Una Excursion Educativa

One of the most interesting parts of the programs for me has been our course excursions. We have been forced to talk to strangers on the street and in the park about random topics in castellano, and recently my Spanish class visited the Cromanon memorial site.

The Cromanon had been a totally happening club in the Once district, and on December 30, 2004 the Callejeros, a local BsAs band with a cult following, was playing. The club promoters wanted to make as much money as possible that night, so they chained shut all the emergency exits to keep people from sneaking in. This plan went horribly awry when a fire started in the club and no one could get out. To add to the horror, there was a nursery on the floor above the club, and the babies and their caretakers perished in the fire as well. In total 192 people died that night and more than 700 were injured. Almost all of the victims were between the ages of 14-24.

The memorial site is covered with photographs, poems, and the shoes that the victims were wearing that night. Seeing several hundred pairs of dirty converses is pretty intense.

In our history/econonmics seminar, we learned about the Peronist policy everyone here holds so close to their hearts. Peron was basically the F.D.R. of Argentina, in that he socialized the country. Large projects gave people the jobs they so desperately needed, social services were nationalised so that they were accessible to everyone, and folks got paid vacation. It was kind of like Poland under soviet control. Only with fewer mortalities. This history of socialization has contributed to the alternative economic development policies that have sprung up since then. For example, Argentina is home to the phenomenon of 'fabricas recuporadas,' or factories that had been shut down by the owners after the economic crisis of 2001/2 but have sinve been reclaimed and reopened by the workers. They function in different ways, but usually the factories are now run entirely by workers, often everyone receives the same pay, and decisions are made in a group meeting democratically. Another social movement that is taking place here is the trabajadoros desocupados: unemployed workers band together and form cooperatives and work together to create jobs and provide services to the community. I visited the MTD LM cooperative, where they started a bakery school, a seamstress workshop, and a preschool. They sell pan dulce to raise money for the school, the preschool is free for the community, and they export the clothing they make to Italy, Japan, Canada, Germany, and the U.S.