It´s funny how intuition works. I was just talking to someone the other day about how I hadn´t thrown up in years and how it was actually a fairly interesting experience. Yesterday, I wake up in my bed on the farm with wooginess in my stomach. I take my waking slow and go out to work, but nothing doing, I´m not feeling well at all. I head back to our lodging and Azucena makes me some infusion of medicinal roots to fix me up- little did I know that by ´fix me up´ she meant it would make me eject the contents of my stomach. The rest of the day was spent in bed feeling to weak to sit up strait. Finally, by 5 or so I summoned the strength to walk 2 miles into Tunuyan and catch the bus back to Mendoza. The bus arrives relleno, not a single open seat, so I sit on the floor in the aisle, clutching my backpack a plastic bag and feeling every bump in the road reverberate in my gut. One of the longer hours of my life.Oh well, that´s what you get for eating uncooked produce in a small town in Argetina.
The day before was quite interesting. We get sundays off on the farm, and I stayed longer this time because this next week I don´t have many classes, it being the quasi-spring break here. So myself and the three other workers on the farm decided to head for the mountains. We take a bus an hour to the south to a little town called Pareditas, having foolishly trusted a tourist guidebook that said that a volcano was nearby. We get there, find out that the volcano is at least an hour´s drive up into the altiplano and there aren´t any buses that go that way. Ok, so the mountains look fairly close from the service station where we are, so we start walking west along a country road and get way out in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields of garlic and membrillo trees and desert. After an hour or so the road stops and we cross a field and encounter a fence, on the other side of which is a dense barrier of spiky desert vegetation, and those goddam mountains look as far away as they were an hour ago. We decide to cut our losses and sit down to eat by an irrigation ditch with a line of huge weeping willows. We´re way the hell out, and figure the owners of the land are nowhere to be found. But after a while a young couple with two kids comes along, leading horses. They say hello and set to work hoeing the field of oregano across the way. We decide to ask them if there´s a good place to visit nearby. They laugh and say there´s nothing, and add that they thought we knew the landlord and we probably shouldn´t be there. We take our time packing things up and then here comes the owner. A middle aged guy with curly hair and sweatpants and workboots. We expect trouble, but when he comes closer he welcomes us and starts to converse. Turns out he´s a professor of literature at the local finishing school. He says he was sitting in one of the willow trees just yesterday practicing nudism and he had a feeling that somebody would come, and here we are. He invites us to join him for coffee and we start a fire. We talk about a famous french pilot who crashed in the mountains nearby, an episode mentioned in the book Wind Sand and Stars, which one of the girls had read. He talks about the importance of spending time on this land to recharge his positive energy to attract coindicendes, which is directly related to the book I´m reading at the moment, the Celestine Prophecy, which I found a translation of in spanish abandoned on a bookshelf in my house in Mendoza, and my host mom wasn´t really sure where it came from. Maybe belonging to her brother? Anyway, we pass hours talking, and later he gives us a ride back to Pareditas, stopping to show us a little shrine he started to San Expedito, the patron of urgent miracles. He said he was in this place in the middle of the desert and picked up a red stone and asked San Expedito for help resolving family troubles, and his wish was granted. Since then, thousands of pilgrims have come and collected red stones along the pathway to the little wood shrine, covered with plastic flowers and a little statue of the saint. He says he doesn´t really believe in all of it, but it´s impressive how much it helps people to believe in such things. We return to the town, and are invited to return some other weekend to ride horses.
Other than that, not that awfully much is new with me. I took a midterm in my class of history of the political ideas of Latin America last week. It took 2 hours to answer five questions, but I think I nailed it. Last Thursday I spent all day helping a local non-profit organization that works with kids and young mothers to translate their application for a grant. They want money to buy five computers to teach job skills to young women- half of whom haven´t completed seventh grade.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Two weeks ago today I finally couldn´t take it any more and I bought a bike!!! I searched all through town and finally found the cheapest, rickityest, ugliest piece of crap I could find. It cost about $40. The front break doesn´t exist, it has one gear, the tires are almost worn through, the seat is like a rock, and I adore it! I decided to name her Rocia, after Sancho Panza´s donkey. She aint pretty, but I can get places so fast, and no more taking the wrong bus and ending up out in the boonies. I just have to take it easy. Argentina is up there with Italy for the most reckless drivers on the planet. There are virtually no traffic laws, or at least nobody cares it there are. So, you know, I take my time and don´t count on being seen. A little daily terror is part of a balanced diet.
And that´s the way it is. Yesterday marked the first day of spring, and two months since I got here. Almost halfway over already. Time just isn´t something that is paid attention to here much, so it sneaks by.

all right . . .

