Weekend firefighting with Abuelo

Before Saturday night, I had never truly trembled with fear. It was only an expression I'd heard or read, never experienced. It's a sensation I could have gone without having and been just fine. Life had other plans, however, as I could barely stand in the driveway, legs shaking uncontrollably, unsure of what to do while the neighbor's house and trees went up in flames.

Perhaps I should back up a little.

This weekend I went to visit my abuelo and his wife, Elma, in the province of Cordoba, which lies about a 12-hour bus ride northwest of the capital. Cordoba, with its rolling hills, sprawling farms, lakes, rivers, and charming towns built in the German alpine style, is a favorite vacation spot for Argentines, especially for porteños. The province is also home to the second largest city in the country, Cordoba Capital, which holds claim to the nation's oldest and one of its most prestigious universities, the University of Cordoba, founded around four centuries ago. The university draws students from all over the interior of Argentina and from all over the world as many international students prefer the laid-back lifestyle of Cordoba to the hectic rat-race of Buenos Aires.

Despite its numerous lakes and rivers, Cordoba has a generally dry climate and currently finds itself in a severe drought. Just a few weeks ago, the province suffered various major wildfires which devoured acres of farmland, forests, and homes. (Some images of the fires - start at 0:55). Since then, Cordoba has not received any significant rainfall and its residents are still living under threat of more fires, bringing us to Saturday evening (around 8:30 p.m.).

My grandpa, Elma, and I were sitting in the living room watching a movie (one I highly recommend – Elefante Blanco, a story about priests and social workers volunteering in the villas of Buenos Aires) when we started to hear what sounded like explosions. At first we assumed the noises were coming from the movie, then we thought they were fireworks from the town center, but when Elma went to peek out the window, she gasped and began yelling that there was a huge fire next door. She ran to move the cars out of the driveway, and my grandpa and I followed.

When we opened the door, we were shocked to see flames reaching 15-20 feet just beyond the edge of the house. It was an impressive sight but definitely one you would prefer to watch on television. The neighbor's two giant pine trees were completely ablaze along with his entire yard and home. Sparks, smoke, and ash billowed in all directions, dangerously threatening the surrounding houses. The only thing separating us from the fire next door was a fence of bushes lining the property. With every passing minute the flames inched closer and closer to my grandparents' house. I'm not sure who had called the fire department or when they had called; all I know is that the firemen seemed to take forever to arrive. There's nothing quite like watching helplessly as a fire rages next door to your house.

To be honest, I wasn't really sure what I could do in the situation. Since I can't drive stick shift, I couldn't help with the cars nor could I help retrieve important documents from the house as I didn't know where they were hidden nor could I think of anything else which could help. So what did I do? After a few minutes of standing dumbfounded with my hands on top of my head, I ran back inside, grabbed my cell phone, a jacket with my wallet in it, and my backpack which contained my notes and books for my postgrad classes then rushed back outside.

Elma saw me and told me to grab a hose and start spraying down the parts of the house as well as the plants closest to the flames. Not exactly sure what I was doing, I grabbed the hose, only unwrapping it part way due to my aforementioned trembling limbs. As I was watering down the house, a young man, probably in his lower twenties, who had been among the neighbors lining the street watching the spectacle, walked up to me to ask if I knew what had happened (supposedly he mistook me for a German girl he knows in the town; Elma was pretty sure he made up the story for another reason). He began to give me instructions as to where to spray the water, in the meantime helping me unwind the hose in order to reach further towards the back of the property. The boy, Nico, called his friends who were with him to help when he saw another hose in the backyard. Despite not knowing my grandparents, they didn't even hesitate to begin to fight the fire from my abuelo's side of the fence. (Elma had a different hypothesis regarding their willingness to lend a helping hand). She figured their damsel-in-distress instinct kicked in when I asked for their assistance. I'm not sure whether it was my 10-year-old windbreaker or my messy pony tail which won them over, but either way it worked as their efforts along with the firemen's managed to contain and eventually extinguish the fire.

All joking aside, the look of terror on my grandparents' faces is one I will never forget. Their house represents a lifetime of work, their savings, their patronage, their memories with family and friends, their home. The thoughts which must have crossed their minds are things no one wants to have to consider. Where are we going to stay if the house burns down? Will our insurance give us enough for a new place? Do I grab anything more than just important documents? What about all the photos of our family? Praise God for protecting my grandparents as well as the rest of the neighborhood, including the dog, Yacobo; the poor thing had been tied up with a rope to the house which was on fire. Luckily someone cut the rope in time for him to escape. The pup was shaking and whimpering as he made his way out of the front gate. As soon as Elma called Yacobo over, he began to climb all over us, relieved to see (or smell) some familiar faces.

