Un poco más argentinizada

As fate will have it…

Today I have to start telling people I’ve been in Argentina for 3 months.  Which means I also have to tell them I am scheduled to leave in 5 months.  Every day here brings a new surprise and I cannot imagine leaving this life in which every person, every moment seems so carefully arranged by fate.  It started before I even arrived, at Fulbright orientation in D.C. last June.  My roommate, Sam, was also from Massachusetts and headed to Argentina and ever since that first conversation filled with “No way! Me too!” she has been my expat soul sister, from calming pre-travel anxiety to sharing creepily similar reflections on our experience via Skype (she is in La Plata, which is pretty far south of me).  Then when I emailed Mini, my boss here, from the U.S., I found out she had taught Spanish a ferry ride from my town.  And now that I am in Rafaela things just seem to fall even more easily into place.  This is the first time I have made friends just by striking up conversation rather than through activities, so it is always remarkable to trace back how I met someone: usually the explanation is she/he is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend.  And despite the fact that we come from two different worlds and very often have little in common, there always comes a time that, in matters of the heart or the self, one of us exclaims, ¡Somos iguales! (we are the same).  

My Excuse

I feel that I owe all of you an apology for my delay in posting, but I swear it is not for lack of trying.  In fact, I have about three unfinished blog entries saved on my computer that I was so inspired to write at the time but was never able to finish because it seemed I would have to write an entire book to truly represent my life and reflections.  My first entries were much easier because I was able to share what travel books and “culture shock” guides will tell you, and I still agree with those words: Argentine people are in fact the nicest group of people I’ve ever met in my life, everyone does seem to be addicted to mate, meat here is delicious, bars open too damn late and man, do they hate their politicians here.  But at the same time, there is much more to be said about those truths.  Argentine people are warm and hospitable, but they are even friendlier to the foreigner: they are fascinated by other cultures and very family-oriented, so they are quite concerned about the one American girl living all alone in Rafaela.  And mate is just lovely until you have to prepare it for guests.  I think I’ve made every possible mistake: running out of gas for the stove and not knowing where to call to replace it, overboiling the water because I’m a bit lost without my whistling American teapot, getting the yerba stuck in the straw so that no one can drink out of it, and generally still struggling with the correct mate-sugar ratio (I’ll probably have it down by the time I leave).  And with respect to politics, my friends may have their opinions about the president and the way their government is run, but the same ones that list their criticisms will exclaim ¡pero amo mi pais! (but I love my country)

Not a good enough excuse?  Well, to be frank, in the moments when I should be blogging, I just get so excited about everything that happens to me here that I always have this huge urge to call or send a message to whoever is still awake to tell she/he about a new development in my life!  Cut me some slack, and now I’ll fill you in…

Work

A little bit about my job…I am an English teaching assistant in a public teacher training institute, helping to prepare future English teachers of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina.  It is a four-year program and I work with students from all four class years in their language classes.  My students are from 17 to 30 years old, as some come straight out of high school and others work before going back to school.  I am the only English teaching assistant in the institute, meaning that I am floating in the hierarchy somewhere between teacher and student and have found that I reap the benefits of both roles: with the teachers, I have great conversations about teaching ideas and feel comfortable sharing my day-to-day experiences with them, and I have also been fortunate to make some great friends who are also my students.  Not only are these friendships allowed, but they are encouraged: my first week in the institute, Mini introduced me to all of the classes saying “She likes to go out, invite her out this weekend!”  I teach at night since our building is shared with a high school in the morning and an elementary school in the afternoon.  I also help students outside of class throughout the week with essays and speaking practice.  “Speaking practice” is sometimes more structured, but other times I just let students go with any topic that interests them, from Argentine politics to relationship problems!

I love teaching for two reasons: First, I love to talk and it is really great to be able to expend that chatty energy in my job (although maybe I should expend a bit more…lately it seems that Skype cuts out whenever I am talking too much…I think it’s giving me a hint).  And second, the teachers and students are so excited to have a “native speaker” at their disposal that I think they appreciate my presence a bit too much!  In my head I’m always thinking, “But it’s just English! What is so great about my language?”  But to young Argentines, English is everything, and I’m not just referring to my students.  Most of my friends, students or working professionals, take English classes and often tell me how much they need to improve their English and how critical it is for them to continue to study the language.  So I guess this gets to the ugly part, the part I’m not as happy about: my job, in a sense, plays a small part in further invading Argentine culture with the English language.  I am slowly learning to pronounce English words with an Argentine accent, which turns out to be far more difficult than just speaking in Spanish: my roommate laughs every time I try to pronounce “hostel” like “hoe-stell” and the bar “Gossip” is actually pronounced “Goe-seep”.  All jokes aside, it pains me to see the prominence of the English language in other countries.  The last thing I want is for our culture to gain any more prominence on the world stage.  There is so much to love about getting into the minds and hearts of other cultures and I don’t want any of that to change.  I often find myself asking my Argentine friends what an American movie is about!!!  And I won’t conform to that.  I’m so obsessed with this culture that I have not left Rafaela since Easter!

