Below are two videos of the sculptures. The first is of the Bienal competition this year, the second is a compilation of the sculptures already placed in Resistencia.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Resistencia - Ciudad de las esculturas
Before I first arrived in Resistencia, one of the only things that I knew about the city was that it was supposedly world famous for its sculptures. Every year, people from all over the world competed in a contest to be part of a sculpture festival in Resistencia. The competition is called Bienal. For one weeks, the artists fervently work from sun-up to sun-down to complete their sculptures. They must adhere to a certain pre-determined theme, and must only use the materials provided by the Municipality of Resistencia. After the festival ends, the sculptures are then strategically placed within the city, for all to see. Common non-artistic people are encouraged to make sculptures, as anyone who puts a sculpture in front of their house is pardoned from paying taxes for two years. Sounds like a good deal to me, as the taxes here are out of the roof. But even though I knew all of this mumb
o jumbo about the sculptures, I didn’t really care or believe that something so important could take place in my city, that I thought at the time, appeared to be so insignificant compared to the other cities in Argentina that I had earlier yearned to live in. Apart from the sculptures, the internet didn’t say that there was anything else interesting about Resistencia, only that there was a lot of dust, and poor people. I was very mistaken. Upon entering the city, I was greeted by a mass of sculptures: some abstract, others metal, a few wooden, and a plethora of strange and twisted ones... The list goes on, and keeps growing every year. This whole sculpture thing made me feel a bit more proud about my pre-surmised dirt bowl of a city. Could it be that Resistencia actually had a bit of culture, or was perhaps a bit different and maybe even special compared to my other dream cities? Could be, I thought to myself. As one day turned into two, two into 20, 20 into a few months, I started liking my city a lot more. I think maybe the sculptures gave me a bit of pride of Resistencia, made me feel a little special. Supposedly, there are around 500 sculptures in the city, sounds like a lot. It is a lot. On almost every street corner and in front of almost every big building I constantly encounter these pieces of art, and on several occasions, pieces of abstract poorly thought out products of a bad childhood. I am not kidding, on the corner of Mitre and Concordia there is a 6 foot tall statue of a penis.... Yeah man, I am from Resistencia - Ciudad de Las Esculturas, and I gotta say that I am actually proud of it!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
On Sharing
From the day I arrived in Resistencia, one of the first things I noticed was the abundance of bakeries (panaderias). They were everywhere, and were filled with all kinds of European style pastries. The only difference between the pastries here and the pastries in Europe is about 8 pesos (almost 3 dollars). Here, you can buy a dozen for about 5-10 pesos, which is much less than your average 3 Euros for ONE pastry in Europe or in the United States. So I started buying a lot. Almost every day I bought a dozen, sometimes more-rarely less. I would come to the house and eat them, or go to Cima and do the same. I followed the same routine with other kinds of food and drinks. Sometimes, I would bring a coffee into the house; othertimes, an ice cream. And noone said anything, at least noone said anything for a while. Then one day, my ¨mom¨ Marcela, took me into the living room, sat me down, and let all hell loose. I never realized how important sharing is. I think they thought that I was just a selfish person, but I´m not. You can´t buy something for yourself here, without buying enough for all the other people you are around. For example: If you want to eat a slice of pizza from the pizza store and you plan on showing your face around your friends or your family, you must buy a piece for everyone. I had spent the first 2 months buying huge amounts of food for myself, sharing, but not thinking about other people when I bought food. In the US, I think people are a generally lot more self centered. Back home in the US, I did´t have a problem buying something and eating it around my friends or family-they didn´t seem to have a problem with it either. But here, its totally different. People get genuinly offended. From mate, to whatever else you are drinking or eating, you share. Its a country much more focused on the group, not so much on the individual. This theme seems to apply to everything. You know how in the US, girls go to the bathroom together? Here, guys go to the bathroom together as well. You don´t take a dance lesson or any type of class alone-you always do it with a friend. One thing I noticed that tops it all, is what people do when they leave the house. They almost never leave alone. If I want to go buy a coke a block down the street, I go with my uncle. You are always with your friends or family, sharing everything. You are part of a bigger thing here. There is not a me, only an us. But I think I like it. Sure, more effort is put out for the same thing, but somehow its better.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Yerba Mate


Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Been a while

What can I say, I´ve been busy. But my best excuse is that I lost my password and my username and about 5 minutes ago after an extensive process on blogspot I finally retrieved them. Its been about two months since I last posted, and there is no way that I´m going to recap everything that has happened in the last few months, but I´ll give an overview. I got off the bus and there was my family. I thought I would be nervous, or feel something but I wasn´t and I didn´t. After I got my bags, me and Zoom walked over to them and shook their hands and kissed them. We got in the BMW, and since then its been good. No, I´m just kidding I will write more than that! In the picture above, starting from top left and moving down to bottom left: Marcela (my host mom), me, Zoom (Thai exchange student), Agostina and Iara (host sisters) Carlos (host dad) is not shown.
