I have only a little time because I´m low on reais, but a few updates.
Rio is not a real city. It is a joke that people live here. Vastly more stunning than anything I had even imagined. Woke up today with a few of the group to watch the sunrise while sitting on this big stone outcropping about a mile from the hotel on the beach. Wow.
I love Portuguese. And Brazilians. And their food. And their smiles.
http://liveearth.org/?p=92 Go to that page. I insist. I think I know what I´ll be doing next Saturday.
Love, d
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
oi brasil
I leave Buenos Aires for Brazil in 14 hours. That is wonderful. Guiliana, my nanny for 5 or 6 years when I was a toddler, has since moved back to Rio and will be my host when I´m not with the group. She´s already making plans to bring me to her sister´s house next weekend for a big rodizio (grill out). The group is really excited, especially to get into some warmer weather. It´s been between 32 and 60 degrees here and in Montevideo, depending on the fog and wind. But Brasil looks like sunny and 80 degrees the whole next week for sure. Big.
I did a crappy job with Montevideo. I don´t know that city at all. Little disappointed because it seemed like it had a lot to offer. I only got to know our section near the center, a little of the coast area, and a tiny bit of the colonial port. I feel like there was so much more to see, but rain and seminars and other things kept keeping me from exploring.
One area I wasn´t expecting to see was an illegal squatter settlement on the fringes of the city. Techo para mi país, a multinational NGO, agreeded to lead us around on Friday afternoon. It was a muddy, isolated, intensely poor area. The residents arranged their plots of land through a political broker who occassionally gets them food or medicine if they´re struggling. The crazy part is that only 60% of the residences in the center of Montevideo are occupied, but the owners refuse to sell or charge high rents. So these 100 families live in one of the 400 squatter settlements around town. It would be impossible to catagorize and interpret my feelings about how these people live and what the material poverty they experience means to them and to Uruguayan society. Suffice to say it was thought provoking.
I got a 14 peso ($4.80) haircut today. Random, but interesting that it costs 14 pesos to get a haircut here and 54 ($18) to pay an airport tax to leave the country. This is a meaningless paragraph.
I´ll write from Brasil, d
I did a crappy job with Montevideo. I don´t know that city at all. Little disappointed because it seemed like it had a lot to offer. I only got to know our section near the center, a little of the coast area, and a tiny bit of the colonial port. I feel like there was so much more to see, but rain and seminars and other things kept keeping me from exploring.
One area I wasn´t expecting to see was an illegal squatter settlement on the fringes of the city. Techo para mi país, a multinational NGO, agreeded to lead us around on Friday afternoon. It was a muddy, isolated, intensely poor area. The residents arranged their plots of land through a political broker who occassionally gets them food or medicine if they´re struggling. The crazy part is that only 60% of the residences in the center of Montevideo are occupied, but the owners refuse to sell or charge high rents. So these 100 families live in one of the 400 squatter settlements around town. It would be impossible to catagorize and interpret my feelings about how these people live and what the material poverty they experience means to them and to Uruguayan society. Suffice to say it was thought provoking.
I got a 14 peso ($4.80) haircut today. Random, but interesting that it costs 14 pesos to get a haircut here and 54 ($18) to pay an airport tax to leave the country. This is a meaningless paragraph.
I´ll write from Brasil, d
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
montevideo
Got to montevideo on Monday morning at about 11:30 from the ferry from BA. Our hotel is much nicer here, and very close to the Old city and the ocean. On monday, I rambled around the city to get a feel for it. We`re having to cram a lot of seminars and stuff into our 7 days here, so I didn`t want to miss a chance to see some of this place. It has almost half of uruguay`s total population of 3 million, and is very nice, with a smaller feel than BA, obviously. great views of the ocean, not bad beaches, and really great old buildings.
on tuesday, we went to an 11 am Independence Day celebration in a major plaza. A lot of people were upset because the president (a leftist in name, but not in policy) Tabarè Vàzquez has backed down considerably from prosecuting members of the military dictatorship who assassinated people in the 70s and 80s. He barely appeared at the ceremony. We rerturned to the hotal and met with a journalist from a major magazine, who had some interesting,pessimistic thoughts about the future of latin America. But the highlight of the day was going to the student protest a few blocks away. They had to cancel it before we got there because a radical group was lighting tires on firein the major road to block traffic. 7 were arrested. We got to hear a short speech from a really firey student leader, but less than we were expecting. later a crowd of like 200 or so gathered near our hotel because the jail was close. When they released the 7, it was a pretty crazy celebration.
