Diec i nue ve

Bueno, quite a bit of time has passed since I last paid proper homage to the reason that I am here right now:

Anoche I had the great pleasure of sharing Rotary greatness, friendship and a fine meal with the Rotary Club of Puerto Madero.

Following the meal I stood up to give my usual address – infused with some of my latest and greatest Sudamericano exploits – and, in a moment of divinely-inspired impromptu-elocution, concluded my charla with: 'Cada día me levanto y agradezco a Dios y a Rotary.' ('Everyday I wake up and thank God and Rotary.')

My life in Buenos Aires has become so familiar and real that it has paradoxically become surreal. I am awed by some of the 'plight' that, daily, I face (e.g. 'Should I go to the Phoenix concert in Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires?'). (Seriously. Thank you, Rotary.)

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (!!!) Here I find my life; gracias a Rotary--a life that is both beautifully surreal and absolutely real.

I digress.

Because

this post isn't about me.

It's about Rotary:

Rotary is truly great. At the Rotary Club de Puerto Madero reunion I sat beside – quite possibly – the most knowledgeable Rotarian in my Rotary family--a literal fountainhead of Rotary knowledge. And as she shared with me a bounty of Rotary-related information, I was stirred by a tickle of greatness – a sense that I, by good fortune, am a part of something truly great:

Rotary Minute: What is Rotary? from Rotary International on Vimeo.

Rotary is universally great. I feel confident with said proclamation because I have observed greatness in every Rotary club I have visited, from practically Antarctica, to practically the equator, and, obviamente, the plethora of clubs I have visited in District 4890 (Buenos Aires) and District 6930 (south/central Florida).

Words and photographs are wholly inadequate when attempting to convey greatness, but alas, I continue my meek attempt:

Nahuel Huapi Rotary Club in Bariloche, Argentina ('practically Antarctica'):

Rotary Club of Cusco, Peru ('practically the equator'):

Rotaract Club of Cusco, Peru (more of that 'practically the equator'):

My host Rotary Club in District 4890, the Rotary Club of Monserrat (D. 4890):




Ambassadorial scholars at the District 4890 Annual Conference (más D. 4890):

Participating in the 10th Annual Rotary-sponsored 'ENCUENTRO DE ORIENTACION VOCACIONAL' for high school students in Buenos Aires (y un poquito más de D. 4890):


And, Rotary in Pucón, Chile:



... And, if my words and photos aren't convincing enough of Rotary's greatness... bueno, then, I challenge you to find out for yourself.

Cheers and cariños desde BsAs,
NKC

XVII

Eight months later and I've finally acquired something that looks and feels like expatriate street credibility. This declaration is based on encounters I've had of late with study-abroad-types and fresh-off-the-plane-ex-pats; they kindly offer me deference that I hardly deserve. What do I really know? I'm just Natalie, here in Buenos Aires, living my life.

Last week I submitted – after weeks of very hard work spent orchestrating – my masterpiece of a Fulbright application (and by 'masterpiece' I mean the very best I could do – I am not at all suggesting that I believe the application will be endorsed). Perchance the totality of the Fulbright circumstances err in my favor, I'll be off to Peru in late-2011 for another year of ex-pat living. And, irrespective of the unfolding of my Fulbright grant, Christina and I are planning on returning to Buenos Aires in mid-2011 to breathe some South American life into iNspired Generation/Generación iNspirada (more on iGen in a forthcoming blog entry). (No te preocupa, Mom, I'll be hanging around your house during the early-2011 interim!)

I share with you these plans (lest us not forget this year's great lesson, 'Man plans. God laughs.'), RF, because I am meta-aware of my propensity for what appears to be wanderlust...

However, I assure you, this is not wanderlust. This is my life.

I've been super into all-things-related-to-the-Internet ever since, at the impressionable age of 12 (year 1997), my friend Jaimie showcased to me her America Online account (dial-up Internet days, obvio). I've taken this affinity for virtual communication with me from Jaimie's Palm Beach County abode, to my life in the college bubble in Gainesville, Florida (Facebook entered the picture right around this time. and. I. have. never. been. the. same. since.), to law school in Miami. And, of course, I brought my love with me to Buenos Aires. Thus, durante my 8 month stint as an ex-pat, I've done a phenomenal job of maintaining wide-open my virtual connections (thankfully, nowadays, I've got a high-speed connection to maintain my global connections).

