29/9/2012
So, I'll need to
backtrack at some point and talk about some of the other cool things
I've done and seen while I've been here, but for this post I want to
write about my recent visit to Arrecifes while it's still fresh in my
mind. Warning: this post is long and contains a LOT of pictures. If
you hate that kind of thing, ESCAPE WHILE YOU STILL CAN. Anyway:
Arrecifes is a town of about 30,000 people located about two hours
west of the city of Buenos Aires, but it's still in the province of
Buenos Aires. Typically our program visits an area in the province of
Santa Fe for several days of a rural homestay, but this time we ended
up going to Arrecifes instead for a variety of reasons. The point of
telling you that there was a change is that Arrecifes has never
hosted a group of students from the US (and our token Austrian)
before, so we were basically treated like rock stars.
Tuesday
morning, after the holiday on Monday (no one knows WHY there was a
holiday, nor do they really care, people just hung out and went to
the park and had asados (barbeqes)) we left from our school in BA at 8:30am
and took the bus to Arrecifes. I spent the bus ride hanging out with
our homestay coordinator Julieta, who's only 2 years older than me
(most of the students in my group are 20, the oldest other than me is
22. Sigh.) talking about development and rural provinces of
Argentina. We chatted about the northern provinces and how they are
very poor and still have a large indigenous community, and how the
large farms and businesses that employ children are the same ones
that fund educational programs for children and teach them that child
labor isn't a problem.
Eh?
We arrived in
Arrecifes at a little after 11, at an Escuela Agropecuaria, which
basically means a farm school. If you're familiar with Hawthorne
Valley you have kind of an idea, except this school is more into the
technical aspects of farming and they have a lot of shop classes and
stuff, and if you stay two years longer than the required length of
high school you get a technical degree. It was COLD this week, and
I'm pretty sure all of us were basically asleep in our cold, cold
chairs for the first lesson which was about the history of Arrecifes,
so I'm sorry I can't really tell you a whole lot about that, though I
do know they're kinda famous for car racing. After that lesson (ish)
we were fed a few boxes of empanadas and we went on a tour of the
school. Have you ever had a few hundred kids go crazy if you wave to
them? I have! These kids were SO immensely excited to meet us. I've
never been kissed on the cheek so many times in my life, and I've
never had to so rapidly learn so many names. After we went on a tour
of the farm and saw all of the animals (see below for details), we
were accosted (in the friendliest way possible) with requests for our
email addresses and facebook pages, and asked about ten million
questions by the students.
BABY COW
MORE BABY COW
BABY PIG
MEG AND BABY PIG
BABY BUNNY
AUDREY AND BABY BUNNY
This ridiculous bunny is inside of its feed container.
Rockstar Jose giving out his facebook deets
The milking shed
After our experience
at the school, it was time to go hang out with our homestay families.
Meg and I were rooming together, cause we don't really do that whole
eating adorable pigs or cows thing, and our host-mom Sandra was one
of the teachers at the school, so she introduced us to her daughters
Fiama and Asstrid and sent us home in the car with them, where Meg
and I were promptly mocked for using our seatbelts. Fiama is 22
(almost 23, as she assured me several times) and Asstrid is 17, so I
was pretty surprised when we picked up Asstrid's 9 month old son
(Theo) from the daycare that her cousin runs. Asstrid is soooo 17,
she acts like basically every other 17 year old girl in the world,
except occasionally while she's in the middle of singing along to a
cumbia remix of Adele, she breastfeeds her kid.
On a wall outside of Asstrid and Fiama's house
We also had a
homestay brother and homestay dad, but honestly I never really caught
either of their names, which I still feel super bad about. On our way
back to the house, we went past a panaderia (bakery) called La Espiga
de Oro which Fiama told me had the best pastries in town, and when I
expressed a little interest we did a u-turn she brought us in and
purchased a GIANT bag of all different kids of pastries. I had 4 of
them, despite not being hungry. No regrets. We hung out in the house
for a while and drank mate with Asstrid and Fiama and Fiama's bff
Anita, and then we walked the three blocks over to the house where
Kaitlyn and Audrey were staying. They had FIVE DOGS. Also there was a
glow-in-the-dark rosary on Audrey's bed, which is kind of amazing.
