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2/24-2/28/17: Chileeeed

Chile, that long strip of land sprawling all the way down the edge of South America, the sea on one side, the good ‘ol Andes on the other, protecting them from the bitterness of all the neighboring countries of Argentina and Bolivia who are thiiiiis close to having access to the Pacific.

Taking advantage of our 4 day Carnaval weekend, we all hopped on a flight to the west last Friday to see what Chile had to offer. And oh, did it deliver.

Because there’s just way too damn much to recount, I’m gonna split it into days and try to lay out a High (best moment), a Low (worst moment) and a Hah (hilarious moment) for each, hopefully enough to jog my brain when I look back at this shit in like 40 years.

2/24

High

I jumped off a 180-foot-tall crane over the raging brown Maipo River. So literally high.

 I was attached to something, thank the lord. A bungee cord, to be exact. And I also had our lovely bungee guide, a man with a thick black beard, sandals and a brown bucket hat with a chin strap, to gently encourage me with his Zen-like voice as I stood on the edge. He had already brought me out there, an electric pulley on the crane pulling me across the gorge on a swinging, square metal platform, an arching bridge spanning the rift on my left and the desert-colored Cajon de Maipo, foothills of the Andes, to my right. All I had to do now was bend my knees, wait for him to count to 3, and then jump forward as far as I could.

 3….2….1….

When you jump from 180 feet, gravity has its way with you. Immediately. And if it’s your first time being taken by gravity like that, you’re probably going to scream. There’s no thoughts, you can’t consider your next move, and you definitely don’t have time for anything to flash before your eyes. You just fall and scream.

And then the bungee catches, and about 50% of the pure terror disintegrates. Your momentum is gently slowed to a halt, and then the equal and opposite force kicks in and you are picked up slowly and gracefully, floating at the top of the arc long enough to strike a “Superman” or “I’m Lounging on my Side in Thin Air” pose before you fall again, maybe without screaming but definitely not without flailing. After one more spring up and down, you settle at the bottom of your cord, sitting in the harness while the river sloshes below and the gorge looms all around you, as if you’ve wedged yourself to a stop halfway down the gullet of a earthen Titan that thought it was about to get an afternoon snack.

Whether or not I was under the influence of irresponsible amounts of adrenaline at the bottom of that stretchy rope, I know for a fact that down there, I felt totally surreally alive.

 Low

Having to pick up Amanda, Sabrina and Jamie at the airport at 2:30am after only getting like 3 hours of sleep the night before. Also, apparently jumping off cranes really takes it out of you.

Hah

Watching Nico freak out as this tiny black kitten at the bungee place ran back and forth on the edge of the gorge. He really got in touch with his mothering instincts, over and over blurting out “NO GATITO!” and blocking a dog from chasing the kitten on the gorge.

2/25

High

We started this day in Santiago and ended it Valparaiso, a port city of about 350,000 which is built on the sides of dozens of steep-as-hell hills that turn every excursion into leg day.

We had a bottle of wine we’d bought at a winery we toured earlier in the day, and we decided to walk to the beach at sunset to drink it. We ended up on a bank of grey boulders where people were hanging out, swimming, and best of all, watching a giant colony of sea lions duke it out for territory on a big slab of concrete in the port.

 We sat for over an hour, commentating on the sea lions as they leaped out of the water, struggled to flop their flabby bods up the slanted edge, aggressively nudged each other off the sides with their snouts, and roared and bellowed all sorts of ways. We all picked our favorites, anthropomorphized who was bad and who was an underdog, and designated the seagulls above the platform as the elite who looked down on the plebian sea lions as they battled amongst themselves, never looking up to notice the powerful few enjoying the luxuries of space and leisure that they were denied.

 Low

We had literally like 15 minutes between getting back from the winery in the morning and needing to get on the bus to Valparaiso. And of course, we were all wine drunk and starving. We stupidly went to a sit-down restaurant, but quickly realized we had to order our food to go, hop in an Uber, and stare at the clock as it ticked closer and closer to 4pm when our bus was scheduled to leave. Our driver casually reassured us that the buses don’t usually mean exactly 4pm when it says 4pm, but we still designated Amanda as the sprinter. When we got there, she busted her ass over to hold the bus as we sprinted behind her with all our suitcases. We were the last ones on, but on we were.

 Hah

Almost a suuuper low, when we went out of our hostel that night, we happened upon a giant, brightly-painted staircase, which we immediately decided to run up. Unfortunately, Jamie handed me her purse and dashed, but I decided I wanted to go too, and placed her purse on the ground next to the rest of our friends, assuming they’d seen me and would watch it.

A fat-burning cardio extravaganza later, I’m at the top of the stairs, and I turn around to see the rest of the group walking the last few flights. After a minute, Jamie asked where her purse was. I looked around expectantly to the others, but I had fallen into the classic “What happens when we assume” trap.

Knowing the potential shitstorm we were on the verge of, I began a reverse-dash down the stairs without even saying anything. Thank the lord, a couple guys on their way up had picked up the purse and were bringing it up towards me. I got it from them, thanked them with all my heart, and checked inside to find Jamie’s wallet and phone intact.

 Hah. But almost not.

 2/26

High

Gotta do 2 here:

 1. We went on a free walking tour of Valpo, with a sophomore college student from the city as our guide. I was in a super social mood this whole trip, constantly chatting with Uber drivers and asking randos for directions, and I struck up a convo with her too. She ended up telling me all about the Chilean student movement, which I’d heard a ton about. Students all throughout the country have been striking every year for years, refusing to go to class due to unmanageable tuition rates and lack of adequate university preparation in high schools. She amazed me with stories of how student governments here vote every year whether to strike, with each major getting a vote. This is mostly happening in public universities because students in the private ones are rich enough that they can afford to go there in the first place. Unfortunately, because they’re public universities, as long as the government keeps funding them, they seem not to care very much that there are no students in their classrooms for months as a time. And the students are forced to end their strikes after about 2 months because otherwise they’ll lose their financial aid for the year, and they only get a set number of years of aid. Like many political battles, the money is what needs to change in order to change the system.

 More on that: http://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/18348-chilean-student-movement-back-in-the-streets-for-free-education

2. We went to a beach in the next town over called Viña del Mar, where the waves were 10-15 feet high and ready to fuck some people up. Which of course meant a ton of cocky men ran right in. Including me and Nico. It brought me back to being a kid at the Jersey Shore, standing defiantly in front of crashing walls of water, daring them to take me out. Which they did.

