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Published: August 4th 2006
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Home sweat home
The lounges are really comfortable, I´ve fallen asleep on them more than once. Well i´ve been promising people back home that i´d make a blog of what my new home is like so here it is. I´m living in a rich surburb of BA called Recoleta, think double bay for sydney. It´s a very different life to what I´m used to. We have 2 maids here, and I think that the lady that owns the place, is from a very very wealthy family. People on the streets, dress really really nice, lots of little old lady´s with fur coats to boot. The stores around here are all brand name´s, and the restraunts are top quality. Anyhow yesterday (thursday) after I finished school, I decided that I´d go out on a photo shoot, and this turned out to be very interesting. I walked around taking photo´s of the streets and people, I stopped for a bit at a cafe to ahve a beer, then went to a park, to use my telephoto, lense to scope some people off.
Anyhow i´m at this park and these homeless guys come up to me and start talking to me. At first i´m abit uneasy, because even though Recoleta is considered very very safe, I have my camera,
My Street
Full of nice apartment, but relentlesly patroled with buses. and clearly am comparitivly well off. Anyhow the guys seem nice enough, and me being the person I am, i´m keen to talk to somone how is not so well off. I ask them what they think of Hugo, Fidel ect, and the general impression I have is that they are big fans. I ask them about the unemplyment, and they tell me there is much, they also tell me that there are no social servics at all for these people. Anyhow I go to get them some food, and a couple of beers, me being the social person I am. Anyhow, we probably talked for 45mins, and I start to trust these guys, so I let my guard down. Silly me, I should have known they were doggy, when they repeatidly tried to sell me pot and coke, but ehh, it makes sense to try and sell me drugs, cus then they forsure can make a buck, or atleast a gram ehh? So I was not put off by this, because I figured it was normal. Anyhow I take some photo´s of these guys, and I keep my camera in my hand, insteed of around my neck, where I
Main St
I hate this pace, full of bullshit brandname stores, and taffic that try´s to kill me. See them linned up, just waiting to knock me down. always have it. Anyhow before I know it, one of them grabs it and starts to run. So I run after him, I´m pissed, really pissed, I was ready to bif him, and how Í grab hold of him, and try and get my camera back, he passes it to his amogos, so i chase after him, I grab him, and manage to wrestle my camera out of his hand. A close call for sure. The things that pissed me off most, is these guys seemed nice, and I trusted them, what´s more I would ahve visited them everyday, to practice my spanish, to buy them some food, to talk to pooreer people, because I´m a good guy. I care so much about the people who are have not´s, and insteed they shoot themselves in the foot. It made me really angry, but I supose they are probably desperate, so it´s understandable, but still I was hurt.
Today was a non eventful day, I went to school, came home wrote this blog. The american girls who were staying here, left this morning so I am all by my lonesome. But i´m quite enjoying it, as I´m really enjoying my
A good soul
These´s plenty of people like this about, just trying to get by, for them it´s a hard life. Pitty the rich people in fur coats, ahvn´t heard of the word empathy, I´ve seen many an unplesant look at these people, and it makes me angry. company. There´s no fights, just the same opion as me, the same desires as me, it´s very nice for a change. Although I still manage to have more than one point of veiw somehow sitll, don´t quite know how that works though lol. I think tommorow, I´ll go to La boca, somthing I´ve been meaning to do for a long time, and next weekend I´m going to uraguy for the weekend. On sunday I might try to get out of town for a day trip, but I´ll see what happens.
The people around here seem abit more cold then the rest of B.A. I must have asked a dozen, rich looking people if I could take there photo, all refused, and some of them in a hostile manour. I remember there were 2 old ladies crossing the street, I go up to them to ask if I can take a photo, even as the first word, pardon, is coming out of my mouth, one of them is almost screaming no no no, to me. I don´t know what her probelm was. Oftern I get what I percive to be cold looks from people, and rarely when I smile to
Dog walking
I see these guys all the time, walking dogs for a living, because the dogs owners are too busy drinking tea in cups woth $200bucks a pop, to walk there dogs. It´s a diffeernet life for some hey someone is that smile returned. The exception is waiters, our maids, poorer looking people, who may work here, but not live here, security guards are on of my famovoate people to smile at, because they almost always smile back. I remember once reading that, if somone does not ahve a smile, then you should give them one of yours, and I thinkit´s a great way to live. Maybe this is because the wealthy people in Argintina have had a much bigger fall from grace than the rest of the population. Many of them would have lost all there saving when the bank collapsed, and when your identity is money, and it´s taken out from you, then you loose your identity, and to loose your identiy, must have been hugly unsetling.
This concept of your identiy being money, is somthing that I´m just starting to understand, for me I supose my identy has been me, not my occupation, the house I live in, what I study, who my friends are, or last of how much moeny I have. I´m starting to relese that many people are very confused about who they are, so they use superficial things to identify themselves,
nice buildings
this is the type of buildings in recoleta because they don´t know who they are. Wouldn´t it be a better palce when people did not need nike shoes to say they are sporty, where people did not need a rolex to say they were sucsesful at busness. Where people had enough confidence in themselves, to be happy, with out the need to mindlessly consume. I read a book called, "No Logo" it´s by Naomi Klein, which I learnt in one sense about how marketing is making us insecure so that we will consume more to make ourselves feel better, and when I read it I understood, but I didn´t get it. I get it now, I get it everytime, I see an old lady miserable, because she lost all her money.... her identy, and she now doesn´t know who she is, because she is no longer rich, although she wants people to think she is. I am also now starting to see the raw fear people have of socilisim. I think socalists, need to understand that when they want to take away peoples money, because they think that they don´t need it, (which may well be the case), they must realise that they are taking away there identy.
All fun and games untill.....
i trusted these guys.... grrrr This may well be an identy that has been with there family for generations, and that this is terrifying to these people. While it might be all well and good to say, that in time the good karma, of socalisim will help them feel better, and that without marketing they will get an identy that is real, that is trully themselves, it must be remembered the fear, that this will cause. It must also be said that a person who is trully afraid, is like a tiger in a corner - not somthing to be taken lightly.
Now a note to everyone reading this, I don´t beleive that i Know anything, I have thoughts on things, not knoledge, so if you ahve different thoughts, let me know, as one day they may become mine. I hope that my opions do not cause offence to anyone, it´s jsut how i percive things, not necesaarily how thigns are.
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Maria (Gold Coast)
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Hey
Hey.. I have ben reading ur blog and have found it very interesting.. enjoy your theories and thoughts.. anyhooo... how long are u in Argentina till? I am heading there in exactly four months... ( me_rossotti@Yahoo.com ) drop me and email if you get the chance.