ArgenTime

So I noticed that it has been quite some time since I posted in this blog. In the intervening time, I´ve been globetrotting a bit--an indigenous women´s convention in southern Bolivia, a YAGM retreat with the other volunteers in Uruguay, touristing it up in Montevideo, and several assorted smaller trips. All of those experiences someday will become profound and well-written personal essays as well as blog posts, of course. But in the meantime, I am passing days with beautiful, charming children, teaching recorder and yoga, drawing a lot, and reconfiguring my perceptions of time.

Adjusting to Argentine time has been one of the more difficult cultural changes for me. The stereotypes of promptness or lack thereof in Latin America are not especially true here--buses run on time, for the most part, and businesses keep regular hours, for the most part, and people arrive to appointments roughly on time. Readers who know me well know that I begrudge no one their extra fifteen minutes for a coffee date, so a slightly relaxed approach to scheduling is just fine with me! I hypothesize that increased dependence on public transport, which runs frequently but irregularly, creates a half-hour cushion around most stated times.

However, many things do not run on exact times. There are basically four times in Resistencia: mañana, morning, which runs about 6-12; siesta, nap-time, which runs about 12-4; tarde, or afternoon, from 4ish to 9ish; and noche, night, from 10ish on. When scheduling events in the barrio, it´s much more common to indicate that it will happen in one of these times than labeling a more specific point on the clock. Much of this is logistical, as the great majority of the families involved in the church live close enough to the building that they can easily see if the pastor´s van shows up, if Jake or I am waiting outside the building, or if their neighbors come by to suggest that the event start. It just isn´t necessary to be much more specific than morning, afternoon, or evening: Events starts when the people involved show up. Stores open when the owner gets there, and close when s/he leaves.

Also, because of the severe heat here in the spring, summer, and fall (and sometimes during the winter, too), nearly every business in town closes during the siesta hours. Practically, this means that if someone (almost always the woman of the household) is not available to do morning shopping, families can´t easily get food. I am sure that many people find ways around this, but it is strange for me realizing that I must have my mornings free if Jake and I are to have bread and fresh produce. I spend half an hour to an hour every morning going to the four stores that supply us with food (the bakery, the meat shop, the vegetable shop, and the supermarket). If this schedule does (almost) compel households to have a stay-at-home woman or a domestic worker, it can also be used to empower women. In the barrio, an elementary school for adults that did not finish-the vast majority women--runs during this time when the rest of the city closes down. This opens up many opportunities; one woman recently explained to me that because of her advancing education, she can now do her own banking!

In addition to the local times, the church year and liturgical time direct my consciousness and support the life of the Misión. I feel "at home" celebrating Advent, in a new country, with a new congregation of believers, but connected to the same God and the same Biblical narratives of Christ´s coming birth. Like most Lutheran churches during Advent, also, we are preparing the Christmas pageant, figuring out which of the squirming, lovable children will portray María, which will be angels, and who will tutor them in memorizing their Lines.

And underneath the whole Misión is God´s time for the project. Often I want God to work a miracle, to make the economic difficulties, the addictions, the hunger, the curable diseases in the barrio disappear--or at least to hurry along the people in demanding their rights. Working with individuals, with systems, with communities to build the Kingdom of God takes lots of time, sometimes very slow-moving time. And sometimes the building bricks are invisible to me, and I need those that I accompany to explain to me, patiently, that my frustrations actually represent advances--that the occasional chaos of the center represents happy interactions that would have been impossible some years before, that the slowness of opening a new project represents women in the community, rather than outside agents, learning to operate the project themselves, that an older child teaching a younger child a game that to me seems meaningless represents a positive interaction instead of continued cycles of violence. Learning to wait on God´s time requires patience that I sometimes think I lack, but it allows small rituals and daily interactions the dignity they are due, and the recognition of God´s hand in the quotidian and mundane.

Feliz Navidad, prospero año... oh wait, thats a Mexican song!

I hear that a LOT of snow has fallen this week. Here, on the other hand, I'm struck by the strange juxtaposition of tank tops, flip-flops and christmas trees. It doesn't quite feel right to me, which has made me reflect on what some US citizens (and residents) must feel when they hear/see stories about white christmases.



Here, you can see a lot of continuities with US-style Christmas celebration, which is to say that global marketing does indeed seem to impact rituals more than nationality at this point in human history. Most of the stores downtown a running sales, encouraging shoppers to buy STUFF for their loved ones (at rather high interest rates), and everyone has at least one PAPA NOEL or Christmas tree in the window. Outside of the commercial district, there are random spatterings of christmas lights on some houses and a number of small christmas trees in the neighbor's windows. As I talk about chrismas trees here, let me make clear that I haven't seen one higher than three feet. And as far as lights go, we're not talking about my uncle's 50,000 light Clark Griswold creation, but rather a few strings of multicolored lights to circle windows.



The city has put up a number of decorations to make the season. Large white-light stars and strings of light arranged in cones can be seen lining the streets and plazas of the city. Seeing them certainly evokes a similar vision of the cities that we've lived in the States, as does the Christmas tree-like light image on the side of the Provincial Governor's offices.