Thank God no one was hurt, no other homes were burnt, and nobody assaulted the man responsible (who more than likely deserved a good shaking up as this was the second time within 3 years he's caused a fire and put the whole street and even the whole town in danger). The man at fault, Bubi, is slightly off his rocker. He collects trash and hoards it in his backyard, scouring the town dump to bring home anything and everything he thinks might serve for his experiments. His backyard was literally a pile of trash, now a pile of ashes, and when he didn't make sure the coals were completely cool after his afternoon barbecue, it didn't take much more than a spark to set the whole property ablaze. Luckily, the fire didn't make it to the five gas tanks he had buried underground, otherwise this blogpost would have been completely different.

Some photos from when the fire was already under control thanks to the firefighters (I was too in shock to take pictures while the fire raged at full force):

Post-fire photos of the neighbor's property:

Writing: a truly masochistic endeavor

Please forgive the following literary rant:

Uruguayan author Horacio Quiroga, king of the depressing surreal short story

I think I have a theory as to why so many of the world's great authors died young (whether by choice –   Horacio Quiroga, Leopoldo Lugones – or by an untimely sickness – Franz Kafka, Edgar Allen Poe). In general, people hear about or live through sad moments, hours, months, or years and then move on to continue life as usual, or as much so as possible, with their jobs and families. On the other hand, many writers, as the word so blatantly implies, write about those experiences, experiences which often unearth deeply buried emotions and sympathies within the writer himself and, if the episode is well-expressed, within the reader as well. A pattern among the most poignant works of literature is their connection to reality, to real suffering, to real joy, to real pain, to real happiness, to real experiences lived by real people. One doesn't have to look much further than one's own family and friends to find literary inspiration.

She found her husband in bed with another man...

He left behind a young daughter and beautiful wife after a long, drawn out fight with multiple sclerosis...

A terrible cancer took him/her/them away from us way too soon...

Her father's gambling addiction kept them in financial ruin until he passed away...

Despite differences between approaches to the writing process (there are two main branches plus a wide spectrum in between), all authors spend a significant time reflecting upon the subject of their future literary creation. Some perform this stage in a purely mental fashion, brewing all of their ideas for the plot, characters, setting, and structure within their head before spilling them all onto paper (or onto a computer as seems to be the case nowadays) diving directly into a writing campaign, what genetic critics label as the first clear attempt to begin the story, novel, essay, poem, etc. Others, which tends to include a wider range of writers, brainstorm on paper, developing their ideas separately before then organizing them into their work of literature. During this first stage, which can last hours, days, or even years, writers are forced (somewhat masochistically at times) to dwell upon often painful experiences, analyzing the episode down to even the most minuscule of details such as the characters' clothing, facial, and body expressions; if they are eating, what they are eating; the weather; the color of the walls, the furniture, the floor...

Authors who draw upon personal experiences as inspiration must mentally and emotionally relive blissful, tepid, haunting moments in an effort to bring the reader into their world constructed upon ink-stained paper. Even if the difficult moment was not a personal experience, putting oneself in the place of the other person, trying to imagine their suffering and innermost thoughts, can throw an author into depression, which may or may not be conducive to his writing... Then, after the initial brainstorming and the start of the writing campaign, the author must go back through his writing to edit and re-edit and make changes and corrections, reliving the experience for a third, fourth, fifth, or as many times as it requires for him to be content with his work.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a writer, nor am I trying to compare myself to the excellent authors listed above, but, for us amateurs, blogging and journaling do require a similar process, perhaps on a smaller scale, but similar nonetheless. Also, I don't know about you, but when I dwell on something or imagine it, keeping it within my thoughts, my imagination tends to run wild, typically jumping to the worst of conclusions...

"Why hasn't my mom called yet is she okay I hope nothing happened did she bring her phone did she get robbed I hope they didn't take her phone with all her pictures and emails and personal info he better not have laid a hand on her that son of a gun how dare he try to assault my mother without me around why doesn't he get a job instead of preying on innocent people – Oh, hi mom! I was just wondering why you hadn't called yet..."

Granted, there are situations so horrid for which our imagination has no need to run wild, but, many times, our minds can corner us into desperate places if we have no one to help us out. Ironically, perhaps this excess of imagination is something for which readers can be thankful. We are able to enjoy the author's brilliant, beautiful creations born many times of his personal or familial hardships. We can grow to love, hate, and empathize with fictional characters. We can even weep after a character's death (ahem... the last battle in Harry Potter... ahem). Sometimes we just cry because we have grown so close to a character that finishing the story is almost like losing a loved one who we can no longer look forward to seeing after a long day of work (I may have fallen in love with Tolstoy's Levin in Anna Karenina...). Other times we mourn for society when an author paints such an accurate yet chilling picture of civilization, ancient, modern, or future (let's just say it took me a few days to recover after reading George Orwell's 1984...).

