Let me relate my experience with Servas Language Exchange – SLE, that I had the pleasure of experiencing it in Buenos Ayres, Argentina from 03 to February 19 under the coordination of Cintia Amor and with the special collaboration of Felix Sanchez. It was an unique opportunity to meet wonderful people in Buenos Aires, to get to know the portenha culture, to improve my level of Spanish and even discover tips for my research with Sara Gendel and Cintia. Moreover. It was gratifying to see the Servas Argentina mobilization, which demonstrated the great cooperation and greater integration among Buenos Aires members.
I would like to emphasize that SLE has the same configuration as Servas Youth Language Exchange - SYLE, only aimed to people over 30 years. In these 16 days, I stayed with five families in Buenos Aires, El Tigre, and Temperley and with a day host in Buenos Aires. For ease, my luggage stayed at the house with a Servas host while I moved to the other houses with a backpack and laptop. Cintia Amor, Servas Buenos Aires coordinator was my first hostess and Spanish teacher. I stayed at her house for two days. The classes of Spanish included shopping for Spanish books, a class on Brazilian cuisine: “escondidinho”, which is a regional dish in Pernambuco, where I live today, for a salad and passion fruit mousse and even a Thailand massage.
My second hostess was Elizabeth Gothelf in Palermo. Eli is also a teacher and a teller of tales, and I was her first Servas guest. Our Spanish classes included a walk around the neighborhood some delicious vegetarian food, and tango lesson. On Saturday night, we had a meeting with Servas friends to socialize, to listen to Eli’s tales, and to eat empanadas. Another interesting point during that first week was going to the theater to see Flamengo based on Garcia Lorca. Felix Sanchez took me on a night of heavy rains. Eli reserved a taxi, but it did not show up because of the weather. Therefore, Eli and I literally had to run to the bus stop and take the subway to the theater. It was very nice of her to accompany me to the subway under the heavy rain. Before the play, I had a Spanish class on the Garcia Lorca prepared by Felix.
Comemoração do aniversário às margens do Rio La Plata
Sunday, 07 was my birthday and Cintia organized a barbecue in the Austria Tennis Club, San Isidro in Constanera Norte. Despite the storms, 18 Servas friends attended, and we had three birthday cakes because, during February, both Cintia Amor (16) and Alejandro Kleisner (6) also celebrated their birthdays. I was delighted with such kindness; each person came with food to pass and I felt very welcome by the comfort that only Servas can provide. Afterwards, we went for coffee on the banks of the river La Plata and played "one lemon, two lemons etc" even children present were astonished.
Monday, 08 of February, I went to the home of Felix with whom I had been studying Spanish through Skype when I was in Brazil. Usually, I had formal Spanish classes in the morning and in the afternoon, we did other activities. We also visited the city of Bologna, in Uruguay across the river La Plata. We had another interesting meeting in which Rosa Romero presented the proposal from the Pachamama Symposium, with the motto: Awakening al Soñador, exchange el sueño with the aim of having a human presence on a planet environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually full. Attending this meeting were a couple from Canada who were visiting Buenos Aires and Pablo Colangelo the host coordinator for Servas International. He gave me a lesson in Dolphin, and one of the interviews for the research. During the same week, we had an interesting meeting at Martha Zuik’s home, a plastic artist spoke about her paintings and her story.
On Friday, 09, I went to El Tigre with Lucrecia Agulla. I remember the first time I went to Argentina. I took a tour of El Tigre and planned to rent a house for holidays some day. Years later I was there, hosted by Lucrecia, Eli, and Ema. On Sunday, several Servas’ friends came for lunch.. Despite the heavy rain which caused an increase in water levels, it was both great and fun: nice people, nice food, and nice conversations.
I took a rowing class and on Monday Lucrécia drove to her place in Buenos Aires. I met Cecilia Buttazoni and went to Temperley by train. I met her husband, Alejandro. On another day, I came along with Cecilia to the Capital and visited the Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat Museum. Cecilia is an anthropologist, Alexsandro has family from Brazil, and we talked a lot about the political history of Latin American countries.
However with the release of the University to study for a doctorate from 01 March, I had to anticipate my return to Brazil, and have not been able to go to La Plata and Mar del Plata, where I would stay with Mariana Vogt and with the Bertarini consecutively.
As a farewell in Buenos Aires, we had a dinner with Cintia and her family, coffee at Martha Zuik’s place, and a tango show with Felix. From the tango show, we stopped by Felix’s to get my luggage before going to the airport. Felix gently came along to say good bye at the airport representing all friends of Servas from Argentina.
I can recall Cintia’s expression when we first met in Mar del Plata in September 2009. She told me that: she loved Argentina and one of Argentina’s advantages is that it is very close to Brazil. I can now reiterate this feeling. The friendly relationship between the two countries and the interpersonal relations between Brazilians and Argentines make me feel welcomed and delighted by Buenos Ayres Servas.
-- Alvany Santiago
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário