the marty game

I love this kid. He made his a sidewalk version of skee-ball and decided to name it after himself.



I wonder now if he was giving out prizes. And how much money he made. I hope it was a lot.

tektonika

When Suze and I were in Montevideo over Christmas, we met these kids dancing to tektonika music in a plaza in the Ciudád Vieja (Old City). They surrounded us when we approached them and everyone was hollering at once. At first I was a little scared--adolescents scare me--but then they shouted "Welcome!" in unison.



See the complete set here. They taught us some moves and were just generally awesome.

Burgos

We spent one night in the town of Burgos, which has a small old city that was filled with people out and about, enjoying tapas and wine outside, even though it was really not that warm. I sat out in the main plaza for a long time, just people watching. It is so nice to see town plazas in action, where everyone just hangs out.

more french beaches

I loved this town, St. Jean de Luz, in Basque France. The architecture was somewhat colonial, and the beach was beautiful and tranquil.

divers

Kids in Biarritz, France, jumping into the harbor from this bridge, and taking running leaps from the parking lot behind.

the children on top of the stairs

I was pretty in awe of the children in Aguas Calientes. The town is built into a hillside, so it is steep stairs and cobblestone slants everywhere. While I am scared of eating concrete every time I take a step, these kids are chasing balls and butterflies around with fearless agility. One day we even saw two kids sharing a pair of rollerblades. They wear each wearing one rollerblade and were just tearing down this ramp and grabbing a hold of a metal rail where the ramp suddenly gave way to a drop overlooking the soccer field.



Part of me wanted to collar them as they sped by. Instead, I just watched them run back up the hill and do it again.

Villa 31

I took this last month in Villa 31, this shantytown behind the Retiro train station. I didn't take any photos inside the dense residential area, but these abandoned tracks are kind of the pedestrian highway in and out of the neighborhood. A lot of people live there, and there is a heavy police presence near the dead zone between the train station and the neighborhood interior. That says a lot.



People talk a lot about how the polarity of wealth is so much more visible here than in the states. I'm not sure about that. We have plenty of homeless in the states, as well as ridiculously crappy neighborhoods abutting luxury rentals. Or maybe I've just spent too much time in San Francisco.

hide and seek

In my host's subdivision, there were always people out, and it felt good. True, the subdivision was locked behind a gate, but it seems that everything here is locked up somehow and people just get used to it. In many retail stores and apartment buildings, you have to bet let in and out personally with a key.

These kids were having a lot of fun. When they were playing hide and seek, occasionally they would duck into the apartment of two older people who were just sitting outside their front door drinking mate.



In the evenings the older kids would come out. We spent Christmas night outside passing beers with the 20-somethings of the neighborhood.