There's a saying which states, "He who lives doesn't write; he who writes doesn't live" (a saying I've experienced even as an amateur blogger). However, Spanish author Javier Marías makes some important adjustments to the phrase in his essay "Contagio"("Contagion"):

"Actually, I think he who writes continuously carries out a selection of life. He chooses to give life to what interests him, therefore choosing his own death. In other words, he dies numerous times, each time he breaks what can't be anything but a continuum for those who do not suffer from his anomaly.

The novelist will endure anything if he believes he can tell the story, or, in the words of Isak Dinesen, [the novelist] knows 'all suffering can be endured if it is put into a story or if a story is told about it.'"


(And if I told you this all stemmed from the sadness of saying goodbye to my mom as she returned to the US after a three week visit, you might believe me now...)

When bus drivers snap...

If I had to name three of the worst jobs in the world, I think being a bus driver, colectivero, in Buenos Aires would certainly make the list, if not top it. Not only does a colectivero have to maneuver the perilous and overcrowded streets of the capital and its surroundings, but he also must deal with the wild creatures who reside there. 

The bus, or bondi, is the transport of choice for a grand majority of porteños for a variety of reasons. There are over a hundred lines, oneof which will get you where you need to go, whether it's in the heart of the city or in a "suburb" 3 hours away. Traveling by bus is also extremely cheap, the average trip costs about 20 cents (in US dollars). The best part, for those who have a car, is not having to worry about finding parking or, worse, about not finding your vehicle where or how you left it. 

Taking the bus is not, however, all rainbows and unicorns. It can be a stressful experience filled with exasperating waits in never-ending lines; being squished between sweaty, obese, smelly men; and 20 minute trips converted into hour-long voyages by unannounced protests, strikes, and other unforeseen circumstances. In these less happy moments, often passengers will take out their wrath on unsuspecting colectiveros, who may or may not be innocent in the situation (there are some bus drivers who enjoy driving passengers crazy in different ways which include but are not limited to slamming the brakes at every opportunity, accelerating to the point of causing passengers to lose their balance and even fall, and not stopping completely to allow passengers on or off). For bus drivers, their line of work is a pretty thankless and, ironically, lonely job. The colectivero, even while driving a bus full of passengers, is basically alone. Very few times will passengers engage in conversation with the driver for more than a few seconds. Most passengers won't say more than the fare they need to be charged when they first get on the bus (even a greeting, please, and thank you is a rare event, usually received very gratefully by the driver). Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't seen more bus drivers react violently in response to the stresses of the job. Today, one bus driver, a fairly young fellow, my aunt estimated his age to be slightly over 30, reached his breaking point, and, thankfully for us, my aunt was able to witness it.

Waiting for the bus is fun! (from Clarin.com)

She boarded the bus as usual and found a seat near the front, close to a young woman with her baby who looked upset about something. About three or four stops later, while more passengers were boarding, the bus went silent as the driver began to argue with a young man, a pibe (pee-beh) as the Argentines would say. Apparently, his SUBE, similar to a metro/transport card which is used to pay bus fares electronically, was not functioning correctly. The bus driver told him to pay in coins, but the pibe didn't have any. When the driver told him to get off, the other passengers quickly jumped to the pibe's defense, offering him all the change he needed and more, so much that he couldn't hold it all in both hands. For one reason or another, this didn't fly with the driver. The pibe tried to pay, but the driver refused to accept the coins, "NO. I don't care that you have the money, now. Get off my bus."

"He has the coins now, just let him on!" argued the other passengers.

"No. No. No. He has to get off.."

"Just let him pay! Let him pay with the coins and let's go!"

After a few more rounds of arguing, the driver declared, “No. If he’s not getting off, then I’m getting off” and proceeded to open the front door, turn off the engine, and get off the bus, despite the protests of the passengers. While the passengers looked around at each other in disbelief, the driver sat down on the curb and began to fiddle with his cell phone. 

At this point, some passengers, most likely the ones who were in a rush, got off the bus and began to wait for another one to come. Others stuck around to watch the show while a few joined in the action. One passenger, an average sized woman of about forty years, made it her personal mission to make sure the driver would understand the error of his ways. "You can't just treat a young mother and her daughter like that, yell at a passenger for not paying with his own coins, and then tell the rest of us to get on another bus! I'm calling the police!"

Her threat didn't seem to bother the bus driver particularly as there wasn't much the police could do about the situation anyway. "Go right ahead," he responded coyly. 

"I'm going to call the bus company!"

"Already did. They're on their way," grumbled the driver through his teeth.

"I'm staying here until they get here, you ******, *******, ********!!!" And she went on to give him lesson in Argentine curse words and insults until my aunt got tired of waiting around and watching the debacle and got off the bus to take the next one. While the woman was haranguing the bus driver, the other passengers wondered out loud why no man had said anything. One male passenger quickly and wisely stifled this questioning of his manhood by explaining how if he or any other man had said anything to the driver, the confrontation would quickly have escalated to an all-out brawl. For the moment, the driver, who was possibly looking for a fight, was unable to take out his anger physically due to the female nature of his only adversary. Eventually, everybody, except for the "harangatang" lady, got off and tried to go about their business on another bus with a hopefully more emotionally stable driver. (I get the feeling that even if the driver had gotten back on the bus to drive, not many passengers would have been keen on riding with him for fear he might find his way off the bridge joining Avellaneda and City of Buenos Aires and into the Río de la Plata.) 

