Ch-ch-ch-changes

So, forget everything I said about being in Bariloche. There was a last-minute change of plans due to some problems at my assigned church, and so I will now be living and working in Montevideo, Uruguay with my friend and fellow YAGM, Kirsten.

I´m pretty happy with the change; Montevideo sounds like an absolutely incredible place - essentially a smaller, more laid-back version of Buenos Aires, where I´m at currently. Buenos Aires is, simply put, HUGE. It´s metro population is nearly the same as NYC´s, and it SPRAWLS - this is probably the mos massive-feeling city that I´ve ever visited. And I LOVE it, too - fast-paced, great people watching, and oh-so-European. The city feels like a slightly grittier version of Rome minus the ancient ruins. There´s also a definite Parisian air to BA, too, thanks to all the cafés, pastry shops, and wide avenidas. The world´s widest street is here - Avenida 9 de Julio. It´s massive and has two other streets running alongside it, making for something like 24 lanes of traffic to cross.

On Thursday, the international day of remembrance and protest for the disappeared and detained, we went to the Plaza de Mayo to be with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. These women lost their children during the military dictatorship of the late 1970s (which the US supported, by the way - we trained their secret police operatives at the School of the Americas), and so they began gathering at the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada (the Argentine equivalent of the White House) to demand justice for their children´s deaths simply for being too liberal for the government´s tastes. They still march every Thursday. This Thursday, being a special occasion, there was a big active art display in the Plaza - notebooks with names and pictures of the disappeared, and you were supposed to write the names of the desaparecidos over and over again in the notebook to help preserve their identity for all time. After the march, we sat down with a few of the Madres, who told us their stories of loss and their quest for justice and awareness.

Today, on a much lighter note, we had a free day, and so the group of us went to La Boca, one of Buenos Aires´ most colorful neighborhoods, both literally and figuratively. Many of the buildings there are covered in brightly-painted tin, and there was a big street market, complete with drumming, dancing, and the like. I got ambushed by a pair of VERY lovely Argentine women in tango dress (La Boca was more-or-less the birthplace of tango culture) for a photo; I am not complaining about that.

More stories to come later, I´m trying to get out of here in less than half an hour. Chau!