The motocarro is the official vehicle in Barrio 31. Villa 31, as it was always known, and the name that is now being tried to eradicate since it was officially named Barrio Mugica (although also, yes, 31 is still in the name).
It is a motorcycle that has behind it a box in which goods are carried and people also move. With the progress of the urbanization project, the pavement reached all the streets of these more than 70 hectares in which some 45,000 people live. But those streets that were born in many cases as corridors, are still narrow. A car does not enter: the motor car does.
It's two o'clock on Monday afternoon and Alpaca, the newspaper's main shopping street, explodes. Shops of all kinds next to each other, from greengrocers to lingerie, and neighbors coming and going to do the shopping.
The motocarro, the vehicle that is most used in the Barrio Mugica. Photo Maxi Failla
The motocarro heads towards the CeDEL, the Center for Entrepreneurial and Labor Development of the Buenos Aires Government, which is located in the middle of the neighborhood. There, courses and different educational and training activities are given for the neighbors.
The vehicle brakes in front of a four-story building that has painted a beautiful mural, of a boy who runs the clouds and rain while holding a house that rises from the neighborhood, with a flower and a hummingbird. A metaphor for what many neighbors, young and not so many, do every day: push the rain to make the sun rise.
The mural next to CeDEL, where the bartender course is taught. Photo Maxi Failla
That is what "El Pera" does, one of the members of the 16 recycling cooperatives in the neighborhood. It was the previous stop of the motocarro, so that its occupants know another important project of the town: ATR, A Todo Reciclado, a center where the recyclable materials that separate the neighbors are processed and that every day manages to recover, only plastic, 75 kilos that will be reused.
The tour of the village also included a stop at Nations without Borders, the Brazilian cuisine restaurant managed by Cidarlene de Oliveira. Everything has to do with everything: those who are doing this tour are part of the gastronomic team of Tres Monos, the Palermo bar that got into the top 30 in the world according to the renowned ranking The World's 50 Best Bars.
The main shopping street of Barrio Mugica, on a Monday afternoon. Photo Maxi Failla
For some it is the first time here. For others, it is already a familiar place. In the second group is Sebastián Atienza, alma mater of Tres Monos with his partners Gustavo Vocke and Charly Aguinsky. Today he is here, in the large room on the ground floor of CeDEL, to welcome the dozen boys and girls who want to learn to be bartenders. In the bars there is more than a job outlet: there is a future, there is a career and there is a dream. He comes to tell them. Because that's his story.
Bar dreams
Tres Monos was born as the project of three friends. A bar that was just a bar, without scenery, stories or passwords, and a training studio on its top floor. The formula, in a Buenos Aires saturated with proposals with sophistication in the papers but not so solid in the content, caught on immediately: a year after the opening, Tres Monos had already been a finalist in the prestigious Tales of Cocktail contest and today occupies the 27th place in the 50 Best.
With Messi. Sebastián Atienza poses in front of one of the murals of Barrio 31. Photo Maxi Failla
As part of the study, another idea was born. Why not teach kids from vulnerable neighborhoods? They did the first course last year and now they are doing the second. "193 interested parties signed up," says Katty Labrador, from Buenos Aires Integración, who interviewed them all to select the 30 students who are 100% scholarships. The tenured professor is Fede Cuco, a legendary bartender of the new generation. Today he gave the place to another who is on her way to show that parchment: Flavia Arroyo, responsible for the bar of Casa Cavia and the queen of the clarified. She will give the master class this afternoon, with the idea of inspiring the students.
Adam Espínola is 24 years old and is one of the most applied in the class. As soon as he sits down, he opens his large spiral notebook. "I feel very fortunate to participate in these courses, which are a great turning point for those who are looking for work. In my case, I hope to pay close attention and learn from them because they are the best," he tells Clarín after class.
Flavia Arroyo, the bar manager of Casa Cavia, giving a master class in Barrio 31. Photo Maxi Failla
Adam looks cheerful and that's how he defines himself. He also defines that his vocation is service: he studied for cabin crew but did not dare to apply yet because he felt that he needed to improve his English. Now he "put the batteries" to raise his level and is also doing the barista course directed at CeDEL by a reference in the world of coffee, Diogo Bianchi.
Adam works as a waiter in one of the restaurants of the Alvear Icon hotel in Puerto Madero and tries to break with the prejudice of some employers to hire people who live in the village and that of the neighbors themselves to limit themselves for that same reason: "Each person earns the place for their personality and values. It has nothing to do with where you come from."
Adam Espínola, one of the students of the course. He says his vocation "is service." Photo Maxi Failla
Clara Lopez (26) also took the barista course to open a coffee shop in the neighborhood. He achieved it with "Doña Clara", a flirtatious place with lilac walls and high tables in front of the Ministry of Education. And now he is studying cocktails because he wants to expand it with cocktails at night. "A more complete place is missing and that's my idea. What you learn you implement here and it is also part of a process of integration of the neighborhood to the city, "he says.
For Damaris Peralta, on the other hand, it is her first experience. "It's very difficult for someone in the neighborhood to pay for a course like that. I am very grateful to everyone because they always treat us very well, they make no difference," says the girl, who dreams of having an event company.
The kid from Pompeii
"I'm from Pompeii, near Puente Alsina. I started at 18, today I am 38 and I already have my bars and I travel all over the world sharing with people from everywhere. The idea is to inspire them with my experience."
Serving a cocktail. The class in Barrio 31. Photo Maxi Failla
Atienza stands in front of the 10 students at CEDEL and makes that presentation from his imposing and real two meters high. When asked why he wasn't a basketball player, he laughs and says he's more important to Argentina's food industry than the NBA.
"For me it is very enriching to give these courses. In a way, it's like coming back to my neighborhood. I always found in my teams more links with people who are from these places, who want to work. When hiring a bartender, hunger and initiative are more important than a CV that comes from a European school," he says.
Sebastián Atienza, in front of the students at CeDEL. Photo Maxi Failla
"I didn't study with master mixologists or work with great chefs: I started working because of hunger, to support my family," he says of his beginnings. He had enrolled in medicine, but I had to leave because the family economic situation became complicated. An uncle gave him a hand to get him a job as a coffee grower and then entered as a cadet to a bar in Puerto Madero that no longer exists.
But he liked what happened at the bar better, and asked to work extra on weekends. He learned between bottles and shakers, but also sweeping and fajinando, and was making a career. He worked at Million, in Mexico and Chile, and was bar manager at Florería Atlántico, Tato Giovannoni's award-winning bar. He left the bars and was an ambassador for Campari for several years, until he fulfilled the dream of his own bar with his friends. It opened in mid-2019, the pandemic hit, surfed the waves and not only positioned Tres Monos as one of the best bars in the world but also opened with its partners other ventures, the bar La Uat and the rotisería Cacho.
Sebastián Atienza at 3 Monos, his award-winning bar in Palermo. Photo Three Monkeys / File
That possibility of making a career based on effort and commitment is what he wants to transmit to the boys and girls in Barrio 31. And, also, he wants these courses to be a hotbed: he already has three former students working on his projects and he wants the guest bartenders to also detect profiles in order to offer them a job opportunity.
"As a bartender you can end up putting together menus for restaurants, traveling the world, or living well. In our craft there are a lot of beautiful parts. You don't need to be a doctor to be important in life," he concludes.
ACE
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