this past week and a half has been incredibly busy and taxing, but incredibly gratifying. a week ago thursday, some of us went to the correctional facility for adolescent girls where some of the human rights volunteers work, and we helped the inmates bake alfajores. it was a lot of fun to get to interact with the girls in the prison, and fascinating to get to see the facility, as generally no visitors from the public are allowed.
last sunday, the human rights volunteers ran a fundraising and awareness event in a local park. the event served a dual purpose. one was to sell the alfajores that we had baked two days prior, since the facility is consistently underfunded by the government. marit and helena, who work with the girls at the prison, are going to use the proceeds from the bake sale to buy the inmates a hair curler and some makeup that they've requested. it's a nice way to teach them that they have to work for what they want, and give them a bit of a treat. the other purpose of sunday's event was to raise awareness about human trafficking in conjunction with basta de trata, a local NGO that projects abroad assists with. BDT set up a table in the park and as their employees handed out flyers and keychains about trafficking, we human rights volunteers (and other projects abroad volunteers, who showed up to help as well!) ran activities- asking people in the park to write their dreams for a better world on balloons which we hung from a bridge, fingerpainting with kids, and more.
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| baking alfajores. |
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| the finished product! |
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| collecting balloons |
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| and putting them on the bridge. |
on wednesday, my volunteer partner and i ran a workshop with our boys at the correctional school, educating them about what their rights are and how to protect themselves if they get in trouble with police. the boys were really receptive and participatory, which was exciting. some days of work are challenging, but this was a particularly good day.
other than that, i've been working on other human rights work- helping to distribute invitations to a community meeting in blas pascal, interviewing the city's homeless population, and more. i spent this past weekend at oktoberfest in villa general belgrano about 2 hours away with a bunch of friends, which was a lot of fun. and i'm beginning to get preemptively nostalgic about leaving argentina. lately i'm acutely aware that my time here is limited, so i've been busy buying souvenirs for friends and family and checking things off of my argentina bucket list. it's hard to believe it's been nearly six weeks already. i feel so settled in and satisfied with everything here; leaving will be tough.
until next time,
xo
m
p.s. every sunday, there's an impromptu tango dancing session at a plaza downtown. here's a snippet of video that i took last week:
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