Rosario, Argentina: The Children's Not-Museums

Action
A few weeks ago, our contact at the municipality arranged for us to visit the Island of the Inventions and The Children's Garden, two spaces developed and operated by the city of Rosario especially for children.

When we visited the Island of Inventions in its home in an abandoned train station, we discovered a variety of exhibits focusing on language and letters. Typewriters were set up in one space where children typed out what they thought were the most important words in the Spanish language and defined them, creating an “urban dictionary”.

Note the words and definitions posted on the walls.

My favorite exhibit, titled Clandestine Words, consisted of a rock-strewn path. Words and phrases were written on the ground, but suppressed by the weight of the rocks. Lifting up the rocks and moving them liberated the words, which when uttered during the last dictatorship often caused people to be persecuted or disappeared (phrases like, "He looked like him." and "I won't go.").


There were plenty of other exhibits as well including one on participatory budgeting as well as paper-making and book-binding workshop. Finally, there were some poetic, science-related exhibits. For example, in the room dedicated to the concept of time, a sign above a large rock asked, "Where is the time here?"

After visiting the Island of Inventions, we visited The Children's Garden, which is, as you might expect, mostly outdoors. Once we arrived, our guide led us up a small mountain. As we walked along the path, we heard voices coming from the foliage telling stories inspired by Gaelic fairy tales. Sensing my trepidation, the guide explained that the mountain contained only good witches. On the way down, we saw a tree with a sign in front of it imploring, "Climb me and hug me." Josh obliged.

The Children’s Garden also included some flying machines inspired by Leonardo DaVincci where children (and only children) could glide down zip-wires and float, hoisted, in the air. We climbed around a sonic playground pulling and banging on different objects and discovering the music we could make using our bodies. Exhausted by all that playing we went inside where we could continue playing, in a more low-key manner, with exhibits inspired by 20^th Century art. I went straight for the puzzle inspired by the art of Piet Mondrian and was thrilled to be able to reinterpret his work myself by moving the pieces around.


Upstairs was an exhibit on the 20^th century, which featured installations that used photos and questions to highlight events of importance from the last century. These photos of struggles/social movements-- including the fall of the Berlin wall, student protests during the 1960s and street demonstrations against the last Argentine dictatorship-- include a caption saluting the youth pictured as protagonists of the 20^th Century.

Reflection
Both the Children’s Garden and the Island of Inventions are part of a larger project called the “City of the Children” that is based on the writings of an Italian named Francesco Tonucci. The idea is to make the city not only a safe place for children, but also a place where they can play together independently and be active citizens, because a city that is better for children is better for everyone. These children’s spaces have become two of my favorite places in Rosario. First, I enjoy watching the variety of people using the spaces. The municipality hires young adults as facilitators, and parents and adults visiting without children in tow find themselves drawn into the activities.

Next, I love being in these vibrant environments dedicated to thoughtful creativity. Teams of social scientists, educators and artists design the exhibits, which are devoid of even a hint of characters with their own action figures. Exhibits such as the flying machines, Mondrian puzzle, and sonic playground engage people’s bodies while they learn about flight, art, and music. All of the exhibits encourage imagination, whether sparked by sounds like in the magic mountain or movement as with the flying machines.

And I love the political component. The photography exhibit at the Children’s Garden proposes that ordinary people, not just presidents and generals, make history. The exhibit Clandestine Words, at the Island of Inventions, allows children to actively confront the past. Moreover, the spaces don’t present science, art, music and language, as topics that an expert must explain in order to be understood. Rather, children are given opportunities to explore and discover what science, art, music and language mean to them. Exercises like the Urban Dictionary, for example, tacitly declare that what children think about language matters.

Question
What toys and games were your favorites as a child? What did you learn while playing?

Rosario, Argentina: The Solidarity Economy, turning business upside down

Action
One of our first and most formative meetings in Rosario was with the City government’s Subsecretary of Solidarity Economy. The basic goal of the department is to create and promote a city economy based on principles of solidarity and social equity.

