Reflections of My Journey (Part 1 of 3)

Jan 9th, 2008, 09:43 pm

My spectacular forty-four week trip to South America that began on February 19, 2007 came to an end on the night of December 24 when I reluctantly departed Buenos Aires to Miami on American Airlines Flight 943. I dreaded that flight for weeks, knowing that I may never return to Argentina or see my friends. As much as I tried to hold my tears in, I cried, hoping no one would see me. Yeah, shut up. I sat alone with no one to talk to and looked back on my experiences. I now share with you a reflection of my Argentine adventures.

Since I lived in Argentina as part of a study abroad program, I’ll begin by discussing my academic experiences. First semester was particularly difficult. I struggled because I barely understood the professors and the complex and often boring texts. (Remember, all my classes were taught in Spanish, and four of the six were with local students.) Furthermore, the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) seriously lacks organization and order. Understandably, its severely underpaid professors often went on strike in hopes of making higher salaries, and students often protested the actions of the university administration and the government. Sometimes I showed up to class not knowing it was cancelled due to strikes. Imagine the burden these uncertainties put on people who took one- to two-hour commutes by train and/or bus to get to campus. After a semester at UBA, I looked for alternatives. The second half of the school year was much better. I took classes at Torcuato di Tella University (UTDT), a private institution filled to the rim with beautiful preppy rich kids. UBA, on the other hand, draws a more economically and ideologically diverse crowd since it’s a public university and thus free. The system at UTDT has far more in common with that of American universities, and it generally runs smoothly and without major problems. According to some people, it’s one of the best universities in South America. Maybe, but I can surely say my high school was larger and better equipped.

Neither of the universities I attended, like most in Argentina, had a true campus. Most students in the US live in university housing, or they live in dorms, apartments, and houses located closely to campus. However, most students in Buenos Aires live at home if they’re from the area or in apartments if they come from other regions. As a result, the universities’ buildings are simply a place to attend classes and, sometimes, study. The universities don’t foster a true sense of community. You don’t see people wearing shirts displaying their university’s name, and highly-competitive collegiate sports simply don’t exist. Because most college students in the US live on campus or close to it, it becomes an autonomous entity, separate from the rest of the surrounding town or city. Thus, a strong sense of university identity is usually created. I missed the traditional American campus. I missed walking through a quad. I missed hanging out in a student union. Lifeless university buildings located throughout a city just don’t cut it.

As I’ve mentioned several times, I undertook a fascinating independent research project second semester. I investigated the development and expression of Muslim identity in Buenos Aires, a topic very few people have touched. Because little written information exists about the Argentine Muslim community, I had to rely primarily on interviews, personal observations, and informal chats with members of the community to obtain data. I planned on conducting many interviews with community leaders and heads of Islamic institutions such as schools and organizations, but I faced a few problems. First, I had little time since my classes kept me busy. Second, almost none of the Islamic institutions responded to my concise but clear e-mails requesting an interview. What, did they think I worked for the CIA or something? “Why would an American come to Argentina in the first place to study, much less to study Muslims?” Yeah, I could’ve called them, but I often get nervous when I speak castellano on the phone. So, I probably would’ve sounded less convincing. In order to present my findings, I wrote a twenty-two page paper in Spanish. I hoped to write thirty, but the lack of responses from various institutions and individuals prevented me from having enough information to do so. Oh well. I learned a lot, and I truly enjoyed my project and met many interesting people in the process. Since few have written about Argentine Muslims, I feel I have made an important contribution and plan to disseminate my findings.

My Spanish improved by about 1000% while I was abroad. Even though I had studied castellano for six years, I arrived to Argentina speaking it horribly. I struggled to understand what the heck people were saying for the first month and often had to say “¿Cómo?” (“I’m sorry?”) to get them to speak more slowly or clarify. Now, I can safely say I understand 95% of spoken Spanish, especially the Argentine dialect—all others just sound strange to me now. Also, I can speak it fairly comfortably and smoothly. While my vocab has improved drastically, I’m constantly discovering new words. When I lived in Argentina, I learned new words and phrases everywhere, from the graffiti written on bathroom stall doors to eavesdropping cell phone conversations in shops. In addition to drastically improving my speaking and listening skills, I learned to write better and more ornately because of the countless e-mails, notes, and papers I wrote.

