My 3rd Mom

I changed families for the thrid and las time almost a month ago now. I live with Graciela, the mom of Miguel (who is the other half of my exchange living in the States) and with her niece, Eugenia, who works as a dentist down the road.
It´s really nice living with them. We don´t eat lunch together, but Graciela and I go to the gym together and we go to Corrientes and hang out for dinner the three of us.
Graciela is a really involved mom. Lately, she´s been taking me to get to know all the little towns in Corrientes.
We went to Saladas, her home town, and met ALL of the family. She is one of 6 siblings and I met all but one of the siblings and their families. Her mom is a great cook and had me eating delicious food all weekend! The house that Graciela grew up in is also beautiful. It´s in the old Spanish colonial style huge tall rooms that all connect and open up into a central garden with all different types of fruit trees and places to sit. It as a really beautiful visit.
Growing up with a mom who´s crazy about cooking, I think Graciela realy caught the bug. Last Sunday instead ofeating asado, we went on a day trip to a little town in Corrientes: Itati; famous for having a virgin who did miracles. People walk there every year to go to masses for the virgin which take place in a gigantic cathedral with gorgeous stained glass windows.
We had looked at the church and were talking a stroll down to the river when GRaciela saw the grapefruit tree. She culdn´t get over how full the tree was with ripe grapefruits.
-It´s such a shame that no one eats those grapefruits
She kept on saying. Luckily for her, there was a woman standing n the other side of her wall, watching us.
-do you by anychance have a hook and some plastic bags?
Asked Graciela, appoaching the woman and the fruit tree. Well, the woman was happy to help us get the grapefruit don. I climbed up on the wall and knocked them down while everyone ran around picking them up. We finished with three bags of big ripe grapefruit.
We continued our walk to the river without another interruption until Graciela looked over into the graden of another house and saw none other than a little tree full of kumquats! KUMQUATS. It was such a shame, such a shame that no one was eating them that Graciela went up to the gate of the house and clapped her hands to get the owner to come out.
- Will you give us some of your kumquats?
She asked the lttle old man who attended the gate alongside a big grey dog. The man was happy to share his harvest and ushered us into the house, gave us bags, and followed us out to the tree,talking all the time as we picked kumquats about his dogs, his chickens, his childhood in Buenos Aires. When we had two bags full of kumquats (although we had made no impact on the numbers still on the tree) he brought us back to the house to show us the room her was making for when his kids visited, the wood stove he had had installed, and even brought us intot he kitchen to try some dulce de kumquat.
So when we finally left Itati, we had 5 bags of fresh fruit, a new friend in the little town, and a good story to tel you all about how serious Graciela is about making the best out of any fruit tree she sees!
I´m reall yhaving a good time in this last family :)

North Trip

As some of you know have seen a lot of Argentina, but I haven´t written a whole lot about my journies. To remedy that, I will record here and now some of the entries out of my journal from my days on the Rotary North Trip. What I've written will be indented so you all can tell when I make other comments, and of course, are translated from Spanish, so sorry if there is very little vocabluary :)
Well, I was really excited about the trip. I had all these errands to run and I made a list of the things I had to pack, and I even stayed home from school on the monday before the trip to make sure everything got done.

Jorge and Cheli (my host parents) both went with my to the bus terminal and they sayed there with me until I got on the bus, even though there were lots of other people there who could have looked after me. I thought it was really sweet. Luca (friend), Roree (exchange friend from Califonia) and Graciela (3rd host mom) also came to see us off! I was so happy to see all of them. I love that Graciela has made an effort to be a part of my life this whole year, even though I haven´t been living with her.

The bus trip was really nice!

(I think I wrote this because it was nice to see all the people from the South trip; 12 hour bus reides are never "really nice")

We got to Cordoba in the morning and did a tour of the sity. I had already seen most of what they showed us because I went to Cordoba with my first host family, but it was nice to have another view of the city because it is just beautiful. The buildings are all in an older style; there´s actually a law now that if you want to remodel a building, you can´t modernize the outside. This means that the shopping mall in the center looks like a big old government building or museum and not like a mall at all.

April 29 - Today we arrived in Medoza. The hotel is gorgeous; at least on the outside! The rooms have awkward turquoise bed covers and the water was freezing when I took my shower. One of the best things about the hotel? We found a little mama cat with four kittens living on the roof outsife our window. I stole some ham from breakfast andwe fed it to her. We took a tour of the city and went to a beautiful park wth fountains, trails to walk on and a big lake. We also went walking up alittle mountain to see a statue of General San Martin who, as some of you may remember, wanted to liberate all of South America from Spanish colonization. He achieved at the very least Argentina and Chile and all over Argentina, he´s comemorated with statues of himpointing west toward the cordillera de los Andes which he had to cross to getto Chile. He points west in every single statue without fail... except the one we climbed to see in Mendoza where he is on horseback with his arms crossed, contemplating how to cross the Andes, whose formidable height is clearly in view.

What a badass, really. I mean, how incredible is it to have your legacy, your life´s work, commenerated so elegantly throughout an entire country?

Well, that´s where I´ll stop for tonight. But don´t worry, tomorrow I will return with more stories about the trip :)

XooOxxOoXXo ox