The Beginnings of Routine

This was my first week in my final schedule, after an uncomfortably long limbo period. Here are all my courses with descriptions:

1. Español Intensivo.
I have to take a Spanish class as part of FLACSO, and I decided to do the intensive one. Although it will be a painful 8 weeks of meeting from 9-11 AM (so much earlier in BA!) Tuesday-Friday, I'll have tons of free time the second half of the semester. Plus, it'll be good to review everything as soon as possible so I can start using it. Although I was dreading the class, the students make it much less painful. There are people from all over the world: 4 Americans, 2 Japanese, 2 Austrians, 1 Korean, 1 Englishman, and 1 Brazilian. Although most of us are students, everyone has a different story of how they ended up here, how long they're staying, etc. The Brazilian girl is here with her husband, who is getting his masters at UBA; the Korean guy up and moved his family here, for reasons that are unclear to me; one American girl decided to spend a year here, just because. My favorite person in the class is probably Lorenzo, who's writing a masters thesis in International Economics at UBA, and is every bit the stereotypical Italian: talkative, excitable, and fun to be around when it's 9 in the morning and no one else is in a good mood. In general, everyone seemed to bond immediately. I think we're all open to new relationships in a way that only people who have left most of their other relationships on other continents can be. Also, it's been easier for me to communicate in Spanish with many of these people than it has been with native speakers. We all speak slowly, have a limited vocabulary, and make similar mistakes. This class also reinforced to me, once again, the pathetic state of American foreign language education, at least compared to other countries. I'm pretty sure I've been studying Spanish for longer than anyone in the class, and while I'm not worse, I'm certainly not any better.

4. Seminario del Aprendizaje y Servicio (service learning seminar).
The class portion of this seminar is easy and of little interest to me, but it's completely worth it because for 4 hours a week I'll be working with Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. For those who don't know, Las Madres formed during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983, as a group of mothers searching for their "disappeared" children, the word used for those kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the military. They grew from a small, informal network to a large group, protesting in La Plaza de Mayo every Thursday and thus contributing to the downfall of the dictatorship. They still march every Thursday, although now it's in support of other human rights causes, since they don't consider the current government hostile. Besides that, they spend their time trying to figure out what happened to their children, emphasizing the importance of remembrance through monuments, events, etc., and supporting other human rights causes. I haven't spent much time there yet, but the little experience I have has shown me that they're truly incredible people. Despite everything they've experienced, they seem to harbor little anger, instead putting all their energy into making sure that something like this never happens in Argentina again. The office is a very pleasant place, full of jokes and affection; most of the younger people working there are related to disappeared people in one way or another. Technically, my job will consist of sorting through recently declassified police files, given to Las Madres especially and archiving pictures and other mementos pertaining to disappeared people. However, Carmen, our boss, made it clear that she's far more interested in telling us her story and those of others, teaching us about the various human rights groups in Buenos Aires and showing us important locations in the history of Las Madres. Basically, I'm ridiculously excited about this opportunity; it might be the coolest thing that's ever happened to me.

3. Ritmos y Danzas del Río de la Plata.
This is a dance class (with some reading and tests thrown in as well), where we'll learn mostly tango, but also other dances typical to this region such as Milonga and Candombe. Despite my lack of experience or skill in this area, I'm having so much fun in the class. My professor said I have "afinidades para la baile," but he's clearly either a liar, or a terrible judge.

4. Historía Argentina (1880-present).
This, as you may have discerned, will be my only academically challenging class. It's a history class in the political science department taught by an economics professor - essentially CSS (my major) applied to Argentina. Needless to say, I am in love. Although it will be quite a challenge, it's fascinating, both for the material itself and for the way it is taught. In my last class, for example, we read an essay describing the early economic history of Argentina from a Marxist perspective. Without thinking much about it, I assumed that we would discuss things like the successes and failures of the Marxist perspective, when it arose, and for what reasons, just like I've done in countless other classes. Instead, when I got to class, the teacher proceeded to describe the history of Argentina from this perspective, as though it were indisputable fact that history consisted of class wars rooted in relations of production and material conditions. I bumped into a kid from my class on the subway ride home, and when I told him of my surprise and amusement at the lecture, he basically proceeded to disagree with me on everything I said. He felt that the lecture was Peronist rather than Marxist (I didn't know enough to argue with that one), and that most of what the professor said was true. He also made the excellent point that we had spent the first class discussing the impossibility of objective history, and now I understand why. To be honest, I agreed with a lot of what the professor said about international economics. Argentina was a colony, or a semi-colony, for most of its history, and as such it did play a dependent role in the world economy. But in my experience (with mostly liberal people, to be fair) that view is nearly universally accepted as truth here, whereas in America, no matter how liberal the professor, I think he or she typically feels obligated to give the other side of the argument as well. The class is divided into a Teórico and a Práctico, taught by different professors, the former being far more objective in his treatment of history (despite also being a staunch Peronist, from what I've heard).

I'm also excited for the access this class will give me to Argentinian students and UBA, which is such an interesting place. Nearly every class, I've ended up chatting with some student, and, as political science majors, they get right down to business, asking my opinion on the American elections, government in Argentina, etc. We spent the first half of my last class with the Marxist/Peronist professor discussing the upcoming teacher strike at UBA, whether or not it was justified, and how students and teachers should organize to improve the state of things at UBA (which severely lacks in basics like toilet paper, sometimes electricity, chalk for chalkboards and, oh yeah, salaries for the professors). Although a lot of people opposed this particular strike, the conversation operated under the implicit agreement among everyone that students and teachers needed to take action. There was no mention whatsoever of privatization as even a theoretical option.

Other things that are different about UBA: There are no copyright laws here, so everyone just photocopies the homework. It's cheap, but the professors clearly worry about students not developing their own library, and often implore them to buy the books for themselves, a suggestion they universally ignore. Also, I have not yet had an uninterrupted class. Typically students from some radical organizing group come in, often to announce an upcoming debate or charla (chat) about improving UBA. Other times though, it's been people coming in to beg for money or sell trinkets. Each time the professor lets them in, usually because he agrees with what they're doing. When people ask for money, they're far more successful than on the street.

I'm quite excited about this schedule. Despite the lack of academic rigor, I think I'll learn more about Argentina through these more active pursuits than I would sitting in my room reading a book.

Ciao,
Chelsea