Buenos Aires, beginnings

Hey everyone, I’m finally here in Buenos Aires, Argentina! I’m going to try to blog once every two weeks to recap some of the experiences I’ve had and the things I’ve learned. I don’t expect it to be quite as adventurous as my stories in Guatemala, but I’m definitely hoping to grow and have some eye opening experiences.

El capitán

The plane ride to Argentina was fairly smooth. The only crazy thing that happened was 20 minutes before we were about to land in Buenos Aires, I can’t find my passport! I was so nervous and told the flight attendant that I might have left my passport in our layover in Lima, Peru. For some odd reason she calls the Captain of the plane to come to my seat and the minute he arrives, he shouts “What is that!?” and points at this thing sticking out of a book I was reading. It was amazing…I thought to myself I could have had to forget about this entire semester so whatever else I get to experience from this point on is a blessing..thank the Lord!

Homestay experience: Chacarita

If you read my blog when I was in Guatemala, you know that my homestay in Antigua was a tortillería (tortilla shop) for the town with an outhouse for the toilet and bucket baths. This house is completely different! I have an awesome room that has a balcony and shelves for me to put all my stuff and we even have our own little common space for the international students to hang out. The only drawback is that it isn't in the safest area, and it is far from other places (45 min to get to class).

First of all, the people in the house are much more talkative and down to earth. There is a pretty good mix of international students and porteños (Argentines). There are six students (2 from Michigan, one from Oklahoma, one from Washington and one from Wisconsin), three daughters (16, 19, 21), one brother, and a mom. So there’s basically always someone to talk to (either in Spanish or English) or someone to do something with. Dinner time is awesome because we all sit together and speak Spanish and talk about all kinds of stuff—good restaurants to try, politics, things to do in Argentina, etc. In my first week, we’ve already managed to get into some heated debates where we’ve said some intense/offensive things. I just try to drink it all in. I’m actually very surprised by how fast everything from Spanish 4 (a year ago) is coming back to me.

It’s also awesome because the girls are about our age and go to Universidad de Buenos Aires(UBA) so we get a small “in” into the local scene. The first week there was a midnight parrilla (BBQ) where a bunch of porteños from UBA came and grilled all this delicious meat. People didn’t start eating until 3 am and heading back home until 7 am, loco! We sat in a circle and chilled, but I definitely had a hard time keeping up with them, understanding what they were saying, etc. It’s tough because I want to make some Argentine friends here, but it’s still hard for me to express my personality with the language barrier. I hope that by December, I can be comfortable enough with my Spanish to make people laugh and form substantial relationships.

Boliches & the night life

I’ve never been in a city that has such an intense night culture. First of all, everything is pushed back about 3-4 hours around here, including meals. I still remember the first night where I just sat in my room miserably starving, waiting for food until 9:30 pm (which is early by their standards). Also, whereas in the US, the bars close around 2 am, here a lot of the clubs don’t open till 2 am and people dance until 7 am! Some people who are really into the party scene have decided to change their sleeping habits so that they sleep after school from 3-10 pm, eat dinner, then go out again. My first Boliche experience was last Saturday at this place called “Crobar” where we danced to some crazy argentine electronica band until I felt like I was going to pass out. I got back to my bed around 7 am, in time to see the sun and felt completely exhausted. Needless to say, I felt so crappy the next day and getting around the city at night is a headache. The subtes(subways) don’t work and it can take up to an 1 hr a half to catch a colectivo (bus) and go back home.

Las Villas

Buenos Aires is definitely an amazing city with beautiful colonial architecture, parks, and plazas created by centuries of national favoritism and international trade. It is called the ‘Paris of South America.’ In the first week of the program, I was experiencing the city, going to theaters, bars, cafes, etc but knew that in this place of intense wealth, there was intense poverty. One of my housemates, Cass introduced me to a volunteering program called “L.I.F.E” that goes out to Villas (slum towns) that surround the city of Buenos Aires. These communities are basically informal settlements formed by migrants from the interior provinces of Buenos Aires who came for jobs but found that the urban development authorities could not accommodate them in the city.

I signed up and now do school support twice a week, which means basically helping children with homework, playing games with them, teaching them math, etc. It’s basically just an excuse to spend time with them and offer attention. It takes a while to get out to the villas, and we have to hire a driver from the villa to pick us up from the city because Taxis won’t go to these 'extremely dangerous' areas. Luckily, we all wear shirts that signify we are with the organization and everybody in the slum knows about us. It’s been a great experience so far encountering the praxis (intersection of theory and practice) and seeing how social, political and economic forces have created these settlements. These villas come in all forms. This past Thursday, I went to one called Ejercito Celestial.

This villa is an abandoned hospital that the city stopped constructing halfway in the process. It’s made of brick and resembles a huge parking garage. As you can see, none of the windows were constructed and there are about 50 or more families up there in their own mini city. It was definitely the oddest sight I’ve seen here.

Up next:

-Cultural musings. Why it is okay to show up 40 minutes to late to class in Argentina, why everyone here spends hours keeping up with news about politics and the economy, why food here isn’t very innovative, and why the public transportation/city planning is in some aspects, a disaster.

-My trip to Salta! (this coming Tuesday to Monday)

-My strange but refreshing experience at the Barrio Chino(China town)—being trilingual has never been so useful!

-the type of people I’m meeting here (either militantly liberal or intense partiers)