Right Within

A static-y version of Lauryn Hill's Doo Wop filled my ears as I rode my '88 Toyota Camry home from Stinson beach this afternoon. We wound around the curves of the road, teetering on the edge of cliffs that drop off to sparkling oceans and abundant evergreens. Afternoon sunshine coupled with pockets of cool, cool shade covered me and my beloved car (we been through a lot together--she was stolen from outside my house two years ago and we are still together and goin' strong!). I let the sunlight and the Doo Wop fill me, taking me over. "How you gon' win when you ain't right within?" Lauryn's voice questions me. In this moment, there is no doubt in my mind; I am right within.

Let me take you through my day. I awoke to grey skies and Bay morning fog, after spending the night in my own bed. I stepped off a plane last night to my mom, dad, and sis waiting for me at the airport, was driven home to find a veggie burrito, dad's guacamole, and freshly cut watermelon waiting for me. Crawled into bed and passed out under the layers of covers.
I woke up to a bbm from one of my closest NY friends, sending salutations to my mama and telling me she can only imagine how ultra-bubbly I am right now, in my happy place and space. Dad's oatmeal pancakes and a convo with mom about where I will land after college. We are leaning towards home, discussing the fact that we are a family-oriented family. Then again, you never know...baby sister is talking about East Coasting it next year. I have already been gone for her crucial high school years, so being nearby for her college years means a lot to me.

I decided at about 10:45am to go to Stinson beach--with a group of people leaving Oakland at 11am. My boy runs a high school drop-out prevention program, and they were taking the youth to the beach. When he called me asking that I pick up one of the young folks on the way, my decision was sealed; I was beach bound. I threw on a bathing suit, long cotton dress, mega-sized earrings my sister bought me as a welcome-home gift, and was en route. We spent the day BBQing, sun-soaking (the three lighter-complexioned folks lathered up with sunscreen, which prompted the comment, "now it smells like white people!"), and sharing words.

I arrived home with plans to visit a friend, but when my dad suggested family dinner, family dinner it was. We went out to this new little Italian place on MacArthur, which I used to scowl at when I drove past because from the outside it looks unaffordable and too new. Not the case. A boy who grew up around the corner is the main waiter, and we drove up to his dad sitting outside with their pitbull-and-something mutt, enjoying some shrimp spaghetti. The boy-next-door wasn't our waiter, but came over and checked in with me about life, and then let us know he'd make sure we were well taken care of. Town business.

I'm off now to do more checking-in and freeway-driving with my windows down and jank radio all the way up. And I just might win. I am right within.

Time flies and Lilly forgets to blog

Time has blown by. It is Wednesday night, and I return home to New York Saturday night. Please forgive my lack of blogging. I have so many thoughts that I have not even been able to journal properly the past couple of months.

I am in such a good place, so happy to return to New York City. For summer nights in the city, just chillin', legally drinking, looking cute and not worrying about too much (we'll leave the worrying for the semester and beyond). So looking forward to reading books for pleasure and sipping iced coffee and sitting in Washington Square Park basking in after-work sunshine. For hosting dinners and cooking and being happy and young and having fun. For journalling and hanging on to myself within the madness--and wonderfulness--that is NYC. I have been nothing but excited to go back, but then when I told one of my roommates that I am done with finals, she urged me to rest up now, because there is no sleep to be had in NYC. I guess we'll see.

My time in Buenos Aires has been slowly winding down, and I feel like I've had lots of closure in many ways. Last week we had our NYU-sponsored end-of-semester party, at which I gave a mini speech, I have turned in my last final paper, given my last final presentation, reflected with the administrators on the program. I made reservations today for our crew to have one last family dinner at the most famous steakhouse in Buenos Aires (La Cabrera), we have birthday parties lined up for the next few nights, I sort of began to pack up, have purchased most of my gifts to bring home... it is becoming real that we are leaving. I have been waiting for this moment basically all semester, but now that it has arrived it is bittersweet. The whole summer without these amazing folks that I have been with every day will be so bizarre. As D pointed out, it would be different if we were all going back to New York, but everyone's off to romping around the country or the world, so who knows how we'll end up in the fall. Regardless of what happens, I would never ever ever want to trade this semester.

