Argentina Pavlis Pilot Cohort

Us installing the second set of solar panels

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:17:50 -0400

Us installing the second set of solar panels

Bardas Blancas: Childrens Day / Final Day

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:27:27 -0400

We woke up earlier once again and packed up all of our things, and moved our beds back to the storage area and went to breakfast. We tested the newly energized radio station and after a few tweaks, it worked!!!

Today was a special day, it was Children’s Day!!!! Children’s Day is a big holiday in Argentina, it is a day to celebrate the happiness of children everywhere. At Bardas Blancas each one of the children were given a toy, most of them were walky-talkies so we were jealous, and there was a big picnic at the school for the kids to run around and be true kids for the day. Greg also talked with the gym teacher and them and a few of the students played some football. The gym teacher was happy to see a football and as they played he was able to explain to the students some of the basic rules.

It was nice to leave on that day because most of the kids were happy and distracted by all of the special events happening on in each of the different buildings. We took our goodbye pictures, and said them as well. It was an exciting trip and we were all glad that we were able to finally make it to Bardas Blancas, and complete our project.

The school pig

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:02:14 -0400

The school pig

Photo

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:51:37 -0400

Original Setup

Radio Station

Pablo the headmaster, and Susana our coordinator

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:43:00 -0400

Pablo the headmaster, and Susana our coordinator

Photo

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:35:00 -0400

The view of the school from the road

The main classroom building

The kindergarten building

Main building

Picture with kids andsome by the kids

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:36:00 -0400

Greg and Pedro

Joe and Some Students after lunch

Pav and one of his many new friends

Joe and Andres

Picture with kids andsome by the kids

Deportes!!!!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:07:54 -0400

Play Catch with Greg's football

Greg playing soccer

Greg as Goalie

Deportes!!!!

All of us with our sweet Childrens Day gifts

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:18:00 -0400

All of us with our sweet Childrens Day gifts

Bardas Blancas: Day 3, crunch time

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:34:00 -0400

We woke Saturday, did the usual, and started right away on putting the last two solar panels on. We had to have the headmaster weld an extention onto the frame in order to fit the final solar panel on. With a few more bolts, and some tie wire, we had all of the solar panels onto the frame. Now came the easy part, wiring. The actual wiring of the device was not complicated, we just had to connect 8 (four positive and negative) wires to two existing wires, which were the original wires that ran to the old location of the power station. Just as we were getting ready to strip the first part of the wire, the dinner bell rang. Yes, there is a old farm bell that they ring for everythng. So luckily we were not in the middle of it, so we had some lunch.

We left lunch early because we had a phone call oppointment with Susana at 2, on the town phone. The internet was not working. We tried to fix it, but got nothing, and no cell service. So we had a nice scheduled call with Susana to figure out our plans for the last day and the rest of the week. The phone was about 50 meters from the school and as we were getting done with our call and stepped out the door, all of the students and staff were waiting for us. Unknown to us, Saturday was horseracing day, and the track was about a km from the school. After a short and beautiful walk through the country side, we arrived. It was like a fair grounds which had a strightaway fenced in, with a racing gate on one end. Outside of Bardas Blancas is mostly large ranches, so they get together and showoff their amazing horses. After a few races we headed back for tea time, and got to work on the wiring because we only had a few more hours of sunlight. We got the wiring finished, and now had to run a wire into the school to the radio station. The headmaster found a wire that was just perfect in length, and it was the size of a quarter, it was an old piece of underground wire so it had more rubber on it than wire. After making some larger holes to fit the new wire, we had the the system wired! Just in time to shower and go to dinner, we would test it the next day.

Bardas Blancas: Old McDonald had a Pig

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:58:00 -0400

We woke up at 7, and it was pitch black outside, it reminded us of having an 8 am class during spring semester. We organized our room, because we were sleeping in the kindergarden building, and headed to breakfast. We had some hot chocolate milk, which was very good, and homemade bread with jam! After breakfast we followed the children to the main classroom building for Argentina’s National Anthem and the morning discussions. Each morning, one of us had the great honor of helping the students raise the flags.

