It was hard to leave. Two days ago I said farewell to my host family, to Buenos Aires, the place where I underwent the challenge of living abroad. The last days were spent at bars, drinking Quilmes, the national beer, drinking cafe con leche on the sidewalk, under umbrellas, under the sun, and exchanging words of appreciation with the family I lived with for 5 months.
I turned in two large bags of clothes to the thrift store around the corner from my house in my neighborhood, Almagro (I had to check a third bag, getting home, i accumulated a lot). I got to know the women who worked there, at this thrift store, at least by name, and enough to exchange words when I would stop in, they would ask about the US and ask me how I was doing. I would go about two times a week to search the vast store, that looked like an old lady's walk-in closet. I found some wonderful things, including a vintage San Francisco t-shirt and one from Martha's Vineyard.
I walked down Rividavia, the main avenue that crossed with the street on which I lived, towards to heladeria, serving the some of the best gelatto in town. I passed by the store and Lydia was there, I told her I was leaving that day, and she immediately asked, "Cuando vas a volver?" When are you coming back? A popular question of all the porteños that I tell I am leaving after five months of living there. I told I didn't know, but that I would. I will. I started crying as I walked away from the store, where I had been able to exchange with these women, wonderful women who share my love for recycling clothes. I found so many cosas hermosas there...
I also had to say goodbye to waiter at the cafe on my corner, where I would go to use wireless internet. He was a cutie, with a smiling face, always asking me how I was doing, leaning in to give me the greeting, a beso on my cheek. The last time I went in there and sat down, as he passed by to greet me, this time he said "Diosa!" And came over to kiss my cheek. I was sad to say goodbye to such a guy. what a boludo!
I got in my cab, teary, said goodbye to Ana María and Eduardo and let it all out. Started crying a lot. My taxi driver, dressed all in white, perhaps some sort of sign sent from God, in the BA humidity, patiently waited for me to catch my voice. I said, "Disculpame, señor," excuse me, I am sorry for crying like this...
He said something like, "Ah, no, por favor, estas cosas son imortales, de la vida...." Así es las vida, así es...Such is life. Hard! Life is difficult, yet beautiful. There was no need to apologize. I loved that he said that, very porteño, and it was the last moment in that country, the last of many, when I felt accepted, I felt like I had figured out how to be. He let me know that it was fine, crying is ok, just like making out in a taxi is ok. Sometimes we can't help ourselves.
I told him I didn't want to leave and that I was going back to the US. He became choked up when he told me that his own daughter was soon going to the Montreal to do an exchange herself. To learn French and Spanish. He said, you are upset, imagine how I must be feeling! To see his 16 year old daughter go so far away! And on the Canadian dollar, even more expensive than the US! She asked that she had no birthday party to save money for her trip and time abroad. Vale la pena.
All I could say, all I could assure him of was, this is the best thing I have done in my life. It is the hardest thing and she will miss her country, she will miss her mother tongue, her family, her friends, but in the end she will feel accomplished and you sir, will be proud.
Happy to home in the States. All that I missed is here, was waiting for me, all is not lost from Argentina, but it is gone, and perhaps I am different, changed, transformed, matured, who knows? Only time will tell me and shed light on the answers.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Fin del Mundo
Two days ago I arrived in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. The mountains are incredibly and wonderfully daunting, peaks covered in snow, the town made to look minuature against the competeing landscape. It is refreshing to be surrounded by such a vast amount of natural space. Amazing that humanity is capable of hurting such vastness....
Tomorrow we are going to El Calafate, the glacier, and an hour north of here by plane.
I am here with five other lovely girls, all studying abroad, all to return home soon. There is a sense of completion and excitement about going home. And a feeling that we are extremely lucky to be here.
I went to the national park yesterday. Saw many birds. Trekked through heavy-duty mud, slipped and fell on my arse and now have nice one on my butt. Deep purple.
Will eat crab tonight, the speciality here. Things feel clear, life is good.
Tomorrow we are going to El Calafate, the glacier, and an hour north of here by plane.
I am here with five other lovely girls, all studying abroad, all to return home soon. There is a sense of completion and excitement about going home. And a feeling that we are extremely lucky to be here.
I went to the national park yesterday. Saw many birds. Trekked through heavy-duty mud, slipped and fell on my arse and now have nice one on my butt. Deep purple.
Will eat crab tonight, the speciality here. Things feel clear, life is good.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Most of the anxiety I have about returning to the States these days, is about the perspective I have gained from living here. Another experience I had last night brought on that anxiety.
