Baby Steps

I have been in Buenos Aires for more than a month now, and I have that strange sensation of having been here forever and having just arrived.  I'm reminded every day that I'm not from here, by both the things that I don't understand and the people who don't understand me and ask, "De donde sos?"  In some ways, however, I'm settling in.  I am almost never lost thanks to the fairly intuitive street grid of Buenos Aires and countless hours of staring at my bus map and wandering around new parts of town.  I've started all of my classes, and I started my internship today at political education/activism organization called Conciencia, where I'll be working 10-12 hours a week.  I even have a gym membership, which comes with some comical observations.  My capacity to look like a porteño has even improved, now that I own a mate, an alpaca sweater, and some sweet argentine slippers, all courtesy of a Sunday feria, or market.  Most astoundingly, I passed the Level One test for basic language ability -- I went to a barber shop and left without a mullet.  Baby steps.

It's been awhile since I last updated this blog, mostly because I don't want to be tiresome and write 1000 words every time I learn the word for lizard (el lagarto, if you were wondering).  I have done and seen some cool things, though, that you might be interested in hearing about.

During the military dictatorship's rule in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, thousands of young Argentine men and women were kidnapped by the government.  Presumably they were tortured and killed, but the truth of what happened to them has never been uncovered.  Now, every Thursday afternoon, the mothers of these desaparecidos march around the Plaza de Mayo, directly in front of the Casa Rosada, the Argentine version of the White House, as a way of demanding answers about their sons' and daughters' whereabouts.  Last week I went to see the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, and I honestly cannot adequately describe the haunting sight of 80- and 90-year-old women defiantly chanting their demands for the truth.  Each madre wears a white bonnet with the name of her son or daughter and they are joined by other protestors, mostly friends and family of the desaparecidos, who hold up signs with pictures of their lost loved ones.  Here are some pictures:

Monument in Plaza de Mayo; Madres in bottom right

A madre speaking to the crowd

La Casa Rosada

Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo

I visited Puerto Madero with some friends, and finally saw the riverfront (not counting the time I took the boat to Uruguay).  I can see why Buenos Aires was trying to hide it from me -- it's kinda dirty and gross.  Because of this, Buenos Aires doesn't have much of a scenic riverfront area, and Puerto Madero is about as close as it gets.  Though there are supposedly some very nice restaurants, a TGI Friday's, inexplicably; a cool pedestrian bridge, and some old boats that now serve as museums.

The cool bridge

Will, Leah, Jenny, me, and the results of ten-second auto timer

The aforementioned market was amazing.  I had been to a few different ferias, but they were all filled with tourists and I was paranoid that the vendors were trying to rip me off.  Last weekend, though, I went to the market in Mataderos, a barrio on the southwest fringe of the city.  It was a little far, maybe 20 or 30 minutes by bus, but it was well worth the trip.  It was much more authentic than the ferias in San Telmo or Recoleta, which are more upscale and touristy.  The quality and prices were also better; I bought my second alpaca sweater for $30 because I realized that my first one was cheap quality.  I also bought those comfy slippers for $15, a cool souvenir mate for $5, and a bottle of delicious homemade wine for $6.  I restrained myself from buying a hand-carved guitar (it wasn't that hard, since I didn't have enough dinero), but I might go back next week and buy one.  In addition to all of the friendly vendors, there was live music, traditional dancing, and gauchos riding their horses through a section of the street.  Watch the video below of the folk dancers. Unfortunately, I turned off my camera just before I heard a girl behind me ask, in very American English, "How come our culture isn't cool like this?"

Yesterday was El Día del Niño, which is just a day when everyone pays attention to the kids and is nice to them.  HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?! I demand two decades of owed kid's days.  But anyways, we celebrated at my house by having french fries for dinner.  When Moira ran into my room and excitedly told me that we were having french fries and lettuce for dinner, I thought I must have misunderstood.  But no, it was true.  And with Ketchup Hot too! (side note: it's really strange to pronounce English words with a Spanish accent; e.g. kay-choop HHHoht; dayleevayree (delivery), etc. (also difficult to spell out pronunciation differences...))  I think we need to bring this tradition to the United States while I have a chance at passing as a niño...

Funny story about my gym.  It's called Gym Coliseum (again with the pronunciation thing), and it's located on the second floor of a movie theater.  Yes, you heard right.  And yes, it is strange to open the door to leave the gym and be met with the sweet odor of stale popcorn.  The membership only costs $20 a month, so I've been learning a bit about what exercise was like in the 50's with a stationary bike made out of real bike parts.  To increase the difficulty you don't press the up arrow like the spoiled Americans, but tighten the break; not too much, though, or the pedals on your bike become stationary too.  The gym keeps me connected to what's happening in the American music scene, too; ABBA and Cheap Trick are still big there, right? I am also learning about kilograms; for example, 50 kilograms is really heavy.  Baby steps.

