Shabbat Shalom from Buenos Aires!

Hasta la WOW. These past two days have been fast-moving yet productive and fun. Let’s begin, shall we?

Thursday began with an exciting adventure to a factory of an Argentinian sweet called alfajores (alpha-hor-es). The most common type of alfajores consist of a dulce de leche filling between two soft cookies. The significance of this particular alfajor factory is that it was made possible by the JDC during the economic crisis. A combination of various social services offered by the JDC brought someone’s inspirational idea to fruition by providing the necessary financial support. The factory produces kosher alfajores and now has a global market, shipping to other countries including America. Alfajores can be found at most drugstores, kiosks and coffee shops around Argentina. Touring the factory was a great experience and felt like a real-life episode of Food Network’s Unwrapped. Needless to say we all stocked up on the delicious Argentian treat to share with our friends and family back home. Don’t be surprised if none of them make it back to the U.S.! They’re hard to resist and have a tendency to stare one in the face if left unattended.

After touring the factory we eagerly went to work at the Tel Aviv School. Everything started coming together as the green paint layers began to resemble grass and the mural came closer to completion. Thursday’s biggest addition was that of grass and flowers on the walls. We had the opportunity to eat lunch with the school’s Board of Directors. The connection we made across language barriers was strong and they were very appreciative of the work we had been doing.

For dinner we were taken to a fancy pizza restaurant where we had a choice between three brick-oven grilled pizzas. The thin crust set it apart from the pizza we’re used to in America. For dessert we had ice cream. No matter how full we are at meals, nobody can pass up the dulce de leche ice cream at restaurants. But hey, no one’s complaining.

Closing thoughts on our trip are coming up next.

Here are some pictures from the opening of the futbol field at the Tel Aviv school!

Keep reading →

Kaitlyn and Cara making empanadas at Hillel!

Hola!

So far our time in Argentina has been magnifico! Our group has been moving non-stop since we got off the plane on Monday morning. Once we arrived at the Cristal Palace hotel, Monica and Viviana, two employees of the JDC here in Argentina, gave us a brief overview of the economic crisis that hit the country in 2001. They also described the various programs and services provided by the JDC. Once we were familiar with the JDC’s presence in Latin America and our stomachs were satisfied by lunch, our group took a short ride to AMIA. AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) is a social service organization for Argentine Jews. AMIA was bombed in what was the biggest attack on Jews since the holocaust in March of 1994. We spent time learning about the memorial built in homage to the people who were killed and conducted a memorial service. We continued our stay in

Sara working with an elderly volunteer at Baby Help

Buenos Aires with an extensive tour of the city to learn about the rich history and culture. The combination of Spanich and European culture and architecture throughout the city was surprising. Buenos Aires is sometimes referred to as the Paris of South America. We were joined by our Argentine peers for a pasta dinner and ice cream. The dulce de leche was fantastico!

Ayer (yesterday) we woke up bright and early, starting our day with an Argentine breakfast, consisting of croissants, cheese and coffee. After breakfast we headed to Baby Help where we brought our 850 pounds of donated clothing! Baby Help is a JDC organization that provides day care to low income Jewish families with children ages four and under. At Baby Help, we were able to spend time and make hamentashens with the kids who are benefitted from our donations. After Baby Help we walked down the hall to L’dor Va’dor, an elderly home that has approximately 350 residents. There, we were able to interact with the residents while they were doing arts and crafts. It was a great opportunity for us to practice our Spanish and learn about their lives and experience at L’dor Va’dor. We finished our stay at L’dor V’dor with lunch with some English-speaking elders. Our next stop was the Tel Aviv school, a Jewish day school in the city. Once there we spoke with Mariana, another JDC employee, before taking a tour around the school. We began restoring their outdoor soccer court by painting it and designing a mural for one of the walls. After finishing up our first day of volunteer work, we reflected on our work and experience so far. That night we went to one of the three Hillel houses in Buenos Aires. It was mucho linda! (very beautiful). They even had a swimming pool. There we were greeted by Nati, the director of programming, and were taught how to make empanadas, a typical Argentinian dish. We mingled with our Argentine peers while we waited for Sylvia, the chef, to bake our empanadas and happily enjoyed the fruits of our labors. They were delicioso! Yael, our JDC madricha (guide), took us to Palermo Square to experience the night life.

Today we had the opportunity to speak with two women who use Baby Help services. Five of our trip members went to Daniela’s apartment and spoke with her about her experiences dealing with her poor economic status and how Baby Help has assisted in her recovery. Daniela’s son, Santiago, was physically abused by his father when he was just seven months old, fracturing his skull and his femur, leaving him in intensive care. Four years later Santiago is now attending a public school in Buenos Aires and spent the last three years at Baby Help. Daniela’s struggles helped us realize how fortunate we are and made us realize that even though we think Jewish people are so fortunate throughout the world, many are in need of assistance. For example, Santiago got used to eating yogurt at Baby Help and other nutritious fruits and vegetables and now, due to his family’s economic status, he is luck y if he gets dinner when he gets home from school.

