Quarter 3 Post 3- The A Factor

Nuñez, Larry. "The A Factor: Finding Patience in Paradise". Snowboard: Products, Places, and Personalities January 2009: 72-80.

South American Snow Sessions is a program that started in 2005 in Las Lenas, Argentina. SASS is a different kind of summer snowboard camp. Normally you would go somewhere like Mt. Hood, Oregon or Whistler, British Colombia, but the guys from SASS got sick of the slushy conditions and decided to head down south for even more winter. The first camp they held there were 14 campers and 5 coaches. After a 2 years they moved the camp to Bariloche, Argentina for better off-hill activities, more Argentinan culture, and easier accessibility. When you finish riding all day you can go out and party all night with the locals, in doing so you learn a lot about their culture. As Americans we tend to think that i want that NOW and everything has to be done MY way. In Argentina everything depends on your relationships with other people. If you have a good history of friendship and work they will help you get things done, if not you're outta luck. Argentinans also live a very laid back lifestyle, just going where life takes them, this attitude led SASS to develop a motto, "Don't ask questions". So if you were to be at the airport waiting for your ride and asked "when is the bus getting here?" all you get in reply would be "don't ask questions". And it works. The motto seems to help every body chill out a little bit and stop stressing over things that don't matter. I'd love to live in a country where the culture is all about being a respectable person and about going with the flow. In america it seems everybody gets caught up in the small things. If your bus is late you yell at the driver and stress out even more because your boss will yell at you for being late, I don't get why it matters if your a half hour late, if you still get the work done it shouldn't matter. And yes it is disrespectful to waste other's time by being late but hey they could probly use the time to relax or get something else done. I also admire the fact that they care more about how somebody treats them than who the person is. It seems like here so many people do things for somebody else just because they seem important and all it does is stress them out and drive them crazy. If everybody were trying to build up respect there wouldn't be so many people that push others around like nothing just cuz they work at mcdonalds or are the ones that are gonna clean things up when they're done.