One question that is ordinarily directed to me – via GMail or Facebook or Skype – from the latitudes directly to the north (the US of A, obvio) is, 'Wow! Argentina! You must be having so much fun.' And, of course, I would be lying if I did not respond in the affirmative. Sure, I have fun here, but it's no more or less fun than the fun I had in Miami and Gainesville and the PBC.

Fun is fun is diversión es diversión. Sure, there is novelty in the foreign, but as I have said, novelty wears and is replaced with the familiar. And let's not forget, cada ciudad tiene su buena y su mala. And, above all, I came to Buenos Aires with my ordinary self – my buena and my mala – to live my life.

It doesn't matter where in the world any of us are; we're still within ourselves, within our self-constructed worlds. I am Natalie, I am Natalie, soy Natalie, soy Natalie. It doesn't matter where you find me, – the PBC, Gasinesville, Miami, Buenos Aires, Peru, the Internet – I am always my ordinary and unique self, living my ordinary and unique life.

Anywho, this long ramble was inspired and precipitated by the profound brilliance of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words in his concise, must-read of an essay, 'Self-Reliance.' (Shout out to Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Tom Mendez for the recommendation/borderline duress. Yeehaw, Tom!). I am sharing those excerpts from the essay that particularly touched me, here and now (forthcoming).

I also feel compelled to share Ralph's brilliance because it's not the first time I've come across these ideas. Mom, you were right, – as always. I don't need to travel to find myself. (But I'm still going to Peru if I win the Fulbright!!!)

I do ask, however, that you please trust me. My desire to travel the world is not misdirected wanderlust. (It is a part of the masterpiece of a life I am orchestrating for myself.)

Oh yea, and please listen to this awesome song while you read the forthcoming Emerson erudition. It's almost as brilliant as Ralph. (Almost.)

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Home" from Edward Sharpe on Vimeo.

Now, preparate for greatness:

'....The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things....

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant.

The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near to us as to any....

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation... That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare?

Every great man is a unique.'

10 + 6

Reader-friend ! ! ! ! ! !

Hi.

¿Cómo andas?

What’s up in your world?

Here’s what’s up in world of Natalie: Classes at la UBA arrancaron de nuevo (began anew); I'm applying for a Fulbright research grant (I’m nervous! Insecure! Filled with doubt! Charging ahead nonetheless...); coaxing, with Christina, iNspired Generation, away from organizational infancy – towards awkward, uncomfortable and hopeful adolescence (please pay no mind to the content of the sitio web, as much of it is defunct… we're in the process of creating a new virtual forum where all of your wildest dreams and goals will self-actualize!); feasting on BAire’s cultural fare (my appetite never ceases – I’m ravenous!); laying foundations for new friendships; adding all sorts of opulence to existing relationships; battling bouts of hardcore Miami/familia nostalgia; attempting to stave off BAire’s usual trickery, as she woos me with her sky and art and people.

I am so full – I feel I might explode. Sometimes I enter a state of abundance-paralysis – I burst with life’s wealth and I don’t know what to do with myself!

That’s my world, reader-friend – bursting to the point of mental paralysis.

You have a world too, revered reader-friend... And I am curious, what is it like in your world??

My fabulous friend from Belo Horizonte, Brasil – Luiza – is always challenging me on various topics: i.e., of late, my strangely manic and habitual need to befriend Everyone. In. The. World. Thank you, Luiza, for directing a flashlight on this peculiar behavior! I now recognize that I do it, almost unknowingly, because I am bursting with curiosity about what it’s like to be in other people’s worlds. Curiosity to the point of intrusion, quizás...

Luiza also likes to challenge me to rethink my USAmerican national identity. Gracias a Luiza, nowadays when people ask where I am from, I no longer say Miami (merits Latin American street cred, obvio); I now declare – usually with apologetic pride – los Estados Unidos (reppin' mi país). USAmerica is undeniably a part of my world, much more so than I previously realized, when I constructed my identity from within my national borders. It’s a funny little paradox – I never felt quite so USAmerican until I decided to venture beyond the USAmerican frontera. Within my país, I always identified with my culture – Cuban (exilio Cuban, that is, the lingering remnants of 1950s Cuba…).

I find that my identity – who I aspire to be in my world, and how I am perceived and related to by others from within their worlds – changes with my circumstances. Here in Argentina, I am a foreigner (with USAmerican nationality), but familiar and similar given the Latin culture that created me (the Latin warmth that pulses through my body), a law student (not quite as respectable in Sudamerica as in the USA, because it’s an undergraduate ‘carrera’ here), a Rotary scholar (yeehaw Rotary!) on the cusp of graduation (thrilling! Terrifying!), standing on my tip-toes to peek beyond the horizon – towards the future that I will ostensibly create.

