alfajores, anti-trafficking, and other life tidbits

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. 

baking alfajores.

the finished product!

collecting balloons

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: 

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