Week 3: Uuguay and more

This post was written on Wednesday, 24th of June.

Delay due to laptop problems..

Before coming to Buenos Aires, I was dreading the fact that it would be winter during my time here. After about 5 months of cold weather in New Haven, and then a month of sunlight, I cursed the fact that Buenos Aires was in the southern hemisphere. However, on getting here, I found that the winter here was nothing like the winter that I experienced in New England. That is, till today. I stepped out of the house at 8:15 in the morning to be greeted with a gush of wind and a temperature of 1 degree celsius. Luckily I had been forewarned by my host father about the terrible weather, and was suitable dressed, donning my white beanie, as well as my pea coat, which I had not previously used here. What is a relief, however, is that it can only get better from now on (marginally at least), as today was supposed to be the coldest day of the year here.

I am two days late with this entry, the reason being that over the extended weekend, I made a trip to Uruguay, and since coming back, I have had to catch up on work that I had previously ignored. A small price to pay for the great time I had over the weekend.

Over the last half a year, I had been in touch with the AIESEC chapter in Montevideo to try to create a partnership with Yale to send Yalies to do internships there. This partnership succeeded, and we ended up sending two Yalies to do internships during the summer vacations. As such, I got in touch with AIESECers from Montevideo and told them about my visit, and they enthusiastically offered to put me up and show me around. I set off for Montevideo on Friday evening by boat, and on arrival, was greeted by John, a Yalie doing an AIESEC internship there, along with 2 Uruguayan AIESECers who were waiting for me at the station. They drove me to the local committee president, Alejandro’s family’s apartment, where I was to spend the night. Alejandro’s family greeted me warmly, and they seemed pretty used to having strangers from random countries arrive at their doorstep. Some more AIESECers arrived, and we hung out and talked over beers (which I actually somehow liked). We then proceeded to a bar, where there were more AIESECers: trainees doing internships from all parts of the world, as well as the local AIESECers from Montevideo. All conversation was conducted in Spanish, which was great. Everyone seemed to be pretty intrigued by India, and had many questions, and I tried my best to explain the caste system in Spanish. Another common question, which I have got from most people when I meet them, is whether I have seen Slumdog Millionaire, and what I thought of it. My reply would often be, ‘of course, I was in it!’, which would cause ‘wows!’ and ‘reallys?’. My first joke in Spanish. And my second, and third…

The following day some of my friends from my study abroad program arrived in Montevideo, and we checked into a hostel in the center of the city. With John guiding us, we roamed most of the city. Montevideo isn’t really a city of spectacular sights. The most notable one, is ‘Mercado del Puerto’, or market of the port. It consists of a number of stores and traditional restaurants housed in an old warehouse next to the sea. We had lunch there, and ordered a big plate of meat. It turned out to be the most meat I’ve ever eaten at a meal. The dish that came had every single body part of an animal that you could think of, from intestines to liver to thymus. Check out the picture attached! As for the city of Montevideo itself, I wasn’t too impressed. On both Saturday and Sunday, most streets were deserted. Granted, it was terrible weather (raining), and it was an extended weekend, which gave many people the opportunity to get out of the city to travel, but it seemed more like a ghost city. Used to the bustling streets of Buenos Aires, this was a world apart. Though the capital cities of the two countries may seem totally different, Argentina and Uruguay share much in terms of culture. The food in both countries is pretty much identical. You greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek. Both countries share the ‘rioplatense’ Spanish accent, where all ‘ll’s are pronounced as ‘sh’s, and you say ‘vos’ instead of ‘tu’ for ‘you’. In terms of measures of wealth, such as GDP per capita etc, both countries are equally well off (or not well off) as each other, though it may not seem so if you take Buenos Aires to be representative of Argentina (which it is not).