Identity forms only a slice of our undeniably distinct individual worlds – circumstances and beliefs and histories and cultures coalesce, too, to yield billions of unique worlds, all around this planet. And then we interact and mingle and connect and organize and aggregate. In so doing we are creating new worlds, in addition to the subjective world called Life that we as individuals fervently weave together. These additional worlds of congregated worlds exist beyond us – relationships, friendships, industries, organizations, corporations, institutions, cities, and nations... These worlds are abundant and ubiquitous.

The worlds beyond ourselves, composed of coalescing individual worlds, have identities that are just as – if not more – dynamic than the identities that we create for ourselves as individuals. And, given how individually complex we are it’s no wonder I am mentally numbed when confronted by the complexity of the aggregated worlds I encounter on the day-to-day.

You, reader-friend, may notice that I tend to fall in love with cities much as most of us tend to fall in love with people. (This is a literary technique called – as most of you recall from 8^th grade Language Arts – personification. Jaja.) I personify Buenos Aires because I genuinely believe cities are a lot like people. Cities – like people – have unique characteristics and mannerisms, distinct smells and flavors, are associated with particular sensations, emit and draw energy; cities, like people, have souls; cities, like people, are malleable and dynamic. And, cities, composed of people, relationships, organizations, corporations, industries – of many individuals’ worlds and coalescing worlds – are, thus, themselves, necessarily complex worlds.

(I guess I'm a sucker for complexity...)

With time, I have come to recognize just how dynamic the identity/world of a city can be and is. All protracted relationships (with peoples and cities alike) are like this: seasons change, light shifts, circumstances come and go. With persistent relationships we come to see familiar places and people through new perspectives.

E.g., After 7 months of porteña living, I more or less know Buenos Aires and I recognize just how dynamic she is. Her repeated behaviors have shed their novelty – her swoon-inducing azure techo, her never-ending banquet of art and cultural fare(/fairs), her baffling and disheartening social issues. These days I relate to her differently – she has a distinct feeling now, as winter recedes and the lingering effects of the season remain glaring: trees are bare, the sky is capricious, we're all bundled up, a few layers removed from the air that hasn't been warm in several moons.

As I walk the streets these days, I notice that Buenos Aires no longer surges into me and stirs me as she once did. She's no longer able to overtake me because now, I possess her – she is a part of me. Buenos Aires is now a piece of my identity, and thus, necessarily, (probably more like, obvio) forms a great part of my world.

Are you still there, reader-friend? (Big ups to Mom, Dad and Melissa – I know you guys are still with me!!) Thanks for sticking with me on this circuitous trip through my world. I did my best to weave this piece together – to make it cohesive... And if it looks to you more like a patchwork quilt than the tightly strung duvet I intended it to be, consider this me, offering you – should your curiosity permit – the opportunity to intrude on my complex and mind-numbingly beautiful world.

To ease your eyes away from the black and white of my words and back into the color of your world, check out some beautiful worlds I've intruded upon recently:

Chunka Pichqayoq

We age not according to time, but according to experience.

Sabrina and I began on the Atlantic coast of Argentina and ended on the Pacific coast of Peru. We drove practically to Antarctica and then flew practically to the equator. We started at sea level and we finished at the height of the Incan gods. At the end of it all – 4 weeks later – I was relegated down to the place where I began, forever changed by experience. My body has aged weeks. My heart, centuries.

My heart was captured by Cusco, Peru – the final destination of my 4 week (/centuries long) journey. I fell in love with Cusco. She made me come alive – painfully alive.

BAires, mi amor, te cuento: my heart is capricious.

My love for BAires was a surging sensation of bliss and admiration. It was blind and it was pure. My love for Cusco, por otra parte, is beautiful and tortured – characterized by an ache in my chest and a flutter in my heart. I see Cusco. My love for her is everything.

Cusco is beyond beautiful. Upon first encounter she left me breathless, dizzied by her splendor. She sits proudly on her throne, 3400 meters in the air, with soft mountain peaks framing her exquisite golden physique. Her yellow sun burns and blinds you. Her height leaves you dizzy, gasping for air and off-balance. Her people are golden-brown, curious, outgoing, envious, hard-working. She is extreme: hot and cold and dry and wet. When you stand in her main square, Plaza de Armas, you sense the colonial buildings engaging in a dialogue with the tops of the surrounding mountains. Cusco is in the sky. Cusco is glorious. She is everything.