El bichito raro (The freakshow)    

The biggest blessing and curse of being the only American girl in Rafaela: I am extremely popular.  I wish I could say that this is a result of my witty charm, natural beauty or innate intelligence, but the truth is, it is because I am American.  It would not be fair for me to blame anyone for their curiosity, considering that I am guilty of the same obsession with the foreigner in the U.S.  My sister jokes that no matter what bar we go to in Boston, I will always end up chatting it up with the one foreigner in the place.  And my senior year of college, I was considered a sort of groupie of the foreign language assistants from Europe and South America, so I understand this fascination with the unfamiliar.  Thus I receive many invitations from many different groups of friends and in every first encounter feel a bit like a bichito raro, which is basically a “freakshow”.  I take a deep breath and brace myself for the questions:

Do you think Osama Bin Laden is really dead?

Have you ever met someone famous?

Do you like enormous breakfasts, peanut butter, McDonald’s…the list goes on.

In my response, I usually admit that for the most part I believe what Obama tells me, the only famous people I met were NSync and living in the U.S. does not guarantee walking by famous people every day, and yes, I love pancakes and PB & J, but would not be caught dead in McDonald’s.  Read my response over again and note that it is probably the most basic, surface impression one could ever give of the United States.  But that leads me to the second encounter with the same people that asked me these ridiculous questions: it is usually lovely, full of much deeper conversation and the beginning of some very special friendships, so I will continue to endure and sometimes admittedly enjoy the rapid-fire questioning because that is what has sucked me into the community of Rafaela so much that I never want to leave!

“Yo no soy responsable”

If you did not already get this impression from the novel above, I’ll clarify for you that I am having the time of my life, which has been perfectly accompanied by the Black Eyed Peas “Time of my Life” cover, which is still being played in bars here.  And I owe it all to you…to every beautiful person that has come into my life here and made a change for the better.  I once told a priest I was struggling to find God after hypothetically stripping away all of the loving family and friends that had always reaffirmed my faith in a greater power.  His response?  “Stacy, that’s crazy.  Now why are you going to do that?  They are God.”  I want to write Father Hamel and say “You were right! I can’t do it alone!” because the people have truly made this experience for me (Father Hamel also told me I was going to get the Fulbright 3 months before I actually got it…next time I’ll probably take a priest’s predictions a little more seriously).

It all started with Samy.  I met Samy through Matías, who lived with the Fulbright ETA from last year, because he had told her about me and she is interested in all things U.S.A. so immediately jumped on the opportunity to get to know me.  As soon as I met her, she invited me to go out with her friends that night and to go to a horse show with some other friends the next day.  I quickly realized that I had met the social butterfly of Rafaela and two months later, she is still introducing me to new people!  Through Samy I met Pechu, and the three of us have been going-out partners in crime since we met!  Luckily for me, these girls are not only extremely kind and always looking out for me, but they have also been lifesavers on the fashion front: I never thought I would find myself wearing a sequined miniskirt with straightened hair and heavy eyeliner, but hey, when in Rome…With every fashion makeover, Samy exclaims “Cuando viene tu mamá, decíle que yo no soy responsable!” (When your mom comes to visit, tell her I am not responsible!)  But I think it’s a little too late for that…many people have already remarked that I am argentinizada, or “Argentinized”.

Most of what I do with my friends here is a bit bizarre and in a normal world might even seem a little lame, but Argentine people talk so passionately about any topic of conversation that I am always well-entertained.  Every Saturday night (or, more precisely, Sunday morning), my friend Juanchi drives Samy and me home from our usual bar, classily named La Bastarda, and while playing his “Stacy” playlist, which includes all of the oldies-but-goodies that made their way down to Argentina back in the day (think “Sweet Dreams”, “Take My Breath Away”, “You Shook Me All Night Long”), he embarks on an explanation of everything that is wrong with la Argentina, usually listing examples of government corruption and general inefficiency in the country.  Just your average Saturday night, but shared with entertaining friends it never seems that way.

I just hope that I can bring a bit of that Argentine conversationalist spunk back with me to the U.S.  Reserved, timid, shy, innocent, naïve…are just a few of the adjectives I would use to describe how I feel next to my Argentine friends, but maybe with a little practice I’ll start to incorporate some of that fired-up Argentine personality into my own speech, in English and in Spanish!  This Saturday night, Pechu and Samy toasted, A la liberación!  They were not talking about political liberation; rather, they referred to the freeing of their yanqui (in Argentina, the so-called only politically correct name for Americans, “Yankees”) companion, encouraging her to break a little bit further out of her shell.  A la liberación!