University of Belgrano (Ken)

During my final weeks here in Buenos Aires, I have been meeting with people from the University of Belgrano about the possibility of having students from my college in Maryland spend a semester in Argentina.

Over the past two weeks, I have visited the campus four times and met with Sr. Alfredo Martinez, who is it the Director of Student Housing; Sr. Silvia Maggiorini, the manager of the Office International Students; and Dr. Martin Furlong, the Vice Director of International Programs. I had to work my way up to Dr. Furlong after it was fully understood that I work at a community college.

The Community College concept is uniquely North American; the people at the University of Belgrano needed some help understanding just what it is. I explained that in 1901 the community college was born in Joliette, Illinois in response to increased desire for higher education and limited capacity. It was at this time, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, that the need for educating middle and top management—as well as technical and scientific expertise—became critical. Existing universities were not capable of or willing to educate this new type of student who came from working class families with no legacy of university education.

The community college was a new concept that served two purposes: to provide the first two years of general education (mathematics, history, sciences, composition) for students intending to matriculate to four-year institution to continue on to the baccalaureate, and to provide two-year professional programs for direct entry into the work force. Once I explained that our graduates, who transfer to four-year universities, typically out-perform those students who began at the four-year institutions, they seemed satisfied that my community college students were every bit as capable of having a positive study-abroad experience as the other international students with whom they have been working.

We both still need to prepare and present proposals to our respective superiors before this can happen, but I believe it can be done.

Frederick Community College already has a semester abroad program where we send students to London. It is a good and successful program. Building on that success, I think we are ready to expand to South America. After all, going to London, for a USAmerican, is rather like going to visit your grandparents in the family’s original home town—the accent is different and some things look strange, but, for the most part—it feels like home.

Argentina is altogether a different story. While the British Pound is at 1:2 for the US Dollar, the Argentine Peso is a 3:1. That is six times the purchasing power for our students, which makes Argentina an affordable destination.

Another attractive reason is that, for most USAmercans, Latin America begins and ends with Mexico. It will be good for more of us, especially young Americans, to come here. We will never really know what the world is like unless we see it for ourselves. We need look no where other than the White House to see the truth of that.
On the evening of the 4th of May, there was a Noche Internacional where all of the International Students (of whom there are now 2000 a year at the University of Belgrano) were invited to set up a booth to share something of their culture with the others. I stopped by and talked to the kids from the USA. They were all happy with their experience in Buenos Aires and at the University.

In their booth, they had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread, hot dogs, apple pie, Oreos, and Peanut M&Ms as examples of American cuisine. For American culture, the boys set up a Beer Pong game and broke out the Beer Bong. So much for American culture!

Profesores Particulares: formal and informal (Ken)

While I continued with the next level of classes at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Helen began studying with a private tutor--una profesora particular. Now that my UBA classes are over, I decided to do the same.



Helen and I brought our textbooks from the USA that are used at my college for Spanish 101, 102, 201, and 202 classes. Our tutor, Nieves, is using these materials as well as her own materials to teach us.



Helen has come up with a pretty good way of setting up her lessons. She writes narrations using present and past tense about what she has been doing or what she did the day before. Nieves then reads them and teaches the finer points of the language and usage. Helen is now branching out and writing in different verb tenses--what she would like to do, plans to do. She hopes to work up to the very tricky verb construction of "what she would have done."



I am currently reviewing preterit and imperfect verbs. I took a few weeks off to let them sink in, and they seem to be making sense to me now. I am able to remember and use them better.



The young people at the café continue to be our tutors as well. We have coffee there later in the morning when the place is empty. Often, we are the only customers and they talk with us for what seems like a really long time.



We talked about the differences in Easter/Pascuas customs. Rather than an Easter basket, in Argentina, they get a large, hollow, chocolate Easter egg--huevo de Pascuas chocolate--that is filled with candy. They also don't have the hide-the-eggs tradition here. No ham and potatoes au gratin here, Melissa had pasta for Easter dinner.



We also had a lengthy discussion about women's underware yesterday--Helen can give you the details on that one. Some days, a relaxing cup of coffee is anything but. It becomes an on-your-toes conversation with on-the-spot mental translation.



Another of our informal tutors is Laura. She works in the fiambiaria on the corner. We met here way back with the "jamón común" episode. She is very nice and takes an interest in our Castillano progress.



Then there are the guys in our building--José Luis, the portero; and Miguel, the engargado. They meet and greet us whenever we enter or leave the building. Aside from the social-courtesy exchanges (Hola, que tal? Como andan? Todo bien?) they ask us where we are off to and what we have been doing. That makes us use past and future verb tenses.



