Hola mis amigos y mi familia!
It’s finally time to get rid of this heavy weight of guilt by filling you guys in on what’s been going on here in Buenos Aires for the past several months. I know that most of you haven’t heard a squeak of news from me, so I’ll do my best at giving you a quick run-through of my experience so far.
I’ll start off by telling you that the food is very good ( I’d die for spices though)—let’s face it, we are all humans and that’s pretty much the first thing that comes to mind when faced with another culture. What kind of food do they eat there?? Keep in mind, this isn’t Central America, so no, I’m not drinking tropical cocktails and tacos near the beach nor have I had rice or beans for dinner every night like in Brazil. Buenos Aires is considered the “Paris of Latin America”—meaning, it’s a very eclectic city culturally, linguistically, architecturally, and food wise.
Each morning I wake up to a fresh cup of café con leche and medialunas (half-moons or croissant pastries). If I’m feeling really ambitious, I’ll add in a banana with dulce de leche. You’ll never encounter a family without this delicious, caramel sauce in their fridge. In fact, I’ve learned to make just about anything taste amazing with this stuff…anything. Lunch usually consists of another high-carb meal such as tartas (which are like pot pies), sandwich with ham and cheese (sooo much ham..good luck finding turkey, haven’t spotted any so far), pizza..looots of pizza, empanadas (hot pocket type deals with an assortment of fillings: beef, cheese and spinach, corn, etc.), or a pasta dish (you name it, they master it). Dinner (once it finally rolls around at about 9 or 10pm) is typically milanesa (breaded and fried beef or chicken), tortilla (mix between an omelet and quiche), canelones (crepes filled with cheese and spinach and topped with a creamy sauce-delish!), and on special occasions..ASADO (Argentine bbq) which consists of incredible cuts of meat (mostly beef, but also chicken and pork). Usually the meat has so much natural flavor that no condiments besides a little salt are served along with it. Asados are great for the weekends when friends and family have time to gather on their apartment terraces for hours to just sit around, relax, drink some beer, and munch. Rest assure, I am in no way starving or being forced to eat weird insects (well..I once tried cow stomach and blood sausage)..just don’t be surprised if I return home shaped as a loaf of bread…seriously.
Let’s just talk about meat for a second here. This is Argentina’s pride and joy. Argentina, like Kansas in many ways, is covered in agricultural terrain called El Campo. This is where ranchers and gauchos (Argentine cowboys that ride around on horses with berets and cloaks) grow wheat, corn, soy, and raise sheep, pigs, and cattle. Best thing to avoid when conversing with an Argentine is the topic of whose meat tastes better…it gets more heated than a political discussion at the dinner table. Part of that has to do with the fact that everyone and their mom wants to kill the president, Christina Kirchner..claiming that she’s ruined the government and has robbed the nation…that just goes as an unspoken rule of logic, no need to discuss.Argentines are a very emotional and vocal bunch, which can be very entertaining..you are guaranteed to see a protest of some from each day. Whether or not it’s an angry passenger waiting for the bus or a group of farmers complaining about export & import taxation on agricultural goods or low wages and camping outside of the Casa Rosada (equivalent to our White House-located near my university). Regardless, Argentine meat is best….no protesting necessary.
My host family is wonderful. I’ll have to admit that the beginning was a little bit shocking just because learning to live with eight other people in an apartment in a big, foreign city was such a lifestyle change. Now, I can’t even think about leaving the arrangement and going back to the states (no offense, Kansas friends and family). It’s just been fun always having someone around to keep me company when I am home whether or not it’s my youngest host sister, Mechi, whose wanting to use my make-up and take pictures of herself with my I-cam, the two middle sisters Josephina or Carolina showing me a dance moves from High School Musical, my host brothers Martin and Caito sharing jokes and slang words, or the oldest, Magda telling me what’s in for girls our age and what’s not . My host mom, Magdalena, spends a lot of her time working as a manager of a little boutique nearby called, London Tie, but when she’s home, she’s usually cleaning, preparing the house for foreign guests, or discussing politics and culture with me in the kitchen. My host dad, Carols, who works in insurance, is a great father figure who’s always a plethora of information, especially when it comes to mapping out directions around the city or traveling throughout the country. All together, the family is very functional—which is amazing to me. Believe me, there are constant disputes that rupture out of no where, blast throughout the complex, and simmer down into a laughter fest after a good joke or two—it’s the norm, especially at dinner all together. Even though I am very aware of the fact that I am a mere renter who really doesn’t speak a lot of Spanish, I feel that I’ve at least made some lifetime friends here—a family away from home…and there’s really not much else to ask for.
