Que Idea Mas Ingenioso

We had a bomb scare at la escuela en Miercoles...dont get too excited, apparently this is not unusual around exam time and happens on a regular enough basis not to be taken too seriously as far as personal safety is concerned. It was taken seriously as far as disruption to the day was concerned though. I realise it is not at all funny, but it was I cant think of a good word to describe the whole event...unbelievable, mind boggling, curious.......
I was flabergasted at the response by school management - were we all sent home as a 'just in case', not on your nellie, however the gas was turned off all over the school and as it was the 'freezingist' day to date all year everyone was mucho helada. This just shows how often it does happen. I'm sure that every possible opening in the school was open as well just to add to the freezing effect and as punishment for whoever made the call. They are not actually sure that it was one of our students because the neighbouring school also had a bomb scare at the same time. All in a days work!

Teacher Speak

Thank goodness for mentors - Thank you Jeanne. This part of the experience had completely slipped my mind for now and I need to get on to it because time really is flying and before I know it I will be home. I have been concentrating mainly on just listening till now and trying to hear the different sounds and trying to hear and differentiate between words. Sometimes when people are talking to me it sounds like one big long word and I get completely lost. That is a characteristic of portenos speech- they speak very rapidly in comparison to people who live outside of BsAs.

This week I will get myself into one or two of the primary Spanish classes in the school so I can listen to the teachers in there and record any formulaic type expressions that I hear. Up until now I have been used in the bi-lingual part of the school and have only worked in English speaking classrooms, so I am hearing no Spanish at school unless the students speak to me in Spanish because (a) they either forget that I am just learning and they rattle of something really quickly, or (b) they are checking my progress. Anyway, todo bien.

Some classroom expressions that I have heard are: you probably already know these but this just shows they really are used by native speaking teachers here - something I think we sometimes wonder about when we are using another language that we ourselves dont hear other people speaking and using.

Eso es - means 'thats right'

Claro - also means thats right or of course (things like that)

Sigue asi - means 'keep it up'

Bueno - means 'good' or sometimes is just affirmation like 'si'

Que lindo/a - means 'its nice' or 'how nice' etc

Buenisimo - means very good need to check the spelling of that one. It doesnt look quite right but I have been taught that there are only two consonants in espanol that are ever doubled - they are ll and rr. However it looks like there should be 2 s's to my eye.

Que divertido - means 'how fun' or 'what fun' etc

If any students from San Miguel are reading this please leave me a comment and add some of your own expressions that you hear teachers using (nice ones please-you know what I mean) or maybe expressions that students use in the classroom, either to the teacher or to each other - that would be really good. Muchas gracias.

The photos above are of the third year class (equivalent to year 11) - wouldn't you like to have class sizes like this all day, and the other photo is of Sebastian (2nd year) and I taken at the school.

Colonia, Uruguay

Tengo mucho fantastico tiempo en Colonia, Uruguay. Hay mucho antiguo colonial edificios y mucho bueno vino tinto y comida.

Chris and I crossed over the Rio de la Plata on the slow boat, a three hour ride - we were so tired because we are fast adopting the Argentine culture (and enjoying it I might add) and we had a very late night and a fairly early start to the morning. So we boarded the boat feeling a little jaded, and I didn't even realise we had boarded the boat - I thought we were in a departure lounge...silly billy.

Uruguayans are obsessive mate drinkers. You see the people walking down the street with their mate in their hand and a flask under their arms...there are even leather satchels designed specifically for the purpose of touting around your thermos and mate.

Colonia is a world away from Buenos Aires in terms of hustle and bustle. It has a very relaxed atmosphere and a very laid-back ambience. I loved this town. It is now a UNESCO world protected site. The quality of its very old architecture is stunning and I just couldn't take my eyes of the beautiful buildings and cobbled streets. The people are also very friendly - and would you believe it we bumped into three other kiwis over there.

I enjoyed the best fish meal I have ever had in Colonia - Sea Bass with vegetables and a delicious cream sauce - very memorable. And the vino tinto is definitely worth writing home about.

La Boca and Football

This barrio is probably best known for its football team, Boca Juniors, for whom the legendary Diego Maradona played. As it happened he was there when I was - charging 10-20 pesos for a photograph of yourself with him. Well I managed to get a picture of the back end of him. If you look carefully at the photo he is in the bottom right corner wearing his light blue and white striped (Argentinian colours of course) Football shirt with a no. 10 on his back. He has a person walking in front of him and behind him most of the time so you cant sneak a picture...except for me that is. It was quite by accident cos I was taking a picture of the buidlings and didnt even know he was there.

