Last night I went to a club with Rachel and her friend Natania, called Araoz (on the street of the same name). It was a hip-hop club, and they played [almost?] exclusively American hip-hop (the DJ was American), and it was interesting. I wanted them to play three songs, of which they played one, which isn’t bad. (I don’t listen to much music in this vein — I wanted Ludacris’ “Fantasy,” which is perhaps too old, and that ancient “Choo Choo Train” song whose name I don’t even know, which definitely is too old, and the Kanye West remix of the Daft Punk song, which they did indeed play.) Regardless, it was an interesting time.

Today I slept a lot, by which I mean I woke up feeling sick, didn’t end up going to observe at the public hospital (I’ll go next week), and slept until… well, really late. I hate doing that, both because I’m not here for that long and because I feel disoriented for sleeping so long, but it was perhaps in general a good thing, since I feel better now.

This evening I made myself a tofu-and-eggplant stir fry, served over rice (yeah, I know this is Argentina, I found tofu at a health food store, and dammit it’s still lots cheaper than good meat, and I like tofu a lot, so.. shrug). And then I went out to a bar I had been wanting to go to, called Kim y Novak, at 4900 Gūemes, and had a drink, solo. Being at a bar is reasonably awkward when you’re alone, which I’d never much thought about before, but I liked this bar a lot — it had a cool atmosphere, relatively good music, and a clientele that made me feel comfortable. Some plus-es: there were two house dogs running around; there was a kid there who looked a lot like Louis Garrel; while I sat at the bar, an old woman came in, wearing a fur coat, and sat on the couch with her tiny dog, and had a champagne. While young folks ran about. Supposedly, there’s good dancing downstairs later in the evening; I shall have to go back with friends, later than just 1:30.

When I got home I took a photo of myself on my laptop’s camera and managed to upload it (it’s not a good picture; think of it as proof that I’m alive, sort of like the way a kidnapper might take a photo with a newspaper). I may not have mentioned that I brought my OLPC with me, but I did, and it turns out to be quite useful, and really entirely functional for what I would want it to do. In any case, picture below, and goodnight folks; I’ll try and upload some photographs from my own camera at some point soon.

Jump right in, folks.

Saturday night I hung out with Fernando, who worked at the hostel I was staying at then, and his friends; I spent a long while listening to them chatter in Argentine youth Spanish without understanding a word (well, I got “boludo”), as they smoked atop the hostel roof, and ate pizza with jam and olives. After a while, I ended up with Fernando and two of his friends at this tiny club behind a restaurant; one of the girls’ friends was playing in a band there. It was drumming music, and it was really cool to hear; Rachel and her friends took me to (La Bomba de Tiempo) Konex on Monday night, which was very similar, but much more touristy. Konex had at least a thousand people; this had maybe 100 Argentine kids, and was very dark. Both were great; Fernando and I danced and tried to talk a little, but his English was about as bad as my Spanish. Monday I moved into my new place. Tuesday and Wednesday were calm.

Since, after all, work starts early.

So my day begins at 6:30 AM, since there’s no room on the 6:30 combi and thus I “have” to take the 8 AM one (thank God). I awaken, shower in the tiny bathroom of Elena’s apartment where I am staying, trying to be quiet so I don’t awaken Omar (he’s nice; I’d just feel bad). (Oh, right — I’m in an apartment on Paraguay, between Vidt & Salguero; it’s reasonably nice.) I make toast on the stove-top toaster, and spread some dulce de leche and some jam on bread and run out the door. I walk five blocks or so to the Bulnes stop on the D line, catch the D subte towards Congreso de Tucumán, and get off at Juramento.

It’s another 15 minutes walk to FLENI, where I get there early enough to read for five minutes while I await the combi. It’s quite prompt, considering that people rely on it to make it to work on-time (or maybe just because FLENI is FLENI), and I sleep on the van on the way there, because dammit it’s early.

Generally I drink a coffee from the machine in the kiosk once I get there — $.75 for a cup, and that’s in pesos. And then I walk back to CETNA, to the school, to Aula 5 which is also Maria’s office. I leave my bag in the back, and talk to Maria about what I’m going to do today.

This week Belén is not around because she’s been sick, and a lot of working with children with special needs involves placing your face very near theirs, so — no Belén. Thus I followed Paola and watched as she played basic language games with Ernesto, a smiling nine-year-old with a buzz-cut and a quick-turning head. He’s a little bit beyond some of the games he was playing, which is to say he knows the date and he knows the day and what it’s like outside, and when you have his attention he can say them. Watching is perhaps not the best word — I was vaguely involved, but peripheral; I was someone to involve when he wasn’t paying attention.