Soon, without really trying, I found myself in the shadow of a cresting wave, perfectly positioned to ride it all the way in. Unfortunately, “all the way in” was a distance of about 20 feet, after which the sand banked up steeply toward the beach. I started swimming, knowing I was risking disaster, but I could already feel the wave sweep me up in its break as I paddled furiously. For a few seconds, I felt weightless, propelled by the massive momentum of the water. And then came the crash landing, a merciless body slam straight into the sand.

 Because I was expecting it and full of adrenaline, the profusely bleeding scrape on the left side of my stomach really didn’t concern me much when I stood up. But apparently it was enough for a nice local guy named Caesar on the beach to hand my two band-aids and take me over to the lifeguard first aid stand, where they cleaned me up. So future reference: the beach community will watch your back in Viño. So bodysurf away, my friend.

 Low

We tempted fate again with our bus timing, but this time had to leave the restaurant without even getting food. It was tense. Fool me twice…

 Hah

Trying to run and jump into waves with Nico but then both being way too scared and slow to make it work

2/27

High

Our whole night was a hilarious shitshow. From pre-dinner wine to 4am shitty sangria, we were tomando the night away, and at this point we all were feeling bonded enough that nothing was off limits. We were giggling at accidental sexual innuendos and making fun of each other’s quirks left and right. But I knew we’d crossed the true barrier into deep friendship when we played Never Have I Ever at the bar at 3am. We ventured into sex, drugs and other PG-13 and up territory in a way that we’d never breached before, and we were all dying of laughter at the things we never would have guessed about each other. As Sabrina summed it up nicely the next day, “We all can hang.”

  Low

We continued that night a pattern we’ve had the whole trip of pointless and unwinnable debates. The 4am drunk topic of choice: Who’s Hotter, Rihanna or Beyoncé? This was a topic put forward by the women of the group, just to clarify that it wasn’t just a gross sexual debate. But it sure did get heated, and a whole lot of gender and sexual politics were coming out fast and ugly. AKA I felt like I had to back up Nico cause he was getting totally torn down by Amanda and Sabrina. While I always look to see if the man is in the wrong first, and I’d never just back him up “as a bro”, here I knew I wasn’t totally insane in thinking he was being a bit targeted because Rita also backed him up. Ultimately, it got real enough that by the time we were walking back to the hostel, nobody was talking. But we gave some reconciliatory hugs good night, and by the next morning, we were all good, if not a little flabbergasted. And honestly, it wasn’t really a low because now it’s pretty hilarious.

 Hah

We ordered these typical Chilean drinks called terremotos (earthquakes), and were all super pumped for them. Traditionally made with an unfiltered white wine called pipeño and a scoop of pineapple sherbert, ours also had pisco, and it sounded like it’d be pretty damn good. Turns out not so much. Like bad enough that about halfway through, we all stopped trying to convince ourselves it was good and just straight up straw-chugged them to get to the next drink. Sorry Chile, your signature drink doesn’t do it for me. (The other signature drank, however, the Pisco Sour, is dope)

 2/28

High

Walking back with Rita after getting dessert and having a very real conversation about her hometown, how the culture and classism at Northwestern affected her experience, and just generally feeling like I got a way better idea of Rita and who she is.

Low

Nah, it was my birthday, everything was dope

 Hah

Back in Buenos Aires the night of my bday, I went to a dope restaurant I found and got a face-sized slice of carrot cake that would’ve made my girlfriend Mandy’s mom proud, because it was just as large as her servings, and 80% as good.

But the funny part was that the map took us to the wrong place at first, and even though we had to pay a taxi to get 20 minutes across town to the actual place, we did it without question because we both hold dessert near and dear to our hearts.

<3 Escoot

[boludosaires]

2/23/17: Related

How you treat people who do services for you is really important.

 Today, I was in a couple weird service-based situations.

First, this morning I sprinted across the street to grab my bus, but was a couple seconds late so it left the stop. However, it was stopped at the red light, and here they’re usually pretty lax about letting you on at reds. So I went up and knocked on the door, expecting to be let in. Instead, the driver didn’t even look at me, despite multiple attempts at rapping on the glass. Of course I was initially pissed, but as I walked back to the stop to wait for the next one, I realized he was honestly just doing his job, and waiting for the next bus really was nothing.

Second, I discovered around 7pm when I got home from work that my safe wasn’t opening, and my passport was inside. Which was a problem because we leave tomorrow at 7am for Chile, and the office closes at 5pm and doesn’t open until 9am. So I called Florencia, the building manager, admittedly a bit panicked. Her immediate response was “Well, the office is closed, and I don’t come in until 9am”. Which made me sorta upset, because she told me she’s the only one with safe access, and I didn’t really have any other options. Plus, it wasn’t my fault that the safe was messed up. So I got a little testy with her, saying “Well the thing is, I need to be on a flight tomorrow, so I don’t really know what else to do.” As I said it, I realized that I was putting a lot of pressure on her, while she was probably ready to be done work for the day. So I took a breath, apologized for the inconvenience, and asked her if there was anything she could do. After which she said she would try to stop by later tonight to open it. And she did, which was honestly a huge favor and probably a huge pain in her ass.

Lastly, as I was going to meet up with my NU friends for Rita’s bday dinner tonight, I accidentally got off at the wrong bus stop (I’m not a total idiot: there are 2 of the same restaurant) and had to take a taxi to where we were supposed to be. Even though I was annoyed at myself for having to take a taxi, I calmed down enough to ask the taxi driver how he was, and how his night was looking. He told me he was gonna be driving from 9pm to 9am, and that the only break he took was for a soda or something. 12 hours straight. And he does it 7 days a week. I asked him if his customers usually talk to him, and he said a lot of his older customers do, but the younger people are usually just on their phone. Which to me is pretty shitty. He’s driving our privileged asses around while we have fun; I feel like the least we can do is offer him the courtesy of acknowledging he’s alive.

Those are my anecdotes. Do with them what you will.

 <3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Sesgado-biased

·      Barrera-barrier (at a toll)

·      Me cae bien- we get along (someone you don’t know well)

·      Me llevo bien con el- we’re close (a close relationship)

·      Franquicia-franchise

·      Compás-measure (music)

[boludosaires]

2/22/17: RockCycled

No shame, tonight I went to a spin class, and I loved that shit.

