Well, since you asked.

I am/will be working at this hospital called FLENI (which is essentially “Foundation for the Fight Against Infantile Neurological Diseases”; I am working in the CETNA division, which is the “Center for Educational Therapy for Children and Adolescents”). Each morning, I have to take an 8 AM van from the Belgrano Headquarters, which is a fifteen minute walk and a 7 minute subte ride away, to the Sede Escobar [Headquarters], which is about 40 minutes away. So I will be awakening regularly at around 6:40, which I guess I can deal with. (It just means that my late porteño¹ nights are going to be only on weekends, and that I feel bad while staying in a dormitory at a hostel. Hopefully this will not be forever.)

I am working directly for this woman named Maria A, who is in charge of the DIR/floortime autism therapy² at FLENI, and trains people in how to do the therapy, both parents and educators. She is a psychologist, and has a private practice as well; she’s quite young, but is one of the older people working there. She studied in the States, as did many of the higher-level people there; she speaks English quite well. Most of the speech/physical/occupational therapists are young women recently out of college; they look younger than they are, in general — perhaps because they don’t wear makeup to work (I’m not sure, but I’m consistently having to remind myself that these women have degrees and are not my age; some also have kids).

FLENI is a really nice hospital. It’s a private foundation, started by some benefactor, and it’s a non-profit; despite all of this, the people who come here are for the most part paying bucket-loads. (And you can often tell.) (And, I mean, each kid has his or her own fully-trained therapist at the school; that’s more than you get in the US at some places. People come here from around South America for neurological diseases.)  Despite the name, they don’t just deal with kids; at Sede Escobar there’s a division, CR (Centro de Rehabilitación), that deals solely with adults. As Maria keeps reminding me, “Esto no es el Argentina real.”³ At some point, I’ll hopefully get to go to a state hospital and see how things are there; it’s completely different, she assures me.

In any case, I’m going to be (a) working with some of the kids at the school, doing floortime and observing a lot. This I did today and Wednesday — I helped out in a floortime evaluation with a really great kid named Lucás, who has gone from Aspergers to not even being autism-spectrum over the past few years, although he still has a lot of the signs of it. It was really nice to realize that my Spanish is okay for things like playing with kids. Especially kids who have fewer language skills than Lucás.

(b) I’ll be working with some of the kids who don’t get much exposure to floortime because not enough of the staff are trained in it yet (I get the impression that they’re somewhat hesitant to put too much money in it at FLENI), with Maria and with one of the therapists in charge of one of the classrooms, Belen; I’ll also be working in English with one of the kids (Carlos, I think), since he speaks, errr, English.

(c) I’ll be taking part in some of the training sessions for educators and therapists that Maria does, which is kind of difficult, since they’re entirely in Spanish. (Duh.) But should be interesting and really good practice.

(d) I’ll be occasionally helping out in Maria’s private practice, maybe, and perhaps working with a kid (from that practice, her consultorio privado) who is 15 and has Aspergers, and is studying English. This could be a cool opportunity to do something sort of different. The nice thing about her private practice is that there aren’t problems with administration; all we need is the parents’ permission for me to be involved.

(e) If things work out with Sebastien, who is a doctor at FLENI who also works at a state hospital in San Telmo, I may be going to another hospital to observe once a week, or something. This is still hazy (he needs to talk to administrators there; yay buraucracy).

(f) I will probably end up helping out with some of the folks who are going to study floortime stuff in the states; one therapist has a presentation in English she’s working on, and hopefully I can help with that (at least that I’ll be good at!)

Anyway, I won’t work Mondays since Maria only does private practice; some days I’ll only be there in the mornings and some days I’ll be there all day. As they find more things for me to do, I’ll do them, but thus far, this is what I’m going to be up to. Which is not insignificant, and about what I expected. I am hoping that things continue to work out as I originally thought they would.⁴

A few last notes, and then I’ll end.

Spanish & people. When people at FLENI are talking about floortime, I generally know what’s going on. At least in large part. When they’re talking about anything else, I get a few words, understand gestures, and the rest I can make out words but only vaguely understand. Still, I’ve definitely had some conversations, and I think I’m at least reasonably confident when I speak, so all is well. At the same time, eh, I haven’t really met anyone besides Rachel and her friends yet who I like. Which is fine of course, since Rachel is an awesome sister, and I like her friends, but they leave sooner than I, so while this is all good, I want to meet a few more people. Shrug. I am not so good at this, and there are not too many folks at the hostel. I’m sure I’ll figure it out by being friendly and dashing. (Hah!)

And, last, mate is delicious and Rachel got me a gourd and una bombilla⁵, and I drank it at work as well, with Maria and Belen, and this is all good.

