beautiful places ive been

I've been away for several weeks traveling around Argentina. It was an amazing journey. I saw world-renowed ecological reserves and met some old souls. When i get home we should link up and i'll show you more pictures and tell you stories. I met a prophet, who i anointed the Prophet of the Glaciers. I met a baby jaguar. I raced across the argentine steppe on horseback and took a 30 hour busride mostly on a rocky dirt road through the southern hemisphere of the southern hemisphere. love laughter and enough sun moon and stars, lakes mountains and rivers, waterfalls and glaciers to last me for a good while.

a little waterfall in el bolson (sideways style)el chalten

el chalten
me looking tuff in el chalten (sideways style)
el calafate
glaciar perito moreno


horseback riding in el calafate

last week i went to colonia, uruguay by boat. it was a day trip. colonia is a town with an olllld european feel to it. you expect to hear the click clack of horse and carriage. the boat ride was surprisingly rough. people were shrieking, waves were banging on the side of the boat, stuff was falling off the shelves of the little cafe on board. i breifly contemplated death at sea. and then somalian pirates (who, i recently learned, donated money and resources to haiti) and found a happy place by thinking about fishing. once i was in colonia, i did what you do there: walked around, paid a few pesos to climb to the top of the lighthouse and look out onto the sea, ate some lunch, walked around some more, and went home. i felt rejuvinated being by the sea and was happy to get a break from the frantic pace of the city.



If you know where to find it, there's a decent amount of green space in the city. big beuaitful trees, sipping mate, and people watching go well together.




I also finally went to the cemetery in the recoletta section of town. I remember going to a cemetery in new orleans when i was a kid that had coffins set above ground in a smilar fashion. they weren't nearly as extravagant though. Eva Peron's body is in this cemetery. most of the names on the masoleums should be familiar to any ba city dweller beause almost all of these people have streets named after them. if you had to choose between a giant masoleum or a street name what would you chose and why? put me in the soil and give me flatbush ave. the why is a whole other convseration we can get into later.





"you inspire me to be a higher me"-lauryn hill

love to you all.

Thirty spoke converge upon a single hub,
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages, it is the intangible that makes it useful.
-Lao Tse

Above entry is from the Tao Teh Ching. It relates to my rant 2 posts back about my fascination with the UBA building. Its use of space and the way each room has such a completely different feel. Thelonious monk brings you there with much of his music...speaking of which heard some jazz at a spot down here called thelonious. thankgod for jazz music. and especially for live music!

Space. It'd be nice to have some.

I'm sick of city. I can't wait to spend some time in Bariloche and Igauza next month. Peep these links and you'll see why: (Iguazu: http://www.viajesmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/cataratas_del_iguazu.jpg) (Bariloche: http://www.ciberturista.com/imagenes/bariloche.jpg)

Below are a few more photos from Buenos Aires.
Congresso from the roof, 7pm, pre-storm
Rooftop, Congresso, 7pm, pre-storm
Skeleton keys open up doors here

Grab a bite to eat down under in the subway
peace & love

If Prince and Meatloaf gave birth to a 55 yearold manchild in a leather jumpsuit who could fill up a stadium and keep it rockin all night long, that would be who i saw perform last night a konex.

the snow looks beautiful yall. enjoy it!

The creator chose not to include the drizzle in her design of the BA ecosystem but she sure did teach it how to rain. It’s all or nothing down here and after a weeks worth of stifling heat with no rain a storm finally came to our rescue Friday night. If I wasn’t at a birthday party with a bunch of people I just met, I would’ve ran out into the street, got on my knees, bowed down, kissed the ground and skipped around the street hollering at the sky. It was that glorious and welcomed of a storm. Instead, I confided to the dude to my left that “neccesitemos un momento por dicimos gracias a el dio por the rain” He understood, and agreed.

Sunday afternoon I played in a futbol tournament that was also a fundraiser for Haiti. The tournament was organized world-cup style, 5 v 5, 16 minute games. The first team we played was one of the better teams in the tournament. We got whupped pretty good: 5-1. But it was our first time playing together and it was raining (and I didn’t have cleats). Our record on the day was 2-2, with yours truly scoring 3 goals, including a nasty left footed volley that blasted into the net from about 15 feet deep. It was probably my first left footed volley of my life and I freakin smashed it. We lost in the quarterfinals but put up one hell of a fight in the final match, losing 3-2 (to the same team that killed us 5-1 earlier in the day).

