What a Week

BIG NEWS!

I'm an Uncle! Maya Marguerite Owens was born on Monday, April 21st at 8:06 AM, weighing in at 6 lbs and 2 oz. Mother, Father, and baby are all happy, healthy, and full of joy (as am I). Pictures to come soon :)

2 Packs a Day

This week started off like any other...until Tuesday, that's when the smoke rolled in. I wasn't surprised for two reasons: 1) This is Argentina and I'm finally learning that I shouldn't be surprised by anything, and 2) there was actually a little bit of smoke last week. It turns out the smoke last week was from a massive trash fires in one of the Villas (ie slums) that burns its trash every so often to make room. I was not prepared, however, for what Buenos Aires had for me this time: Malos Aires. A quick comparison:

This is a picture of buenos aires from my balcony after a storm, so it still wasn't even that clear:



This is a picture of a standard day with the Humo (smoke):



Imagine that for six days straight, it was horrendous! Sleeping with the windows shut and still waking up like you slept next to a camp fire. Headaches, coughs, sore throats and various other symptoms ran through the city with complete lawlessness. Why you ask? The cause is clear while the underlying factors are a bit more muddled. Fires in the delta that span approximately 150,000 acres are apparently burning out of control. The area is about 200 km north/northwest of the city but southern stagnant winds have brought the smoke down here and let the city marinate in it for awhile. First reports made mention of two arrested for suspicion of starting the fire, while later reports blame the fires on farmers. The government has come out saying the farmers started the fires as a "slash and burn" technique with the intent of restoring nutrients to farmland, or also that they were clearing area for cattle to graze.

If you recall my post about the Campo strike, you'll understand why I say that these allegations run much deeper than that. The Campo and government negotiations are coming to a close and the government is doing some serious finger-pointing in hopes of turning the people against the farmers. The gist of their message is: look at what the farmers have done to you and this city, see how they only care about themselves? The farmers struck back by saying that A) they did not start the fires, and B) the government has the resources to put the fires out but chooses not to in hopes of further blaming the Campo. Both sides have legitimate arguments but it's hard to believe either one. A slash and burn fire sounds logical and sometimes they get out of hand, it's just unfortunate that the winds acted as they did. Clearing room for cattle, however, makes no sense. The region that we are talking about is a delta, similar to that of Chesapeake/Tidewater and not suited for cattle. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in between but also see this as a strong indicator that perhaps the Campo issue will not be settled as amicably as everyone had hoped.
-More pictures on the Picture link

La Quinta

Literally "the country house," or villa. There was a Rotary district conference this week and all of the scholars were asked to give a quick speech about who they were and what they were doing. It was fun meeting some of the higher ups within the organization from different parts of the world (spain, japan, etc.) and our counselors invited us to a picnic the next day at one of the member's country houses. The place was marvelous. About 35 miles outside of the city it was similar to a farm house: some flowers, a few acres, and some fruit trees. There were about 25 of us in total and we passed the day relaxing, talking, eating, drinking, playing soccer, and enjoying the beautiful weather. In other words, it was a near perfect day and something that I truly needed to re-charge my batteries. I personally like the energy of the big city but also need to see green and have some space to breath. A great ending to a pretty miserable week, topped off of course by the birth of my niece..
-Pictures on the picture link

Free Tibet? I'll take it!

So I'm guessing that most of you know the biggest news that happened here in the past week: the arrival of the Olympic Torch. Buenos Aires was the only South American country that played host to the torch during its five continent tour. Although there was quite a bit of excitement leading up to it (Paris riots, San Fran demonstrations, promises of "something news worthy occurring") it all seemed to go rather smoothly. I use the word "seemed" as I didn't actually get to see the Torch since I had French class, but was able to gather a lot from the events before, the news, and my roommate who went (thanks for the pictures Patrick). The torch arrived Thursday night, April 10th, under the cloak of secrecy and although it may well have just been Argentina's lack of information systems, the complete route wasn't revealed until Friday morning. Some minor demonstrations took place but nothing to write home (or blog) about. The torch itself was under heavy protection and was generally accompanied by a secret-service like escort (minus the sweet sunglasses, ear pieces, and suits). I have a few pictures of the events leading up to the torch passing and one of the runner after. The reason he isn't enveloped in a mass of security is that he's already passed the flame along.

