So, I´m sorry I´ve been majorly slacking on the blog posts. This is my second week in a hostel in Mendoza, where we are studying Spanish at the Intercultural School. We were told not to bring laptops, since hostels are where people get their shit stolen by dirty fucking hippies, and there is one public computer, so I haven´t been able to keep up with messages as much as I would´ve liked.
Anyway, this area of Argentina is pretty damn idyllic. We are in the mountains, the wine capital of Argentina. So far, my exchange group has done the tourist stuff: gone horseback riding, whitewater rafting, rappelling (which I will NEVER do again), hiking, toured two bodegas and an olive oil factory, taking Spanish classes. We´ve also done the non-tourist stuff: bars, clubs, been invited to people´s houses and invited them to ours in turn, had barbecues with the Mendocinos.
Now, I love camping more than anything. I am happiest hiking in the mountains, climbing up the rocks, rafting. But this time, in this country, I feel a tiny little twinge of repulsion every time I see someone with a camping backpack (myself included).
Something about this town was making me uncomfortable, but I couldn´t exactly put a concrete defenition on it until recently: it absolutely REEKS of white privilige. Mendoza is a different kind of white than Buenos Aires. B.A. is for yuppies, Mendoza is for trustafarians (read: Hampshire people). I have met so many internationals in this hostel who have QUIT THEIR JOBS and are taking months on end to travel around Latin America. Escaping from the recession to the back-country.
Maybe it´s just me, but I feel like we (Yankees, Europeans) are treating this country as our playground, somewhere to go for adventure sports, experiencing Latin culture safely through classes, festivals and tours. The tourists come to conquer the mountains, but are we also conquering the people at the same time? As if the people here are for the purpose of teaching us about their culture.
Like, I was trying to light the gas stove last night and didn´t know how, since I´ve only ever used electric ovens. One of the Israeli girls brushed past me and muttered, “Oh my gosh, they´re so fucking old.” Did she mean the oven or the Argentinians? Is this country not “advanced” enough for your taste? Yeah, I did the motorcycle tour like Che… then I went back to my parent´s house in Connecticut and got high all summer. What an adventure, surviving in this antiquated country when we´re so used to putting our boots on the ground and being able to keep what we step on.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
(Sarah) Title 9, Oh Wait This is Only my Third Post
So, I'll make this short. I've been busy. Salt is stressful. I've been running from one thing to another. Finished the mini-ethnography last Monday, did a promo for Tuesday, Vox Pop is due next Tuesday, and still trying to nail down my story topic. However, things have been really amazing. I can't stress enough how much I've been learning.
Friday night my course teacher, Rob, debuted his hour long doc about the Island of Malaga. That was really interesting, because it's a devastating story about social eugenics and racism at the turn of the twentieth century. Then afterwards some friends and I went to Blue where we listened to live Irish music and talked well into the night. The next morning, Rob, friend, made me some french toast and then I went canvassing at Shaw's for Equality Maine. I met these really awesome USM students who are currently organizing a burlesque show in which they'll be performing in drag. It was a pretty awesome day.
This week, has kind of blurred, but I've been getting a bunch done. I finished a promo for the fake show I discussed maybe doing as an independent study, where I take genres and break down their history. So I made a fake promo for that, which maybe I'll post later. I'm currently working on a vox pop. I went in front of a coffee shop, and asked people their opinion on a topless coffee shop that opened in Maine, and how they felt about the fact that 150 people applied for 10 open jobs. So, now I'm editing that together. I'm still working on finding a queer family in a conservative area here for my big doc, but I'm getting closer, I have some leads.
Tonight, I went and saw the film Examined Life. Here's a link to the trailer. It was awesome. zeitgeistfilms.com/examinedlife
I'm visiting Hampshire this weekend, which I'm excited about. Like I said, short. But things have been great and I've been learning a ridiculous amount.
Friday night my course teacher, Rob, debuted his hour long doc about the Island of Malaga. That was really interesting, because it's a devastating story about social eugenics and racism at the turn of the twentieth century. Then afterwards some friends and I went to Blue where we listened to live Irish music and talked well into the night. The next morning, Rob, friend, made me some french toast and then I went canvassing at Shaw's for Equality Maine. I met these really awesome USM students who are currently organizing a burlesque show in which they'll be performing in drag. It was a pretty awesome day.
