To really know one’s self

As stated in numerous postings this has been an extraordinary experience and I feel incredibly fortunate to have been given (earned) this amazing opportunities. In my final days I met with more extraordinary women, a former first lady, who became a Senator and ran for president (sound familiar) and one of the most famous wine makers in Argentina.  The program in Argentina blew me away with the caliber of women that I met with and the strength of the Argentine women.

Unique to my program in Argentina the meetings have been women who have reached great success in their fields generally dominated by men. The two women I want to write about in this particular entry were both very different but knew themselves as leaders and were so strong in their conviction.

The first one, Susana Balbo, is the owner and operator of Domino La Plata Vineyard in Mendoza. She is one of the most famous wine makers in Argentina. This is extraordinary as this is a business that continues to be male dominated. In her meeting she talked about the importance of women taking risk, using women’s intellect/intuition: go with your gut.  She talked about not fearing mistakes but appreciating the lessons learned in the mistakes. She said that mistakes will occur but you grow and if you hesitate due to fear how can you truly succeed. She has taken great risk in her wine business but went with her gut and has yielded some of the best wines. She also talked about owning her business and wanting her work to revolve around quality and not the bottom line.

She does not over produce a particular wine because it sells well she only makes enough as it reflects the best quality available. She started the vineyard completely on her own with her own resources. She was able to spend 45 minutes with me and I soaked up every minute with her. She was so absolute in everything she said- whether it was about the business, managing men, being competitive in a global market, being a mom, a wife, a widow, etc. She knew herself so well and it was so evident in her energy. She did not make things out to be easy. As a leader she is incredibly hands on – involved in all aspects of the operations. She is working and developing her succession plan for her vineyard.

The second one is Senator Hilda “Chiche” Dulhaldo. Aside from being a Senator, Presidential candidate, who lost to the current president by 5% of the vote, she served as the nation’s first lady.  I say all this in this order as it is customary that women here no matter how successful are introduced and defined first by their husband’s (and if divorced by their previous husband) first.

She was a fireball.  All her work has focused on women’s rights, human rights and services.  She was a strong force as a first lady. She ran for President because she felt called to run as a true representative of her people. When she saw the competition she felt she could not be represented or defined by them. She felt strongly that all woman need to participate in politics. Women have a duty in democracy and only when women are at the table are women’s issues brought to the forefront. She also talked about being clear about what your specialties are so you can make a difference and have depth in specific areas. For her it is women’s issues.

I took all their counsel and left the meetings inspired by the confidence they had in themselves. They were not cocky it was self assurance. The owned their leadership and their successes.

Soccer and Public Housing

Why would soccer and public housing ever go together in a sentence- well in BsAs one of the well know teams home field is located across from one of the most dangerous villas (housing developments) In the City. Last night we attend the San Lorenzo vs Tigre Futbol match at the San Lorenzo stadium. Tickets are 110 pesos this is about $22.50 per ticket but $110 pesos here is a steep prices in comparison. It would be similar to the price of Eagles tickets in Philly.

The game was very well attended and the parking is right in front of the public housing. So I will describe both experience which I had independently with the game and housing issues in BsAs.

The game was a ton of fun and the drums and songs were deafening. Both songs had so many banners, signs, chants, dances etc.  Watching them was almost as interesting as the game itself. Both teams played well with great passion and it got very heated on the field, but the sportsmanship remained high.  San Lorenzo won by two scores and both goals were brilliant.  The lead player for San Lorenzo left the game with 10 minutes left and he received a standing ovation. I loved the men in the stands who would get so upset with any foul or error. The hand gestures and swears were hysterical.

The majority of the attendees were men of all ages. Many men with their sons, a few families and spattering of women.At the end of the game there is police in full on riot gear that helps escort the opposing team out of the stadium and out of the lot. As a matter of fact they held all the gates closed and we could not leave the stadium until the fans of the opposing team had left.  I thought that was really interesting and and probably for very good reason. There was tremendous patience for the gates to open. I could only think with my east coast temperament how well folks would take to waiting locked inside of the Linc, waiting for the other teams fans to leave. Chew on that.

Having the game directly across from the public housing says many things. There is an acknowledgement of poverty but in my eyes this current government has turn its back on extreme poverty. To put into context poverty and housing here are so incredibly different then the states. You rarely see the kind of poverty that exist here, in the states. Some rural areas and some of our bad neighborhoods can come close but not at the level and depth that you find here. 

