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Argentina
After our 30 hour trip on several planes from Minnesota to Cordoba Argentina, we are starting to settle in at La Lucena in the village of La Pampa. We have a lovely house, have met and begun training with the La Lucena staff and have been welcomed warmly by our friends, Nicole and Peter. The cold weather has caught us a little off guard. The temperatures are only just below freezing at night but the houses have been built for the summer heat and their thick brick walls and tiled floors emit a constant chill. There is simply nowhere to go to get warm except inside our winter sleeping bags. Down here below the equator, we have lost the big dipper in the sky and continue to argue which way is north and which way is south. David carries a compass around to settle any disputes and to help orient the solar ovens we brought down with us to catch the sun in the northern sky. The south winds carry cold air from the Antarctic and we are told when the north winds return we will all warm up. It has been a great first week, and maybe when we wake up tomorrow, we will realize we are actually here for the next ten months. In Peace, David, Lise, Colby and Tremayne Abazs.

2007 Argentina August Arrival In front of "el cerito", our "little zero" house, uncomplicated and open, where we will experience life as it is, one of the several themes of La Lucena. Lise spent the first two days unpacking and organizing all the stuff we hauled down here and it now feels like home. Despite Lise breaking a tooth the night we arrived, the family is healthy and happy, if not a little cold! Now we get to learn about the Argentine dental system. Abre, aaaaaah. This is the fire box we sit by at night to try to keep warm. The family hiked to the hills above La Lucena with Nicole and Peter's twin seven year old boys, Alec and Corey. The view looks down onto the towns of La Pampa and Ascochinga to the east and out into the Sierras Chicas with the highest point, Cerro Ascochinga, to the west. David began training in forest ecology the day after he arrived. He learned a lot, but was challenged by a full day of Spanish, with English words tossed his way to help him get the point of the creative and fun classes. Colby on Gringo, a La Lucena horse, and the boys playing card games in the back patio area. Notice the solar oven we brought with us to add to La Lucena's classes and cook some food in the mostly sunny skies. Colby later rode Gringo through La Pampa to the next town, Ascochinga, where the rest of the family met him walking. In another day of training we explored the trails and hidden corners of La Lucena with teachers Pablo and Cecilia. Pablo, in the second photo, was our entertaining and fearless leader through the hilly dry brushland. We spent a lot of time learning to tell one thorny leafless tree from the next. (That's black locust, espinillo, and piquillin in the pictures on top of the page, we think.) The day also took us to the San Miguel River, running clear and cold despite the months of no rain, springing forth from the previous summer's rains. We left a drought back in Minnesota but here in La Lucena 6 months without rain is normal during their winter.