So that is where we are in our studies now. Our informal teachers are sometimes more valuable than our formal teachers.

Finals week at UBA (Ken)

Here is a class photo of my group at the University of Buenos Aires.
Back row: Eva (20) from Heidelberg, Germany, Martin (26) from Germany, Eric (24) from Sweeden, Victoria (24) from Boston, me, Yi Luh (20) from Shanghi, and our Profesora, Pilar. Blake from Canada, Ulrike (27) from Munich, Maria from Stockholm, and Barbara (39) from Berlin.

This is finals week at UBA for clases super intensivos. We were given a practice final exam to take home and complete over the weekend. We went over that today. There is also an oral exam. The core learning outcomes for this level are to be able to use the verb forms indefinido, imperfecto, and imperative. So the oral exam mostly focuses on those. But we also learned so direct and indirect object pronouns and phrases of comparison.

Today, to practice for the final exam, the class was split into four groups. We played that life boat game where our ship was sinking and we were given a list of 15 items and we had to take in the lifeboat to bring to the deserted island. The list included things like: a blanket, matches, a lantern, a bottle of gin, ¾ liter of water, a parachute, a pistol, a survival knife, a package of food, a compass, a star map . . . and so on.

Our small group had to list them 1-15 in order of importance. I was with the 20 year-old German girl, Eva, and the 20 year-old Chinese girl, Yi Luh. We could not agree on anything. My top two were the matches and the knife. They wanted the pistol and the ¾ liter of water. Now remember, the purpose of this was to use phrases like “La agua es mas importante que la manta.” (the water is more important than the blanket). I tried to explain (in Spanish to a German girl and a Chinese girl) that ¾ liter of water was not going to last us that long and that we need fire for warmth, signaling for rescue, and boiling drinking water. It was a lost cause. They argued hard for the pistol. I said, “¿Qué paso? Soy de Los Estados Unidos y deseas la pistola?” (What’s going on here? I am the American and you want the guns?)

We then had to join our small group with another small group. We were joined by Martin, a 26-year-old German, and Victoria, a 23 year-old. At age 50, I was again overwhelmed by youth. We were told we had to get our list of 15 down to 10 and agree with the other group. Again, I was out-voted by their youthful logic. It was kind of fun arguing in Spanish. But I was able to convince Martin that the matches should go on the list. He argued that if the boat was sinking the matches would be wet and not work. I argued that if that were the case, everything was wet and we had no chance of surviving the night so let’s just drink the gin and die. La profesora came over to ask how we were doing and I said, “Vamos a morir todo!” My matches made it to priority 6.

Then the whole class, now in two groups, had to agree on five items only. Finally, I got to play with the grownups. The other group had Blake, Maria, and Barbara. Ironically, my top five items, that I tried to convince Yi Luh and Eva to take, were the five items the whole group ended up choosing to bring in the life boat.

What I thought were cultural differences ended up being an age differences.

The Week in Review (Ken)

It rained today. It is only about the 4th time it has rained in the seven weeks we have been here. That was OK though; it gave me an excuse to do nothing for the afternoon.

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My first week of my second-level Spanish class is over. Three more weeks to go. They finally split out large class of 18 into two classes. I was put in a class of 10 with other students who show up everyday. The other class of 8 has at least two students a day not show up. So we are a class of 10 and a class of 6. You may recall my earlier post where I wrote about the German girl saying that she didn´t like it that there were so many Americans in the class--there were 4 in the class of 18. Then she remembered I am an American and quickly said that she didn´t mean me--of course. It seems that she doesn´t like the way USAmericans pronounce Spanish and it is hard for her to understand them.

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Anyway, after the classes were split, the Americans were divided two-and-two. The Germans, however, all four of them, were all placed in the same class. I just could not resist. The following day, the same group of us from the first level class were talking on break when the German women were saying how much better the class was now. At that point I said, "Yes, but I don´t like it that there are so many Germans." I smiled when I said it . . .We all had a good laugh--fortunately. I am happy that I did not cause an international incident.

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Ana came over for a glass of wine after visiting her mother. She is the woman who has helped us so much and is renting us her apartment. We really like her. She is so interesting to talk to. She tells us about the country and encourages us to speak Spanish. We are very fortunate to have found her. She read my blog about visiting the Ecological Reserve last week. She told me I was lucky to be alive. "It has such a lovely name," she said, "The Ecological Reserve. But no one that I know has ever been there. Every time there is a murder, the body ends up there," she told me.

