My school field trip
Iliana teaching, originally uploaded by blmurch.
Usually when you go on a field trip, you're leaving campus. In my case, I left the city and went to school out in the provinces. This was my first photography assignment for The Argentimes, as one of their photo interns for the next four months. This was for an article on Argentine Youths. I took the train from Once, which I had yet to do, and rode it out to Ramos Mejila, which is at Av Rivadavia 14,000. I live at Av Rivadavia 2,300 - the train basically followed Av Rivadavia west. Looking at that map, we met at the corner of Av De Mayo y Av Rivadavia on the left hand side and I live just above the little green dot on the top right hand side in "Balvanera". The journey took about 25 minutes and cost 1.10 (about 30 US cents). I had never been this far west yet, only traveling to Liniers thus far when we have taken the city bus to Ezezia Airport. It's just outside the city limits, but feels like a world away.
Iliana Gonzalez met me near the train station and we took the bus another 30 minutes or so to where she taught school. We got to know each other a bit on the ride and she told me more about the kids and the environment. She cautioned me to always be with someone so that I would stay safe. I never felt like I was in any sort of danger or anything like that, but the area was definitely rough around the edges and she said that basically everyone knows everyone and if you stand out unaccompanied, you could be at risk. The bus dropped us off about five blocks away from school and as we walked the streets were less paved, and the gathering of students increased until it was a mess of students waiting to get in through the gates.
Girls lining up for Phys Ed, originally uploaded by blmurch.
I was introduced around to various professors and then was given free reign to look around a bit. I walked around the halls, looking at the various murals, paintings, and school projects hung up on the wall. I then met up with the Phys Ed teacher and he took me around the corner to the field. Students were separated into boys and girls and then three teachers got them running, jumping, playing football, and getting a good heart rate going. I took some photos of that and then walked back to the locked down school. I knocked on the door and was quickly let back in.
The students and Iliana were expecting me and we got down to talking. I spoke about photography and what I like to try and capture, creative commons, wikipedia, traveling around South America and getting into photography and working at something I loved which gave me a creative outlet. We also talked about life in Argentina and the USA and the economic crisis, crime and violence and public transportation and a little politics. They were amazed when I told them how much better Argentine public transit is than what is available in the states. Often, it is not as "pretty", but there are so many options and is fairly quick and cheap. Iliana had prepped me to be prepared for teenagers who wouldn't engage. I didn't find that to be the case at all. They were interested, smart, asked good questions and paid attention (for the most part). ;-) They were patient with my Spanish, but I didn't have too many problems speaking, which was a relief. I showed them some of my photographs that I had printed out in a binder and we looked at photographs that students had taken the year prior. It was a very interesting cultural exchange and I was really happy to be able to get to know them a bit before I started taking photographs and they were very happy to have the rest of the afternoon off. Normally, their class goes from 1 pm to 6:30 pm, but because Iliana accompanied me back to the city, they were let out early with a writing assignment to write about what we'd talked about and what they'd experienced and gotten out of the exchange. It was a great first assignment for me and I thoroughly enjoyed getting out of my comfort zone again and getting to know more people.
Studying through the hole, originally uploaded by blmurch.