On the way back from the game I came across one of the most awesome celebrations I’ve ever seen. It was the 100^th birthday of a division III soccer club near the neighborhood of Belgrano. To celebrate the club’s birthday, about 500 folks of all ages (near newborns included) paraded down the street, onto the main avenue, into a tunnel, out the other side, and down another huge avenue. There were two 16 wheel flatbed trucks packed with people, a car with a giant paper mache mascot strung up to its roof, and other random cars and motorcycles keeping the procession moving. In a few other trucks were the drum players and EVERYONE—all 500, including the newborns, were singing the club songs in unison with a fierce look of pride on their faces. If a country ever sang its national anthem with as much passion, love, and intensity as these people were singing their club songs, I think the united nations would send a peace keeping force out of sheer confusion and a lingering suspicion that something big was on the verge of happening. Fireworks were blasting. Men and boys were chugging out of plastic coke bottles mixed with fernet (popular licoricey alcohol). The folks on the flatbed trucks were stomping and jumping so hard and in unison that the trucks bobbed up and down as if they were ships sailing at sea.

But hands down, the most amazing part of the parade was the sound of the marching band and everyone singing in the tunnel. I felt like we were marching for something righteous—even though in reality, at that point, I had no idea what we were marching for, just that it had to do with this soccer club. Even if I wouldn’t have wanted to clap and march with purpose down the street and through the tunnel like everyone else, I had no choice because the drums commanded it. The sounds and movement filled you completely. And people were celebrating HARD. Old weathered women with leathery faces who looked like they could sooth your deepest fears and then strike them right back into you if you started slippin were out in force, waving flags, and just generally running the scene. When the Giants won the superbowl back in ’07, I was with some pretty hardcore giants fans and partied out in the street after the game. This made that celebration, + yankess celebrations post world serious victories and the Puerto Rican day parade look tame. Granted it was only 500 people, but the energy and camaraderie was on another level. I can’t even fathom what this city was like when Argentina won the world cup.

i coulda been a contenda

I have just settled into somewhat of a groove here and I already have to start planning my departure. But more on that later...

I got a job! It’s a DJ gig at a popular tourist hangout. It’s nothing sexy. Hours upon hours of selecting MP3s until sunrise. The spot is frequented primarily by European and American tourists and one of the challenges has been educating myself on the musical tastes of people from all over Europe as well as reading the nationalities of a given crowd and figuring out what direction the set needs to go. Overall, it’s a fun gig. I'm learning a lot about all sorts of new music scenes, everyone I work with is awesome and it sure does feel good to get paid in cash. I’ve been using virtual dj and can’t believe how freakin easy it is to mix songs and put together a set. There isn’t much of a craft to it, but if the objective is to turn out a flow of music that gets a party live, it does the trick. It's fun to see what random tracks will just hit that collective spot. Last night it was jamoroquai.

here's a little hating for all you haters out there: one obnoxious characteristic of city life here is the general lack of subway etiquette. Rush hour in el subte is nuts. I’ve accepted with little thought the common occurrence of people hurdling themselves into a jampacked train car to make room for one more and am unfazed by the barrage of body parts and unfamiliar scents that accompany a rush hour ride. But what is with incoming passengers not stepping aside and letting me and my fellow riders off before they enter the car? A woman pushing a stroller with another kid hanging off her shoulder is forced to fight her way out of a train. I’ve almost lost it a few times, as I too struggled to get out before the pinch of the doors. Other times I’ve just laughed to myself, imagining the “talking to” that would occur back home if some dressed to the nines urban chic chica in designer shades bullied her way into an already overcrowded car. You know some elder who thrives off of putting others in their place would not be able to resist. Here, it's just part of the rhythm of the city and is accepted. 

I’ve been bad and have barely taken any pictures but i'll post a few of the pictures i've taken below. this is a description of one scene I have in my head:

The Universidad de Buenos Aires escuela de idioma building. 5 de Mayo 225. Yellowing limestone on the outside. Wide 14 foot double door entrance. Sprawling, wide staircase the extends 5 flights up. Paint is yellowing and peeling everywhere. there's some major crackage along some of the walls and chunks missing from the marble floors, broken planks on the wooden steps. Despite the dilapidated state of the building, the elevator offers the most efficient and smooth service of any I’ve been in yet in the whole country. There’s a little café and concession shop inside the school that sells media lunas for 1 peso, café, water etc. students and teachers sit at the counter and slurp down coffee before they head to class. It’s got a TV hanging from the ceiling that usually plays the local news and VH1. It feels like the type of school hangout that Zack and Kelly from Saved by the Bell would be in. The saved by the bell vibe starts and ends in the snack shop though. The building is elegant, raw and forceful, like a giant knobby tree that hangs over a street, its trunk tattered with engravings, its roots bulging through the cement. there's a lingering scent of mothballs in some of the hallways because that’s what's put in the urinals to keep it from smelling like piss. The classrooms are all different shapes and sizes, some with tiny windows that let in slivers of light and others with huge balcony windows that open up onto the busy street. Each room has a vastly different temperature and pressure. When I’m in this building, I feel very aware of its physical structure and of its purpose. This is the first time i've ever thought this about a building--it feels alive. I feel lucky to be inside it. I want to find out more about its history.


in some parts of buenos aires, construction is everywhere. i bet in a few short years this skyline will be completely different.
street in palermo


commuter rail that separates two neighborhoods, at sunset




the ford falcon was used to pick people up prior to their disappearances



okay. that's all the photos you get for now they take forever to load. i'll take and post some more soon.