Sunday morning I woke up after barely 5 hours of sleep to head to a slum just outside the city with John and some other local AIESECers. We went as volunteers for an NGO, ‘Techos para mi País’ (Roofs for my country), which exists in most countries in Latin America, and works to construct houses in slums for the underprivileged. The weekend before I arrived, a number of AIESECers had volunteered to spend their weekend building and reconsolidating houses in the slum. This weekend was a more relaxed trip, with the aim of just visiting the families for whom the houses had been built. Because of the continuous rain, the ground in the slum had been turn into a slush pit, with trash strewed everywhere, and dogs running to and fro. The major problems in the slum are sanitation and health. Though most inhabitants have gotten at least high school education (it is free and compulsory in Uruguay), and almost all houses have TVs, basic knowledge of health is lacking, with children growing up not being taught to brush their teeth, and no doctors in the vicinity. We spent a few hours chatting with the family in their newly built house, and patched up some leaks that remained in the roof.

For what the city of Montevideo lacked, the people made up for. I don’t remember having met as many people in two days before. We were taken very good care of, being shown around everywhere, to the extent that we did not need to make any plans of our own in the city. I had a number of very interesting conversations, including with a university student staying in the same student residence as John, who asked my American friend what he thought of his imperialist government, and asked me whether Indians shower every day.

Sunday night and Monday were spent in Colonia, a small, picturesque port town. It is about an hour’s boat ride away from Buenos Aires, and serves as a nice tranquil getaway for many Porteños in the summer months. There wasn’t all that much to do in the town, but roaming the pretty cobbled streets and old buildings was quite relaxing.

In Buenos Aires, I unconsciously shifted my focus from sightseeing to meeting different people through connections, be them close ones or distant. Last week I was invited to dinner by the former host brother of my sister’s colleague’s husband, and his wife. A few nights ago I attended a class in the university about the history of social movements in the Americas, because I wanted to talk to the professor about an article that I am writing for the Yale Globalist about student involvement in politics in Argentina. He was really friendly, we talked for about half an hour, and fixed a time to meet this coming week to talk at length. He also gave me the contact information of some students involved in political parties, who I have gotten in touch with, and hopefully will interview soon.

On the roads one can feel the build up to the legislative elections being held this Sunday, with the political parties stepping up their campaigning, with posters plastered on almost every single visible wall, and loudspeakers blaring campaign promises.

The coming week I need to buckle down a bit, and do research as well as write two essays for school, and my article.

Today I made a trip to the Indian embassy here in Buenos Aires, because as luck would have it, a friend of my dad’s knows the ambassador here. Ambassador Vishwanathan turned out to be a most interesting man. He loves everything Latin American, and has previously had postings in Venezuela and Brazil. Something quite rare, as Latin America is a region in the world that isn’t given much importance in India. He even has a blog on random subjects related to Latin America, and makes for pretty entertaining reading: http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/. Everyone at the embassy was most welcoming, and I spent over two hours chatting with different people in the office. Listening to Indians speaking Spanish was lovely. The embassy had a wonderful collection of movies and books on Argentina, and I think I will use it as a library during my time here, having already taken the opportunity to borrow two of the movies they had. I was also invited to a seminar on Indian businesses that the embassy is holding in a few weeks time, and I definitely plan on going. My visit ended with the ambassador himself driving me home.

Over the last week I tried to continue my sightseeing in the city, though at times to no success. After extensive research (in my lonely planet) I picked out two museums I wanted to visit: El Museo de la Casa Rosada (the museum of the presidential palace) and ‘La Pasión Boquense’, a football museum in the stadium of the local team here, Boca Juniors. As it happened, both museums were closed on the days that I made trips there, much to the chargrin of the friends who I had led there enthusiastically. I did manage to however successfully visit the Recoleta Cemetery. This is a cemetery that houses the mortal remains of the rich and powerful of Argentina, and has a nice little free tour. The graves aren’t merely graves however, but are housed in plushy tombs. Most of the ‘big’ families of Buenos Aires have one tomb for their family, which guarantees place for most of their members. The bigger the tomb is, the more wealthy or influential the family tends to be. The whole concept of the cemetery seemed pretty interesting to me. On the one hand, you have the beauty and architectural brilliance that the different tombs offer. On the other, you have a sort of competition of material wealth and influence that seems to have been carried on to the afterlife. Either way, I did enjoy the tour, and getting to see Evita’s grave, which was adorned by bouquets of flowers from admirers.

