Explico unas cosas

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after a half a week in hunger that was for the first time in my life involuntary (money's been tight, or i'm just hungrier than usual) , I spent my second weekend in la provincia, this time in Quilmes at the home of Javier, a waiter at El Clasico. I spent my first night in BA at el Clasico watching a Huracan/Independiente match, when Javier and Valentin explained by means of an elaborate diagram the breakdown of fanatacism among portenos and taught me proper cat-calling techniques. Since becoming best of friends with Valentin and giving Ivan the cashier a couple of burned CDs, plus a generalized lack concern in this country for monetary compensation, I've been made a permanently invited guest of the house, and so make it a point not to go there too often. When I do, it usually ends up starting with a cup of coffee and ending days later and kilometers and kilometers away, sometimes in less than savory situations and always having learned much more about the country than Capital Federal is able to teach.

Most service employees live outside of the autonomous city of BA in some part of the surrounding Provincia, like NY city v state. When I was first invited to Valentin's home, I jumped at what I looked at as this chance to finally meet people from the lower middle class who did more or less what i do. Getting to know eachother at his workplace in my silicon-implanted barrio, both of us aware of eachothers' feelings of displacement, I looked foward to seeing where this guy came from since the beginning. but proportion and conversion, the two lurking variables that account for most of the surprises i run into here, hadn't been factored in. after the hour and a half trip to his place, i spent my first little while dealing with contradiction and frustration over seeing that the kid my age, who in conversation lives a scenario almost exactly the same as mine, in practice lives with his family of 5 in a house the size of my living room, in a barrio plagued with paco addiction that currently serves as a literal garbage heap for the capital federal. But superceding this was the revalation that supports my most romantic answer to the problem of why i have such a hard time disliking people i meet- that i've only ever met exceptional people. it took a few things to bring the fact to light, but i'm still living off of the joy that came that weekend from discovering that my friend valentin is a prince, completely transcendent of whatever bad was surrounding him.

valentin's friends had heard all about me and were excited to ask questions about the quality of motorcycles and heroin in the states. unhelpful as i might have been, we spent the next 20 hours eating meat and arguing (attn: bill) over dogs and their various merits. i stay in the camp enthralled by their completely disculpable hedonism, made forgivable by the fact that they'll never tell lies. needless to say, these kids make their livings doing what have you, and spending it on more of the same what have you. but the whole while i couldn't stop thinking about Valentin- watching him refuse to let his friends eat steak with their hands over an unset table, taking picture after picture after picture of the others, high on cocaine and fighting with eachother in a filthy kiddie pool, with the camera he saved for months to buy- his most important possession. not to mention our walk to the carneceria, during which he was asked to mediate neighborhood disputes and turn away the parents of girls asking him for dates with their daughters, showing them his engagement ring. i didn't know the first thing about where i was, but i was still brought to the feeling that, whether for the community's own generalized depravation/desperation, or for his own exceptionality, this kid was the last honest person for miles. for all the conflict and fear that was killing me inside all that day, i left with this blissful neutrality as i rode a motorcycle side by side with valentine to his friend's house, where i'd hitch my ride back. hitchhiking and motorcycling are two very new things to me, and i got back to capital federal queasy with asado and motion, sunburned and bloodshot in my eyes, prouder than anything of my friend.


I can only make this little bit of sense after this weekend, spent in Quilmes at Javier's house with 7 others for his birthday. after 2 hours by bus and train and walking through dirt roads, i saw the sunrise over his capital "city"- jose c. paz- where all 200,000 residents of this part of the province come to shop. a monstrous COTO hypermarket opened up there recently. early on in this excursion i had the (knowingly even at the time) misguided thought that i was as deep into the third world as i could ever get. And while i thought that, nothing could come to my head but the image of this tremendous shopping center built off a dirt road, and the idea that if anything went wrong here in Quilmes that this would be the first place i would run to, and there would be something, some kindof portal or chute there that would bring me home and make everything okay. this was early on, in a bout of exhaustion. by the end of another 2 sleepless days i had met a ton of people, made a drunken vow of fraternity by trading my I <3 NY tshirt for a Boca jersey, saw a pig killed in my honor, and, filthy and exhausted and surrounded by flies and puppies (so many puppies), i had to redact the impression of being in the poorest place i ever had in my life. every time i visit the provincia i think more that the capital federal is a potamkin village (that i love living in and have no problem with) at best, and a hollow sham at worst. People here build their own little homes on tiny plots of land, establishing everything for themselves independently of the non- help of an indifferent government.

Javier, wearing my t-shirt, tells me was born in Entre Rios, and that at heart he's a tough guy and not the sweetheart the capital and his job as a waiter made him. He says his father became wealthy and moved his family to the Capital when he was very young. Not long after, his father and three of his 7 brothers became among the 30,000 killed and disappeared during the dirty war or the 70s, and that he remembers little of him now. His mother worked in the formative years of the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, the nonprofit run by mothers of the disappeared, who all day every day in front of the Casa Rosada in protest. even if it was painful, he had a life in Capital which he left for Quilmes, so that he could "build a new one all for himself, instead of buying a space in someone else's," and that one day I'd see what he meant.

Next will be Neuquen, Patagonia, where I'm going to see the recuperated Fabrica Zanon, de los Obreros. (see www.thetake.org; or "FaSinPat"). I haven't written about it yet, but i've got a problem trying not to fall in love with the woman i'm working with in this subject, and i have to spend two days alone there with her. Vamos a ver.

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