So back to what i led this post with: the reason I’m heading home early is because I was accepted into a teaching program that begins this summer and need to get back to the states to prepare for what’s to come. i have many thoughts about these earn your degree while you teach in the highest need schools teaching programs. but i'm not going to share those right now. come this summer, i will be a part of the positives and negatives associated with these programs. and i intend on working my ass off to stay true to myself and the kids i'm serving. Anyway i will be in Buenos aires for about another month and then i hope to travel to a few places that are calling my name including patagonia, chile & bolivia.

more to come.

much love everyone.

My heart has been aching for Haiti and for those with loved ones there. I was struck by the words of the Haitian minister of tourism, who a day or two after the earthquake, after losing his family and his home, said “this is bad today, but one must remember that we have the historical memory of slavery here, what can be worse than that?” I have no idea how many people in Haiti feel a connection to the legacy of slavery in their day to day lives. Apparently the minister of tourism does. In my life and worldview, history plays a crucial role in the present. How many people out there feel connected to their history? How many more people draw on their connection to their history in times of suffering?

The past few days, I’ve spent a lot of time on the web reading articles and looking at photographs. The media out here in Argentina seems to be really playing up the “potential for anarchy to break out at any moment” angle. I was surprised, particularly in the US media, post-Katrina, to see the term “looting” used so often. In my mind, the difference is pretty clear: those who take for personal gain = looters. Those who take for survival = survivors, victims, or perhaps they could be described as they are. For example: “A young man searches the ruins of a collapsed grocery store for food and water.”

David Brooks, a journalist who up until recently I respected, wrote an op-ed entitled “The Underlying Tragedy” in the Times that is another example of how accepted racist thought is in the media, in society in general, and also how full of shit a lot of journalists are when they pretend to have compassion for other peoples’ suffering. The tone of the editorial is matter of fact. practical. If you were sitting in Brook’s living room discussing the tragedy, he would’ve led with “I know this isn’t politically correct, but this is one of those times when adhering to political correctness keeps ‘us’ from talking about the real issues. let’s be real.”

Brook’s asks readers to consider why it is that the Dominican Republic withstood this earthquake with relatively minimal damage while Haiti is suffering its greatest national disaster ever and a death toll of tens and tens of thousands of people. His response is “poverty”. And in his explanation for why Haiti has been stuck in such dire poverty, he asks readers to accept four “hard truths”: 1) “we (meaning the US government & other rich nations) don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty.” 2) “micro-aid is vital but insufficient 3) the role of the “thorny issue of culture” and 4)the need “to promote locally led paternalism” that involves imposing “middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.”

Basically, Brook’s asserts that Haitian culture is a main culprit, a root cause in the poverty of the nation and in its history of suffering. And that the failure of outside nations has been a failure to implement what he calls “locally led, paternalistic programs” that root out the negatives of Haitian culture. He outlines three main problems in Haitian culture: 1) “influence of the voodoo religion” (he doesn’t provide any specifics) 2) “high levels of social mistrust” (again no specifics) and 3) “child rearing practices [that] often involve neglect..” that have prohibited the country from embracing the type of change that could have helped build the infrastructure that reduces poverty and thus the degree of suffering in the aftermath of a natural disaster like this earthquake. He uses both the D.R. and Barbados as examples of countries that have endured either slavery or dictatorships and yet have the infrastructure to deal with large-scale natural disasters. Cuba, not surprisingly, isn't mentioned.

Not once in Brook’s article does he mention specific structural forces such as debt-inducing loans or factors such as the nonprofit industrial complex and racism, as playing any role in Haiti’s struggle for economic stability. He gives no supporting data/evidence for his cultural claims. The two main experts he sites throughout the article are Samuel P. Huntington and Lawrence E. Harrison. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” is used to justify military action by both US military forces and Muslim extremists by proclaiming that the east and west contain inherent contradictions and cannot coexist. That one must go for the other to survive. Harrison recently co-authored an article entitled “Getting Mexico on Track” in which the opening line states that “Mexico has not been able to find its way to development because Mexicans lack confidence in themselves.” These are the experts that support and give credence to Brook’s worldview.

As if it were a new innovative approach, Brook’s suggests that America should go into a country, assert that that country’s religion and culture is backwards, and find local leaders to push a pro-America agenda. And I guess it wouldn’t be all that surprising if it wasn’t for his timing and for the fact that I thought he was a journalist with a degree of integrity. Perhaps I’ve given him too much time and too many words. I started writing this wondering about the past, how it informs our lives, and half wondering how, half praying for, Haitian people to use the past, or whatever else they can, to find strength to keep on surviving…