Exodus in Argentina

Jim and I were raking grass the other day and it reminded me of a comment he had made a while ago on the last farm. We were doing another miserable and boring job and he had said, "Seth, I think being a WWOOFer is a lot like being a slave. We aren't paid and we have to do as we are told." After some thought I had to agree, especially when we began making bricks out of clay and horse manure. We seemed to have step right out of the book of Exodus: we were living in a another land making bricks for the 'ruler.'

Fortunately, however, our situation is better than a Siberian concentration camp. According to Jim, who is reading a book about a Siberian concentration camp, the oppressed people there had to get up at 5; we only have to get up at 6:40 (although it feels like 5). Instead of working 10 hour days, we only have to work a 7 hour day. We also can eat as much as we desire at meals, unlike the those in the concentration camp who had to work extra hard for an extra 6 oz. of bread. I don't think they had much bread to begin with either.

So all in all, among the many places we have seen and the many things we have done, Jim and I can also add the experience of slavery to our travel resume. But lest you think us ungrateful, we do appreciate the experience we are gaining working with our hands. As a note to those in the United States who had the thought of making a list of things for us to do, please keep in mind that what happens in Argentina, stays in Argentina.

The Wedding Crashers

Greetings from the Tribe of Issachar, a member of the Twelve Tribes Christian communes, a Christian community about an hour outside the city of Buenos Aires.

In case you think we've gone totally loco, rest assured that "Issachar" has visitors all the time who help around the farm and the bakery, most of whom are just looking for farming experience.

Right now there are about 40 people, with 20 more due to arrive tomorrow from the beach, who work in the kitchen preparing the food, in the garden growing food to eat and sell, baking bread, doing landscaping work around the community, and for the next two weeks, preparing feverishly for their first wedding. It's the day we originally planned to leave, but this is a BIG deal here, so we're definitely going to stay.

The groom is my roommate, a serious bearded Argentine who speaks very good English. He's been a member of the community for about 10 years, as has his fiancée, who's from Ukraine. Tomorrow I think I'm going to help him tile the bathroom in his new house, which will give us lots of time to talk more about the community.

From what we have learned so far, they try to model their community after the early church and have all things in common. The money they earn is put into a communal pot and whenever someone needs something it is procured, either independently if it's a small thing, or through the approval of a council if it is a larger item.

We're having a good time so far and Seth, I think, is a potential Martin Luther for the Twelve Tribes. His planned reformations include meat everyday and an optional 7am meeting (it's mandatory right now), with closed-circuit television for those who want to "participate" while remaining in bed.

We'll keep you posted on the wedding preparations (11 days to go!) and on other potential reformations.

Hitchhiking: Harder Than It Looks

It's a quiet Saturday night in Buenos Aires, so a retrospective at our first "successful" hitchhiking adventure is in order.

One of the other volunteers had a problem with his leg, so we hitched a ride from the estancia into sleepy town of Gobernator Gregores. Pauline dropped us off with our bags and some food and told us she'd come back in 3 hours to see if we were still there. The traffic was quite sparse, maybe a car every 5-10 minutes, and so thumbing was slow, but fun. Most of the drivers would react, giving us various signals that seemed to indicate they weren't going that far or were returning to town.

After about 40 minutes, a guy in a small car stopped and asked where we were going. We told him several times and he had no idea what we were talking about. After 4 or 5 times repeating "El Calafate" at various speeds, we tried varying the pronunciation which did the trick: we were saying the name incorrectly.

Unfortunately, Antonio, our friendly traveler, did not speak slow Spanish and we did not understand where he was going. He did say that we could get some kind of a bus from where he'd leave us to El Calafate. We hopped in the and 2 hour journey over gravel roads began.

Antonio finally dropped us off at the bus station in the town and wished us good luck. He is a technician at a power plant and was headed to the coast on business. In the station we saw the first map of this hitchhiking adventure ... It turns out there was a fork a few miles down the road from where we were thumbing a ride--and Antonio was going down the wrong fork!