I spoke and wrote “proficiently” by the end of the first semester, but my language skills continued to improve rapidly during the last five months. By the time I left Argentina, I noticed most of the little things that make a big difference when you speak. For example, second semester I noticed that many people say “éste…” as a filler word in much the way we use “ummm…” Stuff like that makes you speak more naturally and less formally and robotically. As much as my Spanish improved, I could never successfully imitate the Buenos Aires accent. People knew I wasn’t Argentine, but they often thought I was a Spanish-speaking Brazilian or someone from another South American country. Hey, that’s better than thinking I’m American.

My host family situation varied considerably. First semester I lived with a hardworking fifty-eight-year-old single mom, her spoiled twenty-year old son, and their elderly dog. While the mom and dog were cool, the son was not so friendly. He barely talked to me, only saying “hola” and “chau.” I tried to start conversation with him a number of times, but my efforts were absolutely fruitless. Furthermore, he showed his mom absolutely no respect. He started fights with her 24/7 over the smallest things, and would almost never talk to her in a calm tone. Oftentimes, after a night of hanging out, he would walk into her room at four in the morning while she was sleeping and say “¡Hola, mamá!” (“Hi, mom!”). I’m guessing he just wanted to be a total jerk to her and wake her up. Also, I had a tiny room with almost no natural light and a bed with a super thin mattress that left my back aching every morning. Fed up with my living conditions, I decided to switch families. The study abroad program requires all students to live with families, so living alone or with roommates was not an option.

Second semester I lived with a seventy-year-old woman and her forty-four-year-old lawyer son. Fortunately, they treated me very nicely and like a member of their own family. The mom confided in me like I was her own son and overly mothered me. She has this habit of forcing others to eat, so that really annoyed me. I don’t know about you, but being forced to eat truly ruins my eating experience. Sometimes I would say I’m full, but she would tell me I still have to eat. Ugh. Also, I discovered towards the end of my stay that my host brother was using my razor! Once I threw away the old blade and put a new one on. I discovered the following day that someone had used it. Suddenly it all clicked—I finally figured out how my blades got worn down so quickly. Weird guy. Besides those two things, my new family was great. Plus, I had a big room with lots of natural light and a balcony, and because the mom and son always talked to me, my Spanish improved much more rapidly than in the old house, and I learned about the complex intricacies of Argentine family life.

While in South America, I did lots of traveling. Just about two weeks after arriving to Argentina, I took a trip to Río Negro, a province located at the north of Patagonia. I went to the cities/towns of Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes and saw some of the most gorgeous alpine scenery ever. If you’re into mountains covered by lush evergreens, Río Negro is the place for you. Later in March, I traveled eighteen hours by bus to the subtropical province of Misiones, located in the northeast and bordered by Paraguay and Brazil. There, I saw the breathtaking Iguazu Falls, Paraguay and Brazil from a distance, and some of the oldest and best preserved Jesuit missionaries in South America. In April, I crossed the Río de la Plata to the country of Uruguay and visited the sleepy little town of Colonia and saw a bunch of old buildings built by the Portuguese centuries ago.

Then in July, during my two-week long winter break, I traveled alone to the arid northwest and Bolivia. I took a twenty-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to San Salvador de Jujuy, the capital of Jujuy. Although I had a hotel reservation, most of the rest of my twelve-day trip were unplanned and spontaneous. I was only armed with a rough itinerary and a Lonely Planet. After some debating, I crossed the border into Bolivia, a country very different from Argentina in terms of culture, and traveled to Tupiza, the nearest town with a decent tourist infrastructure (I don’t know how far away it is from Argentina, but it took about two hours to get there by bus once I crossed the border). I barely knew what was even in Tupiza, but that was part of the adventure. There, the hostel workers mistook me as Israeli because of my name, and I spent time exploring this quaint little town. On the way back to Buenos Aires, I stopped in Tucumán, a province also located in the northwest, for two days and a night to rest.

In August, I returned to Colonia with my old roommate from college, who flew down from the US to visit me, to show him around and saw pretty much the same stuff as I did on my first trip. Finally, I traveled to Uruguay again in December, but this time I went alone and visited Montevideo, the capital, and Punta del Este, a ritzy resort town. Everything went fine and dandy until the last four hours when I got mugged by four rascals that supposedly had a nine millimeter pistol while I sat alone under a palm tree, watching the dazzling ocean waves. They stole my camera, cell phone, and about $100 in cash. Oh yeah, let’s not forget my day trips to Tigre, San Antonio de Areco, San Isidro, and Ezeiza—all located in the province of Buenos Aires—during both semesters.

Wow, I traveled quite a bit!

My hands are sore, and I should get up and get some movement. Stay tuned for parts two and three.

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