Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, ARGENTINA - 28 december 2002
Pablo and I had yet another farewell hug at yet another airport. The last time was in Moscow, Russia when I saw him off at the airport and then, I had made my way to the nothernmost town of my entire trip - St. Petersburg.
Now, in turn, he saw me off at the airport and I would be making my way to the southernmost town of my entire trip - Ushuaia.
As the plane flew over Ushuaia, getting ready to land, I saw before me the most beautiful landscape I could ever recall from the air.
The snowy and craggy mountains stretched nearly to the edge of the bay. The mountains were simply breath-taking and I was lost for words. I gaped from my window, stupefied. The lady from my next seat had to ask me to sit back so that she could partake of the view as well. The pretty little town of Ushuaia sat at the bottom of the mountains, in front of the bay. I kept thinking where exactly I was on the map and I just could not get used to it.
I got off the plane and studied the people around me. I figured that this was probably the closest I ever got to rubbing shoulders with polar explorers, research biologists and people rich enough to afford the Antarctica cruises.
The air was absolutely crisp, fresh and cool. I left a 35°C Buenos Aires and arrived at a 7°C Ushuaia. I was enchanted by the colourful flowers all over town. I later learnt from a Chiliean that they are called ‘chochos’, they look like ears of corns in purple, pink, orange, etc… Delightful.
The sun was shining but the wind vicious. Many Argentine flags had tattered ends as they probably had been subjected to the relentless wind for ages.
Taking out my wind-breaker, I nearly lost it to oblivion. Standing by the dock, I nearly got tossed into the Beagle Channel. I tried to enjoy the outdoors and the sunshine by walking around but it was a tad difficult when you imagined your eye-lashes could be swept out to Antarctica any moment.
As I had just rejoined the ‘backpackers’ circuit after a two-month hiatus, frankly, I needed some time to get used to it again. I was not in the mood yet to chat with anybody… you know, the usual backpackers’ talk… “So, where are you from?”, “Are you just doing South America?”, “How long are you travelling for?”, “Where are you heading off next?”… In fact, listening to English being spoken in the next table in the café I was in, already disorientated me.
Here in Ushuaia, the sun set at around 10:30pm or 11pm. Yet another near ‘White Night’. I remember writing about this phenomenon when I was in St. Petersburg in summer. Then, I had giggled from my bed when I looked out of the window at midnight and could still observe the after-sunset blue. Now, nearly half a year later, I was in Ushuaia, in summer again, and experiencing the same phenomenon.
Two near ‘White Nights’ in one year. For someone whose natural habitat is on the Equator where the sun rises and sets at the same time everyday of the year, this was really a fantastic experience!
Ushuaia, ARGENTINA - 29 december 2002
I headed to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego in the morning. I had wanted to do this trek alone. I figured it would be a nice walk in the woods, totally immersed with nature.
I got off at the start of the trail with Paul, from England. He had just returned from a US$4000 10-day Antarctica cruise. See, I told you I would be rubbing shoulders with one of these luminaries.
We did the first 2km or so of the Coastal Path together. He did not mind doing this stretch of the trail with me but I feared I was slowing him down as he still wanted to conquer other more strenuous trails later. I kept urging him to feel free to move on ahead. In the end, he disappeared into the woods, never to be spotted by me again.
As I made my way through the woods by myself, I realised THIS was the way to enjoy nature. Ever so often, I stopped dead in my tracks and listened. The gentle lapping of the waves from the bay… the occasional distant songs from birds… the rustling of the leaves as the shifting wind blew over… the soft pecking of the trunks by invisible woodpeckers… I would miss all these if I had been walking with someone. We would be chatting away, totally clueless. Even if we did not talk and I had stopped in my track, the sound of the other person’s movements, the rubbing of his pants as he walked, his footsteps, would drown these subtle and gentle natural melodies.
I finished the Coastal Path and sat in front of the Lapataia Bay and had a sandwich. There were two possible trails from here and I tried to decide which one I would take. I decided to walk the Lago Roca trail to the border of Chile-Argentina. Hmmm… to walk through the woods to the border of two countries… Yep, there was a nice frontier ring to it.
I made my way along the lake and at some point, got myself a little lost. When you start having to turn away from sheer drops, or crawling through very narrow gaps between huge boulders, or getting pricked every so often, you could pretty much guess you had strayed from the required trail.
I could see no yellow poles for a while now. Either I turned back or I persevered on, hoping the yellow pole was just around the corner. In the end, to my relief, I spotted the ‘3km’ sign some distance away but I had to clamber on top of huge boulders and slide down a little slope unglamourously to reach it.
At the end of the trail, there was an orange obelisk-thingie and a sign ‘LIMITE INTERNACIONAL - NO PASAR / NO TRESPASSING’. I was naughty, I crossed into Chile illegally and did a wander around to test if there were hidden snipers or laser-triggered machine guns. Nope.
I sat by the lake and stared ahead of me at the mountains opposite. The wind was extremely strong by the lake. I stood up, put on my Peruvian ‘alpaca, baby alpaca’ woolly cap and my Langmusi (Tibetan town in China) fashion-challenged gloves. Then, I re-sat by the lake and stared ahead of me at the mountains opposite.
I mentally noted my geographical location on the globe. This was a moment to treasure, to savour.
Ushuaia, ARGENTINA - 30 december 2002
I had complained about the high cost of sending post from Argentina but I made an exception today. I wrote a postcard to myself, a ‘Happy New Year’ greeting and sent it from el fin del mundo [the end of the world]. I wonder what I would make of it when I return home in a few months and read this postcard.
I took a boat ride down the Beagle Channel to veer near islands with resting cormorants and lounging sea-lions.
The way cormorants fly is great. They flutter their wings desperately ever so close to the water as they try to gain height and swoop away. I loved watching them take off. If I was not misinformed, their wings are not waterproof, hence, they need to stand around the island and dry their wings after that… which was what they were doing most of the time on the islands.
The sea-lions dozed away and lumbered around sleepily and grumpily. A few babies clustered together near their mommies.
On the boat was this guy, with a Texan drawl, from my hostel – Regi. He told me he had been doing some research to see how he could get to the Antarctica cheaply. He claimed that he always wanted to head out there because it was the last continent he had not set foot on. He was not too keen on those 10-day cruises, he just wanted to set foot on Antarctica.
Oh, sigh… I guess, all sorts of travellers exist. I did not agree with what he was saying but I exercised supreme self-control by clamming up, not saying a word and simply nodding away politely. Unsolicited, he went on to fortify my knowledge with his past trips and adventures. Well, once everything was out of the way, I guess I should be nice to say he was NOT THAT BAD a company.
Monday, December 30, 2002
Friday, December 27, 2002
19 - The Great Stain Robbery (Buenos Aires)
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 05 - 07 december 2002
The street vendors and buskers have been back along Calles Florida and Lavalle for the past week now. I am not sure if the police had lifted the ‘ban’ (which lasted a whopping 10 days or so) or the vendors just kept coming back that the police had given up trying to fight them.
I also saw children 8 to 10 years old, trying to play accordions for pesos. The poor dears, they had barely mastered the instruments and now they were most likely sent to the streets by their parents to make a living.
At many traffic junctions, one could see jugglers, clowns or performers who twirled a stick with two sticks. They would rush to the front of traffic at each red-light and perform their routines. Then, the guys went around to collect some change from the drivers before they drove off. Again, it pained me to see children jugglers.
The Argentinian government had introduced two new ‘currencies’ since the crisis - the patacones and lecops. One could see some shops stating that they accepted patacones and lecops, while others claimed they did not accept patacones and lecops.
These ‘currencies’ looked like Monopoly play-money. People would earn their salary in combinations of pesos, patacones and lecops. These are paper-money printed for the sake of increasing circulation without having real Arg Pesos. However, only certain shops accept patacones and lecops and these currencies exist only in Buenos Aires. One could not spend them in other parts of Argentina.
Frida baby had grown to a whooping 10.5 inches long and seemed to be holding for now.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 08 december 2002
I had met an Australian girl briefly in Mexico in 2000. Carolyn was then on a RTW trip for about a year. She had returned to Australia to work for a few months and was now on another long trip of about eight months. To my surprise, she had written that she was coming to Buenos Aires with her friend, Lydia!
They arrived last night and we arranged to meet today. Imagine, we had kept in touch via email since we first met very briefly in Mexico and now we were meeting each other again, not in HER city not in MY city but in ANOTHER city on the other side of the globe, again! It was incredible.
Lydia, Carolyn and I clicked immediately. Lydia had just started on her one-year RTW trip too. The three of us had many things in common, our frequencies were exactly the same, we could not stop talking and sharing our experiences. They were both well-travelled and had tons of stories to share. We were laughing all the time.
It would had been a wonderful, perfect day had it not been spoiled later by a robbery.
First, we noticed a smell. Lydia felt her hair and out came a gooey, oily stuff with a horrible stench. I checked my bag. It was similarly stained with that gross stuff. Lydia figured someone threw something out of the window. I set my bag down to clean it. Carolyn had that stuff trickling down her back.
Two women were nearby and appeared to be similarly stained. They came over, asking if we had paper or water. Naturally, we opened our bags to retrieve them for the women. Soon, they got us checking their backs and one women stood between me and my bag and started wiping my back.
Then, they were gone. I looked at my bag. It was open and I was now missing my camera!
AARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! This was the famous stain-and-distract trick! We had all heard about it. We had all been warned about it. Carolyn had had been stained once in her trip and she was quick enough then to disengage herself from the culprits. We were all relatively experienced travellers. Because we were in a group, we felt secure, we felt that we could watch one another’s back. So, when it happened to us, we were all fooled blind. We were SO STUPID!!!
I could not stop kicking myself. I could not believe it all happened so fast. We could not even remember how the women looked like. I felt suspicious that she was so agitated about wiping my back and getting me to check Carolyn’s head. Yet, it just did not occur to me to shove her out of my way between me and my bag.
I want to believe in the goodness and kindness of people. I hate to travel and live a life, forever suspicious of everyone and cyncical and sceptical about everything. But the truth is… some people are just not nice.