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OK. I hear her. I did get a kind of a wierd, gay-cruising vibe from the place. Here on the streets of Buenos Aires, no one looks anyone in the eye. You avoid eye contact all together on the street--just like any big city. However, when I was at the Ecological Reserve, I would pass men on the path and they would smile and say hello. And a lot of them were just sitting around with their shirts off. Maybe it was nothing, but it made me wonder . . .

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We branched out a bit with the food this week and got some carryout (para llevar) from the local parilla a few doors up from the cafe across the street. They only open for a few hours in the afternoon and then again at 8:00 in the evening. We ordered un porción de pollo y un porción de vació con papas fritas (some beef and chicken with fried potatoes). They cook the food over a big grille--the parilla. The cook, or cocinero, has most everything partially cooked and staying warm. When something is ordered he will move the pieves over to the hot coals. For my beef, he carved a huge--almost a kilo--piece of beef off a massive piece and placed it over the hot coals to heat up. The coals themselves are brought in from a back room by shovel when they need to be replenished. The meat is really almost more smoked than cooked. It has a distinct smokey flavor. I saw a bag of eucaliptus wood in the store next to the parilla supplies, but I don´t know if that is the wood they use.

We went back again tonight and Helen and I split the one order. It is incredible. Almost a kilo of beef with potatoes for $14 pesos--less than five dollars.

I am looking forward to the weekend off from classes. I am not sure what I am going to do. I am sure this city has something interesting to offer.

Classes at UBA (Ken)

Classes started back up at University of Buenos Aires--there are my Español para extranjeros classes. I am now in level 2. The class has grown to 17. That is strange because all the literature specifies the classes are capped at 14.

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Five of us moved on from the level one class. The other 12 either switched from the other campus of tested in to level 2. The class is big for an immersion class. It is easy to get lost. It is easy to hide. I went the whole day yesterday without getting called on. If I didn't volunteer a response, I was not called on. There is a certain amount of learning that goes on and attention that gets focussed when you can be put-on-the-spot at any moment. Now, that is missing in this class. There are plenty of students who are excited to be the first to answer everything.

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The two women from my first class, Maria from Sweden, and Barbara from Germany, complained to the coordinator at break time. While they were telling me about that, Ulrike, also from Germany, came up and said, "I just asked them it if was too late to get my money back." They told her they were thinking of splitting the class in two. I guess we´ll see what happens when we show up in the morning.

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Oh, and one funny thing . . . While we were talking about the class, one of the women said,"And I don't like it that there are so many Americans." (There are four USAmericans in the class of 17. ) Then the other two nodded their heads in agreement, and then remembered I am a USAmerican. "But, we don't mean you, of course," they said.

Español para extranjeros a UBA (Ken)

Tomorrow, Wednesday, is the last day of class before exams. We have class the regular three hours and then a one hour review where we can esk for help with anything we want. Thursday is the two-hour written final. We will be tested on conjugating present and present progressive verbs, vocabulary, some imperfect past tense, me gusta, me encanta, me molesta, and irregular verbs.

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Friday is the oral final. A professor, other than the two with whom we have been working, will interview each of us individually. We will be expected to hold a simple conversation about ourselves, out homes, our families, what we have done in Buenos Aires, and so on.

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They will ask us questions that will make us talk in present tense, past tense, and discuss our future plans.

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For those of you who have been following, the class was supposed to have 14 students. Two never showed up. There were two other US Americans: Leese and Guy, they dropped out the first week. Rebecca, from New Zealand, hung in there quite a while, but she is doing remote radio broadcasts back home and writing for the Buenos Aires Herald, the local English-language daily, while here. That finally caught up with her and she´s gone. Owen, from Dublin, just this week stopped coming. His roommate is ill and returning to Ireland. Owen is headed back with him Thursday. I guess he is busy getting ready to leave.

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That leaves the lineup you see above. Left to right, Eva, the International Studies student from Shanghi; Ulrike, the lawyer from Munich, who is interning with an Argentine law firm while here; Helen, mi mujer; Barbara, an independent film and video producer from Berlin; Maria, a computer systems worker from Zurich; and Jonah, a marketing director from Helsinki. And me, absent from the photo, you faithful blogger and photographer.

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We get a week off next week before the February class begins. Tomorrow should be a BIG adventure. We have to go to the main post office to pick up a package. Multiple challenges lie ahead: a new bus route, a huge beauracracy, Argentine efficiency and customer service . . . can´t wait.