On blazin' new trails and avoiding small, striped creatures

Living in the mountains for the first time was one of the more exciting, highly anticipated aspects of moving to Western Virginia for my Lilly fellowship position with ASP. Some of the first on-line perusing I did of the region was a careful search of available state parks: how far they are from our center, their amenities (camping, hiking, biking, etc.), their natural features of note, etc. Knowing already that any city of significant size is at least an hour's drive from Jonesville, plus keeping my humble fellowship salary in mind, I had an early, vested interest in exploring the cheaper adventures that would be available. My interest in locations suitable for mountain biking increased exponentially at the end of August when my adopted family at Trinity Friends Church (Van Wert, Ohio) surprised me with an extraordinary end-of-my-youth-ministry present: a new mountain bike! Much like many people who don their cars with pet names, I think I would like to bestow my Mongoose mountain bike with a name of her own. Maybe something appropriate to the mongoose's natural qualities or habitat? But I digress...

We've been enjoying some abnormally warm October weather here in Jonesville; it was in the 80's all weekend, bright and sunny in Lee county! With similar, fantastic weather last week as well, I wanted to take advantage of the favorable conditions to visit a state park and break in my new set of wheels before colder conditions set in. And so, my hopes were set into action last Monday alongside two fellow staff members. We drove to Duffield and Virginia's Natural Tunnel State Park for a day of hiking, biking, and general outdoor enjoyment. This particular park boasts a natural limestone tunnel of 850 feet in length and (up to) 10 stories in height, traversed daily by up to 10 coal trains and, on the day we visited, maintenance vehicles keeping the tracks and their vicinity clear for aforementioned industrial transit. Unfortunately, individuals can't actually pass on foot through the tunnel itself, but even from the mouth of this natural monstrosity, I was amazed and absorbed by a feeling of smallness.

The other spot of legend within the park is Lovers' Leap, historically alleged jumping point for two young lovers, a Cherokee young woman and Shawnee young man, who were forbidden to marry one another by their respective Native American tribes. The recorded story is that, denied this opportunity to join in marriage here on Earth, the pair jumped from the pinnacle together to their deaths below, hopeful for a chance to be reunited in their next lives. Our trek on Monday carried us to the edge of Lovers' Leap, all the way down to the mouth of the Natural Tunnel, and through some other beautiful wooded areas, still awaiting autumn's colorful palette of yellows, oranges and reds. My subsequent biking adventure traced the 2-mile Purchase Ridge Trail, ultimately leading to the Purchase Ridge Outlook. What a picture-perfect (a real shame my camera died within 5 minutes of arriving at the park and turning it on to take pictures), stereotypical Appalachian, expansive view awaited me from that outlook. A few trees had been cut down in order to reveal the mountain-overlapping-mountain, seemingly never-ending sky view from this point. In my opinion though, those few trees were a small price to be paid, and easily replanted elsewhere in the forest, for the well-appreciated moment of respite that awaited me following the work of pedaling up the mountain.

I'll conclude my reflections today with the most humorous moment of my Natural Tunnel State Park adventure. On returning from the summit of the Purchase Ridge Trail, my peripheral vision and its recognition of minor rustling at the side of the trail, ahead of me, triggered a "BRAKE!" signal in my brain. I did brake, surprisingly quickly, and found myself approximately 10 feet away, staring face-to-face with a baby skunk. You know how kittens have that wispy, barely there fur in their first months of life? This kit (i.e. baby skunk) had that same wispy fur on his tail and we both froze momentarily. He glanced my way for a couple moments, without further reaction, then meandered further up the hill with a sort of slow waddle. When he was no less than 15 feet off the hiking/biking path, I remembered that my cell phone has a camera and that I should be snapping a picture of this close encounter! Needless to say, with the less-than-average image quality of my phone's camera, the minuscule size of the critter and the distance he had already put between himself and the path, I couldn't get a shot that depicted him as any more than a semi-distinguishable, black ball of fuzz. I assure you however, that I was close enough to look this little dude in the eye. My obvious first question was: could I have been sprayed? and upon further research after arriving back in Jonesville, I learned the following:

