Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
I Live in an Alternate Universe
Napkins take flight
It's friday night and La Cholita is loud and packed and quivering with activity. Enormous cuts of steak and french fries and bottles of cheap malbec fly from the waiters hands as they move throughout the top floor of the restaurant, taking orders they don’t write down and don’t appear to listen to, pouring the wine into water glasses and shouting over the already shouting masses.
Our table is covered with white paper and there is a basket of crayons in the center. My companions and I chat as we wait for our beef, sketching, leaving evidence that ‘we were here,’ that we too were thrilled by the ambiance.
Mid-meal a paper airplane, expertly folded and made from a napkin makes its descent on to our table. A series of numbers scrawled in blue crayon peak out beneath the wings. We ignore it and promptly hear hooting from the table of Argentines across from us.
Napkin #2 is hand delivered via the waiter, to me personally, asking that I please read the first napkin. I unfold it and see that it says “call me.” I go back to my steak.
Napkin #3, this time rolled up and scrunched into a ball, goes skydiving and falls to our table. I laugh and open it. It reads: “if you want I can sing a song for you”…
Monday, April 13, 2009
Mendoza, movement
Modes of transportation
I awake to flat, flat, flat lands as we drive west, presumably, eventually towards the Andes. I have dreamt of these mountains, young peaks that hint at the majesty of their parents. The Pre-Cordillera. The beginnings of the range that sew together the Americas.
I awake to flat, flat, flat lands as we drive west, presumably, eventually towards the Andes. I have dreamt of these mountains, young peaks that hint at the majesty of their parents. The Pre-Cordillera. The beginnings of the range that sew together the Americas.
Mendoza- Potrerillos- Adventure Tourism
They st
rapped me to a rope and I zip-lined across this river.......
They strapped me to a rope and I shimmied down this cliff.......
rapped me to a rope and I zip-lined across this river.......They strapped me to a rope and I shimmied down this cliff.......
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Cultural Relativism?
1. Parenting 101
It's seven at night and just dark enough so that the lit storefronts pop out along the street like someone took a neon yellow highlighter and marked his favorite markets, shoe stores, and cafes. Everything else slips back into shadow.
In front of the lit bakery is a small white dog, whose leash is tucked carelessly around the door handle. He stares up longingly at the treats in the display window, knowing they'll never be his, patiently waiting for his owner to make his purchases inside the shop.
The street is quiet and empty save for a stroller to the pooch's left. Surprisingly, the stroller does not have a leash that one could tuck carelessly around a door handle.
Neither does the baby inside of it.
2. Because you really don't have two coins to rub together
There a places you can go to get them, bags and bags of them, they say. Others buy them on the black market-- well maybe not the black market, but certainly a shade of gray.
Some claim they're shipped to Venezuela, melted down and sold for 10 times what they're worth here, that to get your hands on the really good, grade A stuff, you've got to want it. Desperately. You've got to know where to look.
The Kirchners clearly can't handle the situation. Or maybe they are the situation. A conspiracy to rid Argentina of that abhorrent thing called 'convenience.' Maybe they're working with the bus companies to suck the people dry.
The most naive say you can get them at your local bank.
But surely, that's an urban legend.
It's seven at night and just dark enough so that the lit storefronts pop out along the street like someone took a neon yellow highlighter and marked his favorite markets, shoe stores, and cafes. Everything else slips back into shadow.
In front of the lit bakery is a small white dog, whose leash is tucked carelessly around the door handle. He stares up longingly at the treats in the display window, knowing they'll never be his, patiently waiting for his owner to make his purchases inside the shop.
The street is quiet and empty save for a stroller to the pooch's left. Surprisingly, the stroller does not have a leash that one could tuck carelessly around a door handle.
Neither does the baby inside of it.
2. Because you really don't have two coins to rub together
There a places you can go to get them, bags and bags of them, they say. Others buy them on the black market-- well maybe not the black market, but certainly a shade of gray.
Some claim they're shipped to Venezuela, melted down and sold for 10 times what they're worth here, that to get your hands on the really good, grade A stuff, you've got to want it. Desperately. You've got to know where to look.
The Kirchners clearly can't handle the situation. Or maybe they are the situation. A conspiracy to rid Argentina of that abhorrent thing called 'convenience.' Maybe they're working with the bus companies to suck the people dry.
The most naive say you can get them at your local bank.
But surely, that's an urban legend.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
San Telmo
It took me nearly 2 months to make it to San Telmo. It's a tourist trap and I've tried to avoid those, but a sudden yen for vintage leather bags found me riding the subway to the end of the line, lingering at Plaza de Mayo (see video in post below), and migrating south through the splintering afternoon light.
