A story of grafitti, an 1830 house and the world’s biggest dinosaur discovery.

What does a walking tour, four hours of sleep and a painted astronaut all have in common? That was my state of existence last Saturday when I went on a graffiti tour of the city. I will first explain the sleep. So the night before, a few friends and I (including my fellow PC friend, Brian) decided around 3 am that after a long night out that it wasn’t time to go home, rather to stay out and watch the sunrise – so that is exactly what we did. The rest of our night included, a 5 am stop to get choripan (the most delicious bread and sausage combo), a subte ride to Puerto Madero (the port), a chat with a hotel guard, and finally the sunrise over the ecological reserve. Granted, we we were all eaten alive by mosquitoes for the two hours it took until the sun rose (it rose much later than we anticipated – around 7:15), but we all thoroughly enjoyed witnessing a “Lion King”esque sunrise while singing Hakuna Matata. So that is why I had four hours of sleep. The next day I was going on graffiti tour and it was lovely.

Lion King

Final classes, a final month

School’s out! I walked outside of CEDES, the place where we take classes, with my notebook in hand, and threw my Spanglish-infested notes into the air. Clase de Derechos Humanos y Movimientos Sociales was done forever and I was a new woman, ready to walk the streets of Buenos Aires, lecture-free. Just kidding, I did none of that but I am excited to be on to the next phase of my study abroad experience. The ISP—independent study project. For the last month of my program, we are all given the assignment to pick a topic, of our choosing, to study and research through the final days of our program. We must write a 20-40 page paper in Spanish and give a presentation on it at the end. I will admit that the progression of my stress over the past two weeks had escalated greatly due to the oncoming nature of this project, but now that I have figured some more things out, the stress is slowly diminishing. Anyway, the past few weeks have involved many emails to local organizations, trying to coordinate interviews, meetings with my advisors and un poco research. My topic is on the lack of access to water and problems with water contamination in the area of Claypole, part of the province outside of Buenos Aires. There is a trash dump very near this neighborhood in which trash seeps into the groundwater, contaminating it. Since many people in this community don’t have access to water networks, many of them dig deep holes in the ground to get their water, which due to the contamination has lead to many health problems. There is a social organization and group of University of BA students called Taller de Aguas, who work with the community to improve the water situation, which I am interviewing on Wednesday, along with community members. I am excited to begin working on this and I shall let you know how it goes over the course of the next three weeks.

In the meantime, here is summary of the last eventful days of class.