Oh, I LOVE my camera! I L-O-V-E IT! It had brought me so much joy on this trip. I learnt to express myself with it. I could not accept that it was now gone. People would say, it is just a camera, you can replace it. Sure, that will come later…
I realise now I have to live with my stupidity forever.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 09 december 2002
I did not sleep a wink last night. Sometimes, when people complained that they did not sleep a wink last night, they actually fell asleep by 4am or so. But, I DID NOT SLEEP a wink last night. I tossed and turned, I thought and wept the entire night. I looked up and it was morning, time to go to school.
I had not come to terms with my loss yet. I know I still felt horrible most likely because I could not forgive myself.
If it had been an attack-and-grab robbery, it would have been easier to forgive myself for it was not my fault. For sure, there was a high chance of being hurt but it would have been easier to forgive myself. But this was just O-U-R fault.
I met up with Lydia and Carolyn after class. They too did not sleep well last night, replaying the scene in their heads over and over again. We were still thoroughly devastated.
We could wallow in grief forever but we tried not to. We had to do something to distract ourselves. We visited the grand Teatro Colón which was rather interesting, with its multi-level basements of costumes, head-gears, props and shoes and even a replica of the stage for rehearsal, below Avenida 9 de Julio.
Avenida 9 de Julio is reputedly the ‘widest avenue in the world’. The landmark of Buenos Aires, the Obelisk, is in the middle of this avenue.
For several evenings the past week, I had set my camera (back when I used to own a camera) on my tripod, in the middle of the sixteen lanes of traffic, on a tiny island, trying to capture night shots with the Obelisk in the background, and the streaks of yellow and red lights by the sides and hopefully, the perfect orange across the evening sky.
Ah, those were the good old days when I had a camera… A-R-G-H!!!!
We headed to El Ateneo, a bookshop in Avenida Santa Fe which is a fully restored, converted theatre. It is elegant, exquisite and looks very, very grand. Everyone should check this bookshop out when in Buenos Aires. We sat in the café which was at the ‘stage’ area and had all the spotlights shining on our pallid faces. We simply stayed there and chatted for hours. To me, there would always be hidden gems in Buenos Aires like this, slowly to be uncovered.
That evening, over parilla a la carbon [barbecued meat], we more or less managed to hold a conversation in Spanish with a guy from the next table. Horacio actually asked if I was the translator for Carolyn and Lydia.
Whoa… first, people mistook me for the Chinese translator for Jane when we were in China. And now, even with my wonky-tonky Spanish, I was again mistaken for the translator. I guess since I looked different from the usual Western tourists, the locals just found it difficult to classify me.
Horacio is from Ushuaia or thereabouts. He offered to show me around when I get there after Christmas. Great. I mentioned that Carolyn and Lydia had just arrived from Ushuaia. His eyes lit up.
Carolyn had had some weeks of Spanish lessons in Guatemala under her belt. When asked which was her favourite place down south in Tierra del Fuego, she turned to me at once, uncertainly, “What’s… ‘we went’?” “Fuimos” I replied. Right, she explained she always used ‘I’ since she usually travelled alone, and now, ‘we’ was a problem. She turned back to Horacio and began her long, stuttering tedious hike of an answer, using the pronoun ‘we’.
I glanced around and noticed an amused old man, giggling at our struggles with conjugation and past tense. Horacio wiped tears from his eyes as he tried to stifle his laughter.
We, the tourists,
pledge to provide
entertainment
and constant merriment
to the bemused locals
so as to achieve happiness
and progress
in human communications.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 10 - 12 december 2002
I would be joking to say that I got over the incident easily. It took me days and many sleepless nights. I plunged into a state of depression that surprised even me. I wanted to throw myself in front of traffic. I would burst into tears suddenly while on the bus, in the middle of a queue at the supermarket or cooking dinner. Despite my allergy to alcohol, I took to drinking wine to get myself to sleep.
I visited Mr Huang, my acupuncturist and told him about the incident and the sleepless nights. Yes, I had gotten that settled in Buenos Aires that I had been frequenting a Chinese acupuncturist for my back problem. He stuck needles at two new spots. I barely made it home before throwing myself onto the bed and snoozing 5 hours straight that afternoon.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 13 december 2002
I passed by CITIBANK along Avenida Corrientes today. It was shuttered up and smeared senseless with graffiti. Protesters were banging the metallic shutters and nearby lamp-posts with kitchen utensils. They were chanting and yelling.
OK, ‘me robaron’ [They robbed me] vs ‘Argentina robaron’ [They robbed Argentina]. Seeing this, I realised my grieving period had come to an end.
It was time to look at the silver lining. I REALLY ought to be glad it was a stain-and-distract robbery and not an attack-and-grab robbery. Now, I just walked around with the sign ‘STUPID’ on my forehead, instead of a 3-inch scar (always assuming I could still walk).
I REALLY ought to be glad they just took the camera and left my bag. Otherwise, my journal and my little book of contacts and scribbles which I had earned along the way, including addresses written in Krygzy, Uyghur, Mongolian and Russian would be gone too. And thos TREASURED notes would be irreplaceable.
I recalled Goretti (whom I travelled with in Mongolia) who had had her entire bag stolen at the Ulaan Baator train station. I remembered Ben (whom I travelled with briefly in Russia) who had had his camera relieved from his bag when he went to the toilet and had left the bag on the bus in Nepal. Yeah, it would be great if this sort of things do not happen but they do… sometimes. That is the risk one takes while travelling.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 14 - 15 december 2002
Pablo had returned from his Patagonia trip with the Italian tourists. It was a success and he was really pleased with everything. It was his first time guiding as a tour guide, instead of as a nature guide. It was also with adult tourists, instead of children and educational groups that he was used to and it was guided entirely in Italian. Not the easiest job for there were also group dynamics to worry about and politics among the drivers and his assistant to handle. Well, the tourists loved what he had done for them and tipped him well. That was great!
He was also happy to see that Frida Baby which had been merely a bud when he left for the trip was now 12 inches long. I did not kill her.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 16 december 2002
Well, my stay in Buenos Aires would be coming to an end. I would start travelling again after Christmas. While here in Buenos Aires, I had been visiting bookshops to look for Lonely Planet guidebooks for Argentina and Chile.
I preferred LP because of the tiny maps. It was always easier to have a guideline of where to head off once outside the bus station.
But because of the economic crisis, no LP guidebooks appeared to be imported to Argentina anymore. In fact, even if I was not picky, there were hardly any proper guidebooks in English for South America.
In the end, I settled on an Argentina-Chile guidebook, printed in Spanish. It was not very good, but what could I do? I skimmed through it. Skipping those words I did not know, I more or less could still figure out what was written. I had to concentrate on every word though. It was not possible to speed-read it.
Back in Singapore, I had learnt the Spanish word ‘coger’ which means ‘to take’, ‘to catch’, ‘to grasp’, ‘to seize’, ‘to take hold of’. Innocent enough. Yet, somehow, the Latin Americans had twisted its meaning that it means ‘to f*#k’ here.
I had known this before and had simply not used this word. Pablo even forbade me to use ‘escoger’ which was ‘to choose’ for it sounded like ‘coger’. I had to choose another word for ‘to choose’.
So, it was to my greatest amusement to read the guidebook, printed innocently in Spain, and constantly spot ‘se puede coger un autobus para xxx’ [one can f*#k a bus towards xxx], ‘coged vuestros trajes de baño’ [f*#k your bathing suits], ‘coged la carretera xxx’ [f*#k the highway xxx].
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 17 december 2002
I went and bought an air-ticket to Ushuaia, leaving after Christmas. Gosh… how ARE air-tickets priced? I first asked for an air-ticket from Puerto Madryn (near Peninsula Valdez, which I wanted to go first from Buenos Aires) to Ushuaia. It would cost me 500+ Arg Pesos. But if I flew from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, with a stop-over in Puerto Madryn (which I could not get off), it would cost 300+ Arg Pesos. Longer distance for 200 Arg Pesos less.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 18 - 19 december 2002
I had my end-of-course test and I passed with flying colours… ahem!
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 20 december 2002
Today was the first-year anniversary of the history-changing events when the President of Argentina (a few of them consecutively, actually) resigned, when the Argentinian Peso plummeted, when Argentinians’ savings were robbed from them. Some people had literally dropped dead at the banks when told of the news. There had been massive demonstrations and violence on the streets, lootings, burning, beatings, killings…
A few days before, things had been a little tense around town, as many wondered if history would repeat itself this year. There were posters and graffiti telling people to hit the streets on 19 and 20 December to remember the events of last year. There were also rumours that there would be transportation strikes.
I was in Burger King when a march went by. Fearing the protesters might storm in to plunder the beef patties, lettuce and ketchup sachets, the security guards hastened to lock us in. But I wanted to go out and see the march. At the door, the guard stared at me and asked in an incredulous tone, “¿Querés salir???? [You want to leave????]” “Sí.”
Well, nothing bad happened that day. There were peaceful marches down by the Plaza de Mayo and probably, near the Palacio de Congreso to remember last year’s horrific event and to continue the ‘fight’.
Pablo and I headed to Jardín Japonés [Japanese Garden] in the evening, because Marcelo, the photographer whom I met last month, had informed me by email last week that his slide-show would be held ‘el viernes que viene’ [the coming Friday]. But to our disappointment, we could not locate anything.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 21 - 23 december 2002
I emailed to Marcelo to tell him that we went to the Jardín Japonés on Friday but could not find him. His nonchalant reply was, “Oh, what a shame. It was actually held on Thursday, not Friday.”
I did not know if I should laugh or cry. In a way, Pablo and I were very disappointed he gave me the wrong day and we did not get the chance to see the slide-show of his excellent photos.
But, on the other hand, this type of mix-up was so latino, if I may say so. Back in my country, I would have found it unforgiveable. But here, I just felt somewhat amused by it all.
Promises, appointments, plans were peppered vaguely with ‘Quizás’ [Perhaps], ‘Tal vez’ [Maybe], ‘Creo que si’ (I believe so), ‘No seguro' [Not sure], ‘No sé’ [I do not know], ‘Puede ser’ [Can be], ‘Nos vemos’ [We shall see each other…] and a personal favourite ‘Mañana’ [Tomorrow].
If they say they will call at 8pm, they mean about 2 hours after 8pm, if at all. If they say they want to do this thing today, they mean they want to do this thing… in this lifetime… or tomorrow, if it is possible… I learnt that this had been diagnosed by others before me as the Mañana syndrome.