Also like in the States, a majority of official correspondence avoids references to the Jesus part of Christmas and refers instead to the party. "Felices fiestas" proclaim all of the store's windows and newspaper ads. The national newspaper, Clarin, has been publishing children's stories and published stories about Papa Noel and the Reindeer before arriving at the last one, the birth of Jesus, which should arrive this Sunday. Of course, the fact that the Jesus story is coming out with a mainstream paper is probably something we would NEVER see in the states, but the trends in secular celebration are striking.



Angela and I will be celebrating this Christmas in a pretty conventional way. This week Angela is helping put the Christmas program together with the kiddos in the barrio: basic christmas story with shepherds, kings, a small child playing an angel and the youngest newborn playing the part of Jesus. Along with the nativity celebration on Saturday night, we'll also celebrate the end of the school year, the birthdays of all of the kids that come to the after-school program, and a host of other events. Should be a VERY joyous event. Christmas day will be spent with our host family, probably involving some AMAZING food.

Something to think about...

I think that most Christmas media pokes fun at California for not having snow on Christmas, ever (I'm thinking specifically about Woody Allen here), but what about those vast expanses of the US Southwest and Southeast (and Carribean?) that see snow once every decade, and never on Christmas? Do they WANT a white christmas? Does the temperature change we way we experience the holiday (obviously the trappings and specific rituals, but does a warm climate facilitate a sense of openness and welcoming better than a cold one, or is it the opposite)?

The holidays are a time to see people that you love, to share the peace of company and the compassion of solidarity. We miss those of you who are reading this more than you can know, but we are also excited that we have this time together and that we're able to participate in celebration with our friends here.

¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Movement and transition

Happy December everyone!

Angela and I have just returned from our first trimester check-in retreat with the ELCA program. We were in Uruguay, the country situated just up the Atlantic coast from Buenos Aires, and had an absolutely amazing experience! We spent a couple of days on an organic farm (I'm sure that Angela will comment on this at greater length), and even put together a nice thanksgiving dinner!

I find myself at the moment in a period of transition after the recharge that the retreat provided. One of the things that I would like to change the most is the way that I communicate with those of you reading this blog up in the North. I'm surprised by my relative silence on some important questions related to our mission here, and really by the infrequency of my posts! For someone who feels like he's writing all the time, I find that my words here don't do justice to what you all would like to read or should be reading.

So, I'm going to try to post more regularly, and I am also trying to put together an email list to put out some specific stories.

We pray that this wintery weather and Holiday season find you all in high hopes, positive spirits, and large mugs filled with warm liquids.

The Quantum of Solace

For those of you interested in reading some comments about the new James Bond flick, read ahead. WARNING!!! SPOILERS AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY ABOUND!

So, a week ago Angela and I went on a date to see the new James Bond: The Quantum of Solace. We were both very excited to go to a theater to see a movie (this was the first time we've done that since arriving in Argentina), especially since we loved the last Bond, Casino Royale, so much. We were kind of dissppointed for a few moments when we realized that the movie was slotted to be dubbed in Spanish, but we consoled ourselves with the understanding that Bond flicks have never been driven on dialogue (if you watch Casino Royale, you may note that the first chase scene allows for an almost eight-minute window of character silence). *I will gladly agree that the Bond one-liners are a staple of the franchise (for those of you who care, Matt), but dialogue on the whole is not why we watch Bond movies. IN ANY CASE, the movie turned out to be in English, so we didn't need to be consoled after all.

POLITICALLY: This is one of the most political Bonds that I've ever seen, which may or may not be news to those of you reading this. Admittedly, not having lived through the Cold War, the politics of some of the earlier films may not be immediately evident to me, tho I would certainly argue that Pierce Brosnan's tenure as Bond was marked by a distinct absence of realistic political commentary. I'm struck by the reviews of this movie that have negated (NY Times) or completely missed (Rocky Mountain News) the very prescient issues dealt with by this Bond.

*Bolivia: First of all, understand that this is the most unstable country in South America today and the filmakers were apparently working with a crystal ball because one of the film's plot points revolves around a proposed coup against the President, an event which transpired only a few weeks ago. Evo Morales, the Bolivian President, is an aboriginal coca leaf (yes, the root material of cocaine) farmer who has fought hard over the last several years to bring about sweeping social changes to favor the majority of working poor (and mostly indigent) indigenous community. His changes have been met with a lot of resistance by a few rich governors, which forced a very heated and even violent confrontation. While the Bond plot does not treat the issues that Evo has unearthed with any subtlety at all and the Bolivian General who will lead the coup is a stereotypical latin Generalisimo, we have a very real political issue on the screen, which absent an international financial crisis would probably merit more critical comment.

*Water: The villain of the film is a gem: well performed on all counts. Again, I'm surprised that the reviewers missed the very obvious political nature of his presence on the screen. Of course, this may be because the issues important to environmentalists in Northern Argentina may not be a part of every movie reviewers canon. Here in Argentina, Douglas Tompkins, the man responsible for creating the labels NORTH FACE and PATAGONIA, amongst others, has been buying large pieces of territory in the name of ecological reclamation. A majority of the Argentine population believes him to be a thief, even a CIA agent, working against the Argentine Republic by buying up its most important sources of water. There are some more mediated judgments of Tompkins, who has done similar projects in Chile and has created nature preserves that he later returned to state ownership as National Parks. I've been working with groups of people that deal with Tompkins on a regular basis, which is why this Bond villain immediately jumped off the screen. I encourage you to think about the reality that the movie puts forward: is water more valuable than oil? and what are we going to do with water in the future? To make an odd intertextual connection, can you imagine the world of Waterworld in which water is so valuable that it becomes a currency?

