So many activities on the timeline that I'll list them in any old order. Something has happened to my numbering but I'm going to wait to fix that for another time.
1. 1. I gave my students a prepared speech, telling them that we could not continue to hold classes to teach me to speak better Spanish and that perhaps I'd failed them and did they want a different teacher. The next session they brought Seven-Up and cookies for a farewell, and then begged me to stay. My least improved student stood up proudly and said: "Hello teacher. I am Gloria. How are you?" And then…"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten." And then, "I love you." Well what can you do with that? I'm still trying to figure out what to do now that I've moved many barrios away.
2. Fredd came for a very short visit. We transacted official business at the U.S. Embassy where I signed over power of attorney to sell the Gettysburg house. We were in a very short line, actually first in the line. On the other side of the room a long line snaked around as it had outside, with people wanting to get visas to come to the U.S. Several people have told me that they have been denied visas, but I never understand the reason. Often it has to do with a father in Miami.
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2. 2. 2. The very day that Fredd arrived, Los Pibes participated in a Marche (as opposed to, I learned a Desfile, which indicates some type of armed participants be they military or policia) for the Indigenous or Original People. I had been told that several 'tribes' (best translation) would be walking from their respective parts of Argentina but I don't believe that it would have been possible in three days. That would be North, West, and South Argentina and if you look at the map you can see that I'm missing some point. But there were groups of people dressed in traditional clothing, most of them darker than the Buenos Aireans. The march was for plurality and multiculturalism and it started on Corrientes and was to go to Cristina's house, or Plaza de Mayo which is in front of it, where a list of demands would be read..not that she would be out there to hear them, but symbolically the groups were united even as they spoke different tribal languages. As with every Marche, every imaginable political group joined in, this being an opportunity to show solidarity and display your flag, and that is why I think Los Pibes participated with their banners and flags as they are a social and political group. A few people told me that they were also marching for the original people as their relatives had come from the border along Bolivia. I was invited, so Fredd, after an all night trip from Dulles, and I joined up with my students and the rest of the Los Pibes group. We walked among the flags and banners, with the blue and white stripes billowing over our heads. Now and then the whole Marche would stop as we rounded corners. At one point, one of our group began an elaborate drumming to which people lent chants. You'll see the pictures—I loved all the flags but I'm mostly going to show our group. When we reached the Plaza it was a bit anticlimactic for us since the Los Pibes demands were not on par with the people speaking in different languages. I wanted to get Fredd a cup of coffee, but my 'protectors' would not let us go alone…to the corner. If only they'd seen Natalie and I dodging around during the last Marche we attended together. Anyway, we were escorted to the corner, bought coffee, then rejoined the masses of flag bearers of ideologies or sociologies. After much whispering, we were advised to leave before it turned dark. Funny, since this is basically the middle of my extended neighborhood and while he was half asleep, I still had a man with me which seemed protection enough since I usually walk it alone. But hey.
4. 3. So it turns out that Fredd was here for the Bicentario as well. There is some confusion as to which day was being celebrated—independence or coming together as a country, but it was a huge even nonetheless. It began at Corrientes and extended south along both sides of Avenida 9 de Julio. It seemed to creep further south each day (it ran about four or five) until one day there was actually a parade along Independencia which is the big street the next block up. That parade was more disorganized than most…groups of people from various countries, horse soldiers (I know I should know that term) from various eras…standing around in clumps. I'm sure they had somewhere to go but it wasn't apparent that they were going to be moving anytime in the future. They did stop traffic on the street, making it even more difficult to travel east to west across the city.
5. We dropped in on one day of the event because I thought it would be interesting to try some 'traditional food'. Whoever organized this part of the party had a strange idea. Small enclosed booths lined narrow paths made it difficult to approach the small counters, each of which had a sign for a region of the country, but also for a mixed group of other countries (such as Chile, Cuba, the Ukraine). It wasn't clear where you were supposed to eat…behind one row of booths, for example, were a few tables and chairs set upon what was once landscaped green space. But there was only enough seating for about twenty people and I think this kept people from trying food…but didn't deter them from buying food. Like French wine. Or Italian sausage. In front of the tables, whole large plants had been squashed as people made paths toward whatever seating they could find. But more importantly, in strategic places were hot water dispensers for mate thermoses.
