I (heart) busses

Let's see. I have a week's worth of catching up to do. Uh-oh. Good thing internet time isn't expensive.

Thursday there was a big protest march downtown by various piquetero organizations (and, of course, the socialists). We went down to Plaza Congreso at 10ish. And were accosted by an 84-year-old man who told us his life story and that the building over there wasn't the National Congress but rather a house of robbers. And also that Argentina was "Una republica de PERROS." When I'm 84, I want to be that crazy.

People started showing up for the march at about 11, in little (or big) groups. Most of them marched down Rivadavia or Av. Congresso to get there. This went on till 3 or so. All the groups (except the socialists) were the "Movimiento such-and-such" from "fill-in-the-blank" barrio. And they all had enormous banners and a fair number of them were all masked up and carrying sticks.

And there were NO RIOT COPS. None. A guy I was talking to said that they were "around" in other streets, but we sure didn't see any. There were 7k people there, or so says the TV, and for anything resembling that in the states there'd have been about a million riot cops. Also permits, most likely. Certainly they wouldn't have been allowed to march around on major streets all day.

Anyway, so that was cool.

Friday we went out to Solano. We basically sat around on friday afternoon cuz everyone was gone, but it was Jenny's birthday party so in the evening we helped her cook. But I got sick and went to bed early. Blech.

Saturday we went with them to a "Ronda de pensamiento autonomista" which was a meeting of a bunch of MTDs, neighborhood assemblies, and so forth. There were probably 60 or 70 people there. They talked about creating networks of support and neighborhood security and all sorts of really random stuff too. It was fun. AND, we got a ride home from a couple from Floresta, the barrio of BsAs where we're staying, who talked to us (and Jenny) about how things have changed since the 19th and 20th of December 2001, when they kicked out the president and the neighborhood assemblies and cacelerazos started (the MTDs have been around longer). And they dropped us off at our front door (saving us an hour and a half on busses) and invited us to their assemblea on Saturday.

We went to Jenny's Capital birthday party Saturday night. You know, a social event. We're not that good at social events, but it was fun. We met some really cool people, including one guy who's from the States and moved down here and a CS major from Massachucetts. By the way, have you noticed that anywhere you go you can always identify the CS majors? This one had a Linux pinguin on his sweatshirt, so he was a dead giveaway, but he would've been anyway. So that was cool. We left at about 3:30, and the 2nd bus we took was PACKED. The busses run all night, and they're full, or close, all night. Amazing.

Sunday, we did nothing for a change.

Monday we went back to Solano, to their popular education. They were going to talk about the decision-making process in the MTD with the assemblies and delegates and so forth. But when they got into the galpón, they ended up having a big argument about what the popular education should be. Which was interesting, because they didn't deal with it in a really defensive/agressive way, they let everyone have their say and decided to talk about it in assembly. Nobody got pissed, nobody got offended, nada. Rock and roll.

Monday night Neka made AWESOME pasta. With eggplant and peppers and cabbage, and it was awesome. And we talked about the MST (Landless Peasant Workers Movement, but in Portuguese) in Brazil, and Che Guevara, and patriotism, and all sorts of things. One sign of good people is that they sit around the dinner table conversing. And they make tasty food.

Today we went to Iapi, to THEIR popular education. A couple people from a group Cine Insurgente came out with some videos about HIJOS (the children of the dissapeared), a hilarious movie about Kung Fu, how to find an Arab (with a bomb, or a tank, or a bullet...) and so forth, and a short about the Piqueteros involving lots of gratuitous shots of flaming tires.

And now we're back in Floresta for a bit, trying to figure out where we want to go outside of Buenos Aires and how to get there, and how to make falafel.