As the department head explained, this involves five main activities:
- Educating and working with unemployed people to help them develop and maintain democratically run cooperative enterprises. (e.g. educational workshops and training in cooperative management)
- Developing new forms of production and financing for these solidarity enterprises. (e.g. a communal warehouse for supplies, exclusive discounted loans)
- Working with the media and communication networks to develop a new consumer mentality based on solidarity principles. (e.g. community bulletins, public advertising)
- Developing municipal legislation that makes it easier for solidarity enterprises to operate successfully. (e.g. making registration easier, tax exemptions)
- Establishing and legitimizing the new solidarity economy. (e.g. developing and evaluating indicators to measure progress)

Perhaps most impressively, the city has passed an ordinance requiring that all small public work contracts (e.g. cutting grass, cleaning storm drains) be awarded to cooperatives, and the municipal bank only does business with small and medium enterprises.

Since our meeting, we’ve found ourselves enjoying the solidarity economy in our everyday lives, be it shopping for socially produced goods (baked goods, crafts, cosmetics, produce) at community fairs or the permanent solidarity economy marketplace, exploring the diverse small businesses that dominate the city, or just stopping for prolonged chats with local merchants, who often seem to care as much about conversing as about making the sale.


The Solidarity Economy marketplace at La Toma supermarket cooperative

Reflection
The solidarity economy struck us as oddly upside down. Was it because the city was developing laws that explicitly discriminate against big business, while we’ve been told our whole lives that you have to attract corporations to generate jobs? Was it that the values on the city’s sleeve (not to mention its public education campaigns) were solidarity, equity, and human development, rather than competitiveness, productivity, and economic efficiency? Or was it just that we were on the other side of the equator, where the water spirals in reverse and apparently so do the ideas?

The solidarity was especially impressive for being both so holistic and so simple. Through a thoroughly planned campaign, the city was comprehensively working to shift economic values and activity to a system based on solidarity principles. Devastated by Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, the city decided not to sell itself to multinational capitalists but rather to redevelop the economy based on local means (incidentally, the municipal bank was the only bank not to close its doors during the 2001 crisis). Sure, Rosario still has multinational production plants and corporate offices, but fewer than most cities its size (all but 8 of the city’s 2456 industrial enterprises are small, medium, or micro businesses). Meanwhile, we’ve never seen locally and cooperatively produced goods so accessible or common.

On the other hand, the solidarity economy is growing thanks to the everyday efforts of ordinary city residents, especially those of very limited means. The majority of people involved were previously without work or many job skills. With the city’s help, they learned how to produce and sell or exchange something successfully. In turn, many people with more resources have decided to shop with solidarity enterprises, if not because of moral commitments then because the apples are crisp, the prices good, and the social interactions more human.

Question
What have you produced, exchanged, or sold in solidarity? Where have you bought or consumed through a solidarity economy? What made these interactions more or less difficult?

Rosario, Argentina: Where are you from and what are you doing?

Action
Since arriving in Rosario, we’ve been going to quite a few meetings. When we’re introduced to new people, they invariably start with the most difficult questions:
“Where are you from?” and “What are you doing?”

Our answers have evolved over the weeks. I now respond by saying, “I’m from the United States and Canada. We’re in the middle of a year of what we call ‘self-managed education’.”

These responses usually elicit more questions.
- “So where do you live?”
- “Well, I’ve been living in Toronto for the past two years, but I’m living in Rosario now, and when I leave Rosario I’ll be living in New York.”
- “But where were you born?”
- “Michigan.”
- “And that’s where you grew up?”
- “No, I grew up in Baltimore.”
- “Ok, so you’re from a university?”
- “I’m actually between universities now.”
- “But you’re here on behalf of some organization, right?”
- “Not really. I’m on the board of Planners Network and am working with Educating Cities here in Rosario, but we’re mostly working and researching independently.”
- “And what are you doing down here?”
- “Well, we’ve been traveling, studying, working, and researching our way through Latin America since September, and now we’re in Rosario for 6 months to work with and learn from organizations here…”
- “So you’re students?”
- “Of a sort, but not formally.”
- “But you have some kind of fellowship or grant?”
- “No, we’re self-financed. But we’re accepting donations if you’re interested.”

