Day 9 - Argentina Game 2, Proposal at the Rose Garden, and La Recoleta Cemetary

Our last day began with the second world cup game for Argentina. We met at a small cafe on the corner of the street near San Andres church and watched the game with about 20 other fans. It was an exciting game in what is turning out to be a rather boring tournament.

After the game we boarded the bus and headed into Buenos Aires to tour the famous Rose Garden. We got some great pictures and somehow managed to give Jason and Nicole enough space without alerting her to the fact that something was up. Once they got to the bridge we kept our distance and tried to act conspicuous even though we all wanted to see him pop the question. A job well done, Jason! Even though most of us knew he was proposing to her days before hand, we managed to keep it a secret. Good work, team!

We ate lunch at a little bistro that served Milanese and then headed over to La Recoleta for a tour. We saw some really ornate graves, crypts, mausoleums, tombs, etc. Please see pictures below. One interesting tomb was that of Eva Peron. To this day it is still being decorated with flowers and notes from supporters and admirers. Much to our dismay, it soon came time to leave Buenos Aires. Here is a short anecdote: Tony climbed a tree and whilst sitting on a branch for a model shot fell off the tree as the branch crumbled under his weight. After making sure he was OK we laughed at him. Actually, we laughed at him beforehand. We said our goodbyes to Camilla and Stephie and loaded onto the bus for our final destination: the airport. Buenos Aires, you are a wonderful city!

Caleb and Steve playing this weird hand clapping game that I would be terrible at.

They go up as boyfriend and girlfriend....

(That beanie is Jason's head, he's on one knee)

And come down as fiance and fiance.

Andy kept making faces

Tony and Santi with their beanies

Evita's grave

Jonny and Jason modelling inside a tomb.

A group model shot

Day 8 - Jonny presses the wrong button, more painting, and a cultural festival.

For Jonny, Peter, and Michael, Day 8 started with a bus ride to San Andres church in Olivos. As our stop approached, there was some confusion as to which button signaled the driver to stop. Making a quick decision, Jonny pressed the red button with the bell on it. It was not the right button. Instead of signalling the driver to stop, it signaled the driver that there was an emergency occurring somewhere on the bus. We knew something was wrong when we heard a loud screeching sound coming from the speakers. Not really sure why the button has a bell on it... Since we were at our stop we exited the bus rather quickly.

Once everyone arrived at San Andres, we started the day with a prayer. We prayed for Nate who was bedridden with what, at the time, looked like appendicitis. We prayed for the children of Jardin Maternal San Benito who gave us prayer requests the day before. We prayed for strength in the spiritual warfare we all face daily. Starting the day off the right way energized everyone for the day to come.

We headed back to Villa Jardin for more time with the children and the fences. We needed to get the long iron fence sanded and painted so most of us devoted our morning to that. I think everyone who was out there painting that fence will remember how much fun it was.

During the time we were painting, Susanna, the director of the Jardin Maternal, took us on a tour of the local neighborhood. We saw where most of the children are growing up and it gave us a better idea of what they are facing. The neighborhood is very poor and quite unsafe. We traveled with Susanna as the locals know and trust her. Susanna is one of the unsung heroes of our faith. She gives so much of her time, energy, and love to her children. She even bought a house nearby to be closer to the school. We do not have any pictures to show as Susanna asked us not to bring our cameras. Susanna brought us to a bakery where several women have started a sort of entrepreneurship with their baked goods. They welcomed us with trays of amazing pastries, some of which Tony bought and shared with the group.

Once the tour was over and the fence had been painted, we were invited to a multi-cultural festival at the school. We saw dances from Paraguay and Bolivia as well as a traditional Gaucho dance from the Argentine countryside. We weren't really prepared when they asked us a group to present something American for all the families. However, we recited the best rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" you've ever heard. We did so well they asked us for another song and we rocked their socks off with "The Hokey-Pokey Dance." We even got the children involved. It was very memorable. See photos below. Before we knew it, it was time to leave. We were sent off with gifts from the children and we gave out gifts of our own. We were literally surrounded by children as we gave away silly bands. Getting on the bus was hard as some of us were unable to break the hugs of crying children. We spent the rest of the day with our respective host families.

We spent the rest of the day with our respective host families.

Long lost sisters?

The Hokey-Pokey

Day 9 - Surprise, Surprise

Congratulations to the Element's newest soon-to-be's, Jason Forward and Nicole Duplessie. Jason raised the bar on the proposal scale, as you can see. On the white bridge in the Rose Garden right in the middle of Buenos Aires. He even proposed in Castallano (Spanish dialect). Studly.

Day 7 - Zoo and Steak

Today started off back at Jardin Maternal San Benito. We began the morning by sanding down a long fence of black metal bars which needed to be repainted. Some of us stayed inside with the children while the rest of got down n’ dirty. A couple hours into the day the buses started arriving for which to transport us and about 100 local children to the Buenos Aires Zoo. You might be thinking “Oh boy, 100 children who speak little English, what are we gonna do?” You are obviously not us, “De nada.” We split into four groups and rode the buses with los niños to the zoo in BA. It was a long ride but we had fun sitting with the children and teaching other our respective languages. Peter made a big blunder while asking the children how old they were but that’s a story for another time. The zoo was crazy fun.

After splitting with los niños we found ourselves at the Unicenter (pronounced ‘ooni-center’), basically an Argentine shopping mall. Tony made the observation that this mall had more stores geared towards men than most American malls. It could be said that the ratios of male-to-female were reversed. In any case, the mall was just a way of getting us hungry enough for the real deal, La Caballeriza.

La Caballeriza is a steakhouse located across the street from the horse tracks. The story is that the whole street the steakhouse is on was once a row of horse stables. A man came by and decided to convert one into a restaurant. Everyone laughed at him but his restaurant flourished. Soon after, all the stables were converted into eateries and shops. The steaks were unreal. We ordered in quantities of 300 and 500 grams (do the conversions yourselves you lazy Americanos). It was a great way to end the night. Good food and good friends. That could be one of the themes of this trip. See pictures below and comment. Don’t read this post without commenting. Please.

Mikey y amigos

This was kind of a random shot of Karen but if you look really closely you can also see Les in the background.

Andy and Jake directing traffic

Coolest primate ever. He was almost too human. At one point he was laying back with his hands behind his head and he started picking his teeth and then he looked at his fingers and flicked some grass or something off them and it was really human like.. I know that was a run-on sentence, big deal ya wanna fight about it?

We were petting goats

Long night.

There is also a big group shot I wanna post, I think Karen has the picture.

Caleb was quite popular with las ninas.

A great pic of the Fritz'

Day 5 - Photos added

Sorry, the only photos I had were from Christine's camera. If anyone else would like to post photos in general please let me know! I will give you the account information.

Day 6 - English Immersion and Relaxation Time

We started Day 6 with the last concert from the Highlands/San Andres crew. The band played a bit shorter of a concert for some of the students from San Andres Scots School. It's a very prestigious high school in Buenos Aires. The band is shown in the picture below. They really deserve all of our thanks for doing such an amazing job over the past week. It was a pleasure for all of us to watch and support you guys. Muchas Gracias!

After the concert we packed into a bus and headed over to the city of Villa Jardin for a service project. Camilla and some others from San Andres brought us to Jardin Maternal San Benito to meet the children and help them learn English. They ranged in age from 45 days to 11 years old. The community center was basically a place where local working parents could receive free childcare while they were gone each day. We tried to help out as best we could by preparing games and activities to help the children learn English. Since the teachers at Jardin had already begun this process, our games were geared towards reinforcing what they had already learned while teaching them sentence structure and vocabulary through conversation.

At the same time, Jason Fritz and some of the guys cleaned the walls outside the building with brushes and brooms. We used a 1 to 4 bleach to water solution and scrubbed down the walls until they were suitable to paint. Normally this would be easy work. However, easy work is too easy and as Jason said before the trip started, "Let's not pray for everything to go so smoothly as it's the hard times that teach us the most." (That's a paraphrase Jason so if you're reading this please make corrections where you see fit). The hard part was scrubbing the walls down in pouring rain. Although we complained at times, it was a lot of fun and we are thankful to God for the ability and means to do His work. We will always have that memory now. We couldn't even be bitter towards the guys and ladies who stayed inside as any teacher of young children knows how hard THAT work is. I did not envy them one bit (which is not to say that the children weren't a pleasure to be around). The only bad part of this cleaning project was the fact that Nate may have gotten sick from the cold weather. He was probably out there the longest, so if you're reading this Nate, thank you for your sacrifice. We ended the day around 4 and headed back to our homes to spend the rest of the night with our host families.

Friends and Family: Please keep the teachers and workers at Jardin Maternal San Benito in your prayers. Please pray for their donations and finances to keep coming as they do not require the parents to pay for the childcare. The women here are absolutely wonderful people who deserve our prayers and support.