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Published: June 10th 2008
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Which means - Always another protest!
What a chaotic place. For those of you that remember our last visit to Argentina, you may remember the story of getting stuck in the middle of a pilots strike here and a very scary flight on a tiny plane back to Buenos Aires? (For those that don't, that's one for another day....) We remember from then that Argentinians are pretty militant and like nothing more than a good old protest or roadblock. There are those that have long tradition and justification like the Madres de Plaza de Mayo who protest in the Plaza de Mayo every Thursday about the ´disappeared´- those people that have never been seen again since the military government was in power in the late 70s/early 80s. There are veterans of the Falklands who have permanent protests that they get no support from the government. Then there are apparently random protests over the lack of heating in schools, students whose university has been moved to inappropriate accommodation and some that you never really know what they're about. During lessons yesterday there were huge firecrackers going off in the street outside as part of a demonstration against something....could just as well
have been against firecrackers for all the sense some of them make! And when we were coming back from volunteering last night, one group (couldn't see the banners so don't know who they were) had completely closed one side of the autopista (luckily the other side!) - the main highway out of the city- at rush hour with traffic backing right into the city about 4 miles away.
And then there's the really damaging ones like the pilot strike a few years ago or the current strike by farmers which has been going on for some months now. They are protesting over increases in export tariffs brought in by the new president (is she really president or is her husband still wielding all the power....another discussion altogether!) which they say are crippling. However, from what I can gather it is large, pretty wealthy industrial farmers who are involved who have been making huge profits for years. In the meantime, the country is losing vital overseas contracts for grain and soya. In addition, they call huge meetings and roadblocks in different parts of the country causing chaos for anyone on the roads and generally making life miserable for most other
people, particularly those who are already struggling to buy food as prices are increasing even more than in the rest of the world. While I fully support peoples rights to demonstrate and protest these just seem to be incredibly greedy people who already have a lot of power. They wouldn't be able to afford to strike for this long if they were really suffering financially.
Anyway, enough of the politics here - there's also lots of fun things to be done! Saturday we took the opportunity of living in, what seems to us, one enormous shopping centre to finally replace some of our dilapidated travelling clothes before having a quiet rest of the day (well, you know how stressful shopping is for me!). On Sunday we took a bus to the outskirts of the city to a suburb called Mataderos where they have a weekly feria - a craft market with an emphasis on gaucho crafts, ie. leatherwork, silver work etc. They also have a stage with traditional music and folkloric dancing - very different from tango but it seems to be equally popular and we were amazed at how many people around us knew the dances and joined
in in front of the stage. It was also fascinating to us that prior to the music starting, they had a very solemn raising of the Argentinian flag with everyone belting out the national anthem - it's just not the kind of thing that would happen at home is it?!
And then it was Monday again and back to school. When we arrived at the Subte (underground) station there was a huge crowd of people on the platform and a long delay before the first train showed up, so full that only about 3 more people managed to get on. It was clear we were not going to get anywhere for some time so we abandoned it and went in search of a bus. Trouble with transport made everybody late but it turned out Hugh was having lessons alone again so wasn't starting till a bit later anyway. I was with just one other girl for the week but after Monday she called in sick and didn't come back all week so I also ended up with individual lessons. While these were fun and I made a reasonable amount of progress, it gets quite exhausting to be the centre
of attention all the time!
I also did a couple of afternoon's volunteering and Hugh came along for one of them. Luckily it was a lot warmer the day that we were working outside than the week before and we had loads of children in a very small space but it was fun. It seems clear that the schooling they get here is better in general than in Guatemala, even in the poorer areas. However, there are huge differences in ability and I get the impression that there is little extra support for children who need more help. However, there are one or two who can give me a run for my money on mental arithmatic, particularly when I'm having to do it in Spanish!
In our few spare hours we had a couple of meals out and I had a massage. One night we met up with Gabi again, at least eventually. We spent half an hour sitting in different restaurants on opposite corners of the street though for once, we were in the right one! Hugh had more excellent steak to keep his cow quota up. The main problem with restaurants here is that there are
few vegetables on offer. In fact, in general they have appalling diets - lots of red meat, lots of carbohydrate and sweet sugary things, they eat dinner after 10pm, don't eat breakfast and eventually just have coffee and croissant like pastries called medialunas at around 11am. Add to that that a scary proportion of the population smoke and they often party all night (though I don't think they drink as much as the average Brit!) and it's amazing any of them survive past 50.
And Friday night we watched an Argentinian film with the Spanish subtitles rather than the English. It was hard work as they speak so fast we barely had time to read the subtitles but we understood most of it which felt like quite an achievement. It does feel to me that I spend my whole life not quite knowing what's going on. Somehow it's worse when we know a reasonable amount of the language because you expect to understand more but I seem to be constantly confused by things that happen or that people say to me. And as we really only get to see news on the telly in Spanish we only ever seem
to have half of the story, often missing the vital bit. At least having lessons on my own I'm able to find out a bit more from Cecilia.
And that's another week over. Time seems to be passing very rapidly now that we are on our final stretch about which I have mixed feelings. I will be very excited to get home to see family and friends and to be back in our home but going back to work.....enough said!
Hope you're all finally enjoying the improved weather....
Lots of love
S + H xx
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Jonathan
non-member comment
You're right
It is exhausting being the centre of attention all the time. How I cope with it Ill never know... J x