Weighty Problem

Note: Canadians and Europeans (sans Brits) will NOT find this funny. This is for true-blooded gringos who slept through math class in the seventh grade.

So the world here is in metrics. Summer temperatures swelter above 35 degrees, meat comes by the kilo, and car rides are in kilometers. Fine, fine. I am not a complete idiot, as I know that 32 degrees does not mean boots but rather sandals. I did struggle once with a cookie purchase, ordering 500 grams and lamenting afterward how it was just simply too many cookies to eat (ok, not really since I love cookies more than just about anything in the world and I was probably really happy to have that many cookies to eat).

Yes, those of us from the US are more accustomed to ordering illicit drugs in grams than our food.

This problem became a weighty one a few weeks ago when I decided to weigh myself. With a life stuffed with crusty pizzas, crustier empanadas, endless rivers of red wine and a cavity inducing sweet tooth, I could feel my pants cinching my waist like a corset. So I step on the scale before my workout and immediately freak out. What is the conversion again? Since the number was just in double digits, I knew it had to be at a minimum doubled. But then what? Add 5? Or was it really multiply by 3? Shit, shit, shit, I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that this number I did know had no reference for me – it could have been equal to 200 pounds, it could have been equal to 150, I had no idea.

Since I was at the gym while all this went down, I naturally did an extra 20 minutes on the elliptical so I could think about the unsolvable math equation. Or try to help with its unknown outcome. And then I tried through the powers of reasoning to figure it out from the weight machines that litter the gym, some of which have both kilos and pounds. Forget it. I was such a neurotic mess thinking I weighted 200 pounds that I eventually raced home to find out.

I opened my Mac, I checked the little widget and sighed with relief when it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. One kilo is 2.2 pounds, so it’s a little more than double and if you’ve a first world white girl (or probably any girl for that matter, especially here in Argentina where they sadly have the highest rates of anorexia in the world) you know that every pound counts. Which is why I don’t weigh myself too much – in kilos or pounds.

Photo Courtesy of http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/images/scale.gif

Baubled Beauties

I’ve talked to you about the ladies of my hood. Some go out at 2o’clock in the afternoon with enough makeup on to rival RuPaul.

It’s not just the makeup, however. Ladies flout about town bedazzled beyond belief with tons of shiny baubles bejeweling their bodies, skyscraper high shoes with acrylic heels (just saw it last week), and skirts with hemlines as short as a sailor’s haircut.

After living here for a while you start to realize that maybe your sense of style changes. No, it doesn’t mean that I have cut my hair into a mullet, but it does mean I keep letting it grow. Nor does it mean that I’ve picked up a pair of hooker heels to wear to Sunday brunch. Instead, it takes on more subtle things, like wearing makeup (which I barely wear anyway) to lunch or always making sure I’ve got on some earrings or a little something to jazz up my outfit when I go out.

Women here also love jewelry. And I always have too, honestly. Even when I lived in DC, I still managed to gather a collection of little bits of glitter and sparkle to bejewel myself with when I felt like it. DC gals are a bit more, well… conservative in their style than many other places I’ve been or even lived.

But here they take it to whole other heights. For example, there is the flower. We’re not talking a flower on a lovely spring day or for an event. No, we’re talking a plastic flower in the hair for a Friday night drink with the gals. A friend from the US who has lived here for a while even sheepishly admitted to me that she has one and has worn it on occasion. We got a nice belly laugh out of that one.

Maybe it is because women like to fix themselves up. Maybe it is because women equate femininity with the stuff that is seen as “womanly” – jewelry, makeup, etc. Maybe it is because gender roles are a bit more rigid here and women are expected and taught to behave as women were traditionally expected to behave and look. Granted, Buenos Aires is one of the more progressive cities in Latin America, but old habits die hard I guess.

Whatever it is, I have to admit I am affected by it. As long as it’s a little jewelry or a touch of makeup to keep me fresh-faced, that’s fine. But if you see me eying any heels with metal tips… please shoot me.

Bathroom Cultural Alert

The other night, I went to see one of my most favorite singers in the world, Concha Buika. Think Erykah Badu and Nina Simone rolled into one tiny woman from Mallorca, with a family from Equatorial Guinea – the only African country where the predominant language is Spanish

The girl is fly. She dresses and looks like Badu, emits that amazing air of power a la Badu too. But the voice. That voice – a creamy dream with a range that will knock your socks off. She’s kinda jazzy, but girl ain’t afraid to bring in beautiful Cuban rhythms, hip rocking drumbeats or dramatic flamenco.

Divine. Here’s a little clip.



Before we went into the show, a friend and I ran to the bathroom. Of course, in true woman form, there was a line. We waited patiently, as the line moved at a decent clip. The bathroom was your typical post-modern public outhouse, with stale green walls and an antiseptic vibe. I noticed out of the corner of my eye there was a woman selling your usual bathroom fodder, including little squares of TP.