We were bummed we had to end up traveling 3 sides of a square to get to El Calafate, but we were thankful that someone picked up us and all our bags. Both of us agreed that we're not even sure we would pick ourselves up, so we're thankful for whatever generosity we get. Next time though, we're taking a map.

The Adventures of Bread

Jim and I walked by a bakery today and it brought back memories from our two weeks on the estancia. Since we were left alone for two weeks, we ate all the fresh meat we had in the first four days before it went bad (our dog loved the bone we gave her when we were done!). Bread did not make it into our collection of supplies, but we found yeast and flour in the cupboard. After about half a week I decided I wanted to try to make bread, so I mixed some powered milk with water, beat in two eggs, and then poured in flour (with a dash of salf) until the batter seemed appropiate. Then I added some yeast and beat, rolled, and kneeded the dough just like I thought a peasant should. The bread went into the oven, and since we had no way to measure the heat, I had to keep my eye on it (but I knew NOT to open the oven door because the bread would fall!) After all was done, we ate the bread and decided it was a huge success, especially since I had no way to measure anything.

I made bread again after we had moved. This next batch we cooked in a wood stove, so it took longer. The bread came out a little flat too because I didn't put in enough yeast.

The last batch was cooked in the outdoor, brick oven. We cooked pizza crusts first, and afterwards stuck in the bread. The fire had become very hot by that time, so hot that when we came to check on the bread 15 minutes later, the top was completely black. Jim put out the fire and we let the oven cool. Since the underside of the bread was still soft, we flipped the bread in the pans and stuck them back in. Over the course of the next couple days we ate the bread down to the black crust. Our dog ate the burnt part for us.

From Glaciers to Air Conditioners

The hike around the glaciers was probably the most amazing hike either Jim or I have even done. After some steep uphill parts, we arrived at a small lake the color of mysterious green with a mountain looming overhead (Fitz Roy). We sat on one side of the lake, but there was snow on the other side. Needless to say, the water was frigid since the water came from melted glacier ice. The next day we went to a huge glacier, Perito Moreno. Only 180 feet of this glacier is over the water, but that is impressive, especially when ice chunks break off the glacier and crash into the water below (and the chunks really do crash!) The glacier itself is about 18 miles long and just over the surface area of the city of Buenos Aires. On the way back to the town we had the shuttle drop us off near a lake a native had recommended to us. We walked for about two hours before a family picked us up and took us to the campground (finally! successful hitchhiking!) We found a shelter made out of thick branches near the top of a hill by the lake to spend the night. In the morning we started out once again. And once again we successfully hitchhiked to where we wanted to go! We have a 50% success rate now!

We arrived in El Calafate at 1:30. At the bus station we were told we could catch a bus a 2 that would take us to another city where we would catch a bus to Buenos Aires at 8. With half-an-hour we ran back to our hostel for our bags; Jim bought bread from a bakery for the ride on the way. While Jim made a reservation for a hostel in Buenos Aires (we got a discount if we reserved beforehand) I dragged my luggage to the nearest ATM because we did not have enough money in cash to pay for the tickets (the all powerful VISA is not as widely accepted in Patagonia). The first bank was closed, so I ran to another. That one had a line, so with no other choice I stood there trying not to keep looking at my watch. My ATM receipt reports the transaction time as 1:56; the bus pulled out of the terminal, with us on it, at 2:11.

Part of the reason we rushed for that particular bus was that we got a really good deal in the first class compartment. So instead of skinny seats to spend the next 38 hours on, we spent them in plush seats that allowed us to move from one side to the other as we slept. We had more leg room (something I do not fully appreciate) and even reclined our seats one time to do crunches. Last night we switched buses at the halfway point. Two hours into the journey on the new bus, the tire blew. We spent almost five hours at a random gas station in the middle of nowhere (remember! we were in Patagonia!) before another bus came to pick us up. It turns out the bus that came to pick us up was the same bus we had left only 7 hours before. Without more excitement we arrived in Buenos Aires this afternoon. The weather of Buenos Aires is sweltering. Instead of spending the evening in sweatshirts like we did in Patagonia, we dug out our shorts and listened to the air conditioners humming.

