I have arrived safely in Buenos Aires. I love my host mom/grandma/woman. That was so not kosher to write all of that. I think I’m going to call her an abuela because once an abuela you are also a madre y una mujer. I’m so smart! Anyway, so right now my time consists of sitting through many orientation activities, which is fine because the program director is HILARIOUS and super nice. All the employees of IFSA-BUTLER are wonderful. A lot of the orientation is full of information to scare us [...]

Humans like to be altruistic, or at least I think so. Being altruistic, truly altruistic, is another story. We like to think we are making a difference, doing some good, impacting the lives of others. Yet we don’t want to put in the time or effort to actually achieve this, we just want to feel like we’ve achieved something good without straining ourselves or going too much out of our way. I know that this trip isn’t about volunteering, but there is a “volunteer” component included. There has been some [...]

I visited CELS (center for legal and social studies) recently, one of the foremost human rights NGOs in not only Latin America, but also the world. One thing that sticks out in my mind is the controversy over numbers. I think that only about 9,000 to 15,000 disappeared have actually been documented, but when people talk about the dirty war in Argentina, you talk about the 30,000 disappeared. What I realized at CELS today was that regardless of the number, it’s still a huge amount of people to be stripped [...]

“El que no está en el gobierno no existe y el que no existe no habla.” “He who is not in the government doesn’t exist, and he who doesn’t exist does not speak” –From “La virgen de los sicarios,” by Fernando Vallejo Since the time of Spanish imperialism, the “written word” has been intricately tied to power and freedom in Latin America. In his ground-breaking novel, The Lettered City, Ángel Rama identifies this relationship and discusses how it produced endless conflict between the “letrados” (educated elite) and the illiterate masses. [...]

One thing I’ve noticed with studying human rights and looking at other societies where these human rights violations, civil wars, state terrorism, etc. occur, is the mentality that this would not, could not, happen to me. Maybe it’s a form of coping, or a way to be able to analyze these issues without being overwhelmed by emotion, but people seem to put up a psychological wall, a form of distance, a safe abstraction from the sadness and terror. Something I can’t ignore anymore is this: it could have been me. [...]

How to begin this post? I have no idea. How do you start to describe a visit to what has been called the Auschwitz of Argentina? A place where 5,000 people were tortured and out of that 5,000, only 200 survived. Do the math. ESMA, La Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, is the Navy Mechanics School. During the military dictatorship, it was one of the largest clandestine torture centers. When you read about ESMA on the internet, the main picture you see is this but it’s important to know [...]

Today is a national holiday in Argentina. I woke up and walked the dogs with my host mom. It is so nice out, no rain, no humidity, perfect weather. Finally! I’m going to have lunch in a bit, and then explore the city and go to la avenida nueve de julio to see all the tents and festivities. I’m starting to understand more and more. Ana, my host mom, said some really interesting things on the walk this morning. What surprised me most was this: (My paraphrasing and translation!) What [...]

I’m so glad I came to Argentina when I did—the atmosphere is so lively and passionate. But then again, from what I’ve learned from my first couple of days here, it could always be like that. Maybe now it’s just heightened. Yesterday marked the beginning of the bicentennial celebration of the fight for independence from Spain, the main colonial power in Latin America. There are flags all over, up and down every street, shoved in every corner. The signs, like the one in the picture below, strewn across buildings throughout [...]

No el poema de tu ausencia, sólo un dibujo, una grieta en un muro, algo en el viento, un sabor amargo. I remember reading this poem last semester (written by Alejandra Pizarnik, an Argentine poet); it really made an impression on me. It’s a bit more melancholy than what I am going for on this blog, a place to chronicle my travels, but I think the first line really hits home for me. This blog isn’t a poem of my “absence,” but rather where I’m present, what I’m doing. So [...]