STRUCTURALLY: I'll keep this brief, but I just wanted to note that this Bond was beautiful in a lot of its technical aspects. The titles were a nice return to classic Bond symmetries and the Jack White composition (performed with Alicia Keys) proudly introduced cacophony as a theme of the movie: competing interests that unavoilably juxtapose, rearrange and battle for attention. The thing that I most thought about through the film was the way that the film indicted Bond's presence for being an interruption in other activities. The first sequence, for example, is a nice helicopter shot of the Italian coast: the viewer's appreciation of that beauty is constantly disrupted by shots of the car chase. A few minutes later, the altercation in the catacombs interrupts (not entirely), a horse race on the streets above. The questions that we can take from these observations are several: Is Bond (and espionage as we know it) necessary for our world today? If so, should we keep it as isolated as it has been historically? Or, in another vein, is the model broken, producing death instead of justice?

I loved this flick, and the pizza that we ate afterwards. Any thoughts that you may like to share are welcome.

Thank you Golden Oldies

I would like to send a large THANK YOU to the Golden Oldies at Cross of Christ for the kind note that they sent us almost a month ago. It is so nice to get mail, and your note was full of encouragement; it made us both feel so happy! Additionally, the words of advice and enthusiasm that many of you shared with us at COC before we left continue to inspire us. We only hope that we will be able to relate with younger generations as well as you have with us!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, and may the Peace of God fill your hearts and homes.

A not-so-intense post from Jake

So, I tend to get a little serious when I'm writing for this blog, but here are a few comments that I'm going to just put out there.

Food: Argentine food is notably more bland than Mexican food, but actually has a lot in common with American cuisine. A lot of meat and potatoes, soups, breads and fruit. My favorite food here is definitely steak, and I'll probably write a long post about Argentine beef sometime soon. My favorite dish is definitely Estofado, a mix between a stew and a heavy pasta dish. Yum! Pizza, hamburgers, and french fries also all figure prominently. And high blood pressure comes from too much salt, right? I wonder what the figures are on Argentines... they eat a lot of salt.

Wine: Argentinians know what they're doing, 'nuff said.

Soccer: The National Team just made the National Hero their coach. For those of you old enough to remember the World Cups of the 80's and 90's, you probably know the name Maradona. He has been brought in to bring the Argentine squad back to glory, or at least to raise the ratings on their next matches.

Ped Malls: Resistencia recently built a ped mall. Its pretty much exactly like Pearl Street in Boulder or Mass St. in Lawrence. We don't spend a lot of time there, but consumerism (I mean "investment" has a home).

Important thing to remember: Human beings are more than the bubbles that they circle on the census and they are more than the sum of the hours that the work. Dehumanization happens when we stop asking others questions and assume that we already have the answers.

Organic agroecology, feminism, and spirituality

After that oh-so-unpresumptous title, this post demands a bit more seriousness than some previous posts. I have started to get beyond the pangs of homesickness and constant culture shock to participate in my placement and surroundings a bit more, and two weekends ago I had one of the most profound participatory experiences of my life.


I spent Friday through Sunday discussing food sovereignity, the right to eat, and the dangers of soy monoculture (devoting most of the Argentine farmland to soy production for export) in this country and others in South America. The women with whom I work at the mission in Resistencia and I attended a women´s retreat at an organic women´s coop farm near Santa Fe, the capital city of the province below El Chaco. The well-organized event was very educational and allowed me and other participants to develop our understandings of the problems related to food access in Argentina and especially how those problems relate to women´s lives.


The conference´s focus on "food sovereignity" was concerned with the basic human right to access ample, high-quality, culturally appropriate food. An important part of food sovereinity is the necessity of communities (i.e. nation-states) to produce all or most of their own food needs, so as not to be dependent on other nations for basic alimentation. This is especially relevant in Argentina, which, like the U.S., has vast tracts of agriculturally productive land. Based purely on natural resources, there is no reason that any Argentine should go hungry.
However, those vast tracts of land are currently producing soy for export instead of wheat, corn, beef, citrus, and other crops suitable for human consumption. Argentina is currently the second largest producer of soy in the world (after only the U.S.) , as soy genetically modified for Round-Up pesticide has proved extremely profitable for a very few people. Now, I do not know much about soy farming in the U.S., other than that I live around and am related to many soy farmers. I believe that the environmental controls on pesticide are fairly strict, and that we also have a greater need for soy than Argentina does. But the results of a rapid transition to soy farming here have had disastrous effects on the agricultural economy. Thousands of farm laborers have lost their jobs, forcing them to move to the cities, where there are no more jobs. In the meantime, basic foodstuff must be imported at high prices. Mass unemployment combined with increasing food costs have produced a lot of really, really unneccesary hunger. Poor environmental controls on RoundUp may have caused birth defects and considerable sickness in children who encounter the substance.

Many of the people who own the land on which soy is grown are not Argentine, and view the land as a short-term investment rather than a long-term sustainable project. Consequently, many farms are in constant soy production, with no crop rotation or thought of maintaining arable soil. The quest for soy land (which turns a short-term profit) has also contributed to the mass deforestation of El Chaco (where we are living this year). The destruction of this ecosystem has led directly to the increase in summer temperatures from around 100 degrees Farenheit, to insufferable heat that often approaches 120 degrees F.

