Building Community in Buenos Aires
Every day is a little different: I pass some mornings writing or designing a permaculture manual to accompany the city’s workshops. Other afternoons, I turn our Bokashi compost pile or plant new seeds in preparation for spring (14 varieties of tomatoes last Wednesday!). But every Thursday morning, our urban agriculture team works on a community garden project in Villa 20, one of the many Argentinean shanty towns that exist throughout the city. This one happens to be 5 minutes from the office.

Villa 20 is a neighborhood currently being urbanized through Buenos Aires’ Housing Institute. What started as an informal settlement grew into 30 blocks or “manzanas” crowded with rudimentary brick and mortar structures housing 27,000 people. Each roof has a basin to collect rainwater, since only 35% receive running water. According to La Nación, 25% have proper sewage, while 4% have formal electricity. It’s frankly ingenious how residents of Villa 20 successfully wired their own lighting. It’s a far cry from the frequented tourist areas of Buenos Aires and has completely shifted my perception of what it means to be a porteño and the role of local government.

There’s Ramiro, Maru, Yami, Soledad, Leo, Ana, and Gaby: they, plus some government officials, make up a team that has been maintaining a garden on a small plot in a construction site, and that will inaugurate a new community garden come September. The garden has a small makeshift greenhouse made of plastic sheets, and garden beds of refashioned tires. We’ve drawn a mind map to describe different aspects of our project, from cooking workshops to recycled art projects. We’ve cut and brightly-painted wooden signs for each of the plants we’ll grow. I’ve taught kids about the toxic properties of castor bean, an invasive species common both here and my hometown, and played with worms in the soil with Ana’s 2 year old son, Matias. “It’s moving, it’s moving!” he screeched before launching the poor worm back into the soil. I’ve only helped with their project for 2 months and feel an immense sense of ownership — I can’t begin to imagine how they each feel.
Moreover, I get emotional describing how lucky I feel that these people welcomed me in so warmly and share so openly. They’re loud, they’re boisterous, they frequently break into singing “Susanna” and hip-thrusting (I had to look up the song later). They all have darker features than the porteños that live farther North in the wealthy barrios of the city, making me wonder about Bolivian and Peruvian immigration into Argentina. They all go to college for free at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, sparking deep debate about free education and free health-care — and I don’t just mean debate among us during our Thursday mornings. Living in Buenos Aires has made me question what should be considered a universal human right and where the limits of government intervention should sit. I’ve poked at everyone for opinions, from the other international interns apart of EBAI to my parents over Facetime. These students my age would not be going to college if not for free public education and the deep academic culture embedded in Argentinean life, and, of course, that makes me question our system back home. The 30 Manzana team and I lead such completely different lives, yet here we are, heading to a reggae concert tonight.
Written by Alexandra Nguyen-Phuc ’18, Earth Systems major, FSI Global Policy Intern at Experiencia Buenos Aires Internacional.
