Reflexión

Okay so I know I didn't post and I didn't keep you updated or even talk to a lot of you at all, despite my overuse of the FB and I am sorry.  Sorry that I didn't keep better track of my time and my adventures.  Sorry that I didn't write all the posts I composed in my head on the colectivos and subte rides to class or wherever I was going (mostly class).  I know I don't have to apologize or explain myself but I am sorry for so much, even if it only affects my own musings and memories.

Truthfully, the first part of my trip was incredibly difficult.  I let it be and I let it cripple me to the point of paralysis.  I didn't go exploring, I didn't try new things, I didn't get to know the people or the city or even my host family, really.  I resented them and I worried about all the big happenings back home that I couldn't do a thing about, that I couldn't change.  Maybe I should have changed families, to be closer to things and find people who legitimately seemed interested in me, who didn't watch television during dinner, who didn't treat so much of our relationship in a business manner.  But I didn't and thus had to live with the consequences that came with living in Flores, the barrio of very little but Koreans who own the supermercados and Jewish folk walking to synagogue.

Of course there were the little things that made it bearable.  We lived in a beautiful house and had asada (think: Argentine type cook-out but better) often on Sundays.  There was a great pizza place a block away and an awesome artisan heladeria (ice cream) three blocks from my front door.  Todavia, it was difficult and I should have recognized that earlier and done more to change it, but I should have done a lot of things.

I wasted too much time.  I wouldn't let myself grow accustomed to life in Buenos Aires and find ways around being overwhelmed and upset for the fact that I couldn't get out of the shell I'd built around myself and my idea of what I could and couldn't do.  I got sick and homesick and sick again and it seemed like I just couldn't get better and that I was doing everything wrong.  I've tried not to think about that, but now I'm letting myself because sometimes you just have to remember the reasons for current disappointment.

But then I met Axel, the porteño who took me by surprise one Friday evening who would unexpectedly serve a very important role in the playing out of my last two months.  He entered in at just the right moment, because if it had been earlier I wouldn't have let it happen, and had it been later we wouldn't have had enough time to develop the importance that is now becoming more apparent to me.  It was right about the time that my homesickness wore off and I decided to stop wasting time, to get over the pain I wouldn't let go and to let Argentina be what it would be.

I'll never be sure that those first few weeks of knowing him had much to do with the realizations I made.  My giddiness upon arrival in Mar del Plata for my independent research freshened the air of life until I once again fell sick (a stomachache I've yet to get rid of).  But it didn't stop me completely.  When the bus drove me back into Buenos Aires I realized how much I had fallen in love with this city.  The lights of Puerto Madero reflected through the window in eyes tired of sadness, eager for adventure and determined to find it.


...


I wrote that three months ago, sitting on Granny's couch when the house had grown quiet from the hush of darkness.  I've let myself think about Argentina from time-to-time, usually against my will since the memories rushed in with the warm spring air without a bit of warning.  The sunlight reminds me of it daily.  I attribute so much of who I am to that beautiful place, but I couldn't really tell you in what ways.  Maybe it's that I'm more of a warm weather girl now.  Perhaps it's from my delighted ease at speaking Spanish, despite my need to practice my French.  I think my Argentine amante fills a large space in how my past has come to define, if only on its borders, my future.

It's all a little deeper and subtle than that, however.  It's that I knew how to get from one end of the city to the next.  I knew everything that Buenos Aires had to offer, even if I chose not to take advantage of it.  I knew that at any side cafe, I could walk in and get a cafe con leche para llevar y tres medialunas for less than $15 pesos every morning, and that my morning would always be better because of it.  I knew that the small surprises -- a protest, a street concert, a new subte acquaintance (if only by eye contact) -- would make the best memories, have the strongest impact.


I'm not done with Argentina.  Or, at least, that's what I keep telling everyone.  But I do believe that.  I know there's still much to be experienced there, much to be seen, much to be tasted, much to be felt.  I'm looking forward to going back, firstly to create new adventures, but also to see how I create them, how I tell the story, how it can and will be different.


It really is a beautiful country.  Despite its broken sidewalks, piropo-ing men, the long and bumpy colectivos, but because of its old subtes, European architecture, cafe con leche and medialunas.  It is another home now.  It takes up a piece of myself that is ready to step past the harsh days of September to find the sunlight waiting and my heart willing.

Mark Twain

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Fresca

There are obviously a lot of phrases I love in Spanish and that I will have a hard time not using when I get back, but I decided this morning which is my favorite.

I woke up to sunshine through my curtains.  When I opened the door to walk downstairs, the cool of the morning filled my sleepy lungs unexpectedly, willingly.  I met Omar (my host padre) in the kitchen, him wearing a navy and white polka-dotted robe with high socks and slippers (sooo wonderful).  After the first morning exchanges, he said, "está fresca, esta mañana."

Don't you love that a cool morning is called fresca?  I'm not sure why I enjoy that so much.  Maybe because it reminds me of October mornings with the sun and cool weather.  Even though it's Spring here, not Autumn, it's still lovely.

I've finally started loving it here.  The trips were stressful, as these past few weeks have been as well.  I have a full two days ahead of me with my ISP propuesta (proposal), studying for yet another test, Spanish assignments, last minute registration and my honors thesis proposal (which I still don't know what I'm doing for that...whoops; any suggestions are highly appreciated).

