En Todo Estás Vos

This weekend, Buenos Aires hosted a rock music festival, free to the public with tons of artists performing. I unfortunately did not realize this when booking my trip to Chile, but I managed to catch the bookends of the festival, Wednesday night before I left and Sunday night after I got back.

Domestic Worker Swag

Today, I did my first real interview!! Exciting!

Except, not QUITE as exciting as it sounds, because I was lost for half of it (luckily it's recorded).

The problem was mostly that I had no idea what the organization I was talking to was, because I just randomly walked into the building when I saw the "domestic service" sign. Turns out that "sindicato" means "union," which makes a lot of the interview make a lot more sense now.

It was a funny experience though --

I walk in, the office is full of domestic workers waiting in line (to get referrals for services, I think... also, domestic workers! tons of them! right there! = future interviews!!), but after explaining to the receptionist that I'm a student researching domestic labor and would like to arrange an interview at some point in the next week or so, I am ushered immediately into the director's office, where I proceed to spend the next hour and a half. I am led around the entire establishment, introduced to everyone [people clearly in meetings in offices: "Everyone! This girl is from Boston! She's writing a paper on domestic workers! Isn't she just the sweetest?!" (which, by the way, I have no way how she could even judge, as I barely got a word in edgewise)].

No worries that I didn't have any specific questions prepared for their organization. Although I did have an outline of basic questions to ask, I barely had time to bring any of them up. (I probably would have tried harder to fit them in if I felt like I was actually understanding everything that was being said to me...)

I was given a bunch of swag, shown here (except not the purse, although I did get that in Buenos Aires). Some of the papers and pamphlets are about domestic labor laws and the union, but most of them are about different diseases, like HIV and cancer, and how to prevent them – which I really had no interest in, and said so, but was given anyway.

I have a meeting with one of their lawyers scheduled for next Tuesday at 10 AM* and was told that I was more than welcome to solicit interviews from the workers there.

In all – I am satisfied. Now off for a weekend in Chile!

Brianna

*Why I decided to schedule the meeting directly conflicting with yoga when I could literally choose any time is a little beyond me.

Week One ✔

I have, to the day, 8 weeks in Argentina. 1/8th of that time is now complete.

I would probably feel better about that if I thought that I was 1/8th done with my work here – I'm not. But, everyone tells me that things pick up pace after the first week or so.

And hey, today I hit a milestone: I ordered business cards for myself. "Brianna K. Beswick, Investigadora, Harvard University," along with my cellphone number and email address. Very exciting.

I also finally dove in to creating some sort of workable interview guide. It's hard, because I don't feel like I quite understand the intricacies of the laws I am asking about yet, and I know that my questions won't be perfectly worded and eloquent in Spanish, and I'm sure that I will forget to ask about important things, and ask about some things in the wrong way or from the wrong angle. Thoughts like that keep me from actually just DOING it. Without a list of ask-able questions, I can't possibly go out and start finding people to talk to, and so I can't make the mistakes I know I am going to make. But, as one of my graduated Social Studies friends told me, "You will never feel all the way prepared. And you can't write a perfect thesis." With that in mind, my goal is to just get started doing SOMETHING. I can always alter my questions as I go along, or even re-interview people if necessary (well, I tell myself that – the likelihood that I would actually re-interview someone is probably pretty low).

So, I am spending the rest of my week here before I head to Chile this weekend making interview guides that will be enough to get started with first thing next week. Starting next Monday, I am making appointments with people, going to offices, standing in front of schools at lunchtime and talking to the domestic workers there to pick up their employer's kids, handing out my business cards, and hoping for calls.

Not that this past week has been a waste. I've done some good reading on domestic labor in Argentina, gotten to know the neighborhood, practiced my Argentine Spanish*, and had informal conversations with people about domestic work and the laws surrounding it to gauge general knowledge. But I also haven't gotten any data from all that. So, wish me luck! I begin the real stuff soon...

Brianna

*My current preoccupation: should I use Argentine-specific Spanish when doing my interviews, when my interviewees will all be from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru? I've come to the conclusion that I shouldn't worry too much about it, because if the way I speak now is any indication, it'll probably end up being a mixture of both no matter what my intentions.

