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Published: January 29th 2008
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Studying in Buenos Aires with Experienciaba I started out by moving to my new host family in the Belgrano suburb of BsAs near the language school. I stayed with Maria Julia and her mother who were some of the sweetest people I’d ever met! Maria Julia even tried to give me some quick guitar lessons because she’s a music teacher. Everyday I’d come home to her playing Mozart on her piano. It really was amazing.
I started daily classes for a week mostly about language and the culture. I met the people that are traveling with me on this program in La Plata. Two guys who were good friends from college, Wendy, who just graduated from Connecticut College and Jenn who graduated from Michigan State a few years ago. Everyone was really great and we went out and explored Recoleta, Palermo, La Boca and San Telmo together learning more about the history and culture of the city. We took a tango class and I couldn’t figure out which foot to cross when so none of the boys wanted to dance with me 😞 We had a party on Friday at Ariels house.
For anyone that’s interested in the
language class, its really good because they teach you what you want to be taught in terms of language and culture. Their system is very much built around your needs and they set up meetings with local businesses or non profits. We were able to me Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. For those of you that know Latin History they are one of the strongest revolutionary groups built around the disappearance of their sons during the so called dirty war.
We also go to go to a Recuperated Factory(RF) for Aluminum. An RF is a factory that was left by foreign investors after the peso crash of 2001 and when the building and equipment were taken over by the workers and run as a cooperative. It was incredible to see. They are having issues right now making ends meet because the government shut down their gas line until new updates are made. The factory was falling apart with a million safety hazards. We also got to talk to one of the women that worked their about machismo, which she said was changing but was still a fight. It was interesting through that the man that was showing
us around made sure to ignore all of the women in the group and never make eye contact with any of us.
contact Ariel or Diego at experienciaba@yahoo.com.ar
On a personal note I got to meet with Sebastian and Dotti on Friday. They own REMAX Argentina, which just opened 3 years ago and they are incredible people! Sitting down and talking to them about everything from politics to employee laws in Argentina, I learned so much! Randomly as we were sitting outside eating Ice Cream one of their friends, a VP of BP Oil came and sat with us chatting about foreign investment in the country. What an incredible night!
Orientation week in La Plata Orientation was a bit crazy and will still be going on until the end of the week. We were all staying in this cute little pension, which is kind of like a house with a lot of rooms usually rented out to students (they start in March). They have the cutest cat named Moustache
We’ve had a bunch of small classes about culture and language, We’ve helped out at a few small Comodores (small community houses where people go
Painting
Somehow I was the only to leave covered in paint for food or community activities and some even offer classes for kids) At the first one we painted the computer room and made the local paper!
. The second one was much smaller and in a much more rural area of town. This is a bad description but it reminded me of a South African township with more land between each make-shift house and randomly some had very small above ground pools in the front.
We also had an Asado (BBQ) last night which was fantastic and then went out to a small bar to play pool. Since the students aren’t back yet most things are closed 😞 I am meeting my host family (two Psychologists) tonight and moving in tomorrow! I am so excited to unpack!!!
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missing you
sounds like your having a wonderful time were jealous missing you keep on having fun love your pictures were proud of you love you