January 17, 2007
Joel Santana and Claire Horvath
Today was a very interesting day. After waking up at our lovely hotel around 10AM (our professors are awesome and let us sleep in a little), we left Hotel Campoalegre and we were off to Moisesville, which is a small Jewish town where many Jewish immigrants first established a home in thanks to funding by Baron Hirsch. We went to various jewish cemeteries, where we were able to see very old graves of immigrants who came here long ago. We also had a lecture on this day where we all learned that Jewish individuals had problems at first with getting land for their families in order to survive in Argentina. At first they had no land and many of them died in the train station waiting for teh land they were promised. When they did get land, they were only allowed 300 acres, which is almost nothing for a family to survive on in the pampas. After 25 years of arguing to raise this number, they were allowed 400 acres, but even this number is very low. This however, proves that the Jewish community works very hard for their rights and that they try their best to stay connected with one another because distance was another problem they faced. They had various schools and synagogues in order to remain a close-knit society where they can all help each other out and better their lives, and they also work with AMIA the organization we visited in Buenos Aires.
The town itself also was interesting. We had a lecture in one of the oldest libraries-turned-theatres in the town by Preofessor Karina ?? from the Rafaela campus of UBA. It was interesting to hear the history of how a lot of these Jewish settlers came over to Argentina, the poor reception that they received, as well as the ways in which they also had to eventually move out of the far-off communities in order for their children to get an education that was higher than primary school. We also were able to see the section of the building that retained books from the first immigrants- most were behind glass panes in bookshelves, but you could read the Hebrew, Russian, and Spanish titles and see how old the pages were.
After our visit to Moisesville, we continued our voyage on the bus for another three hours until we made our way to Humboldt. We arrived pretty late, it was already 6pm by then and so we had to cut our visit to this town short since we still had a few more hours on the buses to get to our next hotel. In Humboldt, we went to a museum where we were able to see old Swiss artifacts like guns and household items they used on a daily basis. It is amazing to see how these individuals used certain items that we would never think about using because we’ve evolved so much since then. Our world is growing more and more everyday and technological breakthroughs are making it possible for us to better our lives more and more. It’s important to understand and to see how past civilizations survived and lived their lives because we can learn from their mistakes and we can better our lives by taking their ideas to different levels.
Our visit to Humboldt was an unfortunate one, because at that point everyone was just ready to head back to the hotel, and not really looking forward to seeing another museum. After waiting in line for the bathroom (a process which took half an hour or so for everyone to finish), we did indeed journey to the museum. It was actually an interesting place- there were all sorts of old artifacts such as old picture books, pictures of the immigrants (one lady had hair that reached almost to her feet), very very old cameras, and a pipe that looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. It was overall interesting material, though at that point we didn´t really see the necessity of having to stop there… especially when faced with the drive ahead of us, which we were blissfully unawares of the length thereof.
Afterwards, we left for Hotel Quirinale, which we’ve hoped would have been closer because we spent about seven hours on the road to reach this destination. The time we spent on the bus consisted of random bouts of sleeping, bursting into song (or an entire rendition of ´Trapped in the Closet¨), as well as discussions concerning the paranormal, life after death, faith/religion, philosophy, and all those sorts of discussions one is bound to have eventually if stuck with the same people for enough time. We also had one of our bus members telling us how, if this were a REAL horror story, we would soon break down in the middle of nowhere… someone would realize who the killer was, and thus would be the first to die… let me tell you, friends, it was a lot of fun. The drive also was spent driving entirely in the dark, with only our bus and the one behind us lighting up the road- no streetlights or cars to speak of. The times where there WERE other cars on the road were semi-terrifying, as they drove close to the center of the road and nearly drove us off. The one amazing thing about the trip was looking up out the window and seeing the incredible amount of stars that were visible- more than I´ve ever seen.
We were all very grumpy, tired, and hungry when we finally arrived at the hotel at around 1 A.M. Some of us were so tired that we had lost our appetites. Those who were still hungry ordered pizza and went to bed soon after. The whole day was mainly spent on the bus, and it was an interesting experience because as the head of IES put it: we sometimes have to put ourselves in same positions that the immigrants were in when they traveled from Europe to Argentina. Since we were learning about these immigrants, it was interesting to see how we went through an experience that, although less severe than the immigrant’s voyages, was still a very difficult experience. Our conditions on the bus: hot, tired, uncomfortable were probably very similar to those of the immigrants on the boats. At least we were lucky enough to be with friends because some immigrants traveled alone and didn’t know anyone. At least we were able to stop at gas stations to get snacks and drinks whereas the immigrants did not have the ability to do so. Our experience was not a pleasant one, but it is one that we all survived and one that we will never forget. Besides, we probably expected something like this to happen after our flight was delayed and the events that took place because of our delayed flight were priceless. Thus, we should have expected more “priceless moments” like this one.
