Dear future YAGM,
I’ve been thinking about you a lot. All year, you may be surprised to hear, but especially as we approached the Midway point and I thought of how a year ago, I was submitting my application or going to DIP or accepting my placement in the Argentina/Uruguay program… Even before I stepped foot in La Plata, I was aware that I was stepping into a legacy and that legacy became very apparent as my sites talked with fondness about the most recent volunteer and sometimes ones going back a few years before. Being so aware of what I was stepping into also made me aware that I would eventually be the past volunteer (that starting a week from tomorrow, I will be, which at present hurts me very much to write) whom the community tells tells stories about and whose shadow the new volunteer will have to make peace with.
I’ve given a lot of thought about what I’d like to share with you, what wisdom I want to impart. Earlier in my year, I wanted to give so much advice, tell so many stories- things that made me think along the way, “man, I wish someone had told me about that! I wish I would’ve known about that sooner,”- but since then I’ve come to realize that I didn’t really need to know almost all of the things I wished I had. So you’re just going to have to get over any frustration you feel when I tell you that I’m not going to tell you either. You’re just going to have to live your life and find out for yourself.
However, there are a few ways in which I think you can learn from my experience and that my pointers won’t take away from you experiencing your YAGM year for yourself. They’re mostly to do with packing (which, let’s be real, is the first major challenge between you saying “yes!” to the call and starting your YAGM year), so here goes:
Things I’m Glad I Brought
- Blanket from University of Chicago housing: we stayed on the University of Chicago campus during our Chicago orientation, and at the end of the week, they told us we could keep the blanket we’d been using all week! I can’t guarantee you’ll run into such a sweet deal, but I’m so glad I kept mine (I figured I’d leave it behind at the airport if my bag ended up being overweight, which it didn’t). Centralized heating is not a thing in Argentina, so if you have access to heat, it will be via a space heater. In the hogar where I live, the space heater is in our living room, which means that was the only room that got heat. The extra blanket came in really handy, particularly during the end of the year when winter rolled around and my body was not prepared after adjusting to the heat of the Argentine summer!
- Two collapsible hampers: they folded up super easy in my luggage for easy transport and gave me a place to put dirty laundry besides a random pile in the corner of my room. This was not on any list I received from anyone but rather a wise call on my mom’s part (thanks, Mom!).
- Allergy medication: if you get any sort of seasonal allergies, bring a bottle of Claritin or Zyrtec. I can almost guarantee you they will be worse here. And do yourself a favor and take them with you when you go on retreat just to be safe.
- Liquid body wash: if you strongly prefer liquid body wash to bar soap, bring some from home. Shampoo is easy to find in big bottles and at reasonable prices, but liquid body wash can be difficult to find and fairly expensive depending on where you live. In Oberá, for example, it was over 100 pesos cheaper than I ever found it near me.
- Back-up battery: sometimes we lose power and it’s occasionally come in handy to be able to externally charge my phone.
- Personal safety device: my dad first asked me to carry one 3.5 years ago when I went abroad for a lengthy stay for the first time studying abroad in Europe. At the time I wondered if it was overkill, but I’ve carried it with me both domestically and abroad since then, and while I’ve thankfully never had to use it, it has provided comfort knowing it’s there.
The way it works is you pull out the little metal pin on the left (attached to the keychain part), and it makes a hecking hecking loud noise. - Access to library ebooks: with my library card, I was able to access ebooks at my home library in the U.S. through an app. I only needed WiFi to borrow and download the books and then could read them off WiFi at my leisure. This saved me more times than I can count this year (especially during the low-activity period of the summer)!
Things I Wish I’d Brought
- (Above all else) a mid-size bag, bigger than a backpack but smaller than a suitcase: packing for retreats was often an interesting game because my backpack was too small for what I needed but even the smaller of my two suitcases (a Swiss gear rolling duffel- highly recommend, by the way) seemed too excessive. Something in the middle would have been just right.
These next few items I bought here or made do without but would’ve done better to just bring myself:
- Umbrella: I thought a raincoat would be enough on its own and was mistaken.
- Bug spray: I foolishly purposely did not pack this because it was conspicuously absent from our packing list (this is not me blaming my country coordinator, by the way; I fully accept my naivete in turning down my mom when she asked if I should take some).
- Anti-itch cream: of course, if I didn’t bring bug spray in the first place, I didn’t bring anti-itch cream either. Luckily, Neosporin and aloe, both of which I did have, turned out to be great substitutes.
- Flashlight (with extra batteries): this may very well have been an item I foolishly turned my mother down on only to learn my lesson. I’ve already mentioned the power outages. I think every member of our cohort has experienced them this year, some more frequently than others. I acquired a small flashlight by happy “accident” when our country coordinator gifted us each one at our April retreat, which has certainly come in handy on a few occasions since then, but I could’ve used one right from the beginning of the year.
These items I wish I’d brought MORE of because I used them all up or lost them and had to buy more (which generally is not a big deal other than it can potentially cut into your stipend of you need a lot):
- Hair ties (you know how that goes)
- Pens
- Stud earrings: after keeping my cartilage piercing from closing for a month in Ghana two summers ago using a safety pin I sterilized each day because the one blocker I’d worn (and stupidly not brought extras, again, on purpose, thinking I wouldn’t need them) had washed out in the shower, I vowed to always travel with enough studs. After tragically losing some of my supply to a drain and others to normal, daily life, I did manage to make it (just barely, there are currently only two lone holdout survivors with twelve days to go), but I still wish I’d brought more.
