poverty line

so, we arrived in b'aires, smiling, pleased to have arrived at our new home after months in getting here. i found work almost immediately: teaching english, as predicted.
so, 3 times a week i traverse the city in a sweaty train, imitating a sardine to teach english to people with prospects.
the journey takes 2 hours either way, the class lasts 3 hours... i earn 9 pesos for each hour in the class and none for the hours on the train.
the train rumbles past the highrises; it rocks past suburban slums where people live in recycled housing and recycle cardboard and paper to earn their pesos; it passes fields where people play polo and slinks into landscaped stations eloquently named 'bella vista' or 'hurlinghman'....
the contrasts are vast.
i later return to the backpackers bubble that we're staying in: a place where kids who are travelling on their parents' money and stay out drinking all night and would never know poverty if it came up and pinched their scrawny bums. the inhabitants of this mini republic spend the debt of small nations on beer and pizza weekly and think it's great that buenos aires has such an active recycling scheme.

it's been ages since i last made an entry here.
and with luck my next one won't be so grim. i guess it's just city living, noise and bustle and traffic fumes and a 12peso hangover with sleepless nights chucked in for good measure.

xxxxxxx
b