Off track

Vignette One: Last Saturday I asked Alejandro where I should go for the day and like a good city promoter, he pointed out museums and green spaces on my fraying map. But those places exist in most big cities and I wanted more—something uniquely Buenos Aires. He said he knew a place but it would be irresponsible of him to send me there alone but if I came back at 4 he'd take me.

We started at Independencia and made a 'combinacion' at Plaza de Mayo with the oldest subte line, A. The station had original, early 20th century ticket booths and tiling. The car interiors were wooden and lit by ornate light fixtures. At your stop you had to pull the doors open (like many of the elevators around here). We got off the subte at Carabobo and climbed the stairs to a street that runs from one side of the city to the next, but we were about 200 blocks from the part I knew. In fact, we were just inside the margins of the edge of the transportation map, but we weren't at our destination yet. We walked and walked and walked, and I saw things I had not seen before. No fancy clothes, the shops full of inexpensive shapeless clothes and restaurants of takeout food but not the type that makes the tourists feel like they are still home. The street was alive with shoppers and cars driving too fast for pedestrians to share. We took a short detour into the neighborhood off the main drag so that I could see where the people lived. The housing was simple, square and boxy, probably from the fifties. Trees enlivened the otherwise gray low concrete habitats. Quiet and plain. We went back to Avienda Rivadaria to find a bus to take us to where were were actually headed. We walked for many blocks looking for colectivo 86 until Ale stopped and asked a heavily pierced young man standing in the doorway of a news shop where we could catch an 86. Apparently the 86 was now named colectivo 8 for which we instantly found a stop. Stops have a separate sign for each bus that lists the landmark streets it will take on its way to the end. The famous guia that is supposed to tell you which bus you need to take to get from one quadrant on one page to another quadrant on another page lists those streets…but nowhere can you find where a bus will actually stop to get you. Sometimes you can walk for four city blocks along the route you think your bus will be taking before you find a stop with the metal sign with the appropriate number. Anyway, our stop said 8, and then below it X 86. So it was the same route with a number change but there you have it. In a rare exception to the rule, this bus actually allowed you to use the magnetic subte card to pay the fare. Every bus in the colectivo group has a different system of paying your fare and just today someone had to show me how to pay on the 24. What they all have in common is that you have to tell the conductor what you are going to pay. Someone told me just to name the middle number. That would be 'uno viente' as opposed to 'uno diez' or 'uno viente cinco' (28-32 cents by the current exchange rate in case you're interested). And then when we got off the bus we were in a different world.

There were crowds of people, much shorter and rounder than the tall, reed thin argentineans, with pronounced facial bones and darker skin. We were in the peruvian and bolivian outskirts of town. We became part of a movement along the sidewalk. We walked past walking restaurants—stalls that opened up to the sidewalk with a few stools to sit on while you got your walk away meal (something meaty). Slim vegetable stands with baskets of vegetables spilling out onto the sidewalk. Vendors setting up blankets 0n the curb, crowding the people in even closer. People were jostling against each other but in a non-threatening way. I could smell garlic and onions, a different cuisine in the air. I just focused on not tripping over the uneven sidewalks and not losing sight of Ale but couldn't help drinking in the colors—there were rainbow shades all around. We stopped so Ale could show me a shop that sold incense…I couldn't figure out what he'd meant by sticks that burn. We had a destination in this neighborhood—the peruvian former girlfriend of one of Ale's brothers had a restaurant called Mi Esperanza (My Hope). We sat out in the back (with the crowded sidewalks there would be nowhere to place a table out front). Ale had a beer—they come in liters—and I had pisco. Tania, his friend, wanted me to wait until her mother arrived to make me a proper pisco sour, but that wasn't what I wanted anyway…so I got the good stuff straight up and it was wonderful, straight from Peru. We shared a dish of sliced cold potatoes with a spicy (finally) sauce over it and sliced hard boiled eggs on the side. And then we had a rice dish made special for the vegetariana and it too was muy rico! Totally different kind of cooking. And then Tania insisted that I take a desert home with me—a type of rice pudding with some kind of dulce but not a cloying type.

Ale told me that many argentineans (they don’t capitalize anything but the name of the country so I'm not trying to be cute), don't venture to this part of town. The belief is that the bolivians and peruvians are dirty, among other things, but living in a neighborhood where dodging dogpiles is part of the walking exercise routine, I couldn’t see it. But there is always someone who has to live on the outskirts, I suppose, and these immigrants are one group of such people. What I saw was color and spice and crowded streets and squares and stores. Lots of life.

From there we went to a tren, the Sarmiento. We had to walk across an overpass and I realized that we were going to be taking a totally different type of transportation—We saw police separating two battering men bleeding in gushes. On the train, most of the people were standing. A man came through the car with a box selling oversized cans of beer. I commented that it wouldn't be legal in the U.S. to which Ale replied it isn't legal here either. And then for the first time someone derided me for being American. Many people can't tell one English speaker from another, but this guy, drunk, had me down. We both ignored him and let him go on but it reminded me that there were parts of the city where I needed to keep my mouth shut or speak my simple spanish. In fact, the reason Johan waits with us at the bus stop in La Boca is that the last two volunteers they had were on the busy street (the stop is next to a pizza restaurant), speaking english and they were mugged during daylight hours. It's very easy to forget that we're targets to some people.

When we got off the train Ale pointed out a car devoid of everything except, it appeared, some padding on the walls. He said that if you wanted to bring your bicycle with you you'd put it in there, but it looked more like a place that many people would crowd into and sleep. Anyway, we walked across a square and into another subte station and after making one 'combinacion' ended up back at our own Independencia stop just three blocks away from the apart hotel.

Vignette two: Two of the the 'Academia' owners are married (Frederico who is german and Virginia who is uruguyan) and they live in a part of Buenos Aires called Constitucion. I was advised not to live there, but I figured how bad could it be if these two had a home there. They were having an annual party on the Thursday of Semana Santa or Santa Semana, meaning just a few days ago. Friday of Santa Semana is a National Holiday, and for some people Thursday is as well. I thought I could walk to their house because the cross street was only one block down from me (and 20 blocks out). I asked the two Carlos' if it was safe and after a long discussion and look at the map they said yes. But at the Academia Cecilia told me absolutely not, that I would be crossing unsafe areas and to take a cab which would cost me all of 12 pesos ($3.09). But when the time came to go I asked Ale and after he said I could take the subte without even a 'combinacion' and then just walk two blocks on a main street and two blocks down the cross street. And Frederico had put up a map of which subway stop to get off and his directions mirrored Ale's so I figured why not. I had taken care to take my token wine out of the wine bag and put it into a farmacia bag instead. Everything went fine. But when I got to the top of the stairs I had no clue which way was west. I walked a block and realized I had gone the wrong way because I reached a major street and I remembered the picture of the map. So I turned around and felt oriented. The street, while having a fair amount of traffic, was dark. Only a few business were open---it was 10 p.m. at this point. Oh, this is actually a point worth making. I'd been advised that an invitation for a particular time meant don't arrive before then, not that's when you should be there. Apparently it is almost rude to show up at the time on an invitation. Natalie, for example, had been invited to a Seder along with another college student from the U.S. and they actually stood outside the house for an HOUR before the guy came down, shirtless, to let them in. So that is why I thought 10 was actually a little early for me to be in the neighborhood since the invitation was for 9:30. Anyway, I was on pretty high alert because of the dark. The corner I wanted had an ice cream / pizza shop so it was well lit and actually had the street name in plain view. I started to walk down the street, which was totally devoid of street lights, feeling a little vulnerable but certain that I'd get to the street in the two blocks I'd seen on the map. And I could see a major street about five blocks down. I passed one lit building, and another with an old woman in a small flower print house dress and slippers sitting on the stoop, eyeing me suspiciously. And then I passed an open concrete area and when I was right upon it I saw that it held a half dozen cardboard and sheet structures—homes with little rooms by the look of it. I saw a little kid come out of one, wearing shorts and nothing more, and standing in front of the next structure, calling for someone to come out. I decided I shouldn't be walking in their front yard so I crossed over. When the next street was not the one I expected and in fact all I could see was dark warehouses, and since I didn't actually have a map with me I was contemplating calling the apart hotel and having whoever was there tell me where I was supposed to be. And then I saw a policeman checking doors so I went up to him and gave him my destination and he told me that I needed to go and cross over the major street—that basically I'd gone the wrong way…deep into where I was not supposed to be. But the exciting thing was that I was able to ask him in Spanish and I understood his directions and that would not have happened two months ago. Of course in Montevideo I wouldn’t' have been in a neighborhood like this either, but hey. So I turned around, walked past the cardboard neighborhood again, and then caught up with a gang of soccer kids coming out of the ice cream / pizza shop. One of them told me to watch his friend…who ran out into the traffic, laughing and whooping it up as he dodged cars. He would run to the middle of the street and run back and then do it again and everyone was entertained but me. Anyway, I finally made it, and Frederico, who had met me in Montevideo and knew that I was directionally challenged asked me how many times I'd gotten lost. How's that for a greeting?

