Awkward Transitions.

Friday I had to say my first of many goodbyes. It was our last day volunteering at the school. I’m not going to lie, I dreaded going there every week but I still was on the verge of tears when the principal was thanking us for our time. He said he was “infinitely” grateful and that their doors were always open for us. It was so sweet.

To be honest though I didn’t really develop a relationship with the kids nearly as much as I did with the ladies in the kitchen. Roughly five women work there and they never cease to amaze me. Those women’ll touch anything, they’re all incredible cooks and they all have hearts of gold. I’ll never forget eating in the kitchen with them and explaining what an airplane is like, or what snow feels like. Seemingly simple things that I’ve never considered having to explain before.

On another educational note, when students graduate here they get egged and then flour gets dumped on them. It’s a messy madness.

This demonstration makes streets messy. Last night I had a funny experience on a street. Lacey and I were speaking English when a man interrupted us to ask where we were from - an all to common experience. After 10 minutes of awkwardly avoiding his attempts to go out with us, he sang us some tango songs. Right there. On the street. Stranger man busts out his tango voice.

Tango is a big deal in Argentina. So big in fact that they have special places where people go to dance tango, and folklore, called milongas. Everyone who goes there is at least 40 years old, except us. Three of my friends from the program have been learning tango for the past couple months and I finally got to go watch them on Friday night. It was a fantastic cultural experience and truly like another world.

Then, I saw…

Alicia.

My first host mom. A woman I never, ever thought I would see again. She’s a tango instructor so naturally she was there that night. It was the strangest thing to see her. While enjoying my final weekend here, I instantly was thrust back to memories of my first weekend in Rosario. It was one of those moments where I spent some time pondering… “Holy cow. Three months. Three freakin’ months.” I’m still slightly terrified of her though so I avoided her all night.