Cordoba

Last weekend I was at a conference put on by a local foundation, Centro Kairos. They share a lot of LifeWind's vision, including holistic work and utilizing youth as trainers. This conference was about children and adolescents and how to include them in the work of the church and community.
This picture is from a short walk I took on Saturday morning -- click on it to enlarge and see the horses. Beautiful! The weather was cool and rainy. It's the first time I've been outside of Cordoba city -- this conference was in a small town a few hours northwest of the city, Villa Giardino.

There weren't many difficulties on the road, despite the ongoing farmers' strike. They are protesting an 9% increase in tax on grain exports, and are blocking all trucks with produce or meat or grains from going to cities across the entire country. A few days ago they decided to let dairy products through. Throughout the night we were stopped several times: there were fires burning on the sides of the roads to let us know to stop, then the bus waited in line if there was traffic, we saw a few hundred farmers and their families on the sides of the highway and in the median, then the bus driver exchanged some friendly conversation with the farmer in charge and we moved on. There's supposedly no meat in the stores and in some areas there are produce shortages -- I've been planning to get to a store for the day and a half I've been back but haven't yet (making do with the cabbage and carrots I have at home) so I don't have the personal take on it yet. Thankfully there is still no violence.

On Friday afternoon we had some time for a walk before the conference began. Here I am with some wildflowers.
Above are the two women with whom I walked, Carmen and Alicia. Alicia is from the province of Buenos Aires, and over the past few years has developed a feeding center for children which is now able to provide food daily. They also do tutoring, and are looking to become even more holistic and sustainable. They would like to provide training that would help the people not rely so much on the food that is provided. We discussed ways LifeWind might be able to provide training.

Once of the themes was dance, and how this can be a great way to involve children from violent and broken homes to positive touch and physical use of their bodies. We learned a few dances as well -- very fun!

And last but not least, here's a view from the top of the hill we walked to on Friday. It reminded me of a scene in a certain movie that I'm not obsessed with where the heroine first sees the countryside of Derbyshire: