Goodbyeeee Argentina

Thank you all so much for reading my blog this summer! It was a pleasure to write, and I am glad that so many people took the time to look at it occasionally.

I will leave you all with a mix of photos from my last couple weeks here:

Casa Rosada, Plaza de Mayo

Kids playing on the street (they were pretty good!)

Some art at the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires)

University picture #1, taken for my grant report

University picture #2, taken for my grant report

University picture #3, taken for my grant report – ground is covered with confetti, flour, and various other stuff from graduation festivities

Until my next travels, good bye to all of you. Until sometime, Argentina :)

Mis Últimos Días

My last night in Buenos Aires... hard to believe it's here! The last couple days have been crazy, busy, and tons of fun. I really want to post like 5 separate little posts, but that might be excessive, so I'm going to try to condense.

Friday: Día del Amigo! As far as I understand, basically an excuse to go out to eat with your friends. My friend Nick from Yale and I had coincidentally planned a lunch that day, so we were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to find anywhere (people make reservations weeks in advance to ensure a spot for the holiday). We ended up eating at the bar at a place called Tancat. Which was really, REALLY good. I have thus decided to summarize my earlier blog restaurant references into a little list for you guys.

Brianna's List of Best Restaurants in Buenos Aires [with limited sample size]

1) Parilla Peña. See earlier post.

2) Alma Zen. Health food restaurant. So good that I seriously considered coming back with my mom solely for the purpose of eating here again (this is the unnamed restaurant from a few posts back).

3) Tancat. Best spinach ricotta crepes of my life!!

I also really love medialunas w/ jamón y queso, at any café.

(pictured here, with the typical one bite taken out before I remember to take the picture)

Later that day I whittled down my three hair appointments to just one. Hopefully I chose the best one, we shall see tomorrow...

Saturday: Was going to go to the gym, but slept in instead. Was going to go on a tour thing with my old roommate, but she was sick, so slept some more instead.

That night, went to see the movie Pompeya at the Malba (art museum). Pompeya is the weirdest, most blood-filled movie ever. FYI, not a great movie to watch and then walk back to your house an hour in the dark...

Sunday: went to Tigre, a beach/island area about an hour from Buenos Aires with some SIP chicos. Train ride, fair, food, boat ride, walk around some islands, sit on dock, wade in river... awesome day.

Monday: Crazy busy last day! Gym, meet with professor, meet with guy from ministry of immigration (YES! FINALLY!), go to a class at the law school at the UBA with my friend Victoria who is a student there, meet with some friends of my Chilean host family to say goodbye, then last dinner with my host mom and pack!

The law class was super interesting. Every class I've sat in on at law schools (okay, that's just UChicago and here) has made me more sure that I want to go to law school myself. So yay :)

Now all that's left is weighing my suitcase (!), buying some last things, and heading off! Oh, and possibly going to exchange a leather jacket, because I am the most indecisive person in the world.

I have the perfect picture for a final "goodbye" post, but I will hold off until tomorrow.

Besos, Brianna

Parilla Peña

In my first out of order post of this summer's blog, last night marked my second adventure to Parilla Peña, an awesome restaurant in Buenos Aires known for its amazing meat. I went there my first week here with the Dartmouth student Alan and his study abroad group, so it is fitting that I return my last week, this time introducing the restaurant to the Harvard group.

The group that went ended up being pretty large and diverse (okay, depends what you mean by diverse): 6 Harvard SIP students, 2 Harvard thesis students (including me), 2 Harvard study abroad students, 1 Harvard non-SIP internship student, 2 Yale internship students, and 1 Argentine boyfriend!

I was a little nervous about inviting so many people, as the food is kind of expensive by Argentine standards (I spent $82 pesos total, which is less than $20USD, but a lot for Argentina) and I was worried about getting expectations too high. But the food was even better than the first time I went, and the night was a lot of fun overall. I split a "bife de lomo" (beef tenderloin? I think?) with one of the other girls there, and had the unique experience of eating the best bite of meat I've had in my life about 10 times during the course of the night. Great food, great company, great night.

I am not the first to write about Parilla Peña online. Other commentary on the place include: http://www.taxigourmet.com/2007/05/20/parrilla-pena/ and http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g312741-d1067958-Reviews-Parrilla_Pena-Buenos_Aires_Capital_Federal_District.html

Here is a series of pictures that is fairly descriptive of the night for all of us :)

ESMA

I am so thankful that the Harvard programs here in Buenos Aires are so generous about including other Harvard students in their activities. Today I went on a group tour of ESMA with the SIP program. La Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, or ESMA, was the site of many of the detentions and torture of civilians during the dictatorship in Argentina.

Our guide was careful to tell us that much has been changed in the buildings since the time of their active use as holding and torture centers (in the 1970s and early 1980s) – sometimes in anticipation of human rights investigations, sometimes just in the normal course of progress. But being in a building, however different, however barren, knowing the kind of activities that took place there 30 years ago is still a very powerful experience.

