I opened my blog today intending to upload some pictures to accompany my post from yesterday and I noticed that I had started a draft around the first or second week in August that I never finished! If you read yesterday’s post, this is more evidence for the third case when I am most likely to feel like writing...enjoy!
Today is a grey day. There’s nothing special about the weather. A still greyness has softly nestled itself between the cozy cement and tile houses here in Laboulaye. It’s unusually warm for an overcast winter day, but not uncomfortably so. And that’s kind of how I feel. Not in a sad or melancholy way, but rather like a citizen of the town in Footloose; both content and vaguely aware that something is missing at the same time. I’ve been away for a full month as of yesterday, so I guess I’m just missing family and friends. Today I taught a class about Thanksgiving. We made little turkeys from tracings of our hands and on them wrote things that we’re thankful for--which the kids loved by the way! I taught them about the history of Thanksgiving, what we do to celebrate it today, and about all the food we eat! That’s probably what did it. Talking about food, more than anything else, can make me very nostalgic. Even though I haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with my own family for four years (since I went to college), I still miss my mom’s cheesy-potato casserole and homemade dinner rolls!
Other than today, this has been a strange week full of surprises. For example, I was on tv yesterday! It’s a long story, but it starts out like this: I found a little puppy in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, that is not an unusually occurrence in and of itself here in Argentina. But this time it was different. As I was walking home, I was about to cross an intersection and as I glanced across the street I saw the most pathetic little ball of fur helplessly trying to hoist itself onto the curb with trembling little legs! It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. I couldn’t just leave it there to get hit by a car! The poor thing was barely even old enough to walk. So, I crouched down and scooped him up. I don’t know what I was thinking. What was I going to do with a puppy in a strange city where I didn’t even have my own place to live, let alone a place for him to live or an income to sustain us both?! So, I walked around the block a few times, stopping people and asking them if they recognized the puppy. I’m sure they all thought I was some crazy American who had no clue what she was doing--I was. But that’s beside the point. Finally, exasperated and at a loss for what to do, I made my way toward my homestay. On the way there, I met my host-mother who was going out to run some errands. I asked her what to do and she directed me to the “municipal”, which is basically city hall, to ask them what to do with the thing. By this time I had already been trekking around on a 60 degree day wearing a sweater and carrying bulging backback. It was another 15 minute walk to the municipal. On I went. When I arrived, the woman at the front desk told me where to take the puppy (to a vet’s office where they would find someone to take it to the pound). She also noted my accent and asked me where I was from. At the same time, a local reporter happened to be covering another story at the municipal just a few feet away, so when I mentioned that I was from the US, it must have caught her attention. Lights. Camera. Action. She came over and asked if she could interview me for the morning news! So, long story short, that’s how I was discovered and became the legend that I am today. Who knew that such a big start would be discovered by a small-town news crew in Laboulaye, Argentina?