Nothing is ever certain. Life remains a constant mystery. I have to get used to this but I like it… maybe… I think so…
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 24 december 2002
Over the past few days, from a Sunday lunch to a nephew’s birthday, I had slowly met the rest of Pablo’s wonderful family members.
It would be excellent to spend Christmas Eve with his nephews and niece.
I was surprised to learn that his youngest nephews still believed in Santa Claus. I myself cannot remember if I ever believed in Santa Claus. In Asian culture, or at least in my family, we just did not grow up with the Santa Claus myth, ever.
So, the rest of the family had to put up a ‘show’ for them tonight. OK, Tomás is two, practically a baby. So, I was looking forward to seeing Nicolás’ (who is six) reaction when Papa Noel arrive tonight. Between drinks and cakes, the boys ran around the house, chanting “¡Faltan 25 / 14 / 5 minutos!” [25 / 14 / 5 minutes left!]
We counted down to Christmas. Buenos Aires burst into life with fireworks all around. We distracted the children by taking them up to the roof to look at the fireworks and the stars. Meanwhile, the adults downstairs laid out the gifts and Pablo’s brother, Sergio transformed himself into Papa Noel.
Pablo got them to shout for Papa Noel over and over again up on the roof. Then, we spread rumours that Papa Noel was already here.
The children rushed downstairs to the living room excitedly. The lights were off. A very ugly Papa Noel stood next to the Christmas tree.
Gosh, I would never forget the look on Nicolás’ face as he gazed in amazement at Papa Noel. The perfect ‘O’-shape formed on his mouth. His eyes practically popped out and glowed in awe. He was hopping up and down in pure excitement. He was trying to see Papa Noel clearly. Yet, he dared not approach him.
A few quick words, ho-ho-ho… a show of the presents, Papa Noel waved goodbye and left. Nicolás tried to run after him, but some relative blocked his way. The lights came on and everyone pounced on the presents, searching for their names.
Oh, the precious look on Nicolás’ face will symbolise, to me, the magic that we still want to believe in life. How wonderful things (like presents) will continue to fall in our ways. How wishes and dreams will happen if we work towards them (like behaving yourself, for Papa Noel is watching). He is so sweet. What an angel!
To my surprise, there were presents for me too.
In the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, the pronunciation for ‘y’ and ‘ll’ was ‘y’ (or a soft ‘j’). So, ‘yo’ would be ‘yo’ (or ‘jo’) and ‘llave’ would be ‘ya-vey’ (or ‘ja-vey’).
In Argentina, I do not know why but they were pronounced as ‘sh’. So, ‘yo’ was ‘sho’ and ‘llave’ was ‘sha-vey’.
Imagine, I had to convert in my mind all the words with ‘y’ and ‘ll’ I learnt previously to what were used here in Buenos Aires. I had to mind-map everything when I listened to the Argentinians. And I would have to undo all these changes once I leave Argentina.
And so, my presents were addressed to ‘TRILLA’ - my Argentinian name.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 25 - 26 december 2002
I decided to stock up on books here for my coming three-month trip toggling between Argentina and Chile. I did not plan on going to Santiago, Chile. Hence, my chance of obtaining good English books later on in my trip in the nature reserves, national parks and Andean towns appeared to hover around ‘zero’.
I had mentioned that intellectual Buenos Aires is a bookstore paradise. The choice of good Spanish books was incredible. If I could read decent Spanish, I would have stuffed myself silly, swiftly devoured the books long ago. But I could not.
The choice of English books here was not too bad, frankly, compared to, say, Moscow. But one thing very obvious in the bookstores I found in Russia, Brazil and now, Argentina, was the sheer number of classics available.
Did the non-English-as-first-language population seriously think we read ‘Bleak House’ for leisure? The huge variety of classics (and extremely cheap too) on sale seemed to perpetuate a myth that we could quote Shakespeare in our everyday conversations (“Is this a butter knife I see before me? Come, let me clutch thee.”), boast of the entire Jane Austen collection on our shelves and know of the intimate details of 18th century country-living and ways and means to procure husbands for our daughters.
Just a thought, wouldn’t the poor dears be so discouraged from ever picking up an English book, if their first exposure to English books had been these classics?
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 27 december 2002
I bought a new camera today. Finally. On my last day in Buenos Aires too.
To be honest, for the past two weeks, I had been scouting around. I poked my nose into camera shops. I made inquiries. I lusted after lenses. I baulked at the prices. I kicked myself again. I turned to Buddha to remind myself ‘Craving causes suffering’. I readjusted the ‘STUPID’ sign on my forehead lest people should miss it. I made mental sums. I rolled my eyeballs. Yeah, the works.
I settled on a particular shop because Rodrigo, the salesman, had appeared to be helpful and trustworthy. However, Rodrigo, or his supplier as he would have me believed, suffered from the Mañana syndrome. So, mañana became ‘Sunday’ became mañana became ‘Christmas Eve’ became ‘Christmas Day’ became mañana became ‘my last day in Buenos Aires’.
When faced with the mañana man, one had to douse oneself with a generous spray of the ‘Qué sera sera’ [Whatever will be will be] attitude.
I had earned myself the ‘Most Frequent Visitor’ title that when the sale was finally executed, Rodrigo gave me a strong hug, kissed my cheek and made me promise to visit the shop with my photos when I returned to Buenos Aires in March. Then, he just had to reach over and give me another hug and plant another smacker on my cheek.
Well, sometimes one did not know what one might miss until one had left the place. I spent today wandering around my old haunts, lunching on a bife (beef-steak) which I had not had for a while, splurging on yet another helado (ice-cream) and taking stock of the idiosyncracies of Buenos Aires again.
Buenos Aires has been great. Truly a city that never sleeps. It has its dark sides and I had had a bad incident but Buenos Aires has really been wonderful. I truly love it here. I hope I had managed to convey the essence of Buenos Aires to the readers over these two months. There would be plenty of things I would miss, for sure.
Well, hasta luego, nos vemos… [Until later, we see each other…]
The street vendors and buskers have been back along Calles Florida and Lavalle for the past week now. I am not sure if the police had lifted the ‘ban’ (which lasted a whopping 10 days or so) or the vendors just kept coming back that the police had given up trying to fight them.
I also saw children 8 to 10 years old, trying to play accordions for pesos. The poor dears, they had barely mastered the instruments and now they were most likely sent to the streets by their parents to make a living.
At many traffic junctions, one could see jugglers, clowns or performers who twirled a stick with two sticks. They would rush to the front of traffic at each red-light and perform their routines. Then, the guys went around to collect some change from the drivers before they drove off. Again, it pained me to see children jugglers.
The Argentinian government had introduced two new ‘currencies’ since the crisis - the patacones and lecops. One could see some shops stating that they accepted patacones and lecops, while others claimed they did not accept patacones and lecops.
These ‘currencies’ looked like Monopoly play-money. People would earn their salary in combinations of pesos, patacones and lecops. These are paper-money printed for the sake of increasing circulation without having real Arg Pesos. However, only certain shops accept patacones and lecops and these currencies exist only in Buenos Aires. One could not spend them in other parts of Argentina.
Frida baby had grown to a whooping 10.5 inches long and seemed to be holding for now.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 08 december 2002
I had met an Australian girl briefly in Mexico in 2000. Carolyn was then on a RTW trip for about a year. She had returned to Australia to work for a few months and was now on another long trip of about eight months. To my surprise, she had written that she was coming to Buenos Aires with her friend, Lydia!
They arrived last night and we arranged to meet today. Imagine, we had kept in touch via email since we first met very briefly in Mexico and now we were meeting each other again, not in HER city not in MY city but in ANOTHER city on the other side of the globe, again! It was incredible.
Lydia, Carolyn and I clicked immediately. Lydia had just started on her one-year RTW trip too. The three of us had many things in common, our frequencies were exactly the same, we could not stop talking and sharing our experiences. They were both well-travelled and had tons of stories to share. We were laughing all the time.
It would had been a wonderful, perfect day had it not been spoiled later by a robbery.
First, we noticed a smell. Lydia felt her hair and out came a gooey, oily stuff with a horrible stench. I checked my bag. It was similarly stained with that gross stuff. Lydia figured someone threw something out of the window. I set my bag down to clean it. Carolyn had that stuff trickling down her back.
Two women were nearby and appeared to be similarly stained. They came over, asking if we had paper or water. Naturally, we opened our bags to retrieve them for the women. Soon, they got us checking their backs and one women stood between me and my bag and started wiping my back.
Then, they were gone. I looked at my bag. It was open and I was now missing my camera!
AARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! This was the famous stain-and-distract trick! We had all heard about it. We had all been warned about it. Carolyn had had been stained once in her trip and she was quick enough then to disengage herself from the culprits. We were all relatively experienced travellers. Because we were in a group, we felt secure, we felt that we could watch one another’s back. So, when it happened to us, we were all fooled blind. We were SO STUPID!!!
I could not stop kicking myself. I could not believe it all happened so fast. We could not even remember how the women looked like. I felt suspicious that she was so agitated about wiping my back and getting me to check Carolyn’s head. Yet, it just did not occur to me to shove her out of my way between me and my bag.
I want to believe in the goodness and kindness of people. I hate to travel and live a life, forever suspicious of everyone and cyncical and sceptical about everything. But the truth is… some people are just not nice.
Oh, I LOVE my camera! I L-O-V-E IT! It had brought me so much joy on this trip. I learnt to express myself with it. I could not accept that it was now gone. People would say, it is just a camera, you can replace it. Sure, that will come later…
I realise now I have to live with my stupidity forever.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 09 december 2002
I did not sleep a wink last night. Sometimes, when people complained that they did not sleep a wink last night, they actually fell asleep by 4am or so. But, I DID NOT SLEEP a wink last night. I tossed and turned, I thought and wept the entire night. I looked up and it was morning, time to go to school.
I had not come to terms with my loss yet. I know I still felt horrible most likely because I could not forgive myself.
If it had been an attack-and-grab robbery, it would have been easier to forgive myself for it was not my fault. For sure, there was a high chance of being hurt but it would have been easier to forgive myself. But this was just O-U-R fault.
I met up with Lydia and Carolyn after class. They too did not sleep well last night, replaying the scene in their heads over and over again. We were still thoroughly devastated.
