Tango Tuesday!

Hey Everyone,


I've been so so so busy & have had limited time for blogging. Apologies for the gaps between posts. This is actually my second post today, so make sure to scroll down and read my Adventures in China Town post before reading this one.

Monday- bleh!

Monday was a pretty simple day to say the least. I spent the morning catching up on homework and getting ready for the week. Claudia asked me to get her a converter so I left about an hour early for class. Usually there are tons of vendors on the side of Santa Fe selling converters so I figured that I would quickly find one. I walked about 4 blocks past Alto Palermo and had no luck so I headed to class the long way to kill time. On my little walks through Argentina there are so many things that I've noticed about the culture and people here that is so different from the United States:
1. Dreads are really popular here. Some people have a head full while others have only a couple in the back. It's kind of funny that dreads are so popular here in a population that is largely of European descent whereas in the US you usually only see dreads on black people and occasionally a white person.
2. The stop lights turn yellow before turning green.
3. Facial piercings are more common on guys that girls. I've seen more guys with their nose pierced or their cartilage pierced than girls.
4. Dogs are well loved and well behaved here. I've seen so many dogs with sweaters...including big dogs like  Golden Retrievers. Most people have dog walkers for their dogs and the few that walk their own dogs let them walk without leashes. But unlike American dogs which don't know what to do with themselves when taken off the leash, the dogs here are calm and stay next to their owner. They don't venture into the street and don't stop to sniff people. It's really odd. They're like humans trapped in animals' bodies.
5. I guess it's somewhat inappropriate to talk about kids right after dogs, but the kids here are very well behaved too. Every now and then you'll see a child having a melt down, but for the most part parents don't have to hold their children's hands or baby them in the streets of Buenos Aires. Children also stay right next to their parents and don't walk out into the streets. They also don't have temper tantrums like children in the US.
6. It takes forever and a day to get service at restaurants. In America your waiter or waitress usually harasses you to make sure you're okay, but here you have to hunt down your waiter for almost everything. It's very casual. Restaurants also don't like to split bills, which can be frustrating when you're eating with 6 other people who are all paying separately.
7. Argentines walk so slow!!! This is really frustrating when you're on a schedule.
8. Making out is not a taboo here. It is not uncommon to see people passionately making out in the street.
9. Argentine men are very forward and are not shy about telling you how beautiful you are. One man told me he wanted to marry me today. LOL!
10. Asians own a lot of the grocery stores and laundromats here just like in the United States.
11. There are so few Black people here. Whenever I see another black person I wanna walk up to them and shake their hand or ask them if their from Argentina or somewhere else like me. Being the solo Black person isn't foreign to me as I'm used to being the only Black person in the group. I live in an all white neigbhorhood and went to elementary school in a salt shaker. Plus, I'm pretty sure there's more red and black paraphernalia in the UGA bookstore than there are red and black students on campus (LOL). However, I'm also used to coming home to a Black mother and interacting with a black community. I'm also used to Latino ethnicities that have large populations of blacks (my dad is Puerto Rican).  Just like slaves were brought to the United States, slaves were brought to Latin America and mixed in with the population. Thus, although many countries do not recognize it, EVERY Latin American country has a Black population.When I researched Argentina, at one point in time Blacks outnumbered whites 5:1 here. But what happened to them is a mystery as present day Argentina is one of the "whitest" countries in South America. I have a friend who went on the same trip as me last summer and is returning to BA this summer to do research on the Black population here. I will keep y'all updated on her findings.

Back to my day:

Another thing that I did today was take my laundry to be washed. I was so nervous about going to the laundromat because my laundry vocabulary is weak and I was scared they would ask me a lot of questions. However, when I arrived at the lavaderia, the only thing the girl said was it would be 34 pesos (about $6) and to return at 5. So simple. When I came back I received my laundry folded and perfumed in a bag. I can get used to this.

Tango Tuesday

       Tuesday was my third day at my internship. Today we talked to teachers in the school located in the hospital. The school exists for children that are too sick to go to school. We spoke with an English teacher, who was all too eager to speak to us in English (even though we answered back in Spanish), a secondary teacher and an alternative technology teacher. I found the alternative technology teacher to be the most interesting as I will be using alternative communication devices such as the dynavox as a speech pathologist. She showed us keyboards that are used for children who can't control the range of motion in their fingers and mouses that a child who cannot use his hands uses.
             The English teacher told us that she comes to the patients' rooms and teaches them through theater. She acts, reads stories like The Very Hungry Caterpillar (she said she loves Eric Carle) and plays interactive games with them to teach them English. What was really astonishing to me was that we were allowed to walk through the hall that had beds where children who were receiving chemotherapy were sleeping on our way to see some of the games that they play. Not only was it so sad to see children going through this, but it was terrifying that any person could walk through the hallway that had on a white lab coat. I've watched someone go through chemotherapy so I know how weak and susceptible to infection your body becomes when you are receiving chemo. I'm shadowing a psychologist tomorrow and hopefully I'll be with an slp next week. *fingers crossed*

Tango Tuesday!

