Fenched in and rethinking the urge to flee

Caution, vehicle may reverse direction suddenly and without warning. Makes wide turns.

This past week I had another series of meetings with both my bosses at the Institute for Human Rights and then the coordinators of my program. Both with interesting, eye opening and somewhat hard to swallow results.

When I thought of this idea to move to Buenos Aires, I wanted to go for a series of reasons. Some professional, some personal, and some simply a need to change. Professionally I felt at a dead end with one of my jobs, the Institute. They weren’t giving me any work to do, and what they did give me to do was boring, seemingly meaningless, and uninvolved in what was happening in my immediate surrounding, that is to say, isolating. The one thing that the Institute does provide, and provide AMPLY are educational opportunities, such as classes, seminars, lectures, conferences etc. These however are mostly done OUTSIDE of my working, office hours. But these opportunities are spectacular. They are an educational institution and it is what they do best.

On the other hand, my work with Educaser interests me incredibly, I love working with all the kids, in the community, coming up with ideas for Children’s Day and working on the talleres. It is fascinating, stimulating, I am included in everything, and I am learning a ton about the subject daily, just by being involved. The idea had therefore been to chose on of my two internships and move to Buenos Aires and continue with only one. Educaser. I spoke with them and they loved the idea. Work from a distance, go and involve yourself with other alternative youth education organizations, etc.

On a personal level La Plata is a little small for my tastes. Buenos Aires offers a slew of new things to see and do and be involved in. It is a big city, with an amazing array of cultural, social, intellectual and political events. My gut keeps telling me that I need to give the capital a try, that I need to go and see it. Also, all my friends keep leaving and it is getting really hard to have to continually meet new people and then let them go. It sucks all my motivation to meet new people, and to get close to people. The few Argentine friends that I have made and that I love, would love me to move to the capital, more of an excuse for them to go. At some point i need to be the one who leaves, and not always the one who is left behind.

Emotionally, between my job being really uninvolved, really unmotivating (on top of everything the environment in the recently months has been pretty bad, because I think that internally things are not going well…but being an intern I can’t know what is going on, I can only sense the consequences.), my friends leaving, and other personal circumstances….part of me is inclined solve the problem by running away, and look for something new.

So with these intentions and thoughts, the idea of Buenos Aires came to me. A personal change, a big move, an opportunity to learn new things, see new things, and work more profoundly with one of my internships.

First I talked to my program. They said it was fine to move, it would be more expensive, but doable. They cautioned me however that I had signed a contract with the Institute for Human Rights, and it was really with them that I had to negotiate. But that it wasn’t impossible at all. My coordinator even surprised me and suggested the idea to the Institute for me! During the meeting they calmly told her that my idea was great, but to remind me that I had a contract with them for a year and should fulfill it. At this point I began to realize that my dream for Buenos Aires was changing before my eyes. I couldn’t just leave one job and do the one that I wanted, I had to figure out how to juggle both. So the objective changed. I set up a meeting with my bosses at the Institute to speak with them directly about the possibility of moving and working something out with the Institute. Buenos Aires is an hour commute away at the least, which is not impossible to do, but doing it everyday would complicate things.

So I went into the meeting positive. Obviously, as I have discussed in previous entries I have a lot criticisms about how things function, when we have suggested projects we have hit a lot of walls, and they don’t involve us much in things or give us things to do. But I was not going in there to tell them this, I was going in there to suggest my move to Buenos Aires, to tell them that I enjoy working for them, and that I up to this point the type of work that I had done, could be done from a distance.

There response was mixed. On one hand they agreed that I should take advantage of my short amount of time in the country, see all the culture of Argentina and Buenos Aires. But they also explained to me that my presence physically in the Institute was essential. That having me physically present routinely during the week, even though I am prohibited from participating in the daily activities of the institute, was essential to mine and their experience. We discussed the possibility of moving all my required hours into two consecutive long days and when I needed to come back to La Plata for more specific things I would do that as well. Basically they nipped my idea of moving and doing most of my work from a distance in the bud. My presence is needed in the office. We left the short meeting with the idea that I would come up with a basic schedule about how I would like my week to look and they would think about their potential projects for me more.

Next I met with my coordinator of the program, and she was in full agreeance with them. If they said my presence was necessary, my presence was necessary. She nor the program was going to help me leave the Institute and break the contract, and if the institute wanted me their physically, she was in support of them. Now if I found the work itself at the institute boring, or that i needed help discussing this with them or finding things to do, they would be more than willing to help me. Work with me to make my current situation better, but not to help me run from it.

So my options for Buenos Aires had completely morphed. Now I was looking down the barrel of coming to La Plata at least three days a week, for really really long days, being more disconnected with both of my works because I would be working for both of them less hours and more at a distance. Not having much time left over to work with other organizations in Buenos Aires in connection with Educaser, and having to travel back here to attend the talleres or miss them all together. More importantly in relation to the institute, I would still have to come to the office to complete my hours, but I would miss a great deal of the amazing educational oppurtunities. I would be come less involved in everything, and after looking at a potential work week on paper, end up working and commuting more hours than currently.

Where had my dream gone? It was getting more and more difficult. They kept putting up road blocks and at each road block I had to figure out a way to evade it, a compromise to satisfy all the parties, and with each road block that I hit I had to reask myself exactly why I was going and if it was worth this other sacrifice. And as I began to peal away the layers of why I was going, and began to have to make sacrifices, I began to realize that maybe I was running away. Running for a job that was boring, instead of facing it and trying to fix it constructively, running from a city that was too small and friends that keep leaving, instead of just learning to be a little bit more alone.

Instead of standing up and making my own situation better, which would take a fight, some real creatively and person energy and motivation, I was just trying to quickly and easily change my location and “solve” everything. Am I not down here to stand up and fight for something? A better world? More education? Fairer rights? A bigger smile and more oppurtunities for underprivileged children? A cleaner environment? The simple brightening of more people’s days? Why couldn’t I stand up and fight my own fight? Learn the skill that I came down here to learn….

How to make a situation better.

When one becomes fenced in, sometimes they chose to stay. I just want to make sure that if I reverse my decision that I also do that for the correct reasons.
We will see where this goes. I preemptively, uninformedly told many people and now have some serious decisions to make, and some serious conversations to have.