Rocky

Came across an article that was written yesterday about Rocky, the puppet guy from church I wrote about in my last blog.

A hostage and a monkey

His name is Alan and he used to drive taxis in Britain. That is, until he went to Syria to use his driving skills to transport medical supplies and food to civilians who need it.

Then last December, when we were all in our separate churches singing advent hymns of peace and hope,  he was separated from his group of aid workers and taken hostage by the most lost, hurt, insecure and unloved-feeling souls in the world. We have been hearing them on the news by the name ISIS. Really, they’re just a tiny army built up by preying on people who are angry for their suffering, desperate to repay the world for their misery. Those are the people that are hiding Alan.  

They have beheaded many before him, and now they say he is next. 

His wife sends out a plea. He was just giving aid to innocent civilians, she says. Can’t you show mercy? Where is mercy? 

Alan. 

Where is he right now, and what must be thinking? Does he feel alone? Belligerent? Terrified? 

Where is mercy? 

***

Mercy showed up in church, of all places. I have come to rarely expect him there. It’s as if saying the word makes him run further from the pews and the robes and the 2 minute passings of peace in which we are supposed to find time and space to reconcile ourselves to one another before entering into worship. 

But he showed up last Sunday morning in Bingo, a monkey hand puppet that travels around with Rocky, a wild-eyed white man from Camden. Bingo stopped and talked in his excited little high pitched voice to elderly women, men in suits, babies, and Father Michael. 

“He wears that puppet all the time,” my housemate, Matt, leaned over and whispered to me. “He’s from Camden. Talked to some pretty rough guys with that thing. Last year he got jumped and his first monkey got torn up. But now he’s back at it with Bingo.”

I watched, curiously, as mercy’s head whirled around, looking for the ones that needed him most.

Oh Hey There, Camden

Well, I’ve been in Camden for two weeks. I’ve been planning for my return ever since I left five years ago and have been busy studying classism and racism and urban cultures of violence, going to conferences on community development, traveling abroad to beef up my Spanish skills – all with Camden in mind. There have been countless conversations with a whole slew of diverse people about the dreams and fears and questions that go along with the idea of coming back. Then there’s the nine months I spent roaming the planet, getting the adventure itch out of my system so that I could readily plant myself here and grow some roots.

I’ve been preparing to transplant myself into Camden for so long, and now I’m here and there is nothing spectacular or dazzling about it by any means. But it is good. 

I live in South Camden across the street from a liquor store (ours opens at 9am - earlier than any other liquor store in the city) and the closest house with people that actually live in it is a block away, so the neighbors I have had the most interactions with this far are the regulars at the liquor store and the crews that like to sit on our front stoop and deal drugs. They might be into some shady means of supporting themselves, but they help me back out of my driveway, offer to finish sweeping up the sidewalk when I come out with a broom, and let strangers know I’m “a Christian girl, not no prostitute!” so I can’t complain.

My housemates and community members have already established their rhythms of life, so I am kind of the odd fish, floundering around and wrestling with what being here should look like, and I’m sure all of my optimism and ideals seem cute to them.

And while the certified nursing assistant class I found downtown is probably the easiest class I’ve ever taken in my life, I’m learning a lot about how education can be done well for people who haven’t had the ability to finish high school or make it to college. I’m also learning a lot culturally. The class has adopted me as their pet white girl. Most of them are confused about why I want to be living in Camden and think it’s hilarious that I know more Spanish than some of the hispanic people in the class, but they’ve embraced me with open arms, love laughing at the inevitably ultra-white and middle class things I say and do, and have taken it upon themselves to teach me important things about living in the hood. I love them all already. And my street vocabulary is growing just as much as my medical vocabulary. To top it all off, I could really get used to wearing scrubs every day. 

