The Year of Living Differently #19: Much Ado About Buenos Aires - Buenos Aires, Argentina

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 Avenida 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 did buy the Argentinian newspaper, hoping to understand more about the political and economical situations here 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 political and economical situations in 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 had charming old buildings with wooden doors and iron balconies, and some streets remained cobbled-stoned. This is a
traditional corner of Buenos Aires, peppered with many of those lovely, traditional bar-cafes I had written about. There were also antique shops selling all sorts of well... antiques - old record
players, Baroque-style furniture, vases, discoloured posters of Che Guevera, Eva Peron and the likes, glass-wares and crystals, terribly kitsch plastic toys, ancient books and mate cups, etc... 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 this stuff?

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 be able to speak their language and prattled on innocently. They were so lovely. 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 Peron and Maradona waving down from a balcony.

La Boca was 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 region was quite a tourist playground. There were many souvenir stalls and shops. There were expensive cafes 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. Argentinian kitsch. But a great place to take photos if the sun is right.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - 15-16 November, 2002

I was informed that the Recoleta area was the place where the rich and shameless hang out. True, the streets were lined with very, very fashionable international brands like Christian Dior, Armani, etc... and chic, fancy restaurants. Shiny and posh, well-coiffed and immaculately-dressed people walked around with... well, scowls on their faces.

The Recoleta Cemetery is unexpectedly amazing. 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 guidebooks (in Spanish) 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 'chapels' to hold the coffins, sometimes the chapels were constructed for a couple; others, seemed to be for the entire family. As a result, the entire cemetery was lined with little 'chapels' and not just gravestones. It felt a little like walking down narrow streets with small houses by the side.

Some of the 'chapels' 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 beautiful 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'. Oh, 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-cafe before. Naturally, I could not understand anything. Pablo told me too many
Argentinian 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. 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 don't know if I suddenly changed 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 much mouth-watering memory surfaced.

I recalled the Chinese baked huge tiered cakes and then, creamed it entirely with white, pastel-pink, lilac and sky-blue wedding-cake designs 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 Argentinian, 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 would crash into me when I stopped. I would examine the cakes from different angles, tilting my head as one would when studying the pictures from Playboy magazines. I would check out the windows on the other side, lest I missed out something. 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 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
brought 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 aficionado of ice-cream.

The city was strewn with brightly-lit 'heladerias'. 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 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 grew in length. Then, Master-Ice-Cream-Scooper dipped the ice-cream cone into chocolate and placed it 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 with their mouths open. I offered to them 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 at 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 3-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 loved Frida Kahlo's works way before. 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 was so common that there was absolutely no stigma with regards to this issue.

A classmate of mine had a psychologist girl-friend and her young patients' mood-swings were like yo-yos. They could be partying one day and then, two hours later, be calling up my friend's girlfriend, crying their eyes out, feeling depressed. They were super reliant on her.

Francisca told me her friend visited one three times a week. She was just 21 years old. Gosh, I wonder what sort of problems she had? 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, they would help to improve self-awareness but I don't know, 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 said, "Ni Hao Ma? (How are you? -- in Chinese)"

I turned to look at him. He was Argentinian, not Chinese. Then, I spotted some photographs on the table where his friend was looking through. I nearly gasped at the photos. They were amazing! 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 was Marcelo, he was 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 Lei Sha, of 'Leisha's Cafe' 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 an photo exhibition. Pablo had been to India and Nepal as well and had loved them intensely. We would be delighted to visit the exhibition. I obtained his contact eagerly and promised to write him for more details of the exhibition. !Que suerte! (Such luck!)

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - 29 November-1 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 had enchanting cupolas at the top of some corner blocks, I do not suggest always staring skywards when you walk. Watch out for the poo.

Frida baby was 6.5 inches long. I am so proud of her!

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - 4 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. It would be in the Oscars next March, I believe.

My Spanish was terrible so half the time, I had no idea what exactly was exchanged but the story was about a family who had to hide in the countryside after the colleagues of the father 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 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 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 and grandmothers 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 today 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 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 Alvaro Gustavo Eduardo Carlos Susana Norberto Hector Fernando Roberto Antonio Luis Graciela Stella Mario Jose
Gisela Julio Nora Claudio Elena Alejandra Beatriz Teresa Samuel Ruben Nestor Nina Maria Rodolfo Ricardo Claudio Clara Juan Daniel Pablo Alicia Laura Jorge Rosalba Agustina Alejandro Cecilia Laura Margarita Monica... Nothing was forgotten.