More beauty at El Quebracho

Sometimes we are completely mesmerized at the beauty around us. We were taking German to Feliciano last Monday so he could start school on Tuesday. Remember the high school kids board in Feliciano during the week so they don't have to miss school when it rains. As we drove in to town, coming toward us came this herd of horses and German exclaimed, "Oh, those are our horses." meaning that the horses are El Quebracho owned. Gregg found a place to pull over so they could pass us safely when we took these pictures.

Sure enough, later in the week we saw these horses grazing in our fields waiting to be implemented.  Aren't they magnificent?


Ñandú
Finally, we were able to get better pictures of the fascinating ñandú {Rhea} in Argentina.


Actually, one of our students, Gabe, took the pictures while Gregg was taking the kids home this week.








Remember, a ñandú is like similar to an ostrich about 4 feet tall that can run like crazy. We've never seen them fly, but they must use their wings to help them move so fast. They are fascinating to watch.

New office for Yuca
A little before we left for our cruise to Antarctica, Yuca laughingly told us that the church was surprising him with a new office. The joke of course is that the surprise was not kept secret very long since it required Yuca to move everything out of his office.

When we got home from our cruise a month later, no progress had been made except the moving out of personal items and a disruption of the internet. Remember, they had a full month of rain? Anyway, once the teachers moved out of the old school, the workers were allowed to take up lodging there and tremendous progress has been made the past week and a half.





Argentine's know how to work when they are not impeded by bad roads. They start with sunrise, take a short siesta and work into the evening.


The building was completely gutted with doors and windows moved and/or replaced. Stucco is the usual "new" treatment for the outside and sometimes the inside. Labor seems to be cheaper than replacing so upgrading is the norm.


Roque is the butcher here. He comes every week to provide meat for the workers.

Gregg took these pictures as Amy has yet to set foot in this building in fear of finding such a scene. Yes, she's still city-fied or sissyfied however you want to term it.


Speaking of wimpy, Amy got tired of wondering if a small snake might be trying to enter the house and filled all the gaps and hiding places outside the front door with sand that was left over from the stucco project. She knows that snakes can't dig so there's hope that these creepy crawly things will find habitat further away from us...way further away like Antarctica. Think it will work?

So far, so good!


YOUNG Elders in Feliciano:
Looks like Elder Martins got hold of Gregg's camera.

Such maturity!

Note the sister missionary in the front below. She is a member of the branch who was called on a temporary mission to Argentina. One of the sister missionaries had medical problems and had to go home before "transfer" week so this sister is filling in the gap until transfers next week.

Elder Martins is from Brazil, the others are all from Argentina somewhere. Gregg and Amy are currently the only Americans. Elder Mateo in the back below is almost finished with his two year mission and will be returning home to Buenos Aires.


Gregg was pretty proud of his clean truck, and Amy was happy with her clean windows--thus this picture below.


Yes, school started for us this week! Yea. We only got to teach one day. Boo! (More rain)

Free college anyone?

So, here’s the deal with college and higher education down here. If you attend a public school, it is free. Sounds good so what is the catch you ask? Well, while touring South America on our cruise, we watched for people who had the answers, and we learned our information from either tour guides or local tourists with a degree.

In Uruguay, though all public education is free and it is not too difficult to pass the entrance exams, there aren’t enough classrooms or teachers for all who have been accepted. That explains why getting accepted into a university does not mean that you will be able to get the classes you need. It definitely does not mean you will have a seat in the classroom if you get the class you want. Many students spend years sitting on the floor. However, about 90% of students finish high school and many go on to college. To earn a four-year degree, it takes between six or seven years.

In Argentina, it is much worse even though public universities are again all free. Only about 50% of the students graduate from high school and about 20% of them go on to college. Of the 20%, much fewer graduate. The problems are similar to Uruguay, but even more complicated. As a college student, not only are you not guaranteed a seat in the classroom, students are only allowed to take one or two classes per semester, and the classes are all spread out on different days, different locations, and different times. So, it is impossible to hold a job while going to school. Also, there are problems with enough tests for the students. So, you study for an exam after learning much of the material on you own, and then there are not enough tests that day. It can be weeks or months before the test is offered again. Teachers don't always show up to teach either, and they don't  bother to tell the students. It often takes 10-12 years to get a bachelor’s degree and most drop out before that time.

Though private schools are more accommodating, the majority of students cannot afford them since student loans are not offered in either country. Basically, only the wealthy families can utilize private universities.

We didn’t get any school information from Chili except that tour guides in Chili are required to have a degree in tourism and the degree includes being able to speak English. However, some of the guides were quite difficult to understand, having a reading rather than a speaking vocabulary. One Chilean tour guide was describing an endangered animal. He said that if you kill one, you will go to hell. Gregg and I thought about it for a minute and then Gregg asked, “Did you mean hell or jail?” since the letter J is silent in Spanish. You guessed it, police only have jurisdiction over jails and not over heaven and hell.  😊 The tour guide covered himself and said, “Well, they will go to jail first and then to hell.”

Speaking of school, we heard a sweet story when we went to church Sunday morning in Buenos Aires. The young mother delivering a talk told of a young student who was given a letter from his teacher to be given to his mother and not to be opened by the student. When the mother read the note, she hugged her son and said that the letter said that he was so intelligent that the teacher had nothing else she could teach him. Plans were made for the boy to be educated at home. Years later, the letter was found and read by the young man. It said, “Your son can no longer attend school because he is too sick.” What wisdom on the mother's part! In case you were wondering, the boy excelled in his education and became a successful adult.

While children need to have faith in themselves, adults need to learn to have faith in a higher power. As the saying from Brigham Young goes, “Get on your knees and pray like everything depended on the Lord, then get up and go to work like everything depended on you.” That has become our philosophy.

A little more beauty

This might look like an ordinary, healthy El Quebracho vaca, but if you look really close...

...you'll see a cute light green loro (parrot) sitting on his upper back near the cow's head. See it?

As we drove past this cow, we saw the loro perched on the cow's back like he belonged there. The cow moved from grass clump to grass clump, and the bird stayed for the entire ride content and undisturbed.