Time passes slowly

Wow. It's been awhile. And I promise this will be a long post to make up for the long gap, so bear with me!

Where to start... There's a reason we've waited so long since the last time we posted, and I'm not entirely sure how to explain why. Ok, here goes:

We got kicked off the farm, and we're still not exactly sure how it all happened. Things seemed fine with everyone except Marcelo, the co-owner of the farm and husband to Kim, the woman we had organized everything with. She was kind, open-minded, and into health and improving the farm, and had (until recently, stay tuned) treated us with respect and engaged in good dialogues about our ideas for the farm. Marcelo was the opposite. On the first trip from town he treated us to a tirade about how the United States is awful, there is no hope for the future, and the country should basically be plowed under, its inhabitants--or at least leaders--killed, and so forth and so on...

Sure, everyone has strong opinions, right? So we kept our mouths shut and tried to bring as much positivity to the experience, which was, on the whole, positive. The only difficult moments were Marcelo's periodic rants about government conspiracies, books being incorrect, food being cooked incorrectly, and so forth. And then there were a couple situations in which he threw food we had made into the compost, refused to contribute to communal meals, and kicked out a volunteer (not us, another American) for lying about his age...he said he was 23, he was actually 19...

None of these things really signify a negative relationship, but put together we felt very much the subject of incosiderate behavior and selfishness--Marcelo just doesn't seem to understand that his beliefs are opinions, not fact or natural law.

So anyway, on that fateful Thursday last, Marcelo decided to make Dulce de Leche (delicious milk and sugar condiment that takes 3 hours to cook) on the one stove burner about 15 minutes before we were to make dinner. So I asked, as anyone would, "how long is that going to take?" to which he responded "3 hours". Long story short, I told him I thought he was being insensitive, and he told me to leave the farm. He finally calmed down, apologized for flying off the handle, and restated the fact that it was his house, we would follow his rules, we could make dinner in 3 hours.

"But we're putting into the house," said Sam. (we paid 300 pesos, about 100 dollars, to stay for 2 weeks to offset food costs, were doing 3 hours of work a day and making food for everyone--everyone was contributing to the well-being of the farm and of the household)

"GET OUT, LEAVE, HOW DARE YOU, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE," screamed Marcelo, lunging towards Sam. He stood within 5 inches of Sam's face, bellowing at the top of his lungs and gesturing towards the gate. "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE," he continued. Sam could feel Marcelo's hot breath on his face and realized he had pushed some button, however invisible, to set Marcelo off.

"Ok, Marcelo, Marcelo? Marcelo! Please, calm down, we can talk about this," said Sam, holding his hands up in front of him, palms toward Marcelo, in a gesture meant to calm him down.

Marcelo replied, "LEAVE, before I have a BAD REACTION,"

So we went and packed up our things. Marcelo charged up the path, handed us our money, and said, "you have 10 minutes to leave, don't say anything else, get out." So we did. But not before:
1. Marcelo threatened to kill me.
2. The other volunteers helped us pack up and walked us 2km to the top of the hill in a sign of solidarity.

So we thought we were rid of this entirely ridiculous situation. I am entirely able to forgive temporary insanity, and I made my peace with the situation. We left the farm and Obera, taking a Cama Total Bus (read: full-service, complete with wine, champagne, and personal televisions) to Buenos Aires, where we're staying at the moment.

B.A. is amazing! We've been enjoying the very New York-y feel and seeing tons of museums and parks and being treated to amazing hospitality in the house of Ariel, a guy we met while traveling in Chile. His mother and sister and friends are so incredibly welcoming, and as a result we've been able to save a ton of money. In his company we've eaten Asado, the ancient Argentinian art of eating a lot of really delicious cow parts, watched lots of Seinfeld (thats how many Argentinians learn English) and gone out for the best pizza outside New York. All in all, it's been great, we're here until Sunday, and we can't even begin to guess what's in store for us each day we wake up.

...Especially as witnessed by the continual reminders we get about the ridiculous situation in Obera. We received an email from Kim, the wife, basically absolving Marcelo of blame for having physically threatened Ally and I and placing the burden on us for having introduced "negative energy" into their home. Somehow by leaving trash behind at our campsite (courtesy of Marcelo's 10 minute deadline, which was SLIGHTLY preoccupying) and discussing suggestions for the farm with other volunteers we had waived our right to feel outraged and upset by Marcelo's actions.

So it's been a mixed bag of amazing experiences in Buenos Aires and nights before bed spent reviewing every action I took while at the farm to try and see if Kim had any reason to say what she did. I feel a mixture of anger, sadness, embarrassment, and frustration, and most of all I just want the situation to be over. I'm ashamed to have been so excited and positive about the experience in the last blog post and to have so misjudged it. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles, huh?

But don't let this put you off trying out WWOOFing, ok? Not all hosts will threaten to kill you, I promise!

...oh, and we'll upload photos as soon as possible, perhaps even tonight! (an empty promise, I know...)

Love you all, and don't worry, we're both safe!
Sam