How does it feel visiting Buenos Aires?

Parque Centenario, Caballito, Buenos Aires, the morning of February 29, 2016

How does it feel being back in Buenos Aires after living away for so long?

That is the question posed to me by a good friend and former teaching colleague here in Buenos Aires. It is a tough question to answer. I mull over the many possibilities. How do I really feel? I take the colectivo or a taxi. I soak in the architecture, the feeling of place, the friendships. I feel nostalgic, and I remember the stress and the anxiety of life and work in this city, and I look for where I fit in now.

In trying to answer the question posed at the beginning, more questions take form and beg to be answered.

Do I belong here? If so, how?
Am I just passing through?
How am I perceived by friends and colleagues?

The question of belonging is a very difficult one for me. It is a question I have thought over ever since I arrived in Buenos Aires in 2012, and one I felt I had answered until early last year when, for health reasons, I made the decision to leave Buenos Aires and return to the United States.

By the end of 2014 I felt I belonged in Buenos Aires. I had built a strong group of friends and I had good working relationships. I felt the city's heartbeat, the schizophrenia of many souls, the passion of a place constantly transitioning.

Now I feel the heartbeat of place, but I am no longer contributing to it. I feel welcomed generously, but that I somehow don't "belong" anymore. And it is true. At this time, this place is not my own. I am not sharing in the experience, only passing through. It is saddening to think this way. I wish to feel part of the experience, I am part of the experience, but a temporary one. I wish to live here again. Though I cannot for several reasons.

Most importantly, I am beginning a tour in the Peace Corps at the beginning of September in Paraguay, which will be my new home for the next two years.

Secondly, while I have a deep attachment to this place, an attachment which I have never fully been able to describe, I have difficulty grappling with the prospects of returning to live in Buenos Aires. I remember the stress I felt, of feeling rushed all the time, and low points of extreme depression. One can feel stressed in any environment. Emotional and physical challenges can occur in any environment. I am conflicted in that as much as I love Buenos Aires, I also find it to have been one of the most challenging places for me to live and feel happy.

In returning to Buenos Aires for vacation I come with eyes not of a tourist, nor of a local weighed down by the stresses of this ciudad de la furia, but as one relaxed and able to compare in a relatively uninvolved way how I felt living here versus only visiting.

Now I am just passing through. A part of the city in transition. I am welcomed by those I know, but welcomed with the knowledge that I will soon leave. I see friends and colleagues now as snapshots in time. We appear together in a moment, we discuss the past and the future and the ties that bind us, and then we disappear again. Where once there had been flow and consistency, an inclusive narrative, now there is only a brief window of time that provides a moment, known faces emerging from long absence, lingering momentarily, and disappearing again into the narrative that I am no longer a part of.

Perhaps to speak accurately, though hopefully not sentimentally, in returning to Buenos Aires I have encountered a curious blend of emotion that I cannot recall having felt before.

I am saddened by the impermanence of my visit, though I understand that to live in Buenos Aires again would be a difficult decision I would be forced to make, and that the city has never been the best place for me in terms of my own personal health and well-being.

I feel slight apprehension. I am accepted by friends and colleagues, though I am not seeing this place as they do. The place is different, they are different, and there are things we can no longer share in. My life is no longer here, and I am an impermanent and soon to disappear variable.

I harbor a deep sense of love for what I appreciated so much about living here. The vibrancy of the life. Friends. The colors and the sounds and the people. The constant movement and the moments of stillness.

I feel respect and compassion for a place I know well and am encountering again.

So, to answer the question, how do I feel visiting Buenos Aires after living away for some time?

At this point I can't really say. Perhaps it is bittersweet? Although to sum it up like that does not do it justice. I feel a mix of the good and the bad and something else, something new and difficult to interpret as well.

But perhaps most importantly, is that I listen. To listen to and understand the voices of others and myself. To be patient, for listening requires patience. And that through listening I am learning to accept my role here, whatever and whenever it may be.

I hold a key, and that key is a quiet understanding, a beautiful relationship with place, and listening closely to the essence of the city. With this key unlocks the silent knowledge of place beneath all the noise.             

