Remembrances and New Acquaintances

Wednesday, March 26, 2009 1:36 AM
Persicco Café

Monday

After class, we headed to La Bamba, a popular drum concert. The lines to get in wrapped around multiple blocks, but we ended up getting in just fine. The music was very upbeat (no pun intended) and the crowd was dancing along the whole time. Later, we went to hang out with a group of twenty porteño girls at one of their apartments. I had to laugh at the greeting process between the seven of the Multisas and all the girls: 20 x7 = almost 150 kisses exchanged between all of us. Sometimes I don’t know how they do it, it was a bit exhausting. It was great to finally hang out with some locals, although it’s a shame that we are starting to make friends just as we are leaving Buenos Aires. My friends taught them to play beer pong, which is a popular drinking game in the United States.

It’s really interesting to note the difference between drinking cultures here. Of course the drinking age here is 18, and the rules seem more relaxed, so many of my friends have really enjoyed the freedom of drinking without the hassle of IDs or public open container laws. At the same time, they tend to be a lot more responsible with their alcohol intake. It surprises me how there seems to be alcohol everywhere (even in ice cream at heladerías), yet no one binges or gets too out-of-control drunk. It’s really just a part of life here, not a taboo thing. Though I don’t personally drink, I think the drinking culture here is preferable. Smoking, unfortunately, is also very popular here.

Tuesday

Today, I discovered the Pancho Factory, which I am in love with. And no, I am not referring to a weather impermeable; pancho means hot dog here. It was kinda of a Subway version of a hot dog stand where you got to select different toppings (boiled egg, tomato salad, chimichuri sauce, and potato straws is an amazing yet messy combination).

We didn’t have school because it was a national holiday. March 24th was the date of the military coup in 1976 and marks the beginning of the "Dirty War". The purpose of the holiday is to remember the victims of the atrocities comitted by the government. Kara and I headed down to Plaza de Mayo, where there was supposed to be a commemorative event for the date. Not really sure what to expect, we arrived a bit early to the Plaza as it started to fill with people. A large stage had been erected in the middle of the plaza and speakers took turns leading chants and reading commemorative stories. The most common one was “¡Trienta mil desaparecidos…presente! ¡Ahora…y siempre!" (“Thirty thousand disappeared..present! Now…and forever!”) Just as the plaza had become completely filled, a large parade of people and banners came through the center. They were all the friends and family of the desaparecidos and I was moved to tears as I saw the Madres de la Plaza del Mayo marching with their icongraphic head scarfs while supporting a banner dozens of meters long with pictures of the desaparecidos. It was really sad to imagine what the victims and the families went through here just three decades ago.

After meeting up with several other friends, we ended up going to the traditional Café Tortoni one more time (again, odd with the parallels to my first weeks here). Along the way, we were amazed by the thousands of people that were marching through the streets waving banners and flags for all their various causes. Many of the people were from unions or socialist parties or other interest groups and it was fascinating to witness such a wave of demonstrations from so many people. Even an hour or so later when we reemerged from the Café, the parade of people was still going strong.

I ate dinner at my friend Jessi’s house by invitation of Lucy, her 80-something year-old host mother. We ate several different types of empanadas, including indigenous ones made from corn and had a bit more spice to them. Jessi and I then headed to Persicco Café that night and I worked on my “5-10 page paper on Brazil during the last 10 years,” the main assignment for my Political class. It turns out after that first day (of 90 pages of articles) all our other readings didn’t match up with the syllabus and it was never really resolved - so we didn’t end up doing as much work as we should have. Nevertheless, I still have learned a lot, both inside and outside the classroom.

Wednesday

I had been a bit down about the progress of my Spanish lately, but today was a day of great conversations. Though I spent most of the day working on my paper, I ended having an impromptu conversation in the lobby with the doorman and another lady from my apartment building. We covered everything from politics to cultural differences and it was a great exchange between us, I was really happy with my ability to express myself. They were astonished to discover that there is poverty in the United States and were very interested, as a lot of Argentineans are, on our opinions of having a “presidente negro” ("black president"). Later that night at Persicco while finishing up my paper, we also had great conversations with several of the waiters, who are super nice and brought me another huge free ice cream. Again, it’s sad to be meeting so many people now that we are leaving.

Coli