Today was a very interesting day. After waking up at our lovely hotel around 10AM (our professors are awesome and let us sleep in a little), we left Hotel Campoalegre and we were off to Moisesville, which is a small Jewish town where many Jewish immigrants first established a home in thanks to funding by Baron Hirsch. We went to various jewish cemeteries, where we were able to see very old graves of immigrants who came here long ago. We also had a lecture on this day where we all learned that Jewish individuals had problems at first with getting land for their families in order to survive in Argentina. At first they had no land and many of them died in the train station waiting for teh land they were promised. When they did get land, they were only allowed 300 acres, which is almost nothing for a family to survive on in the pampas. After 25 years of arguing to raise this number, they were allowed 400 acres, but even this number is very low. This however, proves that the Jewish community works very hard for their rights and that they try their best to stay connected with one another because distance was another problem they faced. They had various schools and synagogues in order to remain a close-knit society where they can all help each other out and better their lives, and they also work with AMIA the organization we visited in Buenos Aires.
The town itself also was interesting. We had a lecture in one of the oldest libraries-turned-theatres in the town by Preofessor Karina ?? from the Rafaela campus of UBA. It was interesting to hear the history of how a lot of these Jewish settlers came over to Argentina, the poor reception that they received, as well as the ways in which they also had to eventually move out of the far-off communities in order for their children to get an education that was higher than primary school. We also were able to see the section of the building that retained books from the first immigrants- most were behind glass panes in bookshelves, but you could read the Hebrew, Russian, and Spanish titles and see how old the pages were.
After our visit to Moisesville, we continued our voyage on the bus for another three hours until we made our way to Humboldt. We arrived pretty late, it was already 6pm by then and so we had to cut our visit to this town short since we still had a few more hours on the buses to get to our next hotel. In Humboldt, we went to a museum where we were able to see old Swiss artifacts like guns and household items they used on a daily basis. It is amazing to see how these individuals used certain items that we would never think about using because we’ve evolved so much since then. Our world is growing more and more everyday and technological breakthroughs are making it possible for us to better our lives more and more. It’s important to understand and to see how past civilizations survived and lived their lives because we can learn from their mistakes and we can better our lives by taking their ideas to different levels.
Our visit to Humboldt was an unfortunate one, because at that point everyone was just ready to head back to the hotel, and not really looking forward to seeing another museum. After waiting in line for the bathroom (a process which took half an hour or so for everyone to finish), we did indeed journey to the museum. It was actually an interesting place- there were all sorts of old artifacts such as old picture books, pictures of the immigrants (one lady had hair that reached almost to her feet), very very old cameras, and a pipe that looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. It was overall interesting material, though at that point we didn´t really see the necessity of having to stop there… especially when faced with the drive ahead of us, which we were blissfully unawares of the length thereof.
Afterwards, we left for Hotel Quirinale, which we’ve hoped would have been closer because we spent about seven hours on the road to reach this destination. The time we spent on the bus consisted of random bouts of sleeping, bursting into song (or an entire rendition of ´Trapped in the Closet¨), as well as discussions concerning the paranormal, life after death, faith/religion, philosophy, and all those sorts of discussions one is bound to have eventually if stuck with the same people for enough time. We also had one of our bus members telling us how, if this were a REAL horror story, we would soon break down in the middle of nowhere… someone would realize who the killer was, and thus would be the first to die… let me tell you, friends, it was a lot of fun. The drive also was spent driving entirely in the dark, with only our bus and the one behind us lighting up the road- no streetlights or cars to speak of. The times where there WERE other cars on the road were semi-terrifying, as they drove close to the center of the road and nearly drove us off. The one amazing thing about the trip was looking up out the window and seeing the incredible amount of stars that were visible- more than I´ve ever seen.
We were all very grumpy, tired, and hungry when we finally arrived at the hotel at around 1 A.M. Some of us were so tired that we had lost our appetites. Those who were still hungry ordered pizza and went to bed soon after. The whole day was mainly spent on the bus, and it was an interesting experience because as the head of IES put it: we sometimes have to put ourselves in same positions that the immigrants were in when they traveled from Europe to Argentina. Since we were learning about these immigrants, it was interesting to see how we went through an experience that, although less severe than the immigrant’s voyages, was still a very difficult experience. Our conditions on the bus: hot, tired, uncomfortable were probably very similar to those of the immigrants on the boats. At least we were lucky enough to be with friends because some immigrants traveled alone and didn’t know anyone. At least we were able to stop at gas stations to get snacks and drinks whereas the immigrants did not have the ability to do so. Our experience was not a pleasant one, but it is one that we all survived and one that we will never forget. Besides, we probably expected something like this to happen after our flight was delayed and the events that took place because of our delayed flight were priceless. Thus, we should have expected more “priceless moments” like this one.
posted by Sandra Jamieson @ 6:38 PM
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