i knew i was gonna need proof...

so a rather anxious lil gringuita waited bogged down with her big ole bag at a rather early hour...she having celebrated her departure by getting very little sleep and drinking rather too much...
so the ra plus devoted pal and pelucha extraordinaire salvador waited to load onto one of several buses headed far far away...
most of the other volunteers came with a friend or small group of em...she was alone, shy, and not catchaing mucho...

bus loaded up and sleepy hung over girl slept through nearly the whole six hour trip...awoke to another world..
it was bright as fuck, hot as fuck, dry as fuck...nothin but cactus and dust for miles it seemed and as the bus bounced along she could only think, are we there yet and why didnt i bring more water...

finally the bus arrived at the little school where wed be camped out for ten days give or take...and we unloaded...it was so small we couldnt actually fit all the sleeping bags unrolled into the one main room, so several ended up in the passageway between classroom and dining room...

it had already begun to get cold and everyone get settled then sat out front watching the stars...this gringa recognized orion right away and thought kermit would be proud, then asked somebody wheres the southern cross, to which he replied, in the south gringa! like she knew where that was....but he pointed and suddenly she saw the southern cross for the first time ever...
the sky was big and clear and cold...

finally they had dinner together and were told to introduce themselves to the person next to them then intro that person to the whole group...just what she needed...group games in spanish...but she pulled it off and it wasnt half bad...

the next day one señora malvina showed her and a few others how to make bread, which they cooked in a little iron stove outside, one with actual fire..

then she began her project which was to create a concrete floor for part of a comunal building...

this lasted the duration, involved lots of leveling, shovelling, measurring...then carting in of gravel spreading of gravel, leveling measuring...then the mixing of concrete which involved lots of shovelling of sand and gravel, mixing, spreading, smoothing etc...

with a team of volunteers paired with some workers from the community this work took place daily between breakfast and lunch then lunch and dinner...

it was hot and dry with little water, about a half hour walk to the site from the school which had to be done in the morning, then back for lunch and a brief siesta, then back to the site until 8pm then back to the school for dinner...

it was a tiny little community where everyone lived far from each other and about all there was to see was dust and goats...

she had never had such a good time...
during the day she would take breaks to talk to the lugareños, the old men who showed them all how to mix and spread concrete...shed ask questions about thier lives and why they lived like that and it got easier to understand thier soft slur of words...

or shed palear ripia for like days in the hot sun, just getting down with that, that gravel shoveling feeling...kinda groovy once you got into a groove...

every break was well deserved, every meal exquisite, every sunset amazing..
she went to bed exhausted and woke starved...

she made friends with some of the other volunteers who at night would teach her slang and swearwords...one night her whole table began to speak in the spanish version of pig latin...

she just laughed...i mean how ridiculous can you be...she was encouraged to shout out things like avíspate rehuevón (kinda like wake up dumbass) or reconcha tu madre or voy a guitriar (slanged out fer im gonna ralph) and when she lost track and just said oh kiss my ass people said were speaking spanish gringa try and keep up...

on the last day the people threw a big ole party for everyone and brought out shit tons of food plus beer mixed with soda, biltz and pap of course, ones red ones orange...prefer the red myself...then everybody danced...

this gringa danced a ranchero with don maximo...not sure how but its true...

and finally we all came home the next day, tired and dirty and hungry after ten days of five minute cold showers every other day and lots of work and lots of sun....

we had us some fun though i tell you what...so now my ass is headed for buenos aires but i will check back in soon...