The sun shines just a little bit brighter these days in Buenos Aires. The city is brimming with blooming Jacaranda trees, their lavender flowers floating down to the street just a little more gracefully than they were last year. Summer has arrived, and Obama’s triumph in the U.S. Presidential elections has led to a re-birth of sorts of America in Argentina.
They have come out of hiding, the Americans. I can spot them on the streets now, walking their heads up high, speaking English loudly, the men wearing flip flops, shorts and t-shirts, the girls wearing tank tops, oversized sunglasses and floaty skirts. They no longer have to whisper; afraid onlookers might divine their nationality and say something nasty to them about George Bush. Instead, in a strange twist of destiny, Argentines now are complimenting Americans, hitting us with praise and questions on our feelings about the election results and our soon-to-be new leader.
Last Friday night, I emulated Argentines by heading to the pasta and empanada store to stock up for lunches and dinners over the weekend. The man behind the counter, noting my accent in Spanish, queried, “De donde sos?” (where are you from?) to which I replied, “America”. “Are you happy about your new leader?” “Of course!” I replied. “Many Americans are shopping here now. They all are so happy about the elections. It’s a beautiful thing!”
The paper delivery man came to charge me for the month’s service, and my 4 year old son came with me to the door to greet him and show him his new car. “Mira! (unintelligible) auto!” (His Spanish still needs a bit of work). The man asked, “Where are you from?” When I said, “The United States”, he replied. “America? Oh! I congratulate you on your country! Such patriotism! We just don’t have that sort of love for our country as you do. I wish we did.”
Yes, unemployment is up, thanks to the global financial crisis, and many of my Argentine friends are foregoing beach vacations this summer as a result. Some have husbands in the financial industry who were recently laid off; others fear downsizing soon. The red hot real estate market here skidded to a halt, and apartments and houses throughout the city are losing value. People are saving and converting their money into dollars, never a good thing for a foreign currency. The Argentine government isn’t helping the situation, recently announcing they would nationalize the pension system (ostensibly to ensure the safety of the funds) and doing so, putting hundreds of pension company staff out of work. This is follow-up to the President’s surprise announcement (and later reneging) that the country would pay off their entire outstanding Paris Club debt (roughly 7 billion dollars) with US dollar reserves, most likely without consulting of the Argentine Central Bank President. One U.S. businessman here captured the government’s approach to policymaking as the first place he lived where policy was made, tossed into the air followed by wet fingers to test the reaction of the public and special interest groups, only to be discussed and debated at a later date. This is such an unpredictable place; my husband keeps saying the only constant is how continuously surprised he is with the local economy and government.
In local sports news, soccer star Diego Maradonna’s election as the new coach of Argentina’s national soccer team made international news after the team’s humiliating defeat against neighbor Chile. “Chile!” one cab driver screamed at me when I asked him what he thought about the situation. “That team is worth nothing! We have the best players in the world and we lose to those guys? Of course the coach needs to be fired!”
I recently began taking spinning classes to increase my cardio workouts, and really am enjoying them. I think what I like more than the class itself is the teacher and my fellow exercisers. I wonder how different the classes are to ones I would take in the U.S. More than the pounding house music she plays, I love that my spinning teacher gets so into the music when she spins, she often throws her hands out to the sides and yells out in Spanish-accented English the lyrics to the songs when they reach a crescendo (“Jou’ll nevah seeh me agaaaaaain!”). I love how she prods along the class to work harder, pedal faster. “Vamos Palermo! Pueden hacerlo! And I can’t help myself but to smile and snake my head when I hear the other students falsely complain through yells and screams how hard the class is on them. “Ahhhhh!” “Me mueeeeero!!!!” (I’m dying!)
Argentina’s polo championships began last weekend at the polo field a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy Buenos Aires, and the world’s best polo players raced up and down the fields as fast as lightning with polo hooligans (seriously) banging drums, pounding their feet on the floorboards, waving flags and large cloth signs and chanting team songs in the cheap seats.
And last, the Davis Cup finals are taking place in Mar del Plata and updates are posted on news channels hourly. Argentine fans are warming up their lungs to jeer the Spaniards and hopefully rattle them into losing points. A friend here went to an earlier set of Davis Cup matches against the Russians a few months back and said she was shocked at how vocal and soccer-fan-like the spectators were at tennis matches. It got so bad at one point the referees had to threaten the crowd with awarding points to the Russians if the fans wouldn’t shut up. I’ve tried to stop generalizing about the Argentines since I’m always proven wrong, but one thing is certain; they take their sports seriously!
In an unrelated story, I recently marveled to yet another cab driver (I take a lot of cabs!) about how no cars respected the stop sign at a nearby corner. “What stop sign?” he replied. “You know, the red sign with eight sides that says PARA that’s right there on that corner?” “Eso no es una parada” he joked. “Es una sugerencia! (That’s not a stop sign! That’s a suggestion!) In spite of what is sure to be an upcoming local recession, it’s a good sign that Argentines can still laugh at themselves.
My husband thinks that the drivers’ comportment here says a lot about a country, but I disagree; I think advertisements shed more light on national character. There are a few on television that I can’t stop thinking about.
One is of three septuagenarian men, out for a morning jog through the countryside. They are keeping an excellent pace, scaling mountains, slapping each other’s backs and telling jokes until they come across a broken-down car on a road they are crossing. They immediately stop, bend over and grab their backs, and shuffle across the road, listlessly waving to the driver and apologizing for their inability to help the stranded family. As soon as they are out of the stranded people’s range of vision, they start running again, laughing their heads off.
The second is a Gatorade commercial, featuring a singer of children’s songs at a primary school, holding a guitar and strumming away to the toddlers. The scene cuts to this singer playing in his weekend soccer game, where he mercilessly hacks the opposing team’s players, yells at the ref, breaks the corner kick pole in half and gets red-carded for some other unsportsmanlike conduct. The commercial pans back and forth between the two sides of the same person, glorifying the duplicitous behavior.
I guess I should be the last to complain about the latter commercial given my not-so-illustrious career as a hard-hacking high school soccer defender (I blame my Serbian coach for that) but I do wonder about the messages the advertisements are sending to the public here. Be insincere and childish in your actions! In fact, celebrate those qualities by buying some more products! Whatever. I am still too happy with Obama’s win and the fact that summer is here to let the little things get me down. And the fact is that we will be very sad to leave this place when we do. Despite its faults, Argentina has been our favorite overseas posting by far. We have been so lucky to be able to live here.
Next week is Thanksgiving, and my family has a lot to be thankful for. Our beautiful 10-month old daughter is crawling and standing and loves to yell out “Dada!” Our 4-year old son finally moved out of his crib into his big-boy bed and is bravely sleeping there in spite of all the monsters that inhabit his room that my husband heroically cleans out and flushes down the toilet in symbolic battle. I have been re-born again as a working economic consultant, receiving odd jobs in interesting places (Colombia last, Liberia possibly next) and my husband was mercifully passed over for a tour in Iraq, instead given the wonderful assignment of Economic Counselor in Quito, Ecuador, starting in the summer of 2009. So, we get to stay together in Latin America for a few more years, firming up our children’s Spanish and getting to know a whole new part of the region. I can’t stop thinking about how fortunate we are this holiday season and how easy it seems to be to find the joy amidst the sadness. I hope the same goes for all of you.
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