Semana de Juventud

Hola!

This post is going to be dedicated to the Semana de Juventud (Week of Youth), which is exclusive to Alberti and a really, really, really big deal here. I’ll be writing this as the week progresses, so as not to forget anything *~exciting~*.

The Semana de Juventud is a town- wide competition, and kids compete in a myriad of activities. They have soccer, soccer- tennis (which is tennis, with your feet. And head. I had to ask.), volleyball, track and field, mural painting, photography, singing, dancing- both modern and traditional…. And the list goes on. The kids aren’t pushed along or herded to do everything right, or on time- it’s entirely up to them, which is really cool.

My team is made up of my whole class of quintos, and a few of the sextos, and our name is “Pescame el Surubi.”

 The teams have been preparing now for weeks, and the teachers let them plan in school pretty much every day. Which, incidentally, is part of the reason I couldn’t understand any classes until recently; there weren’t classes.

It’s a huge competition, and though there are inter- group friendships, they do not mess around. I had the chance to see two teams’ introductory costumes, which is unheard of, and was then hounded by both teams to give up information. As it turns out, both teams had the same idea anyways. But I’ll get to that later.

~Friday, September 11^th ~

Today, we didn’t have school because it’s Teacher’s Day. My host mom and I talked about how we have the same holidays, but in the U.S. we don’t get days off of school. Here, she said, they take any excuse to party. Which I am totally down with.

I spent a big portion of the day at one of the Quintos houses, where we painted the team flag. At 7- ish, we went to the town square to start the festivities. All the teams line up, with their flags and an abundance of team spirit, and are introduced in front of the crowd one by one. The other group of sextos, mostly from another school, had brought some drums to play, and it reminded me of football games at home- so while we waited I taught my team some cheers. They quite like the “Bernie,” which, of course, led to me teaching them the Wobble line dance. I must say that I’m quite proud of myself for being able to teach them some dances. Many thanks to my parents for my sense of rhythm. Just kidding, rhythm props go to just mom. Besos.

Being introduced pretty much means that your whole group runs/ jumps while screaming/ yelling half a block to the stage, while spraying this… I don’t know, soap stuff, all over each other, and upon arrival singing a song (which as of yet I do not know the words to). It was pretty fantastic. The amount of spirit and personality that people have here is so intoxicating, it’s impossible to be in a bad mood.

When everyone gets to the stage, they start introducing each teams’ costumes- which is kind of a vessel for the team ideology. My team and the other sextos had each made life- size Tetris pieces; for us, Tetris was representative of everyone being different, but still fitting together. It’s also the first competition; teams are judged by the quality of their costumes.  Incidentally, if anyone out there is looking for a group Halloween costume, I highly recommend getting some cardboard boxes and paint. Extra points given for blocking off a roadway.

While waiting for the points to be added up, the area in front of the stage pretty much turns into American Homecoming. And by that I mean: In the middle, you have the mosh pit, surrounded by some people actually dancing (with more rhythm than is usually displayed in the states), and some people on the outside watching is amusement. I can say that I was part of all of those groups at some point, and that my Birkenstocks did not fall off in the mosh pit, which is quite impressive.

~Saturday, September 12^th ~

Today was the first official day of competition (and the first time I’d ever tried alfajores, which are literally from Heaven). At 5, I went to the Plaza to watch Soccer- Tennis, which is super fun. To watch, anyways. It’s probably fun to play but I wouldn’t know, because I play neither soccer nor tennis.  And we won it, putting us in second place overall. I stayed in the Plaza with a few other girls, drinking mate and talking about differences between Colorado and here (like winter, and hippies), while we waited for the next event.

After it got dark, everyone met in front of the stage- this time sitting down- to watch videos. I was completely uninvolved with this part of the week, so I had no idea what to expect. Turns out that every group had to make a PSA video of sorts. Different groups did littering, bullying, suicide, domestic violence, and safe online relationships.  Once again, while the judges deliberated, everyone danced. Today I got to try out the drums from the other group, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And, I got to test out my traditional Argentine dancing skills with a super cute boy from my school.

 No worries, Pops, he’s 10.

For dinner I bought a plain hot dog, because they were out of choripan and I haven’t yet accepted the mayonnaise- instead- of- ketchup thing. Someday, perhaps.

~Sunday, September 13~

Today, the competitions were in Truco and Quemado. Those words meant nothing to me 3 hours ago. Actually, Truco still means nothing to me; I now know that it’s a card game, but I have no idea how it works. Which I’m ok with, because cards bore me.

Quemado, though, does not bore me. It’s like dodgeball, but better.

The court is much smaller than dodgeball, about the size of half a tennis court. Each team has 4 people; 3 in their main playing area, and 1 behind the other team. The person behind their opposing team can throw the ball, but maintains immunity from being hit. There’s only one ball, and each round starts with a toss- up similar to basketball. From there, if you get the ball, you throw it, and aim for below the waist of someone on the opposing team. The fact that everyone is at such close range, and that the ball could come from the front or behind, keeps things spicy. The round ends when someone is hit, and the game ends when everyone on one team is eliminated.

Oh, there was also photography, another thing that I was not involved in. But it was cool to see the photos taken by each group; there were no parameters, so subjects ranged from the classic sunset shot to a staged photo depicting how love overcomes obstacles.

~Monday, September 14^th~

Today, I didn’t go to school. Because school this week is optional. How many kids go to school when it’s optional? I think you know the answer.

I had these great plans to get up early (and by “early” I mean “the sun has not yet reached its highest point in the sky”) and have some productive free time. And yet, I somehow ended up with my host brother asking me if I wanted breakfast food or lunch food. That’s become a pretty common theme for me here, actually, in a drastic turn of events from my routine in Colorado.