A Post to Paris

Jihadists are now celebrating under the hashtag Paris is burning. They watch the western world with anxious eyes, hopeful eyes, expectant of a certain final victory. They expect the world to crumble into chaos and that they, those who support what has happened in Paris, will be the torchbearers of a new world order—one in which power is law and guns are power. That cold, calculating and unsympathetic destruction, such as that used in the Paris attacks on November 13th, will be the go-to form of control and will lead to the defeat of the western world.


The jihadists are right in one respect. Paris does burn. The world burns. Our hearts burn for the innocents who will never see their dreams realized, for the parents who will never again see their children. For friends and relatives who must now grapple and overcome unexplainable loss. The world can never again look into the eyes of those killed in Paris. We can no longer touch them, or feel their proximity. They, who were and still are so deeply loved, live on in our hearts and our collective memory.


The world does not forget. History does not forget. The world burns in anger at injustice, at blatant disrespect for life, at the lost life of innocents. Jihadists, what are your grievances? You have stated none. You must state grievances. You have stated the annihilation of others. That is not a grievance. That is genocide. Murder.


We must lift our heads above the actions of monsters and see past the warped ideologies fueled by the power madness to destroy. So easy it is to destroy lives, to pass a bright future into shadow. The destruction carried out by monsters may cause fear. We may feel the angry thoughts, the desire for vengeance and retaliation, the burning for justice to strike a galvanizing blow against the revolting cruelty of those who cannot look another in the eye and see them as human. Those who hold no reserve in pulling the trigger and watching the blood run and feeling the power. How severely misguiding an ideology that praises the deaths of innocents, to believe you will somehow be immortalized for such actions.


The ancient epics praise heroes for their valor in battle, for their strength and courage, and for “the beautiful death.” Valor and courage in war was, and still is, guilded in heroism. Heroes are built in battle. Not just in war but in all battles of life. Heroes recognize the need for justice, respect for the opponent, and the necessity to push through the darkest, most trying moments. There are many heroes in Paris today. Terrorists are not among these, nor will history ever speak of them as such.


While many may take issue with certain aspects of history, of its sometimes biased interpretations of past events and narratives, history does tend to do a good job of remembering people as they are. Heroes tend to be remembered as heroes. Cowards as cowards, monsters as monsters. The premeditated killing of innocents is a terrorist act. It is a cowardly act. It is an act carried out by monsters. There is no fame or heroism in such action. There is no redemption for such acts, no “beautiful death.”


It is a common saying that history is written by the victors. Let it be known that the victors are the people of Paris. The world will celebrate victory by upholding human principles and respect for life and human dignity. We are human. We are resilient. We move forward together.


It is easy to feel angry and wish vengeance against those who committed the attacks in Paris. I burned and raged in my heart. I wished to beat and batter those responsible for the attacks. I wished to see them prostrate in pools of their own blood, begging for mercy. Where was the mercy when you killed in cold blood? I would ask.


I still, to a certain degree, wish these things. But I am human, and I see that the terrorists were once human too. I see that they had eyes like you and I. That they could see and hear and touch and feel. Perhaps their conscience had long since vanished, but in physical terms I see that at one point they were human. They were once children who knew what love and fun and happiness were. At least until their lives veered onto this terrible path. Once children, now become monsters.


But I am human. I affirm and reaffirm this point. In fact this is the most important point of all. I see all too clearly the anger I feel inside. Anger: one of the most common human emotions. Rage, bitterness, frustration, hate. All strong emotions, all strong enough to kill. But as a human being I find ways to work through such emotions. I separate them out and observe them for what they are—symptoms of a problem the root cause of which can be found only within myself.


We must be careful in moving forward. We must respect the dead. We must honor the heroes. We must care for the suffering hearts, for those whose emotions burn with fury. We must recognize that unlike the terrorists, we, the true people of the world, are human. We do not act as monsters. It is urgent for the world that we uphold our humanity, our values, our principles. It is urgent that we love and extend our arms in support. We are human and as such we lift each other up. We will continue to fight for justice and the integrity of human life.


This is my attempt to come to grips with the devastating terrorist attacks that took place in and around Paris on the evening of November 13^th, 2015. Today I mourn with the world the unnecessary loss of so much precious life.

Que dios los bendiga...

Funny things about language...