This semester I became comfortable with using my Spanish...and picked up the pretentious Argentine accent, sadly. I traveled 2 hours out of capital twice a week to volunteer with an amazing co-op. I took all my courses in español and did pretty damn well. I went to Patagonia, saw glaciers and kayaaked on potable lakes. I went to Mendoza, Argentine wine country, and saw the beautiful Andes mountains between Argentina and Chile. I went to Iguazú and saw the most majestic waterfalls/nature of my entire life. I turned 21. I danced the night away in the middle of a golf course. I developed a taste for Argentine wine and learned that I really just don't crave red meat, ever. I had a mini anxiety attack and bought copious amounts of new journals and rings. I couldn't find pants in this country that fit me, and wasn't phased by it. I dressed more casually than I ever have since I came to New York. As the seasons changed, I reaffirmed my belief that I am an autumn girl at heart, not a summertimer. I made a new group of close friends, missed the ones at home so much my heart almost broke, and realized that I have two homes now--Oakland and New York. I fulfilled my wanderlust, for now. My head and soul are full from this semester's experience, despite my problems with the hidden poverty and the largely undiscussed colorism and eurocentrism, and I do not for one second regret any of the past four months. I have changed, although I am not sure how. I will keep y'all posted, 'cause one of my dear friends will have analyzed and pointed out every tiny change within the first night of my being back, as he did when I returned from Kazakhstan.

What I have taken the most from this trip is my Spanish, my friends, but, above all, my desire for roots and to stay in one place. Those of you who have been reading for a while know that my NYC friends think I have a problem: I don't know how to stay in one place. Well, friends, my heart is craving that stability. With you, of course. :)

Coming Soon

Holas!

I have been neglecting my blog. I am currently sitting in MALBA, Museo del Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, waiting for a Cinema Symposium to start. How posh my life has become, huh?

Anyways, I will write more later this weekend when I have a bit more time to really sit and reflect. For now, though, I will say that knowing I am going home in 3 weeks has eased my mind and brought me a sense of happiness. Because the end is in sight, I have been able to completely release any tension or anxiety and just roll with the fun times here. More details to come :)

Besos, abrazos, and missing you all so much,

L

Post Relaxation?

Spring Break is definitely over, but I am retaining the sense of calmness that I gained. Let me recap it so you can visualize, and then we will get down to the business of analyzing. It was just the two of us the whole break, which made decisions and meals and traveling much easier.

Step 1: Overnight bus from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, Argentina
By the end of Day 1, Mendoza had my heart. It is near the border with Chile, and known for its vineyards and olive oil. I arrived expecting fantastic wine tasting, food, and beautiful greenness, but the thing that I loved the most was the warmth of the people. Everyone was so friendly, so laid back, so relaxed, just had the best vibes. I love cities where the people look you in the eyes, where you don't feel rushed out of conversations, where a smile in the street is more common than a glare. Granted, it is a machista culture like much of South America, so Des and I also got growled and whistled at incessantly, but if you take that as it is, the people treat each other with so much warmth and respect. Another thing that I loved: the women have actual curves. In Buenos Aires, in Capital, there is one primary body type: tallish, very thin, curvy within a petite framework. Mendoza has much more physical diversity (and we all know how much I love diversity). We spent a day in the Andes mountains, on the Chilean border, which was breathtaking and full of so many shades of red, browns and yellows juxtaposed with the bright blue of the sky and the intense white of the clouds. I had one of those "I AM IN (insert name of place in the world here) RIGHT NOW" moments, and could barely believe it was real. In between wine and olive oil tasting and lounging in the many green plazas in the city, I found a comfort and easy breathing that had been lacking in Buenos Aires. Maybe I am a slow-paced, urban but friendly-sized city girl and not the bustling-city girl I thought I was? (Okay, so I guess I am completely unable to leave the analysis out of the summary. Big surprise, huh?)

Step 2: Overnight bus to Bariloche, Argentina
Bariloche is in the Northern area of Patagonia, known for its many beautiful lakes and for being the Argentinian home of chocolate. We went kayaking on the clearest water I have ever seen in my life---all of it is potable!! It was absolutely beautiful, and so tranquil. We ran into a café that had "churro and chocolate caliente" happy hour--2 cups of steaming hot, amazing hot chocolate and two churros a piece for a grand total of 12 pesos (about 3 dollars). We only stayed for a couple of nights, but our hostel had free dinner included, we roamed the streets and shops, the air was perfectly autumn-tinged, again, the people so so friendly and wonderful.

