Sustainable Flexibility

Coming back from Argentina and settling back into hectic life in Williamsburg created a weird disconnect within my life. One of my well intentioned drunk friends gave me some odd advice at my welcome home party. "There are two kathleen's now...an argentinian version of you and an american one. You have to just do the best you can to be the American version of yourself." I didn't realize how good I have become at multi-tasking, compartmentalizing and essentially minimizing certain facets of personality depending on the circumstances. I also didn't realize how truly exhausting it is on all levels. What I do in one part of my life is inextricably linked to what I do in another part of my life.

I had a holistic epiphany during a particularly difficult Vinyasa Yoga class on Wednesday. Vinyasa is a completely new type of yoga for me and really challenges me in a way that I know will improve my normal hot or bikram yoga practices. This class was being taught by the most ridiculously talented instructor I have ever seen. The things Staci can do with her body are Cirque De Soliel quality...truly. Anyways, my life perspective was tweaked during triangle pose on a random wednesday thanks to this woman's expertise. She commented to me that because my backbends have gotten so deep lately, I am compensating by essentially collapsing my shoulders in alot of positions.

Over and over, people have told me "If you're too open minded, your brains will fall out". I have recently began to realize that you can be too flexible in yoga and in life if you ignore your body's subtle cues that tell you where your limits are. I have always been an odd combination of flexible and problematically stubborn so limits, deadlines, and structure have been constant enemies of mine. I went to a seminar yesterday on "mindfullness" as a healing practice. Mindfullness is a part of holistic healing that focuses on truly engaging in the moment. It's harder than it seems.

A quote that particularly resonated with me-

"Many people have learned to block out feelings, or never learned how to be aware of some, which means they often don't recognize an emotion in themselves until it's become extreme. This does not mean that one lacks emotional responses to things that can happen, just that one's emotions are mostly operating out of awareness and on autopilot."

It goes on to talk about how sometimes we do things either consciously or subconsciously to dull those emotions, so they tend to escalate. It makes sense, that we get addicted in a sense, to whatever type of person, substance, food, or situation we put ourselves into. These are my random ramblings of a busy mind, but sometimes putting things in writing makes them more clear. On my agenda for the week is preparing for a debate on psychoactive drugs, a research paper on meditation as a behavioral modification to manage stress disorders, preparing for a presentation on implications of head coverings for muslim women in france, a tab at the college delly with my volleyball team to celebrate winning moonball, my last meeting as an executive for Every 2 Minutes and of course, plenty of yoga!

My roomate Megan goes to yoga sometimes as well (Doug went once before he swore it off, and billy wants to go but he is too busy training to save lives as a military man) and made a comment one evening this week. "Oh, I think I'm going to go to yoga tomorrow." I enthusiastically said, "Oh, I'm going to go too!" and Billy and Doug laughed and said, "Are you also eating lunch tomorrow Kathleen?" The sad part of it is that my yoga practice is more crucial to my happiness than eating lunch would be.

La concha del arquero!! World Cup madness and life in Argentina

I have been absolutely terrible about updating this blog lately which I am sure that I will end up regretting because this has EASILY been the most fun segment of my trip. Some nights michelle, Eliana and I will cry because we think about how much leaving eachother is going to suck but they are always brief and mixed with actual laughter because we realize how ridiculous it is to waste our time here with tears.

So what's been going on these last few weeks? Emily's parents came last week and took the girls out to Pizza Bacci (Oh that savory deep crusted spinache pizza is like anything else I have ever tasted) and it was a strange little connection back to charlottesville/american culture. They were very sweet and enjoyed hearing our perspective on Argentine culture after being introduced to it themselves.

BEING HERE DURING THE WORLD CUP IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!! There is so much excitement and argentine paraphenalia all over the place and the city literally shuts down when a game is going on. Last Sunday for the Greece game we went over to Yami's house to watch with the entire extended family and were slightly late (Argentime does not apply to soccer...). Isidro requested that we bring his soccer ball, so we were dribbling through a lifeless la plata on the way. Argentine spanish is already very intensely expressive and when you add in emotionally charged soccer games to that you have a recipe for some very colorful expressions. My host family is just as fun to watch as Maradona is on the sidelines. Michelle and I left about an hour after the game had finished to go do work in Oliverio's (our favorite cafe...the waitresses now all talk to us like friends) and still the streets were ALIVE with excitement, blue and white, and lots of car horns.