A cool, crisp autumn breeze tossed the fallen leaves to spiral and dance and the conifers to whisper a rustling orchestra as we sat ourselves down at a patio table of a local restaurant in Tandil, Argentina. There were five of us. A yanqui, a Paraguayo, two Indonesas, and one Colombiana. An eclectic group that no doubt drew some attention from passers-by.

We were visiting Tandil for only a few days, and we'd set up a tent outside of town on a small hillock, where we could have a campfire, roast our food, and gaze at the bright light of the stars, which so often disappeared in the light pollution of the city.

As we sat at the table and were getting ready to order food a woman approached us. She was of larger build, and wore a long blue and white dress. Her hair was dark brown and her small eyes and thin lips seemed tensed and aggressive. In moments she had quickly placed a piece of paper right in front of me and stood there, gazing sternly and expectantly at me. The quickness of her action and her stern gaze took me by surprise, and I was by no means in prime mental state, having stayed up until 4AM the previous night and having only slept two and a half hours at that—But hey, that's vacation :)

For nearly a minute there was an awkward silence in which the woman waited for me to speak, my friends all looked on, expecting me to say something, and me wondering what the heck was going on and looking from the woman, to my friends, back to the woman and then back to my friends repeatedly. Finally I looked down at the paper which she had placed in front of me and on it showed a photo of a boy, and in handwritten scrawl it stated the boy suffered from an illness and if I could give some money to help him.

This is a common technique used by beggars. Whether it is true or not, whether the child truly has an illness, perhaps depends on the beggar. What the beggar doesn't tell you is that the public healthcare is generally free or the fee is minimal so either the child is sick and is getting care, or the child is sick and the parent is lazy, or the person is simply trying to exploit you by placing a child's photo in front of you. Whatever the case, this strategy generally works best on tourists who don't know how the systems work and who can be exploited more easily by it.

A waitress came up and asked the woman to leave and not bother the guests but the woman responded coldly. “Espera un momento! Este rubio va a comprar algo!” "Wait a minute, this blondie is going to buy something."

In that moment I thought to myself, 'I'm going to buy something? I never said that!'

Well, my silence dragged on, and her patience thinned. Finally I choked out the words in broken spanish. “Uh, no, gracias. Estoy bien.” And I handed her the slip of paper with no money, at which she cursed me for the wasted time saying: “Sos un mono cachuzo!”

I looked to my friends sitting across from me and next to me at the table. “Mono cachuzo?” I wondered as the lady, perhaps a gypsy, huffed away holding the paper which I'd given back to her. She looked furious.

“What does mono cachuzo mean?” I asked.

Luis, the Paraguayan, shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. I've never heard that word before. But the way you handled that situation was terrible.” He laughed.

“Long night.” I replied.

The Colombian and the Indonesians had no idea either. Cachuzo. Is it a Spanish word? An Italian word? For several months the word hung around in the back of my mind, every so often coming to the forefront when I would wonder anew at its meaning. Finally I did a google search and after perusing a few pages I found it.

Cachuzo: Cuando algo esta un poquito roto, viejo, o decrepito. When something is just a little bit broken, old or decrepit.

That gypsy woman had called me a broken monkey. It turns out, though this might not be relevant, that in Colombia people with blonde hair are called 'mono' as well. But this is not considered derogatory. It is more of an endearing term.

In learning spanish, one begins to understand that Spanish, unlike the English language, has vocabulary that is distinct to not only to countries but also to specific regions. And that to say you speak spanish doesn't necessarily mean you can hold down a conversation with Spanish speakers all around the world, because in order to do so one must learn the vocabulary specific to that locale and adapt how you speak to using local terminology. I had an Argentine student once tell me that they could hardly understand Venezuelans because of the differences in speech and vocabulary. Or that Porteños, because of the history of immigration from Italy, Spain, and other parts of Europe, use so much vocabulary, called “Lunfardo” and distinct to just Buenos Aires, that often Spanish speakers from other parts of Latin America have trouble understanding everything in a conversation, not to mention a native English speaker just trying to learn Spanish as a second language.

Below is a list of words and phrases, some from Buenos Aires, and some from other parts of the Spanish speaking world that demonstrate some of the diversity and distinct cultural characteristics that the language takes on in different countries and regions.

Colombia

Chevére: Literally means something is 'cool.' Chevére is also widely used in Central America.

Que bacáno: Also means something is 'cool.'