Even harder to see a place like this on such a nice day. Although my imaginings of being a prisoner looking out on such beautiful surroundings is nothing more than a hypothetical exercise since during that time period, the windows were covered in order to erase any distinction between night and day.

Photos were not allowed inside the buildings (and actually, I'm not sure about outside either, hence I didn't wait until the guy in the picture had passed by to get a better shot in case I would be stopped), but here is the outside of the main building we toured during our time there. The basement was used for torture and slave labor, the 3rd floor for holding prisoners, with officers lodged in between. How could you live and sleep in a place knowing that people were being electric shocked below you and held in inhuman conditions above you?

The holding area was called "Capucha" (hood), after the hoods that prisoners had to wear 24/7. They were heavy, causing pain; and they were never washed, leading to an intense odor. Prisoners were forced to lie motionless and silent on mats on the floor, only able to leave in the case of moving to the torture chambers or the work rooms. I believe the figure is that out of the approximately 5000 detained in this center, approximately 200 survived.

On a lighter note, many of us arrived late due to the charming fact that in Buenos Aires, many of the buses have several "versions" that trace slightly different routes, of which it appears to be impossible to search online or find out about except by asking a knowledgeable local or a bus driver. If you don't know that you are on one of these fun types, you can end up far from your destination. Hence I ended up taking a taxi for the last part of my journey, while others ended up coming 30 minutes to an hour late.

T-Minus One Week

Until I will be leaving Argentina. Less actually – in one week exactly, I will be a couple hours into my flight back to the US.

A couple interesting and very unrelated things:

1) I don't know if I just didn't notice it when I first got here, or if it has just started cropping up, but today while walking along La Florida (a big shopping district), there were people outside of nearly every other store or so announcing that they would exchange pesos for dollars or euros (this is illegal). I asked a couple of them what the rate they would sell dollars at was, just out of curiosity. For reference purposes, the official exchange rate as of today is 4.55 pesos/USD. One lady told me she would sell me dollars at an exchange rate of 6.7 pesos/USD. I don't know if I just looked particularly easy to scam, but that is the highest black market rate I have heard yet! I usually hear rates more around 6 pesos/USD. (Another guy told me he would sell them to me at whatever price I wanted... clearly asking a 20-something year old guy was not the right move on my part)

2) I am running out of shampoo. What to do, what to do. I plan to get my hair cut my last day here, so that takes care of my last hair-washing. But I calculate around 4 more showers before that. Hmm. Skimp it is...

3) My roommate Deborah is moving out tomorrow due to tensions with my host mom. For me, living here has been stressful in terms of certain issues, mainly food and adapting to her very particular ways of doing things. But Lita has always been very nice to me. In Deb's case, Lita has never been very nice at all. Neither of us are particularly sure why, but when Lita seemed supremely uncaring as to Deb being pretty fairly sick this past week, Deb decided enough was enough, and is moving into an apartment until she leaves on Sunday. This could potentially create a pretty awkward situation for me, as all will be explained after she leaves tomorrow, but I won't have to deal with it for very long at least!

To continue this subject a bit, I'm still a little unsure what to do or say about my host experience after I leave. On the one hand, it has been amazing – couldn't ask for a better location, wifi, I am left alone to do work, she changes my sheets and towels regularly (that definitely didn't happen in Chile! haha), and Lita has been very helpful and nice in all my interactions with her. But on the other hand, living here is like living on pins and needles. We have to wash our dishes, dry them, and put them away – if we forget, or leave something out to air dry, we will hear about it later. Leaving a light on definitely gets you a talking to (this one I understand more). If we don't flush the toilet right, or leave our laundry out on the wrong day, we will get a note left on the toilet seat or on the table informing us of our error. If we don't notify her days in advance about missing a meal, she will passively-aggressively recount a hypothetical event that she would have to miss by someone not telling her about missing a meal with enough advance notice. Not finishing a meal one day leads to an impossibly small meal the next day. And on it goes. None of those are very big things, and they aren't completely illogical, but we ARE paying to stay with her after all. A little bit of warmth, or making us feel like we belong and aren't just a nuisance would be nice.

I personally honestly don't have many real complaints – lack of food led me to actually lose weight in a foreign country, a huge first for me (haha), and I wasn't looking for a very home-y environment anyway. But I can see how it could be really tough for other host students looking for more of an immersive experience to live here, or for people who Lita for one reason or another takes a disliking to. I tread that line in the beginning, but managed to avoid any bad feelings between us luckily!

So in conclusion, writing this has led me to the decision that I will not say anything, unless the housing coordinator specifically asks me about it. Deb has already complained anyway, so they know that some people are not comfortable here at least. I may, however, mention something to Lita about the little stresses of living here, especially since I think a conversation may come up with the departure of Deb...

