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Published: September 29th 2006
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My room
Dont worry, i put some photos on the wall after i took this picture, so it doesnt look so sterile anymore. I have my own bathroom to the right that has a window, the natural light is great, but none of the windows in the apartment look out to the street because we are enclosed on all sides by other apartment buildings. But at least its cozy! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CISCA FAXON!
Well how about I tell you guys a little more about my host family…
Maria Emilia - “Emi” - is my host mom. She works for the Comisión de Comercio Exterior (Commission for Foreign Commerce), a government-related organization that investigates specific imported products which are hurting locally produced products. Basically the investigation work builds up to eventually have a public hearing or trial of the companies involved. Emi also studied systematic psychology and is part of the Sociedad Argentina de Terapia Familiar (Argentine Society of Family Therapy) which does trainings, conferences, and panels concerning Family Therapy. Emi is very intelligent and likes to keep her daughters educated by always putting up interesting articles, poems, or cartoons on the bulletin board in the kitchen. She has a lot of great books in the living room - everything from Neruda to Poe to Che Guevara - and there are poster maps of the world and Argentina on the walls in the kitchen. Emi also likes to listen to the talk radio station at full volume in the mornings and when she cooks. She grew up in the town of Corrientes in the North and she moved to
La cocina
This is the hub of the apartment. We eat all our meals at that table, and we usually all eat together on the weekends for lunch and dinner. Buenos Aires at the age of 17 to study in UBA and live with an aunt.
Trinidad - “Trini” - (16) is your pretty standard teen. She has a boyfriend named Lucho and she likes rock music. We end up studying a lot together at the living room table and sharing a mate while we complain about how much reading we have to do for our classes.
Rosario (14) loves to download music and sing along to it in her off-tune voice while listening to it on her mini USB music player. She plays field hockey twice a week and also loves chatting with her friends online. Rosario hasn’t been getting good grades in a few of her classes so Emi made it her mission on her week off of work last week to force Rosario to do her homework. This often consisted of yelling at her to get off the computer and eventually ripping out the power cord and locking it away in her bedroom so Rosario couldn’t connect the computer.
The other drama in the house is that Emi has a boyfriend of three months, Alejandro, who Emi seemed to have kept out of their
La sala
Heres the living room and the balcony is to the right. I study at that table a lot. home life around here until two weeks ago when she asked the girls if it would be alright if he spent the night. They approved, but later Trini used this against Emi because she said that “if your boyfriend can spend the night, why can’t mine?” Hmmm... I try to stay out of the drama as much as I can, but I can’t blame Emi for lashing out sometimes because the girls do team up on her sometimes to either make fun of her or ignore what she says. In general though, things are pretty normal and cheerful around here. Some of my favorite times are when we all eat together and share a few laughs about this and that.
We live in an apartment building that is on a side street of a very busy street called Santa Fe. This is nice because the street is well lit at night and there are tons of buses and the Subte that pass through Santa Fe, but it is also dangerous because there are a lot of cute clothing and shoe stores along this street - not to mention a huge shopping mall that even has a TGI Fridays (don’t
Flamenco
Two weeks ago I went to this argentine flamenco band concert with my friend Sebas. The band was releasing their new cd. The man in front is one very expressive flamenco dancer that danced with the band. worry I haven’t gone)! I have resisted the shopping also, but its always intriguing to window shop on my way home from the Subte stop. As I’m sure is already obvious, we live in a pretty posh neighborhood of Buenos Aires, but despite the location, a lot of the apartments on our street are working families, middle class who don’t live particularly extravagantly. We live about 5 blocks from a small park (which has a lot of dogs and small children) and about 15 blocks from the main parks of Buenos Aires (which have a rose garden, reflection ponds, a Japanese garden and a lot of couples cuddling in the grass). I’m about a 15 minute Subte ride from the center or “congreso” district of Buenos Aires (where the Casa Rosada and the Plaza de Mayo are). Everything is pretty accessible from my apartment - a fruit stand, bakery, kiosko/locutorio/cybercafé, two laundry services, grocery store, pharmacy, photo lab, Italian restaurant, and two cafes are all on my same block - and that’s not even mentioning anything on Santa Fe!
Random observation about apartment buildings in general here: you have to unlock the main entrance door to enter AND to leave.
I’m getting into a normal routine here - things have settled down a lot, and now I feel like I’m just living my normal life here. That’s not to say that things aren’t interesting, I just feel like I’m finally settled in. And don’t worry Em, your little sister is definitely taking advantage of the night life Buenos Aires has to offer - maybe not as well as you could, but I do go out on the weekends 😊 My internship at HelpArgentina is going well. I’ve been doing mostly office administrative stuff - Excel sheets, making certificates for donors, perfecting translations etc. But the HelpArgentina Night 2006 was last Thursday and they estimated that 2,000 people in 12 countries were participating in a dinner party in support of HelpArgentina or one of its member organizations. We had an after work party in the office and I met a lot of the foreign volunteers working in the member organizations through the Insight Argentina program. There were a lot of Europeans and I made friends with three girls who just arrived from Denmark and were being set up to volunteer at a day center for kids in a poorer neighborhood of Buenos Aires. I even had my own little HelpArgentina night on Saturday with my own friends to benefit a photography program for teenagers (Ruth: the same general idea as Aver School!) which is called PH15 and based in a poor “villa” on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
Other random fact: Argentina has a day for everything - Day of the Friend, Day of the Child, Day of the Student, and I even saw a commercial the other day advertising for Day of Your First Love… hmmm. Well, we had Day of the Student last Thursday, September 21, which is also the first day of spring, and guess how they celebrate it… they give the students a day off! It was great; everyone goes to the parks and has a picnic with friends!
Nothing else is really new other than I had my first midterm, which was in my Latin American Social Geography class - I studied and learned a lot, but felt like the questions didn’t allow me to show what I had learned - we’ll see how that turns out! And I joined a gym last night - I think the 10pm dinner schedule was getting to me, not to mention all the tasty treats there are here! The gym itself is pretty comparable to those in the states - with treadmills facing TVs, all sorts of weights machines, etc - but just on a smaller scale (you have to sign up on the list to get your 25 minutes on one of the 5 treadmills). I am nervous/excited to go the classes they offer - I think I’ll stay away from Ritmos Latinos as I don’t think I have ritmo let alone a latino one, but I could definitely give “Body Combat” a shot!
Well today I went on a tour of the wonderful art museums of the city and tonight I’m going to a concert with the Denmark girls. Life is good, and I hope it is for all of you too. Oh, one last random thought: while looking up the word “zigzaguear” (yes, it does mean “to zig zag”) in my dictionary the other day, I randomly stumbled upon the word for blackberry - its zarzamora…cool, huh? My gift for my host family was blackberry jam made on Bainbridge, so that definitely would have been useful a month ago when the jam was still around - oh well!
Let me know how life is in your world...
Del otro lado del mundo,
Maggie
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Dad
non-member comment
Spring
It is nice to hear you are getting into Spring. We are enjoying a glorious end of summer here on Bainbridge, knowing that it will end soon. Spring sounds awfully nice. Great description of your daily life. Love, Dad