As part of our cultural immersion, Pablo thought it would be good for us to visit a number of different churches in town over our stay to get an idea of the different worship styles. Our favorite was the one we visited on Easter Sunday. We walked in to a room clearly divided right down the middle. To the right, the congregation, to the left, the worship band… it was close to half and half, with the edge going to the band. But no this wasn’t a tiny church with a keyboard and guitar, we’re in South America after all. The band consisted of no less than 5 accordion players (ranging in age form 12-60), at least 5 tambourine players, 6-10 traditional guitar players, about 6 people playing a banjo-mandolin hybrid… oh, and then one little boy with a set of bongos. The service was full of music to say the least… like a super-powered mariachi band. And it turns out that the little old lady taking notes at the front table wasn’t there for “minutes” or to take prayer requests, she is where you sign up to sing. Kinda like a open mic night, you sign up there to sign/play/read the following Sunday… Rick’s request to sing Freebird was unanimously declined.
Our favorite activity of the day was teaching Guille and Nathan how to dye Easter Eggs and explaining how they symbolize Jesus’ empty tomb and the new life that comes as a result of His rising from the dead. This was a first for all of us to dye eggs from “scratch” i.e. on or own without any help from a kit. We went the professional way, we hollowed out the eggs by poking holes in the ends and blowing out the white and the yolk, as opposed to the hardboiled route. We discovered Liz is much better at this than Rick (for the record, Rick authored this paragraph. Can’t wait for the comments). The results speak for themselves… clearly, somos artistos.
Apparently no Easter trip to Argentina is complete without a visit from Ratón Pérez, he is the Argentine equivalent of the Easter Bunny Tooth Fairy. Yep the Tooth Fairy here is a rodent, a rat to be more specific. This worked out fairly well as most of
what Rick knows how to say in Spanish is about animals (gato this, ratón that, monos get back). None the less he was a constant source of conversation and almost like another member of the family. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention that we got to enjoy the company of Raton Perez’s friends during our stay. Rick made big claims to Guille and Pablo about his trapping prowess… convinced them to provide some of Guille’s jewelry wire for him to make snares… it’s been two weeks, we still have two empty rat snares. Rick says he just intimidated them. Which is weird because I swear I can hear them mocking him from the ceiling above our bed. This was one of Guille’s and my, many, “inside jokes.”
We packed a picnic lunch and, of course, three thermoses of hot water, the yerba and our mate – you can never go without mate! The mate starts in the car on the way to your destination, who ever rides shotgun has to be the Cebador (person who serves mate for everyone)… and basically it’s doesn’t stop until, well, ever. We got to be the heroes because we had our camping stove and pot and could heat more water up, right there where we picnicked.
We’ve visited almost all of the 7 lakes in the region. We’ve come across some very interesting camping recommendations, which Rick tested out.