• skunks typically give birth annually to their young, a litter of between 2 and 10 kits, by June of each year
• skunks have the ability to spray just a month after being born
• skunks typically use their spray as a last resort when they feel threatened because it takes their body a number of days, after expelling all the available fluid, to refill these defensive anal glands
• skunks have a very poor sense of sight, generally being unable to see objects further than 10 feet away but an excellent accuracy rate in spraying their "stink juice," with spot-on projections to targets over 10 feet away

Moral of the story, I probably could have been sprayed by our striped, actually very cute friend on the path the other day. I think God had mercy on me (and my coworkers who had to ride back with me in the same van!) though, via the skunk's poor eyesight and my functional peripheral vision. Hopefully my bike shall see the trails again soon (sans skunks) and meanwhile, there are an abundance of volunteers to meet and home repairs to be tackled in Jonesville.

The (Fine) Art of Customer Service

There are multiple facets to my job responsibilities: pre-trip communication with groups, tracking of center finances, project database updates, project site visits and the corresponding (photographic) tracking of construction progress, evening gathering planning and delivery, food inventory and ordering (eventually. my partner-in-crime in the office is handling this task at the present while I tackle finances), maintaining our center's social media presence, and other basic preparations conducted every week as we prepare to receive new groups of volunteers. Behind the fancy jargon and the lengthy list of responsibilities that constitute my job description, however, lies the core principle that my job is one of customer service. 

Customer Service? Maybe it isn't the label that you would intuitively place on my position: an Office & Volunteer Coordinator for a non-profit, home renovation organization in Appalachia. Or maybe you've worked for a non-profit before and realize that without invested buy-in from all parties involved, a non-profit organization's gears just don't turn. At ASP, customer service as an essential characteristic of my job stems, for me, from our vision statement that takes a two-fold approach: "that substandard housing in Central Appalachia will be eradicated and that everyone who comes into contact with this ministry will be transformed." I'll touch on my experiences with the first part of the vision statement ("that substandard house in Central Appalachia will be eradicated") another day, but today's reflections are about that second part, "that everyone who comes into contact with this ministry will be transformed."
In just two weeks of hosting volunteers at ASP's Jonesville center, I have interacted with, assisted and guided groups from Mississippi, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois. From- the most basic- pointing out where the directions for the coffeemaker are (Answer: taped to the wall, just behind the coffee pot itself), to -the slightly more challenging- checking in on volunteer morale on their construction sites and reconciling volunteer mobility with limited top bunk vs. bottom bunk housing arrangements, to- the mildly intimidating- delivering a teaching that challenged volunteers to evaluate what they are chasing in life, I have engaged in more intimate customer service than at, well, Burger King where Have it Your Way is the attending M.O. Truthfully, while facilitating excellent experiences for volunteers is likely the most demanding aspect of my position this year, it is also one of the principle reasons that I accepted the fellowship. Having the opportunity to get to know and hear the stories of volunteers from all over the country will be some of the most treasured experiences that I will take away from this year in Appalachia. Further, however cliché it may sound, I don't think I've ever met a stranger in my life so a chance to meet and connect with new individuals and their stories on a weekly basis is something like a dream come true.

But wait, my customer service efforts certainly don't end with the volunteers that will pass through ASP Jonesville from now until August 2014; the families that we serve are important recipients too of our careful efforts and best ministry work. Our organization's founder Glenn Evans is infamously know for the following saying:

We accept people right where they are, just the way they are.

In just a month of living here in Appalachia, I have witnessed need, in home after home, of a degree greater than any other part of the country that I have ever seen. Need is need; I truly believe that and know that my work is driven dually this year, first by ASP's organizational commitments to earnestly serving our family clients in the homes where we work. Our "checklist" as we strive to improve their homes, via volunteers' efforts, is to ensure that their homes are warmer, safer and drier. Relationship building is the second, more subjective, yet just as important, piece of our interactions with families. Our community work and the trusted friendships we try to build with families serve as both distinctive associations to and active stakeholders in the formation of ASP's longstanding ministry and identity.

