Babies, Strikes and Gas - April 2008

You know you are in Argentina when the peluquero (hairdresser) calls your hospital room to see if you would like to have your newborn baby's hair done. Argentines believe that the child's hair grows in thicker if cut as early as possible, and it's not rare to see one month old boys and girls here with buzz cuts. I guess a buzz cut is better than a baby having a mullet, which, quite ironically, my baby girl was born with! I guess that is my curse for being a mullet-hater in a mullet-friendly country.

I gave birth to a baby girl here at the end of January, at the hospital down the street from our house. The experience was overall quite positive, especially the part when the Anaesthesiologist arrived 30 minutes after being called to administer me an epidural despite it being midnight on a Sunday. I was so ecstatic with his punctuality, I promised (and delivered) him champagne. In fact, it is tradition in this wine-loving country to provide cases of wine to the doctor's office where you are attended when pregnant. Other differences from my U.S. birth were having a professional photographer come to take pictures of us with the baby (a service that came with the room), and learning that baby wipes were the work of the devil (here they provide you with shredded cotton to clean the baby's bottom). At the private hospitals, all post-birth mothers get private rooms, and fathers of baby boys hang Argentine soccer jerseys on the hospital room doors. Last, my Spanish completely failed me when I was in extreme pain and sleep-deprived, so all the nurses and doctors kept on repeating things to me twice saying quickly to each other, "She speaks Spanish, but you really need to speak SLOWLY". What's one more humiliation after being naked from the waist down in a room full of strangers?

So I'm no longer a pregnant lady, and my baby girl is a beautiful, dark haired, blue eyed "Stepford baby", who hardly cries and likes to sleep on my shoulder. It's nice to have my body back, but alarming to be a post-partum, overweight woman in skinny land. One of my Argentine girlfriends suggested I wear a fanja, or a slimming belt to make my stomach flat again. "It worked like a charm for me!" My Pediatrician quickly debunked the science behind the get-thin belt (wah!) so instead I went to see a personal trainer. Personal trainers are ubiquitous in the parks in our neighborhood, as well as in all the gyms. One is also handily on staff at the U.S. Embassy, and he gave me a program for me to hit the gym. I've been going religiously for over a month now, and am realizing with horror I may actually have to (gulp) eat less or differently to lose all the pre-baby weight. Oh well, at least motivation is easy - impossibly slender women are all over the place in this country, and especially at the gym.

My son is a great big brother to his new baby sister, wanting to hold her and have pictures taken of them both, and pointing to her and introducing her in Spanish (as well as introducing me and himself) to everyone who will listen when we leave the house together. "Bebe!" "Mi mama!" "Elias!" He also is really getting into music, which is fun for us. He likes to sing along to the lyrics of the songs he demands we play for him over and over. The other night I had him singing "Hot Pants" by James Brown in the kitchen during our dinner. Anything to distract him so he'll eat his veggies. Afterwards he kept on saying, "Smokin' hot!" and yelling "Good God!" until bedtime. I thank the stars he has finally moved on from wanting to hear Boston's "More Than a Feeling" every single time we entered our car, to now wanting to hear other catchy tunes from bands like The Strokes and The Hives. "Mommy! Listen to The Strokes?" Maybe he'll grow up to be a rocker.

In my post-baby cacoon, I didn't read the papers or go to the grocery store for a while after giving birth. When I finally did, I found the selection a bit lacking. I later learned that the country was in the midst of a farmer's strike that was threatening to cripple the new government. The strike went on for weeks before it became noticeable on the streets of the capital. One night the President gave a speech saying that she wouldn't negotiate with extortionists. The next day there was practically a run on the supermarkets, and trucks were stopped from entering the capital with their goods. The shortages of meat and milk and even fruits and vegetables had begun.