Fiama and Asstrid
invited us over to Asstrid's friend's house for dinner, which took
Meg and I about 20 minutes to understand for some reason, so after we
went back and hung out with the rest of the host family for a bit we
headed over to their friend's place at about 9pm. We stopped on the
way to buy pizza for Meg and I, because they were all grilling meat,
and when we got there it turned out that four of the guys from our
program were there as well. We all agreed that we were only going to
speak Spanish the rest of the time in Arrecifes, because no one there
really understands English, with a few exceptions. The kids do take
English classes in school, but it's two hours or less a week, so they
know a few basics but most of them really can't have a functional
conversation or follow what we're saying if we speak English, so it's
really rude to do it. Our catch-phrase of the rest of the trip was
CASTELLANO, POR FAVOR if we busted anyone for speaking English. This
was especially funny to yell at the kids from Arrecifes if they said
anything to us in English, obviously.
These kids were
hilarious, they were all in high school except for Fiama, and high
school boys are ridiculous so we obviously learned a lot more dirty
words, and we got to see high-schoolers argue about politics which
was greatly amusing to me, at least. We were asked so many questions
about the US (which Fiama was SO embarrassed about, but I assured her
it was fine), like why do people get annoyed by the term 'Yankee',
what does this or that song mean, where were we on 9/11/2001, how do
you say 'dickhead' in English (sorry Mom and Nana), etc. It was
really interesting hearing the stuff they were curious about, plus it
made it easier for us to ask them questions. Fiama and Asstrid also
told me that I should do my month-long research project in Arrecifes,
so I could come back and stay with them again.
The next day was a
kind of holiday/festival of sorts. Everyone went to Plaza Mitre, the
main plaza in the center of “downtown” and EVERY schoolchild in
the city was there, plus a band. There were all kinds of booths about
different social justice issues like HIV education and animal abuse
in circuses, and the kids painted a ton of different murals, each
about a different topic, in the square across from the plaza.
We thought that there was going to be some kind of structured activity, but we just wandered around and hung out with everyone (still totally rock-star status) for about three hours and then had a picnic in the park. After getting our photos taken with probably every child in Arrecifes, we went to the town museum, which I really loved. It was a small building and had no really coherent theme (history of the town and stuff about the racing obviously, but also some kind of random art and a paleontology section, plus a collection of antique irons).
We thought that there was going to be some kind of structured activity, but we just wandered around and hung out with everyone (still totally rock-star status) for about three hours and then had a picnic in the park. After getting our photos taken with probably every child in Arrecifes, we went to the town museum, which I really loved. It was a small building and had no really coherent theme (history of the town and stuff about the racing obviously, but also some kind of random art and a paleontology section, plus a collection of antique irons).
Nacho and the sloth
Meg and Nacho
The styrofoam and scotch tape situation is kinda ghetto, but you've gotta make the best of things!
Two-headed calf
Hats and stuff!
Why NOT antique irons?
It's fun to pretend you're in a train station when you aren't.
Kids on a field trip
Fake bar
Bionic Hombre
Once I found out there was a town song (el himno de Arrecifes) I made
Asstrid and her friend to sing it to me, which was pretty great.
Asstrid had a giant crush on Stephan from our group so she got me to
strategically take photos of them together, which I've been
instructed to email to her so that she can show them off to her
friends.
Feliz Primavera!
Perros
Primavera!
La Iglesia
Nosotras en Plaza Mitre. I borrowed Asstrid's coat cause it was COLD.
After the museum we
were supposed to have tour of the city, but since we'd already
wandered around a bunch we went down to the river and to an abandoned
mill to take pictures, and to see a bunch of wild horses stampede
when they heard a motorcycle. Obviously that part had to be pretty
carefully planned.
For the evening, Meg and I hung out with Audrey and Kaitlyn at the house for a bit and then we had dinner with our host-families and had kind of an early night, we were all a little wiped after spending the entire day walking around in the sun.
