Hospital dramas

I finally made it further into the Hospital de Clinicas today, and what an experience it was. I spent the morning wandering around with a very nice volunteer-retiree (here they call it ¨jubilada¨). Our first task was to find clothes for an elderly patient whom a retirement home had unceremoniously dumped on the hopital´s doorstep. Stark naked. Hospital gowns are either not used or not available, so we visited a room full of old clothes to see what we could find for her. We dug up a couple of nightshirts and some socks and then moved on after dropping them off. The woman was very disoriented and difficult to understand; she seemed to have as little clue about what she was doing there as the nurses and doctors did.

Next we visited a few rooms in the maternity section, stopping in to chat with some expecting mothers. The maternity and peds intensive care sections were the only ones that didn´t have peeling paint, rusted and dripping pipes, and gaping holes in the wall and whose floors weren´t covered in linoleum that had worn to the cement floor underneath. It seemed clean and efficient, though most of the rooms did not have lights.

In the peds intensive care unit, we visited a woman and her two children who were both sick with pneumonia. The woman seemed to provoke my companion intensely, and she went into the hall and talked animatedly with a nurse for several minutes. As we left, she explained that both the woman and her husband were ¨tontos¨, which in context I think meant mentally ill or retarded. She expressed frustration that nothing could be done to help them, and that the children would only be taken from the parents if the government´s assistance were solicited. She expressed frustration that they continued to have children that they could not care for.

My silent thoughts were something like ¨Not in a Catholic country--no contraception for you!¨ When she expressed her frustration to another volunteer, my thoughts were borne out--the woman, surrounded by pictures of saints and with ¨Juan 3:16¨ draped as a banner over her bookshelf, tsked at my companion and explaint that it was ¨la naturaleza¨ that they should keep having children.

Indeed.

Nine days left

Suddenly, I am feeling quite ready to be heading home. I don't know if it was my encounter with the Artful Dodger yesterday at the train station, the long and exhausing bus ride home from Iguazu, or just general and all-consuming exhaustion, but somehow I find myself glad that after today I only have ten more days in Buenos Aires. I'm ready to be back in my real life.

That's not to say that I'm not happy to be here, and maybe after I get in a little more sleem my enthusiasm will return. But right now, I am just downright exhausted and I'm having trouble recovering my momentum.

My Spanish continues to improve. I had an interesting conversation with the woman sitting next to me on the bus back to BA. She told me her entire life story in about five minutes. She's starting a second career in international relations and wants to work for the UN. Somehow, we got onto the topic of why people in Argentina have so little faith in their government. She talked about the military government in the 70s and 80s, which no one had ever mentioned to me before. She said that when they went to war to try and win the Falkland Islands from England, the military government asked everyone to give their gold, their heirlooms, their most valuable items to the government to support the boys going to war. But rather than putting the items to that use, the military kept the riches for themselves and sent the boys to die. "How can you ever trust a government after that?" she asked me, and I had no answer.

She seemed to think that this was a problem that the US had in hand--that such things would never happen there. "When someone commits a crime there, they go to prison," she said. "It's all clear, and it's all organized."

I didn't have the energy or vocabulary to disagree, but it made me think a lot. More than anything it made me wonder why, after everything that has happened in the US over the past several decades--Vietnam, Watergate, Iran Contra...the list goes on--where things military are concerned, at least, people are still so willing to trust that the government is being truthful. I wonder if that will continue after this war is over. Assuming it ends.

Andate a la mierda, jodido

To the bastard who stole my bag at the train station yesterday: Karma's a bitch.

I hope you choke on my granola bars. I hope you suddenly discover a severe allergy to nuts that causes your entire fact to swell to three times its normal size. I hope that you are subsequently attacked by a large flock of pidgeons that poke holes in your sweater and crap in your hair. I hope that when you showed my broken camera, my Argentine history book, my four batteries, my cell phone charger, my granola bars, my juice box, my disposable camera, and my CD full of pictures to your boss, he punched you in the face and made you sleep in a pile of garbage. I hope my camera electrocutes you when you try to fix it. I hope whoever you swindle into buying it comes and finds you and makes you regret ever coming anywhere near me. I hope you contract a painful STD that causes critical parts of your anatomy to experience severe pain and eventually fall off. I hope the goo you dribbled on my leg to distract me attracts an army of flesh-eating ants to you while you sleep. I hope that someone will go out of their way to make you feel as upset and vulnerable as you made me feel when you swindled me.

Asshole.

