Moments in a weekend

It was like hell and heaven, all at once.

Standing on the edge of a 300 foot tall waterfall, surrounded by 10 other waterfalls. The roar is so loud and the spray is so strong that we all lift up our arms and scream into downpour. We are soaked-absolutely drenched- but deliriously happy.

The barefoot children in San Ignacio surround us, as we rub the sleep out of our eyes and complain about the air conditioning being too cold in our omnibus, they hold out their dirt covered hands and ask for a piece of candy or a glass of water.

As a little train pulls us through the Argentine rain forest, hundreds of brightly colored butterflies follow, perching on our hands, our shoulders, our noses. We lean down and stare at their eyes and their long curled tongues. As we watch, it unfurls and silently licks the salt of off our sunburned skin. You would swear you´ve never been a part of anything that beautiful.

¨One woman a year commits suicide en la garganta del diablo.¨ Our tour guide motions behind him, at a crater of a waterfall, that looks as if God himself reached down and tore a hole in the middle of the Paraná River. Lazily and unaware the water creeps down the river until suddenly the gravity of the 200 foot drop brings it crashing down. The force is so strong that you can´t see where the water hits the rocks, only the white spray. I lean over the railing and watch as the birds weave their way through the falls, effortless, and wonder if those women wished they had wings.

I am parallel to the jungle floor, my arms and legs outstretched like a ballerina on point, above 250 feet of open air. My harness is clipped to the zip line and as I fly through the tops of the trees, I realize there is no where else in the world I would rather be.

Veronika and I are walking through the rust colored dirt, staring at the rainclouds above us and talking of storms when we hear, ¨RUN! ¨and then CRACK, and I am sprinting, turning and screaming at Veronika, ¨COME NOW!¨ and when we look back, a huge tree is hanging precariously, sections of it´s trunk jutting at awkward angles like broken bones. We laugh nervously to ourselves and turn away.

You can easily imagine that this was what Adam and Eve would have seen, all those millenia ago. The trees are so green, and I can see a tucan perched on a branch over here, and a lizard on a tree trunk over there. The butterflies are still sitting on my backpack. Brazil is just across the river. ¨This is the same view that the Guaraní saw when they first discovered Iguazú Falls¨our tour guide says, and I believe him.

Gluttony and spice and everything nice

La monumental nacional de la bandera, the historic monument built to honor the designer of the Argentine flag, was shining down on us; the blue lights flanking each side and never letting us forget that we were in Rosario.

But I was not here to look at the flag monument. In fact, this nationally recognized piece of stone is five blocks from my apartment. I see it almost everyday. I was there for something much more elusive, something that Argentina has been hiding from me for months now.

Spice.

Yesterday began Colectividades, a week long culture festival in the heart of Rosario, that features food from the different ethnic groups in the city. Rosario has a huge immigrant population, and this one week of the year they meet on the waterfront in front of the monument and cook.

Most of you know that I love street food. Almost any time I am lucky enough to be in Portland, Oregon, I am yelling about how I want ¨food from a cart¨. My goodbye present from Daniel Madrid was to take me to a collection of delicious street vendors on Hawthorne and eat for two hours. I am, to say it politely, a fanatic.

And Argentina, I am sad to report, is probably not one of my favorite culinary destinations. They do asados (Argentine BBQ) well, and Churipan is one of my favorite foods, but in general, the people here detest any sort of spice. Pepperoni pizza is considered way to spicy for most Argentines.

So here I am, a fanatic of all things spicy and ethnic, in a country that considers mayonnaise a flavor. But, Colectividades was here, and I was going to make the best of it.

We descended upon the festival like Samoyeds that hadn´t eaten for weeks (Falconer family inside joke, don´t worry) searching for any South East Asian stand we could find. We ran past Peru, peeked into Palenstine, pit stopped at Lebanon. We had falafal, lamb, french fries thick with grease and salt, baclava, something beautiful and chocolate from Rusia, and still unable to find anything Thai or Vietnamese, settled for paella from Catalan.

Now, Paella is something of a religion for me. My dad has been making it since I was little, and whenever something really special was happening, if we were ever having guests over or generally trying to appear like respectable people, we hid the dogs and dad brought out the paella pan. We would talk about it for a week ahead of time, ¨Oh get ready!¨ Dad would say to Ian or I, ¨It´s going to be good!¨and we would oohhh and ahhh in delight and anticipation. When the huge pan of rice and saffron and seafood was finally placed in front of us, the table would go silent until it had been picked clean.

So it is with my family in mind that I attempt to describe the beautiful vision in front of me last night:

A huge pot so big that I could curl up and take a comfortable nap in it is boiling and frothing with rice and various spices. Two men are stirring it with gigantic metal spoons, and every few minutes one of them is throwing something else into the pot. Shrimp! Sausage! Garlic! Something I can´t recognize! Squid! Muscles! Chicken!

