MY WEEKEND WITH CLASSMATES (this title would sound better in spanish....mi fin de semana con mis compañeros de clase....)

Friday I went to the house of a classmate from Anthropology to study and have lunch. Her house was in Godoy Cruz, which is the town bordering Mendoza to the south. I took the trolé to get there. The trolé is a bus which runs on electric cables that are strung from telephone poll to telephone poll. We have the same system in Cambridge, MA (not for the 96). Anyway, I got onto the trolé and it was packed because it was lunchtime aka the beginning of nap time (siesta hours). All the students were returning home for lunch and so were a million business people and luckily I found a spot to hold on. A guy was yelling at the bus driver about how it’s a problem that the company doesn’t run enough buses and the driver shouldn’t let more people on and so on and so on. I meet my friends and we went to Ceci’s house. She had cooked a piece of meat with roasted potatoes and yams. we ate and worked on our homework assignments for a few hours. her house was in a quiet neighborhood, on a curvy street, very American.

Saturday morning, I left the house at 10 AM to go to the bus terminal. There, I met Mateo and Ametista (from my program) along with Luciana, Andrea, and Rosana (mendocinas from my argentine lit class). we took a bus to the house/farm of another classmate, ana maria. we arrived at the house and walked the grounds a little. she has cala lilies growing, along with a grapefruit tree, a quince (membrilla) tree, almond trees, beets, tomatoes, radishes, and grapes growing on her property. we picked some radishes and almonds (not me) and went into the house. her great-grandparents had built the house at the turn of the century when the immigrated from Spain. the house doesn’t have heat (the thick mud walls insulate it) and the bathroom is attached, but outside. we started by helping her mother make empanadas, which was really fun. she had even made the dough herself. after assembling the empanadas, we set the table and got the fire going for the barbeque. the empanadas were cooked in a clay oven and the meat was all cooked over an open flame. we cut radishes and tomatoes to have some veggies with our dead cow.

after eating way to much with ana maria’s family (husband and two kids), we went for a walk through the tomato patch and picked some to take home. We had some mate (which is sort of like super strong tea) and sat around talking. I didn’t get back to the city until 10.30 PM.

Sunday, I literally did nothing. I spent the day watching television and drinking tea (ok, and doing homework). I watched ER, Law and Order and two hours of extreme makeover home edition. it was such a lazy day and reminded me of all the lazy Sundays I spent in carmie.

Monday, I went to my anthro class and we had a debate/discussion with some indigenous students on how the indigenous populations of argentina are viewed. Without notice, the profe asked me to comment on the American Indian population and I had to speak in front of the entire class (120 people). Then, a news tv crew (ok, two guys) was there and wanted me to comment on camera, in Spanish, about discrimination and racism from an American perspective. So, I gave a TV interview, but I’ll never see the thing because it won’t air until September.

My profe invited me to go with him, another profe and some students to cut cacti that afternoon. they are doing this project where they grow cacti near the university and if you cut the branches (round parts) of the cacti you can grow another one (you don’t even have to plant it really, they multiply like rabbits). so, we went and cut cacti and then brought them to another place to store them before bringing them to Lavalle, a poor area where a lot of indigenous people live. it was really fun and I had nothing else to do yesterday.

Today, we had a “public class” for anthro. we went to the legislative building which is on the pedestrian street right near the main plaza (aka a few blocks from my house). we started over an hour after we were going to (which means two hours after the class was scheduled to start). the entire class consisted of the professor and two students reading an article on the incorporation of Native American groups into Latin American society.

public classes were started as a way for students and teachers to protest together. the university is located on a hill, in the park. this puts it away from the center of the city where all the people are and, therefore, university protests on campus don’t call attention to anything. (although, they can piss people off, like last week when students blocked the entrance to the university, aka no bus access). while we weren’t really protesting, merely informing the public, it was still really interesting. reporters were there, as well as a group from the church and another group representing farmers without land (they weren’t really part of our class/protest/thing….our teacher hadn’t invited them; they came to do their own protest).

I finally found out about the food coupons. I had seen people in the food store paying for their groceries with coupons which look like food stamps. They come in booklets; each coupons is worth 5 pesos (1.65 USD). People use them to pay for their food and then pay the rest in cash. Our teacher sent me and another girl to buy thread (we were going to hang posters, but never bothered). He gave us the coupon book and some cash (not all places accept the coupons). I was finally able to ask someone what the coupons were. She told me that public employees (ie: our teacher and other state university teachers) receive a salary that comes in two parts: one in cash/money and the other in consumption coupons. When I asked her why this was, she told me that there just isn’t enough money in the country for the government to pay everyone in pesos. She said that the coupons became especially popular after the 2001 economic crash and now there is inflation (that was obvious to me) and they seem to be using them more and more. As far as the inflation goes, every day things are costing more and more. I think I wrote about the coffee/pastry inflation that happened on my block a few weeks ago. at the same time two cafes raised their “special” rate for coffee. A kiosk raised its price from $1 to $1.20 (coffee and bread) and a café went from $4 to $4.50 (coffee, tiny juice, and two croissants). While this doesn’t seem like much, its happening across the country. Today on the news they reported that fruit and vege prices may rise as much as 40% over the next few weeks. In September, all plane ticket prices went up 10%, all bus companies quickly followed suit and raised their prices by 10% as well.