So when I share tales of playing cards with volunteers, or listening to their ASP trip stories from years or even decades prior, or chatting for an hour with one of our families just to hear about how her kids are doing in school, you, dearest reader, shan't chide me for "slacking off" on the job. As my supervisor here in Jonesville likes to say, "We're really a relationship ministry with a little construction on the side." It's all about customer service.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Our team in Jonesville has made it through week one of volunteers and in fact, has already dove headfirst into week two of volunteer work crews here at ASP. Last week our work crews dug drainage ditches, built an entire handicap ramp, installed siding, hung new drywall on walls and ceilings, and sealed decks, along with several other projects. While the majority of our week consisted of just a smaller group of 10 from Decatur, Mississippi, Thursday evening through Sunday morning included a large addition of about 45 volunteers from Wakefield United Methodist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina and Shiloh United Church of Christ from Dayton, Ohio. Friday's work went fairly smooth with all the crews out at their sites, but on Saturday, water came in the form of drizzle, and rain, and solid sheets that I would put in the classification of monsoon style.

I had already decided where I wanted to direct my focus for this blog post and then remembered that I had just written about rain in my previous entry. Don't pass me off as a Debbie Downer, okay? I promise that, one, it truly hasn't rained a great deal since I have arrived here in Jonesville, and two, that my next blog entry will have no such soggy, negative allusions.

Two cultural generalities struck me on Saturday, comparatively speaking between (northern) Argentina and the United States. The rain started out as a slower drizzle, progressively working its way to a steady downpour by midday. At that point, a few groups came back to the center because their outdoor work seemed impossible or unsafe at the home sites. Hypothetically speaking, in Chaco with an ominous overcast sky and almost inevitable threat of impending intensified rainfall, I have my doubts that groups of chaqueños would have even headed out to their work sites in the first place. While I was teaching high school English, it was not uncommon that I would have just three, or four, or five students in a class on a rainy day. There was one particular day that I remember that we had one student show up. That's right folks, one single young man out of the entire 300+ member student body (that's an approximate guestimation) reported for classes on one rainy day.

Let me anticipate your next question: Why (don't they go to school)? Some of the reasoning has to do with transportation and that even within the city of Resistencia, there are many streets that are not paved. Thus, if students get to school by walking, or motorcycle, or even public bus in some instances, the transit becomes extremely difficult if not impossible as streets become impassable mud pits. Secondly, and maybe just as influential in many homes, is the custom that parents simply don't insist that their children go to school on days when it is raining.  Where that custom originates from, I'm not sure, but it most assuredly exists.

Here in Virginia on Saturday, a volunteer who actually stayed on his site, hanging siding for a time despite the rain, told me that at one point it felt as if he was standing directly below a waterfall. Unceasing waves of water cascaded off the roof onto his then very floppy fisherman's hat. His improvised garbage bag-turned-poncho had essentially vacuum sucked itself against his clothes and skin. Eventually he did have to take a rain-induced timeout from his work because he literally could not see what he was doing. Yep, not happening in Argentina.

I did note, however, a cultural similarity amid the soggy conditions that plagued our work on Saturday. I believe there is something inherently human about a desire to remain dry and a non-desire to complete work on those rainy days. As opposite as our two cultures may be in how we actually conduct business on a rainy day, many volunteers' morale illustrated how they felt about doing work on an otherwise gloomy day. In practice, this takes the form of individuals who return to our center, say they'd like to work in the center, and then sort of halfheartedly take on the tasks that are assigned to them. I can't say that I blame them for feeling or reacting that way; I probably would lean towards doing the same. And so, I would say that inexplicable urge to be snuggled up in sweats, cuddled up under a blanket, coddling a cup of coffee (or tea, or whatever makes you warm inside), and settled in to watch a favorite movie is something human we all share, at least in Argentina and the United States.

Running with Raindrops

I went running last Thursday afternoon. Not special enough for you? (and, yes, I've gone running multiple times since then.)

Ok, I went running in the rain last Thursday afternoon. Still not cutting it?