I got a plate. Obviously.

I shared it with two other girls, and we ate it so fast that today we woke up with blisters on our tongues and insides of our mouths.

But is that going to stop me from going to Colectividades tonight?

I think we all know the answer to that.

gracias por escuchar

I was back in the Radio Star studio, for the fourth or fifth time.

But this time was different, I wasn´t here just for an interview. Cecilia, the woman who runs the radio show, had invited me to cohost her news program.

Before the show started, one of the other employees was passing around un mate. Hot and bitter, I let the caffeine hit my senses and focus on the show.

Cecilia handed me the news stories, and I scanned them quickly and I popped on my headphones and listened to the advertisements turn into music, turn into Cecilia´s voice and suddenly it was my turn.

When I first started the show, I wasn´t sure how many Rosarinos actually listened. But today, as we talked, Cecilia´s phone exploded with text messages asking this question and that, asking if I could speak in Spanish again, asking if I would sing black eyed peas like I had last time (fail). Halfway through the show, so many listeners had asked if I would speak Spanish that we conducted the rest of the show in two languages: her in English and me in Castellano.

I´m not really sure how to end this entry except to say that I´m really happy. Really happy with what I´m learning, really happy with what I´m seeing, really happy with the people I´m sharing my little mate gourd with.

And really happy that I´m cohosting the radio show again on Monday.



Chau america del norte, nos vemos demasiado pronto.

Discursos in a time of Dengue

¨Dengue fever occurs in Argentina and includes severe pain that gives it the nick-name break-bone fever or bonecrusher disease. It is transmitted through mosquito bites from insects that feed during the day and night.¨-Wikipedia


I was sweating, profusely, and covered in quarter sized mosquito bites.

Not exactly the way you want to start out a nightmare, but there I was, in the center of a room full of Argentine law students and American students, and they were waiting for me to say something.

What was I supposed to be saying?

Oh, god, this wasn´t a nightmare. This was really happening. I had really signed up to give a human rights presentation and then participate in a debate in front of Argentines. Oh my god, Oh my god.

When I was in high school, my worst fear in the world was to speak Spanish in front of anyone. I would hum little songs to myself, practice phrases when no one was home, but to give a speech in Spanish in front of the class meant certain death. This may or may not have to do with the fact that I got sprayed by a skunk one year before a big speech, but you understand. What if I messed up? What if I said something really embarrassing because I really didn´t understand the difference between the preterite and the impersonal? I avoided speeches like the Swine Flu (too soon).

It doesn´t really make sense that someone with such an inherent fear to speak a language would major in it, but that´s what I did, and two years later I found myself standing in cramped, humid classroom and 40 faces were staring at me expectingly.

Oh right, it was something about Human trafficking.

¨Hola, me llamo Lissie Falconer. Primer, si ustedes no me entienden, por favor, decíme. Yo puedo hablar en inglés...obviomente.¨ (Hi, my name is Lizzie Falconer. To begin, if you guys can´t understand me, please tell me. I can speak in English...obviously¨.)

I breathed in deeply and scrolled through my power point, retelling the horrific story of girls murdered in human trafficking, relaying the statistics, explaining the governments ineffective plan to help the 27 million people involved in modern day slavery.

A few minutes later it was done and I smiled and slumped in my chair, years of worrying and stress lifted off of my freckled shoulders.

When the debates were over, people came up to me and hugged me. Told me they had loved it. My favorite teacher congratulated me, I made friends with the Argentines who I debated against and I thought...

maybe I can speak this language. Maybe I can do this.

We went to a bar and drank a few Quilmes (love you mom and dad) and I thought, maybe I could be here. Maybe I could stay here.

But then I got bit by the 30th mosquito today and I thought, nahh, there´s no Dengue in Oregon.

Argentine Folklore

Today in class, (too many of my entries start this way) in an attempt to get our grammar teacher off of the topic of "Las construciones impersonales" my friend Georgia asked the difference between Raton y Rata. Turns out, a raton is a mouse and a rata is a rat.

"Haven't you heard about Raton Perez?" Our teacher asked us. Well all shook our heads.

"Well, I think you have something similar in the United States, but when a child loses a tooth, Raton Perez sneaks under their pillow at night and leaves money."

Please, dear reader, just think about this concept. While in the States we tell children that a sweet, innocent fairy comes and benevolently drops money while you dream, Argentines tell their ninos that a mouse sneaks up into their bed, slithers under the covers, and then drops some money.

I can just picture my 8 year old self, wrapped up in my covers, only my eyes peeping out, unable to sleep because I'm horrified that a magic mouse is going to creep into my bed and touch me with it's tail or poop on my pillow.

