Felices Pascuas, now eat your chocolate eggs

Felices Pascuas, or Happy Easter!

My attempt to recreate Eva Diaz Torres' art

In Buenos Aires, giant chocolate eggs, rather than chocolate bunnies, fill the grocery stores, bakeries and confiterias (candy shops) all around the city.  These eggs, which are about 10 times the size of your typical creme-filled Cadbury, are wrapped in layers of colorful cellophane, making them sparkle like jewels. 

Speaking of eggs, I recently saw an interesting sculpture piece that featured two eggs: one whole, the other broken.  The artist, Eva Diaz Torres, whose work was featured at her grandfather's museum (Museo Torres Garcia in Montevideo), was also a bit of a philosopher.  Referring to her creation, she said:

"El huevo, que es el símbolo de la vida, de lo perfecto, de la unidad absoluta, se tiene que romper para que esa misma vida pueda existir. El movimiento y el cambio son indispensables."

Roughly translated, she said that the egg, which is the symbol of life and perfection, has to be broken so that that same life can exist.  Movement and change are essential.

Good advice in general and great advice for chocolate Easter eggs!  Sure, it's pretty and perfect all wrapped up in shiny paper.  But if you just stare at it, not wanting to sully the perfection, it will spoil.

Moral of the story: Eat your Easter candy!

Keep goin' and keep growin'

You might have noticed that March has been short on posts, pictures and general anecdotes.  Rather than fall back on one of my usual excuses ("I've been busy," "I haven't had the energy to write," "I forgot my URL," etc.), I'll break from the pattern and tell you all that I have been quite sick. 

Five visits to two different hospitals, a dozen trips to the pharmacy and 21 days later, I think I'm finally— barring a stuffy nose and strained foot— on the mend.  I'm not sure how socialized Argentina's health care system is, but I found their doctors to be overall quite competent and their medical facilities similar to those in the U.S.  My one complaint is the size of the needles.  Two blood tests left me with two bruised forearms (it's a good thing I haven't had any job interviews this month).

The first week of March I was supposed to start teaching half a dozen new classes; I ended up having to cancel all but two of them.  Luckily the language institute and my private students were all very understanding, but still, it wasn't the first impression I wanted to make.  Now I'm back to teaching and braving this crazy city each day.

So why am I sharing this slightly boring, slightly dramatic tale?  Simply to keep my blog (and myself) fair and balanced.  Some of that old journalism training rears its head when I write here.  It whispers, Keep it balanced.  Show both sides of every story.  Working overseas as an ESL teacher might seem like nothing but endless fun, frivolity and freedom (and yes, those are largely true), but it has a downside as well.  This is it.  Being sick in a foreign country, especially when the doctors don't speak your native language, your internet and Skype only work intermittently and you have no air-conditioning, is pretty freaking scary. 

But even a situation like this, which was so far out of my comfort zone that I had to take a bus to get back into it, reinforces the point of this whole adventure: Keep exploring, keep going and keep evolving.  Traveling overseas has the innate knack for putting you face to face with some of your greatest fears.  Once you confront them, you walk away (hopefully) a little wiser, a little stronger and a little more relaxed.

One of the friends I've made while living here has a small tattoo on the inside of her wrist that reads, "Sigue creciendo," or "keep growing."  I couldn't have said it better myself.