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Hi All!
Well, from where we left off last week, not a huge amount has been happening. We have been spending a lot of time just doing research and planning for the REAL start to our adventures - trekking through the Patagonian Andes! But we have still managed to do a few new things, so we'll fill you in.
On Monday afternoon, after class, we decided to pay a visit to the city's newest, and apparently swankiest barrio, Puerto Madero. I personally didn't like it that much, mainly because the area has no soul. It seems like every city has one of these places - for Melbourne, the closest comparison would be Southbank meets Docklands. Lots of new, new buildings, all of which have seemingly sprouted out of a formerly plain landscape, making the area instantly trendy. I suppose it was pretty enough. Most of the city's nicest hotels line the waterfront (a tributary of the River Plate runs through the barrio), and here, we found a river possibly dirtier than the Yarra! Aside from the typical up-market restaurants and high rise edifices, we also found an interesting, gleaming white foot bridge/art installation, which we crossed just because we could. We were kind of bemused when upon reaching the other side, we found a small shrine to the Virgin Mary set up beside the threshold of the bridge - I generally make it a point not to use anything that requires divine protection, but hey, when in Rome. J On they way home we paid a visit to an art installation we had seen briefly before- the buddy bears of peace. It's a huge circle of bears, one representing each country of the world each painted by an artist from the corresponding country and it's supposed symbolise world unity. Australia's is painted by Ken Done! It all looks very pretty and bright and you can see a few example bears in our latest photo album.
The next day after school we took off to the volunteering session we told you about in our last post. After about 40 minutes of getting organized and waiting for other volunteers at the office in Recoleta, about 8 of us and a co ordinator who has done this activity before set off in a little mini van, driven by our friend Simon. The middle seat tended to fall out if you pushed it but otherwise- totally serviceable!! We took with us a whole lot of clean drinking water (as the water is not drinkable in the community we were visiting) some cakes, lots of balloons and presents. Buenos Aires turned into a highway and the highway turned into rural/industrial area - big livestock farms and some factories. Soon we turned off the main road and as we drove the houses and structures got more and more run down. When the road turned to dirt it made for a VERY bumpy ride in our super full van. Eventually we pulled up outside a small house with a sign indicating this was the La Ferrere/ L.I.F.E community centre. The centre is run by an Argentinean couple and their family and most of the support is provided by L.I.F.E. They hold after school support sessions there and also English classes as well as the occasional birthday party. In the centre they have a few 1990 era computers, some books and posters to teach the kids English. When we arrived and all trooped inside, a lot of the volunteers stayed inside decorating but me and Ryan headed into the yard and played with the only kid there (it was still early), the grand daughter of the family who run the centre. We had fun playing catch, though it was very damaging to our self esteem when while talking to her she had to resort to sign language and motioning gestures and we realized our Spanish is not yet up to the level of a 4 year old!! Eventually she just gave up and told us about the garden- "it's corn", "it's grapes" "it's a tall tree", "it's a white flower" etc. We're glad she stooped down to our level. J We also chatted to her grandfather and soon more of the neighborhood kids started to arrive. All the boys greeted Ryan with a handshake and me with a kiss (how all Argentinean men greet women and men close to them). Some of the kids arrived with their mums but most came alone or with a sibling. We were a little shocked to chat with one 11 year old kid who had a tattoo and it was really sad to see one little toddler girl who turned up with her brother all dirty and wearing only her little shorts. She was so outgoing though and soon got Ryan playing an impromptu game with a balloon and a soft drink container (I was expelled for bad out fielding - she yelled at me when I dropped the balloon L). And when they stopped to watch some of the other girls jump rope for a while and Ryan got down on his haunches to her level she just leaned back and put her arm around his neck - so adorable. So we played with balloons, skipping rope, played ball games and soon it was time for cake. We made cordial for everyone and sang Happy Birthday (Cumplos Feliz) and the kids whose birthdays it was got gifts of textas, games etc. Everyone also got a balloon dog (or other unidentified balloon animal). We cleaned up and gave out a few remaining pieces of cake and balloons to kids who showed up late and were on our way. We left La Ferrere not before seeing people driving horse and carts, LOTS of stray dogs and we LOVED it when a few streets away from the centre we saw some kids walking around playing with the balloons we'd given them - made us feel like we'd given them something special. All in all a very rewarding experience for us to see something of the poverty outside the city and hopefully rewarding for the kids we met too. The experience has definitely inspired us to do further volunteer work both here and in other countries we plan to travel to.
