Veintitres

'The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.'

(Little Gidding -- I can't quite get enough!)

I arrived alone in Buenos Aires in March, curious about the year of experience that lay ahead inviting me to approach and aprovechar.

Now, in December, I march away precisely as I came -- alone and curious about experiences to come.

My foreign friends turned porteña familia have trickled in and out of this experience. As las fiestas approach, those friends have been dropping away with increasing intensity. I have found that relationships created abroad accentuate time's fleeting temperament. Time has deep, sloping valleys and steep, quick ascents. Here in Buenos Aires I have cemented some of the most profound and dynamic relationships of my life; together, through friendship, we have been thrust to exalted heights.

I am one of the last lingering foreigners I know, savoring fleeting moments with my first and last friend -- perhaps my most absorbing relationship yet -- inhaling the fragrance, enshrining the feel. Buenos Aires was my first friend, and appropriately, she is my last. I will tiptoe out of this experience just as I entered it, barely making a ripple, filled with an eager curiosity for the future to come.

I have been inhaling Buenos Aires' perfume for 10 months and I am finally at the very top of my breath. No more can I take in -- I have reached capacity, saturated with the sweetly scented, life-sustaining oxygen of experience. On Friday morning (sí Dios quiere...) I will emerge into South Florida's crisp December air and I will exhale, breathing novelty into my familiar and almost-forgotten home.

In the meantime, I am still in Buenos Aires -- more or less alone -- pirouetting in the pause between inhale and exhale, peeking curiously and expectant at the novel set of future circumstances promising possibility. I have several times in my life found myself twirling in these pauses between breaths. I embrace and agradecer these peaceful bouts of time -- they allow me ample moments to reflect, refresh and renew.

As I reflect on my time in Buenos Aires I recognize that the pieces of experience I will carry on into Life are the lessons of Love. Curiously enough, it took a circumstantial move of thousands of kilometers, away from the thick quilt of love from family and friends enveloping me in USAmerica, to learn the true lesson of Love: how to give and receive it. I have loved to the point of despair and discomfort: a city, a country, a continent, a world; strangers, acquaintances, new friends, old friends -- all of whom are, at the end, family.

I will spare details -- for they are too many and would be impossible to share judiciously -- and emphasize: the lessons of Love acquired here have been sometimes uncomfortable and always illuminating. For, truly loving a person, a city, a country and a world -- despite discomfort and despair incited -- renders me consumed with hope. It is a hope contained within me, here and now, as I dance at the top of my breath. And, it is hope I will forever suspire -- acquired by loving in Buenos Aires.

Twenty two

Ten months in and 10 days remain -- presently I am facing aft, watching in my wake as Argentine experiences crystallize into memories. 'The end is where we start from.' Do you remember when I quoted TS Eliot, reader-friend, 10 months ago, upon my unexpected arrival in Buenos Aires? 'What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make and end is to make a beginning.'

And here I am at the end, making a beginning. But before I lurch into the promise of the future, I turn my back to possibility and offer merited reverence to the past and path that guided me here, to this point:

I've done quite a bit since I arrived in March: My inconsistently zealous effort towards outstanding Rotary ambassadorial scholar-ness, a lackluster and ironically perfect consummation of my academic career, maintaining iGen's forward propulsion at doggy-paddle pace, always accompanied by gluttonous and indiscriminate feasting on South American culture (art, music, food, nightlife, travels, people, et cetera et cetera into infinity).

Despite all this 'doing,' my most consistent and committed action of the past 10 months was actually the act of observation. On the streets, in the classroom, in social circles -- I was more observer than participant. Curiously, despite my extroversion, extreme circumstantial novelty relegates me to the perimeter to perceive before I proceed towards engagement.

