profoundly upsetting

3812

enjoyed the closest thing we have gotten on our "vacation" in El Calafate. our professor had scheduled some radio interviews with local Patagonian stations. now much like all of the rest of our trip, we had no idea why were were here.

this wasnt like the radio station we visited in Serbia, discussing the conversion to free speech, and their involvement in the overthrow of Milosovic.

this wasnt like our tour of the Radio Free Europe (or whatever it is called nowadays).

this wasnt to talk about how we are dialoguing with different civilization, about being American college students in a foreign country.

this was an opportunity for claudia to plug the dog shelter that we had volunteered for.

we crammed into 2 different radio studios so she could give her talk, and briefly talk about why we were there, however both stations thought we were specifically down in Patagonia to help the dogs.

little did we know the dog situation

we were released for lunch, and returned to the front of the hotel for the bus ride to the dog shelter.

first we were taken to an empty lot, that had a big square wall in it, with empty space within, and we were told that this was going to be the new shelter, it was clearly unfinished, but its winter, the ground is frozen, i know how that works. ok, cool, time for the old shelter.

now, claudia had told us to "bring clothes you dont mind maybe getting dirty/throwing away"

i certainly own clothes that i am willing to part with, i even have shoes i would be happy to toss, but i can tell you i would never pack unnecessary shit for a 5 week trip, nor will i pack that kinda shit on a sub-trip where all i have is a backpack.

so, to Argentina i brought with me like 8 t-shirts, 2 button-downs, 4 pairs of jeans, a pair of khakis, 18 pairs of socks + 1 black pair, a dozen pairs of underwear of various types, and the shoes on my feet.

on our "long weekend" in Patagonia, i brought 4 shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of socks, 5 pairs of underwear, and the shoes on my feet.

ok so you see my wardrobe is limited, i cant willy-nilly decide to toss my shoes and pants.

i figured she was exaggerating about the need for disposable clothes, this is the lady that calls for us to meet at the airport 6 hours early, the lady who suggested our parents come with us to the airport to be introduced to her before we leave, who wears more layers of clothes than a viking raider on the Danish coast.

she was completely and utterly understating the nature of this "dog shelter"

the buses took us into the municipal sanitation headquarters (read: the dump) and as we came on what appeared to me to be a shanty town, we saw the roving dogs outside the fence.

when we pulled up and got out we were assailed by the smell of 80 some unwashed, unloved dogs.

upon beholding the sight before us, 2 of our number got back onto the bus, i regret with every fiber of my being not getting back on that bus.

(i say there are a few times in my life where i have truly, genuinely not wanted to do something, namely my trip to El Salvador, this was very much like that)

i am not a dog person (cats fit my personality much much better {read: apathetic}), but neither am i particularly frightened of dogs. on this occasion i was unsettled by the number, proximity and health of the dogs around me.

i was tasked with a few other kids to clean up some of the shit in one of the pens.

let me describe this for you as best as i can.

this is a shanty town, the fences are made up of part barbed wire fence, part mattress springs, and part shipping palettes. the meager shelter the dogs had within this pens was made of up everything from 55 gallon drums, to more palettes, to political slogan signs. the floor, at least in our section, was not a floor, but a layer of frozen mud/shit.

you know how when your dog (or baby) is sick, and it shits real nasty? imagine that, but it never gets better, it just keeps shitting in the same 15ftx15ft area, and that instead of one sick entity, its 15.

also it had rained, so even the most solid of poops was rendered into a slurry mess of what was most likely disease ridden offal.

we were given a bucket to put garbage bags in (and fill with shit), a shovel, a garden rake, and a broom.

with these tools we were to clean the pens.

there was not a single square inch of the pen that was not some form of dog shit, best case scenario you were standing in 50/50 mix of foetid mud and identifiable dog shit.

we did the best we could, and i walked away. i couldnt do it, these dogs would have been better off living freely in the semi-wild of Santa Cruz province, and dying to larger predators or cars than living in the squalor they were.

i tossed my gloves and wandered into the dump.

i was more comfortable walking into a dump, than dealing with four score mangy (and i literally mean mangy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mange) fucking dogs.

that is a view across the dump to the mountains.

i was humbled by this entire day, i will admit. this dogs had an awful life, and as claudia (the prof) said, we are responsible for our pets, and somewhere that chain of responsibility was tragically broken. everyone of those dogs deserved more than a hovel, a 40 square foot pen floored by frozen dogshit, and dessicated cowbrains to eat. but i personally am not the person to rectify their situation.

furthermore, 25 american kids, who at this point are effectively on vacation, are not the appropriate volunteers to better these dogs lives either.

much like the time before this (and as i write this retrospectively after this) we had no idea what the fuck we were getting into. our professor did no accurately describe what was going on. considering this was one of the very very few things we knew about before coming down here, it seemed to be if not mandatory strongly encouraged.

i am deeply upset that we were, as a group of Northeastern students on a dialogue for language learning, brought to this hellhole and encouraged to help these animals.

however i am even more upset that it has contributed to the awful taste in my mouth Northeastern is leaving me with.

i write this now, quite literally on the verge of the verge (yeah the verge of the verge) of tears because i am so disappointed in how accurately this trip has summed up my entire college experience.

A. i (or my parents rather) paid way too much for me to learn relatively little

B. i was lured by promises, and surprised by shit-circumstances (literally and figuratively)

we were taken home on the bus, i went for an aimless walk around the tiny town of El Calafate, returned, and (i know i usually craftily word this) drank an entire liter of beer in the shower, and finished my journey towards getting hammered with shitty vodka and shittier orange juice.

alcohol is a terrible coping mechanism, i know, alcoholism and drug induced escapism is bad. but after the dogs, i really needed a drink.

dinner was fantastic, and the company i kept were equally upset by the day, so we managed to not talk about it.

the party started up again in my room, i hung out for a while, and went off with those same girls i had wandered the glacier park with the day before. had a good time talking to them, and managed to rid myself of the initial shock of what i had been "encouraged" to participate in.