7. Familia De Argentina

saturday night dasha and i headed to meet ale and his extended family at his sister’s house. we first stopped at her house after the bus from the drop zone and then to a taxi. she suddenly realized she had forgotten her gopro, computer and a lifetime of videos and pictures in the taxi. most people, probably including me, would have panicked but like the badass she is, stayed extremely calm. she literally shrugged it off and minutes later said “at least we have the media lunas!!” - the pastries we had bought that morning. It was the perfect example of how to stay calm when shit happens. life is so short and it is easy to get caught up in the little things that don’t matter.

we then showed up to the most beautiful argentina, gated community of houses. it reminded me of the best neighborhoods in la jolla. we went into good music playing, lots of wine, stunning people, laughter and homemade pizza being made. immediately everyone was so welcoming and made me feel like family. the next day the same group of people welcomed me into ale’s childhood home. this was at a mansion with a tennis court, pool, perfectly manicured landscape and maids serving delicious food. i so wish i had gotten pictures of this amazing group and setting. they let me sit there as a part of their family- trying to understand their spanish, kindly interpreting to english for me and accepting of my travel story.

most notably, from the time with this group, was the power of kind, confident, welcoming women. the sisters, sister in law, mother, dasha- they physically were stunning, beautifully dressed and with barely any makeup. their warmth to me was striking and there was zero sense of entitlement, arrogance or competitiveness. their confidence was very clear which was beautiful. the daughters they were raising also showed this confidence. i truly have never seen such a beautiful combination of confidence, class, warmth, compassion and humbleness. I will always remember them as role models.

oh! and we found dasha’s computer and gopro! on the way back saturday night, ale called cab companies and asked them to page the cabs. our cab driver responded right away and then 10 minutes later he met us with her things. buenos aires is a HUGE city- very similar to LA or NY and i’d guess the likelihood of these getting returned was 1%. i watched as dasha hugged this man and we took pictures with him- i appreciated in this moment the goodness in strangers and trusting this worldwide.