School Begins... Sort Of.

Classes finally began in Argentina last week. However, the whole country then promptly began Semana Santa vacation on Thursday, and so it wasn't really the beginning. This past week was really the first full week of classes, which for me, is still not a full week as I only have classes from Tuesday through Thursday, quite a brilliant schedule if you ask me. But I will get around to classes in a bit.

Semana Santa is a huge vacation time here. Almost everyone leaves the city for the last big hurrah of summer. I couldn’t miss this opportunity to do more traveling so a friend of mine from Columbia, Stephanie, and I went to Uruguay. Yes, again. I can’t believe that I have been in Argentina for just over a month and already visited Uruguay twice. This time however we went to a small beach town called La Paloma. It is about a four-hour bus ride from the capital, Montevideo. We left early Wednesday morning, deciding to take an extra day off of school and really make the most of the holiday. Lat Wednesday night after many transfers from bus to ferry to bus to other bus, we finally arrived at our hostel which was a convenient five minute walk from the bus station. After dropping off our stuff and chatting with the owner at the front desk, she recommended that we walk down the block, around the corner and to the main street to find a restaurant. We found an adorable restaurant that was in a brightly colored, thatch-roof house and had one of the best meals of the whole trip.

The next day we slept in a little bit and moseyed to the beach around ten o’clock after coffee and biscuits at the hostel. Being a super tiny town, we realized that everything was within twenty minutes maximum walking distance, and this particular beach was a super short five minute jaunt. I am pleased to say that the rest of the day involved laying in the sun, reading in the sun, eating a leisurely lunch, savoring sumptuous ice cream, more laying in the sun and a delicious dinner courteous of chef Stephanie. I could give you a play by play of every day, but the rest of the days followed much the same pattern with slight variations. One day we walked to a nearby town, Costa Azul, which had more of surf vibe to check out their beach. Sometimes we ate ice cream after dinner and not lunch (But no, there was not a day we did not eat ice cream. Not even the day that it was cloudy and chilly and we didn't lay on the beach. Even that day we ate ice cream.) On Easter Sunday we ate a chocolate huevo de Pascuas and made pancakes. The cold and windy day we visited the faro, which means lighthouse and were nearly blow away by the wind. The whole time was very relaxing and exactly what I think beach vacations should be. I feel so lucky to have been able to travel like that while I am down here, because when I return to the US and then frighteningly, graduate shortly thereafter, who knows when I will have the time or money to relax in a beach town in South America for five days.

Classes resumed again on Tuesday and while they are not quite in full swing yet, are getting there. As of right now I am taking four classes, all at different schools, which has made figuring out of schedule a bit trying. But I think I finally have it all in order and am quite pleased with how everything seems to be settling into place. On Tuesdays I have two three hour classes. The first is called El Nuevo Cine Argentino en el Contexto Latinoamericano, or The New Argentine Cinema in the Latin American Context. It is a class through the program I am on, CIEE and at our host university, FLACSO. It is with all other American students and so, not terribly difficult. The teacher is really nice, very smart, but approaches the material knowing that we are foreigners, without being patronizing, which is also nice. In the afternoon on Tuesdays I go to my Taller de Oralidad, which is a required Spanish language course. The particular one I chose focuses on improving speaking in formal contexts. So far it is not very demanding, and hopefully will help me improve my speaking ability, which is not quite as good as my comprehension, reading or auditory. It is at a school associated with the public university, UBA, or la Universidad de Buenos Aires,  but being a Spanish class, all the students are foreigners. 

On Wednesdays I have my most difficult class. Before even considering the topic, one must consider that the course is at UBA, the aforementioned public university. Classes at UBA are a universe away from Columbia and further, if that's possible (perhaps I will learn if Borges thinks so in my class!) from Colorado Academy. To understand UBA a bit, one first has to understand the Argentine university system. When people go to college here they enroll in a carrera, which is a specialized track and then only take classes within that track. So there's Philosophy and Literature, Political Science, Psychology, Art History, etc. Which means that everyone is really specialized and knows a lot about a little. Also, UBA is also an entirely public university. Any Argentine can take classes totally for free. So there are tons of students, not a lot of funds, and everything is unorganized, crowded, and rundown. After coming from schools that have so much available for their students it is interesting to go somewhere basically all the school gives you is knowledge. Granted that is a lot, but there's no other means of supporting that knowledge. No computer labs, no libraries, sometimes not even enough chairs for all the students. Puán, the name of the building where all of the Philosophy and Literature classes are (called Filo y Letras for short), is plastered with banners and flyers and graffiti. There are stands, inside and outside of the building, selling school supplies, books, jewelry, coffee, and empanadas, just to name a few. Classes are sometimes interrupted (professor permitting) by strangers making announcements for their own particular causes, people smoke in the hallways, and there's more legitimate support for Socialism than I have ever seen. It's a bit of what the Argentines would call a quilombo, a disaster or chaos. 

