Once a trip, maybe once a lifetime, you get an Osvaldo in your life.

Osvaldo's job was to teach us Spanish here in Cordoba and in doing that he became the kind of friend you might spend years developing.

He found us very reasonable lodgings and the first day of class even met us at our apt and rode the bus to his house with us so we'd know how to do it.

When Bob broke a tooth Osvaldo called his own dentist and begged an apt for him and then took him there and sat with him the whole time to translate.

When our apt was so hot we couldn't sleep he arranged for Luli to bring us a fan and after we mentioned we were getting tired of cold showers because the water heater kept shutting off, he managed to fix that too.
He's kind of a Argentinean neighbor Keith.

One day he picked us up at the apt and drove us to a lovely area of the city for a visit to a museum and a stop at his favorite coffee shop, then a tour of the university where he is Director of Intensive Language Studies. He is over 42 language teachers and he's taking us for coffee.

We got to meet his wife and two of his three daughters, an English teacher and a newly minted doctor (she just graduated med school) and one day when we had to postpone class for several hours because I had gotten the poops (as Bob calls it), his daughter-the-doctor, dosed me up and gave me a diet to follow until I got better.
On Saturday, after our last day of class, they invited us to lunch at their house.

Isabel made to-die-for empanadas which she promises me the recipe for, then took us for a ride to a little country pueblo called Alta Gracia, where Che Guevera grew up. NOTE: Che was born in Rosaria, near Buenos Aires, but his family moved to the mountains for the better climate, as he had severe asthma off and on his whole life. More on Che later, as it was very interesting to learn about his life whether you agree with his politics or not.

But what really endeared Osvaldo to us was in our first emails when we were setting up our classes and confirming prices---he had not updated his website for some time and it still said $10 an hour. Inflation in Argentina is running at such a rate even hotels make you call for a price--they won't even post one for fear they won't be charging you enough.

His current rate he explained, was $20 an hour, but since $10 was what was advertised on his site, he would honor that and charge us only $10.

What?

We were so used to everyone trying to take advantage of the "rich" Americans (remember, we didn't know this guy yet) that we were floored and suggested we split the difference. He agreed and we began our studies.
We ended up paying him the full amount of course, plus a good tip---how could we not?