4) I ate at a restaurant so good today that while eating I found myself planning a trip back in January, this time with my mom so she could try the food. It was just THAT good (Papa, I think you would like it too, but it's more up mom and my alleys – I had a broccoli/squash tarta and soy pancakes with cheese and onions for instance). Ooh! I have a picture:

As usual, I forgot to take the picture until I had already started. And it's not a very good picture (especially since it mysteriously disappeared from my phone and instagram isn't being nice about downloading pictures so I had to take a screenshot of it). But maybe it gives you an idea of how good it was?? Also, the bag contains two large cookies and an apple crisp thing, which also went in my stomach as well, despite the fact that the waitress had apparently determined from the large amount of dessert in my order that those parts were "to go".


Looking forward to my last few days here, and excited for my next stop: San Francisco!

Hospital Rivadavia

In my search for more unregistered domestic workers to talk to, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning today to go to a nearby public hospital, where people arrive starting around 5 or 6 AM to queue for the free medical care that begins around 8 AM. I initially planned to be there at 6 AM, sometime during the night I decided that 7 AM was plenty early enough.

The outside of Hospital Rivadavia, cerca 6:45 AM

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the inside of the hospital [at the time it felt rude, but I really should have taken some!], so let me try to create a word-picture for you: The hospital is all concrete, very dim lighting (as opposed to the harsh bright lighting seen in the entrance here), dirty, cold. There are hundreds of people lined up waiting to be seen, many who wake up at 4 AM or before in order to arrive on time from the provinces. Some people are talking amongst themselves, most are just silently waiting, bundled against the cold.

The situation at first is very depressing, especially to someone accustomed to UHS (Harvard health care) or even higher quality private hospitals. But when you start talking to the people, the vast majority have nothing but praise for the Argentine hospital system, especially within the Capital Federal of Buenos Aires (as opposed to the provinces). They praise the quality of doctors, the ease of getting a same-day appointment, the patience of the staff. Most seem to feel incredibly lucky to be able to receive medical attention so quote-end-quote easily.

I was looking for unregistered workers, those who don't have an obra social to provide for their healthcare. Coming in, I naively assumed that anyone standing in a line for free healthcare would be lacking an obra social, thus be working in black. I thought it would be merely a task of separating domestic workers from all the other people there. I was surprised to discover however that many (if not most) of the domestic workers I talked to there are working in white and have their own healthcare provider. They chose to come to the public hospital instead because of the ability to see someone that very day, and to be able to come in the morning – the obra sociales seem to generally need appointments a week or more in advance, and the appointments are often in the afternoon, smack in the middle of the work day. A few people also mentioned the greater variety and quality of services offered at the hospital as a reason for going to the public hospital instead of to their obra social.

Given that workers routinely complain to me about the public hospitals and the long wait time to be seen, I have come to understand that obra sociales and public hospitals have their tradeoffs, depending on what you need to be seen for. If what you need is a routine check-up, or an ongoing medical treatment, it's really great to be working in white and have your obra social. If you're sick and need to be seen by a doctor, the public hospital is the better choice. Obviously for both, a private hospital would win hands down.

I am very glad that I went to the hospital, even though I didn't encounter as many unregistered workers as I was hoping to. First off, and entirely unrelated to my thesis, seeing what "free universal healthcare" in Argentina looks like was an eye-opener for me. I think I often envision my personal health care experience superimposed on another country when I picture universal health care systems, when that's just really not the case.

The fact that it was so hard to find unregistered workers even at a public hospital is an interesting fact in itself as well. I would like to take the scarcity of unregistered workers I found as proof that the majority of domestic workers these days are working in white (as many workers have in fact told me). But I have to take my "evidence" with a grain of salt – those who are most likely to be working in black are those who are least likely to be able to come to even a public hospital, be it for lack of money for transportation, the inability to miss work, a slave-like existence where they are unable to leave the house, or even perhaps lack of knowledge. Not to mention that some people may have been simply unwilling to admit to me that they were working in black (or more likely I think, to admit that they were a domestic worker at all if they were unregistered).

I am glad that I went to the hospital. I am even more glad that I don't have to go again. Although going back to sleep at 9 AM led to some really crazy and vivid dreams...

[On a side note, walking the streets of Buenos Aires at 6:30 in the morning was definitely the most un-safe I have felt here, much more so than at night (although I haven't been out walking much past midnight often). Buenos Aires must wake up late because there was next to no one out and even Starbucks wasn't open yet. Maybe I looked like I was coming back from a night out, because I got more cat-calls from drivers this morning than at any other point here!]

Feria de Mataderos

Today, I ventured to one of the more distant fairs in Buenos Aires, the Feria de Mataderos. About 40 minutes to an hour away by bus, it felt like forever next to what I've become used to! A reminder to me that Buenos Aires is actually quite a big city, despite how close everywhere I need to go is to me.

I always tell people that in my mind, Santiago, Chile (where I was last summer) is much bigger than Buenos Aires. But that's only because I was traveling to the furthest districts of Santiago for work last summer and didn't live super close to anything.

In contrast, here my work lies minutes away from me, and I live close to everything:

A map of Buenos Aires. The dot is approximately where I live, and the fair is where indicated. I have included a rough circle of where my daily activities generally take me for reference.

At the fair, I –

...ate humitas...

...looked at belts...

...and bought some people some very cool things!!! Almost done with all my gift purchases :)))