UNAS FOTOS! Buenos Aires through my lens

Although I am not cool enough to play with the big kids to have a DSLR camera like everyone else, I still very much enjoy taking pictures, and, am MORE than satisfied with my camera: a Canon PowerShot G11. It has a really nice LCD viewing screen so I more than often don't even have to look through the viewfinder. I know people who can talk up all the other technical stuff for days, and I know more or less about it, but I also just like the simplicity of point-and-shoot ability to get great shots. Granted, the following pictures I am about to show you have also been edited using Photoshop CS5 because I like to edit my photos before putting them up anywhere (Facebook, etc), mostly to resize them to a smaller size so that the act of uploading does not take as long. Most of my friends and family keep up with my pictures via Facebook, but I would also like to put some here for any others who might be interested. The following pictures were all taken in Buenos Aires and represent either iconic scenes / monuments of the city, my favorite places, my favorite moments, or, in general, shots I just happen to really like ascetically:

PS - Sorry for the extremely long, scroll-bar setup of this post. I'm not sure how to make a better photoset within a post on blogspot. Can anyone help with this? I hope you enjoy anyways! I know clicking on the picture to see it in full size will let you click 'next' all the way through all the photos, so I hope that works just the same.

PPS - I have to continue writing about the trips I have been on (now that I have written about Chile and Uruguay, I still have my short visit to parts of Patagonia and Mendoza left), and will include their respective photos there. I also am very interested in film photography, and have taken a couple of rolls of film and got the pictures developed, that I will potentially also show on a post here. Enjoy!

LBV Argentina: Legión de la Buena Voluntad

This past week I've been really sick, and had the interesting experience of calling a doctor to my house (which apparently is very common here), but am finally getting better.  On the cusp of getting my energy back, however, it was completely strung out of me with yesterday's events: a day of volunteering with children ages one to five years old.

NYU Buenos Aires tries to include students in one-day volunteer activities over weekends throughout the semester (there are some kids here who have, through NYU, been signed up to work with a specific program either as an intern or as a volunteer. But since this set-up had very limited spots, these weekend opportunities are primarily for those students who are not regular volunteers elsewhere, i.e. me!). So the NYU faculty set us up with a day of helping with Ronda de Juegos, a program that works with both hospitals and kindergartens / daycares around the city to help provide socialization / social inclusion for kids, usually involving donating toys to them and organizing fun activities, etc. Our original plan for Friday was to go to a hospital in the Floresta barrio (a little out west from the city; southwest from where I live) and give toys to sick children and play with them for a bit, but staff realized that going to a daycare would be more a little bit more active, as the hospitalized children are much more sensitive to work with (this is understandable).

So, 12 other students and I ended up taking a bus to Jardín de los Colores, a daycare also located in Floresta. They divided us amongst the different rooms of children: infants, two-year-olds, three-year-olds (this is where I was) and then the four-year-olds. I had a constant sense of the facility being understaffed, and I sincerely wondered how all these women function when there aren't volunteers around to control the criers, to help the ones who fall and smack their head get back on their feet, to keep them from making vicious messes at snack time, to make sure they don't run out the door and wander around, etc. As is the case with any group of toddlers, there were the shy ones, the bullies, the angels, the mischievous, and the ones who cried the whole time wanting their mommy and daddy. It was a babysitting nightmare, but I was more than happy to be there (I sure do miss a couple... Augustín loved to play peek-a-boo, Sofía always gave me her toys, Facundo, who can't quite walk yet, was always grabbing onto my leg and wouldn't let go when I had to leave). I was also more than happy to help these incredibly sweet, young women (no more than mid-20's I would say) who do this everyday as their job. You could seriously tell they needed the help. And I miss playing with kids! It had been a while! It was also such a great group because the 3-year-olds are just old enough to understand you (my level of Spanish was perfect for them, haha, which is a comfort I s'pose), but not yet old enough to form words, yet, so it was a perfect harmony of communication.