Today was the first really really rainy day of the trip, and besides our two interesting seminars about land squatting and civil society groups in uruguay, I stayed in the room and watched pro Uruguayan basketball. Bush league, except for the half court shot to win the game.
Montevideo-- at this point-- has just been a good break between the two highlights of the course, although we`ll see if it ever stops raining
on tuesday, we went to an 11 am Independence Day celebration in a major plaza. A lot of people were upset because the president (a leftist in name, but not in policy) Tabarè Vàzquez has backed down considerably from prosecuting members of the military dictatorship who assassinated people in the 70s and 80s. He barely appeared at the ceremony. We rerturned to the hotal and met with a journalist from a major magazine, who had some interesting,pessimistic thoughts about the future of latin America. But the highlight of the day was going to the student protest a few blocks away. They had to cancel it before we got there because a radical group was lighting tires on firein the major road to block traffic. 7 were arrested. We got to hear a short speech from a really firey student leader, but less than we were expecting. later a crowd of like 200 or so gathered near our hotel because the jail was close. When they released the 7, it was a pretty crazy celebration.
Today was the first really really rainy day of the trip, and besides our two interesting seminars about land squatting and civil society groups in uruguay, I stayed in the room and watched pro Uruguayan basketball. Bush league, except for the half court shot to win the game.
Montevideo-- at this point-- has just been a good break between the two highlights of the course, although we`ll see if it ever stops raining
Sunday, June 17, 2007
BsAs Wrap Up
The Buquebus ferry tomorrow leaves at 8 am to take us across the river to the capital of Uruguay, montevideo. It´s about a 3 hour ride and I´ll be in Uruguay for about a week.
Few more favorites from BA, not including the soccer game which deserved its own entry:
1. Sunday mornings are still the most peaceful, slow time in the city. Especially today, when tons of fathers and grandfathers were walking with their kids and dogs around the parks in the city. Some of my best memories will be Sunday mornings here.
2. Morón field experience was last Tuesday and Wednesday. We got to talk to Hilario, a 30ish guy who plays several roles in the Sabbatella municipal government, all while getting a PhD at the same time. Drinking mate and hearing about reworking the budget so that they could take a decent census of the city without federal aid, and how beneficial this has been was really cool. There really is nothing different between Morón and a dozen other major municipalities on the border of the federal capital. They just are improving their city by fair government. On Wednesday, we sat in on a tense community meeting to decide which residents of a shanty town would receive public housing units. But since there were elected neighborhood reps there and because they followed the criteria they generated in community meetings, all agreed the process was as unbiased and fair as possible. We´ll see how Morón compares to other places I´ll travel.
3. Museo de Bellas Artes in BA- probably the best art museum I´ve been to in my life. I actually recognized the Rodins, Degas, Picasso, Pollacks, Rothkos, and more that were all over. Very impressed. Spent like 4 hours here on Thursday afternoon with a few others from class.
4. Argentine playground equipment is so fun. We climbed up a 25 foot high rope tree in Puerto Madero yesterday. No warning signs or restrictions against 5 year olds doing the same thing. We were bouncing around trying to knock each other off balance, and the parents of the kiddos near us didn´t seem to mind that their kids were about to plummet at any moment.
Few more favorites from BA, not including the soccer game which deserved its own entry:
1. Sunday mornings are still the most peaceful, slow time in the city. Especially today, when tons of fathers and grandfathers were walking with their kids and dogs around the parks in the city. Some of my best memories will be Sunday mornings here.
2. Morón field experience was last Tuesday and Wednesday. We got to talk to Hilario, a 30ish guy who plays several roles in the Sabbatella municipal government, all while getting a PhD at the same time. Drinking mate and hearing about reworking the budget so that they could take a decent census of the city without federal aid, and how beneficial this has been was really cool. There really is nothing different between Morón and a dozen other major municipalities on the border of the federal capital. They just are improving their city by fair government. On Wednesday, we sat in on a tense community meeting to decide which residents of a shanty town would receive public housing units. But since there were elected neighborhood reps there and because they followed the criteria they generated in community meetings, all agreed the process was as unbiased and fair as possible. We´ll see how Morón compares to other places I´ll travel.