Step 3: Flight to El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina
El Calafate is most famous for its glacier, Perito Moreno (not my photo, but check it out here: http://duke3d.com.ar/bluke/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/perito_moreno_glacier_patagonia_argentina_luca_galuzzi_2005.jpg). I am overusing this word, but no other will suffice; it was BREATHTAKING. There is not a lot to do in El Calafate but see the glaciers, but we were at the end of our trip and in relaxation mode. We went to Perito Moreno one day, spent another day and night in El Chaltén, a nearby hiking town, saw the flamingos that live in a lagoon in Calafate another day. I read lots of books and journaled more than I have the entire time I've been in Buenos Aires, met lots of interesting people in the hostels and on the trails (LOTS of Israelis, because a lot go to tours of South American after they exit the army), and were genuinely cold for the first time since we've been here. El Calafate is way South, almost at the very Southernmost tip of South America.

Step 4: Returning to Buenos Aires initially filled me with dread. I didn't want to return to a huge, impersonal, non-green city after this week and a half of indulging in rich foods, clear air, gorgeous scenery, and friendly people. If I had to return to a big city, I wanted it to be New York. Sunday night, the night we got back, I spent moping and missing my friends and family from home (both homes). But the natural high of nature and good spirits has remained with me, and I have been in such a healthily happy mood all week. It doesn't hurt that almost everyone in our program has been riding their own personal nature and relaxation highs. The real analysis and in-depth descriptions will follow shortly. I wanted to check-in a bit, for now.

I love you all. Thank you for reading! It means a lot to me :) If you have a blog, please send me the link so I can keep up with you.

Besos, abrazos, y buenas ondas,

L

A musical day

Today has been a day of music. I wiped the sleep from my eyes as I entered the Subte with thoughts of the Coca Cola tango-dancer billboards around the city. I shimmied in my seat to outdated American jazzy pop music as our van to La Matanza flew by sunshine and the city and horses and fields, leaving Capital behind us.

Upon arriving at my volunteer site, we were told that until the kids arrived for classes that we could help pack up the Semana Santa pan roscas (sweet breads for Easter). In the midst of sweet, sugary-smelling breads and celophane wrapping and crinkling and the snipping of pink ribbons, two Argentine brothers walked in. They smiled and said hi in a familiar way that prompted my compañera to ask if I knew them. They promptly unpacked a guitar and announced they would play for us as we worked. They opened their mouths and my heart stopped (and melted); all jokes aside, they had the most beautiful voices I have heard in years, each like a different texture of honey. In between 4 or 5 songs we chatted a bit and learned that each is in a different band. One is an Argentine rock band, the other a Mexican Mariachi and Ranchera band. The Mariachi brother plays just a few blocks from my dorm on weekends, so at least one of this weekend's nights is now booked.

(Oh, and let's talk about how last night I fell asleep with freshly beat-boxed rythms in my head. One of the friendliest boys in my dorm is a famous Hip Hop artist in Paraguay, where he's from. He wouldn't freestyle for me, but agreed to beatbox, and upon beginning was joined by an NYU kid who's also really good.)

The evening wound down with a Tango Orchestral performance and presentation on the history, methodology, and music of tango, conducted at the NYU academic center. Check the mout at www.myspace.com/orquestaimperial. My mind drifted as I soaked up the notes and smiled to myself and to the performers (which I'm sure weirded out one of the women who got caught off guard when she looked up from her accordian-like tango instrument to a cheesing Lilly), and in the moment I felt so utterly happy with Buenos Aires. I also felt so thankful that I attend NYU... I am living a charmed life in Buenos Aires, via New York City--specifically Greenwich village, Manhattan.

I love my life the most in the moments when it is filled with music. And the moments it is filled with love... but love is its own flavor of music.

Here's to a musical day and the hope and belief that this music is a foreshadowing of what is to come,

L

People are people are people?

And so we return to the theme of my blog, to the inspiration with which I began this journey of airing my dirty laundry on the internet.

I have spent the past week going to events in the young Jewish Argentine world. It's been amazing and enriching and immersive on multiple levels. I have been reunited with hummus and babaganoush (eggplant dip), pita bread and grilled vegetables, prayers in Hebrew and people who observe and appreciate shabbat. One of the young men in my program is working for Hillel International and helping to plan Jewish events for International students, so he is super tapped into the young Jewish scene here. He invited me to a sushi dinner shabbat on Friday night and to a shabbat lunch at a Jewish youth center, both of which I attended this past weekend. I met young Jewish Argentinians and spent the weekend mingling and practicing my Spanish with them. I am always a little hesistant when stepping into new Jewish spaces because I worry about how I will be perceived and received; I have tattoos (an absolute no-no for Orthodox Jews), I am not observant, I support the liberation and autonomy of Palestine, I come from an interfaith family and do not believe that interfaith marriage will kill off the Jewish people... the list goes on. Still, I felt relatively comfortable and very welcomed this weekend. I might even start going to art classes at the Jewish youth center where we had lunch on Saturday/Shabbat. (The center is GORGEOUS and probably the most attractive building I have been in yet in Buenos Aires. It has tons of windows, bouquets of flowers everywhere, skylights, comfortable chairs and couches, huge bookshelves, a rooftop with a view of Buenos Aires... a very calming, purifying, communal space that feels like what I believe a Jewish space should feel like.)