Cusco was, for centuries, the capital of the Incan empire. Then, in the 16th century, Spain entered la historia and systematically endeavored to crush the Incan civilization. As history demonstrates, in the literal sense, Spain succeeded. And, the conquistadors – in their symbolic attempt to convey dominance – built their churches and buildings on top of the ruins of once impressive Incan structures. Today, as you meander through the sloping streets of Cusco, breathless and struggling to maintain balance, you find Spanish colonial edifice after edifice seated triumphantly atop of what remains of the Incan stones.



But the Spanish were equivocado in thinking that they could crush the spirit of the Inca. The spirit of the Inca was not contained in the impossibly arranged stone foundations of their buildings. The spirit of the Inca was not something tangible, suppress-able, containable, quell-able. The spirit of the Inca is an energy – permanent and infinite. Today the Inca energy hugs your skin and invades your body with every labored breath you breathe. The Inca energy lives on in the powder blue sky that hovers inches from Cusco’s rooftops and mountaintops.

Modern Cusco is a thriving gem of a city, where appreciation of the Andean-Incan culture is just pushing – but not quite overstepping – the bounds of exploitation. Locals, small-scale entrepreneurs, try to hustle you, obvious extranjero, out of money: a few Soles in exchange for a useless trinket. Cusco is also remarkable because for a South American city rife with tourists, it is uncharacteristically safe (Conversation for another day: I loathe justifying inseguridad with the ‘this is South America’ qualifier. Hit me up via e-mail, Skype, thefacebook, etc. if you care to discuss...). Cusco’s people are hustlers, not beggars and thieves. Perhaps the deep Incan heritage persevered into modernity: in the Incan kingdom there were no beggars or thieves; if you did not work, you did not eat. Here, again, another piece of the Incan identity that could not be contained by mere execution of crushing physical force.

Maybe that flutter in my chest was the Incan energy stirring me to life, stirring me to love. For me, love often manifests as tears: I shed tears for Cusco when I left her 4 days ago. My tears make no sense. Nor does my love make sense; it is simply a feeling.

Three days in Buenos Aires and already the ache in my chest is dulling. BAires’ soulful art is slowly trickling in, rekindling the flame of romance that evaporated in the burning Peruvian Andes, in the powder blue Cusqueño cielo.

BAires – in her transparent attempt to regain my admiration – has for 3 consecutive days flashed her azure cielo. Oh, how I once adored that sky, how it used to touch my heart. Now, however, it seems distant – thousands of feet away. My heart knows new love and a new sky. My heart was stirred and awakened by the eternal Incan energy. Stirred too by the powdery Cusqueño cielo that hugged me closely while I gasped at Cusco’s breathtaking beauty. My heart has aged with experience, experience that dates back centuries, when the Incans were more than an energy – when they were an empire.

f o u r teen

Ohhhheyyyyy! It’s been more than one month since I last wrote to you, reader-friend. Many days have passed sans communication on my end but I think of you often (everyday, in fact!).

I am On The Road. Have been for the past 10 days, accompanied by my dear friend-from-undergraduate-university, Sabrina. Currently I am in a warm café in rainy Pucon, Chile, a town nestled between a gorgeous lake and an active volcano, about 800 kilometers southeast of my home-that-could-have-been, Valparaiso.

Words are pouring out of me these days, so I’ll recap the past month and move onto a more detailed narration of ‘me these days.’ Brief recap: finished cuatrimestre numero 1 (of 2) at la UBA facu de derecho; continued preying on Buenos Aires’ cultural cuisine; formed friendships, solidified existing amistades and bid adieu to a good number of buena gente that briefly called BAires home; and, of course, participated in a lot of wholesome Rotary fun.

And onto the gift of the present, precious reader-friend:

Eleven days ago, Sabrina and I packed up my belongings, deposited it in my ridiculously-awesome friend Melissa’s sweet Palermo digs and set off On The Road. Ah, delicious Freedom!

‘Me these Days’:

Day 1—

The Sab and I arrived in Bariloche – in the famed Patagonia region of Argentina – surprisingly refreshed after a 20-hour bus ride, greeted by a terrifically grey sky, 'twas a blustery day. And, given that blustery weather rarely, if ever, graces south Florida, I was quite eager to have it out… which turned out to be a very bad idea given the violent wind (think hurricane force, Floridian reader-friends) thrashing Sabrina and me through Bariloche’s streets.