Treading alone, I allow myself to be led by the street art. Not angry graffiti, but the sort that sees the city as a canvas and the neighborhood as an art gallery.
I turn a corner. An empty church, parked motorcycle, sleeping german shepherd. I tuck my camera back into my purse and feign purpose as I move my bare legs a bit quicker. I'm still skittish and prefer the more populated areas.
Lost in San Telmo and too proud to pull out my map, though there's no one but the dog to judge me. Onward my sandals push until i spot a policeman smoking a cigarette. Put on my most sing-song argentine accent and ask where the outdoor market is, la feria. He looks annoyed that I’ve interrupted his tobacco sucking and points right as he exhales in my face. One block.
Oh.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Boca vs. Argentinos
Hola, Si, my name is Ines Rodriguez. Si, this is my season pass. Si Si, I am a big fan. Cintia turns around and gives me a look as if to say “breathe a word of English and you will get stabbed. Really.” (I close my mouth). My hand shakes as I press the season pass onto the card-reader and pray the light turns green. The guard looks as me like he knows I’m foreign, like he knows I have never seen Boca play in my life. Our seats are member seats, and as Ines Rodriguez, for one evening I am privy to the glory that comes with being a Boca fan. Boca and River (pronounced Ree-verrr) are rivals and are the only teams that matter. The Boca stadium is, as one might guess, in the Boca neighborhood, one of the shadiest of the city. Stray dogs and stray children wander. Sidewalks are elevated due to the proximity to the river and constant flooding. Crushed soda cans litter the streets. Boca is dark and bleak and poverty-stricken.
In the taxi ride over we learn from the radio that a woman has been shot in the MacDonalds around the block for wearing the wrong team’s colors.
I cross the threshold and am told to throw out my water bottle and open my purse as my male companions are patted down. I half expect them to tell me to remove my shoes. It’s iffy but the operation is successful. We are in. We are Argentine. We are Boca fans. Our life has purpose.
The infinite hike up to our seats suggests we’re verging on nosebleed, yet the view is still decent from our grey cement benches. Despite the open-air, I get high off of the mixture of cigarette smoke and the aroma of grilled meat as the whole stadium vibrates with exhilaration. For Boca fans, futbol is religion, and today is Christmas. The players are announced and the fists begin to throw and the shouts and cheers gain momentum and when the crowd-favorite Riquelme (rival of Maradona) walks out, falling strips of white paper turn metallic under the stadium lights as they flutter down towards the field. Huge drums begin their low-pitch roar, like ogres preparing to eat the other team.
I order a coke, and the guy can’t make change (there is no change in this country). He promises to bring me back a peso in two minutes, then disappears into the crowd without waiting for my response. After more than a month here, it should not surprise me that he doesn’t return.
Palacio scores the first GOLLLLLLL and the fight songs, grunts and throwing fists become deafening. Argentine Spanish was made for futbol tunes. These are not of the go-team-go variety-- these songs, heavy on the subjunctive, speak of desires, hopes, hypothetical situations (losses) that will remain, at least for tonight, hypothetical. We pretend we know the words and hum along, hugging each other, thrilled to be part of something with such pasión, wondering if any New England Patriots fan would shoot a woman in a MacDonalds for wearing a Giants jersey...
After the half-time consumption of thick Chorizo wrapped in hunks of french bread, lethargic, full-bellied fans recline back into their seats. Lethargic, seemingly full-bellied players pass the ball back and forth as if in practice as the shouts and drumming and fight songs slow, trickle out, become barely audible…..
until Figuera heads the ball with absolute brute force and…..
GOLLLLLL!!!!
We fly to our feet shouting, "¡¡¡¡Que Lindo!!!!"
It really was a pretty goal.
3-0
We are winners. We are Boca fans. As we are told before the game,
Boca always wins.
In the taxi ride over we learn from the radio that a woman has been shot in the MacDonalds around the block for wearing the wrong team’s colors.
I cross the threshold and am told to throw out my water bottle and open my purse as my male companions are patted down. I half expect them to tell me to remove my shoes. It’s iffy but the operation is successful. We are in. We are Argentine. We are Boca fans. Our life has purpose.