I lucked out with the whole host stay situation, actually. I’m living in an apartment in one of the chic, safe ‘barrios’ or neighborhoods called Recoleta and right on the corner of main streets that are very centralized and convenient for walking around the city or for finding ‘subte’ (subway) and ‘colectivo’ (bus) transit stops around to other parts of the city. It’s an area with a lot of beautiful European-styled buildings, and endless amount of pricy restaurants, boutiques, cafes, parks, churches, and banks. I’m also not far from museums and open market areas, which is completely hassle free—especially since some of my closest friends on the program live on a few blocks away. What are the odds? Pure luck.
When I am not at home during the week, I’m normally at or around my university (Universidad Catolica de Argentina-UCA) in another ‘barrio’ called Puerto Madero. It’s about an hour walk or a 30 minute bus ride away, and also another chic part of the city that’s used to be the industrial area near the river, but has been converted into an upscale, ridiculously expensive, residential area with more modern, American styled buildings and restaurants…there’s even a Hooters and a TGIF, just in case I get really nostalgic…never! The hamburgers and fries off of the street and in the Argentine restaurants are much tastier and are much cheaper…keep in mind, we’ve got about 3.20 pesos to each dollar working in our favor as foreigners, so everything seems affordable until we realize that we’ve overestimated the value of cash as well as the necessity for things such as more empanadas and cerveza throughout the day.
My university is considered very preppy and stuck up, I’ve come to realize after talking to other Argentines my age, but it’s not bad. I’ve been able to tolerate the ‘chetas’ which are like Argentine sorority girls who all wear skinny jeans, Converse shoes, very long hair with flower barrettes, and smoke cigarettes incessantly while calling each other ‘che boluda’ or the preppy boys in their suits, ties, and mullets…so many mullets in this city..I still need to investigate why that is. I even got my haircut, and am convinced that the hairdresser wanted to give me a mullet when I saw how many layers were being hacked off. I had to comment before it went too far.
Anyway, I’ve got classes four days a week in several interesting topics. Right now I am taking a language course, a class about revolutions in Latin America, a literature class on Latin American Nobel Peace Prize winners (such as Mistral, Marquez, Paz, Borges,etc.), a documentary-making course, and a class about social issues and the solidarity movement in Argentina. The later two have related well and have been the most interesting for me so far. In the solidarity movement class, we normally spend one week of class in lecture, learning about all types of economic, political issues and their side effects on the different classes. On the off weeks, we visit impoverished areas and NGO’s that are helping with the major wealth disparity issues taking place in this country. A lot of the problem has to do with Argentina’s economic crisis that hit in 2001 and sent about 30% (out of about 15,500,000 in both central Buenos Aires and Gran Buenos Aires—the outskirts) of the population into severe poverty while 10% of the wealth is concentrated at the top of the pyramid—which is really where we’ve all been spending most of our time here at least with many of the families that we’ve been placed with and the friends that we hang out with.
Many of my experiences are quite different from what I expected, but I’ve definitely encountered privilege and wealth like I’ve never seen before while being here: staying in mansions near beaches in Mar del Plata, watching Polo matches, skiing in some of the most beautiful mountainous regions of Patagonia (Bariloche), traveling on the weekends, wine tours, etc. It’s a very attractive lifestyle so I can’t complain, but it’s also sometimes hard to swallow when I look around and also see so much poverty surrounding me at all times. Thousands of shantytowns with stacked shelters made out of recycled materials literally encapsulate the main part of the city, similarly to Rio de Janeiro. There are also many homeless sleeping on cardboard in the streets and children running around without guardians, selling flowers for coins. It’s a dishearting reality that I now know that people work at reducing through charity work, but there’s still so much corrupt bureaucratic leadership, economic unbalance, and over-population (illegal migration and black marketing) that some days amazing me as it continues to function.