Floortime is different, and that’s what I’m here for, after all; at 10 and 1, I helped Maria with two floortime sessions. The first was diagnostic, and we played with Lucia on the mats, getting her to ask us to eat plastic-food. DIR diagnosis involves watching how children interact, looking at eye contact, noticing whether they initiate or not, observing the type of play, and placing them at levels in comparison to their age — for a gross simplification of something that, I’ll remind you, I’m observing in Spanish. Lucia comes back on Wednesday, and we play with her again — she tosses balls across the room, and we yell for them, “Amarillo! Donde estas, amarillo?” Lucia has troube initiating games, and her play is not symbolic as it should be at her age, but she’s delayed only, thinks Maria, not PDD. Next week, Maria and the fonoaudoloigio (I misspelled that I’m sure; speech therapist) and the OT and the Neurologist and whoever else will meet and discuss a diagnosis.Wednesday morning I had the privelege of watching musicoterapia, Music Therapy, which primarily involved a pretty young woman with a guitar singing to kids who are semi-engaged, but was beautiful to watch. They began with a little song, one for each of the kids: «Hola, Santi, hola y como estas? Con la mano arriba, nos vamos a saludar.» I’ll sing it to you if you ask nicely.

Today Maria sent me home early (well, I’d been there four-and-a-half hours only) because she had nothing left to do, but I spent the morning talking with her about Lucia, above, and about FLENI’s design; I got to watch some of the other kids, and spent some time reading aticles from Greenspan & Wieder she’d assigned me, and one on the changing paradigm of autism therapy. I’m really proud of how well I can get through these articles on autism; I’m also reading Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal, which is surprisingly easy going. (I think my written-Spanish is a little ahead of my spoken, eh). At the end of the day, I took part in a class Maria is giving to the young women who are doing a year of training (not quite, but similar to, a residency) at FLENI on Floortime; she talked to them about how development is supposed to go, and showed videos of infants engaging — it’s a really good thing that I know the basic terms here, or this  would’ve been impossible going, but once I’ve got «desarrollo» (development) and a few others like «enganchar» (engage, as they use it) or «vinculos» (connections, more or less), I’m understanding at least the generalities of the conversation.

The woman who drove me home this afternoon was one of the others in that session, and we spoke most of the drive, about psychology and languages and how therapy works here. In general, I think we understood each other which is sort of amazing when you think about it.

As has been pointed out, perhaps my internship leans more towards the Global Citizenship part of the CPGC’s mission at Haverford, but I’m learning so much about psychology, and I feel like the people at FLENI are happy to have me there, even if my position functions more as validation than as help. I don’t know if that makes sense; I’m going to take a nap. Tonight Rachel and I are hopefully going to a club for my first time since I’ve been here; tomorrow I am going to the public hospital to observe for a day. Life is interesting. More about social things next time, perhaps.

Some quick thoughts on FLENI.

Today I got to do some floortime with Belen, and then watched some classrooms, and some really basic therapy that looked like discrete trials to me. I talked to Belen for a while; I really like her. She’s, I believe, about seven years older than me (she laughed and told me I was young when I said my age), and she’s quite patient about letting me speak in Spanish, which is nice. (She speaks English, but not too much better than I speak Spanish.) I wonder if a lot of these women are married, or if they’re putting career first; I wonder if they have other jobs, especially those that only work at FLENI for a few hours.

The kids here come every day, or a few days a week, or even just a few hours a week, for therapy. The plus side is that, for those who need it, there are all sorts of types of therapy: physical therapy, music therapy, kinesthetics, occupational therapy, speech therapy, floortime, basic behavioral autism therapies…so for the most part, the therapists who work with each kid are tailored to what that child needs. Thus someone with severe language difficulties will maybe be working a lot with a speech pathologist, and so on.

It’s weird, though, to realize that Belen, for example, is in a leadership position (of a sort) here at FLENI, while when I am her age I may still be in school. Like: how very strange that our educational systems are so different. I like that I have a lot of time to consider, and think, and decide; I don’t need to know where I want to end up, now. But still.

Last night Rachel and I bought pasta and sauce and made it with some veggies in the kitchen at my hostel; it was nice to eat something we had made ourselves. I am going to go and write some emails about apartments, now.

I have been trying to write stories, but I’m lazy and uncreative. I am terrified of not wanting to write at all while I am here.

Well, since you asked.