The past few weeks have also brought with them a crash course on the great perks of adulthood, like car insurance and the processes and expenses that come with moving and attempting to be financially independent. My savings account keeps reminding me that it doesn’t like hanging out so dangerously close to empty, but I landed a job at a diner (that’s got a super diverse staff and is into healthy, local food!), so barring surprise expenses for the next few months, all should be well. And if not, my roommates and I have bets that a pair of friendly elderly twins that hang out in front of our house all day are loan sharks, so I could just support the local economy. ;)

At any rate, even though there is a part of my soul that longs to be in a place where I can see the beauty of the changing seasons, breathe in clean air and hike through mountains, my soul is overwhelmingly glad to be in this place. There’s so much growing to be done here. I’ve been challenged and humbled and tripped up already in just a few short weeks. I’ve had loads of opportunities to love God well, love people well, and love myself well, and am pumped for those opportunities to keep showing up so that I can get better at recognizing them and taking them. One of the best realizations I’ve had in the past few days is that unlike the past several years of my life where I’ve been jumping from one thing to the next, I have time here. Time to ease in, to build a balanced life, to grow relationships. I’m not leaving anytime soon. Which means that I can invite DaShawn (the grinning 13 year old that stops by multiple times a day) in to cook sometimes, and sometimes I can turn him away without feeling like I’ve thrown away a precious opportunity. I can have days where I’m really invested in others and days where I am tired and need to spend time alone to recharge. I think it’s going to be a challenge for me to stop letting the fear of not-enough-time have so much power over me, but I am comforted by the time that I have in Camden and look forward to learning how to thrive in this place.

Apoderamiento

My host family has two little dogs, Hanzi and Cookie. Early last week, Cookie got her period for the first time. I’m not sure if it was the smells or what, but two days later Hanzi discovered his crazy dog libido, and he hasn’t spent much time dismounted from Cookie’s back end since. Normally, I would find this mostly humorous, and at most, slightly annoying. But it’s been driving me crazy. I get really frustrated every time I see it happen. It’s like Hanzi knows the feminist in me is in captivity, and he’s standing on the other side of the bars, rubbing it in my face.

Okay, “captivity” is a very dramatic metaphor. But people have asked me what’s been the hardest thing to adapt to culturally, and for the most part, it hasn’t been hard at all from a cultural standpoint. But an answer landed in front of my face this week. Empowerment. I feel like there is such a lack of women’s empowerment here. 

But the catch is that this empowerment is incredibly elusive, so I can’t really tell if I’m justified in making this claim. 

Women have plenty of presence here. In the pharmacy my host family owns, there’s a pretty equal amount of men and women employed. Since I’ve been doing a lot of shopping for a wedding lately, I ended up in shoe stores where men were assisting me, and carpentry stores where women assisted me. Backpacking stores are pretty equally staffed, too. There are loads of women studying traditionally male professions and Argentina has a woman president. The problem is not that roles in society are inaccessible. 

I feel incredibly different here though. I know in the US, I care less about my image than the average woman. But here, the contrast between me and everyone else feels distinctly amplified. I walk by a lot of people every day and there is no one else wearing cargo shorts and old flip flops. No one else whose hair is still wet from showering. But I do find lots of long hair and high heels and mascara. Again, not different than the US. Just more of it. And less of me.

I was paying for something the other day, and before any words even came out of my mouth, the cashier asked me where I was from. I get this question a lot, but usually it comes after my terrible Spanish accent or lack of suitable vocabulary, so I attribute it to that. 

It amuses my host mom to point out how I am different than Argentine women. During one car ride, she brought up the way that every other women at their church dress and look, and explained that “our men” like it when we make the effort to look nice for them. It helps them to be proud of us and not be tempted to be with other women. I almost laughed out loud, but the sadness that this is a real thought lots of people live by stifled my laughter. If a woman doesn’t look good and their husband starts pursuing other women, this is in part her fault for not trying to look more pretty? Where is this duty in our wedding vows? How does any of that line up with love, faithfulness, and self-control?

Several men have told me that “women in Argentina just really like to dress nicely and spend time getting ready.” Do the women realize that the men don’t know it’s for them? Do the men ever wonder why the women are spending so much time on their appearance? Who are we doing this for? And why? I doubt anyone is intentional in their ignorance, but it seems like so few people are asking questions that need to be asked. 

It’s not that being interested in what you wear and how you look is wrong. Enjoying it isn’t the root of all evil. I know several incredibly empowered women who love to spend time on their wardrobe and the appearance they give off. They have reminded me that clothing and bodies can be sites of art and expression. For all of humanity’s existence, we have been expressing ourselves and our thoughts and beliefs through what we wear and how we present our bodies. Not inherently bad. We are embodied people.

Still. When it’s almost everyone in a culture operates one certain way, that seems more like indoctrination, not free thought. 

