The weekend and Monday's service

After going our own ways after mass on Friday, many of us went home, had dinner, maybe played a game of “Truco” (a traditional card game in Argentina), and then went to bed.

The next morning the entire country made sure that they were up early and had their blue and white jerseys on. It was the first group game for Argentina in La Copa Mundial—The World Cup. We all went to Nacho Corcuera’s house to watch in despair as the underdogs, Iceland, ended up drawing with Argentina 1-1. After the game, we all went our separate ways again, and we were with our families for the rest of our evenings. While I can not speak for others, the weekends often bring experiences that are unique and very fun. Santiago, my host brother, and his two cousins, Mano and Pepe, and I went to “Juegos Mentales”, an escape room location, in which we were given an hour to find a series of keys and codes. While escape rooms do exist in America, the fact that it was all in Spanish made it extra difficult. Billy and Nacho Lopez-Mathieu went to a comedy show called “Los Luthiers”, which featured skits that were accompanied by music made from wacky instruments entirely in spanish, while Leo and Francesco spent the day grieving over the fact that a country that has less of a population total than the city of Buenos Aires tied with Argentina. Saturday also means not going to bed until 1 or 2 AM at the earliest, weather we are out for dinner with our family or just playing games with them at home.

On Sunday, the group, excluding Joe and Christian, who were in the countryside spending Día Del Padre - Father’s day - with their families, went to a neighborhood in BA called San Telmo. Each Sunday, the entire main street is turned into an artisanal market. We all purchased various things such as: hand weaved bracelets and backpacks, necklaces, and more dulce de leche. We stopped in an indoor part of the market for lunch where we split up for lunch. Some of us got very good burgers, while others got crepes. Mr. Goso stood in line for the 200 peso (~8 US dollars) steak and fries. We began the walk home passing by the booths again, and got back to Colegio Del Salvador at 4:30. Upon going back home, many of us had special dinner celebrations for our host fathers. That night we went to bed excited for the service that was in store for the next day.

On Monday, we returned to San Martín to continue our service. To begin, we played introductory games to get reacquainted with one another and start our day off right. Afterwards, we continued our dance battles from the week prior, sing offs, and topped it off with “choripanes” (chorizo with bread). We then got to our duties, one group of us painting over the graffiti outside the wall of the school for its future mural, another group cleaning inside the school, and the third group of us painting new lines for the school’s soccer field. It was a long day which came to a bittersweet end as we all looked on all the hard work we contributed together alongside the incredible students of the school and prepared for our final farewell. Soon, our almost hour long goodbye came to a close as we shared almost hundreds of photos, selfies, and memories with one another of our experience. Lastly, as we waved goodbye from our bus, we looked at the faces of those who we had only spent a matter of hours with which somehow felt like a lifetime friendship, bringing a rather somber feeling over us students. We knew then that the little which we had done for those students of Gugliemi meant more to them than we would ever know, only reinforcing the fact that everything which they do everyday, making the decision to go to school despite adversity, was the right choice for them.

In our first meeting with the chaperones, we all expressed very common concerns about the language, but one week in I think those concerns are beginning to fade away as we are slowly catching on to the many differences between traditional Spanish and Argentinian Spanish. We’re all in good health and are very excited to start touring the city this week, and for the rest of our time in Buenos Aires. 

-James Pickart and Chris Hussey