The Mill
Still the mill
STAMPEDE
Stampede with Arrecifes in the background
For the evening, Meg and I hung out with Audrey and Kaitlyn at the house for a bit and then we had dinner with our host-families and had kind of an early night, we were all a little wiped after spending the entire day walking around in the sun.
The next morning
(Thursday) we ostensibly had to be at school at 8am, but the bus with
all the other students showed up at the house at 8:45 which I was
totally ok with. Also, as a side-note, my host family in Arrecifes
and my host-mom in BsAs are so amused by the fact that I have habits
like an Argentinean person, in that I typically eat dinner after 10pm
and don't really eat anything for breakfast except sometimes on the
weekends. This is very confusing for them because they're all
convinced that all Americans eat a pile of eggs and bacon and
pancakes for breakfast every day and that we all eat dinner at 6pm
while watching TV.
Anyway, we headed
into school and had two back-to-back classes about the state of
agriculture in Argentina. The government here has decided that in
order to keep food prices down, farmers can't export wheat, they have
to sell it within the country, so in response a lot of farmers began
growing soy. Today soy is one of the biggest crops in Argentina, and
more and more farmers are switching over to soy cultivation, for a
variety of reasons. Argentina obviously has a history of colonialism,
and until relatively recently, only 400 families owned all the land
in the country (and man, it's a pretty big country). As a result,
most farming was, and is, done on a sharecropping system. For a long
time sharecroppers would rent the land they used for three years at a
time, but under the Peron government in the 50s, all of the contracts
were extended so that people could stay on the land they cultivated.
Our professor Fernando's grandparents lived under this system, and
when the government in the 1980s changed this system and allowed
land-owners to remove the sharecroppers and have contracts of just
one year at a time, they were forced off of their land. Today
contracts of just one year are very common, which has led farmers to
have a very short-sighted view of their farming, where they try to
extract the maximum profit from their rented land each year with no
thought to retaining nutrients in the soil or minimizing their use of
chemicals. It's also led to a lot of deforestation in some provinces.
Soy is one of the easier crops that people can grow and export, hence
the soy boom.
After class we went
and hung out at the Escuela Agropecuaria and had some pasta and
vegetarian tarts and hung out with the kids again and then went back
to the house to have mate and listen to music. After school we all
went out to an Estancia owned by Ricardo, one of the teachers at the
school, where he grows a variety of crops and raises cows, and talked
about the history of his farm and played with a super cute kitten.
Thursday night, me, Meg, Anna, Morgan, Kaitlyn and Audrey went to the “country house” (Arrecifes is pretty rural, but some wealthier folks have “quintas” outside of town where they have asados and get together with people. Some people use them as farms also, some don't) of the OTHER Fernando (there are two) and had pizza again and about a bajillion delicious little appetizers, and wine. Friday was Jose's birthday, so we planned to go out Thursday night to celebrate, after dinner. All of the girls decided they were too tired, except for Kaitlyn and I, so we went out with Fiama and Asstrid to the bar to meet the boys at about 12:30.
Cat friend
Me and cat friend together!
Thursday night, me, Meg, Anna, Morgan, Kaitlyn and Audrey went to the “country house” (Arrecifes is pretty rural, but some wealthier folks have “quintas” outside of town where they have asados and get together with people. Some people use them as farms also, some don't) of the OTHER Fernando (there are two) and had pizza again and about a bajillion delicious little appetizers, and wine. Friday was Jose's birthday, so we planned to go out Thursday night to celebrate, after dinner. All of the girls decided they were too tired, except for Kaitlyn and I, so we went out with Fiama and Asstrid to the bar to meet the boys at about 12:30.
We were the first
people at the bar, and by that I mean that we were the FIRST people
at the bar, they turned on the music when they saw us approaching
through the windows. Now, I don't really know what the deal is
typically in Arrecifes on a Thursday night, but I'm about 85% sure
that they opened the bar that night just for us. It was seriously
just our group, all night. Four of the boys (including Jose) came
out, plus a bunch of their host-siblings and their friends, and we
all had a really good time dancing to the ridiculous mix of music
that the terrible but very well-meaning DJ played for us, including a
variety of birthday songs in English and Spanish.
