the new normal

the argentine way of life appears to be a triangle- one point being "working hard," one point being "playing hard" and one point being "sleeping occasionally." one can pick two out of the three, but balancing all three is a tightrope act. as there are only 24 hours in the day, it's fair to say that sleeping takes a backseat in this country. i still haven't quite figured out how people here function in the long-term (siestas definitely play a role, but who has time for those?) so i'm a bit worn out nearly all the time. projects abroad pushes us very, very hard.

this past week, i split my time between working at my main placement with nonviolent offending boys (see earlier post for more details), working at the copa de leche aftercare program in the blas pascal government estate, attending a blas pascal neighbourhood meeting, sitting in on a human-trafficking awareness workshop, and taking spanish lessons. it is admittedly a bit terrifying to take on this many responsibilities. it's been tough to carve out downtime amidst all of the work- time for exercising, reading, sketching, even sightseeing has been hard to come by. it's thrilling to be a part of real fieldwork, though, and i'm absorbing everything possible.

something i've noticed in córdoba has been how much of an interest the general population takes in current affairs, and how politically and socially active people are. as soon as people find out i'm from d.c., everyone wants to know my opinion on syria at length. portraits of che guevara, scrawled messages about the horrors of monsanto, and various exhortations about human rights are graffitied on walls all over the city. and a weekend book fair that marit and i hit up yesterday was full of not only the ubiquitous literature of borges and cortázar, but also of multitudes of nonfiction texts explaining the ideologies of peronismo and antiperonismo. 

tomorrow afternoon, projects abroad is taking all of the human rights volunteers to visit la perla, which was the main centro de clandestino de detención (CCD) of the province during the military dictatorship and is now a museum to the atrocities committed. and later this week, i'm going to get to sit in on a court session where children of the "disappeared" will be testifying against those who were in power in the dictatorship. i'm really looking forward to getting to experience these; both are very special opportunities. 

this weekend was also busy, but in a fun way. it was my first weekend here in córdoba and it was great to hang out with friends, sightsee, and explore different parts of the city. from tango dancing to wandering around and getting lost to meeting new people to exploring the feria artesanal and the ferio del libro, it's been an eventful fin de semana.

x

msb