It was a place a friend from Northwestern had recommended us, and me, Jamie and Sabrina decided to get our sweat going. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, a spin class is when you’re in a room full of stationary bikes and a peppy, way-more-athletic-than-you’ll-ever-be trainer is on a bike facing you at the front of the room, motivating you with pop songs and cheesy one-liners through their microphone headset.

But this was no ordinary spin class. We got to RockCycle, and they gave us these special shoes with metal on the bottom that we strapped on like rock climbing shoes, if you’ve ever worn those. We walked into a dimly lit room, lines of bikes facing a full-wall mirror and an elevated platform where the trainer’s bike throne sat, surrounded by glowing orange candles. When we got on our bikes, the metal on the bottom stuck to a super-magnet on the pedals, rooting us in place and making me feel like they were about to shoot a bunch of data through my heels and into my brain so I could be uploaded to the grid.

The class started with Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” setting the pace for our soon-to-be-screaming thighs, and things only went up from there. We did handlebar pushups to “Temperature” by Sean Paul, lifted dumbbells to “Shake (Mentirosa)” by Ying Yang Twins ft. Pitbull, and burned out to “Titanium” by David Guetta. And my arms and hips and quads broke down, fiber by fiber, the adrenaline levels just kept climbing. I hooted, I sang along to songs, and I even made eye contact with the buff trainer guys and smiled as we both shimmied to the beats.

 The key was the fact that it was dark. Even for me, as someone who usually pushes myself to not give a shit about what others think, being invisible allowed me to really go hard with abandon. When I headbanged or danced, I didn’t have to worry about anyone judging me on the bike next door. And honestly, I feel like I have my best workouts when I stop thinking and just get in the frenzy zone, not thinking about anything except pushing myself to the limit.

It’s a beautiful thing to just be liberated. Who knew it’d happen at spin class?

 <3Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Ahorrista-person who saves money

·      Payador-folk singer

·      Cartel-poster

·      Figurar-to appear, to be listed

·      Engaño-a trick

·      Atrasar-to delay

·      Fallar- to rule (judicial)

[boludosaires]

2/21/17: Weiser-ed

I went to a meeting of a bunch of left political orgs tonight to film them as they made plans to hold a march on March 1 against Macri’s anti-immigrant decree. I’m hoping to make my final project about the fight against this decree, or at least the beginnings of it, as it’s looking like this might be a pretty prolonged fight. 

Afterwards, I hung out a bit with Miguel, the organizer that was at Juana’s lunch in Villa 21-24 with me a few weekends ago. I had been texting him about wanting to hang and learn more about politics from him, so after the meeting, he asked if I wanted to grab a beer and chill in the plaza. So, like any good Argentine, we bought a liter of Budweiser and found a nice overhang on the sidewalk to shelter us from the rain while we talked about socialism.

 The theme of our talk was revolution, from the anti-Bolshevik parties in the Russian Revolution of 1917 (Mensheviki and Socialist Internationalist, to name a few) to the reactions of capitalists to a society that is rejecting it (violence and facism). I got some more insight about the stances of TPR as well; one that really stood out was that they’re in favor of armed, not peaceful revolution. Their mindset is that if imperialism is killing people every day, than the most effective and rapid way to end that is to match and overpower that force. He even said that they supported ISIS in a sense, because they were anti-imperialist. Which, even as a radical, was too much for my American, anti-terror-saturated mind to accept. He clarified that they don’t support violence for the sake of violence, or in the name of a specific country or religion, but the idea of fighting imperialism with whatever means necessary is right up their alley. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but that’s a musing for another time.

 Despite the disagreements, we easily agreed upon one thing: the conditions of the world are ripe for revolution. There’s huge economic inequality, political unrest, and the ever-looming bummer of climate change. I’ve always had stupid idealistic thoughts about what a revolution would be like, and I know that in reality, it’s violent and destructive and miserable. But now is really the first time that I actually feel like people are reacting in extreme ways to the state of the world, and right now the reaction that’s winning is the extreme right, aka Trump, Brexit, Le Pen and the like. I literally have no idea what I can do to tip the scales the other direction, but I can feel something happening, and me and Miguel are both staying alert for the coming uprising, Bud in hand.

<3Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Suceder-to occur

·      Caducidad-expiration

·      Esgrimir-to argue

[boludosaires]

2/20/17: Befriended

It’s pretty weird that up until the age of 20-something, before you get a job, people are constantly asking you what you want to do with your life, but as soon as you get something, everyone stops caring.

It’s like they either just assume that you’re doing whatever you want to be doing, or they don’t want to ask for fear that you might say “I’m NOT doing what I want to be doing, and it’s killing me.” And then everyone will just be bummed out.

Either way, once you get a consistent job or get “too old”, you’re no longer this youthful ray of potential that older people are drawn to like life-sucking dementors, looking to drink up your hopes and dreams as unsatisfying stand-ins for the ones they’ve given up on.

Ok that’s pretty cynical. Honestly, I just was really getting into that imagery. It’s a little melodramatic.

But for real, why do we stop asking people what they want out of their life? Isn’t that a lifelong journey, one that constantly changes as you and your context and your experiences change? To me, a 22 year old pursuing their dream is actually way less interesting than a 35 year old or a 50 year old or an 80 year old. Because our society works in such a way that it’s way harder to commit to pursuing your dreams once you have “real-world responsibilities” like bills and a family, not to mention the preeminent mindset that you either pursue your dreams when you’re young or lose your chance.

This rant is the result of a really beautiful conversation I had today with a guy at my work named Dani. He’s probably in his mid-to-late 30s, and he works as a video editor for the LN+ team that puts together the nightly news program. I was editing with him, and I realized that he literally sits there editing video packages all day, every day. So I asked him if he like doing that.

Which launched him into an hour-long discourse on all his current life goals. Dani’s really into motors. He and a friend have bought a garage, and are in the process of fixing it up, painting it, and turning it into a workshop for fancy computerized car motors. He even has a logo, complete with a media kit that includes work uniforms and keychain designs. He also love boats, and when the car motor shop is established, he wants to expand to boats. He showed my photo after photo of the garage, cars, boats, motors.

It might sound kind of boring or silly, but I found myself to be really thankful for the whole conversation. Dani was literally sharing his life’s dreams with me, a foreign intern that he met 3 weeks ago. That’s a brave and vulnerable thing to do. And honestly, I feel like in the daily grind, not many people ever ask him about any of that, meaning he doesn’t get to share his passion with the people that he’s sitting with for 8 hours every day.

 So I just want to formally thank Dani for giving me a little piece of yourself, and for not giving up on your dreams, even when all the old people have stopped asking you what you want to be when you grow up.

