Libros de Cartoneros

Recycling of reusable materials in this country is done primarily by homeless people. Every night, you see them in the streets, collecting and sorting the massive piles of trash into bottles, cardboard, paper, etc. which they then sell back to the government for a few centavos each. The people who sort through the tremendous amounts of cardboard (cartón) are called cartoneros. After the 2001 economic crisis here (caused by the government lying and essentially making up that an Argentine peso was equal to a US dollar), there was a huge increase in cartoneros. They just barely make enough to eat.

This lady in the blue and yellow was a cartonera until 2 years ago. She now works for this incredible organization that makes books out of the cartón and pays the cartoneros almost double what the government pays them for the same amount of cardboard.



I went to their store with my derechos humanos (human rights) class and I was blown away by what they do.

Located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Boca, the majority of the books they make are sold for a few pesos (at most 2 US dollars) to children to read and use for school. They hand paint all the covers, using these stencils and neon colored paints.






This is me with the 2 books I bought. They are 2 really famous Argentine books. It's cool because the operation helps out so many people, and the book is exactly word for word as though I had bought it in a bookstore.

Escuela

Bueno, now that things have calmed down a bit, I am finally finding time to go on the internet once again. The last 2 weeks have been completely LOCO, because the university classes were having "shopping" periods...meaning I was trying out all these different classes trying to figure out which ones I wanted to take (aka which professors I could understand the least bit of what they were talking about, haha--How do people talk so ridiculously fast?) I also spent a lot of time being completely lost in this massive and confusing city, what with getting on the wrong bus, or trusting my (pretty much always wrong) sense of direction..But anyways, now things have settled down a little. I finally (semi-)figured out the bus system.
I have been assigned a lot of reading in every class, and reading in Spanish takes double the time than English, though I am fosho improving. But its really exciting for me, because for the first time in my life, I actually LIKE my classes! I know it sounds weird to you, but for me it is a revelation--"Waitttt you mean I dont have to feel like I want to shoot myself in the face every time I sit down to do my homework?? You mean I can actually learn things in school that interest me?!" I had no idea...I always thoguht people were just lying to me to make themselves look cool or something, when they were like yeah man, i looove my classes! id be like, yeah right. stop lying.
This is a photo I took a couple weeks ago, of people dancing tango in a park in San Telmo, one of my favorite neighborhoods. Im starting a tango class tonight! Very excited...Il let you know how that goes