We’re off to continue painting outside. More to come!

Greetings chicos,

This is your communications chair Michael Lefco and blogger Josh Lieberthal here to bring you the latest about our ASB Argentina group. Our last meeting went great. We met our JDC advisor Larry and he is simply maravilloso (marvelous). After hearing about all of the things JDC has done around the world from Larry, we felt very proud to be a part of it. We finally got to meet our group leader Rabbi Andrea Steinberger. Although this was our first time meeting her, she had already been involved in planing for our trip by looking for new donation possibilities, talking with the JDC about the trip, and informing us about upcoming meetings, fundraising events, and even challenging us to raise as many donations as we could. We are excited about having her on board.  Our meeting began with a fun and inventive team building exercise. The challenge was to build the tallest freestanding tower out of ordinary items. Cool beans! Next we discussed JDC’s presence around the world, as we each looked at a difference pictures from around the world. Then we finally talked about what we will be doing in Buenos Aires. We will be partaking in the restoration of a fútbol field/court. We are also pursuing the option of painting a mural surrounding the court. We also look forward to teaching them how to Bucky. Each of us took on our own rabbinic name and gave different interpretations of the term “Lech lecha”.  Some good news we found out was that ASB USC will also be in Buenos Aires while we are there. We will have the opportunity to make new friends and hopefully some new memories.

As promised we have a new Spanish word/phrase of the day that hopefully you will be able to utilize in Argentina.

Yo pido el plato de verduras, por favor= I want the vegetable plate please. (Say this while at a restaurant!)

Habla ingles?= Do you speak English?

As the University of Wisconsin Hillel prepares to travel to Argentina with JDC Short-Term Service, two JDC Jewish Service Corps Fellows serving in the country for the year introduce themselves from afar!

Zara Klaff (http://zaraabroad.wordpress.com)

¡Hola! My name is Zara Klaff and I’m from Chicago, Illinois. I went to school at Pomona College in Southern California, and now I am serving in Buenos Aires, Argentina (the same city in which I studied abroad two years ago) with the JDC Jewish Service Corps. I work with the Community Development programs. More specifically, I help with a program called YOK that does outreach work to non-affiliated Jews in Buenos Aires and MEIDA, which is the Center of Studies for Community Development for Latin American Jewish Communities (in Hebrew, Meida means information). I have had the opportunity to help out with different projects in Buenos Aires, Pinamar (a coastal town in Argentina), and Lima, Peru. Overall, I am enjoying what I am doing and I love this city! I can’t wait to meet you all and introduce you to this amazing place!

Ariana Neustein (http://lalindacordobesa.blogspot.com)

¡Hola! My name is Ariana Neustein and I’m from San Diego, California currently serving with the JDC Jewish Service Corps in beautiful Cordoba, Argentina. I am working for the Jewish community of Cordoba, working in the social welfare center, the Maccabi JCC and Hillel. I am really enjoying Argentina but more specifically, la vida Cordobesa. Cordoba is the second largest city in Argentina filled with a rich culture, a “lindo” dialect of Spanish, which is different than the Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires, and most importantly, the nicest people with “buena onda” that you will ever meet! Here in Argentina, the word poverty has a completely different meaning than what we are accustomed to in the United States. We are very appreciative for your time, help and interest in serving the Argentine Jewish community. Your efforts will go a long way to greatly helping Argentine kids and we are so thankful!

Hey ya’ll (gotta love the south) this is your communications chair Michael Lefco and committee members Lauren Weisberg and Caleb Sherman. We had a great first meeting and it made a lot more excited about going to Argentina. ¡No podemos esperar para ir! (we cannot wait to go! For those non Spanish speakers out there)

The orientation meeting started off great as we all broke the ice with the help of Roz’s inventive games (anyone else remember doing those at soar also?? We still love you Roz). In all honesty though it was really fun and we all learned more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Everyone got along great and we have a great group dynamic. We also sent letters into the future that we will receive at a later date. How cool! Also, we decided that we want to leave a physical mark in Argentina whether that be a mural or maybe even a fence, as long as it is something we can be remembered by.

Everyone has high hopes for the trip and I have no doubt that we will be able to live up to them. We all just need to have positive attitudes and as Caleb Sherman stated, “when someone is feeling down just say, yooo.” Also, everyone seemed very excited about forming relationships with the people we will meet and getting to know more about their culture. Lauren Weisberg wants a pen pal so bad so let’s try to make this happen for her. This made me think that as much as we want to get to know them, they probably want to get to know us as well. That is why I think we should bring pictures of our friends and Madison and maybe some cool UW gear so they can see what we are all about.

As the cold settles in for the winter all we can think about is the warm weather south of the equator. Stay warm everyone. March will be here sooner than you know.

Hasta luego amigos,

Michael, Lauren, and Caleb.

We have started a new tradition here on the blog. It is the Spanish word/phrase of the day. Today’s phrase is ¿Donde está el baño? Or Where is the lavatory?