I love thinking back on my childhood and realizing how integral a part of my identity my Jewishness is. Although I was never particularly religious or observant, both Kehilla and JYCA were so crucial in the formation of my beliefs and orientation about the world. Kehilla is the Jewish congregation my family belonged to, and many of the families are interfaith, interracial, multiracial, non-heterosexual, and services almost always include dancing and singing and instruments in the audience. JYCA, Jewish Youth for Community Action, is a group of high-school-aged Jewish students in Berkeley, California, that focuses on youth leadership and community activism and social justice.

Despite all of these wonderful emotions and memories that occur when I spend time around Jewish people and Jewish communities, I can not help but feel creeped out when other Jewish people suddenly seem to like me worlds more when they find out I am Jewish. While I understand the importance of sharing time and relationships with people who also share histories and traditions and beliefs, I can not endorse the idea of treating people with more attention, more energy, more care, more love, and more interest just because you both are Jewish. I believe that we should share our energy and our love with everyone who exhibits the same love and energy for the world that we do. Sure, people cling and flock to those who share their same moral and political beliefs, but I want to be assured that when I am being loved, I am being loved for me and not for my ancestry.

"People are people are people" is a quote that our tour guide on my Taglit birthright trip to Israel kept repeating. He used the phrase to demonstrate that people are the same all over the world, that basic humanity connects us all. But his constant usage of the phrase bothered me, especially in light of the fact that not all Jews are treated equally in Israel (see one of my extremely old blog posts on the situation for Ethiopian Jews in Israel, for example, and the popular belief held by many non-black Israelis that they would never ever bring a black Jew home to meet their parents). So lately, as I've been spending lovely afternoons and evenings mingling with beautiful Argentinian Jewish young people, loving my heritage and roots and the chance to connect to these people here, I have also been contemplating this concept. To me, people are totally people are people (the more I write the word "people," the funnier it looks!). It almost feels wrong, then, against my internal moral compass, to accept this acceptance that I am receiving from communities that might not believe that "people are people are people" in practice. I think that I need to read more about Judaism and what Judaism declares about this concept. In the meantime, I am loving my entrance into Jewishness in Buenos Aires, and eagerly anticipating an Argentinian Passover seder (though nothing can ever compare to my faimly's seders, where we eat potatoes and hard boiled eggs while we read through the Haggadah 'cause no one can handle hunger pains, and the entire seder is sprinkled with pieces and songs on global justice).

With love for people who are people who are people, and with respect and acknowledgment of the ways that people are not always allowed to be or not interested in being people who are people who are people,

L

Crossing Paths

I find it difficult to write when I am in a bad mood. It's not that I want to censor myself or only pen down a bubbly image of who I am and what I think and feel; it is more that I do not like to associate writing with a negative cloud of energy. I haven't been in a bad mood lately, per se, but I haven't been at my best. There is something about the city of Buenos Aires that does not click with me completely. Then again, it took me 6 months to begin to like NYC. That said, we will wait to pass final judgment.

You know those moments when you witness something so wonderful you just have to smile? Those moments that create a secret between you and yourself? Sometimes other people get in on your secret, when they see your internal smile and you lock eyes and share an understanding that what just happened should be preserved, imprinted in memories and tucked away to treasure at a later date. Tuesday night on my way home from volunteering I had a smile-with-myself moment. On my way into the Subte, I noticed signs saying that the station was closed and you had to walk to the next station to catch a train. Despite the signs, however, hordes of people were surging down the stairs, so I decided to follow. All of the turnstiles were blocked off with caution tape, but a security guard had opened a gate and people were flowing onto the platform for free. I waltzed through with them and took a place on the platform. Once my brain registered that there were people waiting for a train that was supposedly not coming, I also picked up a clapping noise that was going on. People all up and down the train platform were clapping in sync. A woman near me asked one of the clappers why she was clapping, and the woman, seeing me looking, told both of us that we should join in; the clapping was to show the train operators that the people are angry and want the train to stop at that station. Minutes later, amidst the claps, a train arrived, slowly inching along and finally stopping to pick us up. I was thrilled. That would NEVER happen in New York. MTA has schedule or route changes and you just suck it up and deal with it. I smiled the whole way home as I eavesdropped on a conversation next to me between an Argentine chef and a Korean visitor whose only language in common was English. In Buenos Aires, though, apparently the people have a good deal of everyday power. It sounds trivial, but the power to clap a train into changing its route is a big deal in my mind.