<3Escoot

Palabras Nuevas

·      Arancel-tariff

·      Motochorro-motorcycle-riding thief

·      Despectivo-Talking shit about something

·      Bosteros-Horseshits (insult)

·      Piba-girl

[boludosaires]

[boludosaires]

2/19/17: Duped

If you ever come to Buenos Aires and you ask people here where else you should go, invariably someone will tell you to go to Tigre.

 Don’t listen.

 Ok, I’m being a snob. If you like big touristy markets and amusement/water parks with really long lines, go to Tigre.

Otherwise, you should go towards Tigre, but if you don’t ever set foot on land, you’ll have a way better time.

 When we went to Tigre yesterday, Dolo set us up on a tour boat, which took us up the Rio de La Plata and through a few other rivers that wound their way to Tigre. On the ride there, the sun was shining, water sprayed up the sides of the boat, and we navigated past lazy sailboats and jetskiers who gave off an air of adrenaline-fueled arrogance. Both banks of the river were thick with reeds and willows, reminding me kayaking along the intercoastal in the Florida Everglades with Mandy. After a while, we came into a narrower part of the river where houses lined the bank, some covered in murals like a tattoo sleeve, others modern and expensive with four glass walls, still others shabby and run-down. The incessantly blabbing recording of a tour guide whined through our boat’s speakers, telling us that the houses were like their own town, with grocery boats, dentist boats and school bus boats that traveled house to house.

If I had my choice, I would’ve grabbed a kayak or rowboat and skimmed along that river for hours. Instead, we had a fairly touristy day in Tigre. What redeemed it was a really cool art exhibit on war by Argentine artist Hernán Dompé in the Museo de Arte de Tigre, and a quick jaunt around the Museo de Mate, the only mate-themed museum in the world, featuring glass cases full of 2000 different mate gourds. As Argentine as it gets.

 Anyway, in summary, if you go to Tigre, stay in the water.

<3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Hacha-hatchet

·      Ballesta-crossbow

·      Hornacina-alcove

[boludosaires]

2/18/17: Sunrised

This post actually started at like 12:20 AM Saturday morning, which in my head was still Friday night, but really wasn’t. It ends around 6:30 AM Saturday morning.

Yea, we had quite a night.

Started at a party Pablo invited us to, all of us there except Sierra. It was in what essentially was a giant unfinished basement; high ceilings, cement walls, and lit only by yellow string lights, lasers and a projector shooting abstract graphics of a rotating brain onto the wall. The DJs were mixing live, and honestly, it was probably the best music I’ve encountered at a party in Buenos Aires. Driving electro-techno, with a pumping base and glimmering synth sounds that brought out the silliest of my dance moves.

 Me, Nico, Amanda, Pablo, and 2 of Pablo’s cool friends got deep into the groove, challenging each other with weird dance moves like Pablo’s “squat-all-the-way-down-until-your-ass-touches-the-ground-and-then-dance-with-your-arms”.  One of Pablo’s friends, nicknamed Gato, kept passing around his beer to share with Nico and I, and we started taking our sips to the music, passing the can under our legs and behind our backs before tilting our heads back and taking a swig. We all kept making eye contact and cracking up at how ridiculous we were being, and we dance for like 2 hours, til 3am.

 Meanwhile, Sabrina, Jamie and Rita had left like an hour before for a “salsa club”. Nico, Amanda and I decided to leave at 3am from that techno haven and meet up with them. Before we left, Nico said to me and Amanda “Yo I’m not tired at all. Let’s stay up until 7am”.  We wholeheartedly agreed, making plans to find pancakes as we walked to the other club.

I should’ve known the place would be shit as soon as the bouncer at the door told me and Nico that Amanda was free, but we had to pay 200 pesos each. While that only comes out to like $12, for reference, the techno party was free before 1am and only like $3.25 after 1am. We went in and, whaddaya know, it was the same repetitive cumbia music and douchey, skeezy men that we’d encountered at every other boliche (club) we’ve been to. Nevertheless, because I’d already begrudgingly handed over my cash, I decided to say “fuck it” and have a good of a time as I could. So I chugged a cheap beer, and started shaking my hips. I cumbia-ed with Rita and Sabrina, and laughed at Nico, who was hating everything about the place and just standing there giving death stares to all the assholes in the room.

 Anyway, around 4:30am, Amanda, Jamie and Nico gave up and left. But Sabrina, Rita and I were determined to make it to 7am, and we kept gritting our teeth through the never-ending boom-ba-doom-ba of the cumbia. 

We made it about 30 more minutes before throwing in the towel. We made our way back to our apartment, but committed to seeing the sunrise, we headed up to the roof. We chilled there for like an hour or so, chatting, while I fought back the stones that were dragging down my eyelids. 

Of course, it was cloudy as hell and we couldn’t see the sunrise at all. It just kind of got bright all of the sudden. We went to bed, unsatisfied, but at the very least with the knowledge that we had made it through a true Porteño night out.

 Moral of the Story: When life gives you great techno, take it for all it’s worth. Which is a lot more than 200 pesos. 

<3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Ochentoso-old-fashioned

[boludosaires]

2/17/17: Sheltered

I think homelessness is one of the most complex human issues out there, if only because it’s something many of us have to confront on a daily basis, yet have no direct experience with. Especially most of the people I interact with, who are middle to upper class and probably have both never been homeless and have never known someone close to them who was homeless.

Homelessness becomes even more complex when people begin to make distinctions between which homeless people deserve help and which can be ignored. Are you more inclined to give money to a women with kids or an older man, a white guy or a black guy, a person who asks nicely or a person with mental illness who aggressively shoves a cup in your face?

I bring this up because I went today to a place called Casa de La Mujer, a house that was started by a community organization last October to provide safety and stability to homeless women. Currently, four women live there with seven children. I was thinking about some of the things I mentioned above because the 4 women who live there are chosen by the organization, out of thousands of men and women in shelters here, and it made me wonder how one could possibly choose who “deserves” a spot in your house more than another.

I went there with Mica Urdinez, a reporter with La Nacion who works in the Comunidad section, mostly working on stories about social issues. She asked me to come with her to shoot some video and take some pictures for an upcoming article profiling the house. 

The women’s stories I heard there were haunting and heartbreaking. One woman was pregnant with her daughter when she became homeless. She was living with her boyfriend and his mother, who treated her like a servant, making her work all day for them in exchange for a place to live. After having her child she finally decided to leave, though she had nowhere to go, and spent a few months rotating between shelters before finding the house.