Tropa de Elite
On one of the more casual nights here this week my friends and I decided to go see a Brazilian film titled "Tropa de Elite," or Elite Squad. It was a bit of a gamble considering the entire film is in Portuguese, with Spanish subtitles but figured it was a good opportunity to practice both my Spanish and Portuguese. Other than the fact that the subtitles were white and impossible to see at times when the backdrops were also white, it turned into a pretty good experience. More so than the academic aspect, however, was the filmatic experience. This movie was amazing! Though not for the weak of heart/stomach, it was absolutely sensational. It follows a group of Police officers called BOPE (imagine SWAT combined with Israeli clandestine services) through their struggles to curb narcotics trafficking and overall violence in Rio de Janiero. The film highlights the struggle between this small elite group of officers, a larger group of corrupt police, and the drug lords. It's violent, but not over the top and it's not only tells a great story, but highlights a social issue. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who can handle a fair amount of violence and non-stop intensity, though I'm unsure as to where you'll find it. It had a limited release in the states in January and is being presented at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, so keep an eye out for it.

FUN FACT: There's some sort of intentional loophole setup by the Brazilian government that allows their international companies to write-off profits by donating money to the independent film industry. This movie was sponsored by PetroBras (Brazilian petroleum) and various others, and for this reason the Brazilian Independent Film industry has been absolutely booming over the past decade and a half).

Maggie and Marquis
I had a few more friends in town this past weekend that were staying down near Avenida de Julio with some other mates. Maggie and Marquis are both seasoned travelers and did quite a bit of venturing on their own (or with the others), and every time we managed to meet up a grand time ensued. One of our highlights was a trip to the Japanese Gardens (see pictures). Although relatively small, they were both beautiful and tranquil. In fact, the only real complaint I have with them is the domestication of the animals within the park, which I guess is a common trend among highly trafficked areas. Pigeons would just be walking around, there was this duck that would come right up to you and ask for food, and the fish would literally beg. This proved to be both hilarious and freaky. At one point Maggie lectures the duck on how he needs to earn the food by jumping in the water (see pic), and all of us observing got a kick out of it while not so secretly hoping the duck might become agitated, resulting in Maggie falling in the water. The fish, however, will haunt my dreams. When you walk along the bring they swim up and open their mouths, then when you put food in water, a hoard of them swim atop each other to get it, resulting in some of the Carp literally being out of the water since they're on top of the other fish (see pic). The only other place I've seen this is Lake Mead, which backs up to the Hoover Dam, and I've spent three years of my life trying to repress it. But I digress. Saturday night Maggie, Marquis, and I went out to a nice Parilla and tried a variety of meets, including lower intestines (a first for all, though I wouldn't recommend it). We then made our way to my friend’s place, who was having a party in celebration of finishing the first part of her doctoral thesis. The party died down around 330/4 and Maggie and Marquis headed home, thinking the night was over. Silly me, I ended up going out to club "Big Ones," whose name rivals the absurdity of its patrons. I have very little tolerance for clubs but decided to give it the old college try (since I’m in college again, right?). Although I can't say it was the most fun I've head, we did end up staying there until 8AM, and out until 9 AM. For those of you who've been following the blog a late night/early morning is nothing new to the nightlife here; however, generally my late nights result in me making it home just as the sun comes up. It was quite a harrowing experience to walk out of near darkness and into complete daylight and I certainly don't plan on making that a common ritual.

The Last Two Weeks

Since I only spoke of the Campo Strike last week I intend to bring everyone up to speed on the last two weeks here in Buenos Aires.

Campo: A thirty day truce was arranged between the Government and the Farmers, allowing supplies back into the city. Even though this occurred at the beginning of last week, meats have slowly been trickling in and some shelves still appear barren. Prices have increased drastically, especially on the effected produce, and inflation numbers for March (which should officially come out at the end of April) are forecasted at a minimum of 3%. Although this truce brings hope to a peaceful resolution the conflict itself highlights mistrust and ill will amongst social classes and between some social classes and the government.