6. 4. We met the wonderful mother and son who first greeted me to supposedly attend the reopening of the Teatro Colon, which is supposed to be one of the most acoustically superior opera houses in all the lands. At first Fredd and I hung around in front of the café we had set as a meeting place. It was the last accessible place on the street as the rest of it, leading up to the Teatro, was cordoned off. By cordoned I mean that sections of metal resembling old fashioned bike racks were used for crowd control. Sometimes cordoned means unrolling sections of chain link fence and standing it on end. Here we had a metal railing to lean against as the crowd built. Eventually we went inside because I had underdressed, forgetting that once the sun set it would get into the 40s. Eventually Alicia and Ricardo joined us and Fredd and Ricardo delved so deeply into Argentine history (broken English on Ricardo's part, Fredd's drawing and about a dozen words of Spanish on the other) that we never made it to the extravaganza. But then we had to make it to some form of public transportation.
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As you may have noticed in some of the pictures I've displayed, I'm relatively tall here. And Fredd is nearly 6 feet so way in the upper range of height. But Alicia and Ricardo must have come to our shoulders…okay not that short on his part, but I'm sure she was that small. This is significant because once we left the café we were in the densely packed crowd. I forget if that is one of the days a soccer match was being projected on a huge screen in the middle of the Avenida, but every day and every night during the celebration, people stood body to body and had to push through knots of others to move in a particular direction. Our goal was to get Ricardo and Alicia to a subte—any subte. It became apparent that we could easily lose them so I took one of each of their hand's in mine, or sometimes just kept a hand on a shoulder or head. They were both a bit frightened, but I think comforted by Fredd's height. Of course, Fredd didn't know where he was…only I did, but I couldn't see over the crowd because my height is only an illusion. So I had to keep an eye on Fredd who was still trying to ask questions about the two sided peronista party, and keep physical contact with my small friends, and push them toward the street I wanted us to be on. They actually did know where they wanted to be, but the landscape was alien…simply bodies in light blue and white tightly packed. The worst times were when we were up against immovable objects—like a wall and a closed kiosk, with people pushing, trying to move, in both directions. We were like a blocked artery, and something kept us pumping either way. When we finally broke free we walked down the middle of the street, unable to even express our relief, but trying to find space wherever we could now that we were not crushed against strangers. This was only the first of such experiences I had during the celebration.
I t 5. I took Fredd to Puerto Madera to get away from all the crowds but foolishly went south to north and ended up leaving at the same time that roads were being cordoned off because of some kind of music and speech thing at Cristina's house. I almost talked my way through a fence but another woman came up just as the policia was about to let me through so we retreated. This time we were in a constant flow of people trying to find egress but being blocked in three directions, which was not apparent until you hit a barrier. At one point we were in a tight but moving scrum, all of us thinking that we were far enough north that we could get across the Avenida…but we were wrong and people started turning around in an impossibly small space to try another street. A whole bunch of people had the bright idea that we could get across Avenida de Mayo by going into the subte station and coming out the other entrance. It should have worked…three or four entrances all meeting underground…but it wasn't happening. We tried it twice, along with scores of other bewildered people, only trying to go south to their part of town. We ended up going even further north and then very far west and only then could we head south…and into a barrio I would not generally walk at night. But since we were part of a now thinner crowd I thought we could get to where we needed to go as long as we went back out into my comfort zone as soon as possible. I feel as if those autopilot escapes were years ago, but it has really only been about ten days. And the utter drain of using so much adrenaline to keep moving against human or metal barriers put me in a twilight state. It was eerily nightmarishly on the precipice of a disaster. They weren't exactly stampedes, but more like too many animals in a very long maze.
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6. As my time in San Telmo drew to a close, and after a complicated miscommunication we took Julieta out for dinner very, very late. We ended up at a place that is somewhat touristy during the 'season' but quieter now that it is winter. The draw was not the food but rather the live music which happened to be Flamenco…and as it turns out, Julieta had studied Flamenco for a year which we saw demonstrated when a call was put out for any dancers on the floor. It turns out that Flamenco with another person is called something else and this is what Julieta did up on the stage for two dances. To see such a shy quiet woman stomping and turning and practically mating around a ponytailed man resembling Antonio Banderas was wild and unexpected.