We could wallow in grief forever but we tried not to. We had to do something to distract ourselves. We visited the grand Teatro Colón which was rather interesting, with its multi-level basements of costumes, head-gears, props and shoes and even a replica of the stage for rehearsal, below Avenida 9 de Julio.
Avenida 9 de Julio is reputedly the ‘widest avenue in the world’. The landmark of Buenos Aires, the Obelisk, is in the middle of this avenue.
For several evenings the past week, I had set my camera (back when I used to own a camera) on my tripod, in the middle of the sixteen lanes of traffic, on a tiny island, trying to capture night shots with the Obelisk in the background, and the streaks of yellow and red lights by the sides and hopefully, the perfect orange across the evening sky.
Ah, those were the good old days when I had a camera… A-R-G-H!!!!
We headed to El Ateneo, a bookshop in Avenida Santa Fe which is a fully restored, converted theatre. It is elegant, exquisite and looks very, very grand. Everyone should check this bookshop out when in Buenos Aires. We sat in the café which was at the ‘stage’ area and had all the spotlights shining on our pallid faces. We simply stayed there and chatted for hours. To me, there would always be hidden gems in Buenos Aires like this, slowly to be uncovered.
That evening, over parilla a la carbon [barbecued meat], we more or less managed to hold a conversation in Spanish with a guy from the next table. Horacio actually asked if I was the translator for Carolyn and Lydia.
Whoa… first, people mistook me for the Chinese translator for Jane when we were in China. And now, even with my wonky-tonky Spanish, I was again mistaken for the translator. I guess since I looked different from the usual Western tourists, the locals just found it difficult to classify me.
Horacio is from Ushuaia or thereabouts. He offered to show me around when I get there after Christmas. Great. I mentioned that Carolyn and Lydia had just arrived from Ushuaia. His eyes lit up.
Carolyn had had some weeks of Spanish lessons in Guatemala under her belt. When asked which was her favourite place down south in Tierra del Fuego, she turned to me at once, uncertainly, “What’s… ‘we went’?” “Fuimos” I replied. Right, she explained she always used ‘I’ since she usually travelled alone, and now, ‘we’ was a problem. She turned back to Horacio and began her long, stuttering tedious hike of an answer, using the pronoun ‘we’.
I glanced around and noticed an amused old man, giggling at our struggles with conjugation and past tense. Horacio wiped tears from his eyes as he tried to stifle his laughter.
We, the tourists,
pledge to provide
entertainment
and constant merriment
to the bemused locals
so as to achieve happiness
and progress
in human communications.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 10 - 12 december 2002
I would be joking to say that I got over the incident easily. It took me days and many sleepless nights. I plunged into a state of depression that surprised even me. I wanted to throw myself in front of traffic. I would burst into tears suddenly while on the bus, in the middle of a queue at the supermarket or cooking dinner. Despite my allergy to alcohol, I took to drinking wine to get myself to sleep.
I visited Mr Huang, my acupuncturist and told him about the incident and the sleepless nights. Yes, I had gotten that settled in Buenos Aires that I had been frequenting a Chinese acupuncturist for my back problem. He stuck needles at two new spots. I barely made it home before throwing myself onto the bed and snoozing 5 hours straight that afternoon.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 13 december 2002
I passed by CITIBANK along Avenida Corrientes today. It was shuttered up and smeared senseless with graffiti. Protesters were banging the metallic shutters and nearby lamp-posts with kitchen utensils. They were chanting and yelling.
OK, ‘me robaron’ [They robbed me] vs ‘Argentina robaron’ [They robbed Argentina]. Seeing this, I realised my grieving period had come to an end.
It was time to look at the silver lining. I REALLY ought to be glad it was a stain-and-distract robbery and not an attack-and-grab robbery. Now, I just walked around with the sign ‘STUPID’ on my forehead, instead of a 3-inch scar (always assuming I could still walk).
I REALLY ought to be glad they just took the camera and left my bag. Otherwise, my journal and my little book of contacts and scribbles which I had earned along the way, including addresses written in Krygzy, Uyghur, Mongolian and Russian would be gone too. And thos TREASURED notes would be irreplaceable.
I recalled Goretti (whom I travelled with in Mongolia) who had had her entire bag stolen at the Ulaan Baator train station. I remembered Ben (whom I travelled with briefly in Russia) who had had his camera relieved from his bag when he went to the toilet and had left the bag on the bus in Nepal. Yeah, it would be great if this sort of things do not happen but they do… sometimes. That is the risk one takes while travelling.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 14 - 15 december 2002
Pablo had returned from his Patagonia trip with the Italian tourists. It was a success and he was really pleased with everything. It was his first time guiding as a tour guide, instead of as a nature guide. It was also with adult tourists, instead of children and educational groups that he was used to and it was guided entirely in Italian. Not the easiest job for there were also group dynamics to worry about and politics among the drivers and his assistant to handle. Well, the tourists loved what he had done for them and tipped him well. That was great!
He was also happy to see that Frida Baby which had been merely a bud when he left for the trip was now 12 inches long. I did not kill her.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 16 december 2002
Well, my stay in Buenos Aires would be coming to an end. I would start travelling again after Christmas. While here in Buenos Aires, I had been visiting bookshops to look for Lonely Planet guidebooks for Argentina and Chile.
I preferred LP because of the tiny maps. It was always easier to have a guideline of where to head off once outside the bus station.
But because of the economic crisis, no LP guidebooks appeared to be imported to Argentina anymore. In fact, even if I was not picky, there were hardly any proper guidebooks in English for South America.
In the end, I settled on an Argentina-Chile guidebook, printed in Spanish. It was not very good, but what could I do? I skimmed through it. Skipping those words I did not know, I more or less could still figure out what was written. I had to concentrate on every word though. It was not possible to speed-read it.
Back in Singapore, I had learnt the Spanish word ‘coger’ which means ‘to take’, ‘to catch’, ‘to grasp’, ‘to seize’, ‘to take hold of’. Innocent enough. Yet, somehow, the Latin Americans had twisted its meaning that it means ‘to f*#k’ here.
I had known this before and had simply not used this word. Pablo even forbade me to use ‘escoger’ which was ‘to choose’ for it sounded like ‘coger’. I had to choose another word for ‘to choose’.
So, it was to my greatest amusement to read the guidebook, printed innocently in Spain, and constantly spot ‘se puede coger un autobus para xxx’ [one can f*#k a bus towards xxx], ‘coged vuestros trajes de baño’ [f*#k your bathing suits], ‘coged la carretera xxx’ [f*#k the highway xxx].
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 17 december 2002
I went and bought an air-ticket to Ushuaia, leaving after Christmas. Gosh… how ARE air-tickets priced? I first asked for an air-ticket from Puerto Madryn (near Peninsula Valdez, which I wanted to go first from Buenos Aires) to Ushuaia. It would cost me 500+ Arg Pesos. But if I flew from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, with a stop-over in Puerto Madryn (which I could not get off), it would cost 300+ Arg Pesos. Longer distance for 200 Arg Pesos less.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 18 - 19 december 2002
I had my end-of-course test and I passed with flying colours… ahem!
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 20 december 2002
Today was the first-year anniversary of the history-changing events when the President of Argentina (a few of them consecutively, actually) resigned, when the Argentinian Peso plummeted, when Argentinians’ savings were robbed from them. Some people had literally dropped dead at the banks when told of the news. There had been massive demonstrations and violence on the streets, lootings, burning, beatings, killings…
A few days before, things had been a little tense around town, as many wondered if history would repeat itself this year. There were posters and graffiti telling people to hit the streets on 19 and 20 December to remember the events of last year. There were also rumours that there would be transportation strikes.
I was in Burger King when a march went by. Fearing the protesters might storm in to plunder the beef patties, lettuce and ketchup sachets, the security guards hastened to lock us in. But I wanted to go out and see the march. At the door, the guard stared at me and asked in an incredulous tone, “¿Querés salir???? [You want to leave????]” “Sí.”
Well, nothing bad happened that day. There were peaceful marches down by the Plaza de Mayo and probably, near the Palacio de Congreso to remember last year’s horrific event and to continue the ‘fight’.
Pablo and I headed to Jardín Japonés [Japanese Garden] in the evening, because Marcelo, the photographer whom I met last month, had informed me by email last week that his slide-show would be held ‘el viernes que viene’ [the coming Friday]. But to our disappointment, we could not locate anything.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 21 - 23 december 2002
I emailed to Marcelo to tell him that we went to the Jardín Japonés on Friday but could not find him. His nonchalant reply was, “Oh, what a shame. It was actually held on Thursday, not Friday.”
I did not know if I should laugh or cry. In a way, Pablo and I were very disappointed he gave me the wrong day and we did not get the chance to see the slide-show of his excellent photos.
But, on the other hand, this type of mix-up was so latino, if I may say so. Back in my country, I would have found it unforgiveable. But here, I just felt somewhat amused by it all.
Promises, appointments, plans were peppered vaguely with ‘Quizás’ [Perhaps], ‘Tal vez’ [Maybe], ‘Creo que si’ (I believe so), ‘No seguro' [Not sure], ‘No sé’ [I do not know], ‘Puede ser’ [Can be], ‘Nos vemos’ [We shall see each other…] and a personal favourite ‘Mañana’ [Tomorrow].
If they say they will call at 8pm, they mean about 2 hours after 8pm, if at all. If they say they want to do this thing today, they mean they want to do this thing… in this lifetime… or tomorrow, if it is possible… I learnt that this had been diagnosed by others before me as the Mañana syndrome.
Nothing is ever certain. Life remains a constant mystery. I have to get used to this but I like it… maybe… I think so…
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 24 december 2002
Over the past few days, from a Sunday lunch to a nephew’s birthday, I had slowly met the rest of Pablo’s wonderful family members.
It would be excellent to spend Christmas Eve with his nephews and niece.
I was surprised to learn that his youngest nephews still believed in Santa Claus. I myself cannot remember if I ever believed in Santa Claus. In Asian culture, or at least in my family, we just did not grow up with the Santa Claus myth, ever.
So, the rest of the family had to put up a ‘show’ for them tonight. OK, Tomás is two, practically a baby. So, I was looking forward to seeing Nicolás’ (who is six) reaction when Papa Noel arrive tonight. Between drinks and cakes, the boys ran around the house, chanting “¡Faltan 25 / 14 / 5 minutos!” [25 / 14 / 5 minutes left!]