Although there are many comedores (soup kitchens) that have been offered soy-based dishes, it turns out that soy actually impedes young children´s ability to absorb nutrients. So feeding them soy amplifies the problems of anemia and malnutrition. Many are asking why wheat and beef, the staples of Argentine diet, must become more and more inaccesible to all involved. In a food-rights sense, the concern about importing and exporting most of one´s food has more to do with direct connections to food production than the more common environmental concept of "food-miles," which may or may not help the environment, and also may or may not help people eat.

One thing that surprised me was the close connection of soy production to the trafficking of women. Some argue that the infrastructure which soy production demands also provides avenues for trafficking: highways and railways, increasingly used to transport soy and decreasingly used for public transit, make clandestine transport easy, and any subsequent attempts at getting back home more difficult. In addition to this, the movement of employment from agricutural communities to trucking and transit creates a mobile population of mostly men alone, far from home, helping create the market for prostitution. This theme has been a major interest of the women´s group at our church here in Resistencia (see previous entries in this blog for more information). One of the women at the retreat shared that she had intercepted her neighbor´s 12-year-old daughter on her way to a fishy job offer that would almost certainly have landed her in forced prostitution; knowing that we are all only 2 or 3 degrees away from women being bought and sold is tragic and makes me understand better why this topic is attracting so much attention in the church and nation here.

Anyway, for more information, some in English, you can look at the website http://www.lasojamata.org. This is a horribly complicated and horrifying problem, especially since assuredly no one intended to cause so much harm to land and people through profitable farming for export. Of course, overproduction of soy does not help anyone except those who buy soy cheaply for use in biofuel and cattle feed.

The event made the local paper, if you can read a bit of Spanish: http://www.unosantafe.com.ar/26.10.2008/noticias/8612_M+s_de_150_mujeres_discutieron_el_modelo_agropecuario_vigente.html

The retreat, incidentally, allowed me to experience a robust, pro-child, pro-family feminist spirit that I have not felt in a long time. Many women brought their babies, and of course mate was consumed on all sides. (see previous post) I bought my own mate, made of recycled materials at a women´s coop in Córdoba. I also accompanied one of the women who was with me in painting a Lutheran rose in a mural commemorating the event, which made me reflect on the Christian spirituality that is often absent in such discussions.

So why should this be a topic of concern for missionaries and for Christians? Why do I think that a symbol of Lutheran faith relates to food rights? I have been reflecting on this a lot, and am tossing around some ideas in my head.

We are commanded to feed the hungry, and I see food rights as securely grounded in Christ´s teachings. That all should have access to food seems enshrined in Leviticus, in the Gospels, in the example of the early Church. I also recall that Jesus used culturally appropriate food to communicate--figs, fish, wine, bread. The central sacrament of our faith asks us to remember Christ through metaphors of food. Our need for His love and redemption is, like our need for food, constant, and our expressions of that need are culturally mediated. Perhaps in solidarity for food rights, we can all try to use locally produced bread and wine/grape juice for our communion celebrations. Please pray for the many South Americans fighting for access to affordable food and for those accompanying the men, women, and children suffering from unneccesary hunger today.

What does Nelson Mandela have to do with Argentina?

After two months in Argentina (can you believe it?) and several emailed, Im'ed and mailed questions about what we're up to, I've realized that its about time for me to explain/describe my role in this missionary experience. Angela has already done a great job of introducing her placement and I'm sure that in the coming weeks and months we will both be able to introduce you to the various people that have entered and enriched our lives here, but let me first respond to the question posed in the title of this post: What does Nelson Mandela have to do with Argentina?


Absolutely nothing.


Nevertheless, I spend the majority of my working hours in Resistencia at the offices of the Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Nelson Mandela (the Centro Nelson Mandela, or the Nelson Mandela Center for short), which is a non-registered, non-profit NGO in downtown Resistencia. The man in charge is Rolando Nuñez, a lawyer that has worked on human rights issues since the center was founded in 1995, an outspring of socio-political organization against the provincial gubernatorial campaign of a former member of the military dictatorship. In the last 13 years, Nuñez, his colleagues and friends have worked on a wide range of issues, the majority of which focus on the grave problems that confront the inhabitants in the interior of El Chaco (the province in which we currently reside, one of the poorest in Argentina).


In my two months at the center, we've taken on deforestation, the construction of steel mill, the unexplained deaths of some ten people in a small municipality in the interior, a collapsed medical-care system and the not-so-independent judiciary system in the province, just to give you an indication of the wide focus that the Centro Mandela maintains. While the focus may be expansive, the function of the center tends to be very simple: put people in contact with each other. Dr. Nuñez (the title of "doctor" tends to get added to the names of all lawyers here) has developed many strong relationships with hundreds of social players in the provincial, national, and even international arenas. He wakes up early and keeps regular office hours, receiving walk-in clients as well as government functionaries, always with his cellphone close at hand. He almost always knows the right person to call to help someone if he can't do it himself. The Centro Mandela thus functions as a locus of activity for NGO's, students, doctors, lawyers, unions and individuals (especially from aboriginal and indigenous nations) to share information, resources and solidarity. The other, much more public, function of the Center is to make sure that the information available to this network is made public through the media. Nuñez is very adept with mass-media communication, wielding critical adverbs like bureaucrats handle stamps and signatures. His articles, editorials and radio interviews communicate a passionate defense of human rights and dignity, that is often supressed by the government's populist discourse and public cynicism.


