Tango Time

While I was packing up my things to return home for Thanksgiving Vacation, I came across my tango shoes.  Still wrapped in the five cent plastic bags I bought at the grocery store in Argentina, I could see their fake gemstones sparkling and their too-tall heels poking through.

I've never written about how I ended up in Tango class in Buenos Aires-- I desperately needed an Arts and Humanities General Education class, and my Spanish Advisor suggested that I could maybe stretch and get a tango class to count.  After some paperwork and creative syllabus translation, I enrolled in what IU calls "Argentine Rhythms and Dance."  The course offered in Argentina was just for exchange students and was half dance and half theory and history of tango.   

I was apprehensive about this class.  I went to a tango class in August, and the instructor told me to relax, loosen up, and not be so awkward several times during the one-hour lesson.  (This is especially impressive because there were 25 people in the class.)  The tango is also a passionate, expressive, and warm dance, and Americans by nature are not.  I have no rhythm nor ability to dance in an organized way, but I was up for the challenge.

The first order of business was to get tango shoes.  I don't own heels for going out in the evenings, so I had to buy myself a pair in Buenos Aires.  However, I have incredibly large feet even for U.S. standards, so I knew this would be a challenge.  I went around to all the stores in and around the mall near my apartment, and no one had anything in my size.  I ended up asking Delfi, my host, and she recommended that I try a transvestite store.  Thankfully, on my way to that kind of store, I came across another place that had one pair of shoes in my size.  I remember hugging the salesperson with excitement and relief.  

The class itself was one of my more memorable academic experiences  Tango is the combination of musical traditions, cultural practices, and linguistic elements of the gauchos (Argentine cowboys), immigrants from Europe, and African slaves brought to the region.  Every tango is a history lesson and a case study in the evolution of dance and social relations in Argentina.  For our class, we took field trips to see a musical about a tango singer who falls on hard times, the national tango museum, and even to a milonga (used here as a place where one goes to dance the tango).  I liked getting to be involved in the tango culture and to learn firsthand how the dance evolved.  

My tango class.  The man and the woman in the middle in the black are our professors.  Because John was the only male student, we all had to learn both the lead and following parts of tango.

And the dance itself... tango is more like a dance framework.  There are certain moves that can be done in any order, arranging and rearranging with the music and mood of the dancers.  The relationship between the partners is important.  If the person dancing the lead part knows what he/she is doing, tango is easy.  The lead partner's hand movements physically keep the other person from going in the wrong direction.  This doesn't mean there aren't risks to tango-- you have to watch out for heels flying in the air, crashing into other pairs, and hitting your partner with any part of your body.  

At the end of the semester, I still had a lot of room for improvement.  I went to a tango dance night with a few of my friends, and to my horror there was a free dance portion of the evening.  An older gentleman named Marcelo asked me to dance.  I hadn't worn my tango shoes for fear of towering over everyone at the event (I'm over six feet tall in those shoes).  I was explaining this to Marcelo, who replied, "Well, it's a good thing you're not wearing them, because then it'd be like dancing with Michael Jordan!"  My class really got a kick (pun intended) out of that anecdote.  

Has Study Abroad Improved My Spanish?

Obviously one of my reasons for studying abroad was to learn Spanish.  I’m not sure what the point of majoring in a language is in college if you don’t also visit the place where it is spoken, learn about its people and culture, and prove you can function in another country.  My last Spanish conversation and grammar class before coming here was in fall 2011, and since then, the Spanish classes I have taken have been very academic looks at culture, literature, and linguistics.  Though I learned a great deal in these classes, I was not practicing my conversation abilities; I was instead analyzing the stanza-structure of twentieth-century Spanish poetry (obviously this skill helps tremendously in my everyday life).  I would even venture to say that at the end of my sophomore year at college, I had an easier time speaking Portuguese conversationally than Spanish. 

I have pretty high standards for myself academically (who knew?), and so I do get discouraged when I mess up.  The people in my life in Buenos Aires all speak English, so while I do talk in Spanish a good portion of the time, I always have the “Can I ask you what word I should be saying in English” crutch.  My struggles with Spanish are pretty notable, so much so that yesterday, at my tutoring session for one of my classes, my tutor actually complimented me on my correct use of the past tense.  It doesn’t help that Spanish has two past tenses and the subjunctive (used for “the worlds of mystery, desire, and doubt,” as explained to me by my friend’s father), making hard sentences even harder to express.  I know I use the wrong gender for words all the time or say things in the wrong verb tense.  I feel just as frustrated today as I did during my first days here.