It is really interesting and puts everything is perspective. UBA can't claim the best athletics department or housing or library. All they can offer are classes, and a room, sometimes adequate, in which to learn. If the students haven't been lured there by all the extras and perks that University life has in the US, they are really just there for the knowledge. To be in a room full of students who are all there because they want to learn is actually a new experience for me. Perhaps I am romanticizing the whole thing a bit much. Of course having a college degree is an asset when it comes to finding a job, and not everyone can afford to go to a private university, but there is definitely a different level of engagement in classes that I don't think I have really seen in most of my previous classes. I could probably muse on UBA for many more paragraphs, and I'm sure there will be many more experiences to come, so I will move on. 

Getting back to what began this whole digression, my Wednesday class. The class is about the role of philosophy in the literature of Jorge Luis Borges, probably Argentina's most famous writer ever. The class is exactly how everyone told me classes would be at UBA. I visited a few other UBA classes during the shopping period to try them out and they were smaller and less chaotic. In the art history class there was even a screen and a functioning slide projector. But Juegos Filosóficos y Enigmas Cientificas en la Literatura de Borges is a whole different ball game. Class started thirty minutes late. There were too many people to fit into the room and so people sat on the ground, stood in the hallway, listening wherever they could. Two groups of students tried to make announcements in the middle of class. We had a twenty minute break. The list goes on. I was joking with a friend after class that if you start with 100% comprehension in a class, I lost 25% automatically because the teacher was speaking a foreign language, but then lost another 25% because it was a philosophy class I probably wouldn't have been able to follow what he was saying even were he to have been speaking English. I'm sure that comprehension will go up as the semester continues, but is definitely going to be a challenge in so many ways. 

My final class has, surprise surprise, actually not started yet. I am taking a six hour studio Drawing class on Thursdays at IUNA, Instituto Universitario Nacional de Arte. It is a higher level class, more of a project based, personal approach and pace type class. That's what I am expecting anyway, so we will see. I did visit the building where it will be however to sign up for the class and it bears more than one resemblance to Prentis Hall, Columbia's building on 125th dedicated to Sculpture and studios for grad students. I actually felt sort of at home already. The building is in La Boca which is unfortunately a bit of a trek from my apartment. But I will have more to say about this class when it begins next week!

While classes beginning and vacationing in Uruguay were the biggest adventures in my life of late, every day is punctuated by tiny happenings as well. On Friday I tried mate, the popular tea, for the first time while waiting at Immigrations to finalize the visa process. Buying school supplies was more exciting than usual because everything the options are so different and because the man in the store clearly found it unexplainable that we wouldn't know exactly what we wanted. And then I bought a fountain pen at the grocery store! I laid in the park and read about Borges and Harold Blooms ideas on the idea of the precursor. I sat at a restaurant near Puán, the UBA building, and was pleasantly surprised to receive a small glass of fresh orange juice, a glass of water with a pitcher to refill, and three small cookies that came with the café con leche that I ordered, and all for only 6 pesos, or about 2 dollars. I bought the complete works of Borges in four anthologies for under 100 US dollars. So you don't get too jealous, I also pass the time like a normal person - doing laundry, going to the gym, riding on public transportation, getting lost, and waiting in lines.

On a final note though, here are some pictures from La Paloma. 

Town sign on the walk back from Costa Azul

Bahía Grande, closest to the hostel

Near the faro, great for afternoon napping

Costa Azul

The faro

View from the faro of Bahía Grande in foreground and Costa Azul in the background

One night after ice cream

Last morning at Bahía Grande

Stephanie and Me