What do I DO at the Center? First of all, you should ask yourself why that question matters. After taking a few seconds to think about that, I'll tell you that I go into the office Tuesday through Friday mornings, helping Rolando respond to emails and typing documents that he dictates to me, frequently destined for publication in some media outlet. My adequate Spanish vocabulary and decent computer skills have set me up well for this task, as well as my ability to quickly learn about tasks at hand, making me more familiar with topics as we go along, making the whole process more efficient (for example, I remember names, people and abbreviations, making dictation significantly easier). When I'm not typing, I'm usually reviewing information, studies, newspapers, etc., looking for any relevant information about El Chaco and what needs to be done to help those that are suffering in the interior. When Rolando is on the phone giving a radio interview, I take care of his cell phone and let people know that they need to call him back.


If this gives you any indication of the kind of work that we do and its importance, let me describe my first week to you: Visit the courthouse, parole office and jail on my second day. Attend a conference on public lands and their illegal distribution at the Provincial Legislature on my third day. Fourth day, attend public meeting on the instalation of steel mill in which we represent a minority voice, outnumbered by a large number of angry respondents that criticize our rejection of the steel mill.


And we drink a lot of mate at the office as well. Yum!

In addition to working at the Centro, I also spend several afternoons in the Barrio playing with the kids in the workshops, working with a group of women on issues related to civic engagement (they want to start up an office which can direct people towards government services), and with the local adult school on environmental issues. We're currently thinking about how to link my two placements and we're following up on a couple of very good ideas, which include everything from visiting the interior with a group from the Barrio and increasing media sensitivity and literacy in the Barrio. We'll see where some of this goes.


The Center is named for Nelson Mandela for no specific reason. His international organization has no connection with our office and to the best of my knowledge that is fine for both sides, but his message of peace and justice, especially in the political arena, is one that the Centro Nelson Mandela center in Resistencia takes up every day. The time that I spend with Rolando is constantly engaging, challenging me to develop communicative and expressive strategies to communicate effective critique and to generate the dialogue that may eventually realize effective change. Rolando is becoming a remarkable mentor, full of passion and commitment. His work seems to have such a direct impact on the problems that he addresses that I'm starting to (re)consider going to law school. The LAW is such a formidable institution, resistent to participation my non-experts, which is why the indigenous groups that have rejected Western education and white-people ideology are so disadvantaged, and inappropriately so. There need to be people who will fight for the oppressed, who will help the mute find their voice, and who will strive for peaceful, respectful and dignified development that ACTUALLY engages peoples' needs.

Can I be one of those people? Do I have to be a lawyer to do meaningful work? Of course, this has also fed into the professor vocation as well, building up some questions about the relationship between literary production and democracy, more specifically thinking about how certain forms and themes ellicit participatory responses from various sectors of the general public. Consider for example, the way that people talk about George Orwell's novels 1984 and Animal Farm. These get cited in A LOT of discussions with a variety of audiences and with many different interpretations. Both novels still appear on high school reading lists and Orwell continues to enjoy popularity with American, British, and other readers. What about these two books make us still reference them? What about Uncle Tom's Cabin made it such a powerful book for its time? If you get what I'm getting at here, then you can see the direction that some of my thoughts about potential doctoral work might take (given that I'll be dealing with Latin American writers, probably from Mexico and Argentina).

The way that we make sense of our world is intimately attached to the stories that we know how to tell/hear about it. That's why the media work of the Centro Mandela is so important, working off of the strong community relationships that run through it. As I look forward to what awaits me in the coming months, I expect anything to happen, but I continue to affirm that:

The depressing realities of the marginalized peoples in El Chaco may be complex, but resignation CANNOT be an option.


If you can read Spanish and are interested in seeing the Centro's website, click HERE.

Tomando Mate

The past couple of weeks have been pleasant but busy here in Argentina. I am getting steadily more absorbed in my placement at the Mission, where I´ve started some yoga and recorder (the musical instrument) workshops. We enjoyed a visit from our program coordinator and also another ELCA pastor last week, and had fun teaching our guest how to make empanadas! Then on Monday our "host family" invited us to an asado (backyard barbeque, roughly) of lamb to celebrate a long weekend. For the record, lambs are adorable, and also delicious. Also for the record, mid-day asados have the advantage over evening asados of giving the body longer to recover before the next day of work.

And I have been tomando a lot of mate.

Tomando mate [pronounced mah-tay], or "taking mate," is a cultural practice to which I was first introduced by former YAGM volunteers in April. It refers literarly to drinking a semi-bitter herbal infusion of crushed yerba mate leaves in hot water. But this beverage and its associated accesories and practices permeate life here in the Chaco (and throughout many parts of South America). One takes mate by putting the loose, crushed leaves in a mate gourd, pouring hot water (about 2 ounces at a time) over the leaves, and using a bombilla, or a metal straw with a strainer on the end to separate the water from the leaves, to drink the beverage. Few Argentines like tomando mate alone, however. This is an intensely social activity, and one person holds the thermos, pours new water into the gourd and passes it to each person in turn.



