las estrellas de la nube

I had an unexpectedly beautiful, perspective-shifting day a few weeks into my stay in Rosario, Argentina that I've been meaning to write about for a while now.

La Nube

For the better part of a day, I was sharing the music of the halo with dozens upon dozens of little people aged 4 months to 4 years old in a wonderful preschool co-run by an inspiring woman I had met recently.  "La Nube" (The Cloud) opened 33 years ago, and is now the stomping grounds to hundreds of kids, including daughters and sons of some of the early 'alumni' ('pre-students'?) who themselves obtained foundational, developmental life-skills there a generation ago.

As a rather dark aside, it was quite jarring to hear stories about a pre-school having its roots in the midst of a dictatorship notorious for the 'disappearing' of students, the kidnapping of children, and even the abduction of hundreds of babies born in captivity from their mothers never to be seen again (The Dirty War: ~1975-1983).    Thankfully, for the good of society, those horrible tragedies did not prevent incredibly positive spaces like this one from pursuing in their mission of building potential, hope, and positivity for the future.

Quite the contrary.  Framed, and up on the office wall, there was an exquisitely written letter from a very proud and satisfied parent whose child was 'graduating' (that is, going on to kindergarten).  In it, they expressed their gratitude at the insight and skill with which the staff of La Nube went way above and beyond their more basic 'daycare' responsibilities, indeed describing the hugely important and skillfully handled role of such a space as, loosely paraphrased/translated from memory: "helping to shape, guide, support, and create a community among the protagonists of the future".

the t-shirt reads: We are the guardians of the earth.

As some of you know, I'd never really had much enthusiasm around the topic of having children, but I have to admit I was quite struck by this idea of little 'protagonists of the future'.  As I've been thinking a lot about the fundamental importance of love in our society - indeed, as perhaps our greatest hope for a better future - kids suddenly make a lot more sense.  (Yeah, the last horse finally crosses the finish line...).

I'm still not certain if I personally want to have children.  Indeed, I figure this perspective makes us the protagonists of the present, and we've got a lot of work to do, work that I'm not certain is best served by all having our own nuclear families.  That said, getting to hang out with all these soon-to-be heroes, getting to hear Ula speak with passion about every second of her life's work for the past three decades, getting to see smiling parents come pick up their smiling children at what used to be their pre-Alma Mater...  It all seemed to coalesce into this theme of trying to make the world a better place.  I forget, often, that most people are fundamentally trying to do that.  This day was a compelling reminder.

As I was rather taken by the place, I volunteered to do a photoshoot for them - if you're interested you can check out the rest of the album (47 photos).