On Saturday, we had decided to visit La Boca. This was the area where we had seen the futbol match a few weeks earlier, and is the poorest neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires. As it is generally not safe to wander around this barrio, we caught a bus directly into Caminito a square of streets which is set up as a tourist haven of sorts. The area is particularly famous for the brightly colored timber and corrugated iron houses which line its streets. In the regions salad days, the local immigrant population (mostly Italian) used left over paints from the nearby docks to decorate their humble abodes. There are some lovely little spots in the area, and the buildings are gorgeous and so iconic. On the other hand though, the area is an absolute tourist trap, lots of overpriced restaurants, mass produced trinkets and 'get your photo with someone pretending to be Maradona' stalls. We spent a little while wandering around, and got an expensive drink before catching the bus back home.
Later that evening, we met up with some friends for another weekend night out on the town. We headed to San Telmo for some drinks at a café, adjacent to a plaza packed with chairs and tables where a live band was playing tango music. Afterwards we caught a taxi back to Congreso, as we had planned to go out to a boliche (club) which was only three or so blocks from our house! One of our friends, Bianca, had heard about the place from her Argentinean roommate, who had told her the club was quite popular, and also warned that the lines could be quite long. True to his word, when we arrived we found a line that went for a whole block, went around the corner, and stretched for another half block! We queued for about fifteen minutes, but after very little movement, and discovering the cover charge was 50 pesos (granted, not a huge amount in dollars, but it is basically the equivalent of a club back home charging $50 for entry) we decided to move on. A couple of the guys decided to call it a night, but we went along with our friend Adam to an al fresco café (coincidentally, where we had had breakfast that morning!) for a few beers. We sat around til about 5:30 chatting about all sorts of stuff from travel, to the heavy topics of politics and religion. One really interesting thing that we noticed while we were at the café, and is pretty typical of Buenos Aires in general, is that no-one was there seemed drunk. Here (in contrast with a lot of young western cultures) excessive consumption of alcohol is typically seen as a waste of money, and to be obnoxiously drunk is frowned upon. Smart people.
Naturally we had quite a sleep in this morning, in fact Ryan didn't even wake up when I left the apartment, went down the street and made coffee! We had plans to return to San Telmo on Sunday, specifically to see a place called El Zanjon. El Zanjon is an old mansion in the barrio which was originally built in the 1830s, later used as a tenement house and finally fell into ruin before being rediscovered and bought in 1986. At this time the foundations of the mansion were entirely filled with rubbish as were the tunnels and basements which run beneath the site. The buyers painstakingly revamped the place over 22 years, keeping much of the old brick work, examples of old cisterns and pipe works and the tunnels and replacing only what was needed to insure the building's structural integrity. In fact they have a colour scheme- items such as pipes, railings and beams which were installed by the contemporary owners are all in black while original fittings such as door frames and archways remain in their natural wood/brick colours. It's absolutely the most important archeological site in Buenos Aires as not only have they carefully reconstructed the mansion itself , for instance in the tunnels below the house which had been filled in they removed the dirt by hand in order not to miss any relics and found many examples of cutlery, crockery, pipes etc. Our tour guide had some fascinating stories to tell, including one about a manager of a big Buenos Aires hotel who brought his grandmother to El Zanjon as she had been born there in the later years whe it was a tenement house. She then wrote the owners a 12 page letter full of invaluable information about life in El Zanjon as a young child. Our guide also told us that Argentina had slavery up until 1853 and the reason why the black population of Argentina is now practically non exisistant is that it is believed the former slaves were sent to the front line of Argentinas wars with Paraguay and Bolivia and were essentially wiped out, as our guide expressed it "used as cannon fodder". It truly was a fascinating overall look at the history of the city and the whole project has just been so professionally executed, it was great to see.
OK so that's about it for this week. We may send another quick update later in the week as we're going to be volunteering again but after that we start the next part of our trip and fly down to Ushuaia on Saturday- so excited but can't believe we're leaving this amazing city!!!
Love Hayley and Ryan
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