Another talked about living in the street with her child, and how people would often offer her food or a shower or a place to sleep, pitying her because she was in the street with a baby. Even so, she described how on the nights she did need to stay outside, she couldn’t sleep at all, too scared for her son.

The kids were adorable. One little brown-haired girl in a dress would stop playing and stare at me every time I aimed the camera at her, mouth agape, not making a sound but infinitely curious about what the hell I was doing. An older boy was really into my equipment, and I showed him how to help me record the interviews. He even took it upon himself to jump up and grab a younger boy when he was about to walk through one of our interviews. And he actually took one of the best pictures from the whole morning, another boy sitting in a chair, staring at me with his head cocked in his hand.

I was thinking a bit about whether this was the kind of journalism I’d want to do if I were to go into it full-time. On the one hand, I think the stories being told are really important, and that educating the public about social issues is an important part of social change. But I also feel like I’d need to be constantly checking in with my emotional self to make sure that I didn’t get to the point where these people were just another interview or story for me. If I wasn’t doing the work with a ton of empathy and an open heart, I think it could easily become just using people’s suffering for profit. Doing documentary feels a bit different because I’d be really investing time in building a relationship with the people I worked with. But doing just one-off stories about social issues feels a little dangerous, almost like community service or volunteer trips. I wonder whether Mica has some philosophy that guides her in her work. I think I’ll ask her the next time we work together.

 <3Escoot

Palabras Nuevas

·      Despegar-detach, remove

·      Secuestrado-kidnapped

·      Matuntino-morning

·      Rezar-to pray

·      Tembloroso-shaky

·      Amparo-shelter

·      Vagon-train carriage

·      Quebrar-to go bankrupt

·      Apicultura-beekeeping

·      Articular-to join together

·      Soportar-to put up with, to bear

·      Garrafa- tank

[boludosaires]

2/16/17: Governed

I fought my way into a Congressional session today, in true journalist form.

 I had plans to go to this session of a Congressional commission on immigration which Lío had invited me to. It took place in the big, European, regal Congress building, with its big, green copper dome and flowing marble columns. Unfortunately, my co-workers had told me to get in, I just needed to say I was with La Nacion, and didn’t need press credentials.

They were wrong.

When the security lady at the desk asked me for press creds, I helplessly pulled out my entrance card to the La Nacion office, a white, label-less piece of plastic that meant nothing to her. Then I started frantically texting Lío, a friend of his who was inside, anyone. They just kept telling me to tell the security I was “with the Left front”, which wasn’t working because literally anyone could just say that. C’mon guys.

Finally, I called Lío and, fumbling over my Spanish conjugations in frustration, handed the phone to the security guard. They talked for a second, she asked for my ID again, and after a second she handed it back to me, with a pass to enter.

“Sorry for the inconvenience!” she said cheerily. I nodded in slight confusion, and then headed in. I don’t know what Lío said, but he’s the man.

 Inside, about 20 rows of chairs were packed with people, while a u-shaped table at the front was ringed with congress-people and speakers from outside the government making their testimonies.  I was in full documentary filmmaker mode, recording speeches by people speaking out against Macri’s decree until my arms shook and my back ached from standing still, Nikon resting in my bent arms. Being in a room like that as a journalist is super weird, because I usually alternate between feeling really good for taking a risk and getting somewhere (like when I wasn’t sure if I could walk all the way to the front, but just decided to walk straight past the security dude, who said nothing) and feeling really nervous and insecure and not acting (like when I wanted to ask this dude who had just made an amazing speech for an interview, but ended up just awkwardly following him around with my microphone in my hand while he chatted with others until he finally made eye contact with me and I found it in me to pop the question). I feel like it’s mostly not wanting to seem like an asshole journalist, and trying instead to genuinely connect with people. But it’s def also an insecurity about asserting myself that I need to work on.

But in the end, I got to interview 2 amazing people, see a really important Congressional session, and fingers-crossed, have a piece for the news program at La Nacion. I’ll post the video link below so you can see their speeches, because my descriptions won’t convey how passionate and terrifyingly real their words were about this oppressive decree.

[boludosaires]

2/15/17: Gentrified

Gentrification is a word that has only recently crossed over from English to Spanish, exchanging the ending “t” for a “c”, adding an accent on the “o”, softening the “g” sound into a barely-heard “h”.

“Gentrificación”

Despite the delay in language adaptation, the phenomenon of gentrification has been going down in Buenos Aires for years now, including in Palermo where I currently live.

Another place where it’s extremely prominent is a neighborhood called La Boca, they same La Boca where I spent a whole afternoon with Nati and Henrik, the super-biker from Copenhagen that we interviewed, doing a bike tour of the area. On that tour, one thing Henrik made a point of showing us was all the beautiful murals that brighten up the walls of many streets throughout the barrio. They include everything from fútbol fanaticism to colorful hummingbirds to images of proletariat unity. And they are really nice.

What I didn’t know during that tour is that most of those murals were painted just 5 months ago, at a city-funded festival called ColorBA. At the festival, artists from around the city and the world were invited to create murals all around La Boca in a week of artistic frenzy.

Now to the casual tourist or art-lover, this might sound great; bringing art to a neighborhood will beautify it, raise property values, bring in more tourists, and just be all-around a nice idea, right? Well, that’s probably exactly what the city of Buenos Aires wants.

 What they didn’t put in the ColorBA press releases is the idea that, by bringing in all these outside artists to stake their creative territory in La Boca, they were totally ignoring the neighborhood’s pre-existing artist communities. Additionally, raising property values is great for all the real-estate speculators who have been buying up old houses and building apartment buildings in the neighborhood, but it’s not so great for the locals who live there now, and who in large part are on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. For them, it means suddenly they can’t pay the rent, and are forced out of their homes.

All of these insights and critiques were illustrated to me by a friend Sofia, who I met at the women’s march here. She’s from New Jersey, but has lived here in Buenos Aires for 3 years, including in La Boca for 1 year. She’s in grad school, trying to learn more about the interactions between art and social movements, and she’s seeing art play a role in social injustice firsthand in La Boca. She had offered to tell me more and take me around the neighborhood, so I spent the morning with her walking and talking.

To her, the whole scheme is easy to see through: the city began work on designating La Boca and part of the surrounding neighborhoods as the “Distrito de La Artes” in 2012. Their main plan has been to bring in artists by amping up artistic venues and access to studios. And providing sweet incentives, such as not paying income taxes for 10 YEARS. 10. Years.