Hello Electricity

Seth and I are finally back from another world--the world without electricity. I don´t really know how best to start describing our time on what I think was 81 square miles, so I think I´ll just string some impulses together. It is after all after midnight and I can see in front of me without a candle--and there are no mice hear to run over my legs (easily the scariest part of the 2 weeks).

I think I´ll start and end with describing our typical day and let Seth pick up the torch with some of the juicy details. We kept a journal every day to make sure nothing important, or unimportant, was forgotten.

We rolled out of our sheepskin beds shortly before nine to make a giant pot of oatmeal. Often I would get up a little early and read while Seth barricaded himself in our room for a precious extra hour of sleep away from Sheeps the dog--who enjoyed licking any bare skin she could find. During our week at the first house on the estancia, the puesto, we had fresh cherries to stick in the oatmeal, which almost made up for the lack of peanut butter.

We´d usually work for a few hours repairing fences, making canals, picking cherries, or something else. Our tasks were varied, so we usually didn´t get too bored with the jobs. About 1 pm we´d break to make lunch, something we´d always plan at dinner the night before. After lunch we would read or write for at least an hour until 3:30, when we started work again. We always tried to do something a little bit easier in the afternoon, like making cherry dulce, so we didn´t wear ourselves out before dinner.

Making dinner was often the highlight of the day.We had no measuring cups or recipies, which led to some hilarious culinary accidents, including but not limited too 1 gallon too much of rice for stir fry (we gave it to the dog) and some very, very bad crepes (we ate them anyway, but in the dark so we couldn´t see how bad they looked). We often made several courses to stretch out the meal and dessert was often eaten around a fire or by candlelight as the sun set. It was quite bro-mantic

Now we are in the mountains about to do some hiking around the glaciers, so I need to go to bed so Seth doesn´t leave me in the dust going up the mountain tomorrow.

Life on the Estancia

Our past couple days at the estancia have been filled with not terribly exciting work, but occasionally we find something worth writing about to do. For example, this past week we helped to slaughter a sheep. That was not a regularly occurrence back in Schenectady. Skipping over the details, I will simply say the priests who slaughtered sheep in the Old Testament would have stunk after offering a lamb on the altar (we all took showers afterwards). The next day we ate some of the sheep and cut up the rest and stored it in the freezer.

One evening we had crepes for dinner (remember, the estancia owners are French). Jim and I both had the chance to cook our own crepes, complete with the turning the crepe by flipping it into the air! We had leftover batter, so the next morning we practiced our crepe flipping some more. Of course we didn’t mind eating the results of our efforts!

The weather finally stopped being unusual and started being usual. The unusual consisted of no wind and a dry heat. One day it was just over 100 degrees in the sun. Needless to say we sat in the shade until the heat subsided a bit. Now the wind is returned, likely to stay, since Patagonia is known for its wind. The windmills that generate the electricity have been spinning all day. The air is not cold, but the wind has a chilly bite to it that makes it slightly more uncomfortable than refreshing.

The owners of the ranch are about to leave for a two week vacation. Jim and I agreed to spend those two weeks at the other estancia they own, 15 miles from the one where we are currently living. The estancia we are going to does not have internet. Actually, it doesn’t even have electricity. It does have gas for the stove though. We thought we were in the middle of nowhere now, but apparently this other estancia is even more in the middle of nowhere. It was described to us like this, “You can see the cars from this estancia [they are little dots with lots of dust behind them]. At the other estancia, you can’t see the cars.” When the owners bought this remote estancia someone told them it was a prime location for a serial killer because it is in such a lonely location. Oh! And we need to watch out for the pumas too.

Con cuidado!