Yankees Go Home!

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August 16: Rosario (10:35) to Buenos Aires (15:30)
August 16: Buenos Aires (18:05) to Santiago (19:20)
August 16: Santiago (20:35) to Atlanta (6:25)
August 17: Atlanta (8:15) to Baltimore (10:10)

Reflection
Rather tired.

Question
What now?

Esteli, Montevideo, and Coronda: Prisons, prisons everywhere and not a blog to write

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Astute readers of our blog may have noted on the “Vital Signs” section to the right of the blogs that we have visited 3 prisons on our trip.

The first prison we visited was in Estelí, Nicaragua. The day after I expressed interest in seeing a prison to my language tutor, we had an appointment to visit the prison. It was outside the city in the quiet countryside. The tranquility extended to the guards; we weren’t searched as we entered. The warden spoke to us with an air of resignation about the difficulty of his work. The inmates themselves didn’t give him much trouble as they were mostly non-violent and were accused of theft and drug related offenses. Money matters troubled the warden the most. He had thirty cents a day per inmate to spend on food. Charity groups from outside provided vats of rice and beans. Two things struck me in particular: the advertisements for Pepsi and the signs for human rights.



The sign above says, “25 years promoting life and respect for human rights.”

I had seen fresh banners advertising a soda when I visited Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the words “human rights” inside a US prison. A commitment to human rights is probably a holdover from when the Sandinistas were in power and moreover, many of the officials today might have been political prisoners under Somoza.

My next prison visit was in Montevideo, Uruguay. I went with a former inmate of the prison and an ex-offender from the US. Before arriving at the prison, we went to a grocery store and bought a shopping cart full of food, including pastas, produce, and meat, for the prisoner we would be visiting. Again, the prison does not have the resources to feed all the inmates satisfactorily, so friends and family bring in groceries during visiting hours. The guards know that the inmates will cook the foods on stoves that the inmates make using the wires from the light bulbs that light their cells.

When we entered, I was told that my shirt was too short (it just touched the top of my pants) and out translator was told that she couldn’t wear a blue shirt, since only guards can wear blue. I had to borrow the shirt of the woman who drove us to the prison, and she waited in her van wearing just a bra and a towel wrapped around her shoulders. Men and women were searched separately upon entering and I had to drop my underpants before the female guard. She questioned me briefly about an old train ticket I had in my pocket. I tried to explain it was trash and that she could take it. The translator later told me that I was probably only let in, despite the trash in my pocket, because the guard was flustered by my American passport.

My third prison visit was with a group of young lawyers in Rosario who go to the prisons twice a week to represent inmates in their hearings before the tribunal that exists inside the prison. The lawyers help the inmates with paperwork requesting transfers, calculation of sentences and disciplinary issues. I was impressed by how tranquil the prison seemed. I wasn’t searched upon entering, some inmates seemed to walk about freely, and at times I couldn’t distinguish between inmates and guards because neither seemed to be wearing clear uniforms. Less than a week later there was a riot and 13 men were massacred by their fellow inmates with self-made knives.

Reflection
I’ve wanted to blog about each of the prison visits for a while, but I could never come up with a reflection more complex than: "Prisons suck." The ones I saw in Latin America had lousy infrastructure, but then again so do the prisons in the US. I visited a prison in New Jersey once that housed inmates in trailers with gaping holes in the floor. Security measures such as searches of visitors seem arbitrary, just as has been my experience in the US.

Through our blogs we’ve talked about the ways we’ve learned while traveling. Though I found it a powerful and moving experience to see the prisons in Latin America, they weren’t transformative learning experiences for me. I think I had my “ah-ha” moments and insights about prisons when I first visited American prisons in law school. Thus, prisons weren’t the subject I learned the most about on this trip. The things I learned the most about were things that were new to me and things that I could engage with in new ways. Learning about the miserable prison conditions in other countries just made me feel helpless, because I am even less able address those conditions than in the United States, where I at least know the legal framework for addressing rights violations.

Question
When have you experienced something that wasn’t as powerful or influential as you expected? Why wasn’t it?

Rosario, Argentina: The Impossible Vegetarian Barbecue

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Since we first arrived in Rosario, anytime we talk with a local about our stay the discussion always finds its way to a certain question: “Have you been to an asado?” Asado roughly means barbecue, although in Argentina the word seems to take on a holier connotation. Every Sunday, the city shuts down and families gather in their back yards, or the yards of neighbors and friends, to celebrate an asado.

