La Boca

I'm still thinking about the tour we went on the other day. I really appreciated hearing about the socio-economic, recent history of BsAs as well as the struggle for the average person to be educated here. Eternautas was the name of the tour company and our guide is getting her masters in Sociology. I just loved her. I was too busy listening to get many pictures (lo siento).

Our Tour went to Plaza de Mayo, where there was a demonstration. The protestors chant and carry flags and signs but they didn't march. There were 2 demonstrations in the city that day - one was to protest the closing of one of the futbol stadiums because of recent violence there and the other was instigated by that wisenheimer, Chavez president of Venenzula - he was protesting Bush being in Latin America for some faux ethnol treaty-thang they got goin' on.

We went through San Telmo, and on our way to LaBoca underneth this freeway overpass were these paper headstone memorials that were configured to look like a stick figure. The guide told us that during the dictatorship that lasted from 1976-1984 many people were killed. This was a mass grave site that they had just recently found and gotten the families of the victims involved "a very dark part of our recent history" she said. I didn't know about this, I thought it was only Pinochet that had done such things.


On to LaBoca where most of the buildings were painted very lively colors. It reminded me of what Mexico must look like. To my surprise, there was this big tourist fare happening. I mean, the WHOLE place was tourists. I was getting self concious. We had time to shop, and some of the artisians had some awesome jewlery and mate (gourds, cups, bowls,) whathaveyou. BUT of course I had NO small bills! The bane of your exsistance here - you must have them. No one likes making change. So my plans to shop where foiled.

We got back on the bus and drove past the LaBoca port, which has become very polluted because of chemical companies. They had many containers sitting in the yards there.

Then we drove though the LaBoca residential neighborhood. It was a beautiful day. The sun has changed angles now and you can tell its fall, there are lovely trees there. The buildings are falling down in this neigborhood from age. The government has built new homes for the residents but they are too small for the families, so no one has moved yet. Two boys that were sitting next to a large trash dump smiled and waved to us and I got pretty emotional. To see this side of the place I am vacationing really meant a lot to me and put things in perspective. It doesn't look like it is possible to escape poverty here.

To some extent I feel trapped and financially downtrodden living in SF, but then I come here and my US dollar is worth 3x as much. It's so wild how these things work.

Tutition is free here but you must pass 6 tests to get into the University. Many people have to take a year off to study for these tests. If you pass - you get into college and then you have to work the whole time you're there.

My guess is that a great many students wouldn't have the necessary support they need to study the material for these tests because they HAVE to work - and there is also child labor here but I don't have the details on that - what I was able to astertain is that its very hard to transcend your beginnings and get ahead here.