        After our internship we hopped on the bus and came to UP. We missed our group lunch so Luciano took us to a restaurant next to UP for lunch. I had two tacos on maiz tortillas and it was delicious. Class was boring as usual. I'm really glad that I chose to take one of my Spanish lit classes (I have to take 4 for my major) here because I will only have to suffer through it for five weeks.
        Tuesday night was Tango night. I was really excited because I missed Tango class last week as a result of my food poisoning -__- Our tango class was taught by a sassy gay guy, who it was hard to tell whether his pants or shirt were tighter, and a skinny girl with an amazing body (all the girls were jealous!). There were 5 other students in the room next to ours and the female teacher switched between teaching us and teaching them.  I tried to watch the other students dancing because they were more advanced than us and they seemed to have a better idea of what they were doing. The male teacher kept telling us girls to be quiet (he obviously didn't realize this was impossible for a group of 15 American girls to do so) which made us only laugh harder.
       Tango is so different from my bachata and salsa. Much slower and sensual. The girls learned a couple of fancy turns. It's kind of hard to do it because you're supposed to keep your legs together the entire time even though you're taking wide steps. The teacher came up to Krista and I and just stuck her hands between our legs to show us that there was too much space....um awkward! The guys worked on posture and learned how to lead. Then it was time for us to dance together. Because there were twice as many girls as guys the girls switched back and forth between the guys. We would walk a couple of steps and then the girls would do their turns. Then we practiced dancing in a circle. I thought it was gonna be awkward because you have to dance chest to chest with your partner, but it was actually really fun! We were all pretty bad at it so it helped to lessen the awkwardness of dancing so close to each other. We started off dancing to traditional tango, but towards the end of our lesson the music changed to milonga which is a modern electronic form of tango. Overall, Tango was really fun and very different from any other type of dance that I've danced before. I'm super excited for next week's lesson and even more excited for tomorrow because we are having salsa and bachata lessons!

Tango Tuesday!

        When Kassidy and I came home, Claudia, Sofi and Sofi's godmother were waiting for us to eat dinner. We all sat together at the table and ate ribs with salad, torta, corn on the cob and bread. Sofi's godmother was asking us lots of questions about our life in the US and our culture. Claudia told her that my dad was Puerto Rican and she started asking me about if we spoke Spanish at home. Then she asked me what country in Africa does my mother's family come from. Hah! I explained to her that many African Americans are descendants of slaves and that slave owners didn't keep records of the slaves so we don't know our ancestry. All of a sudden Sofi and Claudia got really excited and asked me if I had seen Django. They were raving about it and talked about how it was an excellent movie. Sofi started talking about how hot Jamie Fox was and how beautiful Kerri Washington was. I think that they thought that Django was an accurate representation of slavery. So shout out to Quentin Tarantino for his great interpretation of American history! Lol. After that it was off to bed.

Today (Wednesday)
      Today was a simple day to say the least. I slept in and then went to lunch with Caroline. We ate at a little restaurant right next to UP [the same restaurant that Luciano took us to yesterday]. I had two tacos, which were delicious. They were fajita style tacos with red peppers and onions. Afterwards, Caroline and I walked to an heladeria (icecream/gelto shop). We each ordered alfajores (super famous cookie here in Argentina), except for they had dulce de leche gelato in the center that was coated with chocolate and sprinkles. It was just enough sugar to keep me from falling asleep in my lit class. 
        When Kassidy got home we walked to the local headquarters of the Hijos de la Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Sons of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo). They were showing a movie about those who disappeared during the Dirty War, a period during which Argentina was under dictatorship and many people were kidnapped, abducted and killed. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a human rights group that still protest in the name of their children who were murdered during the time. They were showing a movie about the disappearance during the Dirty War. The movie started at 6:45, but a lot of us didn't get home from our internships until 6. Even though we got there 15 minutes early there were so many people already there and the building was too small to fit everyone so we decided to leave. Even though I really wanted to go, I doubt I would have understood a lot of what was going on in the movie without subtitles.
          We were about a 15 minute walk away from our apartment and we had nothing to do. So it only made sense that we went and bought more gelato. :) Here you pay for the cone/cup and it comes with two scoops. I got one scoop of granizado, which consisted of milk cream and choclate pieces, and tiramisu. It was delicious. 
      Even though the gelato was amazing, I'm starting to worry about my diet here. Here we eat so unhealthy. Breakfast is light and consists of bread and cookies. The other two meals usually consists of meat, more bread/carbs and on rare occasions vegetables. When vegetables are served, they are rarely served as a side but are instead mixed into tortas (quiches). Almost everything that I eat here is either sugar or carbs. I can only imagine what it's like for diabetics here. The meat here is usually fatty as well. It amazes me that Argentines are so skinny! In addition, it seems as if Argentines don't drink as much water: a lot of coffee, tea and soda. I'm glad that I'm doing a lot of walking because if not I probably would gain 100 pounds. I've literally had icecream three times since Monday.  All of this change is definitely taking a toll on my body. I have a slight cold from not wearing enough clothes on Monday and I'm constantly tired. The change in weather, diet, and schedule is definitely having an effect on my body.

Well my fourth day of my pasantia is tomorrow. I am off to bed.

Besos y Abrazos,

Jackie