Last night, I was in a taxi in the wee hours of the morning, returning home, when my cab driver asked, in a hostel tone (he had already heard me speak in English) where I was from. I said, "los Estados Unidos," and he kind of bit back, "Los Estados Unidos de America." (that continuing spite harbored by South Americans of the ego-centrism of the northern America.) As we commenced our conversation, he asked what I studied, but I immediately felt tension in the air. He was attacking me and my national identity. As began explaining what I was doing here, I felt embarrassed. Sometimes it hits me hard the level of privilege that I have to be here. And when I start talking about going to university here, but admit that it is more about the cultural experience, the language, etc, than the classes...well, then I get embarrassed.
After I told him that study Latin American History, I felt like I had to explain that I study it because Latin America's history is an important part of my own nation's history. That it should be taught and learned by US citizens because it tells a sad, imperialist story. I knew that I was doing that thing, that guilt-ridden thing: trying to justify myself. Trying to show him that I wasn't just any ignorant American. That I understand. (what do I understand?) I do that a lot here. This comes with this anxiety to get back to the US and get away from this terribly blatant, privileged experience. I am not complaining, but sometimes I wonder what right I have to be here and to simply be having a "cultural" experience. But I need this perspective. All people from the US need it....
As I tried to level with him, he didn't really listen to me, rather just wanted to rail on me about my government's politics. Perhaps was he trying to show off his knowledge, as a mere taxi driver who could take on an American student, a female, who claims to study history...He asked me if I knew about Operation Condor, (initiated by the US to maintain unity and power between the military dictatorships in South America), the Malvinas War and how the US was guilty for that too...He kept saying because of "su país" because of your country, so many terrible things have happened to us. How can you not take that personally?
Again, with my justifications: "I am not a representative of what my government does..." I told him. I am not guilty of what the US has done. I never supported the War in Iraq. I am not guilty for Bush being, as another taxi driver said, "un carnicero," a butcher. But am I?
As this man lectured me, I was on the edge of tears, feeling vulnerable to this huge amount of history and politics boiled down into a taxi ride, this weight, this heavy weight. To what level to I carry that weight? Am I allowed to escape being held accountable for what my government does? Is that how a democracy is supposed to run? Is that a dangerous way to expect our country to run? Yes we bash Bush too much, but with that said, then who should be held accountable? Are we ready to face ourselves?
I met a German girl from Berlin recently and we talked about our respective histories, personal and national, particularly the Holocaust and how that fits into German memory. (Collective memory is showing itself as my primary academic interest) I told her my family's story and she shared her's with me. Her grandmother was raped by Russians, her grandfather admited to her mother on his death bed of killing someone face to face in the Second World War. I told her about my great-grandfather who died in a concentration camp and had also fought for Austria Hungry during World War I.
She told me about the countless times she had to learn about the Holocaust in school, that eventually she just held up her hands and said "are you happy? I feel guilty! I feel terribly guilty! I don't want to hear about it anymore! It could have been me!" In fact it was her grandparents and relatives who were Nazis. Who else were they supposed to be?
Who else am I supposed to be, but American? I am still trying to figure out the responsibility that I have to the rest of the world, to that taxi driver, to my great-grandfather, to myself to admit and take accountability for my national identity.
Last night, I was in a taxi in the wee hours of the morning, returning home, when my cab driver asked, in a hostel tone (he had already heard me speak in English) where I was from. I said, "los Estados Unidos," and he kind of bit back, "Los Estados Unidos de America." (that continuing spite harbored by South Americans of the ego-centrism of the northern America.) As we commenced our conversation, he asked what I studied, but I immediately felt tension in the air. He was attacking me and my national identity. As began explaining what I was doing here, I felt embarrassed. Sometimes it hits me hard the level of privilege that I have to be here. And when I start talking about going to university here, but admit that it is more about the cultural experience, the language, etc, than the classes...well, then I get embarrassed.
After I told him that study Latin American History, I felt like I had to explain that I study it because Latin America's history is an important part of my own nation's history. That it should be taught and learned by US citizens because it tells a sad, imperialist story. I knew that I was doing that thing, that guilt-ridden thing: trying to justify myself. Trying to show him that I wasn't just any ignorant American. That I understand. (what do I understand?) I do that a lot here. This comes with this anxiety to get back to the US and get away from this terribly blatant, privileged experience. I am not complaining, but sometimes I wonder what right I have to be here and to simply be having a "cultural" experience. But I need this perspective. All people from the US need it....
As I tried to level with him, he didn't really listen to me, rather just wanted to rail on me about my government's politics. Perhaps was he trying to show off his knowledge, as a mere taxi driver who could take on an American student, a female, who claims to study history...He asked me if I knew about Operation Condor, (initiated by the US to maintain unity and power between the military dictatorships in South America), the Malvinas War and how the US was guilty for that too...He kept saying because of "su país" because of your country, so many terrible things have happened to us. How can you not take that personally?