Cadaratas sin camera

Every now and then, the rhythym of quotidian life is interrupted by something so perfect, so beautiful, and so astounding that the possibility of the existence of a divinity in the world simply cannot be dismissed out of hand. And then, in the course of observing such awe-inspiring visions, one becomes equally certain that such divinity is also possessed of a well-developed sense of irony, if not an outright rollicking sense of humor.

This more or less describes my experience at the Iguazù Falls today. Words are simply insufficient to describe the sheer majestic beauty of these waterfalls. I´ve seen waterfalls before--beautiful waterfalls, waterfalls that took my breath away. Nothing that I´ve ever seen compares to these. Every time I saw something that I thought had to have been the most beautiful thing that I´d ever seen, I walked a little further down the path and had my breath taken away again.

Given that, it´s only natural that my stupid camera would decide to break at some point on the bus ride here from Buenos Aires. Somewhere, I am reasonably sure, God is doing the Simpsons ha-ha. Thankfully, my travelling companions took a million pictures, and I bought a little disposable camera that hopefully was not so crappy that it won´t show at least a little of what I saw.

The park itself was really nice too, and full of birds and forest creatures. I spent a lot of the day whispering ¨Wildlife! Wildlife!¨ and making Andy and Jen take lots of pictures of tangles of brush that hide some scurrying rodent within. I think a lot of the animals depend on tourists for their food, because they were definitely not afraid of us. We saw raccoon-like coatis, some beauiful birds (I made them take pictures, honey, don´t worry), and some other rodent-like creatures that vaguely resembled the capybaras that are at the National Zoo, only smaller.

Tomorrow, assuming our friends that went to the Brazilian side today did not get detained by customs trying to get back into Argentina, we are going to head for Brazil and maybe go horseback riding. And duty-free shopping.

It occurs to me that as of today, my time here is half over. Or yesterday. Or something. Anyway. More time behind than ahead in Argentina! I´m loving it here, but it will be nice to not have to scramble to think of how to ask for things and feel like an idiot when I can´t think of the word for something simple. And I miss my bed! And summer weather! I will be ready to go when it´s time. But it´s not time yet!

Starting to see a pattern

On Saturday night, I went to the ballet with a few friends. We planned and Argentine night--ballet at 9, followed by dinner and dancing. Well, we're all a little too old to hit the boliches at 2am as custom here dictates, but we still managed to stay out til 3am, and we had a great time.

The ballet was pretty good. There were three different little one-act ballets. The first was really weird and modern, but the dancing was amazing. It was a bunch of women, and one seemed to be controlling all of them and making them dance--one in particular, who contorted herself in all kinds of insane ways that even at my most flexible I never could have done. You could see all her muscles working together--very amazing. But then at random times, Naked Yoga Man (as we dubbed him) would appear behind a lighted scrim to dance and contort himself. Then, at the end, Skull Woman (there was this whole part where the woman who controlled the other women danced around with a skull in a plastic globe, very postmodern Hamlet) went back with Naked Yoga Man and the woman she was controlling who had apparently died came back to life after the other women sprinkled salt on her. Beautiful dancing, incomprehensible plot.

The other two were more normal, and also very beautiful. The second was a bunch of people dancing to different songs--very artsy but more comprehensible, and also more traditional (but very modern nonetheless) dancing. Less contortions, more arabesques.

The final dance was just your standard string of modern ballet dancing, but absolutely stunningly beautiful. Lovely music, beautiful costumes, great light--everything. There was a traditional pas de deux with two men, which I thought was very interesting and very well done. It made me wonder whether dance companies in the US do that kind of thing. I will have to go to more ballets to find out.

During one of the intermissions, I chatted with the people sitting next to us for a bit. They were very nice. We talked about the ballet, blah blah blah. They they asked where I was from. Once again, they were shocked that I was from the US, and once again, like the cab drivers, like my language partner, they asked, "No estas de Bush, no?" It makes me wonder first, why no one thinks I am American, and second, just how much the really negative perception of Americans that I keep encountering has to do with Bush. I suppose there is nothing to be done but to wait it out and hope that everyone keeps giving me a chance to explain.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

It's easy to compare Buenos Aires to Italy for a lot of reasons--there are a lot of architectural similarities, though Buenos Aires is on a much grander scale. While BA is known for its wide avenidas and Florence is known for its dark and winding streets, some of which still sport architectural features left from the 13th century, both have sidewalks absolutely TEEMING with dog crap. Italian culture permeates Buenos Aires--it's tradition here, on the 29th of each month, to eat gnocchi with a little bit of money under the plate for good luck (hat tip to the Washington Post and my cab driver from the airport for that little cultural insight). Sometimes I actually forget that I am in a South American city and think that I must be somewhere in Spain.