When we arrived in Resistencia last month, the first thing we did was tomar mate in the back of the pastor´s van, while transporting ourselves and luggage to our new apartment! Since then, I have taken mate in our apartment, in the church, in the after-school program, on front porches, in plazas, in our back yard, and with the hairstylist in the salon where we got our hair cut today! That we do drink mate is usually established within the first few minutes of any introductory conversation here, a question right up there with "Where are you from?", "How long will you be here?", and "Do you like the Chaco?" (Which, of course, we do.)

While mate has not yet replaced coffee in my life, it is here the preferred morning stimulating beverage. Children as young as 18 months old begin sipping from their parents´mates, although most people under the age of 15 prefer a gag-inducing amount of sugar with theirs. This baffled me--when I share mate with the kids at the mission, my stomach revolts at the amount of sugar trying to infiltrate. But then I remembered my introductory attempts at coffee, my junior high days of crunchy coffee, before I learned to appreciate the bitter glory of the bean itself! Very similar.

One thing I do not do much is drink mate alone. While some people do have their equipment at hand at all times (like my coffee mug in the U.S.), it is also the base of many a social gathering. Many conversations begin, "Let´s meet up in the plaza and tomar mate." Those who hold onto the gourd after completing their serving will hear jovial teasing, "It´s a mate, not a microphone!" When we walk up and down the streets of Resistencia, and see families, friends, and courting couples drinking mate in peace on every corner of the city, I feel that at least something is right in the world.


Last week on Friday, I had the honor of tomando mate at a political rally in which (strictly adhering to ELCA policy) we did not participate, but observed. Throughout this peaceful request that the government of the Chaco fulfill electoral promises and enforce the existing laws, people celebrated solidarity in uplifting the rights of all. As we navigated the edges of the crowd, taking both pictures and mate, we ran quick bit of mate to the pastor helping lead one of the participating associations. This was a powerful moment for me: accompaniment is not about trying to exert political influence or expressing the "right" political opinions or scoring "political rally points" to bring up in conversations for the rest of my life, but spending time with people, in communities, and drinking a lot of mate.

Human Trafficking Abroad, and at home?

Here is a translation of a true story that we heard at the youth event held this past weekend. The main topic of the weekend was human trafficking, its realities, causes, and possible solutions. Please take a moment to read this story, and if you wish, reflect on the questions that follow or use some of the links.

Basilia and her husband, Pedro, had a small business in Bolivia, near Tarija, that wasn't bringing in enough money. So when a friend told them about an opportunity to move to Buenos Aires to work in a clothing factory, they readily accepted and prepared for the trip with their 18-month old daughter. They were going to be paid by the garment, and they would even get food and housing. The gentleman that set up their contract sent them some money to travel to Yacuiba, where they were supposed to contact a taxi driver. The taxista took them to a mountainous area where a guide was waiting to take them through the wilderness to a town, which has a name that is currently escaping me, but supposedly it was in Argentina. The next day, the guide got them to Salta and bought their tickets for Buenos Aires. When the couple got to the bus terminal in the capital, their contact's sister was waiting for them. She took them straight to the factory where they were going to work. They were given a simple dinner and then told to work until one in the morning.



In the workroom, which was really a big shed, there were eighteen adult workers and thirteen children. In one corner and barely concealed by a partition, they set up a cot for the couple and their baby daughter. They later found out that the school-aged child laborers didn't go to school because the patrón didn't allow it. The work day started at 8 in the morning and lasted until 1 the next morning. The workers seldom left the factory, and despite the fact that the door wasn't locked (though they always had to let the manager when they were going to leave), the patrón never missed an opportunity to remind them about their illegal immigration status and the certain encarceration or deportation that awaited them if they were captured by the police. These warnings were corroborated by the two times that the police--whose stationhouse was on the same street--came into the factory and asked for the workers' documents. On both occasions the patrón made them hide behind some old machines in an unused part of the workroom.

There had been an agreement that they would be paid USD$.50 per garment. The first month Basilia made USD$85 and her husband about the same. The second month, the patrón stopped paying them: he gave them each USD$8 a week in credit, telling them that he was going to hold the rest of the money to pay the costs of travel and housing. And on top of the sewing they had to clean the whole building on the weekends with the money from their "credit". When Pedro asked for the missing money that he was owed, the patrón and his wife beat him and set the dog on him. That was when they decided to leave.

Some questions to consider:

Have you heard any stories similar to this one? Who was involved? Where did it take place?What happened at the end of the story?

What kinds of problems do you think Basilia and Pedro faced when they fled the factory? Where will they go? What will they do? What has changed as a result of their journey?

What would you do if you found yourself in work conditions like those at this garment factory? What would you do if you were Basilia and Pedro when they walked out?

Where is God in this story and in others like it?

Some links to follow:

US Dept of Labor Report on Argentinian Child Labor

A news article on Bolivian slave laborers in Argentina

News article from THE GUARDIAN about Argentina's slave trade

UN Report on Argentinian Human Trafficking

State Department report on Human Trafficking in the United States (large PDF)

Collection of articles on US Human Trafficking

An article from the AFL-CIO on contemporary US slavery

Weekend and the Mission

Hi from Angela here! We have now been at our placement for almost a month, and homesickness is beginning to wear off a bit, blessedly. This past weekend, we had a brief vacation from our usual placements to accompany some of the young women from the church here to an ecumenical youth retreat in Misiones, a province to the east of El Chaco (where we are). Our journey there was scenic and beautiful--the area is known throughout Argentina for its red earth and agricultural beauty. It reminded me a bit of Wisconsin, with the red soil associated with Oklahoma. A really lovely bus ride.