In their messaging from the beginning, the city has talked about how this would help boost the tourist economy, leading Sofia to believe that, far from wanting to improve people’s lives in the neighborhood, this is all about the cash. Here’s a quote from a 2012 La Nacion article about the creation of the district: 

“Creemos que con el crecimiento que generará este distrito en la zona de La Boca y San Telmo, el turismo puede llegar a quedarse un día más en Buenos Aires, con todo lo que económicamente eso implica", agregó el ministro de Desarrollo Económico porteño, Francisco Cabrera.”

If you don’t read Spanish, it says:

“We think that with the growth that this district will generate in La Boca and San Telmo, tourists could come to stay a whole extra day in Buenos Aires, with all of the economic implications that has,” said Buenos Aires’s minister of Economic Development, Francisco Cabrera. 

So ColorBA turns out to be a pretty genius event: bring in a bunch of artists, probably pay them little to nothing (not sure, but based on what Sofia told me, it was cheap for the city), and come out with a neighborhood with amplified values and a whole new tourist attraction.

The hope in all this is that there are 2 community organizations fighting back against all this. One of them is called “Las Hormigas” (the ants), and they’re been spraypainting a stencil of an ant all over La Boca, a symbol of resistance that falls right into Sofia’s area of focus. She’s hoping to get in touch with them and learn more; I think I should do the same. Definitely something that feels like it could be a group of people who haven’t been heard that I could help provide a platform for.

 Finding radical peeps who I vibe with and who will show me the alternative views of Buenos Aires has been easier than I expected. Maybe showing up at protests is an obvious way to meet the radicals, but for me, it’s the first time I’ve been in a new place and had to build my connections from scratch, and it’s going pretty well. I’m really grateful for people like Sofia who are so open to giving me their time and telling me what’s up, too. Some true revolutionary unity.

<3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Consignada-recorded

·      Trámite-procedure

·      Redundante-difficult to answer

·      Viola- someone cool

[boludosaires]

2/14/17: Cultured

I got some interesting perspective today over lunch. We were talking about immigrants in Argentina, and Gaby and Caro, two of the women on my team, were telling me about the different immigrant groups in Argentina. I knew there were a lot of Italian descendants, but what was interesting to me was that there are also a lot of German descendants here. There’s even towns where they celebrate Oktoberfest. It’s definitely a lot more culturally diverse here than some other Latin American countries, as Caro pointed out. Although that diversity is only accepted as far as the borders of Western Europe; immigrants from Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru are still confined to their poor neighborhoods and restaurants. 

One interesting thing Gaby said was that she feels like in Argentina, there’s a general disregard or disrespect for rules and order. Like the government’s authority doesn’t really mean much to people. As opposed to places in Scandinavia or Europe where rules and regulations are very much integrated into people’s way of life. Even in America, Gaby talked about how when she was in Miami, there were signs everywhere on the street telling her where she could park and when, and people follow those rules. Meanwhile, here the only street signs are more or less the bus stops. Granted, in the U.S. people follow parking rules because if you don’t, there’s fines; it’s not just a blind respect thing. But even so, Gaby’s point was that there wouldn’t even be enough order here to enforce fines if they had them.

Here’s the super notable thing though: she blamed the lack of order and respect for rules in Argentina on the mindset of Italian immigrants. Full disclosure: she is an Italian descendant herself. But she basically said that Italian culture is also more disordered and unstructured, and that’s why Argentina reflects that so much. Personally, I’ve never been to Italy, so I have no idea how true that is, or was. But it struck me as weird that she would attribute the societal patterns here to an outside cultural influence, as opposed to a political system or who’s in power. It made me wonder: how much do our personal background and cultures influence our societal structures and norms, as opposed to the force and controls of our governments, police, militaries and other entities that have the power to threaten us into behaving certain ways? Like do I follow laws because of the social taboos around breaking them, or because of the threat of punishment? Of course it’s a bit of both, but it’s crazy that so many of our laws have been around so long that we just follow them because it would be “wrong” or “socially unacceptable” not to, and we don’t actually think about why they exist or who decided to create them in the first place. Obviously we’re thinking about that a lot more now with Trump, but what about all the old laws that still stand? In a lot of cases, those are just as oppressive as the new Trump ones, and we’re not questioning those nearly as much. 

Just some lunchtime musings to keep in mind. 

<3 Escooot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Misa-mass (of people)

·      Desmarcarse-to distance yourself

·      Boicotear-to boycott

·      Dirección- course

·      Rivalizar- to compete

·      Adormidera/amapola-poppy

·      Enganchar-to hook up (to something)

·      Medidor-meter

·      Desaguar-to empty, drain

·      Agua pluvial-rainwater

·      Manguera-hose

·      Pozo-well

·      Espantar-to scare

·      Sobras-leftovers

·      Vereda-sidewalk

[boludosaires]

2/13/17: Drummed

I love drums.

 Mostly, I love drums that make beats that I can flail around too. It’s probs my favorite thing to dance to. Deep, booming, driving, flail-y drums.

Tonight, we went to a show called La Bomba del Tiempo, which was just that: 2 hours straight of flail-y drums. As you can imagine, I had a hell of a time.

The best part was that I decided not to get any drinks, even though they were selling them everywhere. First of all, I think I drank like 5 out of 7 days last week, and I think I need to chill out. Second of all, money. Third of all, I knew that, in the not-so-distant past, I had prided myself on being able to be carless and free without any substances at all. So I kind of wanted to see if I still had that ability to stop thinking about what others think and just enjoy myself.

Good news: I pretty much do. There’s always a warm-up period, but once they beats got going, I was shaking and shimmying like I just didn’t care. Cause I didn’t. And while my friends slowly started doing the same as they got drunker, I was able to keep up with their ridiculousness on pure adrenaline and good vibes. I love that I can get to that point.

Now watch the video below and get a little taste of the jams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lxDKFB7jvM

<3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Experimentar-to experience, to try out

·      Mapache-raccoon

·      Puntos-stitches

·      Molinete-turnstile

·      Remera-t-shirt

·      Riñon-kidney

·      Hígado-liver

·      Descartar-to rule out

·      Ente- entity

·      Impulsar- to motivate, to drive

[boludosaires]

2/12/17: Recorded

I am officially on an album.

