Talking with Taxistas

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History/ Politics Blog #2

Me: Buquebus, please.
Argentine Taxi Driver: Ah, are you going to Uruguay?
Me: Yes, sir. Just for the day.
Argentine Taxi Driver: Oh I love Uruguay! They have the rule of law there…
This exchange of words is probably my favorite I’ve had thus far in Buenos Aires. Though humorous on the surface, it really gets to the heart of a lot of what’s happening in this country. As a foreigner, obviously things feel different here. I’m not quite sure why, but it’s most likely because their most recent full-on crisis was less than a decade ago. Can you imagine if that were to happen in the United States, or any other industrialized nation? This country has had a history like none other I’ve ever encountered, and it shows in every facet of life here. After almost a century of governmental turmoil, people must expect something to go awry; they’ve learned better than to expect stability and reliability from their government and economy.
From the Argentines I’ve encountered, they seem incredibly disenfranchised not only from politics but from many areas of life. In fact, the primary passion here is clearly still soccer, and even still, the portenos express open disdain and disillusionment for team experiencing a rough patch. In politics, one is hard-pressed to hear a positive endorsement for a candidate, but rather, a long list of who the person will not be voting for. Even in food, when asking for restaurant recommendations, the common response seems to be, “Well, Blank-Blank is OK, but expect so-and-so, and you’ll have to watch out for yadda-yadda.”
By no means am I trying to argue that Argentina is a negative country full of pessimists. It seems, rather, that due to their strained, unstable political history, people are cautious even in times of good fortune. The negative aspects are expected, because they have always been inevitable. One must expect the ATMs to be empty; one must expect the sidewalks to be covered in dog shit; one must expect to have to wait exorbitant amounts of time for just about everything. The little things that may keep citizens of other countries optimistic and reliant on their governments simply haven’t happened where the rule of law is uprooted every ten years, if not more often. It’s not difficult to see why a cab driver might be jealous of country-hopping students escaping (if only for a day) from a country that is (according to history) overdue for its next crisis.

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