3. Museo de Bellas Artes in BA- probably the best art museum I´ve been to in my life. I actually recognized the Rodins, Degas, Picasso, Pollacks, Rothkos, and more that were all over. Very impressed. Spent like 4 hours here on Thursday afternoon with a few others from class.
4. Argentine playground equipment is so fun. We climbed up a 25 foot high rope tree in Puerto Madero yesterday. No warning signs or restrictions against 5 year olds doing the same thing. We were bouncing around trying to knock each other off balance, and the parents of the kiddos near us didn´t seem to mind that their kids were about to plummet at any moment.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Vélez vs River Plate
I definitely didn´t think when I left the Residencia at 9 am this morning to go our seminar at U of San Martin that I´d just be getting home. But what an amazing day.
So we grabbed some lunch after 3 hours in class and Evan, Melissa, Annika, and I decided to scope out tickets for a soccer game tonight. Purely exploratory, no real plans. We got the number of the bus we needed to take from our waiter, paid the 40 cents, and ended up... somewhere. As we got off the bus near the stadium, we met Silvia, a die hard Vélez fan who was going to the game later. She explained that there had been some fights between the fans of River and Vélez in the past, so they were playing in a neutral stadium tonight. Tickets were 14 pesos ($4.75) and Silvia assured us she would save us seats on the ¨fan bus¨ that was leaving in a few hours. We killed some time in a Wal-mart like store, bought some sweet blue gloves to fit in, and met up with Silvia and her family near the buses.
An hour or so on the bus, three police pat-downs, and one hamburguesa later we were in the Vélez section learning the songs and getting ready. They went down 2-0 after the first half, but had two quick goals at the start of the second that were calmly celebrated by the well-mannered Vélez fans. River had a nice goal in about the 75th minute and won 3-2. But a great game.
Our epic journey continued with a packed bus ride home. Well, packed until people started yelling for the driver to stop at each interstate exit and would walk down the exit ramp. No big deal. Transferred from the bus of fans to a regular city collectivo (I really have no idea where we were), got off when we started recognizing street names, and had some empanadas. our cab ride home from there saw me trying to sing the Vélez fight song for our cab driver, then him explaining that I was making up Spanish words and singing a generic fight song for any soccer team. Damn.
But what a ridiculous experience. I´ll write on Sunday after my favorites from BA before we move on to Montevideo, Uruguay on Monday on the 8 am ferry.
dz
So we grabbed some lunch after 3 hours in class and Evan, Melissa, Annika, and I decided to scope out tickets for a soccer game tonight. Purely exploratory, no real plans. We got the number of the bus we needed to take from our waiter, paid the 40 cents, and ended up... somewhere. As we got off the bus near the stadium, we met Silvia, a die hard Vélez fan who was going to the game later. She explained that there had been some fights between the fans of River and Vélez in the past, so they were playing in a neutral stadium tonight. Tickets were 14 pesos ($4.75) and Silvia assured us she would save us seats on the ¨fan bus¨ that was leaving in a few hours. We killed some time in a Wal-mart like store, bought some sweet blue gloves to fit in, and met up with Silvia and her family near the buses.
An hour or so on the bus, three police pat-downs, and one hamburguesa later we were in the Vélez section learning the songs and getting ready. They went down 2-0 after the first half, but had two quick goals at the start of the second that were calmly celebrated by the well-mannered Vélez fans. River had a nice goal in about the 75th minute and won 3-2. But a great game.
Our epic journey continued with a packed bus ride home. Well, packed until people started yelling for the driver to stop at each interstate exit and would walk down the exit ramp. No big deal. Transferred from the bus of fans to a regular city collectivo (I really have no idea where we were), got off when we started recognizing street names, and had some empanadas. our cab ride home from there saw me trying to sing the Vélez fight song for our cab driver, then him explaining that I was making up Spanish words and singing a generic fight song for any soccer team. Damn.
But what a ridiculous experience. I´ll write on Sunday after my favorites from BA before we move on to Montevideo, Uruguay on Monday on the 8 am ferry.
dz
Monday, June 11, 2007
New Pictures
I added new pictures of the Cuartel Quinto, the Abuelas, Morón, and La Boca yesterday:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579079@N08/with/541400947/
Today I ran in an ecological reserve that takes up most of the SE coast of Buenos Aires. It felt like I was in South Carolina low country. And nowhere near a city. Underrated, one of better runs I´ve had in my life.