We were getting ready for our tour of the town but we were informed that today was a special day. Today the school pig was going to eat his last meal, and the headmaster wanted to know if we would like to help, or learn the process of preparing for the event. We helped the what would be “grounds crew” to start a fire to start a barrel of hot water, and cleaned up the garage area and table. Greg was very interested in this event, and was helping out as much as possible.

Now this was not a piglette, this pig was about 7 to 8 feet long and weighed close to 700 lbs. It took 5 of us to wrestle him out of his cage and to get him to the garage. Once we got the pig calmed down, we did what we needed do and the deed was done.

By the time we were done it was lunch time. Afterwards we decided to move the power station from where it currently was, in the teachers meeting room, to the storage garage directly below the solar panels. While Paul and Joe were helping disassemble the power station, Greg cleaned out a spot in the storge garage. He said that it reminded him of cleaning out the parts of the lumberyard, tons of stuff that was once used but broke and is something that someone said tht they could still use it someday, or machinery that was used by the original settlers when they developed the region.

A spot was cleaned out and we moved all of the pieces down, and thankfully Paul took a picture of the station before disassembling, that way we didn’t have to guess how to put it back together. Our next step was to assemble the four pieces of the solar panel together on a prefabricated frame that looked like it was for the solar panels, but was not exactly the right size. So we made it work and by nightfall we had two panels mounted on the frame and the station together in the storage garge, and we also helped with the pig. Just as it we were ready to call it a day the headmaster took us to see the water collection facility. We got back for dinner and then went to bed after a long and tiring day.

Bardas Blancas: The Beginning

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:51:00 -0400

Our much desired trip to Bardas Blancas was awesome!!! We arrived to the school in Bardas Blancas at the end of their morning tea time. We were greeted by 80 Spanish speaking children from the ages of 6 to 12. It was quite a shock. After a few minutes, the children were sent back to their classrooms and we sat down and had a meeting with the headmaster of the school to discuss our accommodations, and projects that we could do while we were there for the four days.

Our main project of setting up the second solar set of solar panels to provide more power to the school was scratched, because in April, the school was connected to the newly installed electrical grid along Route 40. We were happy for them to have full time electricity, but we were not too excited to hear that the project that Joe and Greg have been researching and looking forward to was obsolete. Despite this, there was another application for the solar panels. The school had a radio station that the headmaster would like to power with the solar panels to keep their bill down, and to use also the equipment that has been sitting for 4 months doing nothing but taking up space. We put that project as our main priority, and started after the meeting and the tour of the school.

During our tour of the school, we were shown each of the buildings, and each of the classrooms. He introduced us to the teachers and students, but he had a hard time remembering our English names and introduced us in our Spanish equivalent names. We were introduced as Jose (Joe), Pablo (Paul), and Gregorio (Greg), and those names continued to be our names for the remainder of our trip.

One thing that is unique to most of the rural schools in Argentina is that the schools are shared between the primary and secondary schools. At Bardas Blancas the primary students work stay at the school (sleeping and everything else) for 20 days, and the secondary students would move in for 12, and repeat. The teachers and the entire staff would also stay at the schools with the students, and leave with them as well. So all of the work and other activities that we did will be news to the primary school students and staff once they arrive later this week. Because everyone resided at the school for all of the 20 days, they had schooling every day and a strict schedule as well.