At breakfast a couple of days ago, the 9-year-old daughter of one of the women who works in our residence hall ate breakfast with us. She walked up the stairs, saw me and Desiree, and ran over and threw her arms around us. Having kids around makes such a difference in my happiness level; my happy energy skyrockets when I spend time with kids.

Classes are all solidly good, but I am not feeling intellectually stimulated here, which is hard. I love to love school. I miss my Social and Cultural Analysis classes that address the problematic elements in every part of society, while also talking about the power of the people and the ways that people rally against oppression. I miss analyzing dominant power forces in regards to culture and being assigned readings that help me develop my own thoughts, or put into words what I can not verbalize myself. Especially in light of the interesting immigration-related, racially charged, class-based, and city dynamics of Buenos Aires, I especially feel the lack of support, the lack of encouragement and nourishment for my brain and soul that I receive in New York.

Today I went to a huge bookstore that used to be a theater. Supposedly it is the largest in Buenos Aires. Every time I walk into a bookstore I feel at home. (I have realized I have an obsession with the idea of home. It comes out in most of my writing. One day I'd like to write a book called "Home and Wanderlust.")

The world continues to be small: Last night we were walking around a plaza near our residence, and a guy points at us and shouts "Punta del Este!!" Three guys from Switzerland who stayed at our hostel in Uruguay--and who we played cards with at the bar's happy hour--were in Buenos Aires, and just happened to run into us. They return to Switzerland tomorrow. Who knows if we will ever meet again, but it got me thinking: how many people in my life do I cross paths with multiple times and just do not notice? I'm sure there are tons of people in New York who I have seen on a subway train or walking down the street who I come across again in a restaurant or in a park, but we don't take note of each other. The world is too small for us not to be constantly crossing paths with each other, whether or not we realize it as it happens.

More will come soon. I let too much time pass between my posts.

With thoughtfulness and happiness that the people reading this have crossed my path,

L

Getting Lost

I really enjoy getting lost. Getting lost physically, en route to a destination, getting lost in thought, getting lost in love, getting lost in a book, getting lost in life.... It also scares me half to death sometimes, but at multiple points in my life, it is through getting lost that I have found my way. Yesterday, my compañera, a young woman from London and Barcelona whom I adore, and I got lost on the way to our volunteer site. We work in La Matanza, a province outside of the Capital. We take two buses to get there, and it's not well-marked at all, but still not super difficult to navigate once you've done it a couple of times. The problem is we enjoy each others' company so much that we got lost in conversation and got on the wrong second bus. We ended up about a ten minute walk from where we needed to go, in a neighborhood that is pretty run-down but very friendly and safe--if you're from there. We are clearly not. In the midst of different people giving us different walking directions to get to where we needed to go, a woman who we had seen at the busstop and her 11-year-old daughter took us under their wings and walked us the whole way to our destination. We encouraged them to utilize the programs at the Coop where we work, so she left her daughter with us and I spent the afternoon teaching her English and doing art projects with her and another girl. As I've gotten older I have realized that when my mom used to worry about me and be what I thought was overly cautious, there was some rhyme to her reason. Still, I have been very lucky and blessed in my life and have found people willing to share their light with me even in the darkest situations.

After spending the weekend on the beach in Uruguay, getting lost in the burning hot sun and the refreshing, beautiful, beautiful water, sitting through classes is painful. My motivation level is low; a huge part of me wants to leave school and work a desk in a hostel on the beach somewhere. I suppose it might be hard for me to spend my days hearing stories of other people's adventures getting lost, though. I'm learning how to navigate the Subte (subway) system here in Buenos Aires, though, so while I have yet to get lost underground, the possibility always lingers, and I'm feeling confident enough in my sense of direction that I get lost in my book while riding the train (I am currently reading Zora Neale Hurston's "Mules and Men," which I grabbed off the bookshelf of my dorm's lobby).