Bien pueda: You will be greeted with this term by service employees when you enter shops throughout Colombia. It is basically short form for saying 'welcome in. Please feel free to look around and I am available for questions if you have any.' It's much easier to just say bien pueda!

Arepera: This one is very specific to Colombia, and means both a woman who makes arepas, and also means a 'lesbian.' Here it all depends on context. Arepa is a corn tortilla that is specific to Colombia. And areperas are the women who make the arepas. But as with many words in Colombian spanish, there is usually un doble sentido— a double meaning.

Argentina:

Quilombo: Quilombo is basically a fiasco or crazy situation. It is derived from a word used in Brazil to describe the villages of escaped slaves who lived in hiding in the rainforest.

'Pedo' is a very commonly used word in the Argentine vernacular. I would consider it something of a phrasal verb, in which you pair 'pedo', which literally means “fart”, with several words to make a phrase with it's own meaning. Here is a list of the most common.

Al pedo: A waste of time or something useless.

A los pedos: To be in a hurry.

De pedo: Lucky, or happened by chance.

En pedo: Drunk.

Ni en pedo: No way.

These are just a few phrases I found using the word pedo. For a more extensive list of Argentine phrases using pedo go to the link here.

Uruguay

Tener olor de chivo: Literally means something smells fishy, suspicious, or bad.

I actually looked up the meaning of the word 'chivo' specifically. And it's meaning seems to capture the complexity of the Spanish language in Latin America. Here is the meaning of 'chivo' from country to country.Here is the link to the website where this material was sourced.

Venezuela:

'Chivo' means one who holds an influential role over others, such as a boss or manager in a business.

El Salvador:

Chivo in El Salvador means 'cool', something well made, or something fun (e.g. Football).

Peru:

Chivo means 'homosexual' or 'gay.' Be careful where you use this term :)

Argentina:

Chivo is used for someone who publishes or does something for their own personal benefit or gain. For instance a journalist who publishes information that benefits himself is called a 'chivero' or the information is called 'chivo'.

Dominican Republic:

Hacer chivo is to use materials that are not permitted to pass an exam or a test. Essentially it means to cheat.

I could not imagine trying to use this word in all of its context from country to country. And it is not as though every Spanish speaker walks around with a dictionary of each word and its multiple meanings archived in their heads. I think part of the differences in the language is that Latin America is still today highly regionalized. And the history of the different countries and regions is much more isolated than say in the United States, where families are now much more spread out around the country than in previous generations. This, along with national television and radio, is causing the language to become more generic and homogenized, with less regional distinction.

Despite its difficulty, I love the regional distinctions in Latin America. I love the way the language changes from country to country and how words can be used in so many creative ways. In short, the more you learn about Spanish, the more you come to realize how infinitely distant the road to saying you 'know' Spanish.

Ah, the memories that carry us onward

Hi folks,

It is summertime! That means swimming, barbecue, corn on the cob, gardening, fiery sunsets and misty mornings. It also means that anything related to technology, at least in my world, disappears almost entirely as I find myself spending nearly 10 hours a day outdoors. I have resorted to checking facebook and email once a week, perhaps twice, and my blogs have been relegated to the few spare hours a month when I can speedily write in a short post before running back outdoors again.

The nature of my work allows for ample time to reflect on the ideas and feelings we carry with us and that shape our thoughts and daily interactions. Most of us have heard the commonly stated idea that we completely change every seven years. That our personality, physical characteristics, thoughts and ideas, pass from one narrative to another. Passing into and out of narrative, an invisible narrative, the results seen in the rippling of grasses after a breeze.

The nature of this blog is in many ways like snapshots capturing the rippling grasses where the breeze had once blown, the swaying still seen in the snapshots. We cannot, with concrete certainty, demarcate where we have been. Being is nothing without meaning, and meaning is as varied and invisible and unplaceable as the wind. "There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth," states a Chinese proverb. My truth is encased in a room hidden to all but myself. Your truth is invisible to me. If you shine a light upon it perhaps I can see the shadow of it upon the wall. The truth is immense. Its density and mass too much to decipher. Too much to even think about.