And then the third vignette: I don't go to church except for wedding, baptisms, and funerals. But, it turns out that the bishop for all of the south american greek orthodox churches is here in Buenos Aires and he knew my father and knows my mother and it just seemed like a cool thing to do to go to a service for Good Friday that was going to be at least partially in Spanish. Natalie, who is a real peach, said she'd go with me and so I met up with her in Palermo where she lives because this church was supposed to be in Palermo about fourteen blocks away. Palermo is huge—there is Viejo Palermo, Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Soho, and I think just plain Palermo as well. It has lots of trendy restaurants and a huge café sidewalk culture. Hopping all the time. It is bordered by the zoo and botanical gardens on one side and many barrios on the other. We headed off, not knowing what to expect. About halfway through the streets became deserted. Car dealerships—not like ours with lots but storefronts—businesses that weren't open at night. We had to stop a few times to look at the guia because it just didn't seem as if we were headed in the right direction. But we pushed on, overshot the street, came back and then were totally confused because there was no building on the street with a dome as Greek churches are wont to have. Instead what we found was a concrete wall with an opening to a courtyard, and then about a basketball court sized space and then a church with a façade like the white washed Santorini style. I met one old man who immediately spoke to me in Greek and he invited us inside. I'm going to make this a condensed version of a very long night. Most people never came into the church but stayed out in the courtyard talking. Those that did were wearing just about anything you could imagine. There were six guys sitting up on the altar space who actually wore suits and ties. There was a woman with impossible heels and a spandex sequin tube top. There was a guy with a wooly beard, sandals, and cargo shorts. There was a small group of women who came in together wearing leather jackets and even pants (although it was in the 60s). Jeans so tight I know why the man or woman wearing them didn't sit down. A woman with hair the color of a cherry red Corvette. The service was in Greek and Spanish, but the Spanish didn't sound Spanish and the Greek didn't sound Greek. We only knew the difference when we'd recognize a pronoun. The interior of the church was not atypical except for a plethora of large very silver stars covering the ceiling among the saints and greek inscriptions.

The highlight of this service is when the funeral bier, covered with white flowers, is carried out by four men and walked around the church or the block followed by a procession of clergy and related robed men and then all the congregation, holding candles that they light one by one from each other. Dirges are sung. In this church girls with baskets of rose petals led the way for the bishop and his group. Amazing thing number one was that the seventy or so odd people in the church had turned into several hundred in the street. Amazing thing number two was that we kept going and going, not just around the block but down two or three and then over to a four lane very busy street where traffic was stopped until we all turned the corner. The indignant drivers of cars, buses, and taxis, drowned out the dirging as they sped by us. And we marched on, some people texting while they walked because we were going so slowly. The one kid in the group carrying the bier wobbled a bit. He was wearing a red tee shirt with some kind of slogan on it and at some point he was replaced because the red shirt disappeared. And then suddenly we all stopped. Just stopped. We were in front of another church, also not Byzantine but it had an icon embedded in its façade. From the open door came another bier. This one was green, red, and white, and not as lush. Some more bishops came out—their hats were slightly different than ours, but you could tell they were related. We started walking again and people from the new church came out with their candles and mingled with our group. Maybe a couple hundred more? Then we had to cross another main street and a police car stopped traffic so we could get safely across. But this time there was no patience—honking began almost immediately once again drowning out the dirges even though the number of singers had increased. We stopped again at the church of our origin. All the bishops stood together and said things no one could hear. Then they started chanting Kyrie Eleison, and the words spread through the group until it became loud enough to hear, for a long time. We tried to sneak away. We were standing next to a group of teenage girls who were having fun burning the paper cardboard encircling the candle to catch the drips, so I blew my candle out for safety reasons. I took a few steps but a very stern man admonished me and lit my candle again. Finally, the red, green, and white group started to move, our crowd started to thin and we were out of there.

I spent some time today figuring out the red, green, and white group. I know where the Russian Orthodox church is since it's down the street from me, but all I knew about this other church was the name (San Jorge) and approximate neighborhood (which turned out not to be Palermo but Villa Crispi). I found a list of churches in Buenos Aires, divided into Catholic and Not Catholic and from there to San Jorge's website and noticed that they taught Arabic. After a bit more digging and a history lesson from Fredd, we figured out that they are Syric (yup) Orthodox. Which confirms Natalie's hypothesis that we were in an Arabic neighborhood as we process-ed by taking note of a couple of arabic restaurants, grocery stores and rug shops along the way.

And there you have it: ten days of adventures away from the main streets of Buenos Aires. When I figure out how to put up a map I'll show you where all these places are in relation to each other.

Oh! And I graduated to Nevel III in Spanish. Of course that's out of VIII and only an advanced beginner, but I give me props for only having started January 22nd and talking way too much English every day.