yu-en-me ´a man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher, .. he who goes from country to country guided by blind impulses of curiosity is .. a vagabond.´ - oliver goldsmith

sitting in a comfortable internet cafe, with a clean
monitor, non-sticky keyboard, and no one with bad body
odour next to me. there´s an italian song playing in
the background that was ALWAYS playing in the icecream
joint where i used to work, and an empty box of MYST
hanging on the wall. result: i´m *exceedingly* happy
right now..

so much has happened in the last week, changing my
travelling plans, that i´m still in the buzz of
getting my head around everything. but as a quick
explanation:

since arriving here in south america, i´ve been quite
affected by seeing the disparity between
people-who-have and people-who-haven´t, as i like to
call it. i know that argentina isn´t anywhere as bad
as it used to be a few years ago, and that chile´s
considered quite rich compared to some of the other
latin american countries, but in any case, i´ve been
thinking for the last couple of months that i´d like
to go into more humanitarian work. this is something
that goes through my mind almost every day that i´m
here, and as chance would have it, a few of the guys
working with Patacam (the tourist company that i was
staying with in chile) work with an NGO called <Un
Techo para Chile> (= A Roof for Chile). one of them´s
an ex-director of the NGO, another is their
international relations manager - in another words,
not only have i become really good friends with
genuinely decent people, but they´ve doubled up as
good ´contacts´ to have. a new project starts in
april, so i´ll be heading up to santiago (chile) to
check it out, and they´re all happy to help me out
with introducing me to the organisation, etc.

my 2 main concerns were money and lodging, and both
have been solved: Patacam will be needing bilingual
guides working further north in winter, and the head
honcho has already offered me work if i want it,
knowing that i also want to work with the NGO, and
being prepared to give me flexible hours.. lodgement:
i got quite close to stephanie, the girl in charge of
all things admin/finance for Patacam (see the photos i
sent), and she´s keen for us to live together. we´ve
already started looking at some advertisements for
apartments in santiago..

so to summarise, this is pretty much as perfect a
set-up as i can get! yes, part of me is sad that i
won´t be travelling as much as i wanted, but to look
on the bright side, i´ve at least got the next 40 days
before april to explore more of argentina. another
part of me is sad that i´ll be doing this in chile
instead of argentina - i really enjoyed the argentine
sense of humour/life, but i´m really excited about
living/working in santiago. (even if the argentine men
are better-looking.)

ok, moving on to more exciting news:
I CAN MAKE HOMEMADE ICE CREAM!! an apprentice
patisserie chef told me about a basic recipe he uses,
and i tried it while in chile, and it works! the first
trial batch was apple ice cream - the patacam team and
i thought that was pretty good, but it was nothing
compared to the caramel&choc-cookies batch and the
almond batch that i subsequently made, so excited was
i! mmm, it was soo good, and solves my problem of
having to get a machine to shrink my
ex-gelati-shop-boss into miniature form to smuggle
home with me..

i went on a few daytrips with Patacam driving on
extremely rough dirt roads, and we bounced around so
much that i had to cross my arms really tight, fearing
for the longevity (or lack of) of my breasts.

today in the bus to Villa La Angostura, Argentina
(where i am now), a 10y.o. girl confided in me that
even though she doesn´t have a boyfriend now, she
dated a boy for 2 days recently, as a result of losing
a round of Truth or Dare. scrunching up her nose, she
told me, ´he was fat and ugly, so i was lucky he
didn´t come near me the 2 days we were together´.

ah, to be a pubic hair again!
as much as i´m enjoying it here, i *am* missing you
all. (no, really.)