My 21st birthday is fast approaching, and it doesn't feel like March. I've never been in summertime weather around my birthday before, so maybe that's why; usually my birthday weekend ends up being the first day of sun for the season. I know a birthday is supposed to be a marker of maturity, of life progression, but I have never felt different when a new number gets tagged on to my introductions. I'm definitely growing...growing up though? As my mama always says, "you have to grow old, but you never have to grow up." 21 is supposed to signify American adulthood (meaning I now have license to poison myself with alcoholic beverages and still have to wait two years to rent automobiles), but I'm not so sure that's something I want.


(The picture above is "La Mano," in Punta del Este, Uruguay. I thought it fit well with this blog post. Why? I dunno, you tell me....)

With love and lostness,

Lilly

The world is small, Lilly is triggered, and the food is fantastic

If you know me even a bit, you probably either know or could guess that I absolutely adore family dinners. Growing up we used to sit down as a family and eat dinner together every night. At the time I didn't realize how special it was, but looking back, those dinners are such a huge part of who I am today. The talks, the check-ins, the arguments, the lapses when we would all space out in harmonious silence...important things to me to share with people in my everyday life. Last year in New York, Fam Night every once in a while with 3 pieces of my heart from home saved me from falling into depression during the wintertime and made me realize that home really is where the heart is, Sunday morning breakfasts with M and Z every week kept me from dreading Mondays and constantly kept a smile on my face, late-night runs to the taco truck with Savannah whenever I'm home are the best meals and best company in life...the list goes on and on. It is the beginning of week three in Buenos Aires, and already family dinners are a staple in my life and happiness here. A friend who spent the semester here last Spring warned me of the cliquey nature of the program here and cautioned me not to fall into a clique myself. I prefer to call us a family. My roommate, myself, and three of the boys from NYU who live across the street sort of just meshed into a dinner-going group that has evolved into my peace of mind.

That said, let me tell you about the important stuff: the food! I have two favorite restaurants thus far. Las Pizarras is right around the corner from our dorm; las pizarras means the chalkboards in Spanish, and every couple of nights they change the menu and write it on big chalkboards that hang in the restaurant. I've eaten fresh corn ravioli, beet and brie risotto, maracuya (passionfruit) creme brulee, and pear crumble with lemon sorbet there-- not to mention the wine list. My other favorite is a Mexican restaurant called Xalapa, which is a five to ten minute walk from us. Free corn chips and salsa, yummy guacamole and margaritas, and chilaquiles that taste NOTHING like the ones I love at home but are BOMB nonetheless. The last time we went for family dinner there, I'm sure everyone wanted to tape my mouth shut because I wouldn't stop talking about how much the interior reminded me of our breakfastnook at home (pictures of multicolored dried corn on the walls, the same Diego Rivera print we have up, callalilies painted on the deep-yellow walls...).

Classes are in Spanish and I am staying afloat thus far, but it still makes me a little nervous.... It will get better though, I know it will. Despite how much I adore my grupo here, I am speaking too much English and it's frustrating. Tomorrow is my first day traveling about an hour outside of the city to La Juanita (check them out at http://www.helpargentina.org/en/node/1268), where I will be volunteering for the semester, so I anticipate using my Spanish there a lot. The world keeps getting smaller and smaller. Initially I was assigned to a different NGO here who wanted my help with international partnership development and fundraising and databasing work. All stuff that I can handle and am decent at, but not the most engaging, and definitely not a job that would help me get to know this city better. Then I met with the man who pairs up students with orgs, and he basically told me my org didn't need me anymore. Perfect. I started telling him my interests, and he mentioned that he had a place in mind for me. I asked the name, and he told me La Juanita. When I told him that one of my best friends volunteered there, he got super excited, said that they love my friend and he's great, and decided on the spot to send me to work for them. This is not why the world is small.

Two days later, I went to MALBA, a contemporary art museum, to see an Andy Warhol exhibit and to meet up with a friend of a friend. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, she's a very friendly person who I can practice my Spanish with and a community activist here in the city. As she asked me questions about how my time will be spent in her city, I mentioned La Juanita. Of course she used to work with them, and although it has been many years, is very familiar with them and the work they do. And it goes without saying that she knows the other community activist who I met with two days prior to her; he works for an organization called La Base that gives loans to cooperatives in Buenos Aires, half of which are recovered factories. I bought some shoes from one of the coops and spoke with him and learned a ton about recovered factories in Buenos Aires (check out Naomi Klein's documentary "The Take," and my new contact's website www.elcambiosilencioso.com.ar). A new friend here came with me to the La Base office, and though neither one of us is entirely proficient in Spanish, afterwards we spent an hour in a coffeeshop enjoying cafe con leches y medialunas (mini croissants... typical breakfast here is cafe con leche and 3 medialunas) and speaking soley in Spanish.

