Day 9 - COMMUNITY SERVICE
Hola!
Today we volunteered to do some service work with some fellow ISA students. We met at the University at 9:45 am and headed to the bus stop. The bus system here is CRAZY! Theres a million different bus lines, they only stop if you hail them like a taxi, they don't always go where they say they go, sometimes they just don't stop, and sometimes they just don't come. All 20 of us and our director tried to get the right bus for an hour! Finally one stopped and was going where we wanted to go. It was then about a 30 minute bus ride to Vincent de Lopez. It is a beautiful green park, with walking trails and biking roads, along side the ocean. We met up with some Argentine Hippies, Vamos a hacerlo Argentina. They gave us each a cool orange vest, a trash bag, some instructions, and off we went! We all lined along the bay and picked up bottles and trash. We were told to take the bottle caps off the bottles and put them in a separate place because they give them to a local woman that sells them in order to feed her family. There was tons of trash and the terrain was rough and full of mush, rocks, sticks, and even SNAKES! I was the first one to spot the first snake and we watched the Argentine volunteers try and crush it with the rocks surrounding us! But... it didn't quite work and it only angered the snake more as we watched it stretch up, with its mouth wide open, angered at the people. After about two hours of cleaning up trash, 100 full trash bags, and 500 or so bottle caps we all lined up for a picture. After the picture we got in a circle and shared our experiences and other local community organizations spoke as well. There was about 30 of us total, 20 of us being students from the US, so they were super thankful for our participation. Slowly but surely reflecting the goodness of the United States people, so the Argentines stop having so much hatred towards US as a whole. After our chat, we got back on the bus and headed home. We passed ESMA, an argentine museum, and our director told us we can't miss it! It was used as an illegal, secret detention center during the so-called National Reorganization Process (Dirty War) of Argentina's 1976–1983 military dictatorship and apparently the US played a huge role in the forced disappearance, torture and illegal execution of thousands of Argentinians, so thats why there isn't the best relationship between us. We got off the bus stop and went to lunch at a local Argentinian restaurant with some friends. Harper, a 60 year old lady that is a student in our program, came with us. She said she just keeps staying in school in order to not pay off student loans, which we found very interesting. She said she figures she'll die before she's finished with her PHD and so then she'll be off the hook! She has a lot of knowledge and is super interesting to talk to. After we got home, I took a nap and Mads did her homework. Marite was out AGAIN tonight, so she left our dinner in the fridge! We microwaved some bubba burgers, ate a nice little salad, and now we are tucked in bed!
Hasta Luego,
Taylor
Today we volunteered to do some service work with some fellow ISA students. We met at the University at 9:45 am and headed to the bus stop. The bus system here is CRAZY! Theres a million different bus lines, they only stop if you hail them like a taxi, they don't always go where they say they go, sometimes they just don't stop, and sometimes they just don't come. All 20 of us and our director tried to get the right bus for an hour! Finally one stopped and was going where we wanted to go. It was then about a 30 minute bus ride to Vincent de Lopez. It is a beautiful green park, with walking trails and biking roads, along side the ocean. We met up with some Argentine Hippies, Vamos a hacerlo Argentina. They gave us each a cool orange vest, a trash bag, some instructions, and off we went! We all lined along the bay and picked up bottles and trash. We were told to take the bottle caps off the bottles and put them in a separate place because they give them to a local woman that sells them in order to feed her family. There was tons of trash and the terrain was rough and full of mush, rocks, sticks, and even SNAKES! I was the first one to spot the first snake and we watched the Argentine volunteers try and crush it with the rocks surrounding us! But... it didn't quite work and it only angered the snake more as we watched it stretch up, with its mouth wide open, angered at the people. After about two hours of cleaning up trash, 100 full trash bags, and 500 or so bottle caps we all lined up for a picture. After the picture we got in a circle and shared our experiences and other local community organizations spoke as well. There was about 30 of us total, 20 of us being students from the US, so they were super thankful for our participation. Slowly but surely reflecting the goodness of the United States people, so the Argentines stop having so much hatred towards US as a whole. After our chat, we got back on the bus and headed home. We passed ESMA, an argentine museum, and our director told us we can't miss it! It was used as an illegal, secret detention center during the so-called National Reorganization Process (Dirty War) of Argentina's 1976–1983 military dictatorship and apparently the US played a huge role in the forced disappearance, torture and illegal execution of thousands of Argentinians, so thats why there isn't the best relationship between us. We got off the bus stop and went to lunch at a local Argentinian restaurant with some friends. Harper, a 60 year old lady that is a student in our program, came with us. She said she just keeps staying in school in order to not pay off student loans, which we found very interesting. She said she figures she'll die before she's finished with her PHD and so then she'll be off the hook! She has a lot of knowledge and is super interesting to talk to. After we got home, I took a nap and Mads did her homework. Marite was out AGAIN tonight, so she left our dinner in the fridge! We microwaved some bubba burgers, ate a nice little salad, and now we are tucked in bed!
Hasta Luego,
Taylor
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