God I love this country.

Mufa

In grammar 4 one day, we watched a movie called ¨La suerte esta echada¨ which translates too: The luck is pouring. It stars a big nosed Argentine man who is a mufa: a person so cursed with bad luck that where ever they go, whoever is around them, falls under a spell of mala suerte.

After we finished watching the movie, our teacher asked us, ¨Do you know anyone who is a mufa?¨ I looked down at my desk. I knew where this was going. Who was going to take the bait. Turned out, it was my friend Ed.

¨Lizzie´s a mufa.¨ He smiled and my teacher asked (not really knowing what she was getting herself into), ¨Oh Lizzie, what´s happened?¨

Oh well Sole, let me tell you. There was the three delayed flights, the disaster of a money situation, my cell phone that didn´t work for my first two weeks, my pink eye that lasted three weeks, hostel reservations that have magically disappeared, missed buses...

As I listed cosa after cosa after cosa other friends in the class started to join in.

¨Remember when every bus in Cordoba was sold out and we were stuck there for the night?¨ Veronika chimed in.

¨Oh and there was that time that the bus leaked and you and Devin were rained on for 18 hours?¨

¨...or that time you almost broke your back falling in the lobby of the school?¨


On and on and on. It´s embarrassing how often things go wrong, to the point where no one in the program actually expects anything to go right for me.

So it should have come to no surprise when this weekend 100 pesos ($25) was stolen from my wallet. Then the next night, my friend´s purse holding my camera and cellphone was cut by a thief and stolen. I stood in the center of the concert, getting shoved by people on all sides and tears running down my face, overwhelmed that something else could have gone wrong.

I went out after with some girls from my program, only to discover that my only pair of jeans had ripped almost in half in the back. Fail.

Fed up, tired, and knowing I had a phone call to make, I walked the farmiliar path to the internet cafe. I called home and wished my big brother a happy birthday and he gave me some much needed advice:

¨It sucks, and it´s awful that it happened, but you need to just take it as part of the experience. You only have a short time of your life to live in Argentina. Move forward.¨

I am a twenty year old, poor as trash college student trying to make sense of a brand new country where the language is still a struggle and sometimes I fall. Okay, a lot of times I fall.

But a lot of times life here is a dream. 80 degree days of tanning at the beach, mate with hombres lindos, Pablo Neruda in the Park, Che Guevara in the classroom, cafecitos and live music, museums and graffiti, Fernet and Coke, and castellano...always castellano.

So, maybe I am a Mufa. Maybe I am that rare breed of person where everthing falls apart wherever they go. But do you know what?

There´s no where else in the world I would rather be.

Dale, dale, dale Newells!

"Lissie, que vas a hacer esta noche?" Marcela strolled into the kitchen, where I was enjoying watery argentine coffee.

"Uhh, nada." It was a Sunday night. It was Mother's day. The only thing I'd done all day was walk around Rosario taking pictures, reading my book and thinking romantic thoughts.

"Vamos a el partido de Newell's ahora. Vas a cambiar tu ropa, hace frio." My jaw dropped. Newell's game? Tonight?! Me??

Newells Old Boys is one of Rosario's biggest soccer clubs. The other, Central, is the heated rival of Newell's. Why is Newell's Old Boys in English? I have no idea. The only thing I know is that my house is a Newell's house. I've been dropping hints that I wanted to go for a while, but I didn't actually think it was going to happen.

La cancha (the stadium) hold 42,000 screaming bocas sucias (dirty mouthed) Rosarinos. Marcela, her friend, Fermin, his friend and I walked into the stadium and I gasped in delight. The NOB players were decked in red and black and flying down the field, and as the ran the crowd chanted song, after song after song. Newell´s won on a penalty kick, and fireworks erupted from all corners of the stadium. As the game ended, Marcela grabbed my hand and dragged me out of la cancha and out towards the car.

We were stopped 100 feet out of the stadium by a huge row of cops. Cops with rottweilers, cops with guns, cops on horses, cops with plexi glass shields, all of them in bullet proof jackets. Marcela pulled out a cigarrette and started smoking, as if being stopped by the riot police was normal, which of course, it is. Fermin helped me out on the misunderstanding, explaining that if the police weren´t there, violent fights would break out between Newell´s fans and the other team.

Finally we were allowed to pass through. A muzzled german shephard lunged at me and I cursed so loudly in English that Fermin looked at me jokingly and said, ¨You scared?¨

After we passed through the line of police, we stopped at a cart and all ate my favorite argentine dish: churipan. Huge, salty pieces of choriza, drenched in chimichuri sauce and piled on a sweet roll.

When we finally got home that night, and I was tucked into my little bed I couldnt get the song out of my head:

Dale, dale, dale Newells.