Health care, hip hop, and house parties

I'm on fire here - three posts in a week could very well be my record while I'm here - but I thought I'd post briefly about how the week ended up.

My presentation on health care reform in the U.S. turned out really well. It was great to present on something so interesting and so historic for the U.S. As I told the classes I presented to, I tried hard to be as unbiased and factual as possible; but it's hard not to emotionalize an issue like health care when there are 45,000 people dying every year in the U.S. solely because of a lack of coverage. One of the things I mentioned is that the U.S., which has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $14.5 trillion, ranks 37th in the world in health care, according to the World Health Organization. Costa Rica, with a GDP of $48.5 billion - or less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the U.S. economy - has free universal health care and ranks just ahead of the U.S. at 36th. One of the things that really hit home for my students here is that there are currently 45 million people in the U.S. with no health insurance (and thus virtually no health care) - and that's more than the entire population of Argentina (40 million).

In any case, the students seemed really interested and engaged in the presentation, and they even asked some really intelligent questions afterward that I struggled to answer fully. (One student asked roughly what percentage of a person's income goes toward health insurance when they have health benefits, or "employer-sponsored" insurance. I was stumped.)

Besides a great week of work, I had quite a few adventures along the way as well. On Monday night I went to see a Brazilian drumming show with my roommates. The same drum corps, la Bomba del Tiempo, plays at this club every week, and it's an absolute blast. Thursday night we went to a really cool bar close to our apartment in Palermo, and then took a taxi to a hip hop club on the other side of Palermo. The club was amazing - there was a massive break-dancing circle when we got there, and it lasted over an hour. I'm pretty sure it was mostly semi-professionals trying to make it big in Buenos Aires, so it was pretty incredible. After a while the club's professional group took over and danced for about 15 minutes. Then at 3:00 a.m., when most clubs in the U.S. would either be closing or have already closed, the break-dancing ended, the DJ took over, and the dance floor opened up to the rest of the club.

Friday night I tagged along with my roommate Mads to a house party a few of his Argentinean friends were having in the southern part of the city. Conforming to the local culture of very late nights, we arrived at the party around midnight (after a 40-minute bus ride from Palermo), ate grilled meat and vegetables, had some Mendozan wine (Mendoza, in the west of Argentina close to Chile, is world-renowned for its wine country, which rivals the vineyards of Spain and France), and hung out in the hosts' patio until we were too droopy-eyed to stay any longer. There were about twenty Argentines there, all around our age, and they were a lot of fun to hang out with. Another great night in BA.

I'm about to go check out the famous weekly Sunday flea market in San Telmo, near the center of the city. It's supposed to be really cool - I'll post pictures of it when I can.

Check it out!

Two posts in the same week - not bad, right? I thought I would post these pictures of my bedroom and the view from my balcony, which I share with my German roommate Francesca and is right outside both of our bedrooms. Isn't it great? I keep the door open all the time when I'm around - even after a week in this apartment, I still can't get enough of the view.

As promised, the work has definitely picked up quickly. I'm actually doing my presentation on the U.S. health care system, the reform legislation, and the "great debate" of the past year tomorrow (Thursday) instead of next week. So I've been working nonstop on a Powerpoint presentation the last few days, and I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. (And get this - I'm even done with it the night before! No all-nighters for me, haha. My college friends would never believe it.) I'm getting excited to present it tomorrow! I know this makes me a huge dork, but I kind of wish I could upload the document here to show you all, haha. I found some really funny political cartoons - and some others that are pretty intense - both for and against the reform bill. I also included some pictures from the lively and sometimes raucous political rallies over the past year. (My favorite pro-reform sign: "WWJD? Heal the sick! Health care now!")

As I mentioned in my last post, I've gotten really into the health care issue over the past year, so this has been one of those projects that's so much fun to work on that you almost forget it's work. I'll actually be doing other (somewhat smaller) presentations on Martin Luther King and either FDR or JFK in the next couple of weeks. I may not get quite as immersed in those presentations as I am in this one, but I'm definitely still excited for those ones - especially the MLK one. To say the least, I'm really lucky that the work will be so interesting here. When I switch to the next institute I'm working at in early May, I'll even get to lead (along with the professors, of course) discussions of a few American novels. Qué suerte, no?

So let me explain more about my work schedule. I'll be teaching (or "TA-ing") at four different "tertiary institutes" (or colleges) in the city: two teacher-training colleges and two language institutes. Since I'm here for eight months, I'll rotate and work two months at each of the four. (Check out those math skills - impressive, right?) The work will vary slightly at each institute, especially depending on whether it's a teacher-training college or a language institute; but the basic idea is the same, which is that I'm here to teach both the English language and U.S. culture. In addition to working at the four colleges, I'll also be sent out to a number of primary and secondary schools in Buenos Aires for one-time class visits, which I think will be a blast. Just like in Holyoke, I'll get to work with kids of all ages and backgrounds. Since English classes are emphasized pretty heavily in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, my program wants to maximize the number of students in the city who get access to a native speaker. Which is fine by me! I won't start visiting primary and secondary schools until May, but I'll have six solid months to meet kids all over the city.