And so it goes. I will talk about food another time, and thence about the search for an apartment. Probably.

¹ see: person from Buenos Aires
² Floortime (or, the DIR model, or, here, “el floortime”) is an up-and-coming therapeutic technique that some people think really works, Maria included, me somewhat; this is essentially what my “project” is about. D: Developmental. I: Individual differences. R: Relationship-based. It’s, in essence, a model that suggests that therapy for autism-spectrum disorders like autism, Aspergers, and PDD-NOS should be based on working with each individual child, at whatever level of development, in producing relationships and interactions. Google it for more.
³ You all get that. “This is not the real Argentina.”
⁴ Which is actually quite impressive. Like, who has a project that ends up turning out about as they expected it to? Really, things are going well, although of course I wish everything (see the stuff about Spanish, especially) were easier.
⁵ straw. The way yerba mate works is, you put a lot of te in a gourd, like three-quarters full, and then you pour hot water into it from a thermos, and people take turns drinking. The straw is long and thin and has tiny holes at the bottom, so the leaves of the tea don’t come in, but the tea does. It’s really strong, but I like it; it helps that I’ve drank it in the States before, both with Gina and when I bought some from the Head Nut.

Technically, I am safely in Buenos Aires. I think. I am checked in at a hostel; I am sitting next to my sister Rachel in a locoturio, and l seems to be well.

The hostel is nice and the people have been friendly; I got a taxi driver who gave me false change already; I managed to find my way from the hostel to Rachel’s apartment easily. So some good, some bad. Rachel and I had breakfast, got me minutes on my cell phone, and have been walking around Palermo. (Ask me via email if you want the cell number.) It’s gross and muggy; the weather outside is windy and not horribly un-cool, but I’m sweating sitting here. I’m glad that I’m here for winter and not for summer; I’d dislike living here without AC.

My Spanish has been fine thus far; I had a nice conversation with the cab driver before he stole my money. I am reasonably not-upset. I’m not sure what the plan is for the rest of the day — Rachel has to interview some artist-guy this afternoon, so I suppose we’ll wander around a bit more, and then I’ll go to the hostel, read some, and give Maria (who I shall be working for, if all goes well) a call, and figure out tomorrow.

But yes, I am well & safe. In case you were wondering.

Tomorrow afternoon I will get into my parents’ car and we will drive to Miami International Airport. I will spend two hours or so in the airport, going through security, sitting at my gate and thinking, and reading books, and writing in my journal perhaps. I will get onto a plane and fly, overnight, to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It is roughly an eight-hour flight, maybe nine, and so I will get into Argentina at 6 AM or so, at which point I will find my way into the city, drop off my stuff at a hostel, and meet up with my sister Rachel. This is about as far as the planning goes. At some point, I will wander around the city; I will look for a place to stay more permanently; I will call Maria A., for whom I will be working; I will try and meet some people; I will meet up with Elisa J. I am trying to take things a few steps at a time.

I am somewhat nervous about three things, is the way I figure it: I’m not sure how my language skills will be (although people assure me that it will be okay, and that I will pick things up; I am trying to listen to them), I’m not sure how much use I’ll be to Maria A., and I’m worried about being lonely / not meeting people who are interesting. I think the latter two have easy solutions if they become problems. The former is my primary worry, and hey — it has an easy solution, too, which is to take Spanish classes. So I may. These are worries which will not be alleviated by consideration; I will worry more later.

More practically, I have not really begun to pack yet, so I will start reasonably early in the morning. My clothes currently wrinkle my floor in their lumps of hills, some folded and some rolled, some strewn about as though they had been worn. I have a list of things I need in my head, including medicines and toothpaste and an electric razor and phone numbers and all sorts of things. Tomorrow will be the day when I figure out how I can fit them into the bag I’m allotting myself, and how many books I’m allowed to bring (I’m thinking three, but that’ll be tough).

I shan’t post anything more until I am in Argentina, I don’t imagine. This is well and good.

I am nervous; I am excited. All will be well.

I now have all of my inoculations for going to Argentina! Yellow Fever, check. Typhoid, check. T-DAP (Tetanus, Dyptheria, Pertussis), check.

Okay, only a little over a week to go. But so much to do, first!

Oh man, I wonder if there’s rock climbing in or near Buenos Aires?

I can even post by text message!

This blog is primarily, at least at first, intended to chronicle my adventures in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I guess I figured I’d like to start fresh with this.

My entries will, I would guess, be primarily in English, but I may write a few in my awful-bad Spanish. You’ll make it through. Knowing me, I’ll probably provide translations.

That’s it for the moment.