Classes are going well, although I haven't done much homework yet, owing to the fact that it's kind of complicated to figure out which readings you're supposed to do and where to obtain these readings.  The profesor of my "Capitalism, socialism, and social revolution" class is a 70-year-old chainsmoker, and what a hoot he is.  As he stands directly in front of the sign proclaiming the rule against smoking in the building, he proceeds to smoke no fewer than ELEVEN cigarettes during our class, tapping his ashes nonchalantly onto the floor.  He is also nearly deaf, so when you ask a question you either have to shout (a daunting task when you aren't confident about your language skills) or ask your question with his face 6 inches from yours (also uncomfortable).  The building itself is very interesting, and nothing like Pomona; the hallways are narrow and dimly lit, and the classrooms are covered with political graffiti and posters.  It's a completely different experience, but I do wish that students in the U.S. were as deeply invested in their country's political system.  Even Pomona kids seem incredibly apathetic in comparison to the students of UBA.

A typical classroom at la UBA

Political graffiti everywhere

I was finally able to successfully stay awake for a porteño-like night out, as I returned Sunday morning at 6:30am and fell asleep just dawn was breaking outside my window.  The key is to sleep in the day before, drink an outrageous amount of mate beforehand, and try to not sit on any comfortable surfaces.  It was fun, but not something I can see myself doing multiple times a week... Pasos pequeños.

In other news, my parents are probably coming to visit!  Turns out they have an Argentine friend in Boise that owns an apartment in Recoleta, 15 minutes from my house.  I'm excited to be able to show off my mastery of Spanish and Buenos Aires when they come in December.  Now I just have to master Spanish and Buenos Aires... I have spent un montón of time thinking about dates for when they can come, and I think I have schemed a way to fit their 10-day trip here in between a trip to Mendoza, Santiago, and Valparaiso and 10-12 days in Patagonia.  It is thus decided that my last month in South America will consist almost entirely of traveling outside of Buenos Aires (because my parents want to visit the beaches of Uruguay, where we can bathe in warm sunlight in December).

In the week ahead: If it doesn't rain/isn't repressively cold tomorrow, I'm going to finally check out the ultimate frisbee team in Buenos Aires.  On Sunday I'm going to see some real football (ahem, futból), cheering on my neighborhood's very own San Lorenzo against the famed Boca Juniors.  And next week, I'm going to do something completely out of my comfort zone -- start taking tango lessons at a nearby milonga.  The things I'll do in search of porteño friends.  Once again, baby steps.

Hasta luego, chau!

Beauty Will Save the World

I just returned yesterday from a weekend in Montevideo, Uruguay, and it was a strange juxtaposition of perspectives.  I was absolutely a tourist, but I was some cross between an American tourist and an Argentine tourist.  I'm already accustomed to the porteño way of life, and Montevideo was a change of pace.  It is a bit of a smaller city and it felt less physically constricting than the concrete jungle of Buenos Aires.  Also, urugayos are a different breed; it's difficult to explain the subtleties in the cultural differences, but I think that it is accurate to say that they are very hospitable and more laid back.  Buenos Aires seems much busier and cosmopolitan, while Montevideo is a more typical Latin American city.  I have to say that I dig the buena onda (good vibes) in Uruguay.  But as much as I enjoyed my time in Montevideo, I am glad that I chose to study in Buenos Aires, because it is, after all, a world-class city, and I don't think that I will ever cease to be amazed by its its offerings.

This very-phallic building in downtown Montevideo
used to be the tallest in all of South America

But I have to gush about Uruguay for a bit.  You know those moments where everything is just perfect?  I was lucky enough to have a few of those in the last few days.  The hostel I stayed at was run by some really friendly montevideanos (though I'm not sure they come in any other way), and was filled with tourists from Brazil and elsewhere in South America.  They all spoke English to some degree, the hostel people spoke Portuguese and the Brazilians spoke some Spanish.  One night we had a fantastic conversation after we all returned from our night on the town, and it was something that I imagine would fascinate the linguistics major in each of us.  I would tell a story in 90% Spanish, throwing in a few words of English when I needed to.  The Brazilians would respond in Spanglish/Portuñol, and the Uruguayos would translate the Portuguese for me.  It was a magical experience to be able to communicate like that with complete strangers.

The second perfect moment came when I walked along a pier-type thing that jutted out into the Río de la Plate.  When I reached the end, I turned back for the first time, and the sight was staggering.  It wasn't beauty as conventionally defined; the pier was located in an industrial part of town near the port.  But the scene got to me.  The sun was approaching the horizon, casting long shadows on the enormous cargo cranes and the modest, yet distinctively Latin American apartments in the vicinity.  I was surrounded on three sides by water, and the wind was just cold enough to chase away complacency.  The rugged charm of that pier was so utterly calming that I could not dwell on any negative thought or be concerned with any of the stressful aspects of life in a foreign land.  All I could do was look, and see.  And I saw something that I could never have expected to see in that place, something that washed away my anxieties better than anything else could have.

Yes, four grown adults did cling to childhood here

The third moment came in a public bus.  We were returning to our hostel after a long day walking through town, and admittedly I was not in the best of moods for a variety of reasons.  But then a man stood up, holding his acoustic guitar, and began to play and sing.  If there were a way to objectively measure beauty, this probably would not have made the cut, as the man most likely wasn't a particularly magnificent singer or guitarist.  The truth is, though, that I don't even remember how talented a musician he was.  I only remember the intense beauty and improbability of the situation.  That I would find myself on a bus in Montevideo, Uruguay, listening to a man make life a little more pleasant for 30-odd people on their way somewhere else was incredible. 

Montevideo's beautiful shoreline must be perfect on a warm summer day

It inspired an inner philosophical monologue for me, and it brought to mind a favorite quote from Fyodor Dostoyevski's The Idiot, and the title of this post: "Beauty will save the world." We need not only find beauty in the expected places, but in everyday life as well.  And we must find that beauty in order to survive, because without it, what is life for?

So you might have noticed that the style of this post is little different.  More serious, probably with better grammar, and maybe it even seems pretentious, but this is how I feel right now, and for me, this blog is mostly just a diary of my life abroad that the whole world can read.  So please, forgive the bad-attempt-at-Zen attitude this week!

A scary/intriguing abandoned train station we came across

Some miscellaneous items:  

1) Before leaving for Montevideo, I went to a movie theater that the Argentine government subsidizes, so tickets cost just $1.50 for students.  I went with a friend from my program, and after arriving at the cinema we had to choose whether to see "Paka Paka" or something with "end of the world" in the title.  Clearly, we chose the latter, and found that the full title was Hermanitos del fin del mundo.  When I requested a ticket for this movie, the ticket guy shot me the most confused look, so I confirmed that this was the movie that started at 4:15.  My friend asked if I was a good movie, but the man just shrugged and said he hadn't seen it.  Thoroughly perplexed, we went to the theater, and as we waiting for the movie to begin, we noticed that every person that entered the theater was under the age of eight or with someone under the age of eight.  It turns out that "Little Brothers at the End of the World" is a children's movie set in Tierra del Fuego (hence the end of the world bit).  To top it off, it was also a musical, and a badly acted and performed one at that.  Needless to say, it won't be a contender for the Best Foreign Film   Oscar, but at least it was easy to follow and provided me with a good extranjero story.

"You have a weapon, you have a problem."
Things are different here.

2) In three short weeks, I've changed a lot.  I am a calmer person because I've been forced to be okay with not being in control of what happens around me.  Additionally, my perspective on the world and my identity has shifted, though not in the ways I had anticipated.  The most striking thought I have had is that despite the fact that I've always strongly identified myself as an American (though I was not always conscious of how much so), nationality is completely arbitrary.  I never chose to be born in America, and the choice to never leave there had never truly been left up to me.  It might sound silly, but after talking to Argentines and Uruguayos, I understand that we are all really the same in a way that I hadn't before.  What really separates you for someone from another country? Language and culture, maybe, but as I'm finding, that is something that can be learned.  So I've begun to question the entire premise of borders and nations and national identity, and I know that I sound like a hippie and a communist but I don't care.  For now, I still consider myself an American, but my acceptance of the idea that it might not always be that way has been interesting.  Who knows, maybe I'll just tell people I'm a "student of the world" when they ask me where I'm from.

3) Border security between Argentina and Uruguay is absolutely nothing.  I walked through a metal detector and set it off because I was wearing a belt, and no one insisted on a cavity search! In fact, no one even stopped me!  So much for TSA.  And a Londoner I met in the hostel told me that he had unwittingly been an illegal immigrant in Argentina for eight months because his visa had expired.  No one deported him, and his only punishment was that he had to pay a 300 peso (US$75) fine.  It is insane how differently Americans and Argentines think about borders and immigration, and though I know there are many differences in their respective immigration situations, the more relaxed, welcoming, and tolerant way of South America appeals to me more.

4) I started classes today.  I'll have more about life at UBA in a later post, but I can tell you a few things after just a day.  UBA has been nothing like the organizational disaster that it was described to me as.  My two professors today were both very friendly, made a point to welcome the exchange students, and spoke slowly and clearly for our benefit.  One professor emailed everyone the week's reading (unexpectedly), and included a version in English! I'm going to read it first in Spanish, but since I can really only understand 40% of political theory written in English, it can't hurt to have the option.  The building is nothing like you would find at Pomona, but is also not the rathole that I had expected.  Although it was humorous that flyers praising the merits of the new building (by new I mean different) that the political science department has this year said "The bathrooms are clean, and sometimes even have soap!"  Additionally, when my professor flipped to light switch to brighten the room, nothing happened, and everyone reacted nonchalantly.  My first class had only about 20 students, 5 of which were exchange students from American liberal arts colleges, and my second class, with about 40 total, had maybe 10 from the US.  As a first-day safety blanket, I sat with the American kids, but starting tomorrow I plan to shun them and try to make Argentine friends.  The incredible thing is that UBA is completely free, and seems to have impressive academics, with great professors and small classes.  Add this to the free and universal health care they have here, and I'm trying to figure out what we're doing wrong in the United States. *typical liberal American response*

PICTURES!!!

The thing reminiscent of a Soviet-era bomb shelter
at the end of the magical pier

A fountain where lovers go to immortalize
their devotion.  Urban version of carving
your names into a tree

An enormous chivito, a traditional Uruguayan sandwich made with
beef, ham, bacon, egg, and about 3 pounds of condiments

A cool statue and building in Montevideo

Alex and Mary por siempre

Beginnings of a panorama of the view from the end of the dock.
A brave attempt, but a failed one.

A very colorful corner market

Sorry for the awful formatting.  If you have tips on how to do it better, or tips on anything really, drop me a comment!

Next week, I swear I'll have some photos of Buenos Aires for you to contrast these with.  Until then, hasta luego!

PS Completely unrelated, but does someone that has Watch the Throne get it to me somehows??

Cómo se dice, "homesick"?

I've never been homesick before.  Not when I went to college for the first time, and not when I lived in San Francisco by myself this summer.  Of course I occasionally missed home/Pomona and people in both places, but nothing I would characterize as "homesick."  In fact, I never really knew what that meant.  Well now I do.  Homesickness is when everything about a new place makes you irrationally irritated and several times a day you find yourself wishing you could just go back.  But I can't go back, at least not until December, so I'll deal with it and hopefully regain my positive outlook on my time in Buenos Aires.  In case you're wondering, here are some things that annoyed me on a recent afternoon:

1) Why is it winter here? I don't care about science and how the Earth's spherical shape creates hemispheres with opposite seasons, it's JULY, dammit, and it shouldn't be 8 degrees Celsius!

2) WHO UNDERSTANDS CELSIUS?! NOT ME.  All I know is that 8 degrees Celsius is real cold.

3) Why am I always lost? Yeah, I eventually find my way home, but sometimes it takes 10 minutes of standing on a corner deciphering my bus guide and 15 minutes walking to the stop for the bus that I thought was closest but almost certainly wasn't.  And then 10 minutes waiting for the bus, all in 8 degree Celsius weather! (FYI, 8 degrees Celsius is somewhere around 45 degrees Fahrenheit)

4) Where is the American food?  Yeah, the food here is mostly delicious.  But it's ALL THE SAME.  Seriously, half of my meals have been pizza or empanadas, or some combination thereof.  I just want some vegetables, yo! I'm pretty sure my body hates me for the lack of nutrients it has been getting lately.  Out of frustration I had a PB&J (PB and J both brought from home) and a glass of milk for lunch a few days ago, although the taste of the bread kind of overpowered everything else.  You see, my host family makes their own bread, but it doesn't especially taste good (I'm hoping that the blandness indicates some sort of nutritional value... maybe?)

5) Why does everyone speak Spanish all the time? Seriously, this is getting old.

6) On the real, I haven't been exercising much (it's hard to find a gym that I like, okay!), but after a day of trying to understand a foreign language nonstop, I'm completely exhausted.

Part of the problem might be that I've sorta been a bum the last week.  Orientation is over now, so I don't have much motivation to leave my bed.  I hate to admit this, but I spend over half of the day in my room sleeping or on the Internet.  Last night I fell asleep at 10pm, woke up at midnight to brush my teeth and change my clothes, then slept until 11am this morning.  But this is also a bit of a chicken-and-egg dilemma; I don't leave my house because I don't know what to do once I leave my house, but I don't know what there is to do here because I haven't left my house.  I'm blaming it on the weather, which is additional incentive to hermitize.

I know that everything will be better in a few weeks, after I start classes, become more familiar with the city, the culture, and the language, and hopefully make a few friends.  To do this, I'm planning to join an ultimate frisbee team here.  We'll see how that goes, because most of the Argentines with whom I've talked about ultimate have no clue what it is.  But since ultimate will be only once a week, I might also join a fútbol team, though I haven't played soccer since I was 8.

In other news, I finally chose some classes.  Ultimately I will only need to take 3 classes (or 2 if I end up getting an internship), but for now I'm enrolled in 4.  They are:

Argentina Reciente II (1983-1999) - Recent political history of Argentina
Historia Latinoamericana 
Capitalismo, socialismo, y revolución social contemporánea
Análisis Político: Conflicto y Cooperación en Latinoamérica


As you can tell, I'm eager to learn about the history, politics, and social dynamics of this country and Latin America in general. I'm sure I will learn a ton, but I'm also sure that there is no way I will keep up to date with 100% of my schoolwork, at least while I'm in 4 classes.  The double-whammy of having to learn in a foreign language of which I currently only have a basic grasp and the desire to enjoy my time in a new city ensures that I will probably spend most of the first months barely hanging on.  But that's the point of study abroad, right?

The kids returned yesterday from their weeklong winter vacation to their grandma's house.  It's nice to have them back, because I have two little monsters with whom I can pretend to be dragons.  They still don't know/can't pronounce my name, but I'm hoping we'll get there soon.  Moira explained to me today that it's my fault, because my name is hard to pronounce, while hers is easy.  I think she's pretty close to getting it, though; today she called me something along the lines of Rum.

It's cat mating season, as my host mom informed me.  My window faces several rooftops where cats like to chill after dark.  Not much else to say about that.

A cat chillaxin' in Cementerio Recoleta

There are also tons of cats that live in el Cementerio Recoleta, a cemetery where famous Argentines, ex-presidents, and military heroes are buried.  Well not so much buried... The cemetery is filled with beautiful tiny buildings made of marble, inside of which the caskets are located, with glass windows for viewing.  It's a bit disconcerting to walk past and actually see the casket which presumably has a dead body inside (or whatever remains of the body).  The cats just roam around in the cemetery, and it's on the whole a very bizarre experience.

So when we got here the program paired everyone up with a tutor.  Surely they explained their purpose, but I was either not listening or just not understanding Spanish.  Anyways, I assumed from his title that Rodrigo would be helping me to figure out my classes.  To my surprise, he scoffed when I asked if he also studied political science at UBA.  "No," he said, "I'm a musician!"  Being thoroughly confused, I resorted to my mode of late: Act like you understand and maybe you will.  Probably not, but maybe.

I eventually learned that my tutor was actually just a young guy that Middlebury pays to be my friend.  The good thing is that it doesn't seem like he's getting paid, but rather he seems to actually enjoy teaching me what young folks do here.  Rodrigo is friends with two other guys' tutores, so on Saturday all six of us when to a party at their friend's apartment.  Being musicians, they have lots of hipster artist friends, and the party felt straight out of a scene from Woody Allen's recent film Midnight in Paris.  There was a girl chain-smoking in corner while painting, and after a period of socializing, a jam session broke out.  Our tutores are fantastic Spanish guitar players, it turns out, and it was an amazing scene to see such incredible talent concentrated in one room.  There were more guitars, bongo drums, and singing, at it was all indescribably beautiful.  These are the kind of Argentine friends I need.

I have no pictures to post this time, because I never have my camera with me.  This is mostly because I'm absent-minded, but also because I'm afraid of getting my camera snatched.  Once I understand better where I will and won't get things stolen, I'll be taking more pictures.  I'm going across the Río de la Plata to Uruguay with some friends from my program for our last few days before school starts.  I promise to have pictures of that adventure next time!

¡Chau, amigos!

PS to those of you who have facebook chatted, emailed, and video chatted me, I appreciate it! Seriously, there is nothing I appreciate more than real friends who understand me.  Keep it up, and if I haven't talked to you yet, let's do so soon.  And although you might think your silly American life isn't exciting compared to mine in a foreign country, know that I still care!  Let me know how you're doing!