On a very personal note, I am really trying and learning how to control my triggers. A "trigger" is something that people say or do that triggers you to be upset, to be offended, to lose your cool. Not that I am an angry person, but I have a lot of passion, and I have created such a niche for myself in New York City that I rarely spend long stretches of time around folks that might trigger me. Being here is a good experience for me, because I am realizing that my reactions are not always the most productive. I know that blowing up or shutting someone down for making an ignorant comment will either scare them away from ever broaching the subject again, or will make them hate me, or will cause them to get defensive and refuse to listen to what I have to say, or all of the above. Still, there have been moments (to my shame, I must admit) on the trip already when I have been triggered, and probably not responded in the most productive way. You live and you learn. Correction: I live and I learn. Along with productively handling my triggers is a renewed commitment to "I" statements. :)

Sending y'all some South American love,

L

P.S. Desiree and I just booked boat tickets and hostel beds for this weekend... we're heading to Punta del Este, Uruguay to soak up the sun at the last weekend on the beach before most people return to work after summer break!
P.P.S. So many run-on sentences! Apologies if they bother you. I've got a thing for commas and not pausing for breath until I have spoken my piece. Besos!

Traduttore, Traditore (Translator, Traitor)

Hola from Buenos Aires!! Read this with a mug of tea or coffee and ten minutes to spare, because it's a little lengthy. As usual, I've got too much to say.

Happy Valentine's Day--or el dia de los enamorados! It hasn't felt like Valentine's Day here to me much, which is nice, because in the past I have always been acutely aware of this day, and usually in a negative way. Today, instead of going out with my girlfriends and talking about how much we love each other and how maybe next year we'll be with someone on Valentine's Day, a small group of us went to Buenos Aires's Chinatown/Barrio Chino for the Chinese New Year celebrations. It turned out to be much smaller than we thought and pretty anticlimactic because we couldn't even eat at a Chinese restaurant because the lines were atrocious. But the sun was out, the wind was blowing, and despite my hunger and semi-bitchiness due to the hunger, I felt totally happy. We left Chinatown and headed to Palermo (the neighborhood I live in) for a late lunch and browsing through the outdoor market.

Let me back up a minute: Tonight marks one week since I boarded a plane for Buenos Aires from New York. I left the snow behind and landed in 88 degrees (sorry to all my NYC amigos reading this... I know gloating is mean!). After a long day of waiting around in the NYU academic center, getting fed, mingling with other NYU students, and checking in, we were bussed to our dorm. The pictures online of my residence hall look teeny tiny, and I had been told that Master (the dorm I live in) has bite-sized rooms, so you can imagine my shock when I walked into a room with floor to ceiling windows that open onto a balcony overlooking the corner of calles Paraguay and Uriarte. Perfect post-up spot for people-watching! My roommate is wonderful, which I already knew she would be; we have tons and tons of mutual friends in New York and it's a mystery to me how we haven't been friends til now. We have super high ceilings because we're on the top floor, our own bathroom, and plentiful closet space. The dorm has two parts, and across the street is where most of the boys in Master live and the cafeteria where a few of the nicest women I've met here work is across the street as well.

Everybody told me how white people from Buenos Aires are, but I am still in shock by just how white this city is. Not for the whiteness reason but not unrelated, this city feels like an American city, only everyone speaks Spanish instead of English. I'm learning how intensely impacted my experience as a tourist and learner is based on my perceived origins. My perception of a country like Nicaragua, for example, can never be the same as my perception of a country like Argentina, for the simple fact that I am able to blend in here, where there I can not. Being a noticeable foreigner inevitably alters the dynamics around me, sends ripples through a coffeeshop, alters the way that people speak (or choose not to speak) to me. Once I open my mouth all that goes out the door, of course, but being physically able to "pass" as a native here is definitely feeding into my perceptions of the city. (I love it so far.)

