We are a group of 20 Northwestern students planning to spend our spring break doing community service in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Schools from around the country are teaming up with Hillel Argentina to help improve the surrounding communities in Buenos Aires. We are dedicated to alleviating third world poverty and improving the plight of the international Jewish community. We will be working with both interfaith and Jewish community organizations on projects dealing with education, infant care, literacy and more. We will be partnering specifically with an under-resourced school to improve the quality of education for its students by painting murals in outdoor play areas, improving the music-education facility, and building a library so the students can access books and improve literacy. We will also volunteer in a childcare center that serves underprivileged families. By completing our service projects and spending time with the people of Buenos Aires we will prove to them that those facing the challenges of third-world poverty are not alone.
We have been fundraising so that we can make a donation to one of the causes that we will be working with (to be determined). If you are interested in making a donation, please contact Shauna Perelman at perlman.shauna@gmail.com. Please note that she will be out of contact while we are on the trip from March 20-28.
And don't forget to check out what our friends are doing on the ASB Cuba trip at
http://asbcuba.tumblr.com!
9:05 pm
Sunday Afternoon at River Plate..Argentinian Soccer at its finest (kind of)
Buenas noche de Buenos Aires! Stella here, and this post is evidence that we have experienced South American futbol. (soccer)
After our relaxing afternoon at Hillel, we made our way over to the the largest soccer stadium in Buenos Aires…seating close to 63,000 people. No worries for safety though, we were with a private guide and got VIP treatment Argentinian style. As soon as we arrived to the neighborhood, the streaming fans and beating drum gave us a hint of the purported fanaticism of South American futbol. A few of us bought tshirts and hats to fit in, as long with a huge flag.
We walked into the stadium and saw all the thousands of fan in red and white, singing their praises to River Plate, one of the major teams in Buenos Aires. Here there are two rival teams, River Plate and Boca Juniors…and the rivalry resembles that of the White Sox and Cubs in Chi-town.
Luckily, we were in a section very close to the field, and far from the crazy fans who were chanting all of the songs from River Plate. Happily, our team won, and we got to experience the amazing excitement from our home team winning. Woot!
After we came back to Hillel for a falafel dinner. We are all very excited to start our service work bright and early tomorrow morning. More to come soon….hasta luego!
