Walking, Talking, Sightseeing, Dancing, Walking

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December 13, 2010
News of the day: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the current or I guess newly elected president of Argentina, celebrated Human Rights Day and the Restoration of Democracy on Sunday, December 12, 2010. I believe the celebration was slated to occur on Friday, Dec 10, 2010 but due to heavy storm, the celebration was pushed back on Sunday. This was an amazing experience to be in the thick of this political change to a country that I’ve just come to know 2 days after our arrival.

Before we witnessed this historic celebration, Kristen and I walked around the city and, as everyone suggested, we visited the Sunday’s market, along the stretch of Avenida Defensa in barrio San Telmo, home of Buenos Aires main tango culture and residence to a few artists. Just like any other market, it was great to see the different items that were being sold. However, instead of buying local items, we ended up purchasing a plug for our computers. We didn’t even remember to buy one before we left. Though, Kristen got a free magnet from a vendor who was selling Mafalda, the name of a newspaper strip Argentina developed by the cartoonist Quino, and bought a dress, and we got to bargain our plugs. Not a bad day at all. We continued on our walk at the market and Kristen was impressed by this artist who was selling a calendar of his sketches or “Mapa de San Telmo.” The calendar included some of his sketches of tourist attractions, i.e. La Casa Minima, the narrowest house in Argentina, or La Casa Castagnino, the house of artist Carlos Castagnino, and La Iglesia Rusa, the Russian Church. We continued our walk and even witnessed Tango dancing. Don’t worry I didn’t jump in. But I was pretty sure that tango was everywhere. There’s a booth on almost every corner selling tango shows.

After a lot of walking, the rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around San Telmo, back and forth, with only a small empasada for lunch while we wait for our host, Fernando, to pick us up. We went back to our hostel to pick up our heavy backpacks. We waited a few minutes and found that Fernando was waiting outside our hostel, via email. (We realized how much we missed our phones then.) It was nice of him to pick us up at our hostel. We drove to his apartment in between Boedo and Balvadera barrios. Wall to wall apartment buildings without alleys, as seen almost everywhere in Buenos Aires, this great neighborhood but at least the garbage are not left outside. Fernando’s place is located on the 2nd floor, that’s really 3rd floor if you’re in the United States. We introduced ourselves one by one and before we know it, we headed out to see the big festival and experienced the impact it had on the Argentinian people.

Listening to Fernando’s passion for human rights and the political shift in his own country is refreshing. It’s great to hear his own perspective on the state of his country. I enjoy hearing him talk about the situations that the people of his country are facing in today’s generation. So when he took us to this celebration with over a hundred thousand people outside Plaza de Mayo in front of Casa de Gobrieno y Museo, the atmosphere is electrifying. As we headed down there around 7p, Argentinians and tourist alike flocked the plaza with brute force as they waited for the show to start. One by one, famous faces from political figures to respected actors and actresses appeared on stage with messages that echoes the country’s change in its government. The crowd was treated with musical performances from some of the famous Argentinian great musicians and even reaching out to other performers from Puerto Rico. I am amazed by the energy that the people who stood for hours at the plaza to witness great performances and memorable speeches. With my limited Spanish, I barely understood the messages that were being delivered but I get the sense of its importance to its citizens.

It was a grueling night as we stood for hours with the people enjoying the music, the atmosphere with only empasada for the day. After leaving the plaza, we walked around the street with Fernando searching for a place to eat. We were so tired from the day’s sightseeing that all we wanted to do was go to sleep. Well I wanted to eat. We found a pizza joint just a few miles off of the plaza and almost halfway to Fernando’s place. We decided to hail a cab and because a lot of people were heading out of the festival, cabs were infrequent. There were two cabs that passed us by. Unbelievable. Fernando did whatever he could to get us a cab and it worked. We got to Fernando’s place a little pass one in the morning. We feasted on our empanadas and cheese pizza with onion toppings as we continued on more conversation about Argentina. It’s been a long day.

The following day, we slept until ten in the morning. Fernando has already left for work. We didn’t set our alarms and we missed our planned free walking tour of the city. Oh well, we just wanted to rest. Today, we met up with a non governmental organization (NGO). The NGO is run by two sisters, Maria and Cristina. Maria took over the organization’s day to day activities since Cristina is planning to travel. The organization provides musical education to ‘slum’ children of Buenos Aires as well as football programs for young women. It has one full-time musical instructor and the rest are volunteers. The word ‘slum’ was used a lot by both sisters to describe the children. Not my word. I can’t help but be fascinated by the passion that both sisters exerted about the work that they’re doing.

The day continued with more walking as we try to explore every neighborhood that’s listed on tourist’s maps. We visited La Boca, along the old port and at the mouth of the Riachuelo. During this visit, the last game of the football match was played for the season and we weren’t able to attend. The streets were filled with young men directing drivers to park on the side street. Late football fans marching to the stadium with pure excitement as noise of the match echoed. It would have been an once-in-a-lifetime experience to have seen a football game in a country where the sport is more important as the politics. On our way back, we stopped by a small bakery and ended up buying a dozen bread and two different kinds of alfajores due to our limited Spanish. I do have to point out that we’ve been surviving with limited Spanish.

The night ended with Fernando cooking a nice dinner for both of us and interacted into some more interesting conversation that have been going on since we arrived. Day by day, I’m learning so much about the country, the people and the history from so many people. I’m awaiting the amount of information that I’ll be learning as we plan our trips out of Buenos Aires. I guess you will just have to wait.

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Comments

[Andres Paolantonio]

Sharing photos of Buenos Aires
Hi, congratulations! You have posted some wonderful photos. Please visit my blog and you will find some other photos of builings and monuments of Buenos Aires. I hope you enjoy it. http://detallesdebuenosaires.blogspot.com Regards, Andrés