Months of keen Argentine observation leave me astute and alert, devouring situational details, determined to detect patterns. And, with next-to-near-no-obligation these days, I find myself captivated, irresistibly fascinated, by a tricky situation presently unwrapping in my beloved Buenos Aires (and for the first time, thanks to acquired observational acumen, I am able to wrap my mind around the complexity of some of Buenos Aires' and Argentina's most pressing social challenges):

Last week as a consequence of judge ordered evictions in already abysmal villas in southwest Buenos Aires, hundreds of families -- mostly immigrants of indigenous descent from Perú, Bolivia and Paraguay -- began illegally occupying an ill-maintained public park. Incensed neighbors -- the legal residents of Villa Soldati -- of the coincidentally and aptly named Parque Indoamericano subsequently organized and confronted the squatters. The ensuing squabbles between residents and squatters -- with initially intermittent and now sustained police involvement -- have resulted in 4 innocent civilian deaths (lamentably including a baby) and a veritable quilombo of 'pobres contra pobres'.

Now, the rest of the city and country holds its breath, eagerly monitoring the situation, hoping for the safety of our neighbors -- all of them -- waiting for the city and national governments to agree upon a solution -- if one even exists at all.

While we collectively wait for inevitable developments and hopeful solutions, I, as an individual, pull pieces of past experience into the present to inform my observations. Like I mentioned, I find this situation terribly intriguing. You see, particularly my reader-friend-of-the-USA-caliber, there's some things you need to know about Argentina in order to glimpse full-scale what is at present unfolding: Argentina is an incredibly human-rights oriented society -- this as a consequence of the unimaginably devastating abuses committed during the military dictatorship of the late-1970s/early-1980s. Argentina has gone so far as to incorporate into its Constitution (the highest law of the land) all 12 major international human rights treaty. (Perspective: the USA has signed 3.)

In addition to being extraordinarily pro-human rights as a society and on the books, in the 1990s, Argentina pioneered an astonishingly liberal immigration policy -- going so far as to designate the right to migrate 'essential and inalienable to all persons and the Republic of Argentina shall guarantee it based on principles of equality and universality.'

Reader-friends! That. Is. Huge. Argentina, so far as I know, is the only country -- in a world preferring to build walls rather than bridges -- that recognizes a right to migrate. Huge, I tell you! Via a one-of-a-kind law, Argentina provides a fairly easy path to legal residence for immigrants, and offers free access to health care, education and social services.

It sounds too good to be true! And, of course, in practice, sadly, it is. The revolutionary immigration law has not been accompanied by effective and much-needed regulations (which would serve to 'clarify, reconcile, or expand provisions of the law; the lack of regulations impedes the full implementation of the law's human rights goals.' I am such a huge dork, I actually did some legal research for this post -- I'll spare you the proper Bluebook citations! Jaja! No more legal ogling -- promise!) Suffice it to say, the current situation sitting cumbersome in southwest Buenos Aires, is arguably related to this pioneering practice of liberal immigration policy...

Another interesting, probably over-simplified, observation: Argentine society seems to, more or less, have a consistent idea of the role of government -- to provide safety, services, solutions. (This is leaps and bounds more progressive than the USA, I believe, where we engage in an exhausting and ceaseless battle of big government v. small government v. liberal v. conservative v. blah v. blah, et cetera et cetera into infinity.) While tension in the southwest mounts, the rest of the city waits -- almost too patiently -- for the city and national governments to come up with a solution. And not only an isolated solution to this particular situation, but hopefully one that will address the fact that all over the city, slum-city villas are being built atop villas, ostensibly related to the influx of immigrants.

An ex-city leader elegantly opined: 'La migración no sólo es inevitable, sino que puede ser una bendición para lograr el desarrollo integral. Les abrimos falsamente los brazos si no somos capaces de acompañar nuestra apertura con políticas que orienten y ordenen esa inmigración.' ('Migration is not only inevitable, but can be a blessing to achieve integral development. We falsely open our arms if we are not capable of accompanying our openness with policies that orient and order that immigration.')

Yes. Precisely what he said.

And now I return to TS Eliot's elegant stylings: 'We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.' I began organizing my thoughts for this writing as the sun set last night, and now, writing these words, I sit overlooking Abasto's rooftops lighting up with the rising sun. I began at an end, and now, I end at a beginning -- at the bow of the present, observing the possibility and promise of a new day of Argentine experience (and then there were 9...).