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Published: August 27th 2006
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HAPPY 21st (and one day) TOREN JOHNSON! Some observations on what makes Buenos Aires... Buenos Aires:
1. EVERYTHING can be delivered to your apartment (video, food, café con leche, etc)
2. Night life STARTS at 1:00 a.m. (that means dinner at 10 or 11 p.m.)
3. I feel un-stylish in this city - people who can afford it, REALLY know how to dress.
4. Laundromats do not exist - but laundry services do (that’s right, washed, dried, and folded).
5. There are a LOT of dogs. And they like to leave a lot of presents on the sidewalks. Dog-walking is a serious profession.
6. Some stores are open “25 hours a day”… haven’t quite figured that one out yet…
7. This is a very class-conscious society. For example, there are poorer families from the outer villages (or “villas”) that come into the city at night to sort through the trash and collect all plastics and papers that they can sell or reuse in their villages. When my host mom puts out the trash, she separates the garbage in one bag and the reusables in another so it is easier for the families to sort through.
8. Getting texts for
classes consists of hoping you heard right when the professor mumbled the name of the photocopy store, one of the twenty that line the street outside the university building, then waiting in a line for half an hour with your classmates to get the text for next week’s class…hopefully. That is if the copy center isn’t too busy to fill your order.
9. The stop lights flash the yellow light twice; once after the green light, and once after the red light (AKA: slow down = yellow = also get ready to go again). Pedestrians beware.
Ok, so I went on another adventure outside the city. It was really a spur-of-the-moment decision, because my friend Joanna really wanted to be out in the countryside to begin celebrating her birthday. We bussed-it again, this time only 8 hours, to the wonderful town of Sierra de la Ventana. It was a quiet town, surrounded by hills and mountains, most notably the Cierro de la ventana (Mountain of the Window) which has a rock formation at its peak that resembles a window. We made many friends and hope to return when things warm up again.
In other news, I attempted to
Very politically active Buenos Aires...
this is actually at the Plaza de Mayo, which they now keep permanently divided in half by those black separaters so that protestors do not storm the Casa Rosada on the other half of Plaza de Mayo. salsa dance a few weekends ago, at this Caribbean-influenced “boliche” (dance club/bar) called Azucar. I went with my new friend Sebastian (who is from Ecuador, but came to BA to study) and my friend Tulio (originally from Brazil, but in my same study abroad program). I don’t know if I was necessarily successful, but I definitely mastered the technique of looking like I really knew what I was doing (step around a lot and spin when necessary).
Beyond mountains and salsa, this week was very busy because on top of my courses I went to visit several NGOs. I am taking a Service Learning course through FLACSO where I will do volunteer work for a local non-profit, so we went and had meetings at the organizations this week. I went to as many meetings as I possibly could, because I was so interested in what the organizations were like and what they were up to, not to mention wanting to work for a few in particular. On Wednesday I went to three places. First, I went to one called HelpArgentina. It is “bridge” organization for 58 argentine non-profits, in the sense that it fundraises and distributes those funds to
El choque urbano
A percussion-theater work that is somewhat like Buenos Aires version of Stomp that I saw two weeks ago. the organizations, which could be anything from food banks to Women’s rights groups. There are a couple twenty-something Americans on the staff of this org, and it’s a really young a fun office. Second, I visited Barrio Mitre - which is a community center in a poorer part of Buenos Aires, where kids can come after school for tutoring and snacks. The volunteer there would be doing activities and games to practice English with the kids. Third, I went to Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza of Mayo). These are the women who began marching around the main plaza of Buenos Aires after their children (mostly young college students and activists) began “disappearing” during the Dirty War of the 1960s and 70s, where government officials killed thousands to silence the opposition. This was a very moving visit. A woman who is a sister of a “desperecido” recounted a brief history of the Madres and the Dirty War, and she showed us the archives we would be working with - the actual posters and photos of the desperecidos that the Madres held as the marched around the plaza. Something interesting that I learned is that there are
now two separate “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo.” The separated in the 80s because one group wanted to accept money from political organizations to support the group, and the other wanted to remain neutral and raise their own funding. We visited the latter group. The other Madres are the ones that are most often in the limelight of the press, as they have accepted funds from the UN Human Rights project (?), and have come out in support of some very controversial political groups, such as ETA of Spain. Although they have their differences, both Madres groups still reunite every Thursday at 3:30 to march around the plaza. This year there has been some major progress towards seeking justice, as the two major amnesty laws, put in place to protect officials after the dirty war, were overturned - that is, officials can be taken to trial now. I also visited an org called FEIM (Foundation for the Study and Investigation of Women), which works on bringing thorough sex education to schools and poor “villas” and keeping reproductive rights in the public discourse by writing editorial pieces and organizing conferences. Just in case you were wondering… Abortion is illegal in
El Asado
The guides of the park invited us over to have an "asado" in the park museum attached to their home. Nothing like eating grilled sausage, intestines, and kidney amongst displays of dead snakes, armadillos, and birds! Argentina, except in cases where a mentally disabled woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape (theses cases have been in the news a lot lately). Contraceptives are free and available in all medical centers, and emergency contraceptives are legal but not free. The last org that I visited was Casa Del Niño (Children’s House) which is a day center for children who live in the southern outskirt “villas” of greater Buenos Aires. This place had such a great energy about it, and as a volunteer here, we would have the opportunity to run our own weekly workshop on anything from personal hygiene to teen discussion groups to theater class. As you can see, all of these organizations are amazing, which makes my decision extremely difficult because I can see myself at each one of them. But I want to interview with HelpArgentina first because there is only 1 spot open for a volunteer, and I think that could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to get involved with that kind of international non-profit.
This weekend I have just been relaxing in the city. We had a dinner with two other host families on Friday and we were
World Tango Competition
This week was the World Tango Competition, which drew dancers from all over Argentina but also Japan, Columbia, Mexico, France, Finland, New Zealand and more. I went with Joanna on Thursday night to see the Semifinals of the Tango Escenario (which is flashier than Tango Salon) and we just so happened to get front row seats! Absolutely amazing. supposed to cook some sort of American food to bring along so I made pretty tasty strawberry shortcake. Yesterday I went out to dinner for my friend Joanna’s birthday to this amazing restaurant called “Te Mataré Ramirez” (I’ll Kill You Ramirez) which looked like a romantically-lit jewelry box inside and served utterly delicious food with some very creative names to highlight its aphrodisiac qualities - don’t worry, this was girls’ night out. It was one of those restaurants where you felt like you were on a movie set and one of those meals that you will never forget.
Well, it sounds like summer is coming to a close up there, as I am beginning to receive the usual overload of Scripps administration emails about this and that on campus, and I hear rumors that the blackberries are out on the island… Enjoy the last bits of summer for me and write me when you find a free moment.
All my love,
Maggie
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Lori Jackson
non-member comment
interesting travels
Maggie, It sounds like you are having an awesome time. Uncle Allen and I picked up Mary Alice and Harry last Sunday from their respective camps, Carl came home on Tuesday and left yesterday to start Junior year at Kenyon. Harry and Mary Alice start school on Wednesday. If you have any good advice for a cousin looking for a college to attend let Harry know.Talk about fast turn arounds. It is nice to have had everyone together even if for just 3 days. Thanks for continuing to share your travels.