Sexual Harassment

There are some things I will not miss about Buenos Aires. The concept of me as a walking piece of meat is one of them. From daily Piropos, to the very worst- when a guy took advantage of our being packing tightly for a concert and used the opportunity to shove his boner into my back.

Its hard for me to feel more open minded and/or more worldly when I know that Im closed minded about stuff like this. And rightfully so. I have high expectations of humanity- based largely on the positive experiences in my home country. I don't understand why I shouldn't hold men in other countries on the same level as I do in my own.

5 more days

This came on as I was leaving La Alameda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kycwcZZi6eU

Boa Noite

May I reiterate that I am done? Obrigado. I am thrilled.

Today I went for a sad second to last trip to La

Alameda where I took cute pictures, ate battata, made a flyer, and played newspaper futbol with the kids. One last time.

Then it was home to drink my Frizze, watch Big Bang Theory and attempt to learn a little Portuguese.

The girls came over to watch Malaparida and an old school pirated copy of Sex in the City 2.

All around a good night.

TERMINO

I promised a post about my essays and now that I am down with EVERYTHING academic I will "cumplir" with my promise.

For my class in UBA I wrote a group paper of 25 pages about the current situation of systematic slavery of bolivians in textile factories in Buenos Aires. Our conclusion was that it was a system based in discrimination with the textile managers recruiting specifically bolivians, exploiting their countries economic situation, the large joblessness, the process of immigration, and their culture. Many of the managers currently are bolivians themselves who were formerly slaves and are rising to the power in the only system that they know.

Nota: 9

For my Castellano class I wrote a short 4.5 pager (1.5 spaced) about how Los Abuelos de la Nada was successful in the context of the change in the political environment in 1983 after the last military dictatorship

For my independent study for methodology I surveyed 20 people to learn more about their tendencies in giving money to beggers on the subway. In general more give than don't both in my non-empirical observations and in this study. When asking questions about their reasoning I found that no matter people's opinions about how to better help, their opinions about the role of the government in aid, or their knowledge of child exploitation in this context- they still gave. I came to the conclusion that the lack of thought or influence of thought in their giving meant that this action was a porteño custom.

From the prostibulo in Liniers

Jardin

Boo I couldn't wake up to go gardening! And I must admit I'd been looking forward to it lately. The thing is I went to bed at 2:40 (working on my essay- 9.25 pages down so yay) so waking up at 7:40 was just something my body refused me. O well, next week or the week after.

The garden grows lots of veggies and is grown as a continuous activity for local youth- to keep them engaged in something proactive. I don't think that many youth come... but I've met a few. You can kind of pick them out by their baby faces and tendency to only beso girls and handshake guys jeje

Usually when I go my job is to sacar yuyos (weeds = pronounced "shushos" with the silly argentine love of SHHHHH) I've also raked, prepared planting pots, watered, and drank lots of mate : P

P.s.
My mate addiction is getting out of hand. I now drink it EVERYWHERE I go. At home. At la alameda. At the jardin. Jaja next will be in class.

Sick= more blog posts

So, the first protest I went to was wednesday night. (I found out about it earlier that day) The goal was as a union to protest the dressmakers union SOIVA. Weird right? The reason is because SOIVA hasn't been acting on their workers behalf. The protest was asking for a 35% raise on salaries. The current salaries of the dressmakers are 1,800 pesos per month- 459.60 U$S. The 35% raise would bring that number to 650U$S... still not much to live on. And these numbers represent the legal textile industry here. The protest was really well run I think. We didn't cut off the street completely (Soledad directed traffick behind the group) and there were drums, chants, and banners- but no violence and anarchy (except for the lady next to me whos all bust in the door)