This Friday night was a pretty laid back one, we came home from class at around 830 pm (Don't even get me started on how painful that class is...we would die if it werent for the 15 minute break in between) to find the table filled with snacks, beer and family. It actually rather fondly reminded me of a Doyle family gathering :-) We all hung out for a long time and I have a particularly funny strand of pictures taken by or at the insistance of Francisca to remind me of the night.

We didn't get to bed till late despite not actually going out anywhere so we naturally spent half of saturday sleeping. Michelle opted to stay home from dinner and eat leftovers as they were having a seafood bake at Yami's house and she doesnt like seafood. That was her loss, it was DELICIOUS, and I even tried kalimari for the first time. A couple that they were friends with was there so naturally I spent alot of time playing with their kids. One of them was a tiny child who couldn't have been more than 1 and a half and could still sort of sing the K'naan world cup song, it was one of the most adorable things I've seen in a long time.

Saturday night was a BLAST thanks to David's planning. Me chrissy michelle and david met up at Eliana's house, drank a cafe irlandes to warm us up from the cold weather (Chrissy was a bartender in England so knows the right proportions for everything), we split a taxi to Alexia's (an awesome french exchange student) where everyone was meeting to hang out before the birthday party. David had brought Fernet Menta (a mint variety of this herbal liquor that's so popular here) so we mixed that with sprite and the night was off to a phenomenal start. A pair of other french exchange students and argentines came to meet up with us in our efforts to safely imbibe before the night of dancing, of course.

Around 3 we got a text from Alvaro's friend that said the bar was already filling up so we had better hurry (we later found out that was code for- it's a little empty here and I want the rest of my friends to come). But we left alexia's around 3 and walked the few rainy blocks to the boliche. Since david had already got us our entradas we didn't have to wait in the line or pay the cover charge and went straight to the dance floor. Going out in Argentina is quite an experience...the drinks are cheap, the music is loud and highly danceable but the gender dynamics are very different than what I'm used to. I'm not sure if it's a function of being in a city or being in a foreign city but there tends to be large groups of guys that all come together and large groups of girls without much intermingling except for explicit romantic/sexual intentions. We were one of the few truly co-ed groups there i noticed, but as most of us were paired up within or outside of the group it wasnt that noticeable. We have learned that Argentine males don't appreciate subtle rejection and as soon as they hear you speak and realize that you are foreign you are going to have to forget being tactful unless you want to invite their chamuyendo (sweet talking...haha). At first we would talk to almost anyone just because it seemed like the nice and respectful thing to do, but now we'll pretty much respond to advances with. "Gracias, me voy con mis amigos, no te quiero hablar mas...chau" Within the cultural context if they are going to be aggressive with their advances it is only fitting to provide an equally decisive response!

That is not to put any judgement on what seems to be a culturally ingrained way of gender interactions. We've had the luck of meeting great Argentine boys who treat us with all the respect in the world. There just seems to be a more direct way of approaching things which is pretty refreshing. While we were watching the world cup game on Sunday (everything in this post seems to relate to the world cup!!) after our night out with the Bacci clan I was joking with michelle about a text that she got saying- SOS HERMOSA (you're beautiful!) and our 5 year old cousin chimes back- "No mas que vos!!" (no more than you!!). We died of laughter...they truly are socialized to know how to flirt since birth it seems. I don't think I have felt so stereotypically argentine as when I was holding a mate and cheering for Tevez' goal after just having eaten asado.

I love my life in Argentina so much!!! I miss and love my family and friends from the US. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to my older brother Kevin who turned 23 yesterday, Love you!

Green Mango Gatorade

I was going to go for Blue Ice Gatorade. It would have been a safe and familiar choice like a chai latte after a bikram class. I found myself being impulsively and chemically drawn to the green mango gatorade instead. I paid my 4 pesos and cracked it open on the walk back home. It was brighter than any liquid I've ever consumed without medicinal intent. Bold. Expressive. Maybe it isn't the type of gatorade I would drink every day of my life, but today it presented a fascinating new experience that wont be available to me for the rest of my life.