After some delicious milanesa courtesy of my host grandma, I had enough time to go for a run (I know, shocking) and take a shower before going to the Polideportivo. Since the town is so small, the Polideportivo (literally, a “many- sport”) is utilized by all of the schools, for games and P.E. classes. Today was soccer, which is (obviously) a big deal. I’m just now starting to like it, but I still can’t understand how it would be worth the physical effort to sprint back and forth for an hour all to score 1 point. Or 0 points. But hey, as long as it’s not me playing, all is well.

Tonight was the singing competition, which went just about as well as you’d expect. It was fun to try to sing along to the very few songs that I know, and hear different styles of Spanish music. Up until today, I had only really heard the most popular style- reggaeton.

~Thursday, September 17~

Well, I didn’t write every day. Whoops. Sleep comes before blogging, and before most other things at this point, honestly.

So, Tuesday. Tuesday was volleyball and traditional dance. It felt really good to play a sport again- even though we lost. Also, diving without knee pads is not recommended.

The traditional dances were so great though. I’m pretty sure the crowd of teens here was bored- actually, I know they were- but for me, it was fascinating. Everything from the traditional dress to the style of music to the styles of dance- which differ from region to region- was new to me. My group did the Zamba, not to be confused with the Samba of Brazil, while most other groups did a cuarteto. I think. 

Wednesday was my favorite day of the week by far: Track and Field. It’s been extremely rewarding to learn so much new stuff, but it was nice to have a day where I knew what I was doing, and could help my team.

The teams were made up of 6 people: 3 guys and 3 girls. For each event, one person was allowed to sit out. I sat out for javelin and shotput, as I didn’t want to injure myself- or anyone else (read: javelin)- due to lack of technical knowledge. But I did get to compete in long jump, distance running, and the relay. I was absolutely dreading the long distance, which was about 1.5 kilometers. To me, the sprinter, it was daunting. Also, I had to pee the whole time. And it wasn’t nervous pee, it was straight up I- drank- too- much- water pee. But maybe that’s what motivated me; I got second for the women, behind the other girl from my team who runs marathons. So, needless to say, it went better than expected.

In true Argentine fashion, the meet started 1.5 hours late, and halted for about 3 hours, and everyone went home to have lunch. America needs to get on that. Seriously. Well, at least the lunch break thing.

After lunch for our team was the javelin and shotput, so I brought my camera and got some pretty great shots not only of the throws, but also of a classmate drinking mate in the middle of a field while sitting on his motorcycle. Very Argentine.

The last event was the relay, and I can’t tell you how good it felt to know what I was doing for the first time in 2.5 weeks. It was 5 people, again, and 80 meters each. All in one long stretch down a dirt road behind the park. We won both our heat of the prelims, and the final heat. And now I’m sore, but it was worth it.

I didn’t go home right away, though- instead, I helped paint the mural. Every year for the Semana de Juventud, the town paints a wall white and divides it off to each of the teams. Driving around, you can see the sections from years past, and it’s super cool. Pick it up a notch, Loveland.

From there I went downtown again, to the Cultural Center to watch Preguntadas, which is the Spanish name for the game Trivia Crack. Each team got 3 kids to sit inside, answering not only questions from the app itself, but also about Alberti’s laws and history. The rest of the kids sat outside and watched on a projector. I was quite proud that I not only understood a lot of the questions, but that I knew some of the answers that the others didn’t. Like Dora’s inseparable pet’s name is Botas, and The Little Mermaid is La Sirenita in Spanish.  Also, made friends with a few stray dogs.

It took forever, honestly; the older group finished at 1 AM. But I didn’t get to go to bed. From there, I went to another girl’s house to learn the dance, and make props for it. I learned my part at 3 AM. Between one and three, I first fell asleep on the floor in front of the space heater, then upgraded to the couch when someone noticed. #exchangestudentprobs.

I went to bed at 5, I think, and once I woke up, I returned to the same house to practice again.

For this portion of the competition, the teams don’t get to choose what they do. Before the week starts, each team submits 3 songs, and each team draws one back out. And that’s how we ended up dancing to Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.” Which worked out really well in my favor. At least I could understand the lyrics.

Our set for the stage mixed a lot of American themes, none of which was country like I thought it would be. It took place in a 1950’s Diner, on Ladies’ Night, where the girls wore crop tops and miniskirts, and at the end one of the guys is pulled away by the bouncers. And it was great.

~Friday, September 18~

Today was the final day of competition. The competitions were a Pentathlon and the final parade. I didn’t watch the pentathlon, but I did go to the parade, and that was pretty cool.

Each team designed a float, and as it was brought past the stage, one team member would make a small speech about the meaning of their design. Ours was a tree made of discarded bottles, with apples made of the bottoms of bottles painted red. And we didn’t actually have a car, so we pulled it ourselves. I’m not entirely sure if that had to do with some sort of imagery, but it was pretty cool.

While the judging happened, they had some rock band play live. I have no idea what they were called but they played pretty well. It kind of threw off everyone’s groove; pretty much everyone here just dances to cumbia. So I did a bit of headbanging (with the rock- on hands to match) to break up the standing around.

I think we got 2^nd overall, but I can’t be sure because I wasn’t paying attention. My team is kind of disappointed, but I’m just happy that I got to participate in something so unique.

Oh, I almost forgot! I finally bought choripan today, and it is glorious. So I bought two.

Besos!

Track Victors!

Girls' Soccer

Guys' Soccer

Honestly, super proud of this action shot. That's the only reason it's here.