Buenos Aires – November 2011

I made is safely to Buenos Aires on Monday. I can’t complain about the flights or the airports. All went smoothly. The only difficulty was that I had a 6 1/2 hour layover in Panama City. Fortunately I had a lounge pass so I wasn’t just sitting in an airport chair. The Panama airport (at least the international terminal) is very modern. It’s got that shopping mall atmosphere. While it was a very long, tiring day I can’t complain.

I’m in Buenos Aires with my friend Mike to stake out a charity project that we plan to do in February of next year. Mike made contact with the Sisters of Charity and they have a school that they need to have completed and improved. Many of the people in the group that will work on the project are people that got together for the projects in Viet Nam, Cairo and Laos.

The Sisters were gracious enough to pick us up at the airport.

We spent the afternoon visiting the schools (there are two of them) that are about a 40 minute car ride from the center of the city. Of course, the first thing was to have an introductory meeting with the nuns in charge, including Sister Theresa, the Mother Superior. She is originally from Italy and she is no nonsense. She could have come from central casting.

The introductions were a bit frosty. We found out why. They had gotten a Nigerian e-mail scam and at first they thought it might be legitimate. They never sent the money to the Nigerians but it made them wary of us. Why would we offer to give them money and a team of workers while asking nothing in return? Sister Theresa was waiting for us to ask for money.

As the meeting went on they became more and more comfortable. Mike was well prepared, we laid out what we could do and our expectations from them. We toured the schools to get an idea of the scope of our project. There were a couple of contractors at the meeting that we expect to be on site project managers and we discussed the scope of the project.

I felt that by the end of the meeting and the tour the reticence had dissolved. We agreed to meet again on Wednesday so that they could put together better cost estimates. That would also give us time to get a feel for Buenos Aires and what we need to ask of the participants to cover lodging, meals and recreation. We have to find hotels, restaurants and set up some R&R on the weekend and at the end of the project.

Being in Argentina, Mike and I went out for a terrific steak and Malbec dinner that evening.

“Don’t cry for me Argentina.”

This is the floor of a second story. We need to construct an upper floor. The rebar is there. They have a cement mixer. The columns have to be constructed and we have to lay the bricks.

There is a lot of cleanup to do.

Graffiti is the scourge of the developing world. Part of our team will cover this and repaint the wall. The nuns seem to think that when this is eradicated it will not reappear.

Part of one wall was repainted and it has not been touched. We’ll see.