Then I'll throw my last card on to the table : I went running in the rain in Jonesville, Virginia's Cumberland Bowl Park (aka The Bowl) last Thursday afternoon. Besides the fact that I find running in the rain extremely liberating (as strange as you think it may sound) my big news to share in this post is that I'll be blogging live this year from Jonesville, Virginia , more specifically, from the Appalachia Service Project site in Jonesville. I'm working as a Office & Volunteer Coordinator for ASP and with our first group of volunteers on site already this week, bustling is a pretty accurate term to reflect the tenor of our lives on the hill.

Since you've probably never heard of Appalachia Service Project before, I'll start with what you might find on a FAQ page. ASP was founded in 1969 by Methodist Reverend Glenn "Tex" Evans. Originally, from Texas, he was a bit of an unconventional man who moved to Appalachia and, after 13 years at the Henderson Settlement in Kentucky, started recruiting youth to work alongside him to complete much needed home repairs throughout impoverished Appalachia. Now in its 44th year, ASP is still driven by that same mission, making homes Warmer. Safer. and Drier. and creating transformative experiences for all who come into contact with ASP: families who receive assistance, communities where we work, and volunteers who are still responding to the call to help others in need.

My position this year as a Lilly endowed fellow places me among a team of: one other Office & Volunteer fellow (from Lima, Ohio), two Construction fellows (from Greeneville, TN and Damascus, MD) and our Center Supervisor and his family (from Akron, OH). All the fellows arrived here in Jonesville for training just two and a half weeks ago and we welcomed our first group of volunteers (from Decatur, MS) into Jonesville's center already this week. Needless to say that our first week of training was full of session, after session, after session of finance, volunteer number tracking, community relations, evening gathering planning, etc. Week two was more "training" of a very hands-on, go-out-into-Lee-county, and preparatory nature. ASP Jonesville is a busy place, and our volunteer center/quarters can house nearly 100 volunteers if I'm not mistaken! Thus, you can be sure to expect many a fantastic tale to reach my blog pages this year.

And so I've laid the framework for this next year of professional, personal and spiritual growth, soon to be followed by entries of a more specific and critical nature. If you know me and have ever read this blog in the past, you know that I'd rather not write this entry's type of detail-oriented account; I'm ready to jump in with an anecdote and provide some analysis on what I think it has revealed to me about the culture where I'm living. With that, I hope I leave you, dear reader, with a desire to follow along on my journey with ASP this year!

What a _____________ (you fill in the blank)

Well I am back on the blog radar, maybe not in the way that a lot of you expect. Seven weeks and two days ago I was boarding a plane for Argentina, seven weeks and one day ago I arrived in and left Buenos Aires, and seven weeks ago I arrived back in the United States with a big 'not admitted' stamp in my passport. Yes, the play-by-the-rules Teresa that you all know was deported from Argentina.  If you have seen or talked to me in the last seven weeks this comes as no surprise, but if you haven't been privy to this information, or if I just haven't seen you, I sincerely hope you are suffering from no kind of hypertension as I will not be held liable for any heart attacks that result from this post. Today's post is reserved for an overview of how I got where I am now. In the coming days I'm self-committing to record a lot of the fantastic things I experienced and never recorded last year living, working and teaching in Argentina.

So, how does one get oneself deported from a country? Pull up a carpet square for story time... My first year in Argentina (2011) was with the Fulbright commission. Issuing visas were apparently a new thing for them at the time and they requested the visas for a period of just eight months. This would not have been a problem except for the fact that they needed us in Buenos Aires for a full week before our eight month grant periods actually started. Thus, when the end of the year arrived, I opted to pay a (measly) 300 peso fine for having overstayed my visa a week or two. No big deal. It was either pay the fine or pay 600 pesos plus other time-consuming paperwork to get my visa extended for the extra couple weeks. What would you have done? Every Argentine I had talked to said that it was no big deal, that they knew people who had overstayed their visas and had never encountered any problems, etc.