At the end of the day, when we had to leave, the children started crying and were genuinely upset that we had to be on our way. It was so touching, and I wish I could go back. It was a truly interesting experience to see how daycares in this city function (as best as they can) and to be able to help in any way that I could. I hope to volunteer with any other programs NYU offers throughout the semester.

Estación Once: Being in Buenos Aires, the site of today's world headlines

Today began another normal day, after a long and awesome weekend (which I will potentially post more about later), of what I suppose I ought to consider my normal routine now: wake up, finish some work, get ready, gather my things, and head for my bus stop. Ride the often overcrowded colectivo, get off at Anchorena, arrive at NYU's Academic Center. Print things I need for class, check emails, etc.

Except this morning, while in the computer lab (in my time here I never plan on taking my laptop with me, unless absolutely necessary) and I check my emails getting an alert via NYU with subject title, "Alert: Train Crash Feb. 22 - Buenos Aires, Argentina," so I read on:

Warning Alert -- Transportation 

Major train crash at Once Station in central Buenos Aires, Argentina, injures hundreds of people 0830 Feb. 22. Expect major rail disruptions.

This alert affects Buenos Aires
This alert began 22 Feb 2012 13:23 GMT and is scheduled to expire 22 Feb 2012 23:59 GMT.

 - Incident: Train crash
 - Location: Once Station, Buenos Aires
 - Time/Date: 0830 Feb. 22
 - Killed (Injured): 0+ (300+)
--------------------------------------------------------
This was at 10:30 this morning, when the number count of those who had passed away was still nonexistent, and the injury count was surely a quick guesstimate. As I sat with my mouth slightly agape while reading this, another girl asked a friend in the same vicinity if she had heard about the train crash. I butted in saying I had just read about it. It didn't seem like it really happened. I was in my 100% secure safe zone from the city that NYU has provided us. Estación Once (pronounced [ohn-say], as in the word for eleven in Spanish) is about 25 blocks from the Academic Center (located in Once, a southern barrio of Buenos Aires that we are viciously and repeatedly advised not to go near at night) and is a very large train station primarily for commuter trains to and from the suburbs of the city.

Wednesday's are my long days, where I have class from 11:15 AM to 8:30 PM with only two hours to spare in between. So I pretty much remained within American student realms and amongst our porteño professors. Surprisingly enough, it only came up in one of my classes today, Intro to Latin American Studies, where as structure for the course we begin each class talking about current events in Central and Southern America. There was an attempt to draw lines from Argentine transportation systems to poor infrastructure to lots of other things ultimately to be blamed from colonization, I'm not quite sure, it was vague and far-fetched if you ask me. And then directly afterwards my professor said he really did recommend the trains though, because they're nice and safe. Or at least, most of the time, I guess.

My thoughts are with those who are waiting at home right now for their husbands, wives, mother, father, daughter, son, sister and brother to come home, and having to accept that they won't.

   

A screen shot of BBC World News homepage. So strange to think I'm somehow in the midst of it all... (despite still being very far away). A friend of mine currently studying abroad in Florence asked via Facebook to make sure we were all right. She's in Italy. In Europe. And the news is there. And she knows people currently in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, in South America: me, my friends. Crazy, flat world, international community.

A side note that may not pertain to many readers, but some still: life can be really, really strange when I find myself in a city that made the above world headlines, and then moments later you find out someone you went to high school with had their life taken away MUCH TOO YOUNG, and it instantly brings you back home. So beyond my thoughts and prayers going out to the families of those who passed in today's train accident, they also go out to the Ehr family: Alex Ehr was in my grade, and I honestly did not know him that well. This summer, the majority of the Brookfield East High School community found out that he had been recently diagnosed with cancer, meaning that there must have been rapid progression until his passing today. Almost everyone in my grade who I am friends with on Facebook has been posting about him today (which is how I found out, which may seem strange to those not of the Millennial generation) which lead me to do the same, particularly because of this sentiment: it is strange to be connected with death in these various, international ways.

I wish everyone well, and thank you for those who checked up on me. Today has been a solemn day, that's for damn sure.