I am/will be working at this hospital called FLENI (which is essentially “Foundation for the Fight Against Infantile Neurological Diseases”; I am working in the CETNA division, which is the “Center for Educational Therapy for Children and Adolescents”). Each morning, I have to take an 8 AM van from the Belgrano Headquarters, which is a fifteen minute walk and a 7 minute subte ride away, to the Sede Escobar [Headquarters], which is about 40 minutes away. So I will be awakening regularly at around 6:40, which I guess I can deal with. (It just means that my late porteño¹ nights are going to be only on weekends, and that I feel bad while staying in a dormitory at a hostel. Hopefully this will not be forever.)

I am working directly for this woman named Maria A, who is in charge of the DIR/floortime autism therapy² at FLENI, and trains people in how to do the therapy, both parents and educators. She is a psychologist, and has a private practice as well; she’s quite young, but is one of the older people working there. She studied in the States, as did many of the higher-level people there; she speaks English quite well. Most of the speech/physical/occupational therapists are young women recently out of college; they look younger than they are, in general — perhaps because they don’t wear makeup to work (I’m not sure, but I’m consistently having to remind myself that these women have degrees and are not my age; some also have kids).

FLENI is a really nice hospital. It’s a private foundation, started by some benefactor, and it’s a non-profit; despite all of this, the people who come here are for the most part paying bucket-loads. (And you can often tell.) (And, I mean, each kid has his or her own fully-trained therapist at the school; that’s more than you get in the US at some places. People come here from around South America for neurological diseases.)  Despite the name, they don’t just deal with kids; at Sede Escobar there’s a division, CR (Centro de Rehabilitación), that deals solely with adults. As Maria keeps reminding me, “Esto no es el Argentina real.”³ At some point, I’ll hopefully get to go to a state hospital and see how things are there; it’s completely different, she assures me.

In any case, I’m going to be (a) working with some of the kids at the school, doing floortime and observing a lot. This I did today and Wednesday — I helped out in a floortime evaluation with a really great kid named Lucás, who has gone from Aspergers to not even being autism-spectrum over the past few years, although he still has a lot of the signs of it. It was really nice to realize that my Spanish is okay for things like playing with kids. Especially kids who have fewer language skills than Lucás.

(b) I’ll be working with some of the kids who don’t get much exposure to floortime because not enough of the staff are trained in it yet (I get the impression that they’re somewhat hesitant to put too much money in it at FLENI), with Maria and with one of the therapists in charge of one of the classrooms, Belen; I’ll also be working in English with one of the kids (Carlos, I think), since he speaks, errr, English.

(c) I’ll be taking part in some of the training sessions for educators and therapists that Maria does, which is kind of difficult, since they’re entirely in Spanish. (Duh.) But should be interesting and really good practice.

(d) I’ll be occasionally helping out in Maria’s private practice, maybe, and perhaps working with a kid (from that practice, her consultorio privado) who is 15 and has Aspergers, and is studying English. This could be a cool opportunity to do something sort of different. The nice thing about her private practice is that there aren’t problems with administration; all we need is the parents’ permission for me to be involved.

(e) If things work out with Sebastien, who is a doctor at FLENI who also works at a state hospital in San Telmo, I may be going to another hospital to observe once a week, or something. This is still hazy (he needs to talk to administrators there; yay buraucracy).

(f) I will probably end up helping out with some of the folks who are going to study floortime stuff in the states; one therapist has a presentation in English she’s working on, and hopefully I can help with that (at least that I’ll be good at!)

Anyway, I won’t work Mondays since Maria only does private practice; some days I’ll only be there in the mornings and some days I’ll be there all day. As they find more things for me to do, I’ll do them, but thus far, this is what I’m going to be up to. Which is not insignificant, and about what I expected. I am hoping that things continue to work out as I originally thought they would.⁴

A few last notes, and then I’ll end.

Spanish & people. When people at FLENI are talking about floortime, I generally know what’s going on. At least in large part. When they’re talking about anything else, I get a few words, understand gestures, and the rest I can make out words but only vaguely understand. Still, I’ve definitely had some conversations, and I think I’m at least reasonably confident when I speak, so all is well. At the same time, eh, I haven’t really met anyone besides Rachel and her friends yet who I like. Which is fine of course, since Rachel is an awesome sister, and I like her friends, but they leave sooner than I, so while this is all good, I want to meet a few more people. Shrug. I am not so good at this, and there are not too many folks at the hostel. I’m sure I’ll figure it out by being friendly and dashing. (Hah!)

And, last, mate is delicious and Rachel got me a gourd and una bombilla⁵, and I drank it at work as well, with Maria and Belen, and this is all good.