I returned to Argentina in January 2012 after being home for Christmas in 2011 and encountered a couple questions at passport control but was stamped 'tourist' and ushered in without any further questioning or fines. I cannot believe how fast the year flew. With multiple jobs and, let's be honest, living a more "normal" life that didn't include a Fulbright grant salary and schedule, I was swimming in work for the entire year. I loved it at times and wasn't sure to do with all the accompanying stress and confusion at others, but it really became home in that time. Thankfully, too, the end of the year and rest eventually arrived. Again, can't emphasize how many individuals, colleagues, friends said to me that I needn't worry about encountering roadblocks in returning, despite the fact that I had overstayed my visa in 2012.

German had acquired his passport and a tourist visa for the United States, which is no simple process, and I, again, paid a fee to leave the country with an expired visa, still 99% convinced that I wouldn't encounter any problems passing through Migrations and Passport Control. Fast forward through some fantastic moments at Christmas, New Years and spending time with folks that I love here in the U.S. and we arrive to German and I's return to Buenos Aires. To make a long story short (and avoid a "he said, I said" retelling of what happened): yes, my heart sank when I realized a red flag had been raised with my passport activity; yes, just like you see in a movie they put you in a little room to wait a long time to process paperwork and decide what to do with you; yes, I am convinced as ever of Argentina's general disorganization after having this behind-the-scenes look at Migrations. As an outsider looking in and reflecting back, you have full liberty to be of the opinion that 'she should have known better,' 'she should have been proactive about the situation,' etc., or you can sympathize, or you can do both. My overwhelming present struggle is to do neither of the two as I can neither live in the past, nor make immediate, hurried changes in the present.

Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. 

That's why it's called the present.   -Bil Keane

Which leads me to the present and my ongoing saga of navigating the visa process. What a ____________ (you fill in the blank). Just as I never would have imagined myself in Argentina just four short years ago, now I can't imagine myself not being there. Yet, it's this crazy dream that's actually happening. God is teaching me a lot about patience, thankfulness, and graciousness right now, and everyone, especially my parents, has been incredibly supportive. Some days though the doubts and the desperateness to be back in South America is just blisteringly overwhelming. The visa pursuit will continue to surge, or trod, forward and meanwhile, I will continue to serve, work and develop relationships where God opens doors. Oh, and more writing in store-- soon.

Shifting Gears

Being a farmer’s daughter, it might surprise some that I never learned to drive a car with manual transmission. Maybe even more surprising, who ever would have thought that I would learn to drive manual in Argentina? Nonetheless, yesterday marked my first lesson specific to this method of driving. While automatic transmission is becoming slightly more common here in Argentina, the vast majority of cars in the country sport a manual gear shift, attributable to the fact that cars with automatic transmission are still significantly more expensive (than those with manual). Along with my boyfriend who already has his license and two other close friends four other friends in the car, our lesson took place at Resistencia’s airport. The airport is the city’s infamous site for such driving lessons with its l-o-n-g , meandering entrance that stretches from the highway to the tiny two-counter, one boarding gate facility. Nothing like turning on the car’s flashers to warn others of a new driver’s presence on the road. In fact, I would venture to say that the airport is utilized by far more individuals with its long stretches of green space for biking, soccer games, running, roller blading and casual relaxing with friends than  the number of individuals that come through in air transit. Anyhow, on to the lesson: Clutch pedal all the way down to the floor, first gear, ease the clutch up, oops, car stalls. Thankfully I can say that first stall was the one and only put on my record yesterday. I will certainly say that it helped that I listened to all the instructions a first time from the backseat while one of my friends tried her hand at the wheel. As she has zero driving experience, I had a good chance to mentally process all the directions given in Spanish before actually having to execute them at the wheel. I’ll conclude my driving recap for the day with the reflection that it was an odd sensation to be back at the wheel but half clueless for the first time since I was 15 ½ years old.

