We kicked our Buenos Aires experience into high gear today with visits to LaDor VaDor, The Baby Help Center, and the Tel Aviv School.  We’ll be adding recounts of our experiences for all three shortly, but for now, let us highlight a particularly fun visit several of us made into a 1st grade English class at the Tel Aviv School. The students were extremely enthusiastic to see us, and they treated us to several songs in English.

We played a game with the students, helping them learn the meanings of terms like “between,” “on,” “behind,” and “in front of”. It’s hard to tell who enjoyed our visit more – us or the students. Luckily, since our service project involves physical improvements to the gym of the Tel Aviv School, we’ll have plenty more experiences to interact with the children.

Now we’re off to an Empanada-making lesson with Buenos Aires Hillel members.

Just a quick note to let you know that we’ve arrived safely in Buenos Aires, and are settling into our hotel – and having a much needed shower – before we push through the day!

Our fight from Mexico City to Miami happened as planned. In fact, it was luxurious compared to the previous 18+ hours of travel. We all got a few hours of sleep and are now in the Miami airport, enjoying safe drinking water, produce, and a good meal before boarding our new flight to Buenos Aires at 8:30pm tonight.

Palm Trees in Miami

With spirits high and great excitement abound, our group assembled at JFK ready for Argentina.  Check-in and security were a breeze, and everyone found each other by the gate.  Little did we know, we were starting out on an altogether different kind of adventure.

We're excited!

The first indication of trouble came when the flight didn’t board on time, but no announcement was made as to why.  But it was only a short delay, and with a 2 hour layover in Mexico City before continuing onto Buenos Aires, there was no need for concern.

On board Aeromexico 403, most of us were grouped in rows 25 and 26.  Greg and Freya even got lucky and seemed to have an empty seat in their row.  Of course, right before the plane door closed, a frazzled mother traveling alone with her toddler made her way down the isle, screaming baby in arms, and located her seat… right next to us.  But we kept an open mind and hoped for the child to fall asleep.  The next 30 minutes of waiting at the gate (getting later) proved that the child had no interest in sleeping. We strategized and kindly asked the mother if she’d prefer an aisle seat, which she did, so we seized the opportunity to put her in Nicole’s 11th row seat and bring Nicole back to our group.  Problem solved.

We first started becoming alarmed when about 45 minutes after scheduled departure time, no announcement had yet been made.  Eventually the pilot advised that due to air traffic delays, we’d be sitting at the gate for an additional 30 minutes.  We started to get nervous, and began making phone calls.  Once we hit the 2 hour mark, the plane pushed back, and we held on to hope that we’d make our connection.  Long story short: we sat on our plane, away from the gate, with no air conditioning, for over 5 hours.  We started writing this post from Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de México, where we’re awaiting confirmation that we’ll be on an 11:15am flight through Miami to Argentina.  Best case, this will set the trip back by a day, but we’re still excited.

A few interesting tidbits along the way:
- it was so hot on the airplane that while waiting, the cabin crew opened the two rear emergency exits to let air in; it was also pouring, so they laid down newspaper in the back of the cabin to soak it up
- water and cups were rationed, as the crew expected to run out before our eventual departure
- when we asked “who’s in charge here?” the flight attendant replied without hesitation, “Obama.”
- Aeromexico was unable to assist us throughout our ordeal, as their call center just simply didn’t believe us when we said we hadn’t left yet
- at one point while starting to taxi, the pilot announced that we were the 230th plane in line for departure
- once we landed, after a flurry of announcements in Spanish that lasted several minutes, one of the flight attendants came on in English: “ladies and gentlemen, can you please check around your seat? Somebody has lost a BlueBerry [phone].”

We finally arrived in Mexico City shortly after 2am.  The airport was essentially closed, but slowly began to wake up as time went on.  Erika was repeatedly confronted by the police as apparently it’s illegal to lie down on the floor of an airport in Mexico.

In Mexico City...

The highlight of August 23rd, so far, was “Flap’s” – a restaurant in Terminal 1.  While our energy was at an all-time low, we finally had a chance to sit down in real chairs, relax for a bit, and the food was surprisingly good!  As of this writing, 4 out of 9 heads are asleep on the table, and we’re all excited to get a “real” night’s sleep on our next flight, which leaves at 11:15am for Miami.

Hopefully our next post will more cultural and meaningful… and ideally written from Argentina!

Flag of Argentina

Just as the Class of 2014 arrives on campus to begin orientation, our group of alumni ranging from the Class of 2000 through 2010 gear up for a similar educational endeavor.  In just a few days we’ll land in Buenos Aires for a week of experiential learning and giving back.  Our primary mission while in Argentina is to help refurbish the gymnasium at the Tel Aviv School, one of the Jewish schools that survived the economic crisis but has fallen into a physical state of disrepair.  The school serves 220 children ranging from 8 months to 12 years of age.  More on the school once we arrive.

To help us prepare intellectually for our trip, we had the incredible opportunity to hear briefings from two prominent Cornell professors.  Professor Roberts, who specializes in comparative and Latin America politics, gave us an overview dating back to the 1920s, when Argentina was one of the world’s wealthier countries due to its strong agricultural exports.  He took us through the last century and explained how Argentina’s banking and economic collapse in the early 2000s represented the largest default ever in the global economy.  During our trip, we will experience the impact of the collapse, and see first-hand how organizations like the JDC have brought stability and recovery to the country’s Jewish population.

Professor Craib, who focuses on the modern histories of several Latin and South American countries, then gave us an overview of Argentina’s population growth, dating back to the days when large numbers of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian immigrants arrived to find a country rich in natural resources and without the barriers of a strong indigenous population.  This allowed the country to grow dramatically.  He then gave us an overview of the political history of Argentina, ranging from Juan and Eva Peron in the mid 20^th century through the present day Kirchner administration.

After the briefings, our alumni groups based in both Washington DC and New York City separately went out to get to know each other. We’re all very excited to meet each other at the airport on Sunday, and we look forward to sharing our experiences with you over the coming week!

We’re gearing up for our trip to Argentina August 22nd through 29th.  Check back soon for more detailed pre-trip information!