Since I know some of you were fretting (my dad, at least), here’s proof of life — Kavi texted some photos from her second day in Buenos Aires.
The first day was pretty rough — Kavi didn’t manage to sleep on the plane, so she was fairly exhausted through the first day of orientation, meeting the host family, etc. She may have called us homesick the first night, a little bit in tears. I ended up reading to her on WhatsApp (free international calling over WiFi, if you’re not familiar, recommended) for a while, the opening to McCaffrey’s _Dragonsong_.
A good night’s sleep put her right, and the second day went much better — Kavi said she ‘made lots of friends,’ and although a whole second day of orientation was exceedingly dull, they went shopping on the way home and she got cheesecake, so she was pretty happy with that.
Kavi was a little astonished by how cheap everything is in Buenos Aires, which is, as she says, “probably not great for their economy, but great for me!”
The school food (CIEE is the program) is apparently terrible, but the host family is into cooking, and everything Kavi’s eaten at home, she’s liked. She did have an empanada at school that was particularly challenging, as it had an entire olive inside it — Kavi’s not an olive fan generally, so a whole surprise olive was a bit much. Dinner at 9 p.m. was also a little bit of a shock, since we usually eat around 5:30 – 6:00 at home.
I told Kavi to try to eat *some* fruits and vegetables this month, and she said she’d try, but apparently there have been no fruits or vegetables on offer (at school or at home), aside from the aforementioned olive, so she may have to hunt those out a little more.
It’s winter in Argentina, and much colder than Kavi anticipated; she may have to buy a heavier coat while she’s there. I think she looked at the daytime highs, not the morning / evening lows. Whoops. On the other hand, Kavi’s the one wearing a crop top and an unzipped hoodie in the first pic, so it may be her own fault that she’s feeling cold…
Kavi’s host mom only speaks Spanish; there are two older kids who speak some English. We’re really glad that there’s another girl in the program staying at the house with her, Jessica, and Jessica happens to be fluent in Spanish and English, so that’s definitely smoothing Kavi’s way a bit. (Jessica is the cool girl in the puffy vest.)
I’m guessing there won’t be a lot of photos as things pick up –Kavi’s not much of a photo-taker generally. But hopefully at least a few, and there’s a group blog that the program folk put out, so maybe we’ll get some more hints from that. It’s a 4-week program, so only 3.8 weeks to go…
Kavi will be just fine.
I’ll survive, somehow.