Around this time (about one and a half months in) this was pretty much my weekly schedule, and it has stayed constant since then.
Sunday:
We wake up late at around 1 PM. Get dressed and showered and decide where we are going to eat. Then we go and eat, normally at a place called San Jose. They are a panaderia/heladeria/restaurante. (bread, ice cream, and food) Then we either rent a movie or go to our quinta. The quinta here in Argentina is a house where the family goes on weekends, vacations, or whenever they don´t want to be in their house. Usually its located in the country, or far from the city, but ours is about 20 blocks from the apartment. We go there and eat an asado, and hang out for about 6 or 7 hours. Sometimes I get really restless. Its not because I don´t like to talk with the family, or because I don´t like to eat asado (asados are great), but I have never liked the feeling of being trapped in a house, with no way to get out or do anything else. After we eat done eating and talking, we then go to Carlos´s grandma´s house to drink a mate dulce and eat some food. After this we sometimes will drive around a little and then go to church. After a few hours of church we go back to the quinta, and order pizza and empanadas (meat or vegetable filled pastries). At about 1 or 2 AM we head to the house to sleep.
Monday-Friday
School starts at 7:40 in the morning and goes until 12:10. The school day is divided into three classes. On tuesdays I have four classes (portugues is added). After school I usually either walk home with friends, go to Cima (my host parent´s store) or go to the plaza with friends and drink a coke. Then we eat lunch. Always delicious, prepared by our house-keeper ¨Raquel.¨After lunch I use the computer a while and then head off to the gym for about and hour or two with both Carlos and Marcela to work out. After this we sleep an hour and they head off to work. For me, every day varies. Sometimes I go to hang out with friends and drink mate. Other times I have friends over. Sometimes I just like to walk around the city to get to know it better. And a lot of the time I like to go to Cima and hang out with the guys that work there. The other days of the week I pretty much do the same thing. School, eat, gym, friends, sleep. Repeat.
Friday nights/Saturday Mornings:
Friday night is the beginning of the fun. Its the first day of a very long weekend. Usually, as a family, we eat out at a restaurant. Then, I either play soccer with my dad, or I go with friends and hang out until about 1 AM. Around 1, I either leave to go hang out at a friend´s house, or I go to a boliche. Here, there are a number of different boliches (dance clubs) but some of the more well known ones include Central, Cañadas, Mitre, Chill Bar, 8 Nights, and Nectar Bar. There are also a lot of bars where you can eat and also dance. The boliches go from about 2 or 3 AM until around 8 or 9 AM. This is definitely different than in my city in the USA, where the closest boliche opens at 8 PM and closes at 1 AM at the latest. When we are done, I go home and sleep.
Saturday:
When I wake up at around 1 or 2 PM, we usually go out to eat, and then hang out with friends or do homework until 10, when Carlos and Marcela get back. Then we go out and eat again, and either have an asado with friends, or I go with my friends and do the same kind of thing that I did friday night.
The last two months or so have adhered pretty closely to this scheduale. I spent a week in the provience of Corrientes to go fishing with him and his family while my family was in Brasil. A few times we had AFS orientations, and I went on a short trip to Entre Rios and Buenos Aires, which was nice, but other than that, its been about the same. When I first thought about doing this blog, I thought that I would have a lot more time to write, but I have recently realized that I don´t. So instead of writing about my experience day by day, experience by experience, I have chosen to only write about my most significant experiences, and reserve the other posts to talk about one or two specific things. One post might be about asados, the next about boliches, another on mate....
Bueno, I hope to write again soon.
Here are some pictures:
Resistencia ¨Ciudad De Las Esculturas¨
Me drinking a Mate in my room
Me, Gaby, and Pepo at Negri´s birthday party
Me and Jorge at a birthday party
I got him to wear the cap haha....
This is an asado
The view of Resistencia from my room
Me, Marcela (Karls girlfriend), and Karl
Me and Ben at the AFS Corrientes orientation
Group photo at the Corrientes orientation
Ben (New Zealand), Kiki (USA), Me, and Andreas (Denmark) looking good at the AFS Corrientes Orientation
My host sister Agostina
AFS orientation number 2 group picture
Despidida (going away party) of Tess (USA)
We rented this boliche called Zimbabwe
Cumbia!
