So the other morning I got into a new little rowboat and pushed off from the shore of my twenties, into the waters of a new decade. Ever since then things have been happening like crazy! Another week full of things that I will barely manage to collect for the blog. I had a good time in Colonia in Uruguay. It is a small town that was the original Portugese settlement in Uruguay. It is a peninsula that juts out with old, cobbled, tree-lined streets and a white lighthouse at the end of the point. It was used for a long period of time as a port to smuggle things in and out of Buenos Aires. Now it is really nice and well preserved but it is also really touristy and where there are a shit-ton of tourists, things usually cost way too much, so I didn't stay for too long.
Back here in Buenos Aires I have had a lot going on. Birthday meals and a lot of running around to get ready to go to Peru tomorrow. On the afternoon of my birthday, I happened upon my first bit of South American Revolutionary Spirit! It was really quite intense actually and the police had roped off the area so I couldn't get very close which is for the better I am sure. I ended up watching most of it later on the TV, it was pretty brutal. Essentially it was a small riot. What happened was a result of a law that was recently passed making it harder on professional drivers of buses and taxis. The law created a point system that would be used to punish drivers with. If a driver commited an infraction he would lose one point and had twenty points to lose before he would lose his license and have to take a driving class to get it back. Miguel says that if this was in Belgium or Denmark it may work, but that this is the third world and so it won't work here at all. For a normal driver it doesn't really matter because the 20 points are more than they will ever need. But for a taxi driver, who spends 8-12 hours on the streets a day, that will add up fast. (And you should see this traffic! It is like one huge, moving infraction!) At a certain point, the police who are giving these citations can start soliciting bribes. If a driver loses his licence, he loses the ability to feed himself and his family, so it is easier to just pay a little bribe. Essentially the law that was passed is seen to be creating a situation where graft is encouraged and supported. So the drivers held a march to protest it and they ended up in front of the Parliament building here in downtown BsAs. I happened to be looking for a bookstore nearby, and there it was going on. The protesters where carrying black and yellow flags on long wooden poles and they were jabbing at the cops and lancing them like spears from a distance. They were throwing rocks and huge chunks of concrete and there were "officers down" here and there. The cops, who were decked out in full riot gear with sheilds and visors were responding with superior (obviously) firepower...batons and guns with rubber bullets. They were also spraying something that looked like mace or teargas. There were a number of protesters who were laying still on the ground or against the walls of businesses with blood running from thier heads. Later, on the TV they showed over and over a beating that made Rodney King look like he got it easy. It was incredible. The way Miguel put it was, "the police didn't take it as a job, they took it personally." Claro. Who cast the first stone? No one is saying. What will be the outcome? As of yet, no one knows. Definately not something that would happen in the states though.
Yesterday I went to get my malaria medicine. In the US, they wanted to charge me
280$ for the consultation visit alone, then more for the medicine. The consultation visit is essentially this:
Doctor: So, ah, Matthew, it says here that you are going to be travelling to South and Central America.
Matthew: Yep.
Doctor: They got mosquitos down there and in certain areas that means you gotta look out for Malaria.
Matthew: Yeah, I know, that's why I'm here.
Doctor: Ok, sure. You're gonna need some doxicyclene pills.
Matthew: Yeah, I know, I've used them alot before. That's why I'm here.
Doctor: Hmm, well, ok, you know what to do then. Go to a pharmacy and pay a shitload more for the pills then alright?
I was probably looking to pay 350$ for a few pills to get me through the equatorial part of my trip. So I told them to eat poop. And know, I am really glad I did because yesterday I had a consultation with a doctor down here and picked up my pills all for 30$ dollars!! Yay! Yay for a medical system that doesn't rape its countrymen!! Ha ha! Imagine being a lower income person and being able to go to the doctor to get treatment for something minor (or major) and not having to get a third job and a bank loan to pay for it!! But, you say, but Matteo, if we give the people more fairly priced medicine then we will be compromising the quality of the doctors and services in our hospitals. Blah blah blah you capitalist one-track-minders...again I bring up the "we are smart people" argument. People on the moon. Probes out by Pluto. Atoms split. Missiles that can hit the front license plate of a Land Rover from 3000 miles away. Ok? So let's reform the goddamn medical care!!!! Spend a couple fractions of a percent of the "defense" budget to actually think about the people of our own country as humans and not prospective market targets. Seems like a no brainer to me, but then again, I am on a continent famous for its leftist values. The values of the everyday people. Oh well, we all know what ended up happening to Che. But I am glad I can go ahead now and not get malaria and at the same time save enough money in the transaction to live for half a month down here! And I am not even a poor citizen!! Ha ha! What a fine mess. Goguen said, "Whadda mess!" Fyodor said, "Ah what terrible tragedies real life contrives for people."