I'd be willing to gamble that tomorrow, the 100 bus line will be putting out a help wanted ad... 

URGENT: Bus Driver needed. 

Requirements: Drivers license, union membership, and sanity.

Preferably with experience.

(http://ar.fotolog.com/bondis_piolas/51645085/)

Living with 25% inflation...

Upon arriving to a new country, one of the first things one must do is change money to obtain the local currency. Normally, if one is visiting for a relatively short period of time, a month or less, one never stops thinking about the exchange rate when making purchases or spending money.* 

*Sidenote: This is a little more complicated in Argentina due to the parallel, "blue," market (which arose due to the government restriction on the purchase of US dollars ). "Hmm... 250 pesos... that would be about 50 US dollars at the official exchange and about 28 US dollars at the "blue" rate..." Also, while it is technically illegal to buy or sell dollars on the "blue" market (not really different from the black market, but it doesn't sound as sketchy), it is the most popular option for changing dollars, or any other foreign currency, to Argentine pesos. Another day I'll explain more about the "blue" dollar. 

Now, if one makes a longterm move abroad, one typically begins to think in terms of the local currency after a few months of living in his new country, especially if one receives his salary in the local currency. This is not the case in Argentina, however. After having barely survived several financial crises and bouts with hyperinflation, Argentines with means have learned to think (and save) in dollars. Honestly, there is no other way to understand the value of a product or service because the prices are constantly changing, and by changing I mean rising... To give a tangible example, when I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I could buy a 600 mL (about 20 ounces) Coke for seven pesos; now, at the same convenience store, a 600 mL Coke costs 9 pesos, a 28.5% increase in price over seven months. Many stores and restaurants don't even bother printing their prices, most are written by hand because businesses are forced to raise their prices so frequently. Obviously, rising prices are more noticeable for more expensive goods, but the percentage change is still about the same across the board. 

Instead of going into detail about the interesting dollar/peso mindset of the Argentine, I figured it would be more effective to translate a recent article from the August 18th Revista La Nación, a weekly magazine published by one of the major newspapers in Argentina.  The article was taken from a recently published book by Mariano Gorodisch, an Argentine finance journalist, called 60 Options to Invest in Pesos and Save in Dollars (60 opciones para invertir en pesos y ahorrar en dólares). While some suggestions are fairly universal and applicable in the US as well, others are, well, very unique to Argentina... 

"10 more or less known, but effective, tips to beat inflation"

1. Book an all-inclusive

Since it's required to request validation in order to acquire foreign currencies when traveling abroad, it is more convenient to book all-inclusive vacation packages, paid in full in Argentina in pesos at the official exchange rate plus a 20 percent tax. That way one knows how much one is paying without risking an increase in the official exchange rate, which is what happens when one "cards,"or pays with an Argentine credit or debit card abroad (money also changed at the official rate plus a 20 percent tax). And if AFIP, the Argentine tax agency, authorizes the purchase of 70 dollars per day, the traveller who stays at an all-inclusive can save those dollars.

2. Make "pre-purchases" by internet before traveling abroad

The prices in Miami are already more economical than those in Argentina. Recently, many travelers have begun to take advantage of this by buying clothing and technology online from our country before going abroad. This way, they can pay at the official dollar and then pick up their goods once they are in the United States

3. Shop around at different supermarkets

One good way to save money daily, if one has the time, is to go to the supermarket like one goes shopping for clothes, except with one's re-usable grocery bags. There is not any one supermarket which offers the cheapest prices in every product. Some are cheaper in some product families while the rest are cheaper in others. The savings of up to 30% is the difference in the price of soda between the most expensive supermarket chain and the cheapest, while in products such as whole milk and diapers one can save 20%, according to tu-alacena.com.

4. Anticipate your funeral

For those who bet long-term, planning their future even after their death might sound appealing. Cemeteries offer finance plans with monthly payments so that when the day comes, the survivors won't have to be paying upwards of 17,000 pesos for a memorial and burial service.

5. Save in safes

It has been predicted that by the end of 2013, both the official and the parallel dollar will likely increase by 30%. Thus, having bills well hidden and accessible when needed could render 30% more.

6. Buy land on the moon

A gift for the grandchild: one 4000 square meter property on the moon. It’s for sale for $19.99 US, plus $1.51 tax and an additional $2.50 to have your name printed on the satellite picture. Shipping anywhere in the world costs another $12.50. In total, $36.50 for the property title. 1741 Argentines have already done it. They are betting on a future revaluation.