For the first five months of our stay, what exactly the Argentines did at an asado remained somewhat of a mystery to us. Whenever we were invited to one, we explained that we were vegetarian and our potential host exclaimed, “oh, that’s a shame!” We tried to explain that one could barbecue vegetables too, but the response was always dismissive. Gradually, however, we learned that vegetarian asados weren’t entirely unfathomable. Argentine vegetarians and their friends explained that vegetables are in fact barbecued – eggplant, potatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini, onions, peppers, and more. One of Renate’s English students even brought in some evidence: a photo of an asado grill full of veggies.

Finally, one of Renate’s carnivorous activist friends invited us to an asado at her house. We brought marinated tofu steaks and brownies, and our hosts provided grilled eggplant and sweet potatoes, along with a garden salad, potato salad, and cake. And of course, many varieties of meat. For the entire afternoon, we cooked, ate, talked, played, sang, and generally relaxed. The meat eaters raved about the tofu and brownies, and even invited us back for another asado.


Reflection
As proud residents of a country known for its meat, Argentines are often puzzled about what and how we eat. We don’t eat any of the many varieties of meat that are the core of Argentine cuisine, nor do we eat chicken or fish, or even diary products in my case. We also don’t eat at the times when most Argentines are eating, and we often carry around our own bizarre food concoctions in tupperware containers.

As someone who loves food, I’m equally puzzled about what and how Argentines eat. They don’t eat any Asian food, Indian food, Mexican food, or African food, and the only common cuisines are Italian and Arab. Many foods that I consider staples are virtually non-existent (e.g. beans, tofu, chili peppers, peanut butter, bagels). Argentines rarely eat much more than a small pastry for breakfast, and they often skip lunch, the supposedly main meal of the day. Dinner is usually eaten shortly before going to bed, between 10 and 12pm, and often accompanied by coffee.

These two eating styles may seem irreconcilable at first, but after a bit of learning and exploration they’ve often ended up overlapping. Although there aren’t many vegetarian Argentine foods, we’ve found plenty of great veggie pizzas, pastas, and empanadas. Our mealtimes have shifted to better accommodate Argentine schedules, and lunch is often our main meal of the day. Likewise, we’ve met many locals who’ve decided to eat regular meals, become vegetarian, or try foreign foods. And despite Argentina’s meaty reputation, there are well-used produce stands and health food stores every few blocks in Rosario. After finally pulling off a supposedly impossible vegetarian asado, perhaps what we eat and what Argentines eat aren’t as irreconcilable as they appeared.


a typical Rosario produce stand

Question
What do you eat? How do your eating habits fit in or not fit in with where you live?

Digression
I recently started a new blog, to at least respond to the question “what do vegans eat?” Have a look, and add your own answers if you’d like.

Rosario & San Juan Province, Argentina: Political Prisoners - Seeing is Believing

Action
Through an attorney I met, I was invited to attend meetings of a newly formed, Rosario-based commission in support of political prisoners. Curious, I went a few meetings. When I learned that they were planning a luncheon where the only veggie option would be plain noodles without sauce, I heeded the call. This group needed not only my solidarity, but my vegetarian cooking skills. Needless to say, I volunteered to make a tomato sauce. I also helped put up flyers around town advertising the luncheon.

I remained involved with this group because they made me feel welcome and useful, though I didn’t feel totally aligned with their mission. I was sure that there were many activists in jail unjustly, but I wasn’t prepared to call them all political prisoners.

In June, shortly after the luncheon in support of political prisoners, we went to San Juan province to do an action against some mining companies. We pretended to be rich North Americans in favor of the mines and handed out leaflets that looked like fake money, pretending that they were bribes from the mining company. Our first night, we went to the small town of Barreal. We passed our leaflets to people walking down the street and went into a couple of shops to drop off stacks of our fake money. Our friend from California, David, decided to enter the headquarters of the Justicialista party, the party of the pro-mining governor of San Juan. There happened to be a meeting inside and, confused by David’s “Billionaires for Barrick” badge, they invited him in. Within a short period of time, the party members realized that David wasn’t on their side and they ejected him. We continued leafleting and then called it a night.

When we returned to town the next day, a police officer approached us. A party hack had filed a complaint against David for disorder. David spent a couple hours inside the local police precinct, while we waited outside. Because it was a small town of 8,000 where everyone knew each other, anyone who saw us waiting outside the police headquarters would know that we were probably facing some negative consequences for speaking out against the mining industry. While I was pondering the chilling effect on freedom of speech that the complaint was having, Hugo, one of our hosts in Barreal, continued distributing our fake money in front of the precinct. David left the station with a court date a week away.