While the narrative rolls on, many things change and many stay the same. One that has stayed the same is this blog. For two and a half years I have written this blog. I have updated it with photos and stories, insights on reflections and activities that come and go. But the blog has continued, despite, or perhaps because of, the numerous changes that confront one in the everyday. Like life, some of the posts have heart and passion in them, others were written half-heartedly, in  moments lacking the passion and verve that show through in intermittent bursts as crisp autumn sunlight passing through the sparse, colored foliage, glancing in light and shadow upon golden hillsides. The passion is there in moments, but much of the time the passion must be derived. It needs to be worked at and developed.

Like life, some of these posts were written in the passionless moments. Simple efforts to maintain a blog because I had made it a commitment to maintain. Similar to other commitments, this blog has its bright spots, the posts that glow with energy. And it has its apprehensive posts written out of need, but lacking in desire.

Unlike life, however, when most things change, this blog has stayed. At moments it has lived as a thread, going months with no posts. Other times it has been as a thick rope, with several posts a week. But the blog lives on, like a life it changes focus and develops as the narrative marches forward. From thread to rope to thread. The narrative wind blows unseen, only indirectly visible in the ripples formed in water or the swaying of trees. This blog photographs moments in the rippling and the swaying, and in the past two and half years it is one of the few things that, for my life, has not changed.

Cheers,

Kyle

   

UV Buena Gente Social Club, Parrilla building 2.0

"Eh, che, todo bien?"

"Dale boludoooooo"

Hi y'all,

UV Buena Gente Social Club en Salt Hill Pub-Photo courtesy of Jennifer Roby

Buena Gente! - Photo courtesy of Jennifer Roby

Everything's well in Vermont right now, despite the added stress of building a parrilla, or my derivative of one, in less than a week. I've also begun organizing weekly spanish conversations at a local pub through the Upper Valley Buena Gente Social Club. It's a group of folks, both native spanish speakers and gringos who enjoy speaking the language, who get together several times a month to converse in Spanish. I enjoy organizing the evening events at the pub. It's a great way to bring folks together from all backgrounds to share experiences through the spanish language.

Carne para que asar

Nancy, my mom, has recently retired from her job at the Tuck Business school at Dartmouth, a post she has held for 27 years, and I decided a celebration dinner would be the best opportunity to test out the new parrilla. Regrettably I should probably admit to myself that I rushed the job a bit. Doing the entire thing in one week meant that I had to devote almost every day to working on it in some way, for at least two hours and up to five hours on a few days, after I got home from my full time work which I begin every day at 6:00 in the morning.

To anyone with plans of building a brick barbecue, BE WARNED, it is worth it, but it's best to know what you are getting yourself into.

The process itself is straightforward enough. First, you should map out a basic outline of the dimensions you want for the grill. I chose to have the grill 54 inches by 36 inches, though I only used 26x26 for the actual grilling portion.

L Parrilla a la Kyle, es una obra en construccion

Do not build a grill just to cook hot dogs and hamburgers. You can cook hot dogs and hamburgers in much easier ways. Build a brick parrilla for the big stuff. Sirloin, brisket, ribs, chorizo. This is what a big grill is meant to cook. Save the dogs and burgers for the frying pan. 

You should make a mental map in your head of how you want the parrilla to look. Do you want it low to the ground or at chest level? Do you need added working space or just the grill itself will suffice?

Furthermore, once you have the dimensions, get the dimensions of the bricks and do the calculations of how many you will need, and always get a few extra.

When you are working NEVER RUSH! We rushed a bit and one of the sidewalls was slightly skewed, which I could successfully hide a bit by chipping off around some of the bricks with a hammer and chisel to make the side look straight. But if you really want it to look good take breaks to survey the progress, keeping an eye out for any misalignment or aesthetic eyesores. Because once the mortar sets you won't want to take the sledghammer to it just because you severely misaligned an entire row of bricks.

Also, don't be afraid to improvise. I was stuck the day before the asado with an unfinished grill and not enough brick to complete the job. After thinking things through I discovered that we could complete all the fundamental stuff so the grill could function without actually completing it.

The grill worked excellently for the first asado. Though I suggest if you plan to show off your new grill and have a grand opening asado with it, secretly do a pre-asado a week or so before so you can get to know the grill, how it works and what temperature it cooks at. The photos here are from the second time using it and the meat was infinitely more tender and cooked more slowly.