7. Cooperatives which pay a 40% annual fixed rate

The investor earns monthly interest but should wait 12 months to recover his capital. The minimum investment is 20 thousand pesos or 5 thousand dollars, but the majority invests an average of 100 thousand pesos.

8. Buy an apartment with an old person inside

Rosa, an 80-year-old childless widow, receives a monthly retirement payment of 2500 pesos, which doesn't even cover her medications. She owns an apartment valued at 100,000 dollars; she wanted to sell it to buy a smaller one and keep the difference, but the real estate market is almost paralyzed. She made a full life-long usufruct agreement: the investor keeps the property title but gives her the right to use the apartment until her last day on earth. Rosa receives 800 dollars per month, plus what is spent on taxes and expenses, and the investor spends 1000 dollars (for the real estate agency costs).

9. The ol' black and yellow

With inflation, the taxi business puts investors in a win-win situation. The profitability is between 30 and 40% annually, without including the appreciation of the license (since there is a limited amount, their value increases with each tariff raise). 

10. Telephone, electricity, IVA (tax)

It seems obvious, but... it's better to go over it again. The most expensive time to talk is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the cheapest is from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. Constantly opening and closing the refrigerator leads to a higher consumption of electricity. Also, one can save 4% (IVA tax) daily on every purchase paying with a debit card.

Uruguayans in Argentina, Germans in the Villa, and Apples on the Street

As an American living in what Argentines consider a "third-world country," a term I'm not sure accurately represents Argentina's situation, but one which many porteños with iPhones insist on using, I've been able to have some pretty interesting conversations in Buenos Aires. Many of them follow a similar thread while others, well, let's just say they are difficult to categorize...

When I first meet somebody, after a little small talk, enough to where my unidentifiable foreign accent rears its ugly head, I am typically asked, "Where are you from?" Some offer possible countries of origin, normally with Nordic or Germanic roots, but hardly ever do people guess I'm from the US. My favorite guess so far came from a taxi driver while I was on my way to the bus station, "You have a weird accent... Are you from Uruguay?" Instead of giving away my yanqui roots, I played along and said I was from Montevideo but was in Buenos Aires visiting family and was on my way to visit family in Córdoba. "Ahhh... I thought so! Your accent is strange, but I knew it sounded familiar..." 

Side note: For those who are unfamiliar with the relationship between Uruguay and Argentina, Uruguay was formerly a province of Argentina, and there are many Argentines who remain uninformed in regards to Uruguay's status as an independent republic. Okay, so maybe Argentina's condescending attitude toward Uruguay is not quite so extreme, but in general, Argentina considers Uruguay as its little brother. He is a mildly annoying (especially during soccer tournaments when Uruguay's national team causes problems for Messi and his boys) copycat (Uruguayans have an accent almost indistinguishable from the porteño spoken on the Argentine side of the river) but is very useful for certain things which are prohibited by the big brother's government (such as opening bank accounts to save US dollars, obtaining and using marihuana, and vacationing for relatively low prices).  One thing Uruguayans certainly do more, and perhaps better, than Argentines is the ritual of drinking mate. While Argentines typically restrict their mate habits to indoor places and the occasional park, Uruguayans have no boundaries when it comes to their mate consumption.  They drink excessive amounts of it anywhere and everywhere, while driving their car with a manual transmission, while walking on the street, while hanging upside from a trapeze... We might have Messi, but they have the best "mateadors" on the planet.

Getting back to the conversation... After I've revealed my country of origin as the United States, the next question is: "So, are you here with some sort of exchange program?" To which I say, "Not exactly... I am studying, but it's not the main reason I'm living here. I'm actually playing soccer at River Plate." At which point the other person typically laughs then gives me a perplexed look as he or she realizes I am not joking. A series of questions usually ensues.

"River has women's soccer?"

"You came all the way here to play soccer?"

"How in the world did you choose to come to Argentina of all places to play?"

"Do you get paid?"

"What teams do you play against? Is there like a league or something?"

"How long are you planning on staying here?"

After the last question is asked, the conversation takes a different turn when I explain how I do not have a set time frame for my stay in Argentina. This is probably when the other person reaches the conclusion that I am, in fact, crazy. Leaving the United States (where people make Dollars not Pesos which lose value by the minute, where economic crises happen once a century instead of once a decade, where political corruption is the exception and not the rule, where public transport runs consistently and is not always interrupted by strikes and malfunctions...) to come to Argentina indefinitely. "Yes, she is crazy," concludes the other person silently, "This girl is going to be on Ripley's Believe It or Not; I just know it." Here, the conversation either ends abruptly, with the other person left speechless, or we continue on to a less awkward topic such as politics, inflation, or family issues.