Futbol news: Apparently my friends and I picked the right game to go to. The following River Plate game ended in a riot and at least one man in the hospital in critical condition. Apparently there has been a massive increase in futbol violence here as of late, and this happened to be one of the most violent outbursts in recent memory. Those of you that know futbol, and futbol hooligans, probably don't think much of it, but there are two things that stand out that I can't seem to wrap my mind around: 1) River Plate won, so why were they rioting? 2) The fight was between two groups of River Plate fans, so why were they fighting? I'm still trying to fix my link connector on this blog so if you want to read more, just cut and paste
http://wwwr2.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=641044

Mike and Andrew: Mike Brennan and Andrew Pearsons made it into town for a little over a week in the end of March and we had an absolute blast. They came in right after Semana Santa (holy week) so things were a bit more subdued than usual but we still managed to make quite a week out of it. I'm slowly starting to realize that Buenos Aires, as amazing of a city as it is, is somewhat limited in its nightlife choices. There's eating, drinking, and dancing, and that's about it. Don't get me wrong, I love all three, but it's a tough adjustment coming from LA where a night at the bars was the backup plan. Nonetheless, I tried my best to show them some of my favorite spots, and we even tried a few new ones. Too much steak was eaten, too much vino and cerveza imbibed, and too much fun was had.

Classes: The last week of March was also my last week of Spanish classes, which I was happy about since now I feel like I can actually start to learn Spanish again. Although that concept seems bass akwards, let me explain: not only was my Spanish school lacking, but due to several errors I was committed to a situation where I was taking too many hours of class each day. That led to stress and frustration and me being a not so motivated student. Since I wasn't motivated and the school was lacking, my Spanish has pretty much been in a holding pattern for three weeks. This last week was my first without and it was absolutely fantastic. I spent most of this week just resting as I felt like I've been on a seven week binder. I've also started taking Portuguese and French classes, both conducted at an introductory level and in Spanish. That brings my course load up to 12 hours per week and I'm starting to realize that I'm going to need to find many new hobbies in order to keep myself from going insane. I do like both my Portuguese and French classes though. Not only am I learning two additional languages, but also meeting new people. The problem with most university classes here is that they are generally very large and you usually don't end up having more than 2 or 3 of the same classes with a person ever. In sum, it's much less of a community and it's much harder to meet people. These language classes, however, are much smaller and everyone is on the same level of vulnerability since they are new to the language.

Social: This week was actually pretty sedated as I spent about a four day span in complete detox. It's very hard, however, to teach an old dog new tricks. Friday night was one of our friend's (Michaela) birthday and we had to go out and celebrate. We went to bar Jobs which appeared to be somewhere in between a dive bar and a nicer bar, in other words, my kind of style. The highlight of the evening was Foosball. Not just any old Foosball my friend, HUGE foosball. These tables were massive and fit three people on each side. I didn't bring my camera out that night (like most nights) so I'll have to go back sometime soon just to take a picture of this table. Saturday was spent in the park. Parque 3 de Febrero is massive (think Central Park) and has several gardens, a horse racing track, tennis club, polo club, and various other novelties. Since the day was amazing we just found a nice hunk of grass and passed the day with tranquility and bliss. After over-indulgence the previous night I was looking for something a little more low-key on Saturday night. I planned an evening at Shoeless Joe's Alamo, an expat bar that was playing the Final Four. My intent was to go have a couple beers, watch some good basketball, and make it an early night. UCLA's loss, however, changed all of that. After meeting some other expats, drinking too much, making my way to another bar, and getting lost, I'd had enough. I learned a few things that night: 1) I think I've just about hit my capacity for expats, 2) I no longer desire to drink for drinking's sake. I'm not sure if I'll follow through on either of these realizations, but hopefully so.

Blog update: One of the things I'm really going to try to work on now (and in the future) is writing more. After two weeks it's hard to remember some of the amazing things I've seen or done. I'm going to start bringing my journal with me and writing more in hopes that I can better summarize events gone by.