Our very first friends in the hostel were a group of Irish guys. We decided to join the lads for an afternoon of locally brewed cervezas, hearty soups, World Cup futbol and good times at an (incidentally) Irish-run pub around the corner from the hostel. Eight hours, 1 German victory, several rounds of cards and cervezas later, the violent wind and blustery weather continued, as did the good times.


Evidently the weather in Ireland can be (and often is) as grey and blustery as Day 1 Bariloche’s. Lucky for the Sab and me, the Irish blokes (who tell me ‘bloke’ is more of an English word than an Irish one…) generously shared their savvy knowledge of how to make a blustery day of grey burst with shades of fun.

Days 2-3—


Epic skiing on Cerro Catedral, the mountain just outside of Bari. Epic skiing, I tell you, my reader-friend! The ski conditions, especially at the top of the Cerro, were awesome – fresh powder, minimal crowds, pure fun. There’s nothing that quite compares (particularly in Miami!) to the feeling of gliding over packed snow, surrounded by trees and snow and mountains and brooks and streams and everything that is beautiful and magical about winter.



Days 4-7—

S and I hopped a bus from Bariloche to El Bolson on a brilliant – nearly blinding – sunny day.

Bariloche, the city itself, is… interesting. I don’t really have a good sense of the city after a week spent there because staying at hostels can be numbing in the commercial, contrived, path-has-been-dug-worn-and-beaten-by-travelers-before sense.

The city is a pop of development and commercialization, entirely enveloped by sweeping Andean terrain – set on the edge of a vast, mirrored lake and framed by rolling, jagged, rhythmic mountains. The Patagonian sky, the same Argentine azure that makes my heart melt every time I see it, is enormous. The sun looks small – like a tennis ball – in the infinite azure. But, the lake – a mirror – and the snow-capped peaks, produce a remarkable effect when playing with the light bursting from the tennis ball in the sky: the light is reflected, refracted, scattered in every which way.


Bariloche shines, shimmers and glitters in the cacophony of light bouncing from snowy peak to reflective lake to open, heart-melting, azure sky. Every which way goes the light – blinding. Bari’s numbing cacophony of commercialization also glitters under the golden tennis ball. I find commercialization to be sort of vile and kind of offensive, but, alas, my repulsion is softened by the hope that commerce brings resources to a humble native population of weathered Patagonian people.



Back to the bus from Bari to Bolson: I left Bari a bit numb (blame it on the morning spent in town rather than on the Cerro). Twenty-five minutes later, however, there we were – Sabrina and me – contained within a roaring rectangular prism of metal and glass, unapologetically cutting through the thick serenity of the Patagonian wilderness. We were careening on the edge of a mountain in a box of metal, with jagged rocks threatening us from above and an icey lake beckoning from below – my numbness melted into mild terror. Terror has a funny way of making us come alive.

Our bus driver, aggressive and confident, maneuvered the treacherous terrain and we soon broke into a valley, with not a sign of human activity as far as my eyes could see. For as long as I can recall I have been struck by a deep sense of appreciation for reaching places apparently untouched by modern ‘civilization.’ This familiar sense of appreciation invaded me as I stared out the window, iPod in my ears, pouring Iron & Wine’s ‘The Shepard’s Dog’ into my mind (aside: if you have heard and don’t like this album it’s because you’ve never basked in the unending glory of untouched Patagonian beauty). This place, somewhere between Bariloche and El Bolson, is everything I never knew I had imagined when I dreamt of magic. I could feel myself opening up, things inside me stirring – feelings and thoughts I never knew lived within me. (Writing these words now, even, my body aches for this place that I only briefly met, a place I have known for eternity.)


We pulled into El Bolson, a town with no traffic lights that you can only enter and exit via one street, set in a valley with protective mountains smiling from above. ‘Aqui’ where ‘lo magico es natural.’ El Bolson is a town known for its hippie community, Feria de Artesania, cervezas artesanales, homemade jams and homemade ice creams.


On Day 5, S and I went for a ridiculously long hike – nearly 7 hours of curious exploration. Given the season (winter!), so far as I could tell, we were the only USAmericans in the town (really, it was that small that I feel relatively confident with this bold proclamation), and we were practically the only people that set out for a hike on that grey, mid-week day (in the whole 7 hours, we crossed paths, only briefly, with 9 people). Sabbie and I hiked so far that we ended up beyond the limits of the town and had to re-enter through the police checkpoint, relying on our charm to convince the official that we weren’t gypsy wanderers trying to slip into the oasis of peace in the middle of magic wilderness.