This week, has kind of blurred, but I've been getting a bunch done. I finished a promo for the fake show I discussed maybe doing as an independent study, where I take genres and break down their history. So I made a fake promo for that, which maybe I'll post later. I'm currently working on a vox pop. I went in front of a coffee shop, and asked people their opinion on a topless coffee shop that opened in Maine, and how they felt about the fact that 150 people applied for 10 open jobs. So, now I'm editing that together. I'm still working on finding a queer family in a conservative area here for my big doc, but I'm getting closer, I have some leads.
Tonight, I went and saw the film Examined Life. Here's a link to the trailer. It was awesome. zeitgeistfilms.com/examinedlife
I'm visiting Hampshire this weekend, which I'm excited about. Like I said, short. But things have been great and I've been learning a ridiculous amount.
Monday, February 16, 2009
(Sarah) The Joys of a Walkable City
So the past week has been intense, educational, and amazing. I managed to get up for class on Tuesday, which was a large all radio people class. In the afternoon we got our recording gear, which I'm very excited about. That night I went with some people to see Chris Hedges, a former war journalist and writer for the New York Times. His speech was great and very inspirational. He said something which I hope to guide my future journalistic career, "You can be passionate, outraged about injustice, and still tell the truth."
The next day I met up with my friend Rob to go do our on the street interviews about the local music scene. Before we did that, we grabbed a bite to eat where we were spontaneously joined by Caty. In the course of the meal we found out that the Empire bar does not serve chocolate milk. This does not actually matter, obviously, but it was a rather funny moment. Anyway, after that Rob and I went down to Fore St, which has a lot of bars. I found out, that even on a rainy, Wednesday night in February in Maine, there are always people outside of bars smoking cigarettes. This should probably be a noted journalistic footnote in my mind from now on. Need people? Go to the bars. The answers to our questions about the local scene were mostly pretty boring, except for the group of punk kids crouched on a stoop, and in particular the guy who went on a bizarre rant about political music that, despite having nothing to do with race, ended with the line "I swear I'm not 100% racist." We also met a man standing outside an Irish pub named Shawn T. McGuiness.
The next day we had our first ethics of documentary course. This is taught by a prof who basically screams "why yes I am a professor" in his entire demeanor. We watched a film about a documentary photographer who does all his photography in Appalachia. I hung out at Salt for a few hours afterwards, where I had a pretty awesome conversation about comics, and then had Pro-Tools training course. Being that I already know how to use Pro-Tools it was pretty boring, but I have to say, I've never been the one person with computer program experience. That was a bit bizarre. That night I came back and found out Hampshire had divested from Israel. I'll get to my opinions on that later.
Friday we had our first small radio course. My prof, Rob, seems really awesome. He's a pretty funny guy and seems to just know everything about radio. The class itself is seven people, and so far everyone in it seems pretty cool. We listened to some great radio pieces and discussed they're content and editing. We also discussed our ideas for our documentaries. I was thinking about doing my first doc on the opposition to the marriage equality movement in Maine. However, in passing I mentioned queer resistance to same-sex marriage. The class seemed deeply surprised that that exists, and the more people I've talked to, the more it's become clear to me that that is a highly unknown opinion outside of certain circles. So now I think that I would like to find an active member of the queer community in Maine, who does not support same-sex marriage, and do a documentary on that person. I went and had a delicious omelette at Rob's place and then came back to Salt to play the on the street interview of the punk kid who's not racist. After that I went out with my mini-ethnography group to discuss our plan of attack for Sunday. I was supposed to go to this angry poetry thing, but instead, I stayed in and watched Dollhouse, a choice I am not at all ashamed of.
Saturday I went walking around town with Rob and we found this great park with a natural ice skating rink. I also, finally, did a proper grocery shopping trip, and now I have more food than I know what to do with.
Sunday was by far the most interesting day so far. I got up early, and went to Salt, where everyone was meeting to do our one day mini-ethnographies. The assignment was to go to an assigned town and find a story in a day. My group was heading to South Portland. Before hand I had researched churches in the area and found that there was a service at the church of the Nazarene that had a band playing at it. So, after a delicious breakfast at Mr. Bagel, my group split up. Casey and I went to church, Anna, Caty, and Amanda went to the mall. So, we arrived at the church and almost immediately, I began interviewing these two teens who were hanging outside in the lobby, one of whom was the pastor's daughter. I then interviewed a bunch of older members of the church and then recorded the entire church service. It was basically my first time going into what is a completely foreign environment for myself and recording it. The service used tons of multi-media formats and it was clearly designed to be more accessible to younger people. This church was not struggling to retain it's membership, I was told that approximately 250 people have joined in the past five years. I interviewed the pastor, who told me that the media was a very conscious decision to keep the church relevant and that in tough times people turn to God. Overall, it was a very interesting morning.