There are a number of Villas (housing areas of extreme poverty) here. In the ones I have visit they came about in different ways. One that I visit included homes (shacks, tents) built with any kind of refuse, materials and scrapes that the family can find to create some from of shelter. There can often be one shack and then after some time there are multiples until you have a full community.  They have no water supply, no electricity, no kind of bathrooms. Other Villas like the one across San Lorenzo are housing developments that were underway and not completed. So shells of buildings. The folks who live there now have rigged electricity and have water reserves on their roofs so that they have some form of water supply.

The actual development of public housing varies greatly. The make shift shack communities can often make way for public housing- but not at all in the way we think of the new public housing units that are available. many are these Villas with various stages of completion. It is an atrocious.

When we met with folks who lived in the Villas they were so surprised to have American there and even more so that Cherelle was a legislature and I worked in local government. They said not one from their government ever comes to see them and not sure they even know they exist. Needles to say the visit to these locations were intense. There was an irony and perfect way of capsulizing the growing separation of the poor and the well off in BsAs. It is not a part of BsAs that most if any tourist see. It is also removed artificially from the center part of the City and most of those who reside here.

There are many folks working to address poverty in the USA I think we try to hard to compartmentalize the work. We focus on housing, health, general welfare. The real issues is education and poverty. We have tremendous infrastructure and ability. Our middle class is still very strong but the growing drop out rate and increases in poverty levels needs to be a wake up call for us.

In any event enough righteous rambling I will be home soon, inspired to move the work of poverty alleviation forward.

October 15th-17th protest observation

So I picked an interesting time to travel to all the countries I have visited.  In Chile we were fortunate to be there for their bicentennial, a hunger strike of the Mapuche people, and of course during key parts of the miners rescue. We were in Brazil for Columbus Day- oddly enough a pretty big vacation weekend in this part of South America.  For them t is one of the first long weekends in the Spring.

So in our last days we get to experience an very interesting recognition of a special day in Argentina (more in Buenos Aires), Peronist Day. This day recognizes Peron's release from prison. he was incarcerated well prior to his presidency because as the locals say he was gaining more power and influence and the president at that time found him as a threat. He was incarcerated for a short period of time.

As the tale goes while in prison who wrote beautiful letters to Evita and upon his release she was waiting for him at the gates. His popularity soared and his presidency would come soon after. So to commemorate there are gatherings of the perrionist parties who general have a rally, gathering type event.  This year since Mother's day is going to be celebrated on October 17th (their Spring) they decided it was best to demonstrate, gather on Friday the 15th.  There was an enormous rally and demonstration. 

Changing the subject sort of: On the same day there was a very interesting experience that Cherelle and witnessed on the was back from our last meetings.  We were driving on the expressway and were diverted off the highway and back on further up. About a half mile down cars started to pass us on the same side going in the opposite direction. This highway by the way is the equivalent of 76. In any event there is an enormous tire fire in the middle of the road set by protesters. We had to turn around drive in the wrong direction and find another way home.

They protested on this day as they knew people would be coming into Buenos Aires. The reason for the protest. There was a group that wanted the toll road to provide a "charitable contribution" to them. When the toll operators refused they decided they would make the road impassable.  So what is so interesting and highly different then Chile and USA is that we allow protest but when and where it is organized is determined.  Here the Police and Firefighters did nothing to put out the fire, the protesters were just hanging out  in the middle of the road and that was just the way it was.  In Chile similar protest on the road had occurred put the protesters were arrested and fires put out. In the USA you probably would not see the light of day for a while if you blocked 76 with a tire fire. What do you think?

I asked many locals about these kinds of protest paralyze the City and why the police or government do not do anything to contain or assist. The response was they only do if the protesters are against the Kirchner's (current President and her husband). In the end it took Cherelle two and half hours to return to the hotel versus the 50 minutes it originally took us to get there.  In my next entry I have to tell you about the Student protest and strike where the Students actually took over the Ministry of Education. This is our Department of Education at the Federal level with a make shift battering ram and the students fire housed the police.  It was a sight to see.

Miss you all.

The Value of Women’s Leadership

Raised the youngest of three sisters the question of the strength of the female gender was apparent at an early age.  We were always encouraged to do whatever we set our minds to- the questions of addressing gender as an issue was not directly discussed. I describe myself as a feminist and found that the comfort of using this term in South America is much like the states.  Somen women are completely comfortable with the term others less experienced have even said “feminist- oh no we do not have any of those here”.  In my travels in South American I have had the great privilege of meeting with a large number of women leaders from all sectors and level of experience.  In these meetings in my observations the lessons of my childhood the wisdom of my mentors sheds light on what it means to be a women and a leader.

First the concept of leadership is not exclusive to one gender and simply because you have power, money or a position of influence does not make you a leader.  Some leaders are born and others grow and learn their leadership abilities. My belief is that women by the nature have some qualities that innately are leadership characteristics. Women for centuries have had the ability to multitask, communicate clearly, plan, organize and nurture those around them, and make sound firm decisions. 