Reflection
A lot of times terms get thrown around on which I only have a loose grasp of their meaning. “Political prisoner” is one of those terms. I tried asking the members of the Commission for Political Prisoners several times what they meant by “political prisoners” and they would tell stories of police coming into the homes of activists after peaceful demonstrations and arresting them. I couldn’t quite get myself to believe these stories when I first heard them. I always thought there was some detail being left out.

David’s detention by the police made a deep impression on me. While even David admits that entering the headquarters of the party that supported the mines was stupid, it was in no way a criminal act. People who have political power and opinions different than David’s are, at the least, trying to make it inconvenient for David to express himself and, at the most, preventing him entirely. This is exactly what the members of the Commission were trying to tell me happens on a regular basis in Argentina.

Question
What have you had to see, or experience first hand, to believe or understand?

San Juan Province, Argentina: Humor as a minefield

Action
Recently, our friend David invited us on an activist’s holiday to the province of San Juan in Western Argentina, near the border with Chile. David, a Californian living in Rosario, has been organizing against open pit mining in Argentina. Open pit mining basically involves blowing up a mountain, and then passing all the debris through pools of mercury and cyanide-laced water to filter out the valuable metals (gold, silver, etc.). Afterwards, the mountains are gone (along with the glaciers and riverheads that create drinking and agricultural water) and the chemicals flow into the remaining water system. Open-pit mining is now illegal in much of North America, so the mining companies are coming down here, where it's still legal and they don't have to pay taxes or fees for the necessary infrastructure (roads, electricity, water, etc.) thanks to corrupt governments. In this case, Barrick Gold is planning to blow up over 10 mountains in the middle of the Andes and walk away with over $4 billion in profit.

Hoping to persuade Argentines to avoid making the same mistakes the US has, we went to San Juan. We wanted to play with the idea of three North Americans telling locals what to do, so taking a cue from Billionaires for Bush, we formed “North Americans for Environmental Destruction” (for added rhetorical flourish, the acronym in Spanish spelled out the Spanish word for “nothing”). In three towns in the province, we distributed fake money, while shouting out “Bribes! Pay-offs from North Americans!”

David created bills with a doctored image of the US dollar on one-side and information on the other side. The information contrasted Barrick’s expected $4.6 billion in profits with the tax breaks it was receiving, the $8 million/year that was promised to Argentina, and the hundreds of millions of dollars it would cost to clean up the pollution.

People were a bit confused as we handed them the fake money. We opted not to stay 100% in character, but sometimes explained our purpose as we handed out the bills: We were handing out money because that’s what the North American mining company is doing, when they offer money for local development programs. The money they are offering, however, is a pittance compared to the profits that they will make and the negative economic impacts of the pollution.

After receiving a “dollar,” one student came back and asked for more to show her friends. A grocery store owner took a stack to distribute to customers. Another woman, however, accused us of making fun of them. I tried to explain that that wasn’t our intention and that rather we were making fun of ourselves as North Americans. Hugo, a local activist who was hosting us, steered me away, saying dismissively that she was pro-mining.

Reflection
The purpose of our action was to get people to think critically about the mining in the region and question the motives of the mining corporations. By being silly, we hoped to appear less threatening and also catch people off guard.

Several times, people took us at face value and told us that they supported the mining company as well. We usually replied to them by thanking them for supporting our (North Americans’) attempts to profit off them and leave them with pollution. This is similar to the technique that Socrates uses in Plato’s dialogs and that most law professors in the US use as well. That is, they rephrase the argument of their interlocutor and carry the interlocutor’s logic out to its extreme end, to make the interlocutor confront the flaws in her logic. Plato was ultimately executed and many law school professors are reviled.

Why did we think we’d be any different? Because we were being silly.We were hoping that our outrageousness would break people’s thought patterns and give them an opportunity to approach a controversial subject with a fresh mind. David referred to this process as creating a rupture.

Unfortunately, humor is often in the eyes of the beholder. Though we knew our intent was to mock ourselves and engage in a dialog with the people of San Juan, that wasn’t always clear to the people we were engaging with.

Question
When does humor create a rupture and when does it mock? Have you ever changed your mind about something thanks to the use of humor?