Casey and I, then went back to the mall to meet the rest of our group. We did some more recording there and then headed to the movies. At the movies we did some interviews outside, and then headed in to see if we could record. We were informed that in order to do that we would have had had to have called before. However, after we continued to talk to the manager, she called her boss and we were given permission. A great lesson in perseverance. After the movies we headed back to Salt, where the whole group discussed the events of the day. I was definitely the only person to have sat through a whole church service.
After that Caty, Autumn, and I went to go find chocolate. We walked a lot, with Caty claiming to know of a good place. However, we basically ended up in a dead end where we had to walk across a big snow bank to get to where we needed to go. Now, this snowbank look solid, but it was not and after walking on it a bit, I fell through, down to my hip, as did Autumn. I grew up in Wisconsin, a bit of snow to me is nothing, no biggie, but Autumn grew up in Texas, and boy did she scream when she fell though. Why yes, I do get sick satisfaction watching people from warm areas deal with winter. We decided to turn around at that moment and go to coldstone. After that, we headed to Rob's place where he was throwing a pot luck that included some lobster he had bought that day. A bunch of people showed up and it was overall a very good time.
Today I've done almost nothing, but I will be going to Salt to watch Religilous later, which I'm pretty excited about.
Ok, so I supposed I should talk about the divestment. It's certainly an interesting time to not be at Hampshire. I'm pretty happy that we did divest, even though I did not sign the petition. I'm worried about the mixed messages that are being sent out. I can tell you that people not at Hampshire are confused as to what is going on. Frankly, I'm angry at the trustees at their blatant attempt at trying to have their cake and eat it too. I wonder what the economic fallout for Hampshire will be from this, but I don't think that it'll be as severe as some do. I do kind of wish I could be there, though, just to witness such an event in Hampshire history first hand.
The next day I met up with my friend Rob to go do our on the street interviews about the local music scene. Before we did that, we grabbed a bite to eat where we were spontaneously joined by Caty. In the course of the meal we found out that the Empire bar does not serve chocolate milk. This does not actually matter, obviously, but it was a rather funny moment. Anyway, after that Rob and I went down to Fore St, which has a lot of bars. I found out, that even on a rainy, Wednesday night in February in Maine, there are always people outside of bars smoking cigarettes. This should probably be a noted journalistic footnote in my mind from now on. Need people? Go to the bars. The answers to our questions about the local scene were mostly pretty boring, except for the group of punk kids crouched on a stoop, and in particular the guy who went on a bizarre rant about political music that, despite having nothing to do with race, ended with the line "I swear I'm not 100% racist." We also met a man standing outside an Irish pub named Shawn T. McGuiness.
The next day we had our first ethics of documentary course. This is taught by a prof who basically screams "why yes I am a professor" in his entire demeanor. We watched a film about a documentary photographer who does all his photography in Appalachia. I hung out at Salt for a few hours afterwards, where I had a pretty awesome conversation about comics, and then had Pro-Tools training course. Being that I already know how to use Pro-Tools it was pretty boring, but I have to say, I've never been the one person with computer program experience. That was a bit bizarre. That night I came back and found out Hampshire had divested from Israel. I'll get to my opinions on that later.
Friday we had our first small radio course. My prof, Rob, seems really awesome. He's a pretty funny guy and seems to just know everything about radio. The class itself is seven people, and so far everyone in it seems pretty cool. We listened to some great radio pieces and discussed they're content and editing. We also discussed our ideas for our documentaries. I was thinking about doing my first doc on the opposition to the marriage equality movement in Maine. However, in passing I mentioned queer resistance to same-sex marriage. The class seemed deeply surprised that that exists, and the more people I've talked to, the more it's become clear to me that that is a highly unknown opinion outside of certain circles. So now I think that I would like to find an active member of the queer community in Maine, who does not support same-sex marriage, and do a documentary on that person. I went and had a delicious omelette at Rob's place and then came back to Salt to play the on the street interview of the punk kid who's not racist. After that I went out with my mini-ethnography group to discuss our plan of attack for Sunday. I was supposed to go to this angry poetry thing, but instead, I stayed in and watched Dollhouse, a choice I am not at all ashamed of.
Saturday I went walking around town with Rob and we found this great park with a natural ice skating rink. I also, finally, did a proper grocery shopping trip, and now I have more food than I know what to do with.
