Argentina 3

I have to eat my don´t-stand-on-line words…Argentines are waiting on line all over the place for the collectivos…the public busses…But, get this, each line is a different company. All the busses are different in paint jobs. I’ve never heard of this anywhere else. There are some overarching governances, however. For example, the whole public transportation system is getting a price increase. The current bus ticket costs 75 centavos, and is going up to 90 after Jan 1. There are 100 centavos in a peso, and a peso is worth US$.33. Pretty cheap, no? …at least for us.

Oh, and I found out today why there was a protest/demonstration march yesterday. The very first-ever indigenous person, a woman, was elected deputed—representative—to the Argentine national legislature´s lower body. So, there wasn´t a protest yesterday, it was more of a demonstration of a lot of growing/crowing pride. And, the reason why everyone was so blasé about it—there are demonstrations here practically on a daily basis. The protest du jour is workers complaining about the firing of 100 of them from the floating casino on the Río de la Plata. When they protested late last night, 11 were arrested. So, in true fashion, they protested the arrests in a demonstration today. It´s amusing to see the protestors following the traffic signals. I thought demonstrations were for disrupting life. Not here. Go figure.

There was an explosion in a lab belonging to a provincial university today. They had been testing new forms of bio substitutes for petrol sources of energy. Several people were injured.

The streets and sidewalks are in poor repair, and there´s minor trash—bits and pieces of paper—everywhere, just like in Spain years ago. There is also littering as there used to be in Spain. Much of BsAs is reminiscent of Spain for me, but there is also a busy, energetic mood like NY’s. It´s exciting to be here. Newspaper kiosks have a wide range of offerings—even a weekly newspaper about poetry.

Electronic communications are as sophisticated as those in the US. Internet, Cable TV, cell phones…it´s all the same here. The Cable system in the hotel does NOT have CNN as Europe does, but there are two channels from Spain. the international TVEI that I have at home, and we have on campus, and another from Galicia—the northwest corner of Spain, above Portugal. This confirms what I had suspected…a large population of Gallegos here from Spain. Now many of those Gallegos here are returning to Galicia from Argentina. It has made a formerly impoverished part of Spain much better off economically. Of course, there is RAI from Italy, NOTHING from the UK (what ever happened to the idea that
“Argentineans think like the French but want to be English”?) There also is Deutsche Welle in German.

Music here on the radio doesn´t have nearly the amount of US imports as does Spanish radio. There is some rock, some tango, and a lot of Latin pop and rock. The national radio system broadcasts tango through the night throughout the country, and there is another 24/7 tango station in BsAs called 2 por 4—the time signature of tango. Here are a couple of videos of a precursor to the tango, a milonga (yes, it’s the same name as the dance hall where people go to tango): 1, acoustic on an old piano, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KkkbqCO3Ow&feature=related
2, from Sicily (!), on my birthday this past year, Argentine dancers demonstrate a milonga (sung in siciliano and argentino—accent and all!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0AdkfVpOus

I see a lot of young people, but few small children. I suppose it has to do with the area where our hotel is. I remember many more small children in Spain.

Another observation…the BsAs population has a reputation of being arrogant and obnoxious, not unlike France’s. However, as I observed in Paris this past summer, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE of that, whatsoever, so far. The folks on the street seem to be open and friendly, and gracious. I still can´t get over the laid-back attitude. They seem to be generally unflappable…unlike yours truly.

More later.