Our other afternoon adventure involved making a stop at Walmart which happens to sit just across the street from the airport. Yes, much to my dismay, there is a Walmart Supercenter here in Resistencia, Chaco. The store opened several months ago but I had not previously gone in; it sports an eye center, a pharmacy, a café, and an auto center among other expected departments of any Walmart (appliances and technological gadgets, clothes, food, etc.). Unlike the Walmarts that one finds in the U.S., however, I didn’t notice that prices were markedly lower than other places in the city where you can find consumer goods. I don’t have an answer to that specific inquiry either. Basically, my increasingly sweeping generalization that inflation is a significant issue here was reconfirmed, at least for the day.  While I didn’t peruse every department thoroughly, a few things did catch my attention stocked on the shelves:  a black (imitation?) leather sofa bed that cost probably double what it would in the states, Oreos with a half banana, half dulce de leche crème center (kudos to Nabisco, I suppose, for tapping into a target audience’s tastes in new ways), Nerds candy (which one of my friends told me he had never seen before) and an approximately 8 oz. bottle of A1 steak sauce that cost approximately ten dollars. Yes, these comments are largely about food as we spent some significant time in the grocery section of the store. I shared with my friends yesterday that, if at all possible, I never want to make a purchase from this Walmart. Of course, in the U.S. I have shopped there numerous times, and yesterday I consumed a couple of cookies from the bag that my friend had purchased. I realize fully that my actions raise just cause for condemnation of defying my previous anti-Walmart consumption statement. Throw stones (or words) if you’d like; I’m open for discussion. There is just something about this part of corporate America that makes me cringe, that makes me generally want to avoid this symbol of my native culture….at the least, while I’m several thousand miles away. When I can better, more succinctly express this sentiment of repulsion emanating from the sight of Walmart in Resistencia, I’ll let you know. Until then, don’t expect any updates on how I responded to the permeating slogan of “Save Money. Live Better.”

Round two!

And we’re back for round two. I’ll start off the year by sharing my (hopeful) commitment of updating weekly this blog/critical analysis of my daily life/space where I may occasionally rant. That established, let’s jump in to where I am now and how I got here. It was already more than a week ago that I boarded the first of my four plane rides en route to Argentina (Fort Wayne to Chicago to Toronto to Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires). With a checked bag of exactly 50 pounds and my hiking backpack stuffed to capacity, I was elated, and exhausted, when I finally arrived in Buenos Aires proper after over 24 hours of combined fly and layover time. I actually don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see Retiro, Buenos Aires’ central bus terminal. Thursday night was spent on an overnight bus ride and Friday morning I finally arrived in Resistencia. I have no doubt that I was quite the sight when I arrived; nonetheless, a small crew of friends welcomed me with huge smiles and bigger hugs at the bus terminal.

Next stop on my seemingly never-ending travels: my new house. I have the blessing this year of living with a friend, Caro, who I got to know last year both at San Fernando and my church.  Friday was a whirlwind of house arranging and zombie-like communications for me. Truly, I think it took the next three or four days for me to recuperate from my marathon travels and the slight cold that I’d carried with me from Ohio. Add in some extreme climate changes and I feel like I’ve survived quite an environmental shift; It’s hot, very hot (like 90 degrees with high humidity hot), here in Resistencia which I have to say I’ve enjoyed for the most part so far.

I won’t drag on too much longer with this entry as a few other necessary tasks are calling my name at the moment but as a humorous close to my return to Argentina, I’d like to reflect on a few food addictions that the majority of Argentines adhere to and still make me laugh. One, Coca-Cola is king here. Believe it or not, I’d put good money on a claim that there is more soda pop consumed here per capita than in the United States. Two, an obsession with salt and consequent lack of pepper. Go to nearly any restaurant and you’re going to find just one condiment shaker on the table, one filled with salt. Three, mayonnaise. Maybe it’s because my parents really didn’t keep mayonnaise stocked as an absolutely necessary condiment in our refrigerator when I was a child but the quantities in which it is consumed here with steak, hamburgers, vegetables in a salad, you name it, truly astound me.  And finally, hard boiled egg. My friends think I am really strange for not being nuts about eggs prepared this way in a salad, on top of a pizza, etc. and I find them a bit obsessed for the ways that they use them in food. I guess life is fair and just in some ways. More life updates soon from sunny, scorching Chaco and God-willing some job updates too.