Sunday, Dec. 03, 2023 - 9:33 pm.
The trip to Argentina has come and gone. It went well. We left on Tuesday morning and returned Saturday evening. It's a two-hour flight from one capital city to the other, but given our location and waiting times, traveling took most of those days. We presented at a Psych conference, Andrew, our former boss/now colleague B and myself.
Buenos Aires terrified me. It's a monster and it kept me thinking about cruel social inequalities and depleting the Earth's resources. My existential guilt is always amplified by trips, because even if I'm not wealthy I'm aware that I travel in a way that is a privilege, and it requires the service and labor of others. And I'm aware that there are so many travelers like me who -unlike me- are far less concerned about others.
You can tell by the above paragraph that I had a blast.
No, but really, it was a nice trip. I was in good company. The three of us stayed in a comfortable hotel which served a nice breakfast, ate delicious food throughout the trip, and had a whole day to do some sightseeing (we had our presentations on Wednesday and Friday). The weather wasn't quite on our side, either scorching hot or raining (and still hot), but we enjoyed ourselves a lot.
The highlights of my trip were:
(1) going to Plaza de Mayo, to pay a quiet homage to the fierce mothers and grandmothers of the dissappeared during the dictatorship;
(2) a Japanese garden in the middle of the city;
(3) a theater-turned-bookstore. I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. We went there late in the afternoon after I presented with B at the conference, it was a very hot day, the place was packed, and I didn't even have room in my luggage for much as I only brought a carry-on. I did buy one(1) book. I had to. I could not walk into such a gorgeous bookstore and not buy anything.
(OK, I bought two books. The other at a book stand at the conference venue, in the Psych Faculty)
(4) meeting queer researchers/activists who presented in the same panel that I did, on Friday afternoon. Hearing about their work and chatting with them a bit afterwards was such a treat. They spoke a lot about the need to build and remain a community as the extreme right-wing takes hold of the government next week. It's scary. It's horrifying. Truly, we gotta have each other's back across the Andes and beyond.
(I love the Andes, oh my God. It's so vast. I can't believe it. I always get a knot in throat when I see the mountains from a plane)
This is all I'll report because I have to go prepare for tomorrow. It's back to work, back to our routine, and there's lots to catch up with. There's also lots of small projects for our apartment that have been put on hold due to our trip. We haven't even put up the Christmas tree! I've lost three precious days of holiday decorations. Talk to you soon.
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