We counted down to Christmas. Buenos Aires burst into life with fireworks all around. We distracted the children by taking them up to the roof to look at the fireworks and the stars. Meanwhile, the adults downstairs laid out the gifts and Pablo’s brother, Sergio transformed himself into Papa Noel.
Pablo got them to shout for Papa Noel over and over again up on the roof. Then, we spread rumours that Papa Noel was already here.
The children rushed downstairs to the living room excitedly. The lights were off. A very ugly Papa Noel stood next to the Christmas tree.
Gosh, I would never forget the look on Nicolás’ face as he gazed in amazement at Papa Noel. The perfect ‘O’-shape formed on his mouth. His eyes practically popped out and glowed in awe. He was hopping up and down in pure excitement. He was trying to see Papa Noel clearly. Yet, he dared not approach him.
A few quick words, ho-ho-ho… a show of the presents, Papa Noel waved goodbye and left. Nicolás tried to run after him, but some relative blocked his way. The lights came on and everyone pounced on the presents, searching for their names.
Oh, the precious look on Nicolás’ face will symbolise, to me, the magic that we still want to believe in life. How wonderful things (like presents) will continue to fall in our ways. How wishes and dreams will happen if we work towards them (like behaving yourself, for Papa Noel is watching). He is so sweet. What an angel!
To my surprise, there were presents for me too.
In the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, the pronunciation for ‘y’ and ‘ll’ was ‘y’ (or a soft ‘j’). So, ‘yo’ would be ‘yo’ (or ‘jo’) and ‘llave’ would be ‘ya-vey’ (or ‘ja-vey’).
In Argentina, I do not know why but they were pronounced as ‘sh’. So, ‘yo’ was ‘sho’ and ‘llave’ was ‘sha-vey’.
Imagine, I had to convert in my mind all the words with ‘y’ and ‘ll’ I learnt previously to what were used here in Buenos Aires. I had to mind-map everything when I listened to the Argentinians. And I would have to undo all these changes once I leave Argentina.
And so, my presents were addressed to ‘TRILLA’ - my Argentinian name.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 25 - 26 december 2002
I decided to stock up on books here for my coming three-month trip toggling between Argentina and Chile. I did not plan on going to Santiago, Chile. Hence, my chance of obtaining good English books later on in my trip in the nature reserves, national parks and Andean towns appeared to hover around ‘zero’.
I had mentioned that intellectual Buenos Aires is a bookstore paradise. The choice of good Spanish books was incredible. If I could read decent Spanish, I would have stuffed myself silly, swiftly devoured the books long ago. But I could not.
The choice of English books here was not too bad, frankly, compared to, say, Moscow. But one thing very obvious in the bookstores I found in Russia, Brazil and now, Argentina, was the sheer number of classics available.
Did the non-English-as-first-language population seriously think we read ‘Bleak House’ for leisure? The huge variety of classics (and extremely cheap too) on sale seemed to perpetuate a myth that we could quote Shakespeare in our everyday conversations (“Is this a butter knife I see before me? Come, let me clutch thee.”), boast of the entire Jane Austen collection on our shelves and know of the intimate details of 18th century country-living and ways and means to procure husbands for our daughters.
Just a thought, wouldn’t the poor dears be so discouraged from ever picking up an English book, if their first exposure to English books had been these classics?
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 27 december 2002
I bought a new camera today. Finally. On my last day in Buenos Aires too.
To be honest, for the past two weeks, I had been scouting around. I poked my nose into camera shops. I made inquiries. I lusted after lenses. I baulked at the prices. I kicked myself again. I turned to Buddha to remind myself ‘Craving causes suffering’. I readjusted the ‘STUPID’ sign on my forehead lest people should miss it. I made mental sums. I rolled my eyeballs. Yeah, the works.
I settled on a particular shop because Rodrigo, the salesman, had appeared to be helpful and trustworthy. However, Rodrigo, or his supplier as he would have me believed, suffered from the Mañana syndrome. So, mañana became ‘Sunday’ became mañana became ‘Christmas Eve’ became ‘Christmas Day’ became mañana became ‘my last day in Buenos Aires’.
When faced with the mañana man, one had to douse oneself with a generous spray of the ‘Qué sera sera’ [Whatever will be will be] attitude.
I had earned myself the ‘Most Frequent Visitor’ title that when the sale was finally executed, Rodrigo gave me a strong hug, kissed my cheek and made me promise to visit the shop with my photos when I returned to Buenos Aires in March. Then, he just had to reach over and give me another hug and plant another smacker on my cheek.
Well, sometimes one did not know what one might miss until one had left the place. I spent today wandering around my old haunts, lunching on a bife (beef-steak) which I had not had for a while, splurging on yet another helado (ice-cream) and taking stock of the idiosyncracies of Buenos Aires again.
Buenos Aires has been great. Truly a city that never sleeps. It has its dark sides and I had had a bad incident but Buenos Aires has really been wonderful. I truly love it here. I hope I had managed to convey the essence of Buenos Aires to the readers over these two months. There would be plenty of things I would miss, for sure.
Well, hasta luego, nos vemos… [Until later, we see each other…]
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
18 - Much Ado About Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires)
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA – 11 - 13 november 2002
Every other day, there appeared to be street protests and demonstrations somewhere. Occasionally, after my classes, I would stumble upon a group waving flags, shouting into loud-hailers and preparing to march down the streets. Some groups drew messages on the ground or pinned up notices on the walls, lambasting the government and the president. Others made lots of noise with brass bands and drums. The police would always be lined up nearby, in their bullet-proof vests, ready and waiting.
The street-wares for sale on Calle Florida which I had noted when I first arrived in Buenos Aires had also been disallowed recently. These people were trying their utmost to earn just that little more money selling something but no… they could not do that anymore. As expected, the street vendors protested against this issue too.
But the worst must be the news that in Tucuman province, there were children who had died of starvation because of the economic crisis and possibly, corruption. Gosh, this was horrible news! From the news on TV, I saw many protesters confronting the officials and the president outside government buildings and screaming, “Have you read the papers today? HAVE YOU?!!?!!!”
I bought ‘Clarin’, an Argentinian newspaper, hoping to understand more about the politics and economics situations in Argentina. I nearly dissolved in tears. I was checking the dictionary after every two words. Pablo told me to stop, for I would be discouraged from reading anything Spanish in the future. Even HE did not understand the politics and economics of Argentina.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 14 november 2002
I donned my tourist garb, grabbed my camera and headed out to San Telmo and La Boca today. The sun was brilliant; the sky, a perfect blue.
I made my way slowly along Calle La Defensa in the San Telmo region. This place has charming old buildings with wooden doors and iron balconies, and some streets remain cobbled-stoned. This is a traditional corner of Buenos Aires, peppered with many of those lovely, traditional bar-cafés I had written about. There are also numerous antique shops selling all sorts of, well, antiques - old record players, Baroque-style furniture, vases, discoloured posters of Che Guevara, Eva Perón and the likes, glass-wares and crystals, terribly kitsch plastic toys, ancient books and mate cups, etc… Kitschy but charming.
I spotted two decorative statues, the size of my hands, to be placed, preferably, on a piano or mantlepiece. What of them, you ask? They were the heads of two chimpanzees, one male, one female and dressed like what the costume designer had in mind for Glenn Close and John Malkovich in ‘The Age of Innocence’. Yes, they had white wigs and powdered faces. The female chimpanzee even had a tiny heart painted on her cheek. Like, W-H-O would BUY these?
Outside one house, I saw the owner had artistically-bent spoons and forks and other metallic kitchen wares as his window grilles. I was taking a photo of it when a boy and a girl appeared in my frame. They peered out of the window at me curiously. We chatted. Well, I could only ask them for their names and ages while they chatted on and on to me… Argh, I really kicked myself. I had no idea what the sweet dears were talking about. Like all children, they did not understand why someone else could not speak their language and prattled on innocently. They were beautiful. I love them!
Along one of the roads nearing La Boca, there were colourfully-painted caricature-dummies looking out of fake windows of fake houses. The walls by the side of the road were also painted with the legendary (to me, I would put inverted commas on) ‘heroes’ of Argentina like a very stocky Maradona.
Then, when I arrived at La Boca, I realised the stretch around the famous Caminito was similarly decorated with such caricature-dummies, including more ‘heroes’ like Juan and Eva Perón and Maradona waving down from a balcony.
La Boca is at the south of Buenos Aires, next to the smelly river Riachuela. It had gloriously colourful wooden buildings. I understood from Pablo that the reason the buildings were so colourful was because this region was previously populated by sailors who had to paint boats. And what did they do with the left-over paint? They painted their houses with them.
The fire department of La Boca was also rather famous because of the frequent fires here due to the wooden houses. In fact, a cluster of houses had been burnt down perhaps a week or so earlier.
This place was quite a tourist playground. There were many souvenir stalls and shops. There were expensive cafés and restaurants. And there were cut-out boards where one could place one’s face against the hole and pretend to be playing football with, yes, again… Maradona or doing a sensual tango with a babe they would NEVER get the chance to do so in real life. Argentine kitsch. But a pretty place to take photos if the sun is right.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 15 - 16 november 2002
I was informed that the Recoleta area is the place where the rich and shameless hang out. True, the streets were lined with very, very fashionable international branded shops like Christian Dior, Armani, etc… and chic, fancy clubs and restaurants. Shiny and posh, well-coiffed and immaculately-dressed porteños walked around with… well, scowls on their faces.
The Recoleta Cemetery is unexpectedly delightful. I came to Argentina without a guidebook, so in a way, I was quite clueless about what to visit in Buenos Aires. I merely flipped through some guide-books from bookstores about places to check out in Buenos Aires and the Recoleta Cemetery was mentioned.
The coffins were not buried in the ground. The families of the departed constructed little mausoleums to hold the coffins, sometimes the mausoleums were constructed for a couple; others seemed to be for the entire family. As a result, the entire cemetery was lined with little mausoleums and not gravestones. It felt a little like walking down narrow streets with small houses by the side.
Some of the mausoleums were more elaborately done up than others. They had sculptures, gigantic crucifixes, plaques denoting the life history of the dead, intricate wrought-iron grilles… Others were a little run-down with broken glass, cobwebbed gate, dusty windows. It was one incredibly surreal cemetery, well worth the visit.
