La ciudad

Our professors decided to give us a taste of the city yesterday, that ended up being a lot of fun. THey made eight of us leaders, including AMy, Hillary, and me. The leaders had a map and basic instructions on what bus and train to take into the city as well as the time that we needed to return to the place we are staying. They then told us to have fun and that they would see us in time for dinner. At first, I was a little nervous, but I quickly became accustomed to the transportation of the city and to the ways that people move about the city.

The city is not what I expected. Instead of being like the cities in the US, the poor areas are on the outskirts and then the city becomes much richer as you travel into the downtown area. It was wierd and stange to first see the poverty of the city in the outlying areas before seeing the wealth of the downtown area. The place we are currently staying is in one of the outlying areas. In many ways it resembles the cities that I´ve been to in AFrica. There are dogs, cats, and trash everywhere. Even some of the construction of the buildings reminded me of AFrica. THe only main difference was that there were fewer paved roads. So since the outlying areas was my first taste of Argentina and Buenos Aires, the city was not as spectacular as I assumed it would be. It is a great city and there are lots of neat parks, stores, cafes, and museums, but in many ways it seemed to me to be a mask hiding the poverty and the reality of the country. If you only saw the downtown of the city, you would assume that the country is doing well and that it doesn´t have problems with poverty and inequalities. But since I saw the outlying areas first, I had the impression of the countries inequalities in my mind when I also saw the richer areas. ç

Seeing the strong economic gaps in the city makes me excited to get to know my host family on Saturday and to see what they think about these inequalities and more importantly what the church here is doing about these issues. A man came to talk to us this morning about the situation of the Latin American church. He said that Latin America is the continent with the greatest disparity between the rich and the poor. Before yesterday I may would have doubted him, but I don´t anymore. The gaps are very evident and sad to see in many ways.

The group of students from Wheaton is a lot of fun. We spend a lot of time laughing in our attempt to speak Spanish and are becoming good at mixing Spanish and English together in one sentence for a rather comical effect.

Tomorrow we are going to an orphanage to the south of the city and then we will be taking more tango lessons tomorrow night. I can´t wait.