Oct. 17, 2009 to Frey

This past weekend I hiked up to Frey again with hopes of climbing the Normal route on Torre Principal! Here's a slideshow jacked full of photos from the one day, two-night trip!:
Here's a video of me just beneath Torre Principal, in Frey, Bariloche, Argentina:

Torre Principal, Frey from nathan conroy on Vimeo.

More Soon!, -n8

Visitors!

This week Alisa and I have been fortunate enough to receive Ed and Adriana and as such have made some outings to the must-see spots! I have taken very few photos; Ed has taken more. Alas, I have my camera. Besides going to Cerro Otto, Lago Gutierrez, Frey, and various houses for some excellent dinners, we've generally been improving our perspective of the area and having good times! Here's a brief slideshow with captions! Enjoy and I hope all's well! - n8

Problem Corrections

I have recently been involved in numerous conversations with Argentineans about the issue of corrupt politicians and a stumbling economy, bound to crash. After reading an article by New York Times´ op-ed writer, Paul Krugman, titled ¨The Uneducated American¨, I realized it was time to put my two cents in the bucket about the part of America that I was reading about: Argentina, South America.

Sitting in the mountain-covered Lakes District of Argentina, Bariloche is deemed the sports center of Patagonia. Its great lakeside location by the Andes and would-be tranquility has led to crecendo after booming crecendo in popularity and population. Many people come to live here from Buenos Aires, Chile, Venezuela, etc., and the chaos of big cities is beginning to show itself in Bariloche. There is more traffic and thus there are more exhaust fumes. There are more robberies and rapes. The control and comfort once known to a nature-loving town has become the nightmare and fear of strangers occupying the same space. The inhabitants themselves take it upon themselves to spread the word and post notices with what information they can get of violators of the law, in hopes of catching them. But the problems are continuing to increase.

I asked a grey-haired, balding man who moved to Bariloche in the 70´s how we can go about fixing this. Well, the problem is that the politicians are corrupt. Now, voting is not voluntary in Argentina. If it were, my new friend claimed, perhaps we could replace some of the dirty crooks in the government. However, they had enough foresight to write a law into the Constitution requiring voting to be voluntary. As long as this is so, they can buy their votes and remain in office, stowing money for their own causes and forgetting about education. This is short-term, unsustainable thinking since each generation will be passing along yet a dimmer future to their mourners. So how do we fix this?

It seems that we have two options: uprising and/or education. One of these is more humane and necessary in the longrun. Not enough money goes to education, which of course is an economy builder and relatedly a facility for preventing problems such as robberies. Although some private schools may hold strong, even in the event of another economic crash in this America, public schools are already suffering. From the information I have gleaned from friends working in the education system here, from private classes to public schools, the kids often times run all over the teachers, who of course are working under the table and without a higher education themselves. Now, an illequipped teacher may already have their work cut out for them, but it certainly does not help when there are gratuitous - or in the least, unneccessary - holidays for teachers in the name of the workers who fix doorknobs. No joke. Private schools here often ignore these holidays, whether or not all of their publicly dismissed students attend the private classes. The public school teachers that I know gripe about losing money for no good reason. But what else can they do? Furthermore, many kids turn to full-time work and/or raising families before they even finish high school. These same people have complaints about the government and the infrastructure of their country. They share their mate with you and are normally very talented and creative when it comes to fixing things with little means, be it a car that other Americans would have scrapped 50 years ago, or a microwave that lost a wire somewhere. What they don´t share is a common fate like us, and what they don´t know how to fix is their government and education system.

In these times, when there are more questions and complaints than answers and results, I look to history and others for examples but find few that might work. It does not help my case that other American countries - even perhaps the strongest in education and cleaning up politics in years past or present - are struggling with the same issues.

I read Three Cups of Tea and had the inspiration and idea to build schools here one day, but alas, there are already many. The issue is funding and education of teachers as well as students. The issue even greater still is a government honestly committed to the future of its people rather than satisfying their immediate desires. Will the time come when the immediate desire of the people are naught but a future of promise? And will the time come when this craving will not yield to any who might stand in the way?

I hope so!
-your landescaper, n8

Frey, October 3-7, 2009

Brief picture account of two back-to-back trips to Frey this past weekend/beginning-of-week. First, to celebrate Alisa's birthday; second, to celebrate nature! Hope you enjoy!

Pictures from Frey

The following are pictures taken from the climbing on Aguja Frey on Sunday, September 27th, 2009. Courtesy of Emma May. I hope you enjoy! - your landescaper, n8