We had to work with their scheduled school day/nights which went as follows:

7 am: Wake up and prepare the rooms for classes (because the students stay at the school, and there is limited space, so some parts of some of the bedrooms are converted into classrooms)

8 am: Breakfast, Raising the Flags, and morning info session for the day)

9 am: Classes Start

10:30 am: Morning tea time

11 am: Classes Resume

1 pm: Lunch

2 pm: Classes Start

4:30 pm: Afternoon tea time

5 pm: Playtime/freetime

6:15 pm: Clean up/shower time and homework time

8:30 pm: Dinner

10 pm: lights out

We took at look at the radio station, solar panel setup, and then ate dinner and were sent to bedtime. It was hard for us to adjust to this schedule because our schedules were mostly consisted of early afternoon, and late evening meetings, so going to bed at 10 and waking up at 7 was a small challenge within itself.

All Roads Clear for Takeoff

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:30:25 -0400

We have good news and some bad news, the good news is that we have videos of us doing traditional dances from Monday’s class, the bad news is that because of unreliable internet due to weather, we have been unable to upload them. We will still try, but if we are unable to upload them here, we will upload them as soon as we get back to the United States. Trust us, it is worth the wait.

For the past few days we have been super full of meetings and classes. Monday, along it our dance class, we had an English lesson with some younger students who have been in the English School for 2 to 3 years. Because the students are more advanced, our lessons plans were about the history and celebration of the 4th of July, and Thanksgiving. The students had lots of fun and learned a lot about some of our country’s oldest traditions.

Tuesday started with a mid-morning trip to the Incubator. We met with the leader of a project that is not located on the Incubator’s property, but still is funded and worked through the Incubator. The project was about biotechnology advancements with pesticide and virus free onion, potato, and garlic farming. they discussed their process on how they start, grow, and then replant the vegetables until the harvest.

After our meeting, and lunch, we got ready for our afternoon English lessons about weather,and shopping downtown. This lesson was with 4, first year adults. More adults were scheduled to be at the lesson, but because of the bad weather that we have been having, it has caused the local busing system to come to a halt, so many of the people outside of town are stuck there until the weather permits safe travel. Later that evening, across the hall, we were going to be the students for a change and were given small presentations on recipes of local foods. The presenters were students who are in their lasts year of the English program at the University. They spoke extremely good English, and after their presentations, we talked with them about what we study at Michigan Tech, and we were curious how they enjoyed learning English and why they were so interested. They were happy to talk to people who spoke English as their native language, and who were in college because they themselves were heading to higher education within the next year or so.

We headed home only to hear the news that we were not heading to Ranquil de Norte the next day because the road to the south was closed due to the bad weather. Instead, we scheduled a meeting with the Cultural Diretor of the District of Malargue, Juan Jose, who has been helping us logistically throughout our stay here in Malargue. We had an exciting meeting which included a news team, which was curious to what we have been doing during our stay. Joe did a great job explaining what we have done here and what we are planning to do before we departure.

We also have some good news about this Thursday, weather permitting, we should be leaving for Bardas Blancas for a few days to work on our solar energy project in the morning!!!

Hopefully everything goes well and that wean successfully complete the project or clear up all of the unknowns, for the next cohort!!

Video

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:11:32 -0400

The class we taught on Monday evening, we talked about the 4th...

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:08:40 -0400

The class we taught on Monday evening, we talked about the 4th of July and Thanksgiving

The final result!!

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:01:45 -0400

The final result!!

The disc pan with chicken

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:53:00 -0400

The disc pan with chicken

Fiesta, Siesta, Repeat!

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:38:28 -0400

This weekend reminded me of playing a game of football, a thrilling event, followed by a break to decide and plan the next event, and repeat. Friday was a newly acclimated national holiday to celebrate and honor the border patrol. The border patrol in Argentina have equal if not higher precedence over the Argentine Army, so they are pretty important, or at least over here on the west side of the Mendoza providence which will soon have 2 different access points to Chile (there are not many throughout the long border with Chile because of the Andes). To celebrate the city had a parade, and once the parade was over it was the natural Friday Siesta time so the town activities came to a halt. By 2pm the city was a ghost town, as usual. We went and had lunch at the major gas station in town, mostly because it is the only thing open that has food from 12:30 to 5 pm, even the grocery store is closed. Greg has a milanesa sandwich, the traditional hot meat sandwich of Argentina, and Joe and Paul also had some traditional-style sandwiches.

