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I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to get around to writing again! I’m not sure of the exact reason, but I haven’t been as tired in any other place as I have been here in Buenos Aires. But I’ve absolutely loved the city! The architecture and the way the people look remind me a lot of Spain, which makes sense since there is such a huge Spanish influence through colonization and later immigration.
My roommate is Sierra again (same roommate from Cape Town!) which I am happy about because we get along extremely well. We start class at 8:30 every morning and have a 40-minute commute on the subway to get to our classroom that is more centrally located than our house is. My new host mom is named Mónica and she is a single woman that lives in a small two-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood called Belgrano. She is separated and doesn’t have any children, which makes this homestay extremely different from my past families. She reminds me a lot of my grandfather because she likes to talk a lottttttt (this rules out my other grandfather, so I feel that it is clear which one of my grandfathers I am referring to) about some of the most random things. For example, two dinners in a row, we talked a lot about Argentinian salmon and how much she loves it but how expensive it can be.
She serves us our meals, which means that we always have a large serving and it is often difficult to finish. The best meals that I have had so far have been several beef sandwiches that I have had at fairs or from small lunch places. Since there was such a huge influx of Italian immigrants in the 20th century, there is probably a million pizza (definitely an over exaggeration) places around the city. One of the main parts of the program has been our case studies and our facilitator, a young woman named Magali who is from Buenos Aires took us to an ‘authentic’ restaurant she loves. There, I had fugazetta, which is a type of pizza created here in Buenos Aires, and it is delicious. It is made of a focaccia-like dough, cheese and a lot of onions.
We have dinner every night between 9 and 10 pm, which is sometimes a little difficult because unless I take a nap in the afternoon (which I often do!), it is the time at which I am ready to go to bed! She doesn’t speak much English so most of the conversation is often directed at me (in Spanish). Sierra doesn’t speak much Spanish but she does speak Italian so she is very good at following the conversation, which means that I don’t have to translate as often. When Mónica asks her a question, she sometimes answers in Italian without realizing it, which is really funny. This also happens at cafes where the waiters will give us the most confused expressions and I have to remind her that she is speaking Italian.
A dominant theme that we have discussed at length here has been the ‘desaparecidos,’ or the 30,000 people that disappeared during the military dictatorship in the 1970’s. We did a site visit during the first week to ExESMA, which used to be a government building that was used to house and torture these political prisoners. There is a lot of discussion surrounding these people to this day because the government or the military (two separate entities here in Argentina) have never publicly or officially admitted to kidnapping and killing these people. Several women that were kidnapped had children in captivity and the military gave these children to military supporting families who raised them as their own. This has led to the creation of “Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” which consists of a group of women whose children disappeared. They march around a plaza in downtown Buenos Aires in front of the presidential palace every Thursday and have been doing so for several decades now. I saw them march last week and it was an incredibly emotional site. They are also involved in the search for their grandchildren, who are now mostly around 40 years old, through country wide genetic testing. Hundreds of children were born in captivity and only around 100 of them have been identified (one of them was found just the other week!) There is also a large debate surrounding these children because there are people that believe it is the grandmothers right to know their grandchildren while there is another side that advocates for the rights of the children to choose whether or not to know. This issue is one that I have learned about briefly in various history classes but I am so glad to have learned so much more about it in the place where it happened.
It has been so nice walking around the city and not having to worry as much about our safety as we had to in Cape Town. It has also been nice to be able to take public transportation instead of Ubers (which are illegal here). Compared to Cape Town we have been walking so much more which has been so nice after constantly being driven from point to point. The city of Buenos Aires has the most buses I have ever seen in a city—ever. They are called ‘colectivos’ and each line is owned independently and has distinct colors and designs on the exteriors, which make them quite a sight.
I am currently at the rural stay portion of our stay at a ranch called ‘La Catita’ in the pampa region of Argentina. There are only dirt roads and long stretches of fields everywhere you look. To simply drive out of the ranches borders, it takes around 10 minutes. Yesterday, we went to a larger town called Los Toldos that took an hour and a half to get there and up until the last 20 minutes, it was all on dirt roads. Eva Peron was born in this town and lived there until she was 17 years old and we saw her house briefly. On the way back we saw flamingoes (which was super random)! There are also more mosquitoes here than I have ever seen in my life. It is a beautiful area that gets pretty warm during the day but extremely cold at night. There is Wi-Fi here but it is super awful so that has been an experience in itself because I have had surprisingly constant Internet access throughout this entire semester.
We have a bunch of assignments due this week because it is like our ‘finals’ week but it’s not even close to the workload I would have at this time back at Brown. We go back to the city tomorrow and the academic part of our program ends on Wednesday when we go to the final retreat to wrap up the semester. On Saturday when we fly back to the states! I know I’ve said this before, but I cannot believe that the time has gone by so quickly. Since we have all spent so much time together, I am already getting emotional whenever I think of leaving my friends and not getting to see them every day. As excited as I am to go home and eat a Schlotsky’s sandwich and several tacos, I don’t want my time abroad to end.
