When I was planning out my trip for Argentina, I knew a critical part for me was immersion in whatever culture I found. In my three months I'm doing a variety of volunteer projects here and in Patagonia and decided to not enroll in any language classes. This is why I found myself on another 45 minute bus ride to a far-away barrio of Buenos Aires last Wednesday morning. I work at a community center called "Los Pibes"(meaning The Children) and usually spend my time cooking some meal, doing dishes or talking to whoever is willing to put up with my Spanish. The name originates from a period of military rule though parts of the 70s and 80s when dissenting citizens were kidnapped and (presumably) tortured and killed. During this reign of terror, 10,000-30,000 people "disappeared" some of which were young children from their parents, hence the name. Basically, the people of Los Pibes have strong political views; you can find more information on the Dirty War on the wiki page. This particular day a woman I had talked to a few times before asked me if I wanted to help something something somewhere. Although I didn't quite get all the important verbs and nouns, I agreed to help her.
While the rest of my housemates were sitting in desks and picking up important Argentinean Spanish (Canstellano) bits I was strolling down a street for a bit longer than I expected for an average chore... I managed to figure out that we were going on a bus to a TV station. OK, well that cleared things up, sorta. Well we all eventually got on a bus riding 20 minutes further away from my volunteer assignment to a part of town with big streets and tall buildings. We almost forgot the older of the members going on our trip because he fell asleep on the back of the bus, but all managed to get out in front of a building that had "CANAL 7" in big silver letters on the front. The woman and I walked up to the front door where a man came out and told us to all go around to the back and wait. So the five of us did just that. We waited. And waited. And waited. I found out that the guy who was with us who was my age was the son of the woman, and that the other two men had been involved with Los Pibes for a while. About that time one of the large garage doors behind us opened up and out came a news van covered in blue "7" decals driven by two Argentinean news-crew people. So, at the point I'm guessing we're going to do something reasonable like load the van with things for the organization or maybe that the TV station was donating the van to Los Pibes (I heard someone mention the TV station and Los Pibes were amigos). Well, no, that's not what happened. We all jumped into the news van and started traveling even further away from the already far community organization where I started my day.
I wasn't necessarily worried about anything, but as we crossed the train tracks, drove on trash-covered, muddy streets to somewhere, I felt a wee bit more on edge than usual. As our driver slowly navigated around a few semi-trucks and pothole ponds. I looked out and saw quite a bit of the "other side" of Buenos Aires: all kinds of trash piled up in any corner of a building, dogs and people roaming lazily about, houses and strange shops made out of barrels and sheet metals. We rounded a corner and there was nothing but a dirt road long with a warehouse on one side and the on-ramp of a freeway overpass on the other. All of us got out and sat down on the elevated cement foundation that jutted out from the building. Scratch that, all of us except for the driver who never turned off the van and drove back around the corner we came from. More waiting and I found myself giving up on communicating for a minute or two, but my respite of silence didn't last long. A loud, painful screeching sound from behind startled all of us to our feet. A new man had pushed the sliding metal door aside and we all went inside.
In the dim light I saw a bunch of strange props made out of wood, plastic, metal anything. Many of these were two or three times as tall as me. I asked what we were going to be doing the afternoon and my friend responded (and I understood!) that they were waiting for a truck. I took this as my cue to wander and see what treasures I could find. What I found was super neat. Imagine the backstage of a theatre production that goes on forever and follows no particular theme. There were two isles that traveled along the three mountain ranges of wooden arches, game show signs, bar stools, dusty mirrors, big worn canvases with political slogans and wood blocks. I was about a third down one of the isles when I found my favorite prop so far; I had discovered a tall, tacky red spiral staircase that had been pushed next to a shelf far above my head for access to more treasures. As I considered climbing upward a loud "THUMP" jolted my focus back to the job at hand. I walked back toward the entrance and helped move a small staircase outside. When I reached the door I saw a super-long flatbed truck that we were to apparently fill with whatever the man from the newsstation offered up. This man, was up high on some massive shelf yelling out "cuidado!" and throwing down wooden pillars twice as tall as me. After a volley was complete, we would move in and carry things out into the truck. We continued to do this for a while and in about an hour we had squeezed in pretty much everything that would fit. We all hopped in the back of the truck and began to move.
We started bouncing away from the warehouse, but my mind was still lingering on all the sweet things that I'm sure were hidden away somewhere just a little bit out of reach. I hung on to the two foot railing and straddled a large wooden arch. We drove past the same sad scenes as before, but it became more important to brace myself against some of the more jarring potholes. Finally reaching a road my new amigos and I got to enjoy looking about the city at 50 mph with no roof over our heads. I have to say, bouncing around and seeing all the other insane drivers in Buenos Aires was a pretty awesome feeling. After getting stuck in a little bit of traffic we continued the insane journey past the colorful houses of La Boca neighborhood and at last arrived and unloaded.
Sure, my ass hurt from sitting on a chunk of wood for the past 40 minutes, I was tired, sweaty, and volunteered 3 hours later than I normally would have. I smelled like exhaust and sweat, was hungry and had a long bus ride home ahead of me. But, as you might know, I'm not one who prefers normality and comfort and that has had to have been one of my best days in BA so far. I got home, took a shower, ate a massive meal and went to sleep knowing, that in at least four peoples' eyes, I wasn't just another annoying gringo.
If anyone wants to send me mail I would be super super stoked and will write you back muy rapido! However, please don't send me anything more than a letter because it is extremely expensive to pick up and may not arrive with all of its contents.
Ben Andresen C/O Road2Argentina
Anchorena 1676
CP1425ELL Capital Federal
Argentina
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