This youth encounter of sorts involved four or five congregations from the IELU (the Lutheran church associated with the ELCA) and the IERP (a Protestant denomination of German origin). The host church had a beautiful Bible camp-retreat center-like facility, with sleeping rooms and a volleyball court and a massive grill. I really enjoyed getting to know youth leaders from across Northern Argentina and also getting to spend quality time with the chicas from our congregation here!

The retreat´s theme was human trafficking, which I have to admit I initally did not think was a very relevant topic to young people. But to my surprise, it is unfortunately a very relevant topic. Most of the young people knew at least that people from their neighborhood had been vulnerable to trafficking schemes. Underground webs here target both immigrants and native women in bad economic situations, as well as children, for sweatshop-style work, prostitution, and illegal underage work. Here (like in the US, I believe) they use immigrant status and bait-and-switch tactics (i.e. advertising for legitimate jobs, then taking documents and forcing people to illegitimate, demeaning work) to virtually enslave victims, cutting them off from access to authorities and their home communities. It is a very tragic situation, and very unfortunate that it hit so close to home for the people we are living with.

Besides making me realize the immediacy of human trafficking in the community where I now live, the retreat also made me reconsider the benefits of ecumenicalism. The IELU and the IERP were able to share resources towards common goals, making for a great event at which we did not need to focus on doctrinal differences but could moved towards shared understanding. I was really happy to be part of the event.

I also should probably update a little bit about my regular employment here! It seems that my assignments change somewhat every day, but I spend my time working with children ages 1-17ish at a community development center. Thus far, I have been playing a lot of Jenga and "house" and holding beautiful babies while trying desperately to understand the Spanish (or castellano) of the older children. But as my language skills are beginning to stabilize a bit, this week I plan to start leading some workshops on music, yoga, creative writing, and possibly other themes as the Spirit moves.

It is spring here, and beautiful. Yesterday was rainy, but not today, and the climate has been very pleasant. Flowering trees make every walk cheerful and colorful, and drinking mate outside is one of the great joys of life.

Our new friends from the weekend shared a great culinary joy of life with us, too: chipas. These small delights are cheese cooked in cornflour, I think, little puffs of deliciousness about the size of a Swedish meatball. I am not sure how to describe them, but I will do my best to learn how to make them!

Anyway, all is well with us. We really love to hear from home! Keep in touch, and God bless you every one!

Getting to know the base structure

Its amazing how much things can surprise you, even when you're supposedly ready for anything. I've left the country before, and I've played with children from different cultural contexts, but the smiles and laughter that arose from a game of Jenga played in the Mission the other day made me pause.

We had a lot of fun building and redesigning the small wooden tower according to our estimations of structural integrity, or rather, whether the tower looked wonky on that side and when the whole thing came crashing down, we all grabbed as many pieces as we could to get it back into shape for another round. I love board games, I always have, which is why the boys' laughter, finger-pointing, and "helpful" suggestions surprised me... I never expected to see such similar behavior to my own. What a gift to be able to step into a new job and instantly have a point of contact, and once more, not just a point of contact, but a shared connection of pleasure and joy.

If you've never played Jenga before, ask the nearest kid to help you find a set and play, and if you haven't played it in a year or longer, do the same. A collection of small wooden blocks say so much about the way that we relate to each other and our world, both through the building and the rebuilding that takes place over the course of the game. The blocks themselves are ingenius because they are so plain... planks that could come from almost any material on earth, without any complicated silicone chips or protective equipment required. Their simplicity nevertheless is quickly converted into structure by even the smallest hands in the furthest of lands. Can you imagine a location on earth in which you couldn't play this game? After three weeks in Argentina, I find myself asking this question for the first time, gleefully realizing that Jenga has a power to transcend boundaries placed on us by nationality, geography, ethnicity, language, and class.

And while the Mission has been a place of joyful congregation, fellowship and play, the social reality of the Barrio and of Resistencia makes me realize that Jenga has more to tell us than we ever could have imagined as children. The Mission where Angela and I will be working (especially Angela) is located in a neighborhood called Barrio Juan Bautista Alberdi (Barrio means neighborhood in Spanish and Alberdi was a president of Argentina in the 19th C.), a poorer part of the city where many people have built lives for themselves in small houses. While this reality is utterly breathtaking for us as privileged US citizens (we have to be honest about that fact, Angela and I have been blessed with wealth, love and opportunity relative to this community, and most around the world) there are communities far worse off in this city and in the surrounding province of El Chaco. Resistencia is the poorest provincial capital in the country, and the capital of the poorest province. As part of my work with the Centro Nelson Mandela, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that studies environmental and human rights abuses, I am bombarded every day with more facts about the dangerous processes that are crippling the livelihood of these communities.

Take, for example, the case of an industrial park in a neighboring town. This town lost most of its factory jobs in 1991 and has been economically devastated by unemployment, inflation and the consequential social service fallout. This town is thrilled to have the opportunity to have an industrial park in their community and are actively campaigning for its construction, which will surely bring jobs and dignity back to a group of people who have experienced a great amount of humiliation and pain. But the first plant that will be installed in this park is likely a Brazilian enterprise that makes steel, a venture that was stopped by their own government because of the dangers that it presented to the environment. If it were to be built, it would certainly mean the destruction of thousands of acres of the natural woodlands and sustain the soils of the interior of the province, destroying the livelihood of thousands of people, forcing them to abandon their homes to move to the city to find work, and the cycle repeats.