There was a park in front of the cemetery with a weekend fair. I spotted a sign from a Tarot-card reader – ‘ENGLISH SPOKEN’. Hmmm… I had never had my fortune read. I had been a little curious about Tarot cards. Oh well, yes… if not here, where? If not now, when?
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 17 november 2002
My school had organised a gathering to attend a ‘Tango y Poesia’ [Tango and Poetry] performance by an actress and a guitarist in Bar Seddon today. Bar Seddon is located in San Telmo.
I asked Pablo to join me. To my surprise, he had never attended such a tango-cum-guitar session in a traditional bar-café before. Naturally, I could not understand a word. Pablo told me too many Argentine slangs were used. He would not even try to explain them to me. So, I just sat there and enjoyed the performance.
The actress was seated on a bar-stool and she either read the poetry or she sang the songs. My goodness, from such an immobile position, I was utterly floored by the range of emotions and expressions she was able to convey. Her deep melodious voice trembled at the emotional bits or soared like a bird at the happy bits. Her clenched fists shook with anger or her fluid hands flowed with grace. Her performance was stunning, captivating. The guitarist was terrific. The nostalgic ambience in the bar was another strong factor. What an excellent way to experience a unique culture of Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 18 - 20 november 2002
I had previously mentioned about dulce de leche but I feared I did not grant it enough print space.
I do not know if I suddenly turned into a pastry-and-pie person recently but no place within a city could, well… now at least, stop me dead in my tracks than the confiterias [confectionaries] of Buenos Aires.
I racked my brain for confectionaries in China (forget about Mongolia), Europe and Brazil… Hmmm… not many mouth-watering memories surfaced.
I recalled the Chinese baked huge tiered cakes and then, creamed it entirely with white, pastel-pink, lilac and sky-blue colours, wedding-cake style, that just grossed me out. In Europe, yes, in Austria, there were many charming confectionaries with pretty little cakes but nothing earth-shattering. In Brazil, I apologize, I was checking out other yummy stuff like tanned, bare-chested men.
But here in Buenos Aires, my goodness… I would stop suddenly and stare at the assortments of sweets, cakes, pies, pastries, alfajores (typically Argentine, shaped like a yo-yo with dulce de leche in the middle of two cake-biscuit thingies), cookies, chocolates, etc… laid out at the window displays to tempt us mere mortals. Sometimes, people behind me would crash right into me when I stopped. I would examine the cakes from different angles, tilting my head as perverts do when studying the pictures from Playboy magazines. I would check out the windows on the other side, lest I missed out some yummy pastries. I would pretend to be buying and enter the store for a quick up-close-and-personal browse. And dulce de leche was almost always prominently featured in these goodies. I must think of ways to import dulce de leche back to my country.
Speaking of ‘import’, I had written some post-cards, slotted them into envelopes and attempted to buy stamps for them. To my horrors, the price of each stamp was 5.25 Arg Pesos, that was about US$1.50. For something less than 20 grams, it was US$1.50?? It was incredibly expensive! I now understood why Sheena, this lady I met in Pantanal, told me she crossed over to Paraguay in order to post things she bought from Argentina home. If I had a package of 2 kg, would it cost more than US$150? Gosh, I sent a box weighing more than 2 kg from Brazil and it cost me merely US$15. I refused to send my post-cards. How could the Argentinians afford to send ANYTHING out of the country? My hope for importing dulce de leche dimmed.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 21 november 2002
Francisca brought me to experience another Buenos Aires high today.
I supposed, with cattle as the main industry here, cattle-related products like bife and dulce de leche (translated as ‘sweet from milk’) would be cheap and excellent. The other amazing ‘sweet from milk’ would be ice-cream, wouldn’t it? And as you know, I have always been an aficionada of ice-cream.
The city is strewn with brightly-lit heladerias [ice-cream parlours]. We went to a very posh heladeria in a very posh corner of Buenos Aires. The very posh price of the cone of ice-cream was 7 Arg Pesos. Gulp! Francisca insisted it was her treat, paid with her mom’s money.
As the master ice-cream scooper piled on the second scoop of ice-cream of the flavour dulce de leche (but of course), he turned the ice-cream cone upside-down and proceeded to elongate the ice-cream. It was of such rich, thick texture, the ice-cream would not flop down and die. It merely extended in length. Then, Master-Ice-Cream-Scooper dipped the ice-cream cone into liquid chocolate and placed the cone in a freezer for a few seconds to harden the chocolate.
We were now looking at the tallest ice-cream cone I had ever laid my eyes on, all of 1-metre high. We wielded it like it was the light sabre. As we proceeded to eat it, WE stopped traffic as five-year-olds just back from nursery schools stopped and gaped in awe. I offered them a bite but their mothers declined and hurried them along. They left but their eyes remained fixed on our posh ice-cream cone.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 22 - 24 november 2002
Pablo had to go to Patagonia on 24 November for three weeks, guiding a group of Italians. The past two weeks he had stressed himself out, revising his Italian, learning all the biological terms in Italian, trying to find out information about the trip which the company he worked for did not even know themselves.
Three days before his trip, he was then informed he would be going to Trelew by bus one day before the Italians arrived to sort things out with the drivers. Suddenly, he was told he would be doing the cooking for some of the days. He had to go shopping with the boss’s mom for groceries, by the way.
Then, the company informed him maybe he ought to find out about restaurants along the main routes of Patagonia to see if the group would be able to arrive there by meal-times. And ooops, the company had booked the hotels and restaurants for the wrong dates, they had booked one day in advance for the entire three-week trip.
Pablo was frustrated, jumpy, tense and very, very stressed out. But what could he do? In a country with so much unemployment now, everyone had looked at him with envy of having a job.
I would be apartment-sitting for him for the next three weeks. Remember to water the plants everyday.
The last plant I had, ten years ago, was a little cactus, reputedly the most resilient plant in the world. I probably killed it within weeks of procuring it. But I was so numb-skulled I did not realise it until months later when I touched it and it keeled over, revealing just an empty shell. The entire succulent insides had died out long ago. I thereby promised myself never to be in charge of the lives of another living thing… until now.
I had named one of the plants ‘Frida’. No, I was not cashing on the fame of the current movie by Salma Hayek. I love Frida Kahlo’s works. The plant looked radiant at the top but had some tortured-looking leaves at the bottom. So, it reminded me of how Frida Kahlo was radiant on the outside but tortured with pain on the inside.
On 20 November, Frida had sprouted a new bud. By 24 November, Frida Baby was 2.5 inches long.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 25 - 27 november 2002
A quick observation about the mental health of the Buenos Aires inhabitants. Apparently, it is really popular here to visit psychologists. Nearly everyone, especially those from the middle and upper classes, visits psychologists. They even send their children to such sessions. It is so common in Buenos Aires that there is absolutely no stigma with regards to this issue.
A classmate of mine has a psychologist girl-friend and her young patients’ mood-swings were like yo-yos. They could be partying one moment and then, 2 hours later, would call up my friend’s girlfriend, crying their eyes out, feeling utterly depressed. They were really reliant on her.
Francisca told me her friend visited one three times a week. She is just 21 years old. Gosh, I wonder what sort of problems she has? I suspect boy-girl relationships, friendships, insecurity, jealousy, etc… Stuff we used to solve by ourselves and grow up in the meantime.
Of course, in some cases, there are people who really needed help or at least, the sessions could help to improve self-awareness but, to me, the psychologist mania sounded a little excessive.
Frida baby was 4.5 inches long now.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 28 november 2002
I was having my lunch in a Chinese Restaurant in the ‘Chinatown’ of Buenos Aires in Belgrano. A toddler veered near to check me out. I made monkey faces at her. The guy sitting behind me, made goo-goo noises too and he greeted her, “Ni Hao Ma? [How are you? -- in Mandarin]”
I turned to look at him curiously. He was Argentinian, not Chinese. Then, I spotted some photographs on the table which his friend was looking through. I gasped at the photos. They were gorgeous! And they looked strangely familiar too.
I asked him, in Spanish, ha ha, where they were taken. He said the ones I pointed to were taken in the western part of China, near Tibet.
“Langmusi?” I ventured. His eyes lit up, “Yes! Langmusi!!”
Oh my goodness!!! Imagine, meeting another person here in Argentina who had been to the obscure Tibetan town of Langmusi in China, where my best memories of China were from! The guy is Marcelo, he is a photographer and had been in Asia for one year on assignment.
As I went through the stack of photographs, I realised he had been to South East Asia, India, Nepal, China and Mongolia!! His photographs of China and Mongolia were especially precious to me for I had seen somewhat the same things. They were artfully captured with amazing spontaneity, skill and mood.
Marcelo pointed out one photo which was the niece of Leisha, of ‘Leisha’s Café’ fame in Langmusi. I had previously mentioned her in my article. Yes, she was the one who churned out apple pies and yak burgers. I nearly fainted with delight.
Marcelo’s photographs would appear in a magazine (free too!) in the middle of next month and he would also have a slide-show presentation soon. Pablo had been to India and Nepal as well and had loved those countries intensely. We would be delighted to see his presentation. I obtained his contact eagerly and promised to write him for more details. ¡Qué suerte! [Such luck!]
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 29 november 2002 - 03 december 2002
Professional dog walkers. I am not sure if they exist in such abundance in other countries but here in Buenos Aires, everyday, I saw at least one such dog-walker. People who did not have time to walk their dogs would enlist such a professional. The guy could have up to twelve huge dogs tied to his waist as he careened down the streets. Quite a sight!
With the dogs, came the poo on the streets. No, they did not clean up after their dogs.
While Buenos Aires has enchanting cupolas at the top of some corner blocks, I do not suggest you stare skywards when you walk. Watch out for the poo.
Frida baby was 6.5 inches long. I was really proud of her!
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 04 december 2002
On one of the evenings when Pablo was still in town, we had gone to watch the movie ‘Kamchatka’. It was an Argentinian movie about the military repression period in the late 1970s.
My Spanish was terrible then, so half the time, I had no idea what exactly was exchanged between the characters. But the story was about a family who had to hide in the countryside after the colleagues of the father, a university lecturer, were kidnapped by the military. Then, finally, when all hope was lost, the father and the mother left the kids with the grandparents and they drove away, never to be seen again.
