Livin' La Vida Loca

Yes, last night I was "livin' la vida loca" with Ricky Martin himself, and 40,000 screaming Argentines. About a month ago a group of friends and I decided to buy tickets to see Ricky Martin in Buenos Aires because we really wanted to experience an Argentine stadium concert (we've heard they're amazing), tickets are cheap down here, and what better place to see our former idol than in South America.

It was my first outdoor stadium concert (they hold concerts in the 3 main futbol canchas - stadiums) and probably one of the largest concerts I've been too. It was absolutely incredible, so much fun! The Argentine crowd is so enthusiastic - just as they are with about everything, with everyone screaming the lyrics and dancing the whole night. It even rained for most of the concert, but no one seemed to mind and they just kept dancing along.

Overall a great night! Now I just have to find another good concert to go to...

Cancion Dos

In honor of the fact that I'll be at the Ricky Martin concert tonight (my 10 year old self would be jealous right now), thought I'd share with you one of Ricky's new hits of his latest albums: Musica, Alma Sexo. I know what you're thinking, yes, Ricky Martin is in fact still making new music. Enjoy!

Fútbol

I've officially experienced my first South American soccer game and all the craziness that goes with it! Last sunday evening I went with a group of about 20 other students from my program to a local game -- the team that is the current Argentine cup champion, in fact.

Before the game we got a tour of the stadium which included sitting in the press conference room, the president's office, and holding their trophy from the Argentine cup. Then we headed down to our seats for the game. Unfortunately, we weren't in the home team's section, just along the sidelines, although that might have been for the best because we weren't sporting jerseys and are clearly Americans.

Almost all of the stereotypes you've heard about South Americans and their soccer seemed to hold true throughout the night. There was much screaming, booing, and singing. When the visiting team scored a goal everyone in the stands were holding their heads and many fans started pacing the aisles. Small children were even crying!!

Then, just to complete the soccer game experience, a fight broke out 4 rows behind us! A (probably drunk) man was trying to get at another man behind him, but his daughter was holding him back and squealing at the top of her lungs. Then the drunk man shoved an elderly man off of his chair for no apparent reason and the security police arrived. I assumed that the police would escort the man out of the stadium (isn't that how it works at home?), but instead the drunk man punched the security guard and didn't have to leave! The other man he was trying to fight with moved to a different part of the stadium and the other man sat down right behind us for the rest of the game! The security even left...

Now we just have to move up to a Boca Juniors game!

As always, the rest of the photos are in my photo albums on Facebook.

Tigre

This past Saturday some friends and I took advantage of one of the first real days of spring to head out to a city just outside of Buenos Aires (but still in the province) called Tigre.

Tigre isn't really a normal city, its a series of islands connected by extensive rivers and deltas. You can "island hop," or take water taxis through the rivers from island to island, where there are cafes, places to rent kayaks, hotels and hostels, and other attractions like the house of former president Sarmiento (which is enclosed in glass for preservation!).

We spent the day on the island of "Tres Bocas" (or three mouths) for lunch on the river and a nice stroll around the neighborhood. It was quite warm enough to go swimming or jet skiing, but don't worry, we'll be back in the summer for the water sports!

Un Techo Para Mi País

This is a bit late, but I really wanted to write a post about my day on Saturday with the organization Un Techo Para Mi País (I've mentioned that I'll be working with them for the semester).

I'm not really one for gushing about transformative experiences - but I can say that Saturday was incredibly powerful. I went back to the barrio I had traveled to for the Dia del Nino festival with a small group (some of whom I'm befriending now!), but this time to do what they call "asignacion" or assignment.

Essentially, the organization travels through these barrios talking to as many families as possible. They meet with each family 2-4 times, asking about the family structure, employment, income and checking the status of the house. They have to assess which families are in the absolute highest need of a new home for each round of constructions. In October they'll be building roughly 20 homes in each barrio, so out of the dozens that they've been visiting in the past few months they have to narrow down the families. I set off with one of the coordinators to meet with some of the families they had chosen to receive homes. We were to make sure that their situation hadn't changed in the past month, and to have them sign a contract agreeing to paying for a portion of the home.

My first reaction when walking around the barrio was shock - even though I've seen extreme poverty in the states and even traveled to villages in Zambia, this was my first time ever going inside these people's homes and talking to them about their living situation. For example, one family we visited was 6 people living in a 3 meter by 4 meter home constructed of wood and used billboard signs. However, we had the job of telling them that they'd be receiving a new home in just under a month and watching as they told the rest of their family the good news.