Reflection
Why are these basic questions so difficult to answer? “Where are you from?” is tough for me because there’s no one place or organization that I’m from. Most people assume that I’m Canadian because I’m using a Canadian email account and am coming from Toronto. Usually I try to correct them, but sometimes it doesn’t seem worth the confusion. When I do have to claim some point of origin, I feel most comfortable saying I’m from multiple countries (US, Canada) and cities (Baltimore, Toronto, New York) – global citizens of the world unite!

Likewise, my identity isn’t tied to any one organization. Sometimes I’m acting on behalf of Planners Network or Educating Cities or the Transformative Learning Centre or Project for Public Spaces, but I’m not technically employed by any of those organizations, nor am I currently enrolled at any school. Even if I was employed by or enrolled in a particular institution, would that necessarily be “where I was from”?

“What are you doing in Rosario?” is easier to respond to, but just as difficult to answer definitively. I’m doing lots of things in Rosario. I’m researching the city’s participatory budgeting programs, learning how Educating Cities works, learning about the city government’s many progressive programs, improving my Spanish, teaching English, developing an international participatory budgeting network, learning and practicing popular education techniques, maintaining a travel blog, becoming familiar with the social sciences literature of Argentina and Latin America, improving my cooking and trying out new recipes, meeting new friends, writing to old friends, getting to know a new city and culture, reading about the histories of the Americas, developing connections between progressive planners in North and South America, writing articles, exploring the Argentinean music scene, and living everyday life with Renate. So which of these activities best answers the question?

Question
Where are you from and what are you doing?

Porto Alegre, Montevideo, Rosario: Mate, the great equalizer

Action
“Tomás mate?” (do you drink mate) is a question we’ve been asked all too often in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. Yerba mate (pronounced mah-tay) is a bitter herb, incessantly drunk as a tea here in the Southern Cone.

Photo of girl drinking mate courtesy of Alex (probably unbeknownst to him).

Drinking mate requires special equipment. The cups are made out of carved-out gourds, wood, or leather:


The preparer of the mate packs the mate gourd full of the herb yerba mate and then pours hot water from a thermos into the gourd until the grassy herb is covered. The tea is drunk through a special metal straw (“bombilla”) that has a sieve at the bottom to strain out the leaves. The gourd with the tea is then passed around to everyone within eyesight. When one is done drinking, one passes it back to the preparer, never to the next person in line. The preparer adds more hot water then passes the gourd to the next person. Some people add sugar and in some regions cold apple juice is added to the herb, rather than hot water.

At conferences and seminars, speakers often take time to sip the mate that’s passed to them by audience members:



At the community planning workshops we’ve attended in Rosario, the organizers from the municipality provide yerba mate in plastic cups, a straw, and a thermos to every group of 10 or so participants, to share:


Reflection
Though I’m only just beginning to like (though “like” may be too strong a word) the bitter taste, I’m happy when mate is passed around. When I’m at a meeting or hanging out with a group of people, I often feel awkward because I struggle to comprehend what’s going on due to my level of Spanish. As the mate gourd is passed to me and I sip from the same straw as everyone else, I feel less like an outsider and more like a part of the group. (Privately, however, I know I remain an outsider as I shudder on the inside when I sip it.) For example, at a community planning workshop that I was observing, I was the person closest to the mate thermos, and thus it was my responsibility to pour the water and pass the gourd. Until that point, I had been a silent observer. Preparing the tea tacitly brought me into the group.

Unsure as I am about the subtleties of the ritual, I have figured out that you don’t skip someone just because they are talking, even if they’re the guest speaker. I’m always shocked and delighted at this post-modern destruction of the barrier between speaker and audience.

Finally, I like how passing mate around blurs the line between professional meetings and social activity. Working meetings seem less stuffy once the ritual of pouring, passing and sipping has begun.

Question
Would you sip the mate? What would you put in your mate gourd?