So where does Jenga come in? Any tower ever built was constructed according to some kind of plan and with a certain amount of materials. From Babel to the Empire State Building to the new education wing on the church, there is a plan and materials. And as we are told time and time again by both architects and pastors, what we have at the base is the most important. Rock or sand? Reinforced concrete or adobe? Do we build a society by offering employment, or by watching out for the environment? By raising taxes to pay for social services or by encouraging investment that will make those social services unnecessary? These are the questions that divide us politically and ideologically and none of them can be answered by anything as simple or narrow-minded as a blog post. And yet, in our own minds, the solutions to these problems appear as elegant as a Jenga tower.

Seriously, pull the game out of the closet and play a round with a friend. We can learn a lot from the simplicity AND the complexity of a game like Jenga.

Safe in Resistencia!

After two weeks of orientation at home and abroad, we finally arrived at our placement here in northern Argentina on Tuesday.

We left Denver on August 17 for Chicago, where we attended YAGM orientation at the Lutheran School of Theology--Chicago. The seminary is beautiful, by the way, and we had a great week spending time with the other YAGMs going all over the world. Daily seminars there focused on intercultural communication, philosophies of mission, and expectations & procedures, among other things. I found our discussion of the accompaniment model of mission work the most interesting. The ELCA describes this model as "walking together in solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality." Our presence here is part of our role; we are here to listen and learn, as well as speak and serve. I find the model good and Godly but difficult to describe!

The great departure from Chicago occured on August 25, when we flew to DC and took an 11-hour flight from there to Buenos Aires. There are three volunteers in Argentina (including us) and one in Uruguay, but we are all several hours apart from each other. So we had five great days in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, getting to know one another and the country. We stayed at the ISIDET, the united Protestant seminary there. I was excited to see all the posters for interesting classes, seminars, conferences, etc. going on there! It is, by all appearances, a vibrant academic and faith community, which we will experience in bits and pieces throughout the year. We also spent a lot of time with our country coordinator and her family, who were most hospitable.

We did manage some touristy activities in the city. By far the strangest was the Cemetery of Recoleta, where Evita Peron and other Argentine greats are buried. This "cemetery" is a collection of above-ground vaults, some just big enough for coffins, many small (and some large) chapels where services could be held. It is like a city of the dead, with avenues lined with houses for coffins. Google pictures if you are interested! It is a must see sort of attraction. (Eva´s grave is pictured to the right.)

We also visited a gaucho ranch and ate a whole ton of meat there. The gauchos are (were) like cowboys in the American West, and wear distinctive berets, cowboy-like boots, and pants. The whole town where the ranch was actually looked a lot like the Southwest, with stucco and brick houses.

The IELU (United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina and Uruguay) is hosting us here, and we attended a service at the Buenos Aires congregation on Sunday. The order of worship etc. was very familiar and comforting, and we shared a meal of empanadas with the church members. Empanadas, by the way, appear to be the national food--we have eaten them perhaps eight times already, and they are always good. It is a kind of mini-sandwich, meat and other fillings wrapped in a dough pocket. Several kind people have already volunteered to teach us how to make them.

Finally, on Sunday night we boarded a bus to Resistencia and arrived here the next morning.
(Views from our apartment) Buses here serve meals on long bus rides! Wow! I was pleasantly surprised. The bus-riding experience resembled flying much more closely than it resembled Greyhound. The seats were very comfortable, and they served coffee in the morning as we got close to our final destination!!!

I was delighted to move in somewhere I will not be leaving in two weeks! We have a really charming apartment a few minutes from the town square. But the rest of our Resistencia stories must wait for another post and another day. Chao!

O2B in Buenos Aires

We've arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, in the right city, with all of our baggage (both material and cultural). I've been in Buenos Aires for a total of about thirty minutes and I'm already enthralled with the diversity and beauty of Argentina. Deeper reflections will certainly come with time, as will longer and more detailed blog posts.

Salud!

Where are we going and what are we doing?

Bienvenidos al blog de Angela y Jake Rapp! We're very excited about our upcoming adventure and would like to start by providing some links to where we are going and the program that we are working with.

In brief, Angela and I will be spending the next year in service to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida through mission and service work in Resistencia, Argentina. Resistencia is a 400,000 person city in the northern province of El Chaco, about a 13 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. We will be working there for about 11 months (we arrive on the 26th of August, after some training in Chicago). At the moment our assignments are still a little vague, but we know that we're going to be working with a youth-oriented mission outreach program as well as a human rights organization. Angela will spend most of her time at the Maria Magdalena Mission with their after-school programs, environmental awareness activities, as well as language and catechism workshops. Jake will be working with the Mission as well as with the Centro Nelson Mandela, which works to denounce human rights violations related to environmentalism, globalization, and the indigenous population of the El Chaco province.

The ELCA's program site can be found here:

http://archive.elca.org/globalserve/youngadults/argentina.asp

For those of that can read Spanish, here is the city's website:

http://www.mr.gov.ar/

And a tourism website that describes Resistencia in English: http://www.welcomeargentina.com/resistencia/index_i.html