I was so taken back by the topic that I am also working on a short documentary about the economic crisis and the ‘cartoneros’ or the people that take over the streets at night to collect recyclables from people’s garbage bags before the trash trucks roll around. You’ll literally see every type of person out in the streets digging, normally glove-less, and layering up cardboard, plastics, etc. It’s a really fascinating realization, especially since there really doesn’t seem to be much order involved in this recycling program functioning out of necessity.
Don’t be fooled by the name…Buenos Aires no tiene buen aire (Buenos Aires doesn’t has good air), which leads me to my last complaint about the city: air and noise pollution coming from the mass amount of cars and buses lining the streets. It’s a city with lots of tall buildings that act as tunnels, trapping exhaust as well as ricocheting car horns that people (especially taxi drives) shamelessly lay on during traffic jams. Aside from the trash and the poverty, this was the other difficult aspect to adapt to. I realize that life in big cities are expected to be disorganized and polluted, and that it’s easy for a Kansas girl to have a hard time with these issues, but I feel like with a little investment, attention, and effort, effective measures can be applied to cleaning this place up. This city has so much more potential, especially with its beauty, unique mix of cultures, and genuine and warm natives. I love you, Buenos Aires..don’t get me wrong.
Traveling is relatively cheap here, which has allowed me to see a lot more than I had expected. So far, I’ve been down south into Patagonia to a beautiful city called Bariloche, which was a snow-covered mountain city with beautiful, crystal lakes and some of the best, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate that’s ever landed in my mouth. This is where I had the chance to break out my ice skating moves and skied for the first time! I didn’t fall once, believe it or not.
Our group also took a day trip across the Rio de la Plata (widest river in the world..looks like an ocean) into Colonia, Uruguay. This was a really special trip where Javier actually came down from Paraguay to join me for a moped ride along the coast and throughout this quaint, cobblestone city.
Next, I traveled to a place called Mar del Plata to party like a rock star with my host brother, Caito, and his friend Felix’s family’s mansion near the beach with a great group of both Argentine and AIFS friends. It wasn’t quite the season for sun bathing, but we did have fun taking pictures of sea lions and running along the beach, snuggled up in our coats and winter boots.
I also took a weekend trip north with a couple friends to Che Guevara’s birthplace and also the soy capital of the country, Rosario. This was my first time staying in a hostel, which turned out to be really comfortable and safe. We had a good time wondering around the city, riding bikes, and being snuck into an exciting Soledad concert at one of the main theaters (she’s Argentina’s version of Selena).
I’ve also headed westward in to the wine region called Mendoza, which was a highly anticipated excursion that I took with Brooke and Jenn. We ended up going on a wine/olive oil tour on our first day and then winded through the Andes, past Incan ruins and toward the tallest mountain in the Western hemisphere, Aconcagua. We must have snapped a million photos.
Finally, my last outing was with all 30 of us AIFS students to Iguazu Falls (Las Cataratas) at the tri-border (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina). This is truly a wonder of the world with its sub-tropical jungles and 275 waterfalls. I had wanted to visit this place for the longest time..which made it pretty surreal once I was actually standing in the middle of it all. I was a little bit surprised when it rained on our tour..not just rained..downpoured. I had always imagined running through the waterfalls on a sunny day with rainbows shooting out across the sky, like I’d seen so many times in pictures. However, our experience was unique. It kind of felt like we were underneath the waterfalls the entire time, which made our boat ride seem less shocking when we actually did dip under a few of the falls. It was amazing, really, and I saw a monkey! These weren’t just waterfalls either..there’s one part of the park called “throat of the devil” which is where several waterfalls collide—watching all of that water fall down at once started to create an optical illusion that was really one of the neatest sights, ever. It was also so loud that none of us could hear eachother speak. Everyone needs to take a trip out to see this unbelievable place, I mean it..
I’ll wrap up now that I’ve tried my hardest to give you all a briefing of how life has been in South America so far. I only have another month and a half left of my trip, which really makes me teary eyed to think about, but I’m going to make the most of it. I still have to study for finals at school, travel to a few more places, and learn how to tango before I head home, so I’ll surely have plenty more to share as my days unfold.
I love you all. Besos