A professor here gave a lecture about a Cortazar short story during our orientation, and she quoted an old Scandinavian saying: "Once you cross the ocean, you're never on the right side." I loved it. I immediately wrote it down, as it fits right into my obsession and tenuous relationship with wanderlust. She spoke of codes and reading and understanding the code of the new space and having to start translating yourself at the same time. I keep thinking about how Sr. Puente, my middle school Spanish teacher, thinks that people take on different personalities/characters in each language they speak. If I'm different, I like to think it's only because of lack of ability to sufficiently express my usual personality. Like the other night, I asked the boys from NYU some question about "Do you ever wonder if/about..." and realized I ask questions like that all the time... but not in Spanish. That's not in my Spanish comfort zone yet, and so that piece of myself falls away when I turn to Spanish. Then again, aren't we supposed to be 80% speakers of body language? I like to think that my true self comes through, despite language barriers.

I wrote the above paragraph as I heard her speak. I carry my journal with me everywhere because I never know when something will inspire me to write. As I finished the paragraph, she spoke of the popular phrase "tradutorre, traditore," or "translator, traitor." I must pay attention to making sure that I don't betray myself in the process of translating myself.

Friday we went to Tigre, a delta river area about an hour from Buenos Aires proper. Of course my journal was in tow, and here are my thoughts from the busride home:
Nothing is ever so simple. Or isn't it? I'm sitting on a bus--2 story-- in the very front, watching the early evening "500 Days of Summer" train scene warm sun wash over the changing landscape. We passed the Argentinian flag and I thought how beautiful, peaceful, and happy it looks, and then immediately thought about how that must be at least partially a lie. There's always trouble beneath a seemingly beautiful, still surface. But then I thought--what a terrible way to live life. It's got to be possible to strike some balance between understanding the multiple and oftentimes upsetting dimensions of life and really just purely enjoying it. To be both blissfully happy, to bask in the gloriousness of life, and to address and never forget the crazy shit that takes place. (It's like I decided a year or so ago-- there is a vast difference between joyfulness and carefreeness; one signifies the ultimate presence, the other the ultimate absence.) I've got to step beyond the cushyness of this lifestyle I've just been presented with. It took me some time, but it was when I started living a real life in New York and moving outside the cushy that I really fell in love with the City. It's the spirit and the consciousness and the love and the knowledge of the people being most fucked over by the city that made me realize how alive of a place it is. (I recognize the problems with glamorizing or fetishizing struggle, but that´s for another post.)

Classes start tomorrow-- Mondays and Wednesdays I have a 9-5 of classes all in Spanish. We shall see how I hold up!

I might not be on the right side of the ocean, but it's definitely not wrong. I love you all!
Til soon,

L

On to another one

I meant to blog while I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, or to post my journal entries after the fact, like I did for Israel/Palestine, but it didn't happen and my thoughts are too focused on Buenos Aires and New York City and my beautiful friends who trekked out in the frigid cold last night to kick it with me while I packed til 3 am....

Perhaps I will blog later about Oaxaca. Let me just say that it was an amazing experience, and I am not avoiding writing on it because it was too insignificant; rather, it was too epic. To be honest, I don't think I've processed it yet.

I am on to another one. I leave tonight for Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I will be studying Spanish and living for four months. My mom is here and has been here for the past three days, which puts my mind at ease and makes it easier to go abroad. Not that I see her much these days, but I will spend this coming summer in New York (21, summertime, and the city?!), so the homesickness is mediated by her presence here in my apartment.

As much as I love NYC, I think that I've been in a funk. I feel my light diminishing. It will be good for me to spend some time away, drinking in the world and maybe finding a bit more of myself, so that I can exist again in this amazing, bustling city and hold onto me.

I have two confessions to make. Confession #1: I am terrified that my Spanish is not good enough for me to succeed in all my classes in Spanish, and just to live in a Spanish-speaking country. Oaxaca should've taught me that I'll be fine, since I was doing pretty well with communicating with everyone. I like to say that I understand fluently, but when I'm sitting in a literary analysis class in Spanish, will that hold true? Confession #2: Secretly, part of me doesn't want to go. I love my friends here and my life here and some of my friends keep shaking their heads at me and telling me that I move around too much, I don't know how to sit still, etc. (If you're a Lilly's-blog-reader, you know that all of this began with my friend's comment this summer about me not knowing how to stay in one place. Remember that? Well, our entire circle of friends picked up that notion, and they love to give me shit for it all the time.) Anyhow, I know that if I stayed, I would always wonder what studying abroad would've been like, and a part of me would always regret staying. I know that despite what my experience is like I will not regret making the decision to go abroad... but it's still hard to say goodbye so often. Like Jo said last night as we hugged goodbye at 3 in the morning, though: this is not goodbye, it's just a "see you later."

See you later! Stay tuned... I'll be posting regularly from Baires.

In love, admiration, and solidarity,

L