La Historia de Argentina

HoLa AmIgOs!

It is official: about t-minus 2 days until my family gets here!!!! I am so excited! You have no idea! I am thrilled to show them where and how I have been living for the past 4 months. With the extremely crowded subte (the subways) rides, to the various catcalls on the street, to the mountains and mountains of empanadas they will eat, my family will get a small sample of how my life has been while living here.

This weekend Buenos Aires offered their annual "La noche de los museos" where they opened 174 sites (including museums, cultural centers...)to the public for FREE from 8pm until 3am! During that time, I made my way over to 3 museums! I saw multiple exhibits at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, such as a Francisco de Goya exhibition and other famous paintings from the XII, XX, and XIX centuries. From there we walked to the Borges Museum which showed the works of Jorge Luis Borges, a famous Argentine author. Being a Spanish Language and Literature major, I have both read and analyzed a good number of his books, poems, and his life, so it was very interesting to pair the museum with the information I already knew concerning Borges. Finally we ended the night at the Evita Museum, which honors the life and social works of Eva Perón prior to her passing in 1952. In addition to being the first lady, Eva Perón was a strong advocate for the well being of the working class and woman's suffrage in Argentina. To many people in Argentina she is seen as a saint, love by millions. The museum reflected that admiration!

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

Eva Perón

Then on Sunday three friends and I went to the ballet "Manon" in the Teatro Colon, an opera house finished in 1908. The ballet was a tale of a young woman who is being forced into a marriage with a wealthy older man, yet she falls madly in love with a local intellectual. Sounds like Moulin Rouge to me! The costumes were remarkable and the lead was a beautiful dancer!

Ballerina Abbey

Teatro Colón

Buenos Aires is a city that is strongly influenced by literature. It is one of the main publishing cities in South America. With this, my Argentine Literature course has been full of interesting accounts about the city of Buenos Aires. In my "Language in Action" course after reading about an area in the city we do monthly walking tours to different locations to help us fully experience the readings. So far we have visited areas that were the heart of the city in the 1920s, areas that reflect the European influence on the city, and today we had the opportunity to travel to a place that has had an enormous impact on Argentine history, yet is often not addressed.
From 1976 to 1983, Argentina was under a military dictatorship that banned Peronism and silenced the voices of many Argentine citizens. During the dictatorship, many Argentinians in the working class, students, and intellectuals were kidnapped and placed into concentration camps. They are known as the "desaparecidos" who were detained, tortured, and often killed in these camps. During this era, a genocide of thousands of people occurred in Argentina. In my perspective, it is unreal that prior to coming here I barely knew anything about it. Recently in both my history and literature class, we have been readings accounts by people who by God's grace survived these traumatic events and shared what they lived through to ensure that it never happens again.

Side of Olimpo with the lower windows cemented shut

To follow up with our readings, today my class traveled to one of the camps "Olimpo" which is now a memorial in honor of the desaparecidos. The most mind baffling part of seeing the camp today for me was its location. When I learned about the Holocaust in my high school history classes, it was always clear that the concentration camps were located in rural areas away from civilization. Yet in contrast to what we learned, here in Buenos Aires "Olimpo" was located in a middle class neighborhood in what appeared to be a bus terminal. The tour guide shared with us that the mixture of the noise from the buses and loud music helped muffle the sounds from the people being tortured. He explained that the neighbors in the residential area who listened to the screams everyday couldn't tell the government about the events in the camp because it was their own government controlling those camps. For those people as well, there was no way to escape. To me, this was chilling to think about. Simply imagining my own government capturing our citizens and torturing them in my neighborhood is impossible for me to begin to fathom. While the tour guide was closing the tour, I could see the pain and sadness in his eyes. Later on our way home, our teacher told us that today is the anniversary of the permanent disappearance of our tour guide's cousin. Prayers for him and his family today.

"In this center remained approximately 500 detained people,

many of whom are missing permanently.

 As students we always have the opportunity to learn facts and events about other countries and cultures, but it is amazing how real everything becomes when you're here, in the middle of it. So much of what I've learned in Buenos Aires would have been impossible to understand without actually coming down here, seeing the customs, going to the places, and meeting the people. For that reason alone, I am so grateful to be here. It is remarkable how much I have learned.