 Fede, the bassist from Pablo’s band, invited me to come over today and record some parts for the 4th album he’s releasing with his band, Fat Dojo. We spent like 2 hours figuring out and recording parts for 4 different songs, along with his friend Bebo, who plays guitar in the band. It was super legit; I had a mic, headphones where I could hear myself as I played, and they had a huge soundboard and a Mac attached where we could edit and listen back to the recordings as we went.

 Ok, so I actually don’t know how legit it was cause I’ve never recorded anything. But it seemed legit.

It’s so weird that, after having huge, soaring dreams of going to music school back in high school and then totally slacking off on the sax in college, I’m suddenly neck-deep in Buenos Aires’s indie rock scene as “the sax dude”. I really really love the creativity, and how everyone is so welcoming and wants to play with me. But it’s just one of those things that I literally never would’ve believed if future Scott came back before I left and told me this would happen. 

Sierra sent me this article the other night explaining how, in astrology, the recent lunar eclipse signified a time of new beginnings, a time when we should be grabbing new opportunities and embodying the selves we really want to be. I feel like that’s been happening on an unbelievable scale this week for me, and it’s magical.

Whether it’s the moon or just straight up luck, I’m riding high right now on Buenos Aires fumes.

 <3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Parcial-midterm

·      Grave-low, deep

·      Vientos-winds (instruments)

[boludosaires]

2/11/17: Canvassed

This morning, Juana, the woman from Villa 21-24 who hosted the charla the other night, invited me back to go to a lunch she was putting together for the kids of the community. She invited me like an hour and a half before it was supposed to start, but I once again was successful in convincing myself to go with the flow and take this opportunity that was placed so obviously in front of me. And I even got Sierra to come with, cause I knew she was interested in seeing the community organizing going on here.

When we arrived at Juana’s about 15 kids were sitting around a long table set up in the dirt road outside her house, chowing down on some big macaroni pastas covered in red meat sauce. They were no older than 10 or 11, hence all adorable. After saying hi to everyone, Juana made a little speech to the parents (technically to the kids too, but they were all totally distracted by dogs and each other at this point) about the political work she does with TPR. As a reminder, this is the political party that my friends Natalia and Lío are also a part of. Juana is part of a group within the party called the Agrupación Villera Piquetera (AVP), a caucus of sorts for people in TPR who live in the villas. Anyway, in her speech she talked about the importance of the community organizing together, of people in villas mobilizing  to vote and get engaged, and of taking care of their children.

After lunch, we walked around with Juana, 2 other women who live in the villa and who she’s dragged into TPR, and another TPR organizer named Miguel, who was my age. We went from door to door, asking people to sign a petition they plan to deliver demanding that the city pave their roads, which often flood with sewage when it rains, fix power lines so they don’t have outages, and other infrastructure demands. They also took down people’s information to get them registered to vote.

What was really cool to me was that Juana’s approach to organizing wasn’t any sort of robotic pitch or list of names. She just went door to door, talking to her neighbors who she already knows because she’s very engaged and vocal in the community. She told each of them what she was doing, and hardly had to even explain why it mattered to them before they signed on. First of all, it was already pretty obvious to everyone that things needed to be fixed up. And second of all, it seemed like they knew Juana enough to trust what she was doing and want to be a part of it.

Literally every single neighbor she talked to signed the petition and registered to vote, and a bunch of them even paid 5 pesos to buy some political literature from them. It was nothing like the canvassing I’ve done, where most people don’t want to even hear the first two words you have to say, and getting one person every 30 minutes is a win. Sure, they weren’t asking for all that much, just a signature and some contact info, but that wasn’t all Juana was getting out of it. At every house she chatted, joked around, introduced herself if she didn’t know them, and unabashedly made her pitch for why what she was doing should matter to them. She was building relationships and a reputation that will, I hope, make her work even stronger moving forward.

It was pretty much the definition of community organizing: a person from the community getting her neighbors together to fight to better their own lives. It felt natural, it felt like she had a complete understanding of the community’s wants and needs, and she had a deep personal stake in the work. And the other organizer Miguel, who was not from the community but was in TPR, was there to help, but in no way did he ever try to take control or tell Juana how to do what she was doing. He was a source of resources and support. An ally. 

If we could get community members in the U.S. to be more like Juana and Miguel, with people in communities leading and people who have the ability to help from the outside supporting humbly from behind, WE could be the ones creating our own realities. People would feel empowered to envision, to build, to support each other. And big business and rich politicians would no longer be able to just walk in and do whatever they wanted to. They couldn’t break our unity. Together, we’re much stronger than they are.

Thanks for the inspiration, Juana.

 <3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Desmentir-to refute

·      Engaño-trick, hoax

·      Cuadro-frame

·      Colocar-to place

·      Hierbabuena-mint

[boludosaires]

2/10/17: Connected

I feel like I’ve really started to embody what I truly wanted out of Buenos Aires. I’ve made friends here through Pablo and the rest of the band. I’ve started learning more about radical politics and getting to know organizers here. I’ve been having new experiences all the time, and, I think, building real, meaningful relationships with friends here.

And yet, I feel scared, or uncertain, or even a bit embarrassed. Like things are going so well, and people in the NU group and Mandy and Mei-Ling have been complementing me on how well I’m doing, and I don’t want to come off as obnoxious or like I think I’m amazing or something. I feel this way a lot when people complement me or tell me what they admire about me; it’s like I try really hard to be a certain person I want to be, and then when people recognize that, I get embarrassed because I don’t know how to respond. Like I can’t really just say “Thanks, that’s what I was going for!” So usually I just smile and say “thank you”.

I guess the other piece of this is that I don’t want people to feel bad or jealous or something because of what I’m doing. I’m not trying to say that pretentiously, like “oh, people are jealous of me”, but I sometimes get the vibe when people are like “Oh, I could never do that” or “How do you do that?” that they are feeling like they should be different or aren’t living their lives the “right” way. I don’t know, maybe I’m totally just being full of myself and nobody is feeling that. But I just feel uncomfy with the idea that I’d be making other people feel bad, even unintentionally. 

I think it’s probably fine to feel good about living the way that I envisioned for myself here. I should allow myself to feel good about my choices and actions, and give myself some credit and love. But I also just want to remain humble, and still receptive and interested in other people. I don’t want to get in a mindset where all I think about or talk about is the “super cool” stuff I’m doing. The key here is to continue thinking outside myself, even as I continue pushing myself to live my life to the fullest embodiment of what I want for me. And in the end, I guess those two are intertwined.