There is something about walking 10 kilometers (this is how far we deviated outside the town! We lost our map in between the mountain lookout over the Rio Azul, ‘Cabeza del Indio’ and the ‘Cascada Escondida’ and rather than retrace our steps through the trail decided to follow a dirt road home…) down unpaved roads and past estancias ('ranches'), observing a life so simple and pure, a life that boldly challenges conventional notions (Western notions, really) of how life is meant to be lived. Attribute it to the crisp, clean mountain air (more oxygen, more thoughts!) – or to the chickens, or the sheep, or the horses, or the pigs – or more likely, to the overwhelming, invading sense of peace and tranquility that I gleaned walking past estancia after estancia, fatigue slowly washing over me, curiosity quietly stirring, exploding with a profound sense of appreciation for the apparent simplicity of life in El Bolson.


Wandering down este sendero ('this path'), I reflected on the fact that despite differences in caminos ('walks') through life – among people and cultures all around the world – we all ultimately seek the same ends: love and relationships, connection and significance, purpose and contribution.

Beyond the wandering, our time was spent pow-wowing in an adorable coffee shop adorned with bursting flowering arrangements – generating Energies, excitedly brewing ideas for the future, laughing over memories past, losing ourselves in those moments. There we were, in the middle of this magical place, where the people – like the food, like the terrain – were natural, wholesome and refreshing.


The peace, magic and beauty of El Bolson was cleansing and therapeutic. I returned to Bariloche feeling alive and clean. El Bolson took a piece of my heart and replaced it with magic.


There was a moment – barely into our epic, 7-hour adventure, as we approached the first lookout over the slivering Rio Azul – that I was struck with a deep sense of gratitude for the amount of beauty my eyes have seen in this life. This is absolutely attributable to the abundant privilege I have been afforded, by virtue of my parents, my USAmerican citizenship, my education, and now, by the generosity of Rotary. I have seen in my life so many beautiful things that I now recognize beauty not with my eyes, but with my heart: beauty is a feeling, deep and profound (appreciation, a little bit of love, and a lot of magic).

Suerte--Numero 1 3

Heyheyhey, reader-friend! I hope you are in great spirits. I am (per usual... but particularly so today) because recien I finished writing my first report for Rotary! Yay.

I'm going to copy and paste pieces of it here...

(Preparate, it's quite verbose...)

Dear Rotary District 6930, Rotary District 4890, and beyond,

Question: What would it take to change the world?

Answer: Collaborate – communities making a global impact – to resolve the most pressing sources of suffering faced by humanity: hunger, lack of access to healthcare and education, intercultural misunderstandings that result in ignorance, intolerance, injustice and war.

But, Rotary, you already knew the answer to that question, didn’t you? You knew because you were the one that observed humanity’s perilous challenges and responded with solutions. You provided solutions and thrust them into life with strategic action. Rather than curse the darkness, you provided light.

In 1953 you were Hope In Action. Today, The Future Is In Your Hands. In between, you have sown themes of Hope, Action, Human Dignity, Service, Unity, Help, Belief, Love, Participation, Renewal and Peace. Rotary, you have woven these themes into the fabric of your organization, and effectively into the fibers that comprise each of your 1.3 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. These themes, like your solutions, are ideas dressed as words. But, with your resolve, you have given these ideas life. And in 95 years, Rotary, you have changed the world.

When I was granted the Ambassadorial Scholarship in 2008, your theme was ‘Make Dreams Real.’ Appropriately enough, my initial foray into your organization was no exception: I approached you with a dream – to live, study and travel in South America – and you made it real.

But Rotary, I must confess: things have changed for me. Your confidence in my ability to fulfill the mandate of an ambassadorial scholar stirred something inside of me to life. The themes that you delicately wove into the fabric of your existence are now a part of my existence, and now they are pouring out of me – ideals of Hope, Dignity, Love, Unity, Participation and Peace.

Rotary, I approached you with a dream to travel, to see and know the world. Now that I am living this dream, things have changed for me – this dream is not enough. I can’t just live this dream for one year and let it slip away into the recesses of memory. Two years ago, you made my dream real. Rotary, I write today to report to you that this year, I am taking the future of Rotary in my hands, and effectively, I am changing the future of this world.

