Additional initial impressions

I find myself doing at least one foolish thing a day and today it was walking way too long before and after the 121 omnibus, which was only a problem because the temperature was peaking at 32 C (90 F) at just that time. For that reason I am taking a break from my homework because there are some other important details I want to record while they are still sources of wonder for me.

So the omnibus—apparently everyone but me got the message that the tarif was going up to 17 pesos and for the first time ever I actually had gathered exact change (a 10 peso, and 3 2 peso coins). The driver and I (this was the 14 omnibus, so no conductor) did a lot of pointing until I figured out I needed to give him another 1 peso coin. When I sat down I saw the notice, which I swear was not on any of the buses last week. If I’d given him a 20 peso note instead, I would not have been so obviously clueless.

Some days on the omnibus people looking for spare change board and don’t seem to have to pay. Last week there were several individuals with colorful cards the size of our baseball cards. Some had anime characters, others had sayings. Sometimes the person would hand them out, and then come back through the bus either collecting a peso or two or taking the card back. Others offered the card, and if you did not put out a peso, went on. The other type of change gatherers is musicians. Last week a guy with a mullet and guitar sang one of those Boston songs that I don’t really know but recognize, with a heavy accent. On my morning run today two men with guitars boarded and sang a few duets before disembarking. This afternoon, when it was high in the 90s in a packed bus with no air conditioning, a very tall gentleman with a leather porkpie hat sang in an operatic tenor. He seemed to be signing over our heads. At one point he said he’d sign in inglese and pulled a sheet of laminated paper out of a portfolio and belted ‘My Way’ with a lovely accent. It was too crowded for me to dig in my bag for my pesos.

As I mentioned it was very hot, and many of us were smashed together holding on as the bus lurched at the lights. There seems to be a way of driving whereby instead of looking for your own light to turn green, you watch for the other light to turn yellow and take your foot off the pedal ready to roll. Thus, a jerky ride. But here amidst the heat and compressed bodies were a couple, probably in their forties, calmly pouring that hot water into the mate gourd and making those loud slurpy sounds, not even in time with the tenor. I could see steam rising from the gourd and that did me in. I just got off at the next stop without caring where I was.

As it turned out, I was about a mile or so away from my destination. Add that to the two miles I had walked to find a place that apparently no longer exists before I took the bus, and I walked a *** of a lot more than I ever intended in the heat. I had finished my water before I boarded the bus so the first order of business was getting more. One of the many things I love about this type of city is the ubiquitous grocerias of various sizes and contents. This one was very narrow but had as much stuff as my much closer Inglese or Disco grocerias.

There are also lots and lots of Plazas, although some of them are no bigger than my dining room table. Yesterday I saw one named for Lenin, today one named for Piaget. The rambla also has many names along different stretches, like Peru, Mahtma Ghandi, and Woodrow Wilson, for example. And the streets have names like Dr. Jose Scoseria (not so strange) or Avenue 18 de julio…or 26 de marzo; for us that would be like 4th of July or 11th of November. There is colorful graffiti everywhere and apparently it is here to stay. Some of it is slogans, other very colorful drawings (I’ll put up some pictures). And then the last thing that adds to the other worldliness of this place for me are the cars that drive around with amplified ‘propaganda’ (says one of the profesoros). I do not understand it yet, so perhaps it is just a cell phone company trying to get me to buy a new card.

Finally, while at the moment I feel exhausted so what I’m about to say isn’t exactly true at this point in time, there is something about this culture that makes me feel younger. Perhaps it is the interweaving of the generations walking the rambla or gathered together at dinner or sitting crammed side by side on a stoop…or the woman I saw while I drew wearily near home. She was wearing a red skirt and matching shoes, her hair silky and white, stepping over a pile of dog poop without slowing her stride. My guess is that in US years she was in her mid-80s. Here she seemed like a woman of a certain age, whatever that might be.