Last night I went with Alba (my argentinian mom) to an "Espectaculo de Dansa" from India. It was really cool. One of her nieces was one of the four dancers and it was really quite something. The style of traditional dance in India is tied to the Hindu belief system which is incredibly, fantastically, phenominally intricate and nuanced. While buddhism is a system that is approachable to outsiders, Hinduism is not. Almost all the details of traditional Hindu life are dictated by that system of belief. Alan Watts paraphrased that buddhism is hinduism packaged for export. Anyway, I would have thought it impossible to get any where near authenticity with this kind of dance and when I heard that it was a bunch of latina girls performing it I was a tad bit skeptical. Wow, was I schooled! It was really good stuff. And there where two Argentine guys who played tabla and sitar just as well. At the end of the show the Indian Cultural Ambassador got onto the stage to give her praise and to note how difficult it was to pull off correctly. This is a sidenote, but anyone reading this who is into music simply must check out the artist named Karsh Kale. His music is so incredible. I thought of him a lot during the show last night. He has dual citizenship in America and India, and his music reflects both east and west. His latest cd was recorded with Anoushka Shankar, daughter of the famous sitar legend Ravi Shankar. It is truly phenomenal. Listening to the traditiionial musical arrangements of India last night I could hear tones of his music, things he had extracted and built upon. Things that he had quoted as cultural statements. That album of his and Anoushka's is called Breathing Under Water. You can check it out on iTunes or buy it almost anywhere. Check out the songs: Sea Dreamer, Easy, A Perfect Rain, Abyss and both the Oceanic tracks. It is great stuff.
My last cultural observation of the day today is regarding something that i have witnessed in many parts of the world, but even more so here. And that is the way that people behave in the streets and in public in general. People are much more relaxed about things like romance and the behavior of thier children. I think it has to do with the degree of control that we seek to execute upon our lives in america that I notice this as being so different. In america we try so hard to be "safe" all the time. We think about security and insurance and worry all the time about what we might be losing and who we could possibly sue to get it back. No smoking in bars, no drinking in parks, keep your dog on a leash, put a fence around everything and don't do anything "crazy". In Uruguay I had to suppress my giggles when I was walking along a sidewalk and this lady had her little 2 or 3 year old daughter in her arms with one arm under the little girls knees and the other around the back of the girl. The mother was holding her up and away and an impressively long, golden arc of urine was shooting from the little girl into the well of dirt around the base of a tree that grew there next to the street. No one was even looking at this. It was as if it was totally normal. (I was thinking that this would be a great weapon for the war on terror!) Naked kids roaming around here is not uncommon either. Not in central Buenos Aires, but on the outskirts and in the country. In the city it is not uncommon to have little kids playing, more or less, in the street though!! I overheard one North American say in passing, "Oh my god, I would have a leash on that little kid!" Another time I overheard, "Now there's a lawsuit waiting to happen..." But not here. On monday, I was walking around the central part of Buenos Aires and there in middle of the sidewalk was a 2 by 2 cardboard box with a fire burning inside it. There was no one sitting by it or cooking anything over it, it was just sitting there by itself, and it was getting bigger. I and a couple other passersby stopped a little ways off and watched it burn for a minute, but no one ventured to put it out. It burned itself bigger and then it went out eventually. When I passed by later there was just a pile of ash and the next day it was gone. It is that way. I mentioned the McDonald's love scene in an earlier blog. That, I would now say is totally common. It is a nice thing really, to see people loving each other out in the streets everyday. In parks, on street corners, in parking garages, in doorways, in malls, in restaurants, in the middle of the street...people are doin' some making out. One of my travelling compañeros ventured this as a possible reason at large..."they are so open in the streets because they have no room to be open in thier homes." That speaks to the nature of family living here, with grandma's and grandchildren sharing rooms and common areas at all times, and also to the fact that most people live in relatively small spaces here. But that is the subject for some other blog. It is just something I observe on a daily basis and it makes me smile. If you want adventure in the third world, just walk around the streets for a while and you will find it. That is all for this time 'cause I gotta go.
Final notes: Patricia beer in Uruguay is terrific! Raviolis made from homemade dough and fresh mushrooms are worth writing home about! The Simpsons in spanish just isn't the same! Beer from the tap is called Chubb! Hot dogs are called Panchos!! Street lights that turn yellow in between red and green are a great idea!! People here love Hugo Chavez because he is "hilarious"!
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