I think I have settled for being bright bold and expressive on an aesthetic level for fear of incorporating those ideals into my being at an internal level. It is easier to take a tequila shot, wear blindingly bright colors and bitch to your friends about how true love, peace and happiness cannot exist in a world so close minded than it is to OPEN your mind to the possibility that they may actually exist.

For all that I try to generalize about the 'culture' of argentina for descriptive purposes, my real inspiration has come from the individuals. Anyone can get lost in the system, the collective, the politics. I have been inspired by trivial details and large feats alike: a woman who has had a child due to a wartime rape, a friend who is still as in love as the day his boyfriend moved to the opposite hemisphere, a disillusioned band who offers us pot instead of coffee and hopes to change the establishment with lyrics of love and simplicity, a tango teacher with an affinity for profane cartoons who moved to argentina without speaking spanish, a little pudgy cousin who claims, "manana no existe mami", a woman who believes in free love, lace stockings and acyrillic paint and militant peronism who is not willing to mute herself to appease anyone else, a pair of sisters that don't call themselves such, but are better feminists than anyone I have met, a roomate pursuing her dream of international development in guatemala despite being constantly berated by a conservative family, a friend who is not shrinking back from the redefinition of love exploding his safety bubble, a woman who's brother was taken from her and finds the courage to lead unintentionally ignorant american children past his monument, a refreshingly respectful boy who openly treats women better than the machismo framework of his society, a grandfather with wrinkles of joy despite fleeing his fatherland for years and putting his family's life over his pride.

I am constantly challenged and inspired by the bright, bold and expressive individuals around me. Don't be afraid to drink it in today.

Diversion, divertirse, de-vertere, to turn ones' self away from
etymology poses eternal mysieries
I dont want a distraction. evasion. hiding place.
I want abond. an attraction. a yoke.
with myself and my wind stained silver converse
with the schoolgirl holding her mothers hand out of love or fear
with the old vixen in the bright pink pants who puffs her cigarette like she's 20
with the bearded man serving as the collective tail of 3 dog. the aimless follower.
with the graffiti. the plants on the patio. the crosswalks.
with this microcosm of reality

5 months is way too short for a study abroad experience. You can only spend so long living in the moment before you realize the depth of the bonds you created. It is the little things I will miss about this place: making fun of Eliana's random affinity for the black eyed peas, how our maid seems to think michelle owns no shoes and puts all of hers in my closet, passing the artesenia on the way to class, sitting on the floor of the loft listening to charly garcia blogging when I should be doing work...

I didnt realize how much I loved it here until this weekend. I have phenomenal friends and families in two separate hemispheres. For every creepy similarity there is between my two lives there is a contradicting irony. It's like a flash sideways out of LOST.

Pics from the Iguazu adventure (taken by Michelle)

What have you always wanted to scream into a waterfall?

Grab a cup of coffee or a mate goard...this one's going to be a long one!

Part of our class at the comission "Indigenous rights and the environment" was a trip to Puerto Iguazu. Iguazu, or as they write it there, Yguazu is a small sliver of Argentina between paraguay and Brazil. It is a small town, but gets alot of tourist traffic because it includes the national park of Misiones and las CATARATAS (which are in the running to become one of the next 7 wonders of the world!). It was also a great chance to get to know our professor, Gisela Juare who is one of the coolest people I've gotten to know in Argentina. Alex said it best when he described her as the type of person who could easily be in the film an Avatar- she is tall and graceful with a fervent love for nature and a way of connecting easily with everyone and everything around her. She took great care to plan the trip with our interests in mind. We left La Plata Wednesday morning and drove to the airport in Buenos Aires. It was strange to be in an airport for the first time since arriving here and even stranger to think that the next time I enter Ezezia will be to fly home on July 17th. (mark your calendars and come visit me!!)

When we landed in Iguazu I felt like I was in a different country entirely. Several of the formative works of argentine literature Martin Fierro and Facundo claim that argentina consists of 2 parts- the province of Buenos Aires and the "rest" of the country. I certainly saw the link. The land, people, and wildlife appeared completely different. We stayed at STOP hostel which was right next to a tango bar that had a mural painted of Che Guevarra and Eva Peron dancing the tango...if that's not essentially the argentine stereotype I don't know what is. We were lucky to discover the JOY of 2x10 peso cocktails during happy hour. Our first Portuguese lesson of the trip came from the drink name- CAIPIRINYAS...I don't know the literal translation but we were all extremely fond of them and even our trip leaders enjoyed several before dinner.

