subway serenades and patagonian possibility

A blind man poked me with his guitar on the subway. I was on my way home from San Telmo. His red-tipped staff swayed with the shifting train. He had hung it on the head of his guitar. Bumping into me he knew he had found his crowd. He paused for a moment and walked a sharp scale up the neck of the battered classical instument before stumming latin triplets with his open hand. And then he broke into song. It was a love song. Long and pained vocals hovered over the syncopated accoustic rhythm and I realized I had forgotten for a moment that I was in Buenos Aires. The man sung from experience, blind, and I felt the storried history of this city in my bones.
I have been busy lately; even here so far away from home, so distant from the routines and obligations that creep up on me and cloud my days, it is easy to get caught up and forget to look around and really take it in.
I begun to make plans for this summer. I´ll be leaving BA around the 20th of May. I´ve been sending resumes and writing letters most nights recently. Things are looking good. I am 95% sure that I will be living and working on a large estancia outside of a small town in nothern Patagonia for most of June and July. "Estancia" translates roughly to "ranch" in english. It´ll be myself and a gaucho named Rodrigo (a gaucho is an argentine cowboy) working in the pristine wilderness at the base of the Andes. I´ll be learning to ride ride and tend horses, care for the chickens and sheep, build fences and ready the land for planting in the spring. It sounds like my primary mode of transportation will be horseback; this place is so big that fences aren´t required necessary to reign in the horses. I´ll have a little cabin with a wood burning stove to myself. Sounds good.
From there I hope to go to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay to work with Fundación Paraguaya, a Non Government Organization working with the mostly poor rural community. They are running a high school that teaches the kids how to farm productively and organicaly. They are also helping, by doing research in microfinancing and developement economics, small businesses across the country establish themselves in new markets. Lots of interesting things. It is an incredible organization. Internships are competative. I´m just past phase one. So we´ll find out.
The links to the websites of both Estancia Ranquilco and Fundación Paraguay here anyone interested in checking them out: http://ranquilco.com , http://www.fundacionparaguaya.org.py/ (note, there is an english language version of this page)

Take tare everyone. I´ll try to get something interesting up here on the blog sometime soon. Later.