Sunday was by far the most interesting day so far. I got up early, and went to Salt, where everyone was meeting to do our one day mini-ethnographies. The assignment was to go to an assigned town and find a story in a day. My group was heading to South Portland. Before hand I had researched churches in the area and found that there was a service at the church of the Nazarene that had a band playing at it. So, after a delicious breakfast at Mr. Bagel, my group split up. Casey and I went to church, Anna, Caty, and Amanda went to the mall. So, we arrived at the church and almost immediately, I began interviewing these two teens who were hanging outside in the lobby, one of whom was the pastor's daughter. I then interviewed a bunch of older members of the church and then recorded the entire church service. It was basically my first time going into what is a completely foreign environment for myself and recording it. The service used tons of multi-media formats and it was clearly designed to be more accessible to younger people. This church was not struggling to retain it's membership, I was told that approximately 250 people have joined in the past five years. I interviewed the pastor, who told me that the media was a very conscious decision to keep the church relevant and that in tough times people turn to God. Overall, it was a very interesting morning.
Casey and I, then went back to the mall to meet the rest of our group. We did some more recording there and then headed to the movies. At the movies we did some interviews outside, and then headed in to see if we could record. We were informed that in order to do that we would have had had to have called before. However, after we continued to talk to the manager, she called her boss and we were given permission. A great lesson in perseverance. After the movies we headed back to Salt, where the whole group discussed the events of the day. I was definitely the only person to have sat through a whole church service.
After that Caty, Autumn, and I went to go find chocolate. We walked a lot, with Caty claiming to know of a good place. However, we basically ended up in a dead end where we had to walk across a big snow bank to get to where we needed to go. Now, this snowbank look solid, but it was not and after walking on it a bit, I fell through, down to my hip, as did Autumn. I grew up in Wisconsin, a bit of snow to me is nothing, no biggie, but Autumn grew up in Texas, and boy did she scream when she fell though. Why yes, I do get sick satisfaction watching people from warm areas deal with winter. We decided to turn around at that moment and go to coldstone. After that, we headed to Rob's place where he was throwing a pot luck that included some lobster he had bought that day. A bunch of people showed up and it was overall a very good time.
Today I've done almost nothing, but I will be going to Salt to watch Religilous later, which I'm pretty excited about.
Ok, so I supposed I should talk about the divestment. It's certainly an interesting time to not be at Hampshire. I'm pretty happy that we did divest, even though I did not sign the petition. I'm worried about the mixed messages that are being sent out. I can tell you that people not at Hampshire are confused as to what is going on. Frankly, I'm angry at the trustees at their blatant attempt at trying to have their cake and eat it too. I wonder what the economic fallout for Hampshire will be from this, but I don't think that it'll be as severe as some do. I do kind of wish I could be there, though, just to witness such an event in Hampshire history first hand.
Monday, February 9, 2009
(Sarah) First Couple Days
I have safely arrived in Portland. Portland is adorable. It's very much the classic decent sized New England port town, which is appropriate all things considered. My apartment is really cute. I have my own room, which is significantly larger than Hampshire rooms, plus a kitchen-bathroom-living space combo room down the hall. Seriously I don't know what to do with all the space, not that I'm complaining or anything. Oh, but the best part is that I'm literally surrounded by books. My landlady is an ex-professor, so you can imagine the sheer amount of books here. I'll post pictures at somepoint.
Nothing too much has happened since my arrival. I went out with a few Salties Friday night to some art in the area. One of the exhibits was a bunch of photos of rock and roll icons. The room was packed and I decided to go back at another time, but man am I excited about that exhibit.
Today was our first day, which was basically a tour and filling out some forms. Or so I'm told, because I, in true Sarah fashion, woke up a half an hour after I was supposed to be there. I walked over late, which amazingly wasn't much of an issue, they still allowed me to take a tour and fill out forms. Tomorrow is the first real day of the course. Hopefully I won't sleep through that one.
-Sarah
Nothing too much has happened since my arrival. I went out with a few Salties Friday night to some art in the area. One of the exhibits was a bunch of photos of rock and roll icons. The room was packed and I decided to go back at another time, but man am I excited about that exhibit.
Today was our first day, which was basically a tour and filling out some forms. Or so I'm told, because I, in true Sarah fashion, woke up a half an hour after I was supposed to be there. I walked over late, which amazingly wasn't much of an issue, they still allowed me to take a tour and fill out forms. Tomorrow is the first real day of the course. Hopefully I won't sleep through that one.