So. Finally found the time and motivation to catch up and get things back up to date. So much to tell . . impossible . . must summarize:
1) Two weeks ago I went to Chile. The ride there was quite the trial. So, earlier that week it had snowed and thus the pass through the mountains was closed. Finally it was reopened on Thursday morning, which is when I left from Mendoza. Ah, silly Noah. I forgot that all the people who had been stuck one side or the other for the five previous days also wanted to cross. The result: the bus got within a mile or so of the border pass way up on a mountain road, feet of snow on both sides, about 1 pm. Then we stopped. There were hundreds of vehicles winding away in a line ahead of us. Long story short, we remained in that bus for the ext 6 hours, moving forward a few feet every now and then. It was dark by the time we got into the huge, chilly cast iro terminal building to have our luggage, documents, and persons thoroughly searched for any trace of raw agricultural product (or weapon, while they were at it) that might cotaminate Chile´s production. I got to Viña del Mar at midnight and slept in a rented room across from the bus terminal. Ah, but no it gets better. The next morning I reached my destination, the small coastal town of Maitencillo, deserted at this time of year, and a little hostel/b&B on top of the cliffs looking down on the sea. The next two days were spent enjoying the aforementioned to the fullest. The first day was chilly and cloudy and I walked along the beach, sniffing, examining bizarre caves, rocks, and marie flora, capped off by the most amazing sunset I´ve ever seen in my life. The sky went on infinitely. It was like taking one Missouri sunset and stretching it out over the surface of the earth like a balloon. Everything was lit up with an intense dark yellow. On the way back a wave came up to where I was balancing on a slippery rock and knocked me over. I cut open my shin and got soaked from the chest down. Fair exchange for a great day. On day 2 I followed a horse trail by a pine forest on the tops of the cliffs way down the way until I found and descended to a beach completely sealed off from the rest by cliffs. It was lined with caves and the sand was covered with tiny crab hatchlings that disappeared under the sad when I got stepped toward them. The cliffs were covered with all kinds of wild relatives of potatoes, radishes, cucumbers, and parsely among others. The trip back to Mendoza was much less trying- the argentines seem much more apathetic about quality control of their agriculture. And when I got back to my neighborhood in Mendoza that evening with the sun setting I felt the first sense of this place being my home, and not just some extended weih station en route to somewhere else.
2) The last two weekends I´ve been going out to a farm an hour outside Mendoza that I discovered through wwoof, and it´s been just what I needed to get relief from city and classes. It´s called Madre Tierra (see www.elperegrinorganico.com if curious) and it produces vegetables, is bordered by several organic apple, cherry, and plum orchards, and is populated by a chaotic assortment of chickens, dogs, cats, horses, one sulky bull, one nutritionist, one yoga instructor, the free spirited little childrens or the former two, two aging american ex-pat hippies, and whatever volunteers like myself who come through. Recently sculpted abode huts, wood-heated shower, and a view of the Andes until the trees leaf out, and swimmable irrigation ditches are among the accomodations. I expect to be heading out there just about every thursday afternoon and coming back with Azucena (the nutritionist/matriarch of the farm) every saturday morning for the market in the city; it´s just what I need to recharge my batteries and quiet my mind after a week here in the city.
3) And, classes. Yes, I´ve got some. Two interesting history classes with mounds of reading and smart argentines, one on pre-colonial America, one on the writings of leading American (read: Hispano-America) political figures. Other than that, I´ve got the most laid back mandatory spanish class in the universe, and a class of Folklore dance, which is fantastic. Folklore is the old-time dance of the gaucho. Basically, Folkore is like Flamenco, but more less severe: like the difference between elegant english country dance and an appalachian hoedown. The best part is the zapateo, or tap dancing part (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjn4n2cRZ_g for a rough idea). My professor, Don Antonio, is a tiny old man with a white moustache and vest. Of course, when I return, free folklore lessons will be foisted upon one and all regardless of interest level.
And that´s the way it is. Be well all, and stay tuned.

PICTURES!!!!

Sorry to go so long without a post, but I didn't want to break my promise. So, let's see. Starting with the top left and across the rows: 1) Me up above the patio where I have to go to get cell phone reception when inside the house ( I could go outside, but that would require shoes). 2) My humble abode with instruments and books strewn about. 3) Fun with Camilo's prodigous ears. 4) Alicia y Camilo (my mother and my 'little brother'). 5) A nightime view of 2776 Cayetano Silva, a beautiful sight after walking 20 blocks from downtown at god knows what time of night.
Well, there you have it, some visual accompaniment to my posts. Thanks to my generous friend Cameron who loaned me his camera. I'll have much to write soon, so stay tuned.