My friend leans in and whispers, do you think its drip dry? I look around and see that no one else is buying paper. Well, I respond, when I am in a place where the custom isn’t clear, I usually look at what other people are doing to get a sense of the system.

We opt for the gamble. My friend, who enters the bathroom ahead of me, yells out to me in disgust, “So much for when in Rome…”

Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing, Really?

My last week in Colombia included a trip to the glorious coast. La costa is another side of Colombia, filled with the tantric rhythms of cumbia music, the musty smells of seafood and the Atlantic, and the sticky, dewy glaze of 90 percent humidity like icing on your skin. The piece of me that lived in Florida relished the Caribbean-Latin concoction.

I traveled by myself for a while, sitting on buses and planes taking in the landscapes and reading. But inevitably, friendly (there really are no other kind) Colombians (usually of the male variety) would chat me up, my obvious gringa-ness driving them to show

me something fabulous about their town. I took it all in stride, and enjoyed learning every nook and cranny factoid of every pueblito I passed.

Inevitably, the question came. What question? The “are you married” question. At first, I answered honestly, which means no. This invited a series of questions, lectures, sermons, you name it, all in the name of my being a single gal.

William, who I met on a beach crowded with fisherman selling off their daily haul, told me I didn’t want to be married. He waxed on and on, as he waited for the best fish of the day, telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me but that my time was running out. This continued until a boat coasted onto the beach by only the moonlight, with fish as long as my forearm. Finally, William could go home with what he came for. Phew.

No man in North America would ask me this question after knowing me for 20 minutes on some beach while waiting for the fisherman to come in. In fact, I don't even think an Argentine would ask (not as friendly as the Colombians, for starters). I think it has to do with the currents of traditionalism that have a strong hold in Colombia. Women get married, women are married. And if not, there has to be a reason why not. In North America, maybe people are too polite but if you were even asked the question, I can't imagine the discussion going down the road of mine with William.

After that, I decided to create an imaginary boyfriend. Somedays, he would be a dashing Argentine, others just an ordinary North American. Lawyer, doctor, or mechanic. Either way, he was lovely and fabulous and better than any real boyfriend a girl could have. In fact, it might have been better than having a real boyfriend. At least some days.

photo from: http://www.hmseurope.com/nouvel2.jpg

Third World Women and Bikes

So… you probably didn’t know this, but Bogotá is a city that rivals any Western European city for bike friendliness. There are tons of bike paths and a weekly event where the bikes take over the vast majority of the city streets. It’s not Amsterdam, but it beats the hell out of my favorite bike lane in Washington, DC (on 9th St NW) where you are supposed to do halvesies with the bus.

Anyway, I have been talking to people about the fab bikeness of Bogotá and something really interesting came up that I have never considered… the gender divide of cycling. Not surprisingly, women of Latin America bike less than their male counterparts. This mostly has to do with the fact that women never even learn to ride a bike because this is seen as something unfeminine. Whhhatt?

Latin America is not the only place where this divide exists. According to research done by the UN, this divide exists in Africa too. In addition to the perception that riding is unfeminine, if a bike is the fastest mode of transportation available, you know who gets it. And it ain’t the chicks, I hate to tell ya.

This divide even exists in the US. Recently blogger Anna Letitia Mumford wrote about the bike divide in US, citing a study in San Francisco showing that women make up 49 percent of San Franciscans, but make up only 23 percent of frequent cyclists (meaning cycling two or more days per week) in the city.

Well, what can we do? First off, teach chicks how to ride bikes. I heard that the weekly cycling event in Quito, Ecuador has a bike riding clinic for women - a good step in the developing world. What else? Hmm… maybe make cuter cycling clothes? Just a thought.

P.S. The photo is the Porsche. Love her!

Mis Piernas

I know you’ve had a lot of my men stories here in BA, but I had such an odd male encounter the other day that I just have to share it with you.

This past weekend, I ended up having a fun filled night with a new friend who was a hoot. So much of a hoot that the next day when I was going to meet her for a late lunch, I was a certified disaster. My muscles ached from laughing, my throat was sore from yelling and my head still throbbed from the wine, beer and lord knows what other concoctions I had ingested well into the morning.

A mess.

And of course, a kind of late to meet her mess. And of course not knowing where the hell I was going and of course not able to find two brain cells to rub together to actually look at a map kind of mess. So I grabbed a taxi and told the driver my destination in Spanish. He soon asked me where I am from, the usual banter I am forced to engage in with the taxistas of Buenos Aires.

But this one is different.

He starts pouring on the flirt with a heavy hand. I have been living here long enough that I am used to a charming Argentine man who hands out compliments like a man handing out dollar bills in Vegas. So I just play along as best I can, operating on whatever intellectual fumes I have left from the night before. It wasn’t easy, my Spanish sputtering like the Ladas I had seen in Cuba the week before.

He loved it.

Then he started talking to me about my legs. "Tus piernas!" he exclaimed. At every stoplight