What's New, Buenos Aires?

Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano

Yesterday I got outside and walked around downtown Buenos Aires. I picked a good day to do it, it was sunny and in the 60s, while today is cool, cloudy and gray – more like Santiago from last year. Here are some pictures I took while out and about (continued in next post):






Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano





















Inner courtyard. Note how it is surrounded by office buildings.

























So peaceful.

Museo Casa Carlos Gardel

Today, a few unrelated things happened.

One, my host brother from Dartmouth left -- leaving me goodies like peanut butter and his Argentine cellphone. Woo!

Two, I read a chapter in my thesis-preparation book. A start.

Three, I went to the Carlos Gardel museum. Carlos Gardel, according to Wikipedia and the museum, is kind of a big guy in tango history. I came for a free story-telling event, which was actually pretty cool, although I was by far the youngest person there. Pictures are all from the museum and event.

(the inscription on this plaque reads "Esta casa perteneció a Carlos Gardel y en ella vivió junto a Doña Berta, su madre durante los últimos años de su vida" (This house belonged to Carlos Gardel, and he lived here with his mother during the last years of his life)

In other news, there have been protests here the past two nights, known as "cacerolazos" – so-named because of the main form of protest being banging on pots and pans ("cacerolas"), although other popular forms of protest include honking car horns and making noise with musical instruments (I say noise, because although there are occasionally recognizable tunes, it is mostly just noise).

Another cacerolaza is planned for Monday night, and my host mom is going to join in for the first time ever in her life – I may as well. I have somewhat of a stake in this protest, as the Argentine issues with the US dollar are affecting me too [as far as I understand, the protests are generally anti the Kirchner government, especially in terms of policies regarding access to US dollars].

My general disinclination to join protests because of the noise and crowds may prevent me however, although the protests here seem to be more people standing on their balconies than crowds in the street. Which also explains my lack of pictures...

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekends, and more from me later. :)

Brianna

On Breakfast

Well, that was awkward.

Usually, what I have found when living with host families is that you are constantly eating too much. They serve you big portions, they press additional food on you, and you don’t want to be rude so you eat it all. My host moms in the past have constantly asked me if I have eaten enough, if I want more, if I want snacks during the day between meals, etc. They even sometimes have asked me to name for them specific foods that I would like to eat, or have taken me to the grocery store to pick for myself. I couldn’t help but gain weight in Spain, France, and Chile, and I sometimes resented having to eat so much.

Here, however, I have had the opposite experience. To begin with, I only get two meals a day at my house, breakfast and dinner. I had been expecting lunch as well, but after looking at the description of Harvard homestays, I think that I may have just been getting an “extra” meal at other places I have stayed at. Fine. But on top of this, breakfast each day has been: (2) small pieces of white bread + jelly to put on top. I know that breakfast is treated differently in most Spanish-speaking countries, but I have lived in a few others and I’m not even what I would consider a huge breakfast eater, and I still thought this was pretty lean.

When I asked my host mom if we could swap out white bread for wheat and add a yogurt or a piece of fruit or something to the breakfast however, I got a lecture on how I couldn’t expect American breakfasts and how none of her other students had ever complained. Personally, I think others just hadn’t dared speak up – I know for a fact that at least the other student here right now supplements his breakfasts with food he buys himself. She said that she gave me the typical Argentine breakfast, and I just had to deal with it.

Mentioning how hungry I am in the mornings and how hungry I remain after breakfast had no effect, except to lead her to suggest that we could move dinner earlier. It wasn’t until I mentioned the name of the housing coordinator that she suddenly agreed to my “demands.”

Later, she came to my room to ask me exactly what type of wheat bread I would like and gave a conciliatory speech about how all people are different, and how most of the students she had housed hadn’t eaten hardly anything for breakfast. Which is probably true. But I am still a little astounded that it took so much negotiation just to get an extra piece of fruit or yogurt a day. I’ve been to the stores – that’s like 75 cents max.

Hopefully this little altercation doesn’t strain our relationship at all – because she is, otherwise, a very nice lady, and I love the location of her apartment. I just don’t want to starve myself while I’m here!