Davis
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579079@N08/with/541400947/
Today I ran in an ecological reserve that takes up most of the SE coast of Buenos Aires. It felt like I was in South Carolina low country. And nowhere near a city. Underrated, one of better runs I´ve had in my life.
Davis
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Another Great Week
My favorite times in Buenos Aires are Sunday mornings. I just sat in an outdoor cafe for about 2 hours, read some, people watched (probably fifty yellow labs strolled by), and enjoyed how quiet such normally loud place can be. If you can´t tell, I´m showing how I´m not a city boy at all. But Sunday mornings are wonderful.
Before I go with some friends to la Boca, a working class neighborhood with a few cool streets filled with brightly painted buildings and random tango performances, I thought i´d put some more favorites online.
1. Wednesday afternoon meeting with a spokesperson for the Abuelas de Plaza del Mayo. This group of grandmothers of Argentines who were ¨disappeared by the 1976-1983 military regime is still going strong in their 30th year. We heard a really amazing story of how this woman´s son and daughter in law were kidnapped and their baby stolen to give to a pro-military family. After 22 years, the Abuelas used dna evidence to show that this 22 year old was her grandson. What an impossible situation for the guy, who now had to come to grips with the fact that his ´parents´were actually criminals. The grandson and his abuela now, finally, are beginning to have a good relationship. She was so old, but so passionate and kind to us.
2. Thursday tour of Morón. This 300,000 person suburb of BA elected a 29 year old mayor in 1999, then re-elected him in 2003. He demanded open bidding for all city contracts instead of the usual back room deals for services like garbage pick-up, which used to take up 30% of the municipal budget. He cut $4 million (like 12 million pesos) on the new deal and so the city now has funds for improvements like parks and roads. The Wall Street Journal did a feature on the city, though I´m having difficulty finding it in English anywhere online. let me know if you stumble across it because I´d love to read it. Anyway--- I´m going back there all next wek to study effective states for my ´field study´portion of the class. Wonderful place with a governing team thats young and very committed to doing things the right way.
3. Lunch with Carey Beth! She´s been studying here since February and we had a great lunch at a hole in the wall in palermo. My steak was less than $3. Wow. Good to see a UVa friend in Argentina!
Ok- keep writing me email because I love to get them. Also, check out my friend´s blog. She´s much better about updating it than I am:
walycealmeida.blogspot.com
-dz
Before I go with some friends to la Boca, a working class neighborhood with a few cool streets filled with brightly painted buildings and random tango performances, I thought i´d put some more favorites online.
1. Wednesday afternoon meeting with a spokesperson for the Abuelas de Plaza del Mayo. This group of grandmothers of Argentines who were ¨disappeared by the 1976-1983 military regime is still going strong in their 30th year. We heard a really amazing story of how this woman´s son and daughter in law were kidnapped and their baby stolen to give to a pro-military family. After 22 years, the Abuelas used dna evidence to show that this 22 year old was her grandson. What an impossible situation for the guy, who now had to come to grips with the fact that his ´parents´were actually criminals. The grandson and his abuela now, finally, are beginning to have a good relationship. She was so old, but so passionate and kind to us.
2. Thursday tour of Morón. This 300,000 person suburb of BA elected a 29 year old mayor in 1999, then re-elected him in 2003. He demanded open bidding for all city contracts instead of the usual back room deals for services like garbage pick-up, which used to take up 30% of the municipal budget. He cut $4 million (like 12 million pesos) on the new deal and so the city now has funds for improvements like parks and roads. The Wall Street Journal did a feature on the city, though I´m having difficulty finding it in English anywhere online. let me know if you stumble across it because I´d love to read it. Anyway--- I´m going back there all next wek to study effective states for my ´field study´portion of the class. Wonderful place with a governing team thats young and very committed to doing things the right way.
3. Lunch with Carey Beth! She´s been studying here since February and we had a great lunch at a hole in the wall in palermo. My steak was less than $3. Wow. Good to see a UVa friend in Argentina!
Ok- keep writing me email because I love to get them. Also, check out my friend´s blog. She´s much better about updating it than I am:
walycealmeida.blogspot.com
-dz
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
One Week Down, 10 to go
hello all--
Today makes one week that I´ve been in South America, so I figured I better get the blog going or I never would. This is a wonderful place, and the trip has been great. Hard to prioritize what to say exactly about what i´ve done...