 However strange my reasons for being in Buenos Aires, another girl makes my situation look almost normal. Last month, when I went to the Villa 31 to help with a girls' soccer clinic, I met a young woman who was clearly neither native to the Villa nor to Argentina, a suspicion immediately raised with a quick glance at her platinum blond hair and clear blue eyes and then subsequently confirmed after hearing her speak a few heavily-accented words in Spanish. At first, I assumed she was some sort of social worker or volunteer who was working with the girls of the Villa, an assumption which was only partly true. After a quick exchange, I learned she was from Germany, twenty-one, and a student of sociology at a university in Buenos Aires. We talked about the typical things which come up among foreigners, how we like the city, what we don't like, how long we've been here, but when we got to the part about where we live, things got interesting.

Me: So... Do you live nearby?
German girl: Oh yeah, really close. I'm just two blocks from here.
Me: Nice, that's not too far from me. What streets?
German girl (as she points to the middle of the Villa): No, I mean I live two blocks from this field with my boyfriend and his family.
(A short pause as her words sank in...)
Me: Really? Interesting... Have your parents visited you yet?
(I now realize this was probably not the right follow-up question, but I was trying to imagine how my parents would react if I told them I was going to moving to one of the most infamous villas in Buenos Aires to live with my boyfriend and his family...)
German girl: No, not yet. I went home after my volunteer-study exchange program ended last summer so they saw me then, but they'll be coming to see me for the holidays in December.
(At this point I was extremely tempted to ask if they would be staying with her, but I figured I might be crossing the line, so I settled for asking how she met her boyfriend and how she ended up playing soccer with the girls from the 31. I also refrained from asking whether she had been robbed or assaulted since she moved as she is quite possibly the only blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned German residing in the Villa...)

It turns out she had come to Buenos Aires with a program through her university in Germany to help with social programs in the Villa, while she was here, she fell in love with a boy and with the city. After going back to Germany for a short period, she decided she missed Buenos Aires (and her boy) too much and wanted to move back in a more permanent situation. After moving, she joined the soccer team in the Villa in order to stay active and learn to play the sport. Watching her interact with the other girls, I was impressed by how she seemed to have adapted to a very different way of life than the one she had been used to in Germany. (Don't worry Mom, I'm not moving to the Villa any time soon...) 

So far though, my most interesting "conversation" I've had in Buenos Aires took place while I was walking from class to take the bus to practice. Since I didn't have much time before training, I had brought an apple to eat on my way so I wouldn't have to train on an empty stomach. As I was crossing the street, minding my own business, and chowing down on my delicious green apple, a man headed the other direction started walking straight at me, staring me down the whole way. His clothes were pretty dirty and his eyes had a slightly vacant look about them, so his stare made me a bit nervous.

As he got closer, I felt my stomach start creeping up into my throat despite the fact that it was midday and we were surrounded by other people. When he was about a foot away he stopped and yelled, "Qué hacés comiendo una manzana, pelotuda!" (Rough translation: What are you doing eating an apple, you retard!"

My initial reaction was to defend myself and explain how I couldn't eat a real meal because I can't run when I'm full nor did I have time to sit down and eat, but after another look at the man, I realized he was not all there... Needless to say, when I got to River and told the story to my teammates, they couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of what had happened. Since then, I have not been able to eat an apple (especially not on the street) without remembering the man's outburst...

A bittersweet ending to the season

In a somewhat anticlimactic fashion, my first season with River Plate ended yesterday. A season filled with celebrations, disappointments, team drama, team bonding, travel, Yanquis, and maté came to a close with a nonchalant 4-0 home victory over the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). It was a slightly different atmosphere than our home opener against Boca about three months ago. Both teams were fighting for the title and River took the field with anticipation and excitement for the chance for revenge against our biggest rival.

Yesterday, we were playing for little more than pride. As of last weekend, the league winner was already decided, Boca was crowned champion, and River was yet again forced to watch the celebrations from the outside. Thus, our main motivation for our last game came from a desire to prepare for the upcoming season and solidify our spot in the starting lineup. A weak UBA team served as our opponent, providing some competition in the first half while only allowing one goal from the penalty spot. In the second half, UBA more or less stepped aside in the second half and served as a practice squad as my teammates passed circles around them and scored three goals. The final scoreline could have been much closer to 10-0 had our attackers been slightly more effective with their goal scoring opportunities. Let's just say in the second half, I did not touch the ball once with my hands...

In the time between lunch and warm-up, usually a couple of hours spent relaxing and focusing on the upcoming match, our coach took our team, and my dad (who, along with my mom and sister, is in Argentina for a couple weeks), to see the River Plate Museum. The museum is right next door to the stadium and, for soccer fans, is definitely a place worth visiting while in Buenos Aires. Though I am not a massive River Plate fan, as in I don't live or die based on the weekend's result nor do I know the names of all the great (and not-so-great) players who have passed through the club, it was impressive to see the number of league championships and international cups the team has won since its birth in 1901.

