2.27.2011

26-2-2011: Mendoza, Argentina

An organic farm with olives, different kinds of sauce, olive oil and balsamic vinegar where I had a tasting session, which were sublime! The farm is owned by this Swiss guy who relocated in Argentina years ago.

various types of jams, including an interesting and yummy Malbec flavor.

Argentine´s favorite, dulce de leche with an almond touch. Fantastic!

First time that I tried Absinthe, very interesting just to look at the rituals.

Here I go!

OMG! It was an hallucinating experience for a few seconds.

We ended with samples of authentic Swiss chocolate!

Next stop, a winery "La Rural" where is a running winery. It smelled so good with all the wine!

There was also a museum where showed a lot of how to make wine and its history in wine making.

Then I hit a vineyard La Viña Maria, which I tried a 2004 Malbec.

In Viña Maria there were friendly dogs welcoming me.

The backdrop of the vineyard is the magnificent snowtipped mountain, which looked more like a painting. It was so beautiful!

Me enjoying the wine in the vineyard.

At night, Edu invited me to a philharmonic concert celebrating la fiesta de vendimia and the city´s 450 years anniversary, which was so good! The amazing thing this night was that I saw a shooting comet star flying across the stage! It was awesome!

25-2-2011: Mendoza, Argentina

Maté, an Argentine tradition, is very strong but has a very interesting taste.

A very tasteful and beautiful winery in the city of Mendoza.

Edu invited me to the harvest festival (La fiesta de Vendimia) celebration the first night. It was superb!

2.24.2011

22 to 24-2-2011: Santiago, Chile

Northern Chile is pretty much just desserts and the sea. The highway was smooth though.

Plaza de Armas de Santiago, a combination of antiquity and modernity.

La Moneda band played a few gorgeous numbers! It was alluring early in the morning! Loved it!

Palacio de la Moneda, where the president works.

An old but fun "funicular" tram up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal.

Santiago de Chile with love.

Above Cerro San Cristobal, one can overlook the city of Santiago.

21-2-2011: Arica, Chile

旅行的意義: Distract myself to the sadness of leaving the kids, and starting a new chapter of my life. First stop, Arica, Chile.

Muddy water of Arica´s beach.

An iron church, Iglesia de San Marcos, created by Gustave Eiffel and even prefabricated in his parisian studio.

2.20.2011

19-2-2011

My last goodbye to the kids and the tíos. As I told them, I would never forget them, and I will always love them! Thank you so much for an unforgettable year, and I will surely return and visit and see all of you growing up well!

Jenny looked upset, and I couldn´t help shedding tears. In fact, the young kids were kind of shocked, and didn´t even know how to say goodbye. They just looked blank and watched me go away. It was too heartbroken.


That´s one of the gifts I gave to Lemar´t, my bottle with our photo on it.

18-2-2011

Yoanca LOVED doing makeup!

Tía Lilith from Germany also had so much fun painting the kids!

I also helped out a bit with hair and makeup.

Carolina and Olga helped the straightening hair part while I tried to fix everything.

Curling eyelashes!

As the music of Lady Gaga started, Ayita opened the HARLi spring-summer 2011 fashion show!

Herlinda walked with so much "fierce"!!!! Bravo!

Leticia closed the HARLi spring-summer 2011 fashion show.

All the models paraded once again.

Designer´s appearance time! First stop, Rafael!

Then, me!

That´s the design of Leticia for Judith.

Carlos Abel´s design for his sister, Cynthia Estefani. Well, most of it was my work but I gave the credit to him, and it was kind of cute they walked down together.

I awarded the three participants whom I thought had showed a lot of dedication and hard work in this project.

The whole crew behind the HARLi show.

The models and I.

The kids were so happy after the show.

My best student, Rafael.

Here is their prize, a special Chinese dinner with me and Lemar´t!

Lemar´t eating which he always loves!

My last day at the home had come. Unplanned, but it was full of events! A friend of mine Chris Wong who has been traveling in South America at the present time called me a couple days ago and asked if we could meet up. Because of my busy schedule, I couldn´t go to Lima to meet him, but we ended up arranging a visit to the home. And he´s a great cook, and I invited him to cook a lunch for the kids. So we started cooking early in the morning after breakfast while I was getting the last things ready for the fashion show in the afternoon. He made a tomato meat sauce with rice and a mango and celery salad. The kids as well as the adults loved the food.

As soon as we finished lunch, all my students along with the volunteers rushed to the therapy room, “the backstage”, to get all the hair, makeup and clothes ready. It was a chaos as expected because we had limited time and there is always something that goes wrong. After over 1.5 hours of hard work, we finally finished and the show started at 16:45 hour. The girls were nervous and so was I, and adrenalines rushed through all our brains. As the music of Lady Gaga´s Poker Face remix started, the “HARLi Spring-Summer 2011” fashion show (the brand name features initials of all the participants´ names) was opened by Ayita, whom I think had the most modelesque look. They all did well and I was so proud of them! When they finished walking and went backstage, they jumped up and down and so did I! We were too excited! Afterwards, the designers were introduced, but it was a bit funny as I totally forgot who designed whose for some of them, but thankfully the kids helped with that. Finally I gave thanks to all the participants for their hardwork and I gave a surprise. I announced three winners whom I thought had showed really good qualities throughout the workshop. Third place was Leticia who always had a positive attitude and concerned about the progress. Second place was Ayita who helped to sew a lot of the clothes regardless whether it´s hers or others and always participated with full energy. First place was Rafael who was my favorite student! He had showed dedication, perseverance and a positive attitude throughout the whole process, and he always loved to learn. So I awarded them a special dinner with us. They were very excited. I also invited Milagros because she helped me the whole day without any condition. And of course Lemar´t was invited without any reason!

Chris helped me cook some of the dishes. Most of them are without meat because Rafa doesn´t eat meat. I made tomato, potatoes and chicken soup, steamed broth egg, stir fried broccoli with garlic, and Chris made stir fried tomatoes and eggs and sweet and sour chicken. We ate in t Chinese style but without chopsticks, but they all loved it. At the end, I encouraged them to keep on doing great work and that they have everything to achieve great things in their lives. They helped with the cleaning up, while I took Lemar´t back to his room. I already felt really sad when I dropped him off with the tías, feeling that I wouldn´t be able to see him for a long time.

The tías from kinder, tía Maria and tía Gadita, knocked on my door later in the night, and asked for my email address and thanked me for all the work I had done. I also thanked them for their collaboration all year. I was surprised to see that tía Maria had tears in her eyes! We chatted about the positive changes the children had and all of them are growing up and well. Indeed, all of them had changed and grown so much! Everyone had been saying so many nice words thanking me for the work that I had done for the kids, while the kids would ask me not to leave or say that Lemar´t would miss me so much. All year of feeling unappreciated suddenly made me realize that it wasn´t true.