Day before yesterday, I made a trip to the theatre in the theatre district of Buenos Aires, Avenida Corrientes, to watch a play called ‘Marat Sade’, about post French revolution life in a mental ward. I have difficulty understanding Spanish when sung and spoken very excitedly. The play had both a lot of singing and animation in dialogue, and it turned out to be difficult for me to understand most of it. Though of course I did follow the jist of the plot, the subtleties of relationships between characters and debate and dialogue were lost on me. I did however enjoy the spectacle that the play was, with brilliant acting, wonderful music, and an amazingly done set. The Porteños (citizens of Buenos Aires) take their theatre quite seriously. There was even some opera balcony-like seating on either side of the stage, and at the beginning, I wasn’t sure whether the people seated there were just audience or part of the play. They turned out to be audience, but it must have been quite a viewing experience, as the play took place a few centimeters away from them, and the actors often acted as if they were part of the happenings on stage!

I also had the chance to attend a Salsa class last week. Things seemed to be going pretty well until the instructor finished with the basics and got to the more complicated stuff, at which point most of us were lost. Once the class finished more experienced salsa dancers took the floor, and put on the moves. The ease by which they seemed to do it led me to resign myself to acknowledge that I would never be able to dance like that. You never know though….I’m considering joining a salsa class.

Yesterday I made a trip to the ‘Jardín Japones’, or Japanese Garden. It is the biggest such garden outside of Japan. There was a 5 o’clock special tea and performance of Japanese drums, which was great fun. The garden was really crowded with families on their Sunday outing. There is actually a rather sizeable Japanese, Korean and Chinese population here, and almost all the supermarkets and Laundromats are owned by Koreans and Chinese. Quite in distinction with the Indian population here, which is almost non existent. Before going to the Indian embassy, I had encountered only 2 other Indians here. I went to an Indian restaurant last Friday with Lucas and Alejandra, his girlfriend, called Tandoor, and it was hilarious to read the names of Indian dishes in Spanish.

Over the last two weeks here, I’ve also picked up a thing or two about Argentina culture. - Argentineans are very conscious of their appearance. You will almost never come across an overweight Argentinean. In the square block around my house, consisting of four streets, there are almost 8 hairdressers. The mullets are a particularly popular look among the young men.

- Argentinean men are very aggressive when it comes to courting girls, almost to the extent that the courtship is eliminated. It’s perfectly acceptable to introduce yourself to a girl in a nightclub by taking her hand and starting to dance with her. It seems that I have much to learn…

- The café culture is a staple of the city. As long as you order something, you can go on sitting in a café for as long as you like, without being troubled. I’ve currently been sitting in this café for the last 4 hours.

I’ve also come to realize the vast network that I have, thanks to UWC, AIESEC and Yale. All those communities put together, there are probably over a 100 students who I have something in common with in Buenos Aires at the moment. Last week I met Sara, a friend of mine from MUWCI, who has been in Buenos Aires for the last 4 months, doing volunteering work and promoting an experiemtnal theatre production. I bumped into a girl wearing a UWC sweatshirt on the subway the other day, who graduated from the Adriatic UWC last year. I’ve met over a dozen Yalies and AIESECers doing different sorts of internships and volunteer work.

Clearly, I’m not alone…

I've been in Buenos Aires just over a week now, and it's about time I started this blog. I finally take the chance to do so as I sit in 'El Ateneo', voted as one of the 10 most beautiful bookstores in the world. Today was the first time I opened my books, and got some homework done. The main reason for this being that so far my classes haven't been too stressful. I've instead been spending my time roaming the city, interacting with my host family, reading, and of course trying to get a grip on the political landscape of Argentina.

I arrived on the morning of Friday, the 29th of May, on a group flight along with a number of other kids doing the same program as me. We were received most graciously by the director and assistant directors of the program at the airport, and packed off into cabs to go to the homes of our various host families. I was welcomed to my third floor apartment in the upper middle class 'barrio' of Palermo by Cecilia and Freddie, my host parents for the next six weeks.

