The other day, Ignacio, my host father, came home in a state of shock and sorrow. He had gone for a walk and had stumbled upon a park that he used to go to with his mother when he was younger. As he remembered, it was always clean and filled with “well-dressed” people. Now, when he sat down and observed the scene, he saw “los pobres” – poverty-striken people lounging in this park. His sorrow was for these people. His shock was from the dramatic change that the neighborhood had undergone just within his lifetime.

I watched Ignacio’s face and felt his emotions as he told his story, and I could not help feeling taken aback by what I observed. Since the 1930s, there have been large waves of people moving from the Argentine countryside to Buenos Aires, placing great pressure on the city’s resources and infrastructure and spurring the growth of urban problems, such as poverty. How could this man, who has lived in Buenos Aires his entire life, be surprised by the sight, and the growth, of poverty?

As for my own experiences, I distinctly remember the first time I saw urban slums. I had flown into Sao Paulo, Brazil, to visit a friend and even after a sleepless 14-hour flight, my eyes were glued wide open as I stared out the window at the endless sea of favelas during our drive out of the city. Since then, I have been fairly exposed, and have been in much closer proximity, to such scenes. In fact, after traveling through South America and living in Buenos Aires, I feel like most of the time I am numb to the sight. However, every so often I am jarred awake as I ride the bus around the city, seeing flashes of people on mattresses, living their lives on the street.

My class, entitled Anthropology of the City, at the University of Buenos Aires has been focusing on the boundaries within a city that creates the “insiders” and the “outsiders.” After listening to Ignacio’s story, I realized that we were both carrying out our lives in our own enclave within the metropololis of Buenos Aires. Recoleta, our neighborhood, is one of the wealthiest in the city, which means it is one of the wealthiest in Argentina. It is inside this area that we find ourselves going about our daily activities without interacting with “los pobres,” without being confronted with the hardships that others are enduring, without being forced to reevaluate our own lives and situations and question whether we are truly grateful for everything we have – from our health to loved ones to material possessions.

No wonder Ignacio returned from his walk that day so disturbed; he had been woken up from his dreamlike life to find his neighbors, his countrymen, suffering. As for me, being exposed to such scenes in a different country wakes me up as well. It reminds me that everything I hear about the world through various news sources in the U.S. is not just another depressing tale from a faraway place, but a reality that I find in Buenos Aires, that I found in Shanghai, and that I could just as easily find in Chicago. The problems that need solving are right in our backyard, and all we have to do is open the window shade and look.