Great news: I passed my art test (not spectacularly, but I passed!), and got an 8/10 on my essay for literature class! ¡Sí! Both of those grades were a big relief. =)
This weekend I'm going to Calafate (until Tuesday!) to see some glaciers. I promise pictures and a blog when I return! Here are some photos from the last week:
Murals of Carlos Gardel, a famous Argentinian tango singer, in Abasto, the neighborhood where he grew up.
Abasto! A huge shopping mall with a Nickelodeon theme park, a children's museum, and tons of other stuff inside! It reminds me exactly of the Mall of America. I love the sequiny Argentine flags. I learned today (from Fede) that the blue of the flag is called "celeste." Un nombre lindo! (A pretty name!)
I found this sculpture in Villa Crespo. On one side it says: "International Declaration of Children's Rights: All of us children are equal. Our race, sex, language, doesn't matter — let's play!" The ladder says: "The same for everyone."
A random photo that I like. If I haven't already mentioned it here, the food in Argentina is very American-style. Typical dinners with my host family are chicken nuggets, roast beef, hot dogs, milanesa (breaded meat), all accompanied with Coca Cola or Crystal Light! lol.
Another scene I liked, near Avenida Corrientes.
I love the reliefs in this city! They're everywhere.
This is a book store/cafe I like near Corrientes and Callao: a famous spot for librerías.
Now for more about my week! On Tuesday I went to Brukman Factory — a factory that was "taken" by it's workers after the financial crisis in 2001. Pesos and dollars used to be equivalent in Argentina, but after 2001, inflation went crazy and the peso's value dropped a lot (now 1 dollar is equivalent to about 4 pesos). Presidente Menem had privatized all of the national industries (electricity, gas, railroads, even mail) in the 90s, which amplified the economic crisis with lots of corruption.
Immediately after the peso-dollar change, the banks suspended everyone's accounts and allowed only very limited access to the money. That period was called "el corralito" — the little corral. Some businesses went bankrupt and some people couldn't access enough money to get themselves to work or buy groceries for their families... Some people broke into stores and stole some goods.
For the first time since the dictatorship, a curfew was reinstated. The streets of Buenos Aires filled with protestors. The Madres of Plaza de Mayo were among them, and asked that the poor be provided with basic necessities during this chaotic time. The police broke up their protest violently. The majority supported the Madres, and in response to all this chaos, the president (De La Rua) resigned and fled from the Casa Rosada in a helicopter. Since the vice-president had resigned some time before in protest of Menem's practices, there was a chaotic change of leadership, and Argentina went through 5 presidents in 10 days. As my program director / "Tía" Alejandra put it, "No es ficción: es la Argentina!" (It's not fiction: it's Argentina!).
The owners of some businesses and factories transferred their fortunes to banks in foreign countries and abandoned shop. Brukman Factory was one. The owners fled, leaving the factory's 500 workers unemployed. Instead of accepting this passively, though, Brukman's workers decided to "take" the factory and operate the business themselves. The police, private utility companies, and former owners all tried to drive the workers (mostly women) out, but the workers succeeded in reclaiming their factory after months of camping outside in shifts to prevent anyone from taking their machines.
The workers paid all the factory's debts off with their work and still managed to pay everyone a higher salary than they'd received before. They make important decisions through consensus,pay every worker equal salaries , and give everyone the chance to do skilled work (through a sort of apprenticeship and rotation system): it's a co-op sort of system. 500 factories in Argentina have been "taken" to date, and they're all doing pretty well.
I visited Brukman Factory with my exchange program and got a tour of the place. We learned how suits, this factory's specialty, are made. What interested me most is that brand names commission pieces from random factories — some Christian Dior suits, for example, are made at Brukman. The workers follow fashion magazines as models to modify their patterns. We also got a feel for the environment. The workers can listen to music and chat while they work, and everyone has a smile on her face — a much better situation than most factory workers are allowed!
On Wednesday I went shopping with my friend Stephanie for thermal socks and snowproof pants. We went to a bunch of outlets to find them and got brand name stuff for good prices. After that we went to an old, English-style tea shop called El Gato Negro, The Black Cat, with Lucio, the guy I met at Recoleta. I had spiced tea and a delicious alfajor de maicena (like two crumbly shortbread cookies with dulce de leche inside)! Lucio told us, among other things, that Argentinians love American tv shows (we'd known that already from channel-surfing, or as they say here, "zapping"/"shopping"). Apparently "Friends" is still super-popular, and they made short-lived Argentine remakes of "Married With Children" and "The Nanny!"
I spent today with Fede. We walked to and from classes together, ate Mexican food for lunch (at Típicas: a restaurant I'm definitely going to miss), and he cooked me delicious tostadas with egg and cheese for lunch. He's a pretty good, innovative cook! =) Hamburgers with eggs and pasta with cream cheese and milanesa were two other awesome things he made. Besides being a good cook, he's great with business-y stuff (speech-making, researching, presenting, etc.), foreign relations and languages. He speaks English like an American (or like a Brit, which he prefers!) and is studying German now. An amazing, nice guy, who I am completely enamored with!
Ciao, everyone! I miss you!
Kaeli
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