I went and looked at the stadium where the games are played - it is impressive - I would love to go to a game there. There is a picture of the outside of the stadium - the story behine why the team wears blue and yellow goes like this...they were playing a game against another team - River Plate I think - who also had the same colours. It was decided that whoever lost the game would have to change their colours. Well, Boca lost and they decided that the colours of the flag of the next ship that came into port would be their new colours - it was a Swedish ship.

The third photo is of some local lads playing football - one of them may be the next Diego.

The last picture is just some graffiti - i found the message interesting.

La Boca - La Beautiful - La Busy

La Boca is an array of multi-coloured wooden and corrugated iron houses. The houses were built and painted by the resident dock-workers, of mainly Italian descent, who used leftover materials and paint from the ships. The most famous street, Calle Caminito, possesses the best of the painted houses and is where artists, street performers and tango dancers congregate daily.

Tango was developed in this neighbourhood and, in the 1920s, children from wealthy families would come here to dance the dance banned elsewhere in Buenos Aires. You find many tango shows going on in this area and the fantastic musicians, well I was in heaven!

La Morada - Delish

Well, it really does pay to talk to the locals about the best places to eat. Silvia and I had lunch today at another best cafe ever. See photos above and on the blog side bar for photos. We had yummy empanadas - I had carne picante (spicy beef) and Silvia had carne suave (not spicy). They make the pastry themslves and you can really tell the difference between the homemade stuff here and the supermarket bought stuff in other places. We also had locro, a traditional chowder type soup with chorizo, bacon, lentils, vegetables - like I said delish - and a very nice glass (rather large one) of red wine. And all for such a good price - 30 pesos ($13) for 2 glasses or wine, a huge bowl of soup and two empanadas...and atmosphere as well.

Pablo - Muy bueno espanol profesor

Yo pensio Pablo is excelente profesor de espanol. El es paciente as el santo porque yo no bueno estudiante. A veces yo no completo tarea y a veces yo no acodar que yo aprender.

El otra fotografia esta el mucho bueno clase en el mundo. Such good kids - a real pleasure to work with and talk to.

Yo pienso que Pablo es un excelente profesor de espanol. El es paciente y un santo porque no soy muy buena estudiante. A veces no completo la tarea y no me acuerdo lo que aprendi.

La otra fotografia es del mejor grupo del mundo. Que buenos chicos!!! Un verdadero placer al trabajar y hablar con ellos.

It Takes Two to Tango

I never thought I'd be able say I danced the Tango at a Milonga ... but tonight I did ... and it feels great. I went with Mary to the Confiteria La Ideal. An old man got me up and we danced the Tango and the Milonga. There are very definite codegas para bailando el tango. When you go alone las chicas all sit around tables and los hombres just sort of wander around (on the prowl so to speak). The point of going to the Milonga is to dance and that is the only consideration, so when you are looking for someone to dance with you dont care whether they are old, young, fat, skinny, beautiful or not because you are looking to dance, and nothing else. The men all walk around the women, its probably important to have seen her dancing so that you know you will get a good dance and then they go away. They ask you to dance by catching your glance and giving you the 'eye', and the woman accepts by nodding her head. She then stands and he comes over to collect her. Quite a ritual.

The tango that was danced at this milonga was traditional tango rather than the hollywood version we tend to see on TV shows at the moment. It is beautiful to watch, and I would say when you can dance it is very beautiful to dance as well. Of course my tango skills are sadly very lacking (not for long), but I felt very 'cool' just being walked around the room. I told the old man who danced with me that 'yo no se tango' (I dont know Tango) and he replied 'aprender caminando' (learn by walking), so I really appreciated him. Traditional dancers of tango turn their noses up at the 'touristy version'. The authentic tango is much more simple and beautiful to watch. You hold each other very close (very close and tight) from the chest up and dont touch at all from the chest down, in fact you need the space to execute the foot work. All the men are very strong leaders, which was also really great to watch. There is absolutely no mistaking what he wants the woman to do...and she does it. I am going to go back and take lessons at this place.

The Milonga is the place where you go to dance, and it also a dance. The music is faster than the tango. The tango music is very slow. Then you also have the waltz tango which has three counts but is not like the waltz as we know it at all. So those are the three types of dances.

Tonight there was also some folklore music ad dancing - Chacarera which is Gaucho dance from Las Pampas.

I've had a great weekend, but now its time for bed because I am muy muy cansada. Work in the morning :( Why do we have to work - it spoils all the fun!

