¡Feliz Noche Buena! :)

Happy Christmas Eve from Argentina!!! Down here we´re all sweating in the heat of summer, while kids everywhere set off fireworks in the streets - it´s like the Fourth of July :) The funny thing is that the family I´m staying with is playing Christmas music in English...so it sounds just like home (other than the fireworks ;-) )

We´re getting ready to head to midnight Mass, after which all these crazy Argentinians (and me too :P ) will probably stay up half the night celebrating...I can´t believe how late they all stay up here...parties don´t even START until 11:00 or later! The other night I left a birthday party at 3:30, and we left early!...sometimes they stay up till sunrise and beyond! And almost any night, you´ll see little kids (babies on up) out in the streets at eleven or midnight! I don´t really know how they survive...oh, but wait, there´s the siesta! ;-) Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, everything shuts down and everyone who can heads of to sleep for an hour or two or three...of course I can never sleep, not having taken regular naps since I was 3 :lol:

Tomorrow, we´ll all head to the house of the Abuela of most of my friends (they are 45 cousins in total plus the great-grandkids, plus all the friends who can possibly go) for a Pesebre (living Nativity play). Apperently it´s fabulous, with costumes and music, and a script 25 pages long... I´m really excited to see it, after hearing so much about it for the past 2 months :-D

Then...two days after Christmas, it´s home again to the States! I´m finally really excited to head home...it took me 4 months, but I finally really miss my own country...and speaking English...and friends and family...and so many other things there... Just three days more!!! :-D But DANG I´m going to miss so many things here too...and all the wonderful friends I´ve made here...and all the things I love about Argentinian culture... Well, you can´t have everything good in one place all at once, or if you did, it would just mean you´d already died and gone to heaven, wouldn´t it? ;-)

Alright, I´m off!

Love to you all!! Have a BEAUTIFUL Feast of Our Lord´s birth!!

Lots of love,
Genevieve

¡¡¡GRACIAS A DIOS!!!

I´m SO GLAD!!! A change of plans (and tickets) and I AM going to be able to stay here a bit longer, through Christmas! Though I was excited to be heading home, I was beyond the verge of tears at the thought of leaving so soon and suddenly...a week and a half more will be perfect, I think! And Christmas here, too! I´m so SO glad!!

For those of you who were kept awake at night by the excitement of seeing me in a couple of days :D ...well, can you handle a few more sleepless nights ?? :D I´ll be home in a week and a half!

Love to you all!!

¡Hasta Luego, Argentina!

Sigh...Well, it looks like this will be my last post from Argentina :-( It seems I will be coming home a bit early...or rather, coming home as originally planned, in three short days! I worked on changing my ticket, but decided it would be better if I just headed home now. So I will be leaving Argentina behind, a little sooner that I had thought...But this will just mean that I have to come back sooner, no?

When I can, I´ll write a bit more about my last week or two here...

Ah, farewell, my Argentina!! (not to be melodramatic or anything! :)

For those of you in California or Virginia, I´ll be seeing you SOON!!!!!! :) :) :)

Rejoice with me!! :) :)

You might have noticed a change in the title of my blog...I just discovered a MUCH more beautiful word for Dawn in Spanish...Aurora...so much more lovely! :)

My goodness, a lot has happened in the past week or two! When my family traveled on to Chile and southern Argentina, I decided to stay here longer to volunteer. But I´ve been in a bit of a flurry trying to decide how long I would stay for, and what I would be doing afterwards, and then...I was offered a job at my DREAM school, a Catholic Montessori school in northern Virginia! So perfect! So I´ve decided to stay on an extra two weeks, until the beginning of January, and then head home to quickly pack and make my way across the country in time to start work in the middle of January! Who would have thought?! I am amazed by just how perfectly God has worked everything out for me! The one thing that makes me sad is having to leave Argentina so soon! But I hope, hope, hope that God will bring me back some day! And I do still have a month left here. I´ll be leaving the home for girls this Friday, as they will go to stay with relatives or foster families for Christmas. But I´ve found another place to volunteer for the rest of my time here, a home for babies up to age 4 in the city of Córdoba. Some friends have invited me to stay at their home for the rest of the time, and also to join their (huge, fabulous!) extended family for Christmas, so I think I´m set for the rest of my time here :)

I must say, I am in awe of the hospitality and kindness of the Argentinians! As soon as I mentioned I might need a place to stay, I had at least four invitations to stay at different houses! And I really feel welcomed...scooped up and made part of the family is more like it! I even got invited to a wedding this past weekend, having met the bride only briefly in passing. So much fun! I think I will be forever changed in my ability for hospitality by my experiences here - I want to make other people feel as completely welcome as I have felt here...to be a blessing to others as I have been so blessed!

So I am praising God and REJOICING down here as I get to spend another month in this country I love, and then come home to such a fabulous new opportunity. Rejoice with me!! :) :) And please keep me in your prayers, that I can be a blessing to the little ones I´ll be with in the coming weeks, and to everyone I meet.

Lots of love to you all!