And finally:
- Extra flip-flops or duct tape: my flip-flops did the thing,
You know, this thing and because duct tape doesn’t exist here, I couldn’t fix them properly. I tried with packing tape which was an annoyingly mediocre not-solution. Flip-flops around where I live cost 200-300 pesos (at the time of this posting), which I was not willing to spend, but you can get them for 100-150 pesos (again, at the time of this posting) near Retiro in Buenos Aires.
- Hot/cold pack: you know, the kind that’s filled with herbs and stuff (or rice- probably better if it’s rice, trying to get it through security)? I chose to bring a heating pad instead because I wasn’t expecting a microwave (which, to be fair, we didn’t have in the hogar when I first arrived, but eventually one got moved upstairs from the guys’ part of the hogar), but I think it may have gotten fried by the voltage (which is why you should read the instructions on any electronics/appliances you’re planning on bringing before you go so you know if they’ll be compatible with the different electrical currency). The herb pack I could have laid on/near the space heater and used no problem.
Things I Wish I Hadn’t Brought
- A watch: I forgot to pack it and my mom kindly mailed it to me at Chicago during orientation because I didn’t know I’d always be able to check my phone all the time. I was and you will be able to, so if you’re not a watch-wearer, now is not time to start. (Sorry for the trouble, Mom, but for some reason I was convinced I’d need a watch. I appreciate you!)
- My tablet: I only partially regret this choice. I thought I was being so smart bringing my tablet with me instead of my laptop, and the tablet did generally serve me well. There were some times, however, when I wish I would’ve just brought the laptop with me, so for this reason I regret switching just to save space on something. And if you are going to bring a device you don’t typically use, make sure you have access to important documents such as resumes through Google docs or by emailing them to yourself before you go because you will want them later in your year when you start to think about what life post-YAGM looks like for you. All of those types of files were saved on my laptop in Word, and my mom had to send them to me one day (God bless her) because I hadn’t made sure I had access to them before I left (another thing I feel fairly certain I’d thought about and then idiotically decided not to do).
Here are my last nuggets of wisdom about packing: don’t be embarrassed or self-conscious showing up to Chicago orientation with two full-sized suitcases if you need them; a lot of other YAGM will have them too. If you’re weighing your suitcase at home as you pack and keep ending up overweight, remove things that aren’t necessities or can be easily bought once you arrive. Both my suitcases, to my chagrin, miraculously weighed in about ten pounds under at O’Hare despite my fight with our home luggage scale that kept insisting that they were overweight. But ultimately, anything I had taken out and left at home I could live without or figure out when I got here! Finally, consider bringing things you can leave behind at the end of the year. For example, maybe a few hard copies of books that you can donate to the YAGM library after you finish reading them or underwear that can justifiably be thrown out at the end of the year (#holey).
And now for a few last pieces of advice that will hopefully serve you well in-country, specifically during the first few weeks and months while you are getting settled and adjusting:
- Don’t convert everything. It’s tempting to look at prices and want to convert them to dollars but rarely will it help you. When I first arrived, that’s how I attempted to figure out my budget and whether or not I should buy a particular item. When I lived in Europe and used the pound or euro, it was a good guideline because the ratio was between 1:1 and 1:1.5, but because the Argentine peso is worth much less and is much more unstable than the U.S. dollar, you can’t determine an item’s worth in the Argentine economy based on U.S. standards. You have to get your bearings on the relative worth of items within the context of the Argentine peso.
- Always carry a little bit of TP with you (and hand sanitizer if you’re a hand sanitizer person). Public restrooms are a rare occurrence, and even if you manage to find one, you’re not guaranteed TP or soap.
- It’s normal to have stomach troubles when you first go someplace new, but if this persists, try switching to bottled water or boiling tap water, letting it cool, and then bottling it to drink. The tap water here is generally safe, but every now and then it may not be and even if it is, it may not agree with you.
And that’s it, friends. That’s what I have to tell you. Hopefully you find this helpful and will eventually stop cursing my name for luring you in with such a catchy title only to give you a few “lousy” packing tips. I’m confident that once you get partway through your YAGM year and have the brain space to think about what you want to say to the next gen YAGMs, you’ll get my vibe.
Anyway, before I go, I actually want to share one more golden piece of advice. If you listen to one thing from me and ignore the rest, let it be this: the best thing I did while preparing for my YAGM year was ask friends, family, and community members to write me letters to read throughout the year. I told them they could write a date on the envelope if they wanted me to open it on a specific day (people often chose holidays, but sometimes the meaning behind the dates they chose wasn’t apparent until I read the letter) or that any one without a date would be read on a day when I felt down or was missing home. I received such an overwhelming response, I had enough to read at least one every week for the entirety of my year! I have loved reading them, they really have meant a lot to me and have lifted me up, and I’ve enjoyed writing shout-outs in my newsletters so people could know when I’ve read theirs.
In this time as you prepare to embark on this “subject to change” adventure for God, I wish you moments filled with joy, love, and laughter with family and friends. If you haven’t gotten your placement yet, you will,
(the not knowing prepares you by the way, for all the flexibility and patience you’re going to need for when you arrive at your site placement). And try not to stalk former YAGM blogs too hard 😉
I’ll be praying for you,
Abrazos,
❤ Gabriela
We Are the Dreamers of Dreams 