The strike began as a form of protest of the government's recently increased tax on exports of things like soy and meat and other agricultural products. Export taxes are pretty much unheard of in other market-based economies for being regressive and a lame substitute for inefficient tax systems, but in Argentina they are a key component to the Peronist, Robin Hood-esque economic policy of robbing from the rich to give to the poor. The President actually said as much in her speech to the country. She justified the increased export taxes by saying that the soy farmers were making so much money due to the high world prices for that commodity, that it was their responsibility to give back to the rest of society.

Now, you can take away Argentina's gas, electricity and water, and close all cash machines in the capital (these things all happen here with a certain amount of frequency, sadly), but when you take away their meat, as a President you are asking for trouble. Within days, protests in the center of town crippled traffic, and at night, the more genteel would protest from the comfort of their own homes via "caserolazos"; basically going out on their balconies with a pot and banging it with a spoon. We had two caserolazos in my neighborhood in as many days. After the second one, my in-laws, who were visiting at the time, stocked up for us at the grocery store, but by the time they got there, there was no meat left, and limited selection of veggies. We froze everything we could in case the shortages went on for a while, but the next day, the government got the "campo" to stay their protests while they negotiated. The meat is back on the shelves. Crisis postponed.

In my free time (which is markedly less after having a second child) I'm writing for an Argentine travel website (www.argentinastravel.com). For my latest assignment, I wrote an article on the early history of Argentina. What I learned is that the "campo" and the city of Buenos Aires have been at each other's throats since the inception of the country. The city of Buenos Aires was a bustling port long before the nation of Argentina was born, and by the time the country was created and a constitution formed, the rich landowners outside of the capital had no intention of being told how to live their lives by some bureaucrats in the city, setting the stage for the fights between the country and the federal government that continue today.

In other news, some joker with a gas key turned off the gas to our apartment from the city. It was the day before Easter, and we were having 20 guests for Easter brunch the next day. I had to run to a friend's house that night for late-night oven use, and my family and our guests were treated to cold showers and sponge baths for a few days while the city took care of the problem. I was lamenting my misfortune to a girlfriend who told me she didn't have gas for two weeks due to a similar problem.

How quickly I have become accustomed to the good life. "No hot water? No $5 filet mignon at the grocery store? It's an outrage!" Never mind that I often had no water at all in El Salvador and Ghana and I never bought meat at the grocery store in any of the countries we lived in before Argentina due to the poor quality. All I have to do is read a few emails from friends in other posts to remember how insulting it is to carry on over the inconveniences of life here. One just wrote me about her recent misfortune in Cameroon of being caught in the midst of violent protests over increased gas prices with her young son and husband. They were on the road, returning home from a weekend away, and were stuck in limbo for days, holing up in a compound with limited food and water, and then returning home in a convoy with a French military escort. I'll take no meat and cold showers anyday.

The government's wacky economic policy actually makes things interesting for my husband at work. In fact, we were thinking of trying to extend our time here given how much we enjoy it overall. I am in no hurry to rush back to a country without sidewalks and playgrounds and parks. But thanks to a bunch of guys I hope will be out of power soon, the State Department needs to fill many positions in Iraq, so extensions have been denied to all except for those with extreme mitigating circumstances. Wanting green space, cheap steak and good schools won't cut it as an argument, so it looks like we will be bidding again on our next post come fall. I am pretty sure it won't be the sort of place I'll run into people I might know at the tourist spots like I did a few weekends ago.

I was at the Japanese Gardens here with my family and in-laws when I was asked to take a picture of two women who were here as part of a cruise. I detected a familiar accent and asked where they were from. "Puerto Rico" they said. I told them my family was from Puerto Rico, and they asked me where my father was from. "Santurce", I said. They asked what part of Santurce and I said, "703 Calle Hernandez". "What?!? My grandmother, Carmen Castro de Anglado lived across the street from that house, in a second floor apartment next to the gas station! Your grandfather was the eye doctor, right?" Small world. Better cut this short to get out there and enjoy this place some more.