Thursday was kind of a slow day because some of our plans were impeded by the flooding of the localities wherein we planned to travel. We met with a woman named Angela who is very esteemed within all parts of the community because she started a bilingual school in the area. Though Argentina doesn't have a high indigenous population comparatively (2%), a large portion of this percentage is found in this northern province. Angela explained to us a little bit of the dynamics of the Guarani tribe we were going to spend time with the following day. She made a comment I found unsettling and offensive about how "white American feminism is merely a power struggle". It took me a long time to process her perspective but in the end I took away from it that she didn't want us to judge their gender relations based on our societal framework. I have found throughout this experience that the things I am most passionate about tend to be also the ones that I am most ethnocentric and closed minded.

No Caipyrinhas tonight as we were all preparing for a midnight soccer game and an early morning. Emily, Michelle, Alex and I had made some friends in the hostel earlier in the afternoon that invited us to come play soccer with them at a nearby small indoor field. In a group of Argentine and Brazilian males my soccer skills were less than exemplary but all of the spectators particularly loved when one of the 3 of us made a good play or stole the ball from one of the men. One of the Brazilian men kept yealling what sounded to us like- "choque monito" (little monkey crash...), and at the end of the game we asked him what it meant in Portuguese. It turned out he was saying "jogo bonito"....I suppose beautiful play makes alot more sense than little monkey crash.

Friday morning we loaded up into the back of a pickup truck and drove about 20 minutes past civilization on red dirt pathways till we reached the bilingual (guarani and castellano) school. It was down a mountain by a watering hole and appeared to have about 5 different tiny classrooms divided by sheet metal. The celebratory sign read "hagamos una Argentina con Raices"- "Let's make an Argentina with Roots" and I feel that well encompassed the goal of the school- to tie the guarani culture with Argentine nationalism. They were celebrating the bicentennial of Argentine independence from Spain so the directors of the school spoke and each class gave a dance performance. I felt extremely out of place and slightly uncomfortable at first but we had some time afterwards to joke around with the kids before heading back to the center of their community. They slept in simply constructed wooden lean to's, used an outhouse, and the soccer field was clearly the center of attention. The young boys were playing soccer all afternoon as the girls were helping the older women with food preparation and cleaning. We got to play a full game against the females of the community- that was a spectacle! At first they were demolishing us but we managed to come back and hold our own. I was playing goalie and I certainly have the battle wounds to prove it.

It was beautiful to me how soccer served as an icebreaker to ease the cultural differences between the two groups of us. It didn't matter that we were pretty bad, we still managed to establish a level of trust and friendship throughout the game. Afterwards we ate with them- pasta cooked in a HUGE pot with a reddish oil and a bit of chicken. I was excited to see the boys starting a game of pickup volleyball and scarfed down the rest of my food eagerly in hopes of playing a sport I felt more at home with. It is easy to see why these people are in such great shape and so evidentally happy. They were active and social all afternoon long. Bettina posed an interesting question to the group- "what help do you think you need from the rest of Argentina to continue thriving?" I didn't quite understand the answer but it seems to me they straddle a fine line between not wanting interference and being slightly afraid for their sustainability in an evolving word.

It was an excellent and powerful day for everyone. We spent the night at the hostel (more caipyrinhas of course) making friends from Australia, Austria, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, and the UK. I am now convinced you can meet the most fascinating and eclectic people at a youth hostel. I learned about German soccer, portuguese diction, and that it's cheaper to film reality TV shows in Argentina than Brazil. A memorable quote from our goofy German friend Claudius "Sometimes I don't like to make party. I just like to be in nature. Beautiful nature." It was weird to be on the other end of the linguistic spectrum, that is communicating in our first language while everyone else was communicating in their second. Michelle and I went with the crew for late night hotdogs then called it a night. Some of the other group members may have regret their decision not to do the same the next morning when we had to be out and about by 9. The next day in the hostel they had changed the Happy hour time to read- HAPPY HOUR- ALL NIGHT LONG Caipyrinhas 2x10, Tequila Shots 2x10. I think its safe to say we had a fun group.

