Don't Cry For Me Argentina

Empanadas, Yes we will talk about food again

Two weeks of constant supervision and care of little Sophie and her emerging personality left us needing some time off. So, Thursday night was as good of night to go out for a few hours to enjoy another side of traditional Argentine gastronomy, parilla and asado. Basically, parilla is a piece of meat that has been grilled over an open fire to just the right flavor. Our juicy parilla and asado full of flavor didn't leave us disillusioned.

Just as I had started classes at the university, Nadine started hers as well. Unfortunately for her, that class wasn't a block and a half away from our apartment; it's located all the way downtown. To make it more challenging, her school prefers to be hidden, so that they don't have too many people attending their classes. So that little sign hanging outside their office directing prospective students to their Spanish school was missing. Her first class was scheduled to start at 2:00, but the fact that it took her an hour and a half to find the entrance, caused her class to be pushed back a few minutes until 3:30. Since that day, her only two obstacles have been using public transport to arrive on time and successfully conjugating her verbs.

Signs of protest in front of Congress

While Nadine navigated the Buenos Aires metro, my class took to the streets surrounding Congress to interview farmers, Socialist representatives, and supporters of the government. Let me give you a little background to what is currently happening in Buenos Aires. At I write, Argentine farmers are participating in a national paro while 'diptados' fight about a tax in Congress as different factions fill the streets around the Congress building. They are discussing the large tax increase that was unexpectedly levied by the government against farmers' exports of soy, meat, corn, and wheat. This began a little over a 100 days ago.

The Argentine is on the left, the gringo on the right

My presence in front of Congress leading up to the showdown was not to:

A) be the unforeseen mediator of peace between farmers and government officials, but you could imagine the conversation in my imperfect Spanish.

Me: What would you like me tell her, I mean him, no I mean the government official Mr. Farmer?

Farmer: First, a sudden increase in the export tax of agricultural products is unacceptable and will we continue striking until every cows' udder are painfully full with milk.

Me: First, Cristina, Mr. Farmer here wants you to put in the trash, (as I flip through my dictionary for the word taxes, but accidentally find another word) all tax evaders from foreign lands. Then, the farmers might find this acceptable to painfully kick all cows in the udder.

Cristina (Argentine President): That is the worst and most illiterate demand I have ever heard. These farmers are idiots.

Me: She says y'all are dumb and farm like idiots.

B) Bring home the point that Texas was indeed great and push for a Texas embassy in downtown Buenos Aires;

C) And New Mexico isn't that great anyways. They would never be able to afford an embassy in Buenos Aires since they've already blown all of their disposable income for the year on fireworks;

D) But to learn from those directly involved in the struggle their point of view and why, and come to an educated decision all while improving in the language.

So what did I learn from all my time interviewing all sides? In addition to their valid points about democracy and fair representation of all Argentines and fair taxes, I found it more interesting that I can't understand at all some Argentine people's Spanish when they speak. Also, the government bussed people in from the poorer neighborhoods and paid them to march in a parade in support of the government. You gotta love Latin American politics.

Paid to Protest. The lady in the lower right hand corner brought her shopping with her.

Since our arrival to Argentina on June 18th, we had remained in Buenos Aires, so after the end of our first week of classes we took off on a day trip to the marshy suburb of Tigre. 40 train minutes later, we were in Tigre and had arranged a boat ride along the streams flowing through the small inhabited islands close to the River Platte Delta.

Nadine and Sophie sharing a moment

When we stepped onto the boat and began navigating the various streams, the overall sentiment wasn't, "Wow! This is pretty cool," but more along the lines of "that little girl is so cute as she tries to walk while this boat rocks." We spent the majority of the time chasing her.

Sophie was more interested in this kid's cell phone than all of the islands surrounding her

Ironically, we moved past beautiful, elegantly decorated houses, even as the populace waited by the river waiting for the boat to drop off their fresh water for the day. It seems to me it would be a little adventurous to live out in the marsh at anytime, but especially when it came time to interact with neighbors. So in order to borrow some sugar from your neighbors, you would have to throw on your bathing suit, swim across the stream, knock on the door soaking wet, grab the sugar, and swim back to your house using only one arm and try avoiding swimming in circles.

Up to this point, the most amusing aspect of living here has been one specific piece of currency. Argentina has minted currency from the 5 centavo coin to the 100 peso bill, but there is one that is hard to obtain, the 1 peso moneda piece. This one peso moneda is worth roughly 33 American cents, but it is the most commonly used and accepted coin for busses, laundry, and trains.

Noone is quite sure why they aren't as abundant as they were three months ago, but the local news hasn't allowed the mystery to pass without some attention. There was a news segments detailing how people now will save their one moneda pieces and sell them on the "silver" market for 5 pesos. While doing some personal reconnaissance, I went to a bank asking them if they could exchange my 10 peso bill for 10 monedas so we could wash clothes. They regretfully informed me that they could only give me a maximum of 4 monedas. From a bank, what?!?! I even asked local merchants why monedas are scarce. The funniest and most interesting response was that the local Chinese supermarket owners are hoarding the monedas and shipping them back to China to be used for metallurgical purposes or natural resources. So everyday when we are back home, our first question now isn't, "How was your day?", but more importantly, "Did you score any monedas today?" I guess we are slowly becoming indoctrinated into the Argentine culture.

Here are the only three moneda that we have

Life is good.