The passing of the Olympic torch...
As we all know I have been ridiculously addicted to my computer lately, I have been doing a lot of news-reading, which has been pretty fun, actually. Did you know that they have started opening up hostel-like workplaces where freelancers can rent workspace and be around other freelancers and therefore be more "social" during the day? Kinda fun, kinda strange...anyway...I've been reading about all of the human rights protests that have surrounded the Olympic torch world tour. It all started in London where a few fanatic Tibet supporters tried to extinguish the flame, an act that was followed with equal vigor in Paris. San Francisco was also very vocal about their support of Tibet, though I didn't read about any flame-extinguishing attempts and I think only a few people were put in jail for hanging Tibetan-support banners on the Golden Gate bridge. Wow, all kinds of excitement going on around the Olympics, human rights support and protests...when I learned that the torch was going to be coming to Buenos Aires (as its only South American stop), I totally wanted to go witness the running of the flame. I mean, Latin Americans (and as I have already seen, Argentineans especially, what with all their passion!) are very prone to demonstrate if they are in disagreement with this or that. (Want to hear something else? My teacher told me the other day that people here are paid to demonstrate. Kids might be asked what their parents to for a living, and they might say, "My dad is a plumber and my mom is a protestor," meaning that his mom earns her money by being paid to demonstrate by whomever needs happens to want to show their unhappiness, shall we say, through banner-waving, signs, drumming, singing, and whatever manners they can find to capture attention. Needless to say, I was eager to be a bystander at today's events.
I headed down to Plaza de Mayo and Casa Rosada (the presidential palace), about an hour before the torch was scheduled to get there to see what was going on. I found the normal kind of half-fence barriers along the streets with a few other early arrivals as well as the media set-up, but overall it was pretty chilled out. After about half an hour, 20-30 China supporters walked through the street with their big ol' China and Olympic flags (which I can only imagine were provided by China itself), and this small demonstration was shortly followed by a smallish group of people coming through holding a torch, which turned out to be the human rights torch. Hmm. Although they had their little truck with the loudspeaker, it wasn't a huge statement. There were some solemn-looking people surrounded by riot police who were also surrounded by former bystanders that decided to join the march, however unconfidently with their bashful smiles as if they didn't quite know what they were doing, but this seemed like the thing to do. After making a slow turn around the mini-sort of-obelisk in front of Casa Rosada, their crowd dispersed. Then, as the wind started and the temperature continued to grow colder and colder, like the weather has a strange knack of doing here in Buenos Aires, the crowd slowly grew until the Olympic demonstration finally started. It started with buses full of...well, I'm not really sure who was in the bus, but my best guess is that they were the Argentinean athletes who will be participating in the Olympic games. I was struck by how with all of this hub-bub about the torch, everyone seems to have forgotten that there are actually athletes involved in this, living, breathing human beings who just want to compete, and the entire world is so focused on this flame that's moving around the world and peoples' attempts to put it out--god forbid someone should put out that fire that came from Greece because that's really what the Olympics is all about...
I headed down to Plaza de Mayo and Casa Rosada (the presidential palace), about an hour before the torch was scheduled to get there to see what was going on. I found the normal kind of half-fence barriers along the streets with a few other early arrivals as well as the media set-up, but overall it was pretty chilled out. After about half an hour, 20-30 China supporters walked through the street with their big ol' China and Olympic flags (which I can only imagine were provided by China itself), and this small demonstration was shortly followed by a smallish group of people coming through holding a torch, which turned out to be the human rights torch. Hmm. Although they had their little truck with the loudspeaker, it wasn't a huge statement. There were some solemn-looking people surrounded by riot police who were also surrounded by former bystanders that decided to join the march, however unconfidently with their bashful smiles as if they didn't quite know what they were doing, but this seemed like the thing to do. After making a slow turn around the mini-sort of-obelisk in front of Casa Rosada, their crowd dispersed. Then, as the wind started and the temperature continued to grow colder and colder, like the weather has a strange knack of doing here in Buenos Aires, the crowd slowly grew until the Olympic demonstration finally started. It started with buses full of...well, I'm not really sure who was in the bus, but my best guess is that they were the Argentinean athletes who will be participating in the Olympic games. I was struck by how with all of this hub-bub about the torch, everyone seems to have forgotten that there are actually athletes involved in this, living, breathing human beings who just want to compete, and the entire world is so focused on this flame that's moving around the world and peoples' attempts to put it out--god forbid someone should put out that fire that came from Greece because that's really what the Olympics is all about...
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