I love volunteering at Laferrere. Though the ride there sucks. We need to take a public bus to some illegal bus van system that takes us there. Some of the vans are such shit. The foam will be coming out of all the seats, door will have no handle and just takes a push to get out, windows cracked, and outside looks like its been driven off a bridge and yet still runs. Some vans are good though. We got a flat tire halfway there and ended up on the highway until another van picked us up. The journey is worth it though. There’s something about the kids there that stand out from all the other villa’s I’ve been to. Because of this, I go as often as I can volunteering there. The kids are wonderful and have gotten to know me by now. Because of Saturday’s Christmas party, they immediately point out my dancing on stage skills stunt with Hanna. I looked like a fool and they love that. The kids love my silliness. School support work is done so for the next few months during the summer we’ll be just doing fun activities like building blocks, coloring, and whatever else we can think of. It was Hanna’s last day at Laferrere and they’ve grown attached to her. Because of this they’ve made a poster with all their names and took a group shot photo. Very cute! Kids are learning respect, authority, giving thanks, and manners. They always call us professors or teachers.
We get back at about 15:30 and Hanna invited me to a live band tango show with her friends for tonight. The place was called La Galeria. I forget their names but one of Hanna’s friends friend is 100% Argentine and knew hardly any English which made me really excited to talk to him. I need to keep practicing Spanish and know more Argentineans (Even though I do have a whole family here). The more I speak it, the better I get and I can feel a difference every conversation. So though Hanna and I usually speak mostly English with random words in Spanish, we got to only talking Spanish that night since it was the common language we all knew. I get pretty excited speaking Spanish now especially with other Argentine’s. One thing he said that I thought was pretty funny since he wasn’t the only person that has said this to me was that I have a little of an accent of an Argentinean from the way I talk and pronounce my words. I told him my whole story and he said of course. I realized this could be why I pronounce English words like shit. I use to get made fun as a kid for pronouncing or not able to pronounce certain English words. Who knows. Apparently I don’t have a strong Jersey/Metro NYC accent.
La Galeria had two fantastic bands. The first tango band I had already heard last week in another milonga. Very good group and extremely talented. The second just took it to another level. It had the Tango flavor mixed with a bit more upbeat style to it. I’m not very good at describing sounds but I’ll just say if you ever get a chance to get to BA, make sure you attend the smaller lesser known milonga‘s or tango band places. It cost me 10 pesos. The locals have talent, it’s cheap, and a great atmosphere. Screw paying $50 dollars or more for a tourists tango show. See the real thing. The real band. The real dancers. Where the locals are.
Seeing lots of live music lately. Buenos Aires has plenty of it and a great mix.
