The youth Olympic games in Buenos Aires are in full swing – many promises were made to you, also for the poor population in the slums. It was held little.
On the first day of competition of the youth Olympic games in Buenos Aires, everything is running in the Parque Urbano, one of the four major Complexes of this twelve-day event, exactly as it did the Olympic organizers wanted: Young, hip and urban. It is one of the first beautiful spring days in Buenos Aires, the sun is shining and the Park is full of people. In the extensive grounds in the centre of the Three-million-metropolis, various competitions are held: 3P-Basketball, Breakdancing, Climbing and BMX Freestyle, a piece in the elegant harbour area next to the rowing. But not only that, but the concept of the youth games, also many more offers for the audience and the young athlete – the approximately 4000 athletes are between 15 and 18 years old in the program. Clowns running around, there are small sporting challenges and skill wait exercises, and a Station offers Body Painting. Children can have fun in the oversized soap bubbles, tireless helpers distribute cloth bags with the games Logo for waste. Everything is clean, colorful and cheerful. Far and wide are no VIP Lounges or honor sports bleachers with age functionaries in dark suits. Everywhere, blaring loud music from huge speakers. The Whole thing feels more like a Summer Jam Festival as the Olympic games.
The Porteños, hot as the residents of Buenos Aires spend their free Sunday, standing patiently in the sun the snake and the stereotype of sports enthusiasts Latinos. There are especially families with children, the great usually somewhere around, and for the competitions are obviously beside the point. That so many have come, has probably less to do with your interest in the international Basketball talent, but simply that it’s a Chance to spend a fun-filled Sunday, the cost is also nothing. Access to the Park and all the venues is free, you had to register beforehand online, and a bracelet to pick up the ticket. Argentina is in the midst of a deep economic crisis, Inflation is running at about 40 per cent, Gas and electricity are constantly becoming more expensive, the salaries are on the rise. Just the people in the middle class need to count every single Peso. Because an offer comes just at the right time. According to the organizing Committee, more than 600 000 of these armbands were issued.
No electricity or water mains, no sewers, no garbage disposal
However, for many people in Buenos Aires itself, such a day in one of the Olympic Parks is unthinkable. For example, for the residents of Villa 20, a shantytown in the South of the city, the poorest of the 15 districts. The Villa is a 20-life of about 30 000 people and it’s not even the largest and poorest cluster of precarious shelters in a city, apply to the roughly 20 percent is statistically as arm estimated. Marcos Chincilla is born here, grew up and still lives today, in this quarter, in the upper part, close to the small Church and the football field, where something more stable houses, and the road is at least paved in part. Chinchilla is committed to working with other residents for ten years, so that the living conditions in the Villa are better. Although various laws were passed to promote the so-called re-urbanisation, almost nothing happen. The majority of small mostly square houses, of which three were built, has no regular connection to the municipal electricity grid and water network, there are no sewers and no garbage disposal. If it rains, the residents here up to the knees in mud, runs for days in their apartments.
20 meters next to the Olympic village were to be seen for a long time a protest banner. On which about “The construction of the Olympic village = the destruction was of our living space”. Shortly before the date of arrival of athletes and the media, these were removed. (PHOTO: private)
In addition to a huge pile of garbage bags, in which streunernde dogs to Edible rooting, we will meet reporters, together with Marcos, a gaunt older man who sits to the typical mate tea drinking on a Hump. In the trash he found a complete edition of Friedrich Nietzsche, he tells us, and not get them without Pride, and to evidence the same out of his crate. “What happens here, so, better not to say what happened here – do You see it Yes! – this is simply a scandal,” he says, and grumbles to the current neoliberal government of his country, under President Mauricio Macri. He collects and fixes things, lamp stands, chairs, shelves, standing behind him in the open. The Youth Olympic Games? There are far too many other, existential problems. Marcos Chinchilla tells us that the infant mortality rate is in the Villa 20, the highest of the whole of Buenos Aires, and also the statistics of the tuberculosis cases in this district.
High buildings are blocking the view to the Slums
The award of the games and the original project had made many of the people here hope, because the apartments in the newly built Olympic village should be in connection to social housing to have a third also for the residents of Villa 20, which would not only get no credit, but often not in the Bank account. The Olympic village is 500 meters. However, the plans changed. “No one from this district, is here in an apartment in the Olympic village,” is Marcos: “The requirements to even be considered as a candidate to register that no one meets here”. At the outer edge of Villa 20, one has built, after all, a number of new buildings, in the families of the slum will soon be able to move.
Thus, the problems of the disastrous infrastructure for the majority are still not solved, but after all the international guests in the Olympic village are not able to see the misery. From the street you can’t imagine the narrow streets of the Villa and life here once more. Marcos Chincilla does not believe that Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, party friend of Macri mayor of Buenos Aires, will take care of after the Games, more the poor South of the city. In addition, it is now clear that these twelve days of economic misery that games will only worsen, since for any additional costs the International Olympic Committee (IOC), but the host city is not the same as always. Already last September, OK-chief and IOC explained-member Gerardo Werthein for a cost of 450 million USD, while the original budget included only 231 million USD.
Of a dream is another’s nightmare
The Porteños were never asked whether they want these games, and never on the cost have been informed, is quite practical. The managers sit in these days at press conferences or in huge air-conditioned conference halls and rave: “This is a dream come true,” said Horacio Rodríguez Larreta in the Olympic village. President Mauricio Macri said at an event of the same time, the International Olympic Committee, in front of hundreds of invited IOC guests: “Argentina is a great country” and Thomas Bach spoke of “respect and friendship” and a “great future for the Sport”. Of a more hopeful future for the residents of Villa 20, no one speaks, however.