Watching clips of games throughout the past century, triumphs and defeats alike, I thought about how, in comparison to the time and energy spent in training and preparation, the celebrations after winning a big game or even a championship last only an instant – a night, a day, a week at most – before the team must begin getting ready for the next challenge. The fans who witness the victory also celebrate, perhaps for a bit longer than the team itself, but only until the next season begins and the incessant desire for silverware drives them to hate and curse the players they were hailing as heroes only moments before.

For big teams like River Plate, one season without a trophy seems like a decade and two seasons is already an eternity. Greatness is expected, and the failure to succeed results in sackings of managers and players alike. In Argentina, teams even suffer violent attacks at the hands of their adoring fans. When River Plate was relegated to the second division a couple of years ago, fans (some of whom were not part of the Barra Brava, the thugs who are behind most soccer-related violence) ravaged the Monumental, vandalizing the cafeteria and tearing apart the seats in the stands among other things. The players and team staff had to be escorted out of the stadium with extreme levels of security for fear regarding their personal safety.

My coach, a product of River Plate's youth development program, wrapped up the idea with this roughly translated phrase, "You only celebrate championships until your next training session, but the bitterness of defeat lingers longer, at least until you win a trophy." It's a phrase which rang true as I saw videos and pictures of Boca's celebrations all last week. It's a phrase which reflects something simultaneously glorious and awful in soccer: last season is over, the results are in the past, the achievements and failures of the year are in the books and serve as little more than a memory, and every team begins the new season with 0 wins and 0 losses, an equal shot at glory. Now, keeping my coach's words in mind, River has a couple of weeks to prepare for the new season, to incorporate a few new signings, and adjust to the absence of a few former starters who will not be returning to the team. I'm more than slightly excited.

"Vamos, vamos, vamos River Plate!" Here's to another opportunity for growth, for new experiences, and for a championship, however brief the celebration might be.


Also, this is not exactly related to my post, but below is a very interesting short video (with English subtitles) about women's soccer in Argentina produced by Univision News. A few of my friends and teammates from River and the National Team are featured.

Venturing into the Villa 31: Soccer in the slums of Buenos Aires

Like all big cities, Buenos Aires has parts where you just don't go. The Villa 31 is one such place. Los villeros, a not-so-nice term referring to those who live in the villas, have all sorts of not-so-nice stereotypes associated with where they live and the kind of people they are: violent, illegal, tacky, stupid, to name a few. Granted, some labels may be based upon some hint of truth; for example, there is a huge drug problem in the villas of Buenos Aires and, as in other parts of the world, a strong drug trade brings with it significant levels of violence and crime, as gangs fight for control of profits. Despite these sweeping stereotypes, however, the vast majority are people who moved to Buenos Aires from other parts of Argentina or from neighboring countries with almost nothing, many even without documents, searching for a more stable economic situation and for better opportunities for their families

In general, Porteños, including residents of humble neighborhoods, or barrios, look down upon those who live in the villas. They are almost forgotten about, and though they are physically located in the city of Buenos Aires, the villas are a kind of parallel society, living alongside but not within the porteño culture. The residents of the Villa 31 take center stage only when they protest, blocking major avenues and causing massive traffic jams, just outside their neighborhood in Retiro, a major train and bus station in the heart of the city.

Until a couple weeks ago, I had only heard about the Villa 31; I had never ventured in nor had the idea even crossed my mind as a possibility. Then, while talking to my ex-Rice teammate and honorary River compañera Gabi, she mentioned that she had been invited, along with her mother and sister, to help run a soccer clinic for girls in the Villa (Click here to watch a short video about the program).  Curiosity got the best of me, and I asked if I could tag along (Mom, don't get mad; if it makes it any better, we'll just pretend that Gabi's family forced me to go...). Of course, I made sure they were going with somebody who was known in the Villa and who would be accompanying us during the clinic...

Perhaps this is the right moment to explain a little about how the opportunity came about for Gabi's family to be involved in the clinic. In 2006, Gabi and her sister started the project Futbol 4 Dreams with the goal of gathering 100 soccer balls to send to refugee children. Since then, the organization has  grown into a volunteer-run and donation-supported organization which works alongside high school clubs and with international schools to send over 3,000 hand-decorated, personalized soccer balls and other sports equipment to children who lack the resources to purchase their own gear. Along with the equipment, the organization hopes to share not only the game of soccer/football with the children but also many of the values which come with the game. Football is "a fun, dynamic activity we can share together no matter who we are, where we come from, or where we are going" (Futbol 4 Dreams).

Long story short, Futbol 4 Dreams recently donated a set of soccer balls and uniforms to the girls' soccer team of Villa 31. The team is composed of about forty girls of all ages, some as young as five or six and others who are over thirty and already are mothers and wives. When Gabi's family notified the team's coach, Monica, that they would be in Buenos Aires for a bit, she invited them to help run a Thursday night training session and to talk to the girls afterward, as the team already has a set weekly training schedule. The girls train on Tuesday and Thursday evenings on a turf field in the middle of the Villa, which is exclusively theirs during training (although they do have to share with the occasional stray dog and rogue, young child). After training on Thursdays, Monica leads life discussions with the girls in the Villa's community center. They also often have games and tournaments on weekends, to which they travel not by team bus but by public transportation.

