There are lots of internet forums for old-timers, newcomers, and those simply considering coming to beautiful Buenos Aires Argentina... but I haven't seen a new one in a couple of years.There's a new one now: Good Morning Buenos Aires.
Most of the forums that you can find are a little on the cold and clinical side... probably because they were started a few years ago and haven't updated their appearance. But Good Morning Buenos Aires has a warmth and friendliness that even the best of the bunch don't seem to have.
The warmth isn't all just design... it's by design. This nifty little start-up has the advantage of having been created by one of the gentlest souls that ever offered his hand to a traveler/expat down this way.
You can compare (and you should!) all of the available advice-sites / opinion-exchanges available for Buenos Aires. Just be sure to include Good Morning Buenos Aires along your way. Let me know if you don't find it just a little more, I don't know... human.
I've never met the proprietor, although we exchanged a few emails when he was thinking about starting it up (full disclosure: I disagreed with almost everything he described to me!) But I knew him by reputation, like most people.
The poor blighter put in his time trying shoulder the burden of reason and fairness over at a well-known evil expat-ripoff forum until they kicked him out for being reasonable and fair. When a good number of his fans rose up in protest to that action... they banned them for life as well.
My feelings over that incident were a bit vengeful; I argued with the idea of a warm and friendly new forum in favor of something more pointed. I think I was wrong.
Maybe the perfect antidote for that kind of evil... the kind that gets my back up... is just doing it all over from scratch the right way.
Give him some support! I'm not talking about financial support... the bunch of poseurs that banished him aren't making any money either.
But forums need the support of participants.
If you have good advice to give... chip in. And definitely, if you need some advice about anything REALLY Buenos Aires... from REAL expats... forming a REAL group of good-hearted people for the purpose of nothing more than helping people find out about this beautiful place... http://www.goodmorningba.com is as good a place as you could ever find.
The proprietor over there is fond of quoting Gandhi. I gotta Mohandas quote for him that has always come to my mind when I think of what he went through: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
1 comment:
Mike, thanks for you kind words. When I first created this forum there were three governing principles that I must never forget:
1) I am a guest and newcomer to this country that my presence here is a great gift and not an automatic right.
2) I want Good Morning Buenos Aires to promote equally the interests of all who live in this city regardless of national origin, race, ethnic background, gender, political or religious affiliation, etc.
3) That although I may have experienced my time of grief on that other site "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". (In my homeland we are taught as children that "two wrongs do not make a right".)
It is my hope that together we can create a place that we can all be proud of.
Thanks again Mike.
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