Again, with my justifications: "I am not a representative of what my government does..." I told him. I am not guilty of what the US has done. I never supported the War in Iraq. I am not guilty for Bush being, as another taxi driver said, "un carnicero," a butcher. But am I?
As this man lectured me, I was on the edge of tears, feeling vulnerable to this huge amount of history and politics boiled down into a taxi ride, this weight, this heavy weight. To what level to I carry that weight? Am I allowed to escape being held accountable for what my government does? Is that how a democracy is supposed to run? Is that a dangerous way to expect our country to run? Yes we bash Bush too much, but with that said, then who should be held accountable? Are we ready to face ourselves?
I met a German girl from Berlin recently and we talked about our respective histories, personal and national, particularly the Holocaust and how that fits into German memory. (Collective memory is showing itself as my primary academic interest) I told her my family's story and she shared her's with me. Her grandmother was raped by Russians, her grandfather admited to her mother on his death bed of killing someone face to face in the Second World War. I told her about my great-grandfather who died in a concentration camp and had also fought for Austria Hungry during World War I.
She told me about the countless times she had to learn about the Holocaust in school, that eventually she just held up her hands and said "are you happy? I feel guilty! I feel terribly guilty! I don't want to hear about it anymore! It could have been me!" In fact it was her grandparents and relatives who were Nazis. Who else were they supposed to be?
Who else am I supposed to be, but American? I am still trying to figure out the responsibility that I have to the rest of the world, to that taxi driver, to my great-grandfather, to myself to admit and take accountability for my national identity.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
its december 1st
Sorry to those who read every day, my dedicated followers (I that you are one), but I don´t have much to report right now since school is wrapping up.
I have almost finished my documentary that when finished will be posted on Youtube.
I am going to Patagonia, to the edge of the world, Tierra del Fuego on the 7th. Then to see the glacier.
A lot of what I am thinking about these days is personal, rather than social or political...As these near an end I am assessing. Doing a lot of assessing.
I have almost finished my documentary that when finished will be posted on Youtube.
I am going to Patagonia, to the edge of the world, Tierra del Fuego on the 7th. Then to see the glacier.
A lot of what I am thinking about these days is personal, rather than social or political...As these near an end I am assessing. Doing a lot of assessing.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving
I did in fact have a Thanksgiving meal, prepared by the mother of a friend of mine who is visiting and brought, from the States, some integral ingredients. It was a good meal: all the right flavors for the day, five twenty-somethings and my friend's mom, sharing this day far away from the location of its inception.
Recently, the discussions I have been having with friends here, American friends, are really political. Really angry, fed up, clear and lucid. So in the presence of an older generation who welcomed the discourse, we kind of had at it (again) about America. Is it my approaching departure that is riling this all up? Why do I feel more like a conscious citizen here than I do most of the time there? I understand why so many talented authors and artists leave their homeland to understand it with more clarity. To be articulate.
I am scared to lose my articulation. I am scared to return to the States and lose this urgency, this feeling of being enraged. (I'm not walking around with steam coming out of my ears, but you know what I mean). Is it going to be that I return home, return to comfort and security, safety, my own language that this anger will go away? In this experience of having to put myself out on a limb, often feel alone and an outsider, is that when I feel the need for change? This lack of security, mentally, physically, economically, and linguistically, is enraging. It is anxiety-making. When will we ALL start to feel it in the United States? To what level must the water rise for it to affect everyone?
Recently, the discussions I have been having with friends here, American friends, are really political. Really angry, fed up, clear and lucid. So in the presence of an older generation who welcomed the discourse, we kind of had at it (again) about America. Is it my approaching departure that is riling this all up? Why do I feel more like a conscious citizen here than I do most of the time there? I understand why so many talented authors and artists leave their homeland to understand it with more clarity. To be articulate.
I am scared to lose my articulation. I am scared to return to the States and lose this urgency, this feeling of being enraged. (I'm not walking around with steam coming out of my ears, but you know what I mean). Is it going to be that I return home, return to comfort and security, safety, my own language that this anger will go away? In this experience of having to put myself out on a limb, often feel alone and an outsider, is that when I feel the need for change? This lack of security, mentally, physically, economically, and linguistically, is enraging. It is anxiety-making. When will we ALL start to feel it in the United States? To what level must the water rise for it to affect everyone?
Sunday, November 18, 2007
And when you are done watching that speech, watch John Stewart on Crossfire from four years ago or so. He does a wondeful job and what he talks about, I think feeds into what Obama is saying.
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