The horrific actions from the military were never spelled out in the movie. They were hinted at, suggested and implied. The movie was very intellectually, tastefully and subtly done, in that sense. However, to someone not familiar with this dark period in the history of South America, the impact might be lost. This, respectfully, was my humble two-cents’ worth.
After the movie, tears had streamed down Pablo’s face. He was between four and ten years at that time. It was the age of ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’. Yet, no one could explain why he could not do this, why he could not do that. Everything was hush-hush, lest there were spies.
The movie reminded him so much of his childhood, right down to the bag the boy was carrying and the sunglasses worn by the mother. Like the movie, there were suggestions at one point, to change their names and they also had a command that when uttered, all had to abandon everything and run out of the house to escape. It was a frightening and very dark period.
Pablo explained as much as he could about that period to me. I turned things over in my head. While my heart was heavy, my eyes had remained dry.
Today, tears flowed freely down my cheeks. By chance, I had strolled to Plaza de Mayo in the afternoon.
The square had painted white headscarves on the ground. The headscarves symbolised the mothers of that period, who had had their children kidnapped and who were left, asking ‘Why?’, ‘What happened?’, ‘Where are they?’
Today, in front of the government building ‘Casa Rosada’ [Pink House], police in full gear, including shields, were lining up and waiting for action.
25 years had passed. Nothing was forgotten. The square was lined with black-and-white photographs of the disappeareds. The parents, grandparents and even children of the disappeareds had prepared posters to commemorate their loved ones. Posters with the songs and poetry composed by them during their teenage years, the last letters written to their mothers or sisters, photographs of their first toddle, their 15th birthday, their wedding.
I circled the square several times and read the touching posters. My Spanish was more or less alright for reading. I recalled Pablo’s words and the movie. I blinked and tears streamed down.
The words ‘DETENIDA’ [detained], ‘SECUESTRADO’ [kidnapped], ‘DESPARECIDO’ [disappeared], ‘ASESINADO’ [murdered] screamed at me. The charming, good-looking faces of these people my age smiled back at me.
30,000 disappeared. Ariel Horacio Gabriel Roman Franco Manuel Adriana Omar Ernesto Álvaro Gustavo Eduardo Carlos Susana Norberto Hector Fernando Roberto Antonio Luis Graciela Stella Mario José Gisela Julio Nora Claudio Elena Alejandra Beatriz Teresa Samuel Rubén Nestor Nina Maria Rodolfo Ricardo Claudia Clara Juan Daniel Pablo Alicia Laura Jorge Rosalba Agustina Alejandro Cecilia Laura Margarita Mónica… No one was forgotten.
Every other day, there appeared to be street protests and demonstrations somewhere. Occasionally, after my classes, I would stumble upon a group waving flags, shouting into loud-hailers and preparing to march down the streets. Some groups drew messages on the ground or pinned up notices on the walls, lambasting the government and the president. Others made lots of noise with brass bands and drums. The police would always be lined up nearby, in their bullet-proof vests, ready and waiting.
The street-wares for sale on Calle Florida which I had noted when I first arrived in Buenos Aires had also been disallowed recently. These people were trying their utmost to earn just that little more money selling something but no… they could not do that anymore. As expected, the street vendors protested against this issue too.
But the worst must be the news that in Tucuman province, there were children who had died of starvation because of the economic crisis and possibly, corruption. Gosh, this was horrible news! From the news on TV, I saw many protesters confronting the officials and the president outside government buildings and screaming, “Have you read the papers today? HAVE YOU?!!?!!!”
I bought ‘Clarin’, an Argentinian newspaper, hoping to understand more about the politics and economics situations in Argentina. I nearly dissolved in tears. I was checking the dictionary after every two words. Pablo told me to stop, for I would be discouraged from reading anything Spanish in the future. Even HE did not understand the politics and economics of Argentina.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 14 november 2002
I donned my tourist garb, grabbed my camera and headed out to San Telmo and La Boca today. The sun was brilliant; the sky, a perfect blue.
I made my way slowly along Calle La Defensa in the San Telmo region. This place has charming old buildings with wooden doors and iron balconies, and some streets remain cobbled-stoned. This is a traditional corner of Buenos Aires, peppered with many of those lovely, traditional bar-cafés I had written about. There are also numerous antique shops selling all sorts of, well, antiques - old record players, Baroque-style furniture, vases, discoloured posters of Che Guevara, Eva Perón and the likes, glass-wares and crystals, terribly kitsch plastic toys, ancient books and mate cups, etc… Kitschy but charming.
I spotted two decorative statues, the size of my hands, to be placed, preferably, on a piano or mantlepiece. What of them, you ask? They were the heads of two chimpanzees, one male, one female and dressed like what the costume designer had in mind for Glenn Close and John Malkovich in ‘The Age of Innocence’. Yes, they had white wigs and powdered faces. The female chimpanzee even had a tiny heart painted on her cheek. Like, W-H-O would BUY these?
Outside one house, I saw the owner had artistically-bent spoons and forks and other metallic kitchen wares as his window grilles. I was taking a photo of it when a boy and a girl appeared in my frame. They peered out of the window at me curiously. We chatted. Well, I could only ask them for their names and ages while they chatted on and on to me… Argh, I really kicked myself. I had no idea what the sweet dears were talking about. Like all children, they did not understand why someone else could not speak their language and prattled on innocently. They were beautiful. I love them!
Along one of the roads nearing La Boca, there were colourfully-painted caricature-dummies looking out of fake windows of fake houses. The walls by the side of the road were also painted with the legendary (to me, I would put inverted commas on) ‘heroes’ of Argentina like a very stocky Maradona.
Then, when I arrived at La Boca, I realised the stretch around the famous Caminito was similarly decorated with such caricature-dummies, including more ‘heroes’ like Juan and Eva Perón and Maradona waving down from a balcony.
La Boca is at the south of Buenos Aires, next to the smelly river Riachuela. It had gloriously colourful wooden buildings. I understood from Pablo that the reason the buildings were so colourful was because this region was previously populated by sailors who had to paint boats. And what did they do with the left-over paint? They painted their houses with them.
The fire department of La Boca was also rather famous because of the frequent fires here due to the wooden houses. In fact, a cluster of houses had been burnt down perhaps a week or so earlier.
This place was quite a tourist playground. There were many souvenir stalls and shops. There were expensive cafés and restaurants. And there were cut-out boards where one could place one’s face against the hole and pretend to be playing football with, yes, again… Maradona or doing a sensual tango with a babe they would NEVER get the chance to do so in real life. Argentine kitsch. But a pretty place to take photos if the sun is right.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 15 - 16 november 2002
I was informed that the Recoleta area is the place where the rich and shameless hang out. True, the streets were lined with very, very fashionable international branded shops like Christian Dior, Armani, etc… and chic, fancy clubs and restaurants. Shiny and posh, well-coiffed and immaculately-dressed porteños walked around with… well, scowls on their faces.
The Recoleta Cemetery is unexpectedly delightful. I came to Argentina without a guidebook, so in a way, I was quite clueless about what to visit in Buenos Aires. I merely flipped through some guide-books from bookstores about places to check out in Buenos Aires and the Recoleta Cemetery was mentioned.
The coffins were not buried in the ground. The families of the departed constructed little mausoleums to hold the coffins, sometimes the mausoleums were constructed for a couple; others seemed to be for the entire family. As a result, the entire cemetery was lined with little mausoleums and not gravestones. It felt a little like walking down narrow streets with small houses by the side.
Some of the mausoleums were more elaborately done up than others. They had sculptures, gigantic crucifixes, plaques denoting the life history of the dead, intricate wrought-iron grilles… Others were a little run-down with broken glass, cobwebbed gate, dusty windows. It was one incredibly surreal cemetery, well worth the visit.
There was a park in front of the cemetery with a weekend fair. I spotted a sign from a Tarot-card reader – ‘ENGLISH SPOKEN’. Hmmm… I had never had my fortune read. I had been a little curious about Tarot cards. Oh well, yes… if not here, where? If not now, when?
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 17 november 2002
My school had organised a gathering to attend a ‘Tango y Poesia’ [Tango and Poetry] performance by an actress and a guitarist in Bar Seddon today. Bar Seddon is located in San Telmo.
I asked Pablo to join me. To my surprise, he had never attended such a tango-cum-guitar session in a traditional bar-café before. Naturally, I could not understand a word. Pablo told me too many Argentine slangs were used. He would not even try to explain them to me. So, I just sat there and enjoyed the performance.
The actress was seated on a bar-stool and she either read the poetry or she sang the songs. My goodness, from such an immobile position, I was utterly floored by the range of emotions and expressions she was able to convey. Her deep melodious voice trembled at the emotional bits or soared like a bird at the happy bits. Her clenched fists shook with anger or her fluid hands flowed with grace. Her performance was stunning, captivating. The guitarist was terrific. The nostalgic ambience in the bar was another strong factor. What an excellent way to experience a unique culture of Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 18 - 20 november 2002
I had previously mentioned about dulce de leche but I feared I did not grant it enough print space.
I do not know if I suddenly turned into a pastry-and-pie person recently but no place within a city could, well… now at least, stop me dead in my tracks than the confiterias [confectionaries] of Buenos Aires.
I racked my brain for confectionaries in China (forget about Mongolia), Europe and Brazil… Hmmm… not many mouth-watering memories surfaced.
I recalled the Chinese baked huge tiered cakes and then, creamed it entirely with white, pastel-pink, lilac and sky-blue colours, wedding-cake style, that just grossed me out. In Europe, yes, in Austria, there were many charming confectionaries with pretty little cakes but nothing earth-shattering. In Brazil, I apologize, I was checking out other yummy stuff like tanned, bare-chested men.
But here in Buenos Aires, my goodness… I would stop suddenly and stare at the assortments of sweets, cakes, pies, pastries, alfajores (typically Argentine, shaped like a yo-yo with dulce de leche in the middle of two cake-biscuit thingies), cookies, chocolates, etc… laid out at the window displays to tempt us mere mortals. Sometimes, people behind me would crash right into me when I stopped. I would examine the cakes from different angles, tilting my head as perverts do when studying the pictures from Playboy magazines. I would check out the windows on the other side, lest I missed out some yummy pastries. I would pretend to be buying and enter the store for a quick up-close-and-personal browse. And dulce de leche was almost always prominently featured in these goodies. I must think of ways to import dulce de leche back to my country.