The unique observation about Bachelet’s leadership is that she remained who she was. She never tried to be one of the boys and used a number of her feminine traits to connect with the people of Chile. The average women could see herself in Bachelet.  All those close to her spoke about her intolerance for sexist comments or comments that reflected on her gender as a woman.  She never allowed even one comment to slide and would take it head on when some one said something to her.

Digress to say that much of Bachelet made me think of Hillary’s run for the presidency. In my observation a major mistake that she made early on was to not make her gender an issue.  Granted she had the press inappropriately comment on her wardrobe, hair style, etc. Hillary tried to hard to be measure completely the same with no reference to her gender.  Our gender is strength. She seemed more human when she showed a personal style in NH. Interesting if in her run we could have talked more about gender.  In the end she has made one hell of a Secretary of State.

We had the great pleasure to meet with Paty Politizer, who recently released Bachelet’s biography. She shared with us an example of the sexist comparisons Bachelet endured early in her presidency. The attacks against her when she came into office were purely personal. They constantly questioned her ability. She was held to a different standard. One example was that when her daughter was hospitalized for a very serious neurological issue Bachelet cut her meetings short and rescheduled a number of events. The press immediately commented that this is exactly what the country should expect of a woman putting her family first when she needs to run a country.  Years prior Lagos, the president preceding Bachelet’s mother in law feel ill and he rearranges his schedule for some time.  The press came out saying what a great son he was.  Sound familiar ladies. Women get portrayed as weak for making the same decisions that men make even if they are for the same reasons.

The most important lesson of the leaders I have met that have been successful is the connection to their femininity. The ability to connect, mentor, support, make critical decisions and the ability to be inclusive. I heard over and over- do not try to be like a man or lead like a man. That does no service to you and the other women who will come behind you.

Unfortunately I did meet with some more conservative minded women. In those experiences and meetings I observed that we as women can be the harshest on other women. Closing the door on opportunities. Separating women by class and not making way for other women and finally wanting to say they are no difference between men and women and that woman should be measured in the exact same way. In those experience I found it very masculine to hold the pwer and not share.

I will return energized with much greater resolve and understanding of my gender and its tremendous influence on my leadership.  I am grateful for the women I have met, the observations both progressive and conservative and I am proud of the way in which I have owned my femininity.

Buenos Aires (BsAs)

Robert and I arrived in Buenos Aires on Monday at 4pm and since then we have both been on the go.  I have attended a number of really excellent meetings and met with a number of the Argetine Fellows who are remarkable. My meetings here have included meetings with a wide range of strong and influential women in Argentina.

Most interesting is that Argentina has an election quota law to increase the number of women in elected positions.  They have an interesting electoral process and once the primary top position is chosen you vote for a party and the list of candidates for all the positions. We met with 2 congress women who were recently elected, both in their 30's both very capable and clear that their opportunity presented itself due to the quota law and that being elected is passing the first hurdle.

Originally the quota law resulted in the wives, lovers and friends of the male senators and congressmen being elected so in the beginning women were not taken as seriously.  This has changed dramatically. Another very interesting observation is that everyone we have met with speaks openly about the corruption in the government and the corruption runs very deep. Many NGO's refuse to take government funding because they do not want to be indebted to particular parties who then expect votes from the constituents who utilize their services. Even the Congress members we talked to openly talked about the corruption in government.

The President her Christina Kirchner is a complete contrast to Bachelet. She as described by many we have met with as ruling with more of an iron fist and makes decisions unilaterally. She as many has says "tries to rule to much like a man". In addition all speak to her and her husband corruption. But when you ask about her running again many say that it is likely that she will win. Some say because of lack of opposition and other say because of corruption and buying votes.

On a highly positive note the women are much more liberated here in Argentina but nothing like the United States. I have met with a broad spectrum of women (heads of NGO's, politicians, owner of a multi media company, journalist, and advocates) and all have a similar language about the progress of women in leadership and the importance of the quota law. Another high note is the recent presidential election in Brazil which resulted in another female president in South America. Coincidence that the three countries I have visited have elected female?? I think not. 

From a tourist perspective BsAs is very much like Paris, NYC and Madrid rolled into one city.  You walk every where. There is the most amazing shopping, coffee, food and wine everywhere. The women and men have a strong fashion sense. And the shoes....I could go on and on about the shoes.

Un abrazo fuerte,

Final meetings in Santiago

The end of my third week in Santiago was busy, busy.  There were a ton of really great meetings and we had a few really long days. I thought I would highlight some of the standouts.

