The last month has been a bit of a blur, but in a good way, as I’ve been gallavanting around the US visiting family and friends – sorry if I didn’t make it to your neck of the woods! Now to figure out how to fit all my new purchases/gifts into the suitcase…
I’m looking forward to being back in BA… but hopefully the “polar” cold front will have passed by the time I get there.
So much for that writing every day thing… But here’s a slice of my life today.
I was up late last night researching things I want to buy while I’m back in the States this summer, and had trouble getting to sleep thinking about new toys and the impending arrival of a new (to me) couch! I was up early too, and headed out to a friend’s second-floor apartment to watch two guys (who arrived EARLY – shocking) lower said couch over the balcony and onto the sidewalk below. They kept telling me how complicated the job was because of this sign that was attached to the front of the building, but it all looked pretty smooth to me! Their clunky truck carried the couch and us 22 blocks to my place, where they (thankfully!) determined it would most likely make it in the front door of my apartment, and proceeded to carry it up 10 flights of stairs. The older guy, sweating on arrival, declared the stairs “mortal.” And mentioned again that they had done such a good job, and, you know, no obligation, but a tip might be nice. I was already paying a pretty penny for the move, but took pity and threw in a little extra “para los chicos.”
Then I had lunch and enjoyed a nice nap on the new couch.
Then I went to a personal training session with my yoga teacher to work on some things to improve my yoga practice. Afterwards I stopped at a store, and while the guy was wrapping up my purchases I was rolling my starting-to-be-sore neck and shoulders. He asked me if I’d been here long (“here” meaning BA, of course), and when I told him I’d been here two years he said, “That’s why your neck hurts. Buenos Aires is a nice place to be for just a little while.” This sums up the sentiments of a lot of people I’ve talked to here, who can’t really understand why so many foreigners would want to come live in Buenos Aires, when they’d all just love to get out. Argentine-American singer Kevin Johansen has a song about that, actually; this is the chorus: “And all the people that aren’t from here would like to come and stay / And all the people that are from here just want to get away.”
On the subway there are ads for the lottery that say something to the effect of, “You could win a new life today.” And every time I see one of these ads I think, “But I don’t want a new life! The one I’ve got is pretty great.”
I went to the (perilously nearby) yarn “district” to buy some knitting needles today, and I found what I was looking for – but I also impulsively bought 4 skeins of yarn! They’re all different… A few I can chalk up to “research” for other projects I have in mind, but really I just bought them because they caught my eye.
In other news, the smoke is back, and lots of people I know are complaining of headaches and general malaise… The current conditions on my weather alerts even acknowledge it: “Smoky, 68 degrees.” I haven’t had time to find out why it’s back, I just know that I can feel it – and see it.
I will have time to better update this blog. And post pictures.
I will have reliable Internet access.
I will respond to the emails that I’m probably neglecting.
I will finish this crazy project I’m working on.
I will be back in the States for Christmas!
Blog Action Day totally snuck up on me this year (it was yesterday), but I figure late is better than never. I haven’t given a lot of thought to what I want to write about (the theme this year is poverty), so this is kind of off the cuff. Having lived in many different urban areas and traveled extensively over the last 15 years, I’ve seen many different forms of poverty, from homeless people sleeping on the streets to beggars on the subway to cartoneros going through the trash to the most basic/squalid living conditions in both rural areas and in the middle of huge cities.
Here’s what I often see (and experience myself): When we walk past the same people sleeping in the same doorway night after night, they become part of the scenery and we hardly notice them anymore. Because if we do notice them, we have to acknowledge them, which might then require doing something – which might inconvenience us in some way, or cause these people to then expect something in the future. And it’s not just this one man in this one doorway, but all the people sleeping outside around the city, around the world. What makes this one person more deserving of help? How can we help them all? And don’t we often wonder if they’ll just go buy drugs if we give them money? So instead, we think maybe it’s better to not help anyone. Every now and then we might have some leftovers from a dinner out and find someone to give them to, or might decide we’re in the mood to hand over a few coins, or even participate in a food drive or other charity event, but we have very few consistent plans to help. We’re too busy, too caught up in our own worlds, too overwhelmed by all the people who need help.
The interesting thing is that I’ve noticed the above scenario is much more common in the U.S. Although people in other countries (I’m mostly talking about developing countries here) might be less likely to get involved in volunteer programs or charity events like hunger walks, from what I’ve seen they are much more likely to give money to people on the street, or those selling tissues, pencils, or stickers on the subway – those more direct interactions with the people who really need help. I remember being at a bus station in Honduras where a guy missing a leg was kind of directing people onto their buses, then before we departed he came down the aisle of our bus with his metal cup. I was sitting near the back and figured I wouldn’t give him any money (and assumed that would be the common reaction). I was really surprised to see that nearly every Honduran in front of me dropped a few coins in his cup – no matter how poor they looked themselves. In Buenos Aires, a fair number of people buy things from people on the street or on the subway, or might give them money even if they don’t want what they’re selling. In a city with a significant coin shortage, a 1-peso coin (about 30 cents) is really much more valuable – you can only pay for the bus with coins – so it’s especially impressive to see anyone giving coins away.