And so it goes. I will talk about food another time, and thence about the search for an apartment. Probably.

¹ see: person from Buenos Aires
² Floortime (or, the DIR model, or, here, “el floortime”) is an up-and-coming therapeutic technique that some people think really works, Maria included, me somewhat; this is essentially what my “project” is about. D: Developmental. I: Individual differences. R: Relationship-based. It’s, in essence, a model that suggests that therapy for autism-spectrum disorders like autism, Aspergers, and PDD-NOS should be based on working with each individual child, at whatever level of development, in producing relationships and interactions. Google it for more.
³ You all get that. “This is not the real Argentina.”
⁴ Which is actually quite impressive. Like, who has a project that ends up turning out about as they expected it to? Really, things are going well, although of course I wish everything (see the stuff about Spanish, especially) were easier.
⁵ straw. The way yerba mate works is, you put a lot of te in a gourd, like three-quarters full, and then you pour hot water into it from a thermos, and people take turns drinking. The straw is long and thin and has tiny holes at the bottom, so the leaves of the tea don’t come in, but the tea does. It’s really strong, but I like it; it helps that I’ve drank it in the States before, both with Gina and when I bought some from the Head Nut.

Technically, I am safely in Buenos Aires. I think. I am checked in at a hostel; I am sitting next to my sister Rachel in a locoturio, and l seems to be well.

The hostel is nice and the people have been friendly; I got a taxi driver who gave me false change already; I managed to find my way from the hostel to Rachel’s apartment easily. So some good, some bad. Rachel and I had breakfast, got me minutes on my cell phone, and have been walking around Palermo. (Ask me via email if you want the cell number.) It’s gross and muggy; the weather outside is windy and not horribly un-cool, but I’m sweating sitting here. I’m glad that I’m here for winter and not for summer; I’d dislike living here without AC.

My Spanish has been fine thus far; I had a nice conversation with the cab driver before he stole my money. I am reasonably not-upset. I’m not sure what the plan is for the rest of the day — Rachel has to interview some artist-guy this afternoon, so I suppose we’ll wander around a bit more, and then I’ll go to the hostel, read some, and give Maria (who I shall be working for, if all goes well) a call, and figure out tomorrow.

But yes, I am well & safe. In case you were wondering.

Tomorrow afternoon I will get into my parents’ car and we will drive to Miami International Airport. I will spend two hours or so in the airport, going through security, sitting at my gate and thinking, and reading books, and writing in my journal perhaps. I will get onto a plane and fly, overnight, to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It is roughly an eight-hour flight, maybe nine, and so I will get into Argentina at 6 AM or so, at which point I will find my way into the city, drop off my stuff at a hostel, and meet up with my sister Rachel. This is about as far as the planning goes. At some point, I will wander around the city; I will look for a place to stay more permanently; I will call Maria A., for whom I will be working; I will try and meet some people; I will meet up with Elisa J. I am trying to take things a few steps at a time.

I am somewhat nervous about three things, is the way I figure it: I’m not sure how my language skills will be (although people assure me that it will be okay, and that I will pick things up; I am trying to listen to them), I’m not sure how much use I’ll be to Maria A., and I’m worried about being lonely / not meeting people who are interesting. I think the latter two have easy solutions if they become problems. The former is my primary worry, and hey — it has an easy solution, too, which is to take Spanish classes. So I may. These are worries which will not be alleviated by consideration; I will worry more later.

More practically, I have not really begun to pack yet, so I will start reasonably early in the morning. My clothes currently wrinkle my floor in their lumps of hills, some folded and some rolled, some strewn about as though they had been worn. I have a list of things I need in my head, including medicines and toothpaste and an electric razor and phone numbers and all sorts of things. Tomorrow will be the day when I figure out how I can fit them into the bag I’m allotting myself, and how many books I’m allowed to bring (I’m thinking three, but that’ll be tough).

I shan’t post anything more until I am in Argentina, I don’t imagine. This is well and good.

I am nervous; I am excited. All will be well.

I now have all of my inoculations for going to Argentina! Yellow Fever, check. Typhoid, check. T-DAP (Tetanus, Dyptheria, Pertussis), check.

Okay, only a little over a week to go. But so much to do, first!

Oh man, I wonder if there’s rock climbing in or near Buenos Aires?

I can even post by text message!

This blog is primarily, at least at first, intended to chronicle my adventures in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I guess I figured I’d like to start fresh with this.

My entries will, I would guess, be primarily in English, but I may write a few in my awful-bad Spanish. You’ll make it through. Knowing me, I’ll probably provide translations.

That’s it for the moment.