Homeless People

I was quite disturbed today as I was strolling around in the sunshine enjoying the outdoors - I walked through a park where there were at least five different homeless people. Look closely at the first photo - there is a homeless person circled at the back of the photo and not 10 metres away a family (also circled) is sitting having a picnic. There is another person asleep under the cardboard and the last picture shows the man and his dog - everything he owns is in the black plastic bag he is using as a pillow. There were many people enjoying this small park just ignoring the homeless people around. I'm not blaming them - what are they supposed to do? It just struck me as very ironic and I felt a bit cheeky taking these photos but I wanted to highlight the disparity between the people here - the gap just continues to widen.

Monuments and Statues

There are dozens of monuments and statues around barrio norte where yo vivo. Many of them are of the countries military leaders usually astride a great stallion. They dominate most of the green spaces around the barrio. In fact, one little plaza I walked through today had an enormous statue in the middle and in each corner were fairly substantial statues as well. Borges, the famous Argentine writer once complained "there wasn't a single square left in the city that hadn't been ruined by a dirty great bronze statue or someone or other." I thought was quite funny.

The first photo is of a rather serious looking chap called Ruben Dario (I think...the engraving is practically illegible now) who I guess was a writer - I must check that.

The second photo is of Bartolome Mitre who founded the very influential newspaper called La Nacion.

The third photo is of Uruguay's General Artigas - a guide describes it as being unfortunately quite facist looking.

The Middle East in Buenos Aires

With its broad expanses, well-tended lawn, minarets, and palm trees, the Centro Cultural Islámico brings a little bit of the Middle East to Buenos Aires. It is the largest Islamic centre and mosque in Latin America. At night, the two minarets are lit and cast a striking contrast with the surrounding apartment complexes behind it.

I would like to have visited here with Hilal while she was still here, but unfortunately time was not on our side. It is muy hermoso y muy tranquilo. There are free tours on Martes and Jueves at 12 mediodia, so I think I will go back. I was 20 minutes too late for the tours today.

The project began under the influence of former President Carlos Ménem, who (though Catholic at the time of his presidency) is of Syrian Muslim descent.

Los Perros Vida ... or maybe el Gato

El perro - a seemingly essential accessory for the Porteño. The photos above depict a typical Buenos Aires eccentricity - El Paseoperro (the Dogwalker). It is not unusual to see young men and women walking the streets with large bunches and not so large bunches of dogs. Dog walking is a very serious profession. The serious paseoperro also grooms the dogs and looks after their health as well as taking them for their daily walk. The paseoperro is usually a veterinary student and it seems that seniority is shown by the amount of dogs in your group. I have seen some walkers with more than 20 dogs in tow. You cant help but wonder why they dont get all tangled up with each other, but its amazing - they dont - they just all walk along calmly like brothers down the street.

Porteño s love their dogs and in winter time a lot of their four legged friends stroll down the streets wrapped in their dog coats or other funny pieces of winterwear.

I went for a lengthy walk through Palermo and Barrio Norte today - cats and dogs seem to be the theme of my pictures. I walked through one park that had the most incredible amount of stray cats. They were all reasonably fat so I dont know who feeds them, but there were at least 50-60 in the small part of the park I walked through. I took a particularly nice photo of one of them drinking from the fountain.

Check out more photos of dogs and cats down the side of the blog.

Light Fingeredness

This picture is of a typical cobbled street in Buenos Aires. They are so beautiful to look at besides keeping the traffic to a reasonable pace.

Well it probably had to happen at some stage, and today was the day. Some little @#$%%^&* knicked my wallet out of my bag on the subte. I have spent the afternoon down at the Turista Police station with an extremely mucho mucho handsome policeman, which was a bonus cos I would prefer to have been walking down to Puerto Madero where I was headed to pick up my ceiidh ticket (the difference between normal police and the tourist police is that tourist police speak English).
I cant even say I felt it happen other than being very heavily pushed as I was boarding the subte. Obviously very well practiced at their job. AFS has been really great and has lent me money until replacement cards arrive and the bank will quickly send new cards.
It was quite stressful actually - I only noticed because I went to pay for something and then couldn't find my wallet. And then you go through the whole 'it must be here' or 'i must have left it at home', but then I had to pay for the subte and my return ticket was in my wallet.
A lesson learned..I will buy a new bag with a zip - although the thieves here also cut the straps of your bags to get what they want as well...so, you just dont know.

