Getting ready for day two

So, Buenos Aires. A bus is a ‘Colectivo”—a city bus, so none of that multi-company line system to follow. But, and this is obviously only my humble opinion, that’s the only thing that these buses have over Montevideo. True, there is a ‘guia’ (guide) that uses a very complicated grid system to tell you which lines you can take to your destination. Everyone touts it as a wonderful, easy to use source of information. My brain does not work that way. I understand the subway system (Subte) but unfortunately nowhere I need to go at this time can be reached by the subte. So I get to take the bus. What this Guia does not tell you is where the bus stops, so for example today I’m going to start to walk down Bolivar, the street my bus #29 should come down, and look for a stop. I have seen people who live here not know exactly where a stop is supposed to be. And also, the same numbered bus can have more than one route so you have to ask the bus driver if it goes to your destination. In my case, both routes for the #29 do, so that isn’t an issue. However, you tell the driver where you’re going and he pushes a button and the machine behind him indicates how much you have to pay. It seems that I always have to pay 1.20 pesos. Now, here comes the hard part. The machines will only take coins. The driver cannot make change. That would be a simple enough transaction except that there is a peso crisis. People hoard pesos. In jest, the person orienting us to the bus system said that there was a rumor that it was organized crime doing the hoarding. Who knows. But here is how this hoarding manifests itself: yesterday I bought several items in several stores. Only in one instance did the merchant give me a coin in change. In the other places I was given back MORE money than I was due so that it could be in bills. When I was at the Chinese grocery store I was very excited because I saw that the cashier had a drawer full of coins and my total allowed me 1.95 in change. That would be a one peso coin and a bunch of lower denominations. But instead she gave me a two peso bill. There was a woman in front of me who was still standing there begging and pleading for the cashier to give her .50 peso so that she could take the colectivo. She was saying that she had come to the store for many years, that she was an old woman, and I was ready to give her one of my measly .50 peso but the cashier finally relented and traded her 2 peso note for the .50 peso. When I came back to the apart hotel I asked Alejandro, one of my two reliable guides to the city if I was entitled to my 95 in coin and he said no. The merchant can give me whatever he or she wants in change as long as it is at least as much as I’m due. So, I have enough pesos to get me to the community center for this week and next. I’m apparently allowed to try to go to the bank and see if they’ll break a 20 peso note but people stand in long lines for this and some days the banks will do this and other days they will not. Another gentleman at the hotel told me that he goes to the subte where the one way ticket is 1.10 and purchases one to get the .90. I could collect a lot of subte tickets doing that, I suppose.

As to the buses themselves—somehow they manage to have fewer seats, facing in both directions, and less space for people to stand than in MVD. I’m still trying to figure out how that works exactly. But people do queue up for them in an orderly fashion, I haven’t seen any curtains, and no one signs for pesos because of course they are to be hoarded.

We took the bus (another one, #64) to La Boca on Tuesday. I was given landmarks to help me find it again—luckily Natalie, the young woman who will be teaching with me (she’s in her last semester in college, so yes she is young), has been there one more time than I have, seems to have a good internal compass, and is going to meet me here today. She also is fluent in Spanish, but she’s never taught before. She found it odd that people thought that she could teach English because she’s a English major. All I know is that she is delightful. She is from Potomac MD and we decided that San Telmo, where I live, is like U Street before it had been gentrified. Anyway, the Community Center in La Boca is a wonderful place, an old warehouse with three useable floors. We teach on the third floor, which means HOT since it is still in the 80s and humid. The first floor has a computer lab, a community pantry, and a community kitchen. There is also a work area with many sewing machines. They make various things, one of which is a school uniform that looks like a very long white lab coat. They also make serigraph t-shirts (they were impressed that I knew what that meant but it’s the same in English). Most of the t-shirts seem to be of Che Guevara. In fact posters of Che line many of the walls including in the library, which is on the second floor along with the administrative offices And then on the third floor is a huge empty space with areas defined by long tables for different types of classes. I didn’t quite understand the funding for the center, but it has to do with a certain amount per person served. And then there are the workers like the seamstress(masculine & feminine) and kitchen people. Teachers are all volunteers. Our students were mostly workers but we had two young girls who were in school wanting to take English proficiency exams. But they all pretended as if they did not know any English (except for the coordinator Berta). My Spanish is sooooo bad that they all had a good laugh over it, but we’re going to have to talk in English if they are going to gain confidence in speaking it. Here is where Natalie and I part company. She wants to talk about verb conjugation, and except for the two younger girls, none of these people finished school and they really don’t care to know what we mean by conjugation and gerund and past participle. In fact, they don’t care that there is an infinitive for a verb…just how to use it. I think I’ve won the argument for today, at least. If we become all academic, then certainly our people will not feel confident enough to open their mouth. I want them to understand that I am getting around with my lousy Spanish because I’m not afraid to use it. They want to be able to talk to tourists…to understand them…to serve their meal at a restaurant if they get lucky enough to find a job like that. So, that’s my curriculum plan: practical, but correct, English. And if someone wants more, Natalie can show them how to diagram a sentence. Our biggest challenge on the first day was how long was the class going to be…some people said two hours was too long. Others said one hour was too short. I do not know how we left it, but we’ll show up at 3 p.m. today. Before we left, one of the women asked Natalie if I was her mother. Now, I can understand about 60-70% of what people are saying so I started laughing and laughing before they both realized what I was laughing at. Of course I could be—my sister has a daughter a year older than Natalie. It was just the idea, I guess.

Then as we were leaving, Berta warned us not to speak English once we left the building until we were on the buses (we take different ones). This is why I need to be vigilant and not get lost. This is the most economically challenged areas in Buenos Aires, and if we look lost and like we might have something worth taking, it’s gone. Natalie wanted to bring her laptop to La Boca today and I told her not to. She wears her backpack on the front of her body but I don’t even like that because it obviously looks like there is something in it. She wanted us to meet in the restaurant across the street around the corner from the Center because it is ‘colorful’ but I told her first to ask the people at Voluntario Global (she lives in their group house) if there was any reason we should not. I don’t know if she did, but she’s now coming here and we’ll take the bus together, go over the curriculum, etc. And of course for my part I have her with me knowing where to get off.

I’ m on my way to see if I can print out my worksheets and make copies. I continue to receive goods and services that I did not intend to get so I hope that the person who gave me directions understood what I was saying. Perhaps I’ll get some coveted coins as change!

This weekend I’ll put up some of the cool photos I’ve taken. While I’m sure that I’ll be able to take some inside the community center, I don’t think I’ll be taking any of La Boca except maybe from the bus. But the less I have to steal, the less that can be taken. I’m wearing south American clothes more and more because I put on some pounds eating so much pasta in Montevideo. The clothes are a good thing, but the pounds really do have to go.

Chau chicas.