Needless to say, I have varied excuses for the lack of excitement on this disappointing blog.  Everyday I experience something new, I start constructing a new post in my head -- I have a few partially written already -- but can never justify spending the time on them when I have so much more going on.  Perdóname, por favor.

I want to write, know that.  I have a lot to say about this country.  I've just started my ISP (Independent Study Project) and will thus have more free time, less pressing assignments, even though I will probably be just as busy.  I'm hoping to write.  I can make no promises just in case I can't keep them.  But thanks for the few people who check this blog (aka a few friends and family), even though it has been stagnant for a month now.  You know I love you and you know I have much to say.  I'll try to find the time to say it.

In the meantime, this song is almost constantly in my head while walking around the city.  They play it a lot, and everyone loves it.  Hope you enjoy it, too.

To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that is all.

-Oscar Wilde

Teaser

It's All About The Chest

Not gonna lie, finally coming into the city, the ladies and I could almost not believe it.  Especially since we went on a mostly sketchy, unbeknownst to us van ride into the darkness surrounding Buenos Aires.  Right about the time that we were seriously concerned for our tired selves, we arrived at Pampas del Sur and were treated to five course meals primarily consisting of meat.  Loooots of meat.

It was beautiful, perfect chilled weather, and a day full of information, fixed gear brakeless bikes, cows, sheep and an alarming immediate comfort with each other in the whole group.

Coming into the city was exactly the experience you would assume.  Muchos autos y muchas personas.  And lots of pizza places.  Argentina has a lot of Italian influences from the massive immigration that took place before and during the World Wars, hence, la pizza.

Our one evening in the hotel, and last evening together as a group, consisted of our first subte (subway) ride, a Spanish placement test and the most fun, and disgusting, adventure yet.  We went to a restaurante for a large meal and our very first TANGO lesson!  Yes, you heard it, Tango Tango.

But first, after the lesson we finally got to eat (it was about 10:30 pm or so) and it was quite an...interesting... meal.  Three of us shared a bottle of Malbec, a very popular Argentine red wine, and waited for whatever they were going to bring us.  In a group that large, unless you're a vegetarian, you don't order, you wait.  The first appetizers were incredibly delicious.  I don't know if this was because we were all starving or because they actually were that good.  However, the three next to us had something quite odd on their cutting board.  Something that looked like meat but had an untraceable smell to it.  Something that when you put it in your mouth, you wanted to spit it out again within a few seconds.  Not because it was necessarily bad, just incredibly awkward.  The texture, the taste, the smell.  All strange.

It was tongue.

Awesome.

Next, when they brought out the sizzling skillet holding pounds of meat, we only knew what two of the seven types of meat were on it: pollo y carne asada.  Pier and I decided to try a few of the other things as well.  A small, round, worm-esque thing was probably the most awful one we tried.  You bit into it and it was normal for about 3 seconds, and then something gooey took over the taste and texture.  When asked what it was...

It was intestine.  Kind of like a really bad chitlin' but worse.

We then tried blood sausage, which, for those who don't know, is coagulated blood. (Sorry, Dorothy)  And finally, I tried a bite of Eliza's mystery meat that she couldn't place the strangeness of.  This is the only one I couldn't swallow. It was kidney.  And it was gross.

I think I've met my quota for trying comida rara for at least a month and a half by now.  I wouldn't recommend eating any of that so listed, ever.

But back to Tango.

The couple who taught us were incredible.  It is not a dance like I've ever done or seen before.  The emotion between you and your partner is what makes it work.  Not the steps, but the connection.  And watching them dance, not even touching, everyone could feel the passion within them, bursting out and moving them around the floor.  When they started teaching us, they didn't focus on a specific step or a way to dance, but on how to move and connect.  "It's all about the chest!" he said.  "El Pecho es el mas importante!"

Ok, ok, let's try it.

So as we moved awkwardly around the small space cleared of tables, all of us tried to create some kind of "passion" in our couple.  However, this proved quite difficult, since we only have four guys in a group of 25 students.  BUT, Marc and I got to dance in front of everyone at the end, and I must say we were pretty good at it, muy suave.  He's going to be my partner with the next lessons, we've decided.  (Well, I told him, anyway.)

Actually, since this post has taken me over a week to finally finish, I can catch you wonderfully patient readers up with our subsequent start of proper Tango lessons in a studio.  A noche, we found our way to the studio and got to meet the other SIT group in Buenos Aires.  (They're studying Regional Integration and Development...ours is way better.)  It was MUCH different than the first lesson.  No talks about connection, no intense passion between the teaching couple (two women, so, you know) and nothing about el pecho.  Que triste.

As I tried to help Chris along the floor, I was reminded of my old folk dancing days, before I knew how to let the man lead me.  Tango is a very traditional and oddly conservative dance.  Not conservative in a fashion or way of dancing, but in the tango clubs you will go to, in the relationship between the partners.  It is always a man and woman.  The man always asks and the woman can or cannot give consent to dance.  He always leads and she always follows.  When dancing at a proper club, you must consent to four dances with the partner before sitting down and before changing.  Somewhat like Pride & Prejudice, no?

Needless to say, I'm going to continue lessons and hopefully be able to connect with some handsome and tall Argentine men.


I apologize for the lateness and lack of posting since arrival.  There are going to be many subsequent posts this weekend to catch you up on the unreal events of daily Argentine life.

Here.

Finally.

Safe

and

e x h a u s t e d.