Highlights:
1. Colonia, Uruguay with Ross, Timmy, Edward, and John. Took the Buquebus ferry, posed for pictures with mimes, saw some wonderful views and cobblestone streets. Great first night with good friends.
2. The city of Buenos Aires... It´s huge so there´s horrible areas (that was our field visit today) but the middle class and upper class areas + the government center and the parks are amazing. Like New Orleans in that when you enter a new neighborhood, you can usually tell so by the shift in architecture or just general feel. Palermo is like 30 blocks of Magazine Street, Florida looks like Tokyo, and Recoleta has a wonderful laid back feel that inspired a lot of Borges stories.
3. Tango Show: Our somewhat awkward professor who grew up in BA invited us alng to this tiny club near downtown to see ¨and older guy, but one of my favorites". This concert was phenominal. Tiny basement club, maybe 40 other older, rich Argentines there, just instruments (tango is a style of music, dances that are famous are just extras) and he just belted out songs. At one point he pushed the mic aside and raised his hands and the entire club (minus us gringos) joined him in singing this song. So incredible. One of the best concerts I´ve ever been to.
4. Todays field visit to Cuartel Quinto, a very poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. The 45% of residents there that actually manage to find a job travel 2.5 hours by bus, train, then bus again to get to the city center or wherever they work in construction or domestic servants. But we visited La Comenal, which is this umbrella group of civic organization that tries to improve life in the neighborhood. They have landscaping classes so the people can get jobs as gardeners, and put on arts and sports clinics to give the kids something to do besides huff the leftovers from cocaine production. And they run like 80 soup kitchens for the 60,000 people in the area. They´re big on community identity, trying to give the people something to cling to besides buying the next consumer good or doing drugs. It was a sad place, but hopeful too. And the people were wonderful. there´s a chance i´ll be going back there for 4-5 days next week as part of the field experience/internship that we do. I´d like it, but theres other options that I might like more. But we´ll see.
Going to eat some empanadas and will write again next week or before.
dz
Today makes one week that I´ve been in South America, so I figured I better get the blog going or I never would. This is a wonderful place, and the trip has been great. Hard to prioritize what to say exactly about what i´ve done...
Highlights:
1. Colonia, Uruguay with Ross, Timmy, Edward, and John. Took the Buquebus ferry, posed for pictures with mimes, saw some wonderful views and cobblestone streets. Great first night with good friends.
2. The city of Buenos Aires... It´s huge so there´s horrible areas (that was our field visit today) but the middle class and upper class areas + the government center and the parks are amazing. Like New Orleans in that when you enter a new neighborhood, you can usually tell so by the shift in architecture or just general feel. Palermo is like 30 blocks of Magazine Street, Florida looks like Tokyo, and Recoleta has a wonderful laid back feel that inspired a lot of Borges stories.
3. Tango Show: Our somewhat awkward professor who grew up in BA invited us alng to this tiny club near downtown to see ¨and older guy, but one of my favorites". This concert was phenominal. Tiny basement club, maybe 40 other older, rich Argentines there, just instruments (tango is a style of music, dances that are famous are just extras) and he just belted out songs. At one point he pushed the mic aside and raised his hands and the entire club (minus us gringos) joined him in singing this song. So incredible. One of the best concerts I´ve ever been to.
4. Todays field visit to Cuartel Quinto, a very poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. The 45% of residents there that actually manage to find a job travel 2.5 hours by bus, train, then bus again to get to the city center or wherever they work in construction or domestic servants. But we visited La Comenal, which is this umbrella group of civic organization that tries to improve life in the neighborhood. They have landscaping classes so the people can get jobs as gardeners, and put on arts and sports clinics to give the kids something to do besides huff the leftovers from cocaine production. And they run like 80 soup kitchens for the 60,000 people in the area. They´re big on community identity, trying to give the people something to cling to besides buying the next consumer good or doing drugs. It was a sad place, but hopeful too. And the people were wonderful. there´s a chance i´ll be going back there for 4-5 days next week as part of the field experience/internship that we do. I´d like it, but theres other options that I might like more. But we´ll see.
Going to eat some empanadas and will write again next week or before.
dz
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