The grill I made isn't fancy, and doesn't raise or lower to keep the meat at a specific temperature. So I will need to learn how to maneuver the coals to get the optimal temperature for each cut of meat. This will come with time. But as I recently learned from experience, you probably don't want to cook for people on a grill you've never used before. Master the parrilla first, then invite the guests.

Now you're probably wondering how the party went. You probably are thinking I burnt the ribs, or charred the sausages, or dried out the brisket. Well, all of that pretty much happened. Fortunately though the damage was moderate to minimal, and the guests enjoyed the warm hospitality and the food regardless. A great chimichurri (Argentine barbecue sauce) helped cover the dry and tough brisket, while American style barbecue sauce covered the charred flavor of ribs.

To end this section on a bright note, building a brick barbecue/parrilla is a big task, but it's worth it. There's nothing like grilling meat over embering coals on a grill you made with your very hands. Furthermore, the more you use the grill, the better you will get to know it, and the better your barbecue will be.

Below are a few more photos as well as some from the garden.

Cheers

Tomato plant with one little tomato

Peas almost ready!

La primera cosecha

Gaucho Gardening II, Parrilla building basics 101

Hi folks,

Radishes and carrots growing well!

Spring is turning to summer and the weather has begun to cycle between hot dry days shot through with seemingly spontaneous inundating thunder showers. I am enjoying life campesino style but do experience moments of longing, pining perhaps, for el estilo porteño. This is why I have decided to build a parrilla porteño style and have an awesome barbecue for the 4th of July celebrations. 


Now that I've got the garden under control and things are growing I've found a little extra time to devote to the construction of the parrilla. I've already shoveled out the area I'll use--disrupting a large ant colony and transplanting a blueberry bush in the process. The ants attacked me vigorously, scuttling up my shovel and chomping my fingers and toes--yes, I wore chanclas digging : )--with their little pincers. I felt a wave of sadness as I destroyed their little home, removing all the dirt and disrupting their little underground roads, but then I thought of all the meat, yes, todo el carne, that I would cook over that parrilla. How grand it would be. I decided the ants were a small sacrifice to pay for such a succulent reward. 

The herb garden: Mint, cilantro, and basil

Tomato plants!

You can see the area where I'll build the parrilla below. 

Parrilla foundation

Cholao: Postre con anana, banana, kiwi, mango y mas!

I have also found a local area spanish conversation group called Upper Valley Buena Gente. They hold weekly coffee chats and monthly book clubs where the members read a book a month in Spanish and discuss it. We met last Sunday for the first time and I have been asked to help organize a spanish language get-together once a week in the afternoons. The time and date have yet to be hashed out but hopefully we can start the conversations soon. 

In the meantime, the garden is growing, the parrilla is being built, and I'm having cravings for chorizos and El Cuartito's fuggazetta relleno! Ah, que rico! 

Y mira! Which is to say look. I dug up this photo, taken a month ago, of my attempt at making Cholao! That Colombian postre riquisimo!


Cheers y un gran abrazo

Kyle

Mate con vista del jardin!

Gaucho Gardening

The little seedlings ready for planting

Apparently spring has begun, at least that's what the weather folks say. Though after going from a week of freezing temperatures to a week of 80 degrees, it seems more like we skipped spring and jumped right into summer. That being said, I don't think I have much to fear from any late frosts this year so I have no qualms about planting in early May.

Moving the cow patties!

The soil for the garden arrived last friday and I started planting that very day. It is customary in Vermont to buy the soil from a local farmer who delivers it right into the garden from the bed of his pickup truck. The farmer arrived with his truck bed full of the darkest, richest-looking soil and deposited it in the middle of the garden. After I had leveled out the soil I planted the early spring vegetables: mesclun, carrots, and peas. Later, over the weekend when I could find a little extra time, I was able to plant parsley, swiss chard, and radishes and am beginning preparation for tomatoes, peppers, and the other vegetables.

Mapping out the garden

Gardening is tough work. But hopefully it will pay off with fresh, homegrown veggies.

Perhaps some fresh chimichurri will be in order with my parsley and cilantro plants!

There is a bit of exercise involved in gardening--digging, planting, general full body movement. There is patience involved--tending to the plants and the daily tasks of maintaining a healthy garden--and there is a hint of love.

A little care now will give plenty to enjoy throughout the summer.

Cheers,

Kyle