Starving and Lost in a Third World Country
Chaim Eliyah
Ebbtide Staff Reporter
I felt a tremor about being at the barrel end of arms from a foreign military, especially with signs saying “No trespassing, the soldiers can open fire” – a statement which was just as crystal-clear in Spanish as it would have been in English.
I had been walking the almost 30 kilometers from the town of Puerto Iguazú to the famous cataracts. I had exhausted nearly all of my water supply, and I was beginning to wonder if the famed falls actually existed. Then, I saw the sign. Left: Brazil. Straight: Iguazú. Great, I thought. More walking.
To get to the Iguazú Falls one must enter a national park and walk through shops, restaurants and trails. The falls were magnificent. I had previously seen Niagara Falls, which in comparison with Iguazú is rather small – and that’s saying something. The largest part of Iguazú, charmingly titled the Throat of the Devil, is awe-inspiring. It feels like time stops as one stands and watches something so powerful, and one shivers to know that millions of gallons of water fall every second to the bottom of the falls nearly 300 feet below. I walked away having gained new perspective on life, which had something to do with how truly small I was in comparison with the rest of nature.
I met up with the group that night, and we walked around Puerto Iguazú, enjoying cheap shopping and intrigued by the fact that there, like everywhere else in Argentina, they seem to play a lot of music from the United States. I tried conversing with someone about music, but he was disgusted by the fact that I called all music from Latin America “latin music.”
Upon return to Buenos Aires, most of our time was spent either in class or at a rather lively bar called the Kilkenny. It was an Irish bar – I guess everyone in the world knows about Irish bars.
One thing that broke my heart is that at that bar, as in other places in the city, you could find children outside at all hours of the night begging for money to get something to eat. Another wrenching sight is the cartoneros, who collect recyclable trash from the city’s garbage bins to earn a meager living.
While back in Buenos Aires, we attended an international soccer game in Boca Stadium. The Boca team won. I honestly don’t even remember the name of the other team. The only time the visitors scored a goal, you could hear a pin drop in the stadium except for the constant chanting of Boca’s fan club. “Dale Boca.” English: “Go Boca.”
We had some tango dance lessons while we were there, and found that tango was like walking only much more complex. Some of the guys developed crushes on the tango school instructors. I’m not sure if anything came of it. You have to dance pretty well to impress those girls.
We visited other older neighborhoods in Buenos Aires including La Boca and Mataderos, which had shopping and tango and other dances native to Argentina. We visited Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, which as the same suggests is a town preserved from the colonial era. Uruguay, I learned, was created in the war between Brazil and Argentina because neither side wanted to fight anymore. I wish all the world were so.
When it came time to leave Buenos Aires, nobody was exactly excited about the prospect. We all received certificates of completion from programs at BAESP (Buenos Aires Espańol, our institute there) showing that we had completed a course in Spanish as a foreign language. Most of us had trouble fitting all of our stuff into the bags we originally came with. But only a couple of people actually said they were ready to return. I asked to look up options for cashing my ticket in and staying. Another group member, Ryan Christofferson, vowed to come back and spend some months in Buenos Aires.
It’s the kind of city that grows on you quickly; I think all of us were changed by the experience. I for one will definitely go back to work there, and my eyes have opened to the possibility of other international experiences - which, I must admit, I once thought wouldn’t be possible. I owe thanks to Spanish instructor Rita Wirkala, to International Programs Director Colleen Ferguson, and to Shoreline Community College for making such wonderful programs possible.
Chao.
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