The infinite hike up to our seats suggests we’re verging on nosebleed, yet the view is still decent from our grey cement benches. Despite the open-air, I get high off of the mixture of cigarette smoke and the aroma of grilled meat as the whole stadium vibrates with exhilaration. For Boca fans, futbol is religion, and today is Christmas. The players are announced and the fists begin to throw and the shouts and cheers gain momentum and when the crowd-favorite Riquelme (rival of Maradona) walks out, falling strips of white paper turn metallic under the stadium lights as they flutter down towards the field. Huge drums begin their low-pitch roar, like ogres preparing to eat the other team.
I order a coke, and the guy can’t make change (there is no change in this country). He promises to bring me back a peso in two minutes, then disappears into the crowd without waiting for my response. After more than a month here, it should not surprise me that he doesn’t return.
Palacio scores the first GOLLLLLLL and the fight songs, grunts and throwing fists become deafening. Argentine Spanish was made for futbol tunes. These are not of the go-team-go variety-- these songs, heavy on the subjunctive, speak of desires, hopes, hypothetical situations (losses) that will remain, at least for tonight, hypothetical. We pretend we know the words and hum along, hugging each other, thrilled to be part of something with such pasión, wondering if any New England Patriots fan would shoot a woman in a MacDonalds for wearing a Giants jersey...
After the half-time consumption of thick Chorizo wrapped in hunks of french bread, lethargic, full-bellied fans recline back into their seats. Lethargic, seemingly full-bellied players pass the ball back and forth as if in practice as the shouts and drumming and fight songs slow, trickle out, become barely audible…..
until Figuera heads the ball with absolute brute force and…..
GOLLLLLL!!!!
We fly to our feet shouting, "¡¡¡¡Que Lindo!!!!"
It really was a pretty goal.
3-0
We are winners. We are Boca fans. As we are told before the game,
Boca always wins.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Iguazu/paradise/argentina/brazil/8th (9th? 10th?) wonder of the world
While I acknowledge that this detail has absolutely nothing to do with the thunderous waterfalls I smelled, heard, tasted (yes!) and obviously photographed over the weekend at Iguazu, I feel obligated to mention the modern wonder that is the Argentine "micro-bus." (pronounced, meecro buuuus).
We traveled sixteen hours north from BA to the Brazil border for 100 USD (roundtrip)-- feet up, back reclined, blanketed, and pillow'd. The strapping young bus attendent offered us styrofoam cups of warm cafe at one hour intervals and wondered whether we preferred whiskey or champagne after the meal. (i'm fairly sure that the attendent was also the busdriver. Occationally he would disapear into the cabin, presumably to take the bus off of cruise control for a few moments)
The attendent asked mid-evening whether the plastic bag in the overhead compartment was mine. When i shook my head no, he pulled it out and opened it to reveal a large frozen chicken. A large frozen chicken who also happened to be an orphan (all passengers denied ownership). A large frozen chicken that was not likely to remain frozen for the entirety of the sixteen hour trip.
I originally planned to study during the remaining hours of daylight on the meecro, but when oppertunity knocks...
I had the immense privilege of watching MAMA MIA, the movie musical, three inches from my face on the bus' flat screen tv. Who knew that ABBA could translate to spanish with such finesse? Who knew that bus attendants ignore your requests to turn the volume down? MAMA MIA, HERE WE GO AGAIN....but i digress.
Around one a.m, as the sleep drugs began to play through my limbs, swirling me to slumber, I decided that I would one day bring the good word of the meeecro to my homeland and put
the king of mediocrity, Sir Greyhound, out of business.
First class road travel must prevail!
In any case...
Las Cataratas de Iguazu
I certainly could go on forever with descriptions, but I've posted videos, and pictures, which are far more accurate in their representations. Surely whatever I could write would be riddled with cliches anyway. (read: "thunderous")Instead, a list-like post of observations from the trip:
Brazilian lizards cross the border without proper identification, are quickly deported,
Jungle, or rainforest, or maybe just forest,
my first star-sighting in Argentina, celestial or otherwise,
Sandwiches don't have crusts anywhere in this country, not even in Iguazu,
oh this civilazation of over-indulged sandwich-eaters,
North, north, still north and mist and liquid and humidity collide, each orgasmic and trembling,
The constant argument over who has the better view,
a decision my VISA will never allow me to come to,
I long to meet you, Brazil,
Water is falling, but these aren't waterfalls, these are forces of nature that spawn other planets, this is hydro-elation
Until this moment, waterfall has been abused and wrongfully applied to every anemic trickle
Falling negates purpose
These are rogue, aquatic monsters who shake the earth (there i go describing..)
