Más

It takes time to know something deeply – a language, a city, a person. I explained this to a cab driver the other night as he tried to tell me that my Spanish was great and that I should get on with having some affairs in Argentina. To my practical response that I need to be able to speak the language a little better, he posed the question, ‘How much do you need to talk to have an affair?’ I relate easily to cab drivers -- maybe because their job is to move, or maybe because they’re always strategizing the best route to their destination.

Yesterday was the end of holy week, and today was the last day of summer. Today was also an important day in Argentine history. On March 24, 1976, a military coup took control of the country and thus began the systematic abduction and murder of somewhere around 30,000 Argentine ‘dissidents,’ which basically meant anyone who overtly or indirectly questioned the military government – blue collar workers, artists, journalists, teachers. . . or even people whose names simply appeared in the address books of such people.

I caught the beginning and the end of the march –by accident or providence, -- like bookends around my afternoon journey across town to Palermo in search of a music store called Miles, recommended to me by an Argentine friend who designs some pretty fantastic laptop covers http://eloverol.com.ar/. (I bought two Juana Molina cds, and they are awesome.)

The appeal of our apartment notwithstanding, the Argentines we know have informed us that Palermo is really the hip and happening place in Buenos Aires. San Telmo used to be the ‘plata’ (rich) neighborhood but everyone left around the turn of the century because of a plague. It’s been having a renaissance but I’ve been told that it’s stopped and started several times and has never really achieved total coolness. The thing about coolness is that as soon as too many people know it’s cool, it’s sort of not cool anymore anyway – so trying to master it all seems kind of pointless.

Like other tourists from around the world, we’ve been charmed by San Telmo’s ornate turn-of-the-century architecture, in various stages of disrepair. The extremes in San Telmo are weird, though – there are artists and art galleries. There are tourists from Europe, Israel, and the U.S., eating a delicious $5 steak for the fourth or fifth time in a week – incredulous at the luxury they can enjoy on such a modest budget. There are families who come out after 10pm and dig through the garbage on the sidewalks, collecting cardboard for money.

I suppose all of this is a long way of saying that it would be naïve of me to think I could have a handle on a complicated city with a turbulent history and an unstable economy in a couple of weeks – especially one to whom democracy is less than 30 years old. It doesn’t mean I haven’t tried.