a few impressions of Bariloche, the probably most spectacularly located city in Argentina. The Lago Nahuel Huapi in front, the Cathedral Massiv in the back, and lots of Swiss charm!

German Wool Packaging Equipment, very, very, old, and still working!

The main source of income. The one's with the red stripe go off to become steaks... *sniff*

Tapi Aike Main House

Grasses in setting sun

On te famous Route 40.

space

Pinguins at the Cabo

The border with Chile

Main House of Estancia Monte Dinero - near Cabo Virgenes, Magellan Straights. Amazing place to spend the night

On a dirt road in the Patagonian Steppe

Estancia in the far south of Patagonia

Patagonian Space

Choique, a little Nandu (Ostrich) in the Patagonian Desert

One of the outdoor mineral hot springs. The guy there is contemplating sunset in the "Copa de Champange". Too bad the spot was taken

about to take a bath...or not!

Inside. Once, the rich and famous treated skin diseases and sysphilis here. but the hotel got wiped out by a rock avalance, and the baths got abandoned. Inviting?

the military garrison

The "Inca Bridge" - naturally formed, and with an old, abandoned Mineral Bath underneath

Old train staition at puente del Inca, on the way to Aconcagua and Chila. Now it's a hostel where the andinistas stay. cool vibes!

there haven't been trains running on this track for a LONG time...

Huevo, our dog. Why they called him "Egg" only God knows

painted with gipsum - hehe, some Indians!

exploring a gipsum cave

Yes.. that IS actually a condor. 4m Wingspan, but this one was just too high up. And that cloud brought us 24h rain and storm in the moiuntains - and we were stuck in a cave to weather the storm!

planning the next steps

high up

Laguna de los Horcones. Near Aconcagua.

Cerro Aconcagua, almost 7000m, the highest outside the Himalaya. Didn't quite make it up to the peak, will have to be next time. ;-)

cactus

all resting

a tabano caught. The motherfuckers REALLY bite!

explorers

3000m

vista

Asado (country grill) in the mountains

putting on the load

Setting off to spend 5 days in the high mountains on horseback

Near Aconcagua in Mendoza

After almost half a year I finally am sitting down to share a bit of my life – for those of you who've been looking in and finding an outdated page – thanks for the interest, and please excuse the lag. As a compensation I will post quite a few pictures, hope you enjoy them.

So what's the news in Buenos Aires? To my own dismay I must admit that I have been more on holiday than driving the professional and personal projects that have been defining my last two years. Last time I wrote, in October, I had just entered the new electronic voting project at CIPPEC Institute. The good news is that the book chapter on the security of electronic voting systems that I have been writing is finished, so that is one notch on the achievement side. The bad news is that it will not be published in its original form, something that has caused me a good bit of anxiety and anger lately. I initially intended to write it in English and have it translated to Spanish by a professional translator afterwards. But when my editor suggested I write it directly in Spanish so as to avoid the hassle of translating it, I was so flattered by her confidence in my Spanish that I agreed. It was a mistake. It cost me a good 6 weeks of hard work writing the chapter in Spanish, and when I finally submitted it, my editor judged the level of my language skill of not sufficient for a scientific publication, rejected the modular structure I had presented to her before starting to write as not suitable for publication in the kind of book are are going to publish, and the writing as too technical. The result is now that I have been obliged by her to work with a Spanish native co-author, who to my dismay does not understand the technical issues involved, yet is re-writing the text from scratch, and haggling with me over the content. You can imagine that it is quite a mess. It would have been so much easier to write straight in English and hand the text over to a translating service. *sigh* I'll know better next time. And for any of you who have ever had to work with an editor – you have my sympathy.

My other projects at CIPPEC have not been exactly a breakthrough, either, and I feel a bit disheartened.