Last night, as I was walking home from the train at about 6:30 or 7--by that time, it's already dark here, because it's almost winter--I started thinking about the differences between how I felt in Italy and how I feel here. It made me feel pretty good to think about how much more comfortable I am in my own skin now compared to then. Then, I was terrified of being outside alone in the dark. At that point, the only city I had ever lived in was Portland, and the part where I lived was about as citylike as where I grew up in Illinois. I was sure that if I stepped out of doors alone at night, unshaven and uncouth men would appear and rob, rape, and/or murder me where I stood. I remember running five well-lit and well-trafficked blocks from my apartment to a restaurant in sheer terror.

Fast forward six years, and I am a seasoned veteran of city living. I know what to expect, how to protect myself, and how not to be stupid. Walking down the street at 7pm is no longer something that terrifies me. I feel safe and capable.

More than that, though, I feel better about myself and life in general now. I was in Florence a little more than a year after my dad died, and to say that the wounds were still fresh is a bit of an understatement--I think that at that point, the wounds were still developing and making themselves known. On top of that, making friends was difficult (What do you mean, your school doesn't have sororities? What to you do?), and I isolated myself purposefully, spending most of my time reading the great works of English literature while sitting on cold cathedral steps and eating large blocks of cheese til I actually made myself ill.

Here, despite the fact that I think that a large proportion of the people in my program are total idiots (repeated chant to self: you were an idiot when you were 19 too. You were an idiot when you were 19 too...), I've managed to find some people I really like to spend time with, and we've been having a lot of fun. I'll write a post about the ballet that we went to later, as well as about our upcoming trip to Iguazu Falls.

The point is that I feel really good--really independent, really self-reliant, and really happy to be here. It's nice to suddenly realize that after almost eight years of trying to rebuild my sense of self since my dad died, it seems that I've finally managed to do it.

Go me!

Macri o Filmus?

I never cease to be amazed at what I learn from talking to taxi drivers. Some are taciturn; one took me for a 15 peso cab ride that should have cost about 6; others are so thrilled that I try to speak to them in Spanish (or castellano, as I have learned people here prefer to call it) that they gab on for the entire ride about whatever they feel I should know. Restaurants, sights, and last night--politics.

There is an old castle in downtown BA that is now the city waterworks. I asked the driver what it was on my way home last night, and he explained. Then he asked where I was from--for some strange reason, people are always suprised when I say the US. When I told him, he turned around fully in his seat. ¨No estas de George Bush, no?¨ he asked me suspiciosly. I assured him that no, I definitely was NOT de George Bush, and most of the rest of the people in the US are not de George Bush either. He then demanded to know how he had managed to get re-elected, and I tried, in broken Spanish, to explain. I explained that someone lied (anyone know how to say ¨Swift Boat Veterans for Truth¨in Spanish?) and his opponent didn´t defend himself. This seemed to satisfy him.

Then we shifted to Argentine politics, and I asked about the upcoming mayoral runoff election. He forcefully explained--turning around fully to emphasize the point a few more times--that Macri was the only candidate who could possibly become mayor of Buenos Aires. This seemed unremarkable except that today I learned that Macri is two steps shy of a true fascist.

This got me to thinking about what it means to be on the right or left here as opposed to there--it´s not as though anyone is going to dismantle the public health system (though they recently privatized the water utilities, and privatization seems the order of the day). It´s a question I´ll have to look at more. Even Mussolini started out a Socialist--he just switched the Italian people for the working class and class struggle became the struggle between nations.

Hmmm.

PS--Happy Birthday, Grandma!

For Richer, For Poorer

At the language school that I am attending, every couple of days we have an "expedicion cultural" that shows us a different part of the city. On Wednesday, we went to a neighborhood called Recoleta, where Eva Peron is buried in a famous (and beautiful) cemetery. Apparently when the fascists took over Argentina (after her death), her body was stolen and mutilated. When Peron returned to power, it was returned to Argentina, but without either of her hands. One theory is that Peron's second wife, Isabel, took them and gave them to brujas so that she could gain Evita's charisma with the people. Evita is surrounded by other Argentine notables, both good and bad, including a man who led the Argentine army in the slaughter of all the indigenos of Patagonia. All of the tombs in the cemetary are ornate and architecturally spectacular; hopefully I will go back soon and take more pictures.