Raft ride (see video), Rio de la Plata? i never asked the name, that unnassuming river
the one that coddled us until opening up and allowing us to be drenched
we paid extra to get wet
River water, as opposed to salt water, is Dulce in Spanish,
is it 'sweet' in English?
like Dulce de leche, which i find strange,
we lay in the sun after the hike
by the pool, my skin threatened to match the hue of the guava slices
served at breakfast
Oh the steam, or was it mist? It floated up, or maybe boiled
can cold water boil?
maybe it can, in Brazil.
Iguazu Falls-- jungle butterflies
Iguazu is known for its waterfalls, but on our second day of the trip we hiked up through the jungle-like terrain near the Brazil border. We found butterflies...
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Earth is Heating
I am still, but still, my breath fights the asphyxiating heat, and I wheeze as though I have a white plastic bag tied around my head and the air inside is preparing to flee. I am melting, suffocating, but I am calm, calm and still on my stoop in Palermo, watching the tired feet in their strappy leather encasements as they beat the concrete.
A man and a woman pass. I am invisible to them as I blend into the almond hue of the tiles beneath my bent knees and bare silent witness as the man slips his left arm around the woman’s back, sliding his greedy hand inside her tank top. He cups her pointed, triangular breast because I am not there, because Porteño is synonymous with Public Displays of Affection, because the telo was full.
The earth is heating, my host mother explains, spreading her fingers wide and motioning upwards, bending from the wrists— a gesture that relinquishes any human blame and slaps it on something from above.
The earth is heating, and we are heating with it.
The rents may be high but the sidewalk in front of my stoop is cracked, and I imagine that a boulder once fell from the sky onto my square of cement. Or perhaps a little boy took a hammer and whacked, whacked, whacked in hopes of reaching China. And maybe this little boy is still inside the crack, asking if there is a colectivo that will take him to Beijing.
A VW bus, rust red and ancient, is parked on the curb across the street. He is human, with headlight eyes and a cool bumper of a smirk and I imagine he addresses me, testing out his English, overemphasizing the 'h' in hhhhhello good morning. He pulls out a white, hand rolled cigarette and implores me for a light. Sorry, no fumo, I reply. The VW frowns, sputters, and clunks away, our conversation unfinished, revealing a kiosko in his wake.
No cafés on my block, yet I’m certain I smell empanadas. In fact I always smell empanadas in Buenos Aires-- something to do with an overabundance of cow, ready to be slaughtered, sliced, rolled and baked, and an under-abundance of calorie-consuming women. The empanadas walk the streets, thrusting their doey hips out to the side provocatively like the hookers on Ave Libertador I saw last Saturday night. Eat me, they beseech.
Periodically the sun slinks behind a cloud and I find some respite in a lingering shadow. The air cools and without warning I’m in a postcard, squinting my eyes against the returning sun. Palermo shimmers.
It hurts to look.
A man and a woman pass. I am invisible to them as I blend into the almond hue of the tiles beneath my bent knees and bare silent witness as the man slips his left arm around the woman’s back, sliding his greedy hand inside her tank top. He cups her pointed, triangular breast because I am not there, because Porteño is synonymous with Public Displays of Affection, because the telo was full.
The earth is heating, my host mother explains, spreading her fingers wide and motioning upwards, bending from the wrists— a gesture that relinquishes any human blame and slaps it on something from above.
The earth is heating, and we are heating with it.
The rents may be high but the sidewalk in front of my stoop is cracked, and I imagine that a boulder once fell from the sky onto my square of cement. Or perhaps a little boy took a hammer and whacked, whacked, whacked in hopes of reaching China. And maybe this little boy is still inside the crack, asking if there is a colectivo that will take him to Beijing.
A VW bus, rust red and ancient, is parked on the curb across the street. He is human, with headlight eyes and a cool bumper of a smirk and I imagine he addresses me, testing out his English, overemphasizing the 'h' in hhhhhello good morning. He pulls out a white, hand rolled cigarette and implores me for a light. Sorry, no fumo, I reply. The VW frowns, sputters, and clunks away, our conversation unfinished, revealing a kiosko in his wake.
No cafés on my block, yet I’m certain I smell empanadas. In fact I always smell empanadas in Buenos Aires-- something to do with an overabundance of cow, ready to be slaughtered, sliced, rolled and baked, and an under-abundance of calorie-consuming women. The empanadas walk the streets, thrusting their doey hips out to the side provocatively like the hookers on Ave Libertador I saw last Saturday night. Eat me, they beseech.
Periodically the sun slinks behind a cloud and I find some respite in a lingering shadow. The air cools and without warning I’m in a postcard, squinting my eyes against the returning sun. Palermo shimmers.
It hurts to look.
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