The online donation platform we have built is working fine – the only problem is that very few people are actually donating. The results to our initial survey on the acceptance of online donations were quite encouraging, and raised quite some expectations. Unfortunately, real donations seem much harder to come by than good intentions. It doesn't help either that, because of it's little initial success, all the second- and third-stage plans I had designed to involve the donor community more deeply, drive traffic and participation on the site, have been put on ice. It was clearly a bit of a naive “if you build it, they will donate” attitude, both with CIPPEC and with me, and when the dollars didn't roll in right away, they threw out the baby with the bath water and decided that this didn't work, and that they didn't want to dedicate any more resources to the other measures. Another lesson learned: Don't generate too much expectations. *sigh*

The online petition to promote in the Senate the passing of the Argentina Freedom of Access to Information Act (my other project) has been working, yet underperforming my expectations. When we put it online late last year, and started spreading the word, I hoped for tens of thousands of signatures. But we didn't use our traditional media channels to the press to promote the online petition site, and relied too much on email and word of mouth. To the current day, the campaign is plagued by a lack of trust because of it's “pure online” nature without press backup. People also seem reluctant to sign it with their national ID document number, something we have asked for to give each signature more weight, but the reluctance to which I should have anticipated given the all too fresh memories of the military dictatorship and its suppression of popular expression. That I was forced to design the campaign overly academic and text-heavy to maintain the academic image of CIPPEC hasn't helped either. I am still expecting to pass the 1000 signatures mark, but the campaign will fall far short of what I had hoped for.

As a result of all this, I am starting to doubt how much farther I can go in CIPPEC. Through my work there, I have been able to define what I like to be the focus of my professional development in the mid-term: using the Internet to build a dialog between the the "common” citizenry and the sphere where public policy is made. I want to help create an atmosphere in which public policy is discussed, actively, informed and constructively, by large sectors of society. I want this citizen participation to reach a critical mass, a tipping point, both in quantity and quality, where it must be heard and considered by policy makers.

CIPPEC could be a great moderator of a constructive dialog between the Argentine public and it's politicians, engaging and directing the publics attention towards the “burning” policy issues (which it understands well because of its academic weight), and then collecting, amplifying and adding extra credit to the publics voice. It's in its mission statement to build a politically active, educated and involved citizenry -- which can be built by that kind of dialog.

But since it's online enthusiasm has suffered lately quite a bit, the budgets are short, and its focus elsewhere, I am not too optimistic I will be able to sell my larger vision. I have been proposing a media-backed, multi-NGO-run public policy virtual voting site before, and met with a rather lukewarm response. I will try getting it built it anyway, if not at CIPPEC then with another partner. But I am at best cautiously optimistic.

On top of the whole thematic issues comes another one that is building up pressure – money. I have been working largely pro-bono for over a year now, and the development of my savings account is not exactly making me happy. Thanks to the devaluation the cost of living here is still low, but life is not free, either. I don't want to reduce my spending to rock-bottom level, because enjoying a good plate of food and a good wine once in a while, and exploring Patagonia in the short southern summer, are two major quality-of-life factors of my Argentine existence. But I need to start earning a real income sometime soon. Getting that here in the NGO sector is hard; it is already hard in the commercial sector, so go figure.

If I am forced to leave my Argentine NGO work for a lack of funding, I am left with only two alternatives: get a “regular” paying job somewhere here, with SIEMENS et al, or start looking for an organization that has interest in my work and a budget, abroad. The former would mean giving up my NGO career ambitions in exchange for a pitiful (in Dollar/Euro terms) salary and a 12hr working day with 10 days of vacation annually (Argentina ranks No. 4 worldwide in numbers of hours worked annually, after the China, South Korea, and Chile). Sounds like a bad deal to you? Well, to me, too.

And working abroad? It would mean leaving behind the people who are close to me here, and much of the work I have started. Not exactly great, either. I feel a bit like I am between a rock and a hard place, really.

Having said that, I still enjoy a privileged life. I have been able to visit again the Patagonian lakes (Bariloche) in December, and some of the Argentine coast. In January, I went on en excursion on horseback into the Andes around Mendoza – 5 days in the “alta montana” far from anything. It was a great experience; check out the photos! Finally, my mom came down to visit me in February, and we took a trip to the Glaciers and the far Patagonian South, down until Cabo Virgenes and the Magellan Straights, all with some spectacular scenery, great hiking, and lots and lots of open space. There should be more photos there. So, I don't complain about a lack of pleasure activity. :-)

So what's the conclusion? The next few months will determine if I have a professional future in Argentina or not. I am currently doing the paperwork for a regular work permit, so as to be ready if and when I do find the kind of paid work I am looking for here. I hope it is not going to be in vain. Wish me luck!

Best regards to you all,

Ingo

PS: If you know of an organization that would be interested in the kind of thing I am doing, please let me know. Wherever it might have its offices. Just in case. Thanks!