Then on Thursday morning, I went for the first time to the Hospital de Clinicas, where I will be volunteering. It is a public hospital associated with the University of Buenos Aires, which seems to be a very complicated bureaocracy, and a lot of toes have to be avoided. Despite the fact that the (massive) building looks like it would fall over in a stiff breeze, it is widely recognized as having the best doctors in Argentina. I'll be working in the Rincon de Nin(y)os, or the children's corner, where the children wait to be examined. Hopefully, there will not be a "tomar" while I am there, which the guide explained is like a sit-down strike where they lock the doors and will not let anyone leave.

Today we went to La Boca, the old port-turned-tourist-trap and birthplace of the tango. It was there that I had my first real brush with the poverty of this city, which most of the time it hides reasonably well. There are about four blocks of tourist shops, restaurants, artists' studios, etc. But our guide advised us not to leave the area alone, because La Boca is also where some of the poorest residents of BA still live.

Apart from being the home of La Bombonera, the stadium of Boca Juniors, La Boca was originally a port neighborhood, and it filled in the late 19th century and early 20th century with immigrants from Italy and Spain. The port is no longer there, but the people remain, many of them in abject poverty. I could see groups of houses made with sheets of corrugated metal tied together--the luckiest had cinderblock walls, and looking inside as the bus passed they seemed almost homey, with painted walls and pictures hung. The worst were piles of furniture and mattresses grouped next to bridge pylons with fires in the middle. It was quite a shock going from La Boca back to northern BA, which is filled with the evidence of the economic boom--skyskrapers, high-rise luxury apartments, designer stores, trendy restaurant-- the works. It made me wonder what the true Buenos Aires holds--a nascent middle class, or just well-concealed destitution?

A world of contradictions

Què dìa!

I have only been here about 36 hours, but already it feels like a week. It´s exhausting, having to think all the time about how to make people understand you and trying to understand people. It´s a deep, pervasive exhaustion. And yet, it gets easier with each conversation. Everyone is very nice and patient with my attempts to learn. Los porten(y)os are very nice (except on the subte--there, it´s kill or be killed).

And yet, it´s so different. I just watched the Argentine version of ¨So you think you can dance,¨ and one of the hosts spent the entire show in blackface. Blackface. Better done, and without the white mouth with red lips characteristic of blackface in the 1930s US that we recognize as such--more like Dan Akroyd in Trading Places, only better done. But blackface nonetheless, in tone and execution. The population of arfrico-argentinos is very small here--after slavery ended, based on what I´ve read I think a large portion of the population fell victim to typhoid and cholera and it never recovered. There is not really a population to react to it in the same way that there would be in the US. When I asked if he was painted, my hosts reacted as though nothing about it were strange or inappropriate.

A strong culture shock.

Yesterday was the mayoral election for Buenos Aires. Voting is mandatory here, and all the bars and restaurants are required to close. Very different from the US--an event. But whenever I try to discern political positions, people just tell me that all the politicians are terrible.

More as I continue to explore!

Aqui estoy

Well, here I am! After eleven hours in airports and twelve hours worth of flights, I have arrived in Buenos Aires. The trip was uneventful, unless you count the fact that the only movies on the plane down were the two movies I actually managed to see over the last six months. (Literally. ¨Music and Lyrics¨ and ¨Shooter.¨ Grrr.) I had a lovely gesture-based relationship with the gentleman seated next to me. I handed him a pillow, he gave me a mint.

Asking about soccer has been an excellent way to get a quick window into the city. The cab driver who brought me in from the airport preferred Boca Juniors--the only team in the city, he informed me. It wasn´t even worth talking about anyone else. My hosts, on the other hand, squinched up their noses and explained that in their neighborhood, everyone supports River Plate. It´s a political thing, a class thing, they explained. ¨Like Republican and Democrat--Bush and Clinton,¨ they explained.

I´m staying in a very lovely apartment in a neighborhood called Belgrano with two very nice, helpful people--a couple about my age, Claudia and Maxi. They are very patient with my pidgin Spanish and took me on a nice walk around the neighborhood. They are out voting now in the city elections. I´m watching Forrest Gump play ping-pong--somehow, ¨lew-tenant Dan¨ just doesn´t sound the same! But it helps me get used to hearing Spanish. I´m sort of impressed with how much I understand, but at the same time I think my head might explode if I don´t get to speak or hear English soon. I can already tell that a headache has taken permanent residence in my head, at least for the next week or so.

That´s all for now. Another update soon!