But I get caught here, because I am not from this culture. So I can’t say for sure what is closer to right and what is closer to wrong. I carry my own history into this history. 

I want to talk to people about it, but it’s hard, because I can’t easily approach the topic without coming across as offensive or ethnocentric. 

It seems like almost all the women here enjoy the roles they have. And I fear acting like a colonizer, coming in with my sociology degree from the US and weighing another culture’s amount of women empowerment against my concepts of beauty and gender as social constructions. 

Oppression is so much easier to discern when the oppressed know they are being oppressed and can validate that to you. Maybe nobody is being oppressed here. But I don’t really believe that when I say it. 

As I was eating lunch today, I watched my host mom’s face as she was laughing about something. It struck me how incredibly beautiful she looked in that moment. I wondered why it struck me just then. And then I realized she wasn’t wearing any makeup. How did we ever get to the point of thinking products make us more beautiful than laughter does? 

Me cayó la ficha

ALSO (sorry, I'm going blogging crazy today):

1. THEY DON'T HAVE DUCT TAPE HERE. You can't even buy it. I'm not sure how Argentinos have survived as a species this long.

2. Whipped cream is ultra scarce here. And ultra expensive. Someone told me $30 a can. So sad. The poor deprived childhoods these people must have had.

3. My host brother graduated from university the other day, and getting to be a part of the traditional Argentine graduation tradition was one of the best things I have ever experienced in my life. Basically how it works is when you're taking your last final, all of your friends and family come and wait outside, and when you are done, the take you into the parking lot and bombard you with eggs and flour and yerba and weird mixtures of vinegar & dairy products and paint and pretty much whatever other old things they can find in their home. And they cut up the clothes you're wearing and sometimes even cut your hair. It's the best. I want this tradition so bad.

Entretenimiento

The way Spanish speakers (or at least Argentinos) say "Disney" is one of the funniest things ever.

I decided making a video of this and posting it here would maybe be taking it a little too far, but if you ever hang out with a Spanish speaker, you should bring up Mickey Mouse and see where that goes. (Cuz the way they say "Mickey" is just as hilarious, and then you'll probably get to hear both.)

Los Extranjeros Son Para Riendo

When I took my first ever Spanish class 4 years ago, I remember my Spanish teacher telling us a funny story about a girl who was learning Spanish abroad. Apparently her stomach had growled and she tried to apologize by saying “Estoy avergonzada, tengo hambre” (I’m embarrassed. I’m hungry), but instead said “Estoy embarrassada, soy hombre,” which means “I’m pregnant. I’m a man.” I remember laughing a lot, but then hoping I never made a mistake that bad.

But unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re my host family and enjoy retelling these stories to whoever comes over to visit as a way of updating them on my progress in Spanish), I have made quite a few of these kinds of mistakes. I haven’t called myself pregnant, or a man, but I do have an incredible knack for saying really sexual things without the slightest intent to.

There was the week I kept trying to use the verb “to take,” but didn’t know it, so I looked it up in my dictionary and spent time memorizing the verb “coger” only to use it in class the next morning and find out that in Argentina, that verb means “to fuck.” Oops.

And then there was the time I was trying to say that I thought the world would be a better place if all the world leaders were crammed into small cars and forced to go on periodic long road trips together, and somehow I ended up saying that I thought world leaders should just have sex with each other. I still have no idea how I managed that one.

And then there was the time I was talking with my host dad about food justice, and mentioned preservatives in food, only to find out that a “preservativo” is a condom.

I’ve made some entirely non-sexual but nonetheless embarrassing mistakes, too. Like the time Marcos took me to a panaderia and I pointed at something and asked if it was a robber (choro) instead of a churro. Or the time we were singing in church and I didn’t hear the pastor say “men only for this verse” and spent the whole next verse wondering why the register seemed to have gotten lower until the women-only verse started and my wondering changed from wondering why the register changed to wondering how many people heard me singing.
In reality, I’m glad for all the mistakes. It’s less embarrassing and more just hilarious and fun and part of the learning process. And besides, what’s the fun of a foreigner if they don’t give you any reason to laugh at them?

Un Mes

My Argentinean monthiversary was actually two days ago. But we took this picture last night. A month already. That's crazy. Even though I still feel pretty incompetent most of the time, my Spanish has definitely improved quite a bit since I got here. Here's to hoping the next month brings a lot more competency. And some good adventures.