Speaking of ‘import’, I had written some post-cards, slotted them into envelopes and attempted to buy stamps for them. To my horrors, the price of each stamp was 5.25 Arg Pesos, that was about US$1.50. For something less than 20 grams, it was US$1.50?? It was incredibly expensive! I now understood why Sheena, this lady I met in Pantanal, told me she crossed over to Paraguay in order to post things she bought from Argentina home. If I had a package of 2 kg, would it cost more than US$150? Gosh, I sent a box weighing more than 2 kg from Brazil and it cost me merely US$15. I refused to send my post-cards. How could the Argentinians afford to send ANYTHING out of the country? My hope for importing dulce de leche dimmed.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 21 november 2002
Francisca brought me to experience another Buenos Aires high today.
I supposed, with cattle as the main industry here, cattle-related products like bife and dulce de leche (translated as ‘sweet from milk’) would be cheap and excellent. The other amazing ‘sweet from milk’ would be ice-cream, wouldn’t it? And as you know, I have always been an aficionada of ice-cream.
The city is strewn with brightly-lit heladerias [ice-cream parlours]. We went to a very posh heladeria in a very posh corner of Buenos Aires. The very posh price of the cone of ice-cream was 7 Arg Pesos. Gulp! Francisca insisted it was her treat, paid with her mom’s money.
As the master ice-cream scooper piled on the second scoop of ice-cream of the flavour dulce de leche (but of course), he turned the ice-cream cone upside-down and proceeded to elongate the ice-cream. It was of such rich, thick texture, the ice-cream would not flop down and die. It merely extended in length. Then, Master-Ice-Cream-Scooper dipped the ice-cream cone into liquid chocolate and placed the cone in a freezer for a few seconds to harden the chocolate.
We were now looking at the tallest ice-cream cone I had ever laid my eyes on, all of 1-metre high. We wielded it like it was the light sabre. As we proceeded to eat it, WE stopped traffic as five-year-olds just back from nursery schools stopped and gaped in awe. I offered them a bite but their mothers declined and hurried them along. They left but their eyes remained fixed on our posh ice-cream cone.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 22 - 24 november 2002
Pablo had to go to Patagonia on 24 November for three weeks, guiding a group of Italians. The past two weeks he had stressed himself out, revising his Italian, learning all the biological terms in Italian, trying to find out information about the trip which the company he worked for did not even know themselves.
Three days before his trip, he was then informed he would be going to Trelew by bus one day before the Italians arrived to sort things out with the drivers. Suddenly, he was told he would be doing the cooking for some of the days. He had to go shopping with the boss’s mom for groceries, by the way.
Then, the company informed him maybe he ought to find out about restaurants along the main routes of Patagonia to see if the group would be able to arrive there by meal-times. And ooops, the company had booked the hotels and restaurants for the wrong dates, they had booked one day in advance for the entire three-week trip.
Pablo was frustrated, jumpy, tense and very, very stressed out. But what could he do? In a country with so much unemployment now, everyone had looked at him with envy of having a job.
I would be apartment-sitting for him for the next three weeks. Remember to water the plants everyday.
The last plant I had, ten years ago, was a little cactus, reputedly the most resilient plant in the world. I probably killed it within weeks of procuring it. But I was so numb-skulled I did not realise it until months later when I touched it and it keeled over, revealing just an empty shell. The entire succulent insides had died out long ago. I thereby promised myself never to be in charge of the lives of another living thing… until now.
I had named one of the plants ‘Frida’. No, I was not cashing on the fame of the current movie by Salma Hayek. I love Frida Kahlo’s works. The plant looked radiant at the top but had some tortured-looking leaves at the bottom. So, it reminded me of how Frida Kahlo was radiant on the outside but tortured with pain on the inside.
On 20 November, Frida had sprouted a new bud. By 24 November, Frida Baby was 2.5 inches long.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 25 - 27 november 2002
A quick observation about the mental health of the Buenos Aires inhabitants. Apparently, it is really popular here to visit psychologists. Nearly everyone, especially those from the middle and upper classes, visits psychologists. They even send their children to such sessions. It is so common in Buenos Aires that there is absolutely no stigma with regards to this issue.
A classmate of mine has a psychologist girl-friend and her young patients’ mood-swings were like yo-yos. They could be partying one moment and then, 2 hours later, would call up my friend’s girlfriend, crying their eyes out, feeling utterly depressed. They were really reliant on her.
Francisca told me her friend visited one three times a week. She is just 21 years old. Gosh, I wonder what sort of problems she has? I suspect boy-girl relationships, friendships, insecurity, jealousy, etc… Stuff we used to solve by ourselves and grow up in the meantime.
Of course, in some cases, there are people who really needed help or at least, the sessions could help to improve self-awareness but, to me, the psychologist mania sounded a little excessive.
Frida baby was 4.5 inches long now.
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 28 november 2002
I was having my lunch in a Chinese Restaurant in the ‘Chinatown’ of Buenos Aires in Belgrano. A toddler veered near to check me out. I made monkey faces at her. The guy sitting behind me, made goo-goo noises too and he greeted her, “Ni Hao Ma? [How are you? -- in Mandarin]”
I turned to look at him curiously. He was Argentinian, not Chinese. Then, I spotted some photographs on the table which his friend was looking through. I gasped at the photos. They were gorgeous! And they looked strangely familiar too.
I asked him, in Spanish, ha ha, where they were taken. He said the ones I pointed to were taken in the western part of China, near Tibet.
“Langmusi?” I ventured. His eyes lit up, “Yes! Langmusi!!”
Oh my goodness!!! Imagine, meeting another person here in Argentina who had been to the obscure Tibetan town of Langmusi in China, where my best memories of China were from! The guy is Marcelo, he is a photographer and had been in Asia for one year on assignment.
As I went through the stack of photographs, I realised he had been to South East Asia, India, Nepal, China and Mongolia!! His photographs of China and Mongolia were especially precious to me for I had seen somewhat the same things. They were artfully captured with amazing spontaneity, skill and mood.
Marcelo pointed out one photo which was the niece of Leisha, of ‘Leisha’s Café’ fame in Langmusi. I had previously mentioned her in my article. Yes, she was the one who churned out apple pies and yak burgers. I nearly fainted with delight.
Marcelo’s photographs would appear in a magazine (free too!) in the middle of next month and he would also have a slide-show presentation soon. Pablo had been to India and Nepal as well and had loved those countries intensely. We would be delighted to see his presentation. I obtained his contact eagerly and promised to write him for more details. ¡Qué suerte! [Such luck!]
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 29 november 2002 - 03 december 2002
Professional dog walkers. I am not sure if they exist in such abundance in other countries but here in Buenos Aires, everyday, I saw at least one such dog-walker. People who did not have time to walk their dogs would enlist such a professional. The guy could have up to twelve huge dogs tied to his waist as he careened down the streets. Quite a sight!
With the dogs, came the poo on the streets. No, they did not clean up after their dogs.
While Buenos Aires has enchanting cupolas at the top of some corner blocks, I do not suggest you stare skywards when you walk. Watch out for the poo.
Frida baby was 6.5 inches long. I was really proud of her!
Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA - 04 december 2002
On one of the evenings when Pablo was still in town, we had gone to watch the movie ‘Kamchatka’. It was an Argentinian movie about the military repression period in the late 1970s.
My Spanish was terrible then, so half the time, I had no idea what exactly was exchanged between the characters. But the story was about a family who had to hide in the countryside after the colleagues of the father, a university lecturer, were kidnapped by the military. Then, finally, when all hope was lost, the father and the mother left the kids with the grandparents and they drove away, never to be seen again.
The horrific actions from the military were never spelled out in the movie. They were hinted at, suggested and implied. The movie was very intellectually, tastefully and subtly done, in that sense. However, to someone not familiar with this dark period in the history of South America, the impact might be lost. This, respectfully, was my humble two-cents’ worth.
After the movie, tears had streamed down Pablo’s face. He was between four and ten years at that time. It was the age of ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’. Yet, no one could explain why he could not do this, why he could not do that. Everything was hush-hush, lest there were spies.
The movie reminded him so much of his childhood, right down to the bag the boy was carrying and the sunglasses worn by the mother. Like the movie, there were suggestions at one point, to change their names and they also had a command that when uttered, all had to abandon everything and run out of the house to escape. It was a frightening and very dark period.
Pablo explained as much as he could about that period to me. I turned things over in my head. While my heart was heavy, my eyes had remained dry.
Today, tears flowed freely down my cheeks. By chance, I had strolled to Plaza de Mayo in the afternoon.
The square had painted white headscarves on the ground. The headscarves symbolised the mothers of that period, who had had their children kidnapped and who were left, asking ‘Why?’, ‘What happened?’, ‘Where are they?’
Today, in front of the government building ‘Casa Rosada’ [Pink House], police in full gear, including shields, were lining up and waiting for action.
25 years had passed. Nothing was forgotten. The square was lined with black-and-white photographs of the disappeareds. The parents, grandparents and even children of the disappeareds had prepared posters to commemorate their loved ones. Posters with the songs and poetry composed by them during their teenage years, the last letters written to their mothers or sisters, photographs of their first toddle, their 15th birthday, their wedding.
I circled the square several times and read the touching posters. My Spanish was more or less alright for reading. I recalled Pablo’s words and the movie. I blinked and tears streamed down.
The words ‘DETENIDA’ [detained], ‘SECUESTRADO’ [kidnapped], ‘DESPARECIDO’ [disappeared], ‘ASESINADO’ [murdered] screamed at me. The charming, good-looking faces of these people my age smiled back at me.
30,000 disappeared. Ariel Horacio Gabriel Roman Franco Manuel Adriana Omar Ernesto Álvaro Gustavo Eduardo Carlos Susana Norberto Hector Fernando Roberto Antonio Luis Graciela Stella Mario José Gisela Julio Nora Claudio Elena Alejandra Beatriz Teresa Samuel Rubén Nestor Nina Maria Rodolfo Ricardo Claudia Clara Juan Daniel Pablo Alicia Laura Jorge Rosalba Agustina Alejandro Cecilia Laura Margarita Mónica… No one was forgotten.
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