Compare and Contrast

Buenos Aires is certainly a cuidad of contrast. Today we drove to San Isidro which is in the northern part of the cuidad. Very flash – apparently that is where the Government officials and company directors all live. I have been assured by a very reliable source, that although it is a very posh area it is also very dangerous because of that – you know, the criminal element hang out there because the goodies are that much more desirable. I think he was trying to pull my leg because it seemed very tranquil to me and I certainly didnt see any shady types loitering behind the trees or in hedges.
Well I started to pack my bag for the big move in the Capital Federal. Even though I started off with one bag and had the very honourable intention of keeping to that, I appear to have accumulated some extra “stuff” – I’ve found that I’m very predictable…you only get one guess as to what those acquisitions might be – a wrap, a scarf or three, earrings – a chica’s got to have what a chica’s got to have…right???
We had a chicas night last night – no boys allowed. An evening of great merriment was had – funny isn’t it? Girls are the same the world over – we laughed a lot and talked about everything there was to talk about. A very late night – didn’t get home till 2am.

Peculiar?

I just saw the funniest thing - well it struck me as being quite comical - I was driving down the road on my way home and I came upon a horse waiting at the petrol station on the corner.

Sherri, Sherri – Wherefore Art Thou My Hairdresser?

Mis amigos, what am I going to do? Chicas, as we all know there’s nothing quite as important as a girls hair. I’m desperate for a haircut…really desperate…bordering on inconsolable distress. If your hairdresser really loved you she would come to Argentina for the weekend just to sort out the hair crisis, so I could be seen in public again. I’m sure people are starting to point and laugh. I’m finding it really difficult to go to the hair salon – peliqueria – what if they cant understand me and it comes out all wrong – unimaginable misery. I think I will start to hide it under a scarf and grow it longer, but then there is the problem of the blonde bits that would appear and it would look like there was more than there really are because of the long hair – cos really there aren't that many (I swear).

Well, mi muy guapo hijo has appeared in his first publication - looking extremely suave I must say. Bride and Groom Magazine, the May - July edition - check it out - photo above. I'm a muy proud madre.

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Not - Fat chance of that happening. I move into an apartment this week - completely furnished and on the first floor, but sorry to say tiene no gato - no gato could replace my lovely Fergus anyway. This will be an interesting experience for me as I never in my whole life been by myself for any length of time. There is so much to do in BA and it seems that it really comes alive at night time. I am going to be living in Recoleta - about three blocks from Colegio San Miguel where I work, and about 10 blocks from the school where I will attend espanol language classes in the afternoons. So everything is nice and close. The subte (underground) is very close also so I have quick access to public transport when I need it as well. Its only about a half hour walk into the city centre so I am set. Mis amigos - I will email you all the address so you know where to send presents or at least where you may come and visit. I will take a couple of photos of the apartment for my next posting, and of the view - and of the lift - lifts in apartment buildings (actually not just apartment buildings - its everywhere), here are not like lifts in NZ, they are the old fashioned ones that you need to open the grill-like doors yourself - they are like a cage and so you can see everything on the outside of the lift as you go up and down. I discovered that the doors are not automatic after waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the lift to arrive - in the end the security man came over, smiled very nicely to me (probably thinking 'tonto' (idiot)) and opened the doors for me.

Last night I was down at the local rugby club (Los Toros - I think I may have mentioned them before - if you would like to hark back to the haka incident) and would you believe it - next week they are playing against a visiting team from Aotearoa (Auckland, but we wont hold that against them) called the Dandelions. Apparently they are a team that you can only join by invitation, so the team here are really hoping that there might be some ex All Blacks to play against.

The photos above are of a llama (pronounced shama) and the floralis generica which is a monument to all flores. The amazing thing about this monument is that it opens to sun and closes at night time - pretty cool!

Caballeros and Caballos

We went out for the day to Mataderos where we were able to see caballeros playing on their caballos. Muy interesante. Muy muy fascinating indeed. The entertainment was fantastico - lots of dancing and music......and caballeros on caballos which were so exciting. They have to ride their caballo flat tack down the road towards a very tiny ring that is suspended from a bar which they ride under. They have to aim very skilfully with a stick (as small as a pencil) and put it through the ring and ride off with it on their stick thing. If you look carefully I have circled around the ring he is aiming for - its right in the middle of my circle. Very few managed to do it but some did and there was a great cheer for their success. One particularly clever caballero managed to do it twice in a row. Gracias to Francisco for giving me this photo - they were riding so fast that from where I was standing I only managed to get the caballos tail on the side of my photo.

There was another act that was remarkably like poi but the ends were metal and they were banged on the floor as they were swung and along with their feet clicking on the floor, they created a percussive rhythm which was estupendo. I have tried to upload video but cant seem to get it to work properly. I'll show you when I get home.

Have a look at the picture of mois...see what I'm standing next to...the black post is an original post that was used to tie up caballo's back in the 'old days'. Its in pretty good knick as well.

