Yet another stunning scene in Villa Giardino, Cordoba Province.
Wow, has this been a month of travel! I leave tomorrow morning for a weekend in Rosario, the third largest city in Argentina. I will be checking out possibilities for a program there and hanging out with Ayelen, a young woman that came to our training last September.
On Monday evening I leave for the Latin American Regional Council in Miami, Florida. In addition to LifeWind's staff from Latin America and the Caribbean there will be people from the different NGOs with which we work. I'm looking forward to it! However, I still don't have my return flight booked, through a series of circumstances. I am still considering going to the Cleveland, Ohio area afterwards to speak with some churches, but the opportunities there are still not concrete.
Today I met with some Brazilians that have started a project in an urban area called Berisso, which is 40 km from Buenos Aires. Yet again, I've met a group of people who have great ideas and are working in a barrio with a desire to do sustainable, holistic work but lack structure. We've already set a date for a Vision Seminar with them! The vision seminar is the first step towards starting a CHE program. It is usually a three-hour seminar with people from various local groups, NGOs, and churches who are interested in or already working in the surrounding area. Out of this vision seminar will hopefully develop a group who will take the Training of Training course (TOT).
Silvia (from Baradero) and Nora (from the Libertador Church who also goes to Baradero to volunteer) and I met at the downtown train station. We each came from three different train lines and then took the subway for our meeting with the group working in Berisso. It was my first time on the subway here. I really think I need the excuse of some visitors in order to do some serious scoping of the city!
Recently I've written a lot about my challenges. One of the things I've really enjoyed about this new job has been the slower pace. Because I travel so much, I have a lot of time to reflect. In addition, because Buenos Aires is so large even a trip within the city can take all day. For example, I was gone for six hours for a 2 1/2 hour meeting. This may not sound like fun to you, but one of my on-going struggles has been trying to squeeze too much into my day. I had already improved drastically from the mid-90s, when every possible minute had a meeting, class, volunteer activity, or one of my two or three jobs penciled in, but I still was not living the way I desired. Here I find it's just impossible to do too much, so I just can't! (Of course, as I write this it's 11:45 pm and my internet connection just started working, so I really could send those expense reports now....)