As the week has gone by, I have found them to be most cultured, educated and artsy people, and I have thoroughly enjoyed all my interactions with them. Freddie is a freelance photographer, and has exhibitions of his work in the city from time to time, while Cecilia is a psychologist, and receives patients in the house. There apartment has a definite artsy tinge to it, with paintings donning all walls (a lot of them done by friends and some by Cecilia), and books on philosophy covering most of the bookshelves. I have also been lucky to have two host sisters. Well, not real host sisters, but two American students, Shanna and Kindra, who are taking part in different study abroad programs who are also staying with Freddie and Cecilia. Since they've been here for longer, I've been able to get tips on the city from an outsiders perspective, that have certainly been helpful.

After eating my first lunch with my host parents, I set off for our first orientation meeting which involved a language aptitude written and oral test. Having just flown for about 15 hours, none of us were in the best state to write an exam, but we got through it, and were afterwards treated to a sumptuous welcome dinner for our troubles. The next day, we were taken early in the morning to an 'estancia' (somewhat like a ranch, or farmhouse), about 60 km from Buenos Aires, for a two day orientation. This proved to be a good way to get to know the others in the program, and we attended a number of sessions dealing with academic expectations, life in the city and security etc.

In the last week, I have really come to appreciate the city that Buenos Aires is. It is full of wonderful cafes (in which you can sit for as long as you like wihtout being bothered, as long as you order something), well maintained parks, national landmarks, street fairs and bars. Being as large as it is, and holding one third of Argentina's population, it is remarkably safe, though of course there are a few areas that are known to be best not visited alone. Argentinians are known for their crazy lifestyle when it comes to going out. Dinner is usually had at around 9 or 10, and most clubs only open at 2 am. Coming home after a night out at 6 or 7 am is considered pretty standard. I've mostly been making use of the subway (subte) system, which is the easiest to figure out. Buses are useful some times, but are not as inconvenient as they only accept monedas (coins). I have found to be true what we were told during our orientation: You will find a constant game being played in Buenos Aires, that of trying to accumulate as many monedas as possible. This consists of customers constantly paying with large bills at stores, and shopkeepers eternally alleging that they have no change. He/she who can hold out for longer wins.

During the last week, I have also found time to get involved with the local chapter of AIESEC here in Buenos Aires. Luckily, I already knew a member before coming: Lucas, who came to Yale the past semester for an exchange for 6 weeks. He showed me around the city during my first few days, helping my buy a cellphone and figure out the public transport system. Since then, his lovely parents have hosted an elaborate dinner for me in their apartment, laden with steak and wine, of course, along with a discussion on Argentinian politics. On my third day here, I attended a meeting of the EB of the LC at a local university here, where I tried to keep up as much as I could with the rapid Spanish being spoken. A couple of days ago I attended the local committee meeting, where I was given a rousing welcome, along with a welcome package, which included some yerba mate (the most popular drink here, made of some kind of bitter herbs..I actually have no idea what it's made of), along with a guide book to Argentinian slang.

One of hte highlights of my trip so far has been attending a world cup qualifier football match between Argentina and Colombia. This was particularly special for me as I have followed the sport for a long time, but have never had the opportunity to actually attend a match. Though the game itself wasn't too dramatic, there were some moments of magic from Messi, and the overall atmosphere in the stadium, because of the passion of the Argentinian football fans, was magical.

And lastly, I have been trying to wrap my head around the current political landscape in Argentina. One thing is for sure: it's very complicated! The traditionally main parties of the countries are the Peronists, Radicals and Conservatives. However, over time, each of htese parties have become fractured and split up, into rightists and leftists wings. So much so that the leftists wings of the Peronists and Radicals have more in common with each other than with their respective rightist wings. The current government of President Kirchner belongs to the leftist progressive wing of the Peronists. At first, I was rather impressed with it, based on the little knowledge that I had. Being socially progressive, using a capitalist system but concentrating on social welfare schemes such as education, enable the government to have friendly relations both with the US, as well as leftist regimes of Venezeuala and Cuba. However, after speaking with more people here, I have come to find out that the current government isn't all that popular. Its incessant populism leaves much to be desired in long term planning for the sustainable success of the country, as well as rampant corruption and ineffectiveness.

I'll end here, and will be back with more later, as I explore more of the city, meet more people, and learn more in class about Argentina's history and current polity!