The Sum Up

I was in Buenos Aires alone for the first few days before I met back up with Joana who had gone down to Mar De Plata to stay with some friends. The 25 hr busride was excrusiating! The first night I spent alone in a single room in a hostel in San Telmo . Nothing wrong with the neighborhood, actually it seemed like alot of fun. There was a huge noisy festival down the street, great street art, a young hip vibe and amaaazing food. However I didn't feel comfortable in the hostel alone and I had a reccomendation for one in Microcenter which was a little pricey at 20$ in a girls shared dorm a night but very comfortable.

I remember being blown away at the scale of Buenos Aires. It seems to stretch across a vaste amount of space and still feel very urban. The infrastructure of Buenos Aires is really quite well built, but it dosent lack the stratification and gentrification that big cities do. THere are plenty of slums that surround the well built neighborhoods for the rich. You can also feel the tension of inequality when you are constantly warned to be careful being alone, being a tourist and being vulnerable. I met some girls at the hostel that had had thier bags stollen on thier way into the hostel. While being distracted by two women , other counterparts to a gang walked away with thier bag that had thier camera and credit cards as well as other valuables. There are a number of issues that the poor and working class struggle with that I would like to shed light on in someway but I was not in Buenos Aires to tap into info. The demographic was much more white than I was used to seeing in Brazil. I couldn't help notice that people were also shaped different. They were lean , long and straight. There are allot of European immigrants that came to Buenos Aires post World War II. I realized after traveling to working class areas that there were alot of new immigrants as well. Asian, West African and central American immigrants give areas like "Once"(sp)? a bit more diversity. Paula said that Asian immigrants get the brunt of alot of racist sentiment amongst Argentinians.

The pictures below kind of sum up my time there. Joana, Paula and I spent 2 days walking around looking at neighborhoods, street art, eating good food, drinking wine from Mendoza , talking about politics and culture . We walked around the colorful streets of Boca which is adorned with houses and businesses painted bright colors. Paula and JOana explained that the immigrants of this area used paint colors that were used for ships because they couldnt afford the pricier mutted house paint. Boca now is one of the cliche attractions but still boasts a very intesting immigrant history that is seen in its architecture and colorful streets.

It is unortunate I wasn't able to hook up with any organizations are people working with any movements and NGO's but I hope to get some guest blogs from Paula who lives in Buenos Aires who has a friend studying Autonomous Movements in Latin AMerica as well as my friend Lauren . Paula said she had also done some research on the recooperating factories movement. Paula shared with me a brief story about the history of the community center in which she organizes out of which was originally an abondoned propertiy that was taken over by people to serve the needs of the community. I would like to get Paula to tell us a little about that story as well.

Lauren and I met durring a study abroad program organized by City College in jan 2007 to Morocco. Lauren who is taking a course in Buenos Aires said she would help contribute her findings as well.

So for now.. I leave this blog to be updated with more guest blogs in the near future.. stay tuned!