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Published: March 26th 2008
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i heard horns start honking and drums start beating about an hour and a half ago. i live close to the cancha del equipo River Plate, so the phenomenon isn't that extraordinary. When I didn't hear them stop after 10 or 15 minutes, I got curious. Not much was happening on the streets; but close to every balcony was flooded with tenants clanging pots and pans and clapping. Some would stop and restart after a few minutes, others stood diligently, looking straight down into the traffic below. I went outside, and asked a stranger banging a cheese grater outside of my building to excuse me, explained that i wasn't from here and asked if he could shed light on what this was about. without answering me, he pulled out the cake mold he was clutching between his thighs, and broke a stick off of my favorite oak that towers adjacent to the building. He rested them down and asked me: "cuantas argentinas hay?"
Half the conversations I start with strangers here are disasters. Figuring this would be one of them, I backtracked: "cuantas argentin-as? o argentin-os?" "Argentin-as," he shouted back, still banging on that ridiculous cheese grater. A colectivero meanwhile
abused his whistle horn- the special less abrasive noisemaker that buses are equipped with, the use of which is mostly directed at good-looking women. Everything was so fucking loud, and I was so fucking confused, and with that neutralizing, anti-incindiary kindergartener's cadence i use in every conversation i half-understand here, I answered him back "una, una argentina." "Dale," he said, and apparently having just proven myself a worthy recipient, he hands me this bundt cake mold and stick and looks at me to start banging. I'm first hesitant about hitting it because it's a bundt cake mold and i know i'm going to dent it. Then he nudges me with his elbow, and I start because why not. The first strike of course resounds in my own ears above all the hundreds and hundreds of utensils getting stricken around me, mostly for this guilt that i just hit a pan without knowing what for, which is to say potentially something i shouldn't be hitting a pan for or, equally, something i could be hitting a pan for but might not want to be. then the completely separate matter of maybe this is something i want to hit a pan for
but still shouldn't because it's not my counutry. A sizeable crowd is gathering around the corner of Federico Lacroze and Luis Maria Campos by now. It's obviously electric and it's starting to look angry. But nobody's saying anything. Just hitting.
"Fuera Kirchner!" I hear soar out of the mob. That can mean anything. I hear it again, and this time see that a 9 year old boy screamed it. Still not atypical. I see Juan Pablo, my octegenarian neighbor, come out of his building. This man fled Franquist Spain in 1973 and lived here for 3 years vaguely in peace, and remembers the day the triple A started sending people into their homes at 9.30. I can't understand him too good, but he says something about how if kirschner is going to answer to anyone, she's going to answer to the rich people on this corner where we were standing, and not the people who are asking her for what they need. he "loves this shit," he says, and wishes he weren't so old. I told him it was just bad luck, and asked if he thought the last 20 years here made up for what he'd missed. surprisingly, he says "por la mierda, no" and that he'd have rather died at 30 and seen Franco Lose than have waited for this. I tell him I have it worse- that the shame in my country is that we don't have to be afraid of our government- that they should be afraid of us- but we still stay quiet. He said "razon," and then I of course wished to myself that he would adopt me. why me still with this adoption shit. nevertheless, it was apparent that the president had just an hour before denied the demands of the thousands of farmworkers who have been picketing in the provinces for the past two weeks over export and shipping fuel taxes. Inside, the t.v tells me that the same thing happening here is happening on corners all over the city, and that the President is expected to respond tonight.
i'm jotting this down exactly 32 years and one day after the junta that marked the beginning of the last military dictatorship in the country's history. The noise started two hours ago, and has yet to stop.
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2008/03/25/um/m-01635995.htm
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