesterday, when we are all feeling cold and damp, we rapidly warmed up by sampling the famous winter soup of the region, called “locro” – beans, corn, sausage, and pieces of meat (with bones) all boiled together for hours, and eaten sprinkled with green onions and dried red peppers.

Argentina
General Guemes - Salta's hometown hero
Everyone we talk to seems to agree…Argentina’s politics and economy are in a mess. The government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, whom everyone refers to as “Cristina”, appears to arouse extremes of devotion or dislike. Inflation is 25% or 30% thought the government claims it is just 4% or 5%. In the center of Buenos Aires, gridlocked traffic is caused by street protests by one group or another every day. There are elections coming up soon, so every billboard is covered with posters for a variety of national and local candidates for office. Buenos Aires is noticeably more rundown and graffiti-covered than it was when we were here about eight years ago.

Money
Because Cristina has banned many imports and made others prohibitively expensive, in addition to restricting the ownership of dollars and other strong currencies, there is a huge black market. Everywhere in BA, and to a lesser extent here in Salta, there are touts on the street whispering that they want to buy dollars at 10 and 11 pesos to the dollar. The official rate is 5.5. The “blue dollar” exchange rate is so prevalent, that it is even listed on the front page of the main anti-Cristina newspapers along with the official rate. We wish we had brought more dollars in cash with us so that we could take advantage of the unofficial rates, but apparently you run the risk of being palmed off with counterfeit bills.

Work
The past two days, have been introduced to our new surroundings and briefed on the social and economic conditions in Salta, working with NGOs, living with a local family, getting round the city etc. The two FSD office staff here are extremely helpful and professional, and have done a lot to prepare us and help us feel at home. Our Spanish is getting a real work-out and will become even more important once we meet our host NGO organizations tomorrow. Actually, Sandy is not working directly with an NGO but an office in the Salta state government which deals with relations with NGOs. He is going to be giving presentations (in Spanish) to NGO leaders on using the internet, setting up web sites, social media etc. (Gulp). Lin is also meeting “her” NGO tomorrow. It focuses on educational outreach programs for children in an impoverished northern barrio.

Communication

Speaking of Spanish…in addition to trying hard to remember all our Spanish lessons, we need to understand the local accent and different word usage. A word like “pollo” sounds like “pojo”, a word like “rico” sounds like “zhico”. All the fruits and vegetables have different names and they use “vos” instead of “tu” when addressing people familiarly…and everyone is addressed familiarly. Finally, there is a lot of kissing when you meet and when you leave…one smacker near the right ear is obligatory.