I write to report on my first three months as an ambassadorial scholar, specifically: (I) information about my study program, adaptation and progress at la Universidad de Buenos Aires facultad de derecho; (II) the steps my sponsor Rotarian, Sherry Eastwood, and I took to prepare for my experience abroad and how it helped me meet the challenges of living and studying in Argentina; (III) how I have been involved in Rotary since I arrive in Argentina; and (IV) my first impressions of the culture in Argentina and Buenos Aires. Ultimately, with this report, I convey to you, Rotary: as my dream is made real and with your future in my hands, I am changing this world by illuminating in it the very ideals that you illuminated in me.

Okey dokey.. so I am cutting the bulk of the body, since it's quite boring, in my humble opinion! You are very welcome, reader-friend-whose-time-I-will-not-waste-with-mundane-reportings... : )

(IV) My first impressions of Argentina and the people in Buenos Aires and cultural delights that I have enjoyed and shared

I arrived in Buenos Aires in early March, not quite enrolled in la UBA, sans a place to live, unsure of whether or not the city would accept me. Initially, I was shy; I cautiously wandered the streets and tiptoed in and out of the throngs of people delighting in the final days of the southern hemisphere summer. I dressed discreetly and avoided drawing unnecessary attention to myself. After all, I was supposed to be in Chile; I changed the course of fate by forcefully steering myself to Buenos Aires. Would Buenos Aires recognize that I didn’t belong and reject me? Would she force me to live a year ridden with strife because I wasn’t supposed to be here? I felt like a replacement organ placed in a body, making every effort to acclimate so that the body wouldn’t misidentify me and attack me with antibodies.

Well, here I am, Rotary, three months after my quiet arrival, fully integrated into the organ system called la Capital Federal. And, I am not merely integrated. Dare I say it – I am thriving. As it turns out, Buenos Aires’ melancholy, romance and bohemian spirit are precisely the qualities my soul craves at present. And in reverse, I believe these very qualities allow me to be so readily accepted in Buenos Aires.

As I explore friendships with other ambassadorial scholars I observe that we each approach this Rotary experience with differing expectations of experience and outcome. Each of us deliberately chose to evade the comfort and familiarity of family, friends and culture for months or years, motivated by a sense of curiosity, or the nag of adventure, or to fully immerse in a distinct culture, or to observe from the perimeter the novelty of a foreign culture, or to perfect a second (or third, or fourth, or nth) language, or to study at a particular institution, or to travel in a specific region, or to contribute to a particular cause, or to shift our perspectives. There are abundant additional reasons, and most of us are motivated by some combination of the aforementioned and unmentioned.

Profound implication: the diversity of Rotary ambassadorial scholar-experiences is immeasurably vast, convincingly positive and has a tremendous impact in the world. Ambassadorial scholars dive, head first, into unfamiliar cultures, not merely to see the world, but to know the world. And we do it so the world can know us, too. Every year Rotary supports hundreds of students as we create these enduring relationships of knowing, thus etching Rotary ideals of Peace, Goodwill and Friendship into the fabric of humanity.

So, preaching aside, my initial impressions of Argentina are overwhelmingly positive. I was motivated to come to South America as an ambassadorial scholar (beyond my commitment to spreading Rotary goodwill and cheer!) to perfect my Spanish, to gain an international perspective on the law, to travel, and, above all, to relish in the cultural delights of an unknown place.

It’s curious: Culturally, Miami is very much a part of Latin America due to the fact that there are many Latin American immigrants in Miami (that are accompanied by their vibrant and flavorful Latin American culture). Accordingly, Argentina’s language, food – and even people – are found on the streets of Miami, much as they are found on the streets of Buenos Aires. However, Buenos Aires possesses something that can never be emulated, no matter how many Argentines bring their culture to Miami. Buenos Aires has onda. ('Onda' is a Spanish word, unique to Argentina that roughly translates as ‘ambience.’)

Buenos Aires has a remarkable onda that is enigmatic and impassioned. This onda, I believe, is responsible for Buenos Aires’ unrivaled porteño culture (or, perhaps, it is BA's porteño culture that is responsible for its exceptional onda...). It is a culture of carne and Malbec, rock music, tango, world-famous fultbolistas, world-renowned literature, epic design, architecture, art and fashion; it is a culture of passion, melancholy and romance. There is something really exceptional about ‘culture’ in Buenos Aires – namely, culture is ubiquitous. In Buenos Aires, there is a culture of culture.