One reason I suspect these people are more likely to help is that they have seen how short a slide it can be from a comfortable lifestyle to a life of poverty. There’s a greater sense that “it could happen to me” and they hope someone would do the same for them – or their parents, or their children – if tough times hit. I think most Americans are much more disconnected, and can’t imagine that could ever be them sleeping on the streets. Perhaps the current economic situation might just wake us up and encourage us to be a little more compassionate towards those on whom hard times are hardest.
I have just over two weeks left until the end of the 1,001 days designated for doing these 101 things. When I saw the date approaching on my calendar I started thinking back over the list, and then read over the list today, and was kind of bummed at some of the things that remain unfinished. But I know that’s kind of silly, considering that many of the things haven’t been a possibility because I’ve been busy doing other awesome things, and because my life has changed way more than I anticipated back when the 1,001 days began January 5, 2006. If things like Move to another country, Meet lots of interesting people, and Experience something new every day had been on the list, they would have been checked off with ease.
I’ve been really busy – working most days, squeezing in some exercise and maybe a little knitting, and going out many nights a week – and when I have a rare quiet night at home I relish every minute. Quality-of-life and productivity gurus often say that if you’re “too busy” you need to assess your commitments and make sure you’re not saying yes to things you don’t want to do. But it’s pretty unusual that I find myself doing something I don’t want to do – it’s just that there are so many amazing opportunities and activities going on that I don’t want to pass up! These are just some of the things I’ve done so far this month: numerous nights playing games at various friend’s houses, a friend’s birthday dinner and salsa dancing, cooking dinner with friends several times, tango music concert and another show, weekly massages, dinners out with roommates and friends, several goodbye parties, a waterdance workshop with people from Couchsurfing, salsa dance class, Couchsurfing movie afternoon, and Peruvian cuisine cooking classes… and coming up in the next week a night at the theater, a voice yoga class, and being a model for a photographer friend’s photo shoot. Even though none of these things is on The List, how can I go wrong?
From my vantage point from the treadmill on the second (U.S. third) floor of my neighborhood gym, I’ve seen the following things out on the street this week (and much more): a very bald man walking a very tiny dog (twice); look-alike golden retrievers with look-alike owners; more than one truck carrying bottles of water and soda; lots of cars parked in the “no parking” bike lane; a horse-drawn cart full of cardboard; one guy carrying some long boards get really annoyed when his partner dropped the other end because she was on the phone; a dumptruck full of fatty scraps from the butcher.
Random experience of the day… (Maybe this should be a new feature on the Nomad Chronicles? Weird stuff certainly happens here all the time.)
On the bus today, going to meet my friend C. for lunch at our (my?) fave pizza place (Romario, for those in the know), there was a guy singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” Singing it over and over (he seemed to only know the chorus and part of a verse, which, to be fair, is more than I know), and loud enough that I could hear him, and recognize the song, from a few feet away. Besides the fact that singing out loud on the bus is generally a little odd, I also found his choice of song rather strange. I couldn’t quite tell what anyone else’s reaction was, but I have heard that Argentines don’t generally like the Evita musical, so I assumed they weren’t too into it. Lucky for me, we got off the bus at the same stop, and for a few blocks he was walking the same direction as I was (or following me?!) and I got to “enjoy” his singing a little longer. And then while I was waiting for C. outside the restaurant, another guy walked past, singing out loud – but the words were indistinguishable, and he had headphones on, which somehow made the activity seem a bit more reasonable.
This reminded me of a woman I was sitting across from at a café last year, who appeared perfectly “normal” except that she was laughing and muttering to herself. I realized that her behavior made me feel uncomfortable, then wondered if it wasn’t actually kind of sad that society generally believes that the person sitting quietly, acting serious and “put together,” is better off than the one laughing and having a good time, even if they’re all alone. Why is it that singing in the shower is “okay” and singing on the bus isn’t?
As I walked home tonight at 2 a.m., I thought about all the things I love about this city, and supposed that the late-night schedule is something perhaps only a true night owl can love. Walking past middle-aged men walking dogs, police on watch, teenagers huddled around a kiosco buying snacks, beer, who knows what, guys flagging down taxis for a night on the town, mothers with children, stray cats, etc., I felt like one of the few people on my way home – for those headed out to the nightclubs, things were just getting started.
Today was pretty mellow for me, but still exemplifies the kind of schedule that I’ve gotten accustomed to here – and I like it just fine, luckily. I got up around 9:45 (not bad considering I went to bed around 2:45, after a mellowish, earlyish belated birthday for me at a friend’s house, and after texting several other friends who decided to go home after dinner out instead of heading out to a bar). I did some cleaning and organizing, ate, and finally started working around 2 p.m. Finished work around 8, went to the gym, then got cleaned up and arrived at a friend’s house for dinner around 10:45. While we watched the olympics after dinner we debated whether we should go out to meet some other friends at a bar, and in the end I opted to go home, another earlyish night so I will be ready for tomorrow night, when I head off to a going-away party that starts at midnight. I’m not exactly bred for this like the Argentines, who take their kids out to dinner at midnight, but my parents’ more-nocturnal-than-most habits surely helped!
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