Patricia Politizer: She is an author and was for years on national public TV in Chile. Most recently she just completed and released a biography on Bachelet (out this week) we had coffee with her and she shared with us her motivation to write the book and examples of Bachelet's leadership in office.  She confirmed much of what we had heard to date. It was not a shock that Bachelet won but rather her coming into office and the compostion of her cabinet that was about 50% women. She was treated very poorly in her first six months as president and there were a ton of personal attacks.  It took about 6-8 months for Bachelet to become comfortable with the idea of serving as president and she also made some radical changes to her cabinet.  She is said to be a leader that owned her decision, owned her mistakes and asked for understanding.  This of course was a tremendous departure from what the Chilean people are use to.  I would argue we as Americans are also not familiar with this kind of leadership and many of our leaders even after their time in office can rarely admit to mistakes they made. This meeting was fun and entertaining. The book is Michelle Bachelet President in a Land of Men. It is the first book out about Bachelet post her presidency.

Carlina Toha: President of the PPD part in Chile. She was just recently elected and prior to that she served  as a parlimentarian.  Like many progressives she lost loved ones to Pinochet. She was an extrodinary feminist who spoke about the challenges the Concepcion Coalition is facing. The Coaltion is comprised of the 4 progressive policitical parties. It is refreshing that you can truely know where people stand in terms of if they are far left, left, center left etc. It makes you realize why there is so much unrest in our political parties and how no candiate can truely make a political party happy. In any event she talked about how complacent the coaltion had become after 20 years of holding the majority and the Presidency. While the Progressive led the Conservattives organized and trained the next generations. Sound familiar to the training and organizing of the Republicans.  She talked about the social and economic challenges of women getting into politics and the great personal sacrafices they make.  Many are seperated and based on the challenges and expectations of women in Chile it is generally women of financial means that can engage in politics. She could be a future Presidential candidate.

Julia Herrara: Principal of a comprehesive school Pre-K through 12th grade. there are over 2000 students who attend the school and the school is located in a very poor neighborhood in Santiago and the children come from very high risk families including a large number of youth that are system involved.   This prinicpal is a god sent to the students and the community. The building and resources are amazing and the vision and leadership of this principa are amazing.  They have only 11% Truancy and the majority of students go on to higher education or sustaining careers. Julia loves these students as her own children and a huge part of the vision of the school is not just to teach them skills but to teach them to respect themselves as individuals.  I was so struck by how much all of the teachers cared for the children.  The school opens its door to the community on weekends and through the entire summer as most families in the area can not afford vacations and the schoool has a pool, many soccer fields and playgrounds.  This was an oasis in the community and the principal was a true leader in the trenches.

I promise more later in terms of reflecting on what Bachelet's presidency meant to Chile and some lessions I have gained about the benefits, challenges and realities of being a women and a leader.

Tremor- Earthquake

This entry will not be as nearly as profound as reflecting on feminism, political parties and government but rather the reality of living in a beautiful country that lays on a fault line. Since my arrival there have been reports that there were two very mild tremor (earthquakes). I did not feel these at all. Today however is another story.

During a meeting today the women we were meeting with looked at Cherelle and I and asked us if we could feel "it". I said "what". The answered "the earth".  Once I concentrated a bit you could feel a sensation like a vibration and for you lady friends of mine, think of the massage chairs when you get a pedicure and there is the mild vibration. So at first I was like wow cool I am in Chile experiencing my first earthquake. Then my heart sank into my stomach because the vibration became a short shake followed by another stronger shake and returned to a vibration and then ended. Cherelle and I held hands and the women we were meeting with were calm and told us not to worry. 

To put in perspective it all lasted no more then one minute. There were many feelings and reactions one can have in one minute. After that minute it was business as usual.  I was struck by the very matter of a fact way that everyone handle "it". To them it was a very mid tremor to me it was an earthquake. I was like does anyone else need a moment here or was I the only dramatic one that saw her life flash before her eyes in Santiago (okay a little dramatic but trying to share the craziness of my emotions at the time).

Interestingly enough it was totally a calm reaction there were no alarms, no leaving the building, just wait till it is over and return to business as usual.  I thought about the over reaction we would have in the states: once it was safe- everyone would need to evacuate the building, engineers, firefighters would need to determine it safe to return inside. People rushing to their children's school etc.

Well let's just say that it is not an experience I would like repeat- but an experience to remember none the less.

We have talked quite a bit with those everyone about the earthquake in February. It occurred at approximately 3:30am- so many folks were in bed at the time. The strength and duration of the earthquake was what folks share with you.  many explain not being able to move because every time you tried to stand up you just feel down and it felt like it was never going to end.

With the earthquake, the miners, a history of building a democracy from a dictatorship the Chilean people are incredibly resilient and strong.