The hardest part of the afternoon though was visiting with one of the families that hadn't been assigned a house in this round. We talked to the mother for a while about her situation, and she interrupted telling us how badly she needed the help with a new house. The two of us then had to explain the process to her and assure her that she would be considered in the next round of houses.

Overall it was an overwhelming process because the coordinator considered us a team, meaning that the two of us had to agree on any decision we made. Sometimes we would step outside in the middle of a meeting so that he could ask me if I felt that it was right to choose the family. For one family he asked me what I thought we should rank their "need-level" in relation to the other families. This was the most daunting part of the day - I've never been put in the position to make a decision like that before.

I absolutely cannot wait to go back to the barrio to meet with more of the families and hopefully get to give out some more good news.

Canción Uno

I realized that I'll I've been doing so far is sharing stories and pictures, but another obviously important part of the culture here is the music. So I'm going to try to share with you guys some popular songs every once in awhile.

Reggaeton is very popular here, and one on of the most popular songs (as of now) is La Señal by Daddy Yankee. Now just pretend you're in an Argentine boliche, and enjoy!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbHMBwjqLAI&feature=related

The Birds

So those of you who know me well know my, at times irrational, fear of birds. Well, I was a bit concerned coming here because I know city pigeons tend to be the worst. But never in my life have I experience birds like this! They absolutely do not care about humans at all, never move when you walk next to them, and fly extremely close to you.

Just the other day I was casually walking down the street, enjoying the nice weather out, when a pigeon took off next to me - and hit my head with its wing!!! It was flying over my head and flew so close that it flapped its wing on my head! I never thought that happened!

Lets just say...this city is not helping my fear.

Classes Update

Sorry that I've been so bad about updating for the past week! I'm going to try to update more frequently with shorter posts and see how that works out.

For now, I figured I would update you all on how classes are going - yes, I know, I still have to go to classes when abroad.

My UBA classes are moving right along and we're coming up on our first midterms (yikes - in class essays in Spanish?). Now that we're moving along with the material I'm starting to notice the overwhelming factor. The readings are piling up and my lack of background knowledge is become much more apparent. But this week I also started my tutoring sessions - we get 10, 2-hour sessions with a tutor for as many classes as we want through our program. Essentially, the tutor goes over any readings you want and clears up any background information that we're lacking. Now that I've started meeting with them I'm feeling a lot better about my classes!

UBA is just as entertaining as always - you never know what you're going to get on a given day. I've started showing up to class 10 minutes late regularly, and I'm often one of the first students there. This makes a 2 hour class so much more bearable when it starts so late! The other day we had the added delay of an argument between my professor and two students who came into class to present for their group. I'm not sure I've explained this, but periodically throughout classes small groups of students will stop in for 5 minutes to talk about some issue their involved with and pass out flyers - always a nice breather from lectures. These two students were talking about their proposal for changes to the Political Science major, and since my professor was one of the first students enrolled in the major (it wasn't added to the University until 1983!) she had a lot of opinions on the subject and appeared to disagree with the students, from what I could gather, that is.

Also, there are some sort of student elections coming up next week, so the Facultad (what they call the school building) is even more plastered in posters (I still wish I could discreetly take a photo of it all to show you guys - its incredible) and even more students barge into classes. I've been meaning to ask my sister about how the elections work, but it seems that whichever group of students lead their student government has a large amount of say in the actual structure of the majors and the branch of the University in general.

In my Argentine History recitation section I also have the added bonus of being the only exchange student - and everyone in the class is well aware of this fact. Since its a history class, the United States tends to come up every once in awhile, and my professor always nods to me and asks for my input. Meanwhile the whole class turns their heads to look at me. In one class she even described our Civil War and made sure after each sentence that I agreed with her evaluation. Its actually really interesting to hear US history told from an Argentine perspective.

Then I have my literature class through my program which counts as my Spanish language class. Its a class of about 6 kids and our professor is an adorably sweet old man. He only ever assigns us about 10 pages of reading, so its a really easy class and we talk a lot about Argentine history (good addition to my other history class!).

My service learning class isn't really much of a class - only an hour and a half a week, and mostly a check-in to see how our projects are going. Don't worry, I'll have another post about that!

Overall, its nice to have rhythm with classes going and feel like I know what to do at the University. The other students and professors are all really nice and my comprehension of lectures is improving so much.