GRIP, Internships Abroad So Close, Yet So Far Away

Social Impact in Buenos Aires, Argentina

I am both American and Colombian. I was raised in America, with a thick Colombian accent when I speak Spanish. I’ve visited Colombia more times than I can count, and I can really only count in English. I am enmeshed between both cultures, drawing from each, and creating my own culture between each. 

Coming to Buenos Aires, I take both parts of myself with me. The American: who enjoys independent exploration, finding other like-minded foreigners, and the occasional pizza. The Colombian: who knows the importance of a café, can easily maneuver and converse, and can actually understand the conversion rate of dollars to pesos. 

I was both extremely clueless and extremely prepared for Buenos Aires. 

I’ve been able to greatly help my English-speaking peers as they navigate currency exchange, public transport, and grocery shopping. I feel both extremely capable and self-reliant as I attempt to navigate Buenos Aires alone and support my friends as they traverse this city alongside me. However, a side I do not show my peers is how extremely lost I have also felt. Many shop owners do not understand my thick Colombian-American accent, I accidentally bought cooking oil that gave me an allergic reaction last week, and I’ve almost been late to work numerous times because there is a certain part of the city that I constantly get rerouted incorrectly through. 

I miss the routine of home, the trashy comfort foods, and the ones I love. I miss the familiarity of the life I once knew and the predictability of my past lifestyle. I have felt out of place more times than I can count in Buenos Aires. I never felt Hispanic enough. Argentinian enough. I was always the outsider with a thick accent that still struggled to circumnavigate the cash culture and its effect on the country. 

Nonetheless, throughout my time in the city, many of these perspectives have changed. In an intensive need to assimilate, I forgot that my greatest strengths are indeed in my differences. My self-fulfillment, my happiness, and my comfort level a continent away rely on these differences. I am a Colombian-American living in Argentina. I do have an unmistakable accent, I do get lost often, I enjoy collecting worthless trinkets, and I still greatly misunderstand cultural cues. However, I am still deeply open to new experiences, new foods, and new people, and by combining both seemingly disparate aspects of myself, I have created a life experience where I can be my most authentic self.

I signed up for a boxing gym a few blocks from my apartment, and now I have purposefully tried to “get lost” exploring the city. I’ve eaten in places no one wants to try and walked down avenues no one is interested in going down. I have found great joy in my spontaneity and self-reliance. I am not afraid of making mistakes or being misunderstood. I am not afraid to be lost. I am not afraid to be me. 

I have found incredible peers at my gym, I have become a regular at many obscure restaurants, and I now know how to navigate about everything in a five-mile radius. I have found camaraderie and kindness in my mistakes. I have embraced my cultural differences and employed them to strengthen my relationships here. I’m a pseudo-expert in public transportation. I’ve been avoiding allergy-inducing cooking oils. I am just as Hispanic as when I arrived, I am just as expert in Spanish as when I arrived, and I am just as American as when I arrived. And I find no fault in these identities and skills. I am different. I am open to anything and everything. And I have found a home in every crevice of this city.