While Friday was one of the most culturally interesting things I have witnessed, Saturday was easily the most incredible natural spectacle I've seen. I will add pictures of the waterfalls...but just know that no picture could accurately capture how incredible they are. We got a bit of the Amazon experience (catered toward tourists...clearly) and hiked through the jungle a bit before seeing our first falls. We saw a large variety of gorgeous butterflies, toucans, and aardvarks. Aardvarks seem to be this region's equivalent of the WM squirrel infestation. I literally saw an aardvark steal a bag of chips out of a man's lap...I guess I can check that one off the bucket list. One of the most memorable moments was running out to the ledge and getting soaked by a particularly huge section of the falls. It was so loud and liberating...we could yell whatever we wanted into the falls and just felt it be absorbed by the powerful force of the waterfall. You MUST add las cataratas de iguazu onto your list of places to travel if you have the opportunity.

Probably my favorite stretch of time on the trip. It was an absolute blast...I can't stop smiling even typing about it. Now it's back to the reality of over 30 pages of writing in Spanish over the next few weeks!

dale dale dale LOBO

First of all...it's starting to hit me how little time I have left here. With my WM friends headed home for summer and friends in other study abroad programs heading back stateside the reality of the time slipping by is starting to sink in. The other night I had a dream that I suddenly had to fly home because Kevin and Lauryn decided to get married and I was really upset to leave prematurely and kept thinking of all of the things that I hadn't done and seen here. SO this weekend I accomplished one of the things I was upset about not doing in my carpe diem dreams- seeing 'our' team CLUB GIMNASIA ESGRIMA de LA PLATA play a live soccer game!

Michelle and I went to the Gimnasia headquarters yesterday evening to buy tickets for the game today. They have special rates for "dama" girl tickets...35 pesos compared to 50. My feminist side was unsettled whereas my cheapskate side was pleased...asi es la vida. Afterwards we went to see a really interesting documentary playing at the art school called "La Guerra Por Otros Medios" (The War through other modes). It was a great perspective on the indigenous perspective of La Ley de Medios. La Ley de medios is a media law that's being introduced that would basically give the government some of the same censorship rights it had during the dictatorship.

Today after a delicious lunch of Pizza Bacci we headed out to the field to meet up with Alex, his host mom's son Simon and his friends. This was apparently a "calm" game as it wasn't important for the league standings and there was a HUGE crowd of people dressed in navy blue with drums, trumpets, UMBRELLAS, flags and whatever else you could possibly make noise with filling the streets. There were a striking amount of cops with RIOT gear which made me a little anxious about the crazyness that was about to ensue. Soccer is more than diversion here...it's almost a political/social statement. There are two main clubs here in La Plata- Gimnasia and Estudiantes (Pincha RATA...andate de la plata!) and Gimnasia branched off from Estudiantes a while back. Neither of them are as good, or well funded...as the Buenos Aires teams and historically Gimnasia has been more of the underdogs which makes me love them even more. Anyhow, Gimnasia (el LOBO) is associated with the working class and there was even a huge flag in the stadium with Eva Peron's face painted in gimnasia colors to strengthen that association.

In size, the stadium itsself wasn't that impressive. Then again, that is coming from a member of a DIEHARD hokie family who grew up in the sea of orange and marroon (largery?) also known as lane stadium. The energy of the stadium was CERTAINLY on par however. Banners were tied from the bottom of the stadium to the top and loud Argentines were standing on railings holding onto the banner to keep from falling. They swayed back and forth and chanted the whole time and there were times I was afraid that young children were going to get accidentally clotheslined. The boys next to us had firecracker things that gave off blue and white smoke which was alot of fun but probably not so great for our lungs. There was constant jumping, a repotoire (sp?) of at least 15 songs accompanied by this hand motion we refer to as the limp wrist.

Both teams fought hard the whole time though mi querido LOBO fell a little flat near the end, so Tucuman was able to come back and tie 3-3. Overall we had an absolute blast being such a part of something that they are all so passionate about. We hope to go back next Sunday which will apparently be a way more important and CRAZY game!

Love and miss you all!