-Sarah
Thursday, February 5, 2009
(Hannah) Graffiti in Buenos Aires
1. "Long live the resistance of the Palestinian people"
2. Top: "Disappeared in democracy" Bottom: "We're here to take care of you"
3. "No to obligatory heterosexuality"
4. "Palestine"
5. "Ideas can't disappear"
6. I think this one was about social security (?)... Eva and Juan Peron, and current President Kirchner.
7. Left: "What had died? Before the crisis of capitalism revolution" Right: "End the isolation of Dr. Abimael G. R. and close definitively the military detention center of the Callao naval base in Peru!"
8. "Down with the Zionist massacre against Gaza, long live the resistance of the Palestinian people"
9. "My life has value, my body doesn't have a price"
10. Antisemitism alive and well
Sunday, February 1, 2009
(Hannah) Buenos Aires en Fotos
Rather than clog up this blog with all of my photos, I decided to only post the really *amazing* ones here and have set up a Flickr account if you want to view the rest:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29981972@N06/
(Have I quenched my Evita obsession yet? I HAVEN'T EVEN BEGUN!! Bwahahaa!!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29981972@N06/
(Have I quenched my Evita obsession yet? I HAVEN'T EVEN BEGUN!! Bwahahaa!!)
(Hannah) ¡Buenos Bro-ches!
¡Hola de Buenos Aires, Argentina! I arrived here safe and sound on Wednesday the 28th, and this is really the first chance I've gotten to sit down and update this blog for your amusement. So, a few quick answers to questions of what life here is like: It is February and I am walking around in tank tops and sandals. I can buy alcohol and drink it in public. I can go to clubs without showing any ID. I can get beer delivered to my house. My defining moment when I really realized I was in Argentina was when my host mom's one-year-old granddaughter toddled into my room drinking yerba mate out of a sippy cup. All in all, it is pretty fucking awesome.
However... remember when I said that Buenos Aires is the whitest place in Latin America? Well, it really is the WHITEST fucking place in Latin America. The government likes to keep the brown people invisible, so they live mostly in the shantytowns and areas like La Boca where it isn't safe to go. This city has the second largest Jewish community in the world, Brooklyn being the first. I can count the number of black people I've seen on one hand. People from Buenos Aires are called Porteños, people of the port, and have a reputation for being liberal snobs who look down on the rest of the country. (It's almost as if I haven't left the East Coast. ;D The rules of the road here are also comfortingly similar to Boston—red light means go, pedestrians don't have rights, etc.) A major reason I chose Buenos Aires as a place to study abroad is because it is so white, so I as a white person don't feel like I'm intruding as much on another culture, but little did I know just how similar white people are everywhere.
Anyway, I've been feeling like a total sterotype this past week, even though I've been thoroughly enjoying myself. We went on a bike tour (See what I mean?!) of aristocratic Buenos Aires yesterday, after which we hung out with some friends of Jenni's that can only be described as bros. (Or, by the name I gave them, bro-ches; “che” is like “hey”.) Our second night here, we went to this guy Jonathan's family's apartment. He lives in Palermo, which is the ritziest district of the city. This was the kind of house that I would never be invited to in the States. (I am classless, so I took pictures.)
Last night, we pre-gamed at a restaurant, then pre-gamed again at Jonathan's place before going to the club. (Haha America, you suck and I'm allowed to do that here!) You know that Family Guy episode where Stewie founds the nightclub called pLace, made especially for pretentious douchebags? Yeah, that's what Crobar was like. I was so excited to go out dancing, but it really wasn't a positive dance experience for me... it was full of straight white people and played all American music, and I was tired after ten minutes of guys grinding into my ass without permission and assuming I wanted to dance with them because I'm sexy. (Or saying I am “imaginative” because I wanted to find some girls to dance with.) I'm definitely going to a gay club next weekend, so I can hopefully avoid the excess of machismo.
So there are definitely ups and downs. I need to adjust physically and mentally to a whole new lifestyle. Argentinians can meet for dinner as late as 11p.m., then go dancing at 2. Two of the hardest things in the world for me are socializing for long periods of time and going to restaurants. Guess what the major pastimes are here? Yup, you guessed it. I'll get acclimated over time, but for now I feel like I need to turn myself into a different person in order to make friends here... I'm so not Latina in the way that Tomas described himself and his friends as Latino.
I miss everyone at home, and am sure that you all are having a good time in your respective corners of the world. Be on the lookout for more updates to come!
Con mi amor, xoxo Hannah
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