Brian, Jose, Me, Nigel, Vicky
I have no idea what they were doing, but it seemed like a good idea!
Stephan and Asstrid, as she requested.
Me, Kaitlyn and Asstrid
Stephan, me, Kaitlyn, Jose, Asstrid, Vicky, my host brother and in front a girl whose name I can't remember
Same group but with Fiama on the left.
Classic Stephan face.
We ended up getting
home after 3:30am and had to be up at 7:30am for school, but I didn't
care because it was really amusing to have a night out in Arrecifes.
Friday we had two
field trips, our first stop was a factory that produces soy oil. I
can't say I was that intensely interested, but it was kind of neat
seeing the operation, seeing things get made is always pretty cool
unless it involves dead creatures. After the factory, we headed over
to a cooperativa which exports soy and grains produced by Argentine
farmers. The soy exported by this one cooperative comprises 1% of the
global market of soy, which is kind of a serious amount of soy. They
gave us snacks here, because apparently the rule in Arrecifes is that
if you have Americans visiting, you have to feed them something every
hour. Maybe if we don't eat we explode? I don't know for sure, but
it's clearly not worth the risk of finding out. While we were at the
cooperative, Fernando came up and asked for four volunteers to go
talk on the local radio station. Jose, Nigel, Lauren and Meg headed
off to do that, and we headed back to the school, and listened to
them being interviewed on the radio. A lot of people call Nigel
“Nacho” as a nickname, and that's seriously his only name in
Arrecifes, he was introduced on the radio as Nacho as well.
When we headed back
to school the rest of us were interviewed by a journalist for the
local paper, and then we had pizza again (are you counting?) made
with cheese that they make at the school and a giant ridiculous
awesome cake for Jose, full of dulce de leche, and watched a little
theater piece by some students. After school, Fiama came by and
picked me up (Meg went with Kaitlyn and Audrey) and informed me that
her and Asstrid intended to buy a cake for Jose and have him over to
eat cake and drink mate, something that none of us had been informed
about, but that was fine. We went to Jose and Stephan's place and
picked them up and went back and hung out and played dominos. I'd
told Fiama that I wanted to go into town to buy a little gift for my
host mom in BA, so at 5pm we headed back downtown (stores are closed
from 12-5, SIESTAAAAAAAA) and I got a little coin purse dealy that
said Arrecifes and we ran into all the girls where they were sitting
in the plaza drinking wine in front of the police station, obviously.
While we were there the fire sirens went off, and as we were right in
front of the fire station as well, we were able to see the volunteer
firefighters come running to the station, on foot, by bike and by
motorcycle, and go tearing into the station to head out. It was kind
of neat to see.
After all that excitement we headed back to the house and got our things
together with great sadness because it was time to go to our final dinner before
heading back to BA. Sandra, Fiama and Asstrid gave Meg and I each a
little gift which was a mate (the cup that you drink yerba mate out
of) and a bunch of candy, which was really cute of them. We brought
wine when we showed up as a gift, though I wish we'd gotten them
something else as well. For some reason we were leaving Arrecifes
late on Friday night instead of Saturday morning, which we were all
very upset about. The students had decided to throw a party for us
Friday night, not knowing at the time that we were leaving then, so
they had to change the party from being for us to being for the
birthday of one of their dogs, a kind of awesome substitution. Our
host-families were equally upset that we were leaving, and a number
of them plus a bunch of us talked to our program coordinator about
it, she referred to it during dinner as 'kind of a crisis'.
We all went to a
restaurant downtown (which was fairly unusual for most of the
host-families. People don't really go out to restaurants in
Arrecifes, they have dinner together at home or they eat at the
houses of other families, as a result every house has a GIGANTIC
dinner table) where we ate pizza (seriously) and took a few hundred
photos and had a lot of sad goodbyes. We didn't leave the restaurant
to return until midnight, putting us back in BA after 2am. My host family keeps texting me and they really want us to come visit again, so I'm going to see about setting up a visit in November, which I'm super excited about! Seriously, Arrecifes.