The fair was crowded with people and the atmosphere was buzzing. I was so tempted to buy every woollen wrap I could find but I was very restrained. Today it is freezing cold so I wish I had. It was 6 degrees this morning - a huge change from what we have been having for the past week.

Blabber Mouth

Who would have thought I could talk for so long...this morning I gave a talk at the Universidad de Moron - dont laugh at the Moron name you English speakers...the accent goes on the last syllable...so Mo-RON.
I was asked to go in and talk about NZ. I enjoyed the experience and managed to speak for over an hour...who would ever have thought I could manage that. It was a Tourism and English class combined, so the students seemed to enjoy it as well.
At the end they presented me with a gift (regalo) - a university pen (very nice), a book of short stories in Spanish and a brochure from the university detailing courses that offer for people learning Spanish "espanol para extranjeras" :)

The photo is of some of the estudiantes with me - my moment of fame!

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Buenos Aires has been covered in smoke the last few days. It wasn't too bad until yesterday when I started getting really sore eyes and dry throat. I took these photos of the sun at about 1pm on Thursday, so that gives you some idea of how dense the smoke has been and how dark the city has been.

Check out these articles from the newspaper:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7355723.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7356919.stm

Today the wind has changed direction, the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Thank goodness for that.

Busking Babes

This is Raymi - one of the best buskers I have ever heard. I was mesmerised by his music. I bought two of his CDs...one is traditional native music the other has some traditional music and some popular tunes like Tears in Heaven etc. My favourite tune is El Condor Pasa which I now have in about cuatro variations on my iPod. All the musicians here play it with their own variation and every time I hear it I say to myself "this is the best one I've heard yet", but of course I've said that at least four times now and that is not including the Simon and Garfunkel version. I'm having trouble uploading the video clip - sorry!
We also watched an entertaining Tango demonstration - see what I mean about Argentinian men not being afraid to dance...they will even dance together. It turns out that Tango may have originally been danced by men and women entered the scene later on.
I came across another busker on the street the other day who was also playing traditional music on his pan flute - very beautiful and quite complex - but the amazing thing was he was accompanying himself on his guitar. That must be really difficult to do.

A Day out with Hilal

Spent a lovely afternoon with Hilal yesterday. We pounded pavement for about 3 hours - Hilal in her heels :(

We had coffee at El Gato Negro (The Black Cat) - established in 1668 or some other date a very very long time ago. The building is now historically protected. Here is a lovely photo of Hilal looking very ladylike. We had coffee coffee from costa rica and two lovely medialunas.

Porteno's pride themselves on their literacy and there are literally hundreds of bookshops (probably thousands) all over Buenos Aires. This photo is taken in one of them. There are old books, new books, any sort of book you could possible want. There are many books about Che Guevara.

We looked at some very old buildings (photo included above). The buildings are very beautiful but I imagine living in them might be a bit drafty. They also have very little light because as the buildings are all joined together on the sides, they can only have windows at the front and back.

The next two photos are taken inside a very old and beautiful building that is now a four level shopping mall. Chicky's you would be very proud of me....there are soooo many scarf, hat, earring and acccessory places here - but I have not yet succumbed to temptation. Actually I tell a lie - I did buy one nice little pair of earrings but the day after I bought them a lost one down the plug hole while I was showering - not impressed!! I have to remember that I am here for a year and I dont need to rush into buying everything I like - because apart from anything else how will I get it all home.

Gobsmacked

Here is the photo of the Gallego bar that I frequent for coffee. I took this photo off someone elses blog. It appears to have been taken by a newspaper along with an article which I have included. Simon sent me the link to this blog and I could not believe my eyes when one of the first photos I looked at was this cafe I have been raving about. I thought the coffee maker was old, but I didnt think he was that old. I have included a link to the other blog at the bottom of this post.

The article appears below:

This is the bar of Emilio Sangil, 78 years old, located in one of the most fancy corner in Palermo Hollywood. He’s been offered seducing amount of money to sale his bar, but up until now he refused all of them. As he said” I’m 78, I have no interest in selling, at this age, I don’t want any more adventures”, and he went on adding “I already feel surrendered here.” I gotta go visit this bar one day, this is the kind of story that I like and that makes me smile :=)

http://www.akworld.net/webblog/

La Familia

Here are some photos of the family I am lucky enough to be staying with. They are such very welcoming and lovely people - I am very grateful :)

Agustin and Juan (18 and 7) cooking the asado (bbq), Inez and I (grandmother of the children), Patricia and Lourdes (the mum and 15 year old daughter) and Jose and Patricia at Palermo Soho in Buenos Aires.