 <3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·    No  hay apuro- no rush

·    Radicación-residency

·    Causa-a judicial case

·    Leve-minor

·    Derogación-repeal

·    Fallar-to fail

·    Reclamar-to demand

·    Contravención-violation (law)

·    Colador-sieve

·    Tapar-to cover, conceal

·    Desplegar-to unfold, deploy

·    Paradero-location

·    Temporaria-temporary residency

·    Contención-support

·    Finalizando-wrapping up

·    Ocio-free time

·    Estoy descompuesto-I don’t feel good

·    Un par-a few

·    Ahorrar-to save (time, money)

·    Pagar derecho de piso- to pay your dues

[boludosaires]

2/9/17: Organized

This morning when I woke up, I thought I was going to a jazz show tonight with my friends from Northwestern and Nico’s dad, who’s here visiting.

It’s now 12:54 AM, and I just got back 10 minutes ago from an amazing night that involved no jazz whatsoever. 

I got an invitation from my friend Natalia from Las Piqueteras to a charla that was happening tonight at 7:30. She asked me to text her friend Lio, the guy I met up with at the march last Friday, for details.

I was conflicted, because I had committed to this concert and it sounded cool. And despite all my totally unrealistic attempts to calculate how I might possibly do both, it was looking like it would have to be either charla or jazz. And after a little while of agonizing, of asking Lio if there’d be another one, of general FOMO, I decided that I’d had quite a bit of fun these past few days, and that this charla sounded way more worthwhile than some random jazz concert.

Of course, being someone who always tries to do everything and use every last minute I have (my psych major friend tells me I’m a “maximizer”), I still emailed the jazz club to see if I could come to the show late and still get in. I couldn’t totally let go, but I did successfully convince myself to change course.

So after work, I took a train and then a bus waaaaay down to the southwest part of the city, an almost 2 hour ride. There, I met up with Lio in a car, who had already picked up Amanda, who I’d invited along. We drove a few blocks and arrived in villa 21 24, the largest villa in the city; about 31,000 people live there, according to a 2016 report by the city. (https://www.estadisticaciudad.gob.ar/eyc/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/poblacion_2016_023.pdf)

There, we met up with Juana, a smiley, round Paraguayan woman who was hosting the charla. Hold up though: what is a “charla”, you ask? Well, “charlar” in Spanish means “to chat”, so a “charla” is literally a chat. But in my experience in Nicaragua, it meant more like a community meeting where people come to talk about some subject. That’s essentially what this was too.

Juana led us down a couple blocks to her home. The streets were part asphalt, part dirt, a minefield of cracks, holes and jutting pavement shards. The buildings stood tight on either side of the street, wide enough for a car to pass through, but only by forcing everything in its path to stop and squeeze to the side. There were storefronts that looked a lot like the ones in the main part of the city: an empanada stand, a place selling cheap t-shirts, a kiosco with the usual snacks and drinks. The only difference was they were along this tiny road instead of a wide city avenue with sidewalks and shoppers and cars everywhere. 

Oh, and the fact that everything was pulsing with the barking, running, sniffing and shitting of countless dogs. Dogs on roofs, dogs under cars, dogs weaving in-between our legs to chase other dogs. A cat’s worst nightmare.

 We got to Juana’s house, but I didn’t see much of it because the charla was actually outside in the street. They set up a bunch of chairs in a circle, and by the time we started, about 20 people had gathered. It was dark, but we were lit by a couple lamps on the wall, like the ones people have outside their front doors, and the light from the t-shirt store and kiosco behind us.

 The charla was all about a decree that Macri’s government recently passed that makes it more difficult for immigrants with criminal records to enter Argentina, and makes it easier to deport those with criminal histories or infractions. The decree blames immigrants, who come mostly from Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru, for the drug-related crime and violence in Argentina. But this reasoning has already been questioned, especially because the Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich cited stats in a TV interview that claimed 33% of jailed immigrants in Argentina are there because of drug involvement, when in reality, taking all jails into account, it comes out to 17.5%, a very different number. 

(Check out this La Nacion article a woman on my team put together for more: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1980510-inmigrantes-y-delito-que-dicen-las-cifras)

Anyway, the charla was awesome because all these people talked about how this would affect them directly, a perspective that I honestly hadn’t heard at all from major media, though admittedly I don’t read all the Argentine outlets. They talked about how the law is targeting immigrants, blaming them for the country’s problems, putting them all into a stereotype of violent and criminal. It was scarily familiar.

 One woman especially resonated with me when she talked about how they were being discriminated against because of the color of their skin, the look of their faces, the neighborhoods they live in. FINALLY, after weeks of Argentines telling me that “racism just is really a thing here” and that “there is discrimination against immigrants, but it’s not that bad”, somebody was giving me a different viewpoint. It’s really crazy how, when you only have your own life experience to refer to and you don’t come into contact with a lot of people who are different from you, your ideas of “the way things are” are so different from other peoples’ realities. Racism and classism are alive in Argentina, but the people who are feeling it are not the ones most foreigners are talking to, and are not the ones in charge of making the news and teaching in the schools. So of course the Argentine-born Argentines would have no experience at all with racism, just as most white people in America can get away for a long time, if not their whole lives, without ever really thinking about their race.

After a while, people started talking about what they could do to fight back against this law. This part was super inspiring to me, because everyone was contributing to this vision of organizing themselves and their community. People wanted to go door-to-door to ask people if they had their immigration documents, and if not, to help them get them. Others had already connected with the local radio stations to get info out. One woman emphasized the prime importance of voting, as a huge constituency that deserves to be heard in the city’s politics. It was truly awesome to see this grassroots organizing happening, and I felt really really grateful to be able to be there, learn from them, and feel solidarity with these people on the other side of the world who are doing the same kind of radical, community-building work that I do back home. 

At the end of the charla, they asked Amanda and I if we wanted to say anything about what was happening with Trump in our country. We both talked a little; I emphasized how inspired I was by the airport protests after the Muslim ban, and the importance of not just letting the government do what it wants, but fighting back when you don’t like what’s happening. And I pointed out that, just like people of all colors stood together with their Muslim comrades at those protests, at the charla, Argentines and immigrants were organizing together against the larger forces trying to hurt people. Finally, I offered the only thing I have: my camera. I said if they wanted to make a video to inform people about the decree and what to do through Facebook, to please let me know, and they were all nodding their heads. So hopefully, I can use what skills I have to make a contribution to this community without overstepping my bounds and ignorance as a total outsider. Easier said than done, but I think this was a start.

<3 Escoot

 Palabras Nuevas

·      Empatronada- registered to vote