In Miami there is an ‘art scene,’ which impliedly suggests that one must independently penetrate the ‘scene’ in order to feast upon the art. In Buenos Aires, so far as I can glean, there is no ‘art scene’ – there’s just art. Art is everywhere, literally on every block: there are cultural centers in every neighborhood, dozens of museums, hundreds of art galleries, well over one hundred theaters. Murals and street art adorn walls, buildings and sidewalks and everywhere you look there are statues – there must be like, a gazillion of them – many of which adorned with street art, too. The dining is famed the world over, attributable to the caliber of meat, wine and chefs. Buenos Aires is a world capital of rock music and the world capital of the tango dance. But if rock music and tango isn’t your thing, there are music and dance venues of all types open every day of the week, every week of the year. The onda in Buenos Aires is a culture of culture.

People that create orchestrate culture; ergo I find no surprise that Buenos Aires boasts a culture of culture. Everyone I encounter in Buenos Aires creates; everyone is an artist in one form or another. Herein lies the crux of my experience as an ambassadorial scholar and my cultural experience in Buenos Aires – I too feel the stir of an artist inside of me. The more I come to know the onda of art and culture in Buenos Aires, the more it comes to know me and the more I come to know myself (the artist!).

And there you have it, Rotary – three months worth of experience as an ambassadorial scholar, contained in this report that consists of too many words, yet does not say nearly enough.

In three months I have had the opportunity to perceive the law through a unique Argentine and South American lens, to form friendships with Rotarians, Argentine artists and fellow-foreigners, to savor the cultural delicacies of Buenos Aires, to see Argentina and know Argentina. These three months in Argentina have been among the most formative in my life.

Rotary, I think I am flourishing.

You made my dream real – I am seeing my dream and knowing my dream. Knowing my dream, knowing the world, and knowing the faith of Rotary placed inside me are the most empowering privileges that have ever been placed in my hands. This privilege I am paying forward every moment of this ambassadorial scholar experience: illuminating this world with Rotary ideals of Hope, Dignity, Love, Unity, Participation and Peace.

The question I initially posited – many words ago – was ‘What would it take to change the world?’. The underlying inquiry, I believe, could be more appropriately dressed with the words ‘What does it take to change the world?’.

Question, Rotary: What does it take to change the world?

Answer: Rotary, you already know the answer because you created the answer.

The Ambassadorial Scholarship is the answer.

You, Rotary, are the answer.

Muchos cariños de Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Natalie

T w e l v e

Yo, reader-amigo! I changed up my blog. Te gusta?

I do. This is mostly because I really, really love the sky.

Have I ever told you that one of my life-dreams is to travel the world and take fotos of the sky? Well, it's true. (I guess I am kind of already fulfilling this dream, albeit slowly.)

I miss South Florida's sky. I think it's one of the most beautiful skies I've ever seen. This is particularly true at sunset – wild splashes of pink and gold, muted greys and purples, penetrating blue hues. Colors chaotic in disarray, perfect and fleeting.

Buenos Aires' sky, though not nearly as spectacular as SoFla's, is nice too. On many days the Argentine sky is an unforgettable shade of azure, illuminating BAire's places and spaces below. It's almost unfitting – contrary to logic – that a city distinguished by its melancholic culture would be found under a brilliant, incomparable, often-azure cielo.

That's the thing with Buenos Aires, though – she's not what you expect. She just is who she is.

She's a friend, if you want her to be. A dynamic friend: She boasts sabroso meat and serves wine that is tasty and inexpensive. She loves rock music. She is international and cultured and maintains a very strong sense of her porteña identity. She's crazy about futbol. She is down to earth. She doesn't wear much makeup. She drinks mate and cafe con leche. She is socially conscious. She is family-oriented and has many friends. Sometimes she dances until dawn. She never eats dinner before 10 p.m. She doesn't read as much as she should. She loves children. She is romantic. She is bohemian. She has a young spirit, an old soul. She has struggled. She is resilient. She creates. She is an artist. This is Buenos Aires as I see her. This is Buenos Aires, my friend.

Like I said, she's a dynamic friend. To some she is a sensual dance partner (those that seek the intimacy of tango), to others she is a adventurous shopping accomplice (those drawn to her by her distinguished leather and artesania), to still others she's just a South American city (those folk lacking in imagination and curiosity!).

Buenos Aires handles with poise and authenticity the demands of her different roles of friendship. But, no matter how her friends perceive her, she always remains true to her alma.

That's just who she is – a city of soul, a city with many faces, a city of melancholy and romance, underneath an unforgettable sky.

I hope you see the beauty, reader-friend... (It really is a marvelous shade of azure...)