The Year of Living Differently #20: The Great Stain Robbery – Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Great Stain Robbery

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – 5-7 December, 2002
The street vendors and buskers have been back along 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 the vendors just kept coming back that the police had given up trying to fight them.

I 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 also see jugglers, clowns or those guys who twirled around a stick with two sticks. They would rush to the front of traffic at each red-light and perform their routines. Then, the guys tried to collect some money from the cars 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 accept patacones and lecops, while others claimed they do not accept patacones and lecops.

These ‘currencies’ looked like Monopoly play-money. People would earn their salary in combinations of pesos, patacones and lecops. 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 in there for now.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – 8 December, 2002
In 2000, 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 or 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. 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!!!!!!!!! It 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 too in her trip. 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. When it happened to us, we were all fooled blind. We were SO STUPID!

I couldn’t stop kicking myself. I couldn’t believe it all happened so fast. We could not even remember what 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 and sceptical. But the truth is… some people are just not nice.

Oh, I LOVED my camera! I L-O-V-E-D IT. It had brought me so much joy on this trip. I learnt to be creative with it. I could not accept that it was now gone. People would say, it’s 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 – 9 December, 2002
I did not sleep a wink last night. Sometimes, when people said they did not sleep a wink last night, they actually fell asleep by 4am. 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 be easier to forgive myself for it was not my fault. For sure, there was a high chance of being hurt but it would still be easier to forgive myself. But this was just OUR fault.

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 this grief forever but we refused. We had to do something to distract ourselves. We visited the grand Theatre Colon which was interesting, with its basements of costumes, head-gears and shoes and even a replica of the stage for rehearsal, below Avenida 9 de Julio.

Avenida 9 de Julio was reputedly the ‘widest avenue in the world’. The landmark of Buenos Aires, the Obelisk, was 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 16 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 perhaps, 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 was a fully restored, converted theatre. It was elegant, exquisite, very impressive. Everyone should check this bookshop out when in BA. We sat in the cafe 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 BA 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. He actually asked if I was the translator for Carolyn and Lydia.

Whoa… first, people mistook me as the Chinese translator for Jane when we were in China. And now, with my wonky-tonky Spanish, I was again mistaken as the translator. I guess since I looked different from the usual Western tourists, the locals just found me difficult to classify.

The guy, Horacio, was from Ushuaia or thereabouts. He offered to show me around when I get there after Christmas. Great. I told him Carolyn and Lydia had just come 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, and asked, “What’s ‘we went’?”. “Fuimos,” I replied. Right, she explained she always used ‘I’ and now, ‘we’ was a problem. She turned back and began her long, stuttering tedious hike of an answer, using the pronoun ‘we’.

I looked around and saw 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, while in the middle of a queue at the supermarket, while cooking dinner. Despite my allergy to alcohol, I got to drinking wine to get myself to sleep.

I visited my acupuncturist and told him about the sleepless nights. Yes, I had gotten that settled in BA that I had been frequenting a Chinese acupuncturist for my back problem. He put needles at two new spots. I barely got myself home before throwing myself on the bed and snoozing five 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. People 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). I knew 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 earned along the way, including addresses written in Krygzy, Uyghur, Mongolian and Russian would be gone too. And these 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 recalled 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 these sorts of things do not happen but they do happen, sometimes. That was the risk one took while travelling.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – 14-15 December, 2002
Pablo had returned from his Patagonian 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 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’s 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 was coming to an end. I would start travelling again after Christmas. While here in BA, 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 barely any proper guidebooks 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 baqo’ (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 BA) to Ushuaia. It would cost me 500+ pesos. But if I flew from BA to Ushuaia, with a stop-over in Puerto Madryn (which I could not get off), it would cost 300+ pesos. Double the distance for 200 pesos less.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – 18-19 December, 2002
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, actually) resigned, when the Argentinian peso was just devalued, 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 me in an incredulous tone, “?Queris salir???? (You want to leave????)”. “Si.”

Well, nothing bad happened that day. There were peaceful marches down by the Plaza de Mayo and probably, near the Congress Building to remember last year’s horrific event and to continue the ‘fight’.

Pablo and I headed to Jardin Japones (Japanese Garden) in the evening, because Marcelo, the photographer whom I met last month, had informed me by email last week that his slideshow 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 inform him that we went to the Jardin Japones on Friday but could not find him. His 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 slideshow of his excellent photos taken from India, Nepal, China, Mongolia, etc.

But, on the other hand, this type of mix-up was so ‘Latin American’, 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 with ‘Quizas’ (Perhaps), ‘Tal vez’ (Maybe), ‘Creo que si’ (I believe so), ‘No seguro’ (Not sure), ‘No si’ (I don’t know), ‘Nos vemos’ (We see each other… eventually) and a personal favourite ‘Ma�ana’ (Tomorrow).

If they say they will call at 8pm, they meant two hours after 8pm, if at all. If they say they want to do this thing today, they meant they want to do this thing… in this lifetime… or tomorrow, if it is possible… not sure, actually… I learnt that this was diagnosed by others before me as the ‘Ma�ana’ syndrome.

Nothing was ever certain. Life remains a constant mystery. I have to get used to this but I like it… maybe… I’m not sure…

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – 24 December, 2002
Over the past few days, a Sunday lunch and 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, Tomas was two, practically a baby. So, I was looking forward to seeing Nicolas’ (who was six) reaction when ‘Papa Noel’ arrived 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, Sergi 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. The lights were off. A very ugly ‘Papa Noel’ stood next to the tree.

Gosh, I would never forget the look on Nicolas’ face as he gazed in amazement at ‘Papa Noel’. The perfect ‘O’-shape formed on his mouth. His eyes practically glowed with awe. He was hopping up and down. He was trying to see ‘Papa Noel’ clearly. Yet, he dared not approach him.

A few quick words, a show of the presents, ‘Papa Noel’ waved goodbye and left. Nicolas 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 Nicolas’s 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’ was watching). He was 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’. So, ‘yo’ would be ‘yo’ and ‘llave’ would be ‘ya-vey’.

In Argentina, I don’t 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 BA. 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 de 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 intellectual Buenos Aires was a bookstore paradise. The choice of good Spanish books was incredible. If I could read decent Spanish, I would have stuffed myself silly, devoured the books long ago. But I couldn’t.

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.

Does the non-English-as-first-language population seriously believe we read ‘Bleak House’ for leisure? The huge variety of classics (and extremely cheap too) for 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 18^th 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 Claudio, the salesman, had appeared to be helpful and trustworthy. However, Claudio, or his supplier as he would have me believed, suffered from the ‘Ma�ana’ syndrome. So, ‘ma�ana’ became ‘Sunday’ became ‘ma�ana’ became ‘Christmas Eve’ became ‘Christmas Day’ became ‘ma�ana’ became ‘my last day in Buenos Aires’.

When faced with the ‘ma�ana’ man, one had to douse oneself with a generous spray of the ‘Que sera sera’ (Whatever will be will be) attitude.

I had earned myself the ‘Most Frequent Visitor’ title that when the sale was finally executed, Claudio gave me a strong hug, kissed my cheek and made me promise to visit the shop with my photos when I returned to BA in March. Then, he just had to reach over and give me another hug and plant another kiss on my cheek.

Well, sometimes one did not know what one might miss until one had left the place. I spent today walking around my old haunts, lunching on a ‘bife’ which I had not had for a while, splurging on yet another ‘helado’ 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 BA has really been great. I love it here. I hope I had managed to convey the essence of BA to the readers over these two months. There would be plenty of things I would miss, for sure.

‘Hasta luego, nos vemos…’ (Until later, we see each other…)

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