Saturday, October 20, 2012

Medianeras en Buenos Aires

I saw this really great movie last night called Medianeras.  The word 'medianera' means something like a 'side-wall' but it really refers to the plain walls which seem to haunt one out of every four sides of every apartment building in the city I currently reside in.  The movie is fantastic and I think it is a great way for people to understand what it is like to live in Buenos Aires, even though I've only been here about two weeks.  


We live in a time when we have been told that technology will bring us closer to each other however as the movie shows it has an adverse effect.  For some, who work in offices or from home, we become sealed in these tiny walls and we have become isolated from the outside world.  I think the term 'medianera' is a way to describe being sealed inside.


The city I live in is beautiful but it holds a very different kind of beauty than that of Europe (we are always told that Buenos Aires resembles Europe however I don't get that notion at all).  The buildings here are actually quite randomly and almost carelessly placed and they are connected by a mess of wires that seem to end nowhere.  Everywhere you look there are large lifeless walls, medianeras, that seem to turn their backs on the rest of the outside world.

I love this city.  I can say that safely.  I love the everything and I'm a bit beyond listing foods and customs by this point of my travels.  Simply, I enter a city like I do any city and ask myself if this is a place where I could feel myself living for an extended period of time and I've already felt that calling here.


I chose this city to be a sort of diving board into South America (Latin America at that) and I have already begun the process of finding a home and a job and filling the world around me with my energy.  I'm learning Spanish.  I have six roommates and I never speak English when I'm outside of my bedroom.  Strangely enough I live with two Turkish people and this has come as a great advantage wheras I would like to continue my practice with one of my favorite languages; I'll one day return to Turkey but thats a different chapter.


What to do?  What can you do?  I'm really far away again, but then I'm somehow always very far away.  I live in a really great place and in this romantic honeymoon phase of my life in Buenos Aires I promise to write often and reveal to all what beauty I have found in yet another corner of the world.  Before too long I will leave from here and begin a long travel back into the ancient part of Mesoamerica where I once explored long ago.


1 comment:

Shannon said...

Chris wherever your travels take you I hope you are happy! I enjoy reading your blog and it pulls me back to who I truly am. Society has made us forget what living is about, and I'm happy to see your life truly being lived! Hope all is well