Monday-Friday
School starts at 7:40 in the morning and goes until 12:10. The school day is divided into three classes. On tuesdays I have four classes (portugues is added). After school I usually either walk home with friends, go to Cima (my host parent´s store) or go to the plaza with friends and drink a coke. Then we eat lunch. Always delicious, prepared by our house-keeper ¨Raquel.¨After lunch I use the computer a while and then head off to the gym for about and hour or two with both Carlos and Marcela to work out. After this we sleep an hour and they head off to work. For me, every day varies. Sometimes I go to hang out with friends and drink mate. Other times I have friends over. Sometimes I just like to walk around the city to get to know it better. And a lot of the time I like to go to Cima and hang out with the guys that work there. The other days of the week I pretty much do the same thing. School, eat, gym, friends, sleep. Repeat.
Friday nights/Saturday Mornings:
Friday night is the beginning of the fun. Its the first day of a very long weekend. Usually, as a family, we eat out at a restaurant. Then, I either play soccer with my dad, or I go with friends and hang out until about 1 AM. Around 1, I either leave to go hang out at a friend´s house, or I go to a boliche. Here, there are a number of different boliches (dance clubs) but some of the more well known ones include Central, Cañadas, Mitre, Chill Bar, 8 Nights, and Nectar Bar. There are also a lot of bars where you can eat and also dance. The boliches go from about 2 or 3 AM until around 8 or 9 AM. This is definitely different than in my city in the USA, where the closest boliche opens at 8 PM and closes at 1 AM at the latest. When we are done, I go home and sleep.
Saturday:
When I wake up at around 1 or 2 PM, we usually go out to eat, and then hang out with friends or do homework until 10, when Carlos and Marcela get back. Then we go out and eat again, and either have an asado with friends, or I go with my friends and do the same kind of thing that I did friday night.
The last two months or so have adhered pretty closely to this scheduale. I spent a week in the provience of Corrientes to go fishing with him and his family while my family was in Brasil. A few times we had AFS orientations, and I went on a short trip to Entre Rios and Buenos Aires, which was nice, but other than that, its been about the same. When I first thought about doing this blog, I thought that I would have a lot more time to write, but I have recently realized that I don´t. So instead of writing about my experience day by day, experience by experience, I have chosen to only write about my most significant experiences, and reserve the other posts to talk about one or two specific things. One post might be about asados, the next about boliches, another on mate....
Bueno, I hope to write again soon.
Here are some pictures:





Monday, March 3, 2008
Seattle to Miami to Santiago to Buenos Aires to Resistencia
1. No illegal drugs
2. No driving anything with a motor
3. No hitchhiking
We also learned AFS´s famous moto ¨It not good, its not bad, its just different¨
After the orientations the first day, we had a few hours of free time, so me and some friends played poker and talked for a few hours. The next day we did the same kind of stuff, but more program and country specific. For example, we spent an hour watching a video about what different facial expressions and hand motions mean in different countries. For example, if you are in Venezuela, and you grab your croch with both hands when a lady you want walks by, that can be seen as offensive. I can´t say I learned much in those two days, but I did meet a lot of really cool people who, like me, were going to be staying somewhere in South America for either a semester or a year. After the Miami orientation.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Only Six Days
Its hard to believe that it hasn't hit me yet. That is, I'm not nervous at all. I'm betting that sometime on the plane ride over, or during one of the first few days, I will suddenly get hit with the reality and enormity of my decision. I will probably freak out and want to go home-thats what my friends have done and I doubt that I will be an exception. But I plan on staying strong. I will be departing on my birthday, and will spend the day in Seattle with my family prior to leaving. I will then fly to Miami and meet my grandparents and uncle and his family and will spend the day with them. I still haven't talked to my host family. I think I want it to be more of a surprise. My parents still call to Argentina at least once a day trying to catch my "family" so they can talk, but haven't had any luck yet. Well I think my next post will be a desperate cry for help from deep inside of Argentina so until then, Chau.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Poste Numero Uno
Too all of you, my friends and family, here is the first of hopefully many posts. As you may or may not know, I will be staying in Argentina for a year with an exchange program called AFS. (American Field Service?) AFS called today and told me that I will be staying with a family in a large city in Northeast Argentina called Resistencia. It looks really poor, but I'm sure it will work out. My host family seems pretty cool; they are in their late twenties with two children-girls 9 and 6 years old. I will also be staying with a Thai girl called "Zoom." They own their own store, which is supposedly a big one, so that is cool. Also, they said that they like to travel, and that me and Zoom will be going with them on a vacation before school starts in February. Enough for now, I will write again when I am in Argentina.
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