Which brings me to the next part of my work here: my side project. Because I'll only be teaching for a maximum of 20 hours a week, the Fulbright Commission requires that I work on a self-designed project that contributes to the local community in some way. Many of you know about my project already, but for those of you who don't, check it: I'm trying to set up a "pen-pal plus" correspondence program so that the Argentine students I meet can experience even more intercultural exchange, especially with American kids their own age. From the primary schools all the way up to the colleges, I'm trying to match students in Holyoke, Springfield, East Longmeadow, and Boston with students in Buenos Aires. International "penpaling" can be a really fun and rewarding experience, and I'm hoping to establish a more extensive and permanent way for my Argentine students to interact with Americans. In addition to the pen-pal portion, I hope the "plus" part of the project will include online video-chats between Argentine and American classes via Skype, so that 1) the Argentine students can hear other native English speakers, in addition to me, and 2) all the students, both Argentine and American, can "meet" the foreigners they're writing to. The Skype part might be a lofty goal because of the logistics involved, but I'm determined to make it work. Partly because I think it would be a great experience for everyone involved; and partly because I promised my Holyoke kids I would make it happen. (If Ms. Rigali's and Mr. Leveton's classes see this, I'll be in touch with you guys soon!)

Big day tomorrow, what with the presentation, so it's off to bed for me. Good night!

Safe, sound, and settled in Argentina

So today is the three-week mark since I got to Argentina, and I'm finally resurfacing! It's been an incredible three weeks, and so much has happened already that it will be impossible to include everything here. But I'll do my best to hit the highlights.

First of all, I am, at long last, settled in an apartment. I was in a hostel downtown for just over two weeks, but I just moved on Wednesday into a really great place in a district/neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Palermo. Palermo is a bit removed from the center of the city, so in general it's a quieter, calmer section, but it's still a very popular and active place. In other words it's much more residential and "leafy," but there are still countless cafés, bars, and restaurants throughout - Palermo is known for its nightlife - as well as numerous parks (including the biggest in Buenos Aires, 62 acres worth), museums, sports stadiums, and even the Buenos Aires Zoo. In short, it's an amazing place to live, and definitely worth the roughly 30-minute trip from downtown (including a 10-minute walk to the subway station from my house).

I've been incredibly lucky to make a lot of great friends already. Standing in the lobby of my hostel on my third day in Argentina, completely by coincidence, I met Anna, the other English-language TA in my program. She's from England, and in a lot of ways we've seen each other through the trials of the first few weeks of adjusting here. She's also introduced me to countless people, including her own friends and acquaintances from the UK (this city is teeming with Brits) and also an Argentinean guy named Patricio, who's extremely nice and has become a good friend already. We've actually taken two day-trips out of the city with Patricio, first to the suburb of Buenos Aires where he's living (Olivos), where we met his family and hung out with him and his friends, and then to an island called Tigre, which is a popular tourist destination. Patricio is one of those understated, easy-going guys who's up for anything, and I was really lucky to meet him, especially so early on. The day we went up to his apartment in Olivos, we stopped and ate at a riverside café with his friends in San Martín, an absolutely beautiful suburban town on the Río de la Plata. We walked along the river for a while in San Martín, checked out the outrageously nice houses and also a quirky antiques market, and then hopped back on the train and headed to his apartment in Olivos, where we sat around and had coffee, toast, and chocolate, in true Argentine fashion. As if the day hadn't been fun enough, we all headed up to the roof of his apartment building, which had an unbelievable 360-degree view of the river, the city, and, yes, the sunset. It was a picture-perfect day.

I've also really bonded with my new roommates, who are incredible people and really fun to hang out with. There are seven of us living in the house right now - I keep calling it an apartment, but it's actually a three-story house, connected to our landlords' house on the bottom floor. Our landlords are an older couple: Sara drops in to give us homemade pies, and Jorge is constantly giving us advice about the best non-tourist places to go in the city. In terms of roommates, there's me, a Danish guy named Mads (pronounced "Mess"), an English girl (Christina), an Australian girl (Rosy), a German girl (Francesca), and a Spanish couple. I was definitely disappointed at first that I wouldn't be living solely with Argentineans, because I really want to speak as much Spanish as possible; but my roommates are great and I'm speaking enough Spanish otherwise, so I can't complain.

Am I doing any WORK, you ask? (haha) It's actually been a slow start because classes are only just starting at the teacher-training colleges. The work is picking up fast though, which I'm excited about, especially now that I'm settled in an apartment. (I guess I should explain that I'll be working as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for English classes at four different teacher-training colleges in Buenos Aires. I'll explain more in my next post.) I did start work this past week, and my first day of class was awesome. Anna and I are at the same institute for the first few weeks, so we actually got to explain a lot of the differences between British English and American English. (We did our best not to confuse anyone during a 20-minute conversation about being "on vacation" in the U.S. versus being "on holiday" in the UK, but I just got an email from one student saying "Happy Easter - which is much easier than holidays, vacations, etc.!" So we might need to revisit that one next week, haha.) The students and professors seemed to really enjoy asking us questions about U.S. and British culture and current events (health care, anyone?), and we'll get to do our own presentations on those kinds of topics too, which will be great. The professors actually asked me to do a presentation on the U.S. health care system, as well as the debate over reform and the brand new legislation, which most of you know is something I've followed closely over the past year. So that's exciting. So a slow start, but it's picking up. I'm hoping to get the penpal program started soon, too - I'm working on a correspondence program between Argentinean and American students. I definitely miss my Holyoke kids, so it'll be great to get that going.

There's much more to report, but I'd better pace myself. Happy Easter to you all, and to my New Englanders, enjoy the warmer (and drier!) weather. Sometimes I fall behind in responding, but always feel free to email me, and I promise to respond as soon as I can.

In the meantime...Red Sox - Yankees, anyone? Happy baseball season, everyone. Go Sox!!