Apr-Jul: I'll be in the South Pacific.
Buenos Aires
It’s the end of summer here in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The air is warm and sticky, but today, it’s pouring down rain. Buenos Aires is about as far south as Sydney, Australia, and Capetown, South Africa.
We’ve spent the last few days visiting with Leo Vartanian, director of LETRA Argentina. LETRA is short for Latinoamericanos en Traducción y Alfabetización, or Latin Americans in Translation and Literacy.
The organization is fairly young, and as its name indicates, is focused on involving Argentines in translation and literacy work both here in Argentina, in nearby countries like Paraguay, and in far-flung locations like Papua New Guinea.
Buenos Aires is a huge metropolitan area with a population roughly equivalent to that of Los Angeles, California (approx. 13 million). There’s a subway system (here called the subte) that we ride sometimes, and the streets are busy with cars, buses, and pedestrians.
The city is diverse, home to immigrants from all over Europe and the rest of the world. So you see last names like Schramm, Bianchi, and Li, but the uniting language is Spanish. Designer pizza is one of the specialty foods here, and all civilized people eat it with a knife and fork — knife in the right hand and fork in the left. It’s really delicious.
This evening, we’re hopping on a bus for Paraguay, where we’ll spend the next week before returning on to Argentina and continuing to Chile.
categories argentina
Comments
Comment from Jeff
Time: February 28, 2008, 1:47 pm
Hi, I came across your blog today in my Google alerts for Buenos Aires. Your travels sound really interesting. You should blog more often.
Safe travels!
Comment from Ruth Snyder
Time: March 6, 2008, 10:59 pm
hi David!
It sounds like you are having a great experience traveling around the south. I was wondering if while in Buenos Aires you met Daniel Bianchi? We know him from Wycliffe/SIL board meetings, but since David is no longer on the board, we haven’t seen him for a while :( He’s a great guy, and funny! I would love to see him as the president of Wycliffe International sometime. He’d be great.
Well, we hope you are having fun, enjoying the Lord’s work and the Lord’s people in that part of the world, and we pray that you will be safe as well. Pass my greetings on to Daniel Bianchi if you see him again, and to Tom VanWynan, ok? I call him ‘the flute man’ :) I s’pect you’re enjoying his music as you travel together :)
God bless,
Ruth, and for David as well
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