September 3rd 2012 Monday 12:35am
Clearly I'm pretty awesome at updating
these things frequently. So, updates (warning, this one is long).
Tuesday we all had interviews with Nuria, our program director, and
then we were fed an enormous dinner. Our classmate Nigel had missed
his flight on Monday, so he showed up to the ranch on Wednesday a
little before lunch, to our cheers and applause.
#classicnigel
Wednesday we spent
most of the day in orientation, learning about some things that will
be different here than in the United States, such as the intensity of
street harassment, how people greet each other (kiss on the right
cheek, but don't kiss your doorman or taxi driver!), the frequency of
robberies, and other things. We also talked about homestay
expectations, the schedule of the program, the rules, and what's
expected of us as students.
After another enormous lunch Audrey and
I walked around the ranch with all five of the awesome dogs and took
some pictures. In the afternoon, we were given transit maps and told
how to use the transportation system and assigned partners with whom
we'd visit an assigned location and observe whatever we could. Meg
and I were assigned a visit to la Plaza de Mayo. After we finished
with orientation and dinner, our whole group hung out and played
games for a while and then we went to bed. By "went to bed"
I mean that everyone in the program went to sleep and I stayed up
till about 4:30am, with my dear friend The Internet. This time zone is one hour ahead of EST, so four hours ahead of PST which is what I'm used to.
Thursday
we were out the door and headed into Buenos Aires by 9am. Our first
stop was IDES, el Instituto
de Desarrollo Económico y Social (The Institute
of Economic and Social Development), which is where we will be taking
classes for the rest of the program. We had a tour of the building
(which has wifi, thank goodness) and received our stipends that we
will get for lunch each day (35 pesos, which works out to about
$7.50. for reference, an empanada costs about 6-8 pesos). Our host
families provide breakfast and dinner.
After
checking into the hotel we set off in pairs to our destinations, Meg
and I stopped for empanadas de queso y cebolla (cheese and onion) and
then got on the subway. The subway here is called the Subte, short
for Subterraneo. It's one of the oldest subway systems in the world,
which shows, but I like it anyway. It's INCREDIBLY crowded, at
basically every hour of the day. You will usually have someone
pressed against you on every side, and you need to just clutch your
bag to your chest and make sure there's nothing in your pockets. We
got to the Plaza de Mayo without incident, and walked around the
entire area. Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo are a group of women who
protest in the Plaza de Mayo once a week, which they started during
la Guerra Sucia (the Dirty War) during which thousands of students,
artists and intellectuals were kidnapped and tortured by the military
government. Their mothers stood up to the regime and went to the Plaza every week to make people aware of what had happened to their children. They weren't present when we visited, but the signs were
still posted in their usual area where they protest.
The Plaza de
Mayo is the oldest part of the city and the center of the government of the country. La Casa Rosada (basically a pink
version of the White House, but la presidenta actually lives out in
the 'burbs) is here, as well as numerous other landmarks.
La Casa Rosada
Proof that I am actually here!
After we
had explored the area, Meg and I headed over to Calle Florida to
check out some of the major streets and see if there was an area where
we could change some US dollars. We ran into two other students from
our program but parted ways again so we could explore. We saw some
pretty fabulous signs, like El Palacio de la Papa Frita.
El Palacio de la Papa Frita!
Where the jean always lives.
Meg
and I had some misadventures (her ankle was sprained and we had to go
back to the hotel and ice it and we got lost and had our first cab
ride) and made it back to IDES an hour late, a fabulous first
impression! We met with the homestay coordinator (Julieta) and
finally learned a little about our homestay families. I found out
that I was going to live with Claudia, a divorced mother of three
grown children who don't live at home. She has a dog, which is great
because I specifically requested pets. My apartment is a 15-20 minute
walk to IDES, which is also fantastic. After we got this info Nuria
and Maria (who goes by Mauge [MOW(rhymes with now)-hey]) took us out
to a really nice restaurant.
After supper we returned to the hotel
and then a few of us went out to the bar next door, where we played
pool with an old guy named Daniel (but pronounced all dahn-ee-elle)
from our hotel, and after he started hitting on me a lot I headed
back to go to sleep, cause ew.
The
city is very European looking, with a Latin American flavor. The
architecture is beautiful in many areas, but there are also
shanty-towns and seriously run-down areas.
The sidewalks are in
disrepair even in busy areas, there are a lot of boards on the
sidewalk that you need to walk on to get over giant holes in the
ground.
A fairly typical sidewalk, some are a lot worse though, even on really major streets.
Also, the vast majority of people don't pick up after their
dogs, which means you have to keep an eye out to avoid poopboots.
It's interesting, even though we were warned that the girls in the
program would deal with a lot more street harrassment, I've actually
heard less cat-calls and other such things than I do in most US
cities (not counting Portland which is a magical fairyland full of
freakishly respectful elvenfolk), possibly because I don't make eye
contact (there's poop on the ground, man), I walk super fast and I
don't really stand out as a tourist unless I'm in a large group.
Actually, that's one of the most exciting things so far for me: even
people who demonstrate later on that they can speak some English
first try to speak to me in Spanish. I've only been addressed in
English 2-3 times since I've been here.
On
Friday we had more orientation activities, but in the evening we
finally got to meet our host families. It was very exciting! Claudia
and I went back to her place and I got to meet her dog Alma and see
the apartment where I'll be living for the next few months. Claudia
loves doing all kinds of crafts so all the rooms are decorated very
carefully she has all kinds of cool stuff that's she's made all over
the house.
My bedroom
The apartment
The view
She also makes pretty awesome pizza, as I rapidly
discovered. She doesn't want me to have to do any work around the
house, which I keep feeling awkward about. She tells me 'no, no,
tranquilas, relajarse!' whenever I try to wash a glass or offer to
help her with the cooking. I've finally managed to be allowed to put
things back into the refrigerator after a meal. She's kind of quiet
and keeps to herself mostly, but she really likes hosting students,
I've the 10th girl she's hosted with SIT. She also doesn't
speak ANY English at all, which will probably be pretty great for me
in the long run. The first night at dinner we talked about our
families and the prior students she'd had, and then ended up on the
topic of caste systems in India, so I think we're going to be ok.
where is #3???
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