So the question I ask myself every day is, has my Spanish actually improved since coming to Argentina? 

I would have to say yes, just by the fact that I end up practicing hours and hours every day.  I know that my accent is still a little off, that I can’t say my rs, ts, or ds correctly, and that I still use words that are from Spain or Mexico instead of Argentina.  However, I got the double-l makes the sh sound down perfectly, and with some words, I can fake the right musicality of a native speaker.  I can at least hold my own in a conversation with strangers about where the bus stop is, why the line is taking so long at the grocery, or about the visa process in the elevator at the Brazilian consulate.  I try as hard as possible to remind myself of the positive strides I have made in speaker and to shake off my frequent errors. 

My realization that my Spanish isn’t as bad as I think it is (and the inspiration for this blog post) was a funny situation from my Latin America in International Politics Class.  A professor from Miami (Ohio) University was visiting the Catholic University where I take this class to give a presentation, and a young man from the State Department accompanied him.  The guy from the State Department has been tasked with giving a brief introduction the speaker.  He appeared to be in his early 20s, maybe in his first or second job. 

He begins to speak—oh man, his Spanish is awful!  His accent is terrible, as he is pronouncing the letter h (silent in Spanish), referring to the region as latino America (América latina), and throwing in English phrases that are easily translated to Spanish.  He looks cool and calm, despite the fact that he is embarrassing himself in front of this professor, the faculty of the International Relations department, and a room full of students who all speak at least some English.  It was unclear to me how this kid was hired at the State Department, especially considering how many good Spanish-speakers live in the United States.  I was sitting with some other exchange students, and we realized that we probably could have given a more fluid and understandable introduction than this guy.  And upon seeing the fact that this fumbling guy was able to land a Spanish-speaking job for the U.S. government, I felt a lot better about my own abilities.

Learning At and About School

I have hit the ground running when it comes to my courses.  I signed up for two classes at the Catholic university (UCA), Latin America in International Politics and Argentine Foreign Policy, to try this past week.  Since both were six credit hours (for reference, most classes at my university at home are three credits; I took a course designated as “intensive” that was four), I only have room in my schedule to pick one.  My plan was to attend both, and then make a decision about which to take.  Both meet two nights a week, are a forty-five minute commute away, and require lots of reading. 

My first class was one that my host Delfi’s friend had recommended to me, Latin America in International Politics.  Her friend said the class was good and that the professor was “a good teacher and tall.”  Both characteristics were confirmed on Monday.  While I didn’t understand why we were talking about the topics we covered, I knew what was being said.  After reviewing the syllabus (we received it after the first class), I understood what was going on.  On Tuesday, I returned and arrived early, which was lucky because unlike everything else in Argentina, this class began ten minutes early.  We had a different professor for night two, which I learned is normal here.  In Argentina, most professors have a day job and then teach a class or two as an additional activity.  As such, there are two or three different people who teach the same course and rotate who covers which classes.  I sat next to an Argentine girl who let me look off her notes during class when the professor was talking too quickly.  After class, she gave me her email and said to let her know if I had any more questions. 

The second class was on Wednesday and Thursday night.  I couldn’t believe how nice the professor was—he asked us all our names and why we were interested in the class.  Instead of having a second midterm, we would have a practical exam where we would be given a foreign policy problem and have to suggest what Argentina should do.  This guy was super friendly, and even took time after class to answer some of my questions.  I was concerned that I didn’t have the history and cultural background knowledge to do well in this course; the professor suggested that I come back for night two, in which we’d be covering Argentine history from the 1800s to 1870. 

Out of four exchange students, I was the only one who returned for the second class, which was an omen.  We had another professor, who, in order to cover seventy years of history in ninety minutes, talked so fast I couldn’t keep up.  I had heard of most of the historical figures he was talking about, but not the specifics (example: I know who Jose de San Martín is, but not in what order he went to each area in South America to help fight for independence from Spain).  I was, however, able to answer a question about the Monroe Doctrine, but only after I figured out they were talking about James Monroe, not “Ames Mon-roy.”  I admittedly struggle when terms I know in English are pronounced the way you’d say them in Spanish. 

So my gut says to take the International Politics class.  I think it will give me a broader perspective on the region as a whole, the time of the course is better, and I have a friend/someone who can help me.  My study abroad program will find me a tutor should I need help in the course, but I think I might take advantage of that anyway because our only grades are the midterm, the final, and attendance.  On Saturday, I went and printed all the reading for the first two weeks, which came out to roughly 200 pages.  The rest of the today I’ll be sorting through that.  Thankfully some of the readings are in English.