We met Monica and a group of other girls in the train station at Retiro and followed them through the entire bus terminal until we headed into the Villa. On our way to the field, we mainly walked along the outer limit of the Villa, where one side of the street was lined with shoddily built brick shacks and the other with the warehouses and garages of the different bus companies. Finally, we turned onto one of the side streets of the Villa and were officially inside, though it was not exactly what I had expected. While there were some of the stereotypical dirt pathways associated with shantytowns all over the world, many of the streets were paved, at least partially, and it seemed as though residents were working on improving their current sewage system. Through the streets an interesting blend of smells reached my nose – meat on the grill, freshly baked bread, rotting sewage, and recently-smoked marijuana.

Despite the precarious appearance of many of the buildings, when we would catch glimpses of the houses' interiors, the rooms were often filled with decent furniture, the floors were covered with tile or cement (in contrast to the dirt floors I had seen on mission trips to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic), and many rooms had a TV. Granted, the homes were not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but they were certainly in better condition than what I had imagined.

When we arrived to the field, we paused for a moment before entering the fenced-in pitch. It was unlike any field I had ever seen, not the field itself but the backdrop. Surrounding the field was a collage of multicolored square rooms stacked one on top of the other, each floor connected only by a spiral staircase along the side of the building. Behind each goal were sets of wooden stands held up by cinderblocks, which would later be occupied by a few fans, most likely brothers or friends of the girls. Some of the younger girls were already kicking a ball around until a dog appeared out of the blue, decided he wanted to play, and trotted away with the ball in his mouth quite pleased with himself. The turf appeared to be in decent condition until we stepped onto it. It was basically a green carpet laid directly on top of concrete. Monica explained that the government had build the field a couple years ago as a social project but had rushed the construction and laid the carpet badly, resulting in uneven parts where the carpet was beginning to bunch and separate from the concrete base. However, the turf was a significant upgrade from the rock-hard dirt which had previously served as the playing surface.

Here are a couple pictures from my cell phone which sort of capture the setting (I only wish the sky had turned out better because the sunset was incredible that evening...):

If you look closely at the blur on the right side of the picture, you can see the dog version of Messi.

Within fifteen minutes of our arrival, the field had filled with more than 40 girls and women of all ages. Some were dressed in cleats and shorts while others were in jeans and sneakers, but all were ready to play. The training session officially started with a brief introduction of why we had come and a short ice-breaker before we broke off into two groups. The youngest went with Gabi's older sister while Gabi and I worked with the older girls. After about a half hour of skill work, Monica divided the older girls into three teams for a full field match, assigning Gabi, her older sister, and I to teams as well.

As soon as we began to play, any sort of awkwardness I may have felt fell away. On the field, I was just like the rest of the girls. All social, economic, or cultural differences disappeared as we worked as a team, moving the ball around the field, communicating to teammates, celebrating goals, and laughing at silly mistakes.

At one point, one of my teammates called my name to get my attention. "Here, you dropped some money! I think it fell out of your jacket." As a precaution, I had taken little to nothing with me into the villa just my ID, a little cash, and my keys which I had placed in my sports bra. Somehow my cash had managed to fall out (I guess I was playing harder than what I had thought). Even though it wasn't a significant amount of cash, the girl who picked it up might have really needed it for herself or for her family – to pay for food, bills, rent, etc. – but instead, without hesitation, she gave it back to me. I don't know, but something about that moment really hit me. Some of the stereotypes of the villeros came to mind, especially about the ones related to their economic situation, and I began to think how unfair those stereotypes are.

Automatically these girls are discounted, not even given a chance by society when it discovers where they live even though the majority move to the villa as children or are born there with no say in the matter. One of the younger girls, a beautiful, tiny twelve year old with some serious skills, told me about her older sister who had started off playing with the team in the Villa and was now playing with the Reserves at River while finishing up high school and planning to continue her education to become a physical education teacher. The young girl wanted to follow in the footsteps of her older sister, using soccer as a way to get out of the Villa and to pursue a career which requires education beyond secondary school. For now, however, she was content to continue playing with the team in the Villa until an opportunity arises to join a more competitive club.

For the older girls, soccer provides an escape from the difficulties they face on a daily basis. For the women who are already mothers, soccer is a chance to forget about all the responsibilities which come with raising a child. For the youngest, soccer is a time when they can be kids again, running around without having their parents worry about their safety. For all the girls, soccer teaches them to be strong in a culture which often depreciates women and subjects them to domestic abuse – physical, emotional, or both. All they need is a ball, a field, and the opportunity to play, which, thanks to Monica, her helpers, and Futbol 4 Dreams, they now have.