Oh, wait. Some necessary appendices:

1. I spent a while complaining about the falls and how many people there were here. While perhaps a valid complaint, today I had two pretty fantastic experiences. First, we walked down the Sendero Macuco, where sendero = path, and a macuco is a kind of bird, which google tells me is a Solitary Tinamou. The path doesn’t bring you to the main falls, so it’s much less-used. It’s a dirt path, mud in places, and after three kilometers of nothing but flat jungle, you come to a rather intense decline, and come out onto a fork. If you go right, which we did second, you can climb down a difficult path to find yourself at the riverside, with these beautiful sedimentary-I-think rocks, and lizards, and under the hot sun. You can’t even see the waterfall from this far down the river, so we saw all of this without seeing anyone else but one boyscout-redhead who I named William.

If instead you go left at the fork, you come to the bottom of a smaller waterfall which falls into a small pool, crosses a small stream, and falls down below into the river. The path ends at the pool-side, but you can clamber over the rocks, crossing all the way around to stand under the waterfall, literally underneath it, or behind it. The water was cold and amazing, and underneath you could hear nothing, you could see the water spraying into the air, you could feel the slippery, mossy rocks under your feet. If you walked along the stream, you could stand unencumbered at the shelf of the lower falls, trying to get close enough to peer over the edge. As we left, some kids went the easy route, and just jumped into the cold water and swam across. 

Before we took off, we walked the lower path below the falls again, the main falls, and walked as close as we could, and I realized as I stood there, staring up into the water pouring over the cliff, the spray wetting my face and hair, that I could hear nothing except the roar of the falls, and when I stared up into it, I could pretend I was alone. Although I might wish I could be closer, or climb across the river and stand below the most beautiful falls, or go to the island (which was closed because of “high water”), I was still amazed with what there was. How’s that for a message?

2. I think I need to add that when I say I don’t think I could work with kids, I mean in part that I think some people are able to form attachments with all of the kids that they work with, and really get something out of each day — it’s just difficult for me to do so

3. Last, I need to add that although I’m regretful of not having tried to meet people, I really did end up enjoying my time in Buenos Aires, no? I am sad that I did not, and set in the idea that I’ll try harder in the future, but I’m pleased with how things went, on the whole. 

In any case, a happy Fourth to the all of you, and I find myself leaving for Tucúman this evening. It’s a 20-hour-or-so bus ride, so I’ll have a nice chance to get to know the north. Or something.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the “business center” of a hotel in the northeast of Argentina, in the park of Iguazú falls. While it’s sort of bizarre to be at some fancy-shmancy Sheraton hotel literally in the park, it’s really nice to not have to drive anywhere — we can walk outside and see the falls.

Which are really fantastic — by which I mean, I’ll put pictures on the internet when I finally get home and have a connector cable, but these falls are glorious to look at. On the one hand, we’re able to get really close — the metal pathways built by the Argentine Park Service bring you perilously close to the edges, and you can feel the spray against your face — but on the other, it’s really lame how many people there are, how crowded the largest portion (La Garganta del Diablo, The Devil’s Throat) is, how it feels a bit like a tourist trap. I’m so glad I got to go here, and I like my photographs, and there were some moments where all I could really hear was the roar of the falls, but there’s no sense of adventure. The paths are all man-made, the jungle is cut back, the bannisters keep you away. My father went here in the 1970s, when he hitch-hiked around South America (crazy old man), and he doesn’t remember these crowds. Really, though, I just have this idea of nature as something personal & spiritual, not something to be shared with strangers. Just the idea exploring is taken away, no?

In any case, clearly I’ve made it through the part of the summer wherein I work at FLENI. I’m not home yet, of course, but I finished my internship. There was nothing that changed over the course of it, not really, but I do feel like the length was educational and useful; I think I managed to figure out two main things through the time I spent here. One, of course, was how floor time works. I don’t actually feel as though I have a complete understanding of it, but spending days watching it, I felt as though I was managing to get a much better idea of the complexities involved, and an understanding of what ends it heads towards. Maria, my boss, was really good at floortime, and watching her coach other people in ways of challenging and supporting kids was really cool. The second thing I think I came to understand was that while I like developmental psychology, and am interested in working with both children and autism, I don’t think I have the strength of heart to do autism therapy as a life-time occupation. I don’t have the fascination with the disorder, or the attachment to the children that you really need in order to be happy doing it. 

Tomorrow my sister, parents and I head off to the northwest of Argentina, to Tucúman, and thence to Salta and Jujuy, and I’m looking forward to exploring these regions. My father’s friend will be showing us around, and it should be a strange, but hopefully novel and enjoyable, experience — my dad hasn’t seen this guy for fifteen years, perhaps, and the rest of us don’t know him. 

I saw Michael (Neddy) twice before I headed up here, and got to meet some of his friends. The experience made me wish I had expended more effort in meeting people in Buenos Aires, in finding people to spend time with. I liked my time there, I really enjoyed the city and sort of enjoyed all my free time, but it would have been cool to make new friends, to explore alongside others. I can make all sorts of excuses as to why I didn’t try harder (I was here so short a time, I don’t speak the language, I’m shy, I didn’t know how, I had to get up really early every weekday morning), but I think the long and short of it is that I wish I had tried harder — tried to get together with some of the people from work, or tried to meet some folks on the internet (how terrifying!), or even gone to some American-frequented bars and hung around. Because of course, you meet people not by chance, but by meeting the friends of people you already know, by hanging out and around until you find someone you like. And you can’t do that if you don’t know anyone. 

This isn’t to say that I was bored, or that I didn’t go out while I was in Buenos Aires — I hung out with my sister a lot while she was there, and with her friends after she left, and with people I met through them. There was only really a week where I didn’t see people, only a day or two where I really passed the entire day without exchanging more than ten words with anyone. I saw some awesome things, I really enjoyed my job, I got to know the city. I guess in essence I am thinking of this as “how to do it next time.” Which is rather nice. 

I like thinking that there will be a next time, no?