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7. I moved to Belgrano the day that Fredd left.
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8. I finally tripped over open sidewalk and fell perfectly flat on the ground. Within seconds three men had lifted me upright. I didn't even have a moment to get over feeling stunned. My professora was with me—we were meeting Fredd at Gardel's so that he could teach her how to write a check (which she'd never done…he was drawing pictures)—and she was overly concerned. When we entered the restaurant she got some antiseptic from behind the bar and we commenced to descend the stairs to the bathroom. The lights to the stairwell were out so I walked very gingerly because I was starting to feel some throbbing and stiffness. At the bottom of the stairs we didn't fare much better—a single taper, set in wax on the bathroom counter, lit the entire bathroom…or not. I couldn't see enough to make it worth my while to pull down my pants to check for injuries so I just poured whatever was in the bottle over the small gap between my finger an palm that that been the only visible injury (it's almost as if I had practiced falling as a stuntwoman). As it turns out, I have huge bruises extending on both sides of both knee caps and when I forget and kneel it hurts like….but I truly feel lucky that I've only fallen that one time in the three months I've been here and that I only have bruises and a still open cut
12. We had a fiesta por la cumpleanos de Johan y Angel. Or a joint birthday party. All the students but Gloria came to my place and we had ice cream and cake and soda and balloons and champagne and two Peruvians danced to two Peruvian songs. I have Spanish magnetic words to make sentences or poems on the refrigerator and each person left me with some kind of phrase. Marcos, who isn't Marcos but Vagner (or did I already tell you that) gave me three 5 peso calling cards to call him once he reaches Peru so that we can continue our lessons. He has already sent me an email to tell me that he has arrived safely. It began: "Teacher. I am Peru…." Before he left he came to me with a piece of paper upon which was written 'omen' and 'men'. He wanted to know how the two words were related and did not buy my explanation that they were not. We miss him in class. In fact, class is slowly dissolving, but this party brought us all together again and while I'm not sure what I've done with my time, I know that at least two people feel as if it is possible to learn something new with what Gloria calls a 'hard' brain.
13. And as I said I moved, but I'm not going to write about that now. I just want to say that instead of a five minute walk and ten minute bus ride, I have a fifteen minute walk and a 60 – 120 minute bus ride, both to my class and to La Boca. So I think that this week is it. We lost our 'space' weeks ago and have been sharing it with teenage girls doing homework and smoking and giggling, amidst the sounds of construction at the place we used to meet. And without the ability to use multi-media (songs, you-tube, pictures, even 'voce alta' ) we've all come down a few notches. It is really impossible to have a conversation so we decided to have one-on-one scheduled classes. But now it appears that my commute might keep it from happening. Today was probably my last day there (I have other volunteer plans), but I met with Gloria..who was eating her free meal of chicken and something. We started the lesson with 'I am eating' and 'You are not eating'. Soon after she finished her meal and cleaned up her plate, a group of people started to congregate for a meeting. We started to go upstairs to anywhere else but the people wanted Gloria to stay so she became part of the motivational speech, organizing the next Marche (what else)? As far as I could understand, the Marche was an integral part of Los Pibes getting another computer. People scribbled down dates and places to meet and I noticed that most all of them had jackets with Los Pibes written across the back. I became fascinated by the number of cockroaches going in and out of a crack in the kitchen counter I had just been writing on…but maybe it was just the one making multiple trips. When Lila came for her class and sat at the same counter to eat her chicken, I wanted to tell her, but I figured that this was her Comedor…that was her mother working in the kitchen…and old news was no news.
I'll write about my new barrio soon and why I'm here and why I'll learn more deeply what happened when the economy collapsed as a result of it. But if I don't get this out…without proofing so I'm sorry about that…it will stay unposted and become stale. And I'll not be picky about pictures either. If anyone ever wants to see more than the scattered few, I'll post them elsewhere. Chau!
(Click on Fredd to open the album with pictures of some of the things I've referenced.)
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| late photos |
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