We continued our research of project ideas and finalized our schedule for the weekend. For dinner we decided to try a special type of empanada, the Tropical Empanada! Unlike the traditional empanadas which are usually full of meat, cheese, and vegetables, the tropical empanada is filled with queso (cheese), anana (pineapple), and azucar negro (brown sugar). They were delicious!!!

Our plan for Friday night was to go experience one of Argentina’s favorite pastimes, the cinema!!! We wanted to go to the early show at 10 pm, but dinner was more important at the time. So we checked to see when the next film started, the schedule said 12:30 am on Saturday, so we took a small siesta, it was going to be a late night after all, and woke in time to bike to the theater. We got to the theater and asked them for a ticket and they told us it was not until tomorrow night. We looked at the poster we saw earlier and in our quick translation we missed the statement which said that the 12:30 movie was on late Saturday night, which meant Sunday morning. Since we were out we decided to go up the road about a block to the Rio Grand Hotel’s restaurant, which was very nice and fancy and have a 1 am cafe (coffee). After our cafe we headed home for bed.

We wokeup Saturday had some breakfast, and discovered we were internetless. We decided to go on a hunt for internet to continue our research, and it was our main way to communicate with Susana. It was a little bit after noon by the time we got to town, and once again it was a ghost town, and once again we ended up at the same gas station because it had WiFi and as a plus we could also get lunch!

Our major plan for the day was to have dinner at our place with Susana, Natalia (one of Susana’s evening students who we had a lesson with earlier in the week with) and her parents. Her father wanted to teach us how to prepare a local dish called Pollo al Disco (Chicken on a disc). Pollo al Disco is a chicken dish which is prepared in a special pan made from a disc off of a tractor disc harrow (it is a metal bowl shaped wheel which is usually draged behind a tractor to airate the soil). They add a 4 inch metalwallaround the outside of the pan and it makes a niceheavy duty bowl/oan/grill. To start we cooked onions, green peppers, mixed vegetables together, and then added the chicken (the entire chicken pieced out) in a garlic, butter, and beer broth. It was all slowly cooked together until the chicken was falling off of the bone, with a little bit of fresh salad and some bread, it was a fantastic meal, one of the best that we have had so far. We enjoyed the meal and conversation throughout the rest of the night.

Sunday was a busy day as well, we woke up to a light dusting of snow, and had a short walk to a family’s house which was next to the lumberyard/hardware store at the end of our road. Once we arrived, we were greeted with the finest of hospitality, as usual, and were going to be tested throughout the day because this was our first family visit without one of the family members being bilingual or our first time without the help of Susana.

We had some coffee and some bakery goodies while we explained what we were doing and what we have done, and where we have been during our stay in Argentina. We later found out that we would be roasting a goat in their fireplace! We were taught how to prepare the goat and the fire for a proper cooking. While the goat was cooking the father gave us a tour of the lumber yard which they owned!!! Greg was very excited for the tour, he showed us all of their machines and tools that they used and Greg was like a kid in a candy shop. After the tour we help prepare the rest of the feast and sat down and enjoyed another delicious meal. After the meal, or at least once we could not eat anymore, the mother brought out the traditional desert of homemade canned peaches in a sugar syrup with cream, and dulce de leche (a creamier version of caramel). After our stomachs were over capacity, we helped clean up, and were given a tour around some of the outside parts of Malargue which included some of the different gypsum factories on the east end of town. It was cool to see the other side of the city, and to see the areas where a lot of the residents of Malargue worked. Once we arrived back to their home we were treated with tortas fritas (a fried sweetbread covered in sugar) and mate (the traditional Argentine drink).

After our day of feasting and dicovery we took the short walk home, we were thankful it was a short walk becuase we were so full from the day of feasting, and started to get things ready for Mondays English lesson, and practice our dance moves for Monday’s dance class.

Step, Uno, Dos, Tres!

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:57:26 -0400

Wednesday we spent most of the day preparing our English lessons plans for the lesson that we had on Wednesday night along with our two lessons on Thursday. Our first lesson was with Sebastian, the city accountant and one of Susana’s regular students. Along with being our guide/translator for our stay in Malargue, Susana is an English teacher at the Malargue University Center, similar to a technical school center, which also does one-on-one tutoring with people who work during the day. Our first 2 lessons, along with this one, were with Susana’s evening students,which usually last for around an hour and a half. Greg was really excited about this lesson because Sebastian wanted to learn about football and baseball, and a little bit about the fourth of July. Greg and Sebastian talked about football for a little more than an hour, baseball for about 20 minutes, and then we managed to squeeze in some time to talk about the 4th of July. The session went extremely well and Sabastion had great time and learned a lot of information in the extended 2 hour session.

Thursday started out early, 8 am, we had another meeting at the Incubator at 9:15 and we talked to a few more of the businesses and saw some of the machinery and tools that they created to make their businesses possible. After a few interviews were finished, we headed home to finalize and perfect the presentations that were going to give to Susana’s afternoon class, which was composed of 5 women, who requested us to discuss the topics Michigan Tech life and Thanksgiving. Our evening lesson was with about 30 teen students who are in their first year of the University Center’s English program. We discussed simpler topics of weather and getting around downtown/directions. We had the students explain where their schools, houses, and other points of interests were within Malargue.

Many people that we have talked to in Malargue base most of their views of United States culture on movies. Therefore, most of the people here are very interested in some of the topics such as college life, national traditions (Thanksgiving and the 4th of July), and sports in the United States. For example, the ladies in the afternoon wanted to know about the ever expanding Black Friday and if people actually did that. Once we described what really does happen they were shocked to hear that people actually look forward to doing that.

We ended the busy day with a traditional dance lesson. This traditional line dance was performed by Gauchos, the cowboys of Argentina (what Greg and Joe are trying to become before leaving), and a female companion. It is similar to the square dance. On Monday we are hoping to continue our lesson and to learn a another traditional dance called the Malambo! The Malambo is like a cowboy boot tape dance which is only performed by men, mainly Gauchos. The idea of the Malambo was a way for a Gaucho to show his dancing ability, to prove his manliness, and to impress the ladies.

We are hoping to continue our never ending quest to become Gauchos, and to continue to have successful English sessions with the local people of Malargue.

Incubating

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:14:44 -0400

Tuesday started off with another trip to the Incubator. On our way there we had a small tragedy. We saw Juan Carlos again, only this time he was down in a ditch all curled up and not moving. Juan Carlos was dead, or we thought, at least. Paul tossed a rock next to him and he was alive!!! Juan was just enjoying a nice nap in the sun. He greeted us with a few wags of his tail, and followed us to the Incubator.

When we arrived to the Incubator we met the manager and discussed the application process to gain a spot in one of the open rooms in the Incubator. After our meeting with the Incubator’s manager, we met with one of the businesses within the Incubator. This business made crepes and flour for making milanesa (a thin piece of chicken or beef that is coated with a flour and pan fried). The special thing about this business is that other than the main lady, the rest of the working team are people who are considered disabled, and generally are unable to find work in the “normal working environment”. It was great to see that the Incubator program and the manager are able to truly give everyone a chance to work.

We left the Incubator, accompanied by Juan, and went to get some lunch and went home. We took a small siesta and prepared for our evening English lesson with one of Susana’s students. It went extremely well and we discussed the topics of how to get around downtown, directions, and shopping. She also had some questions about Michigan Tech and what we are studying, because she was an teacher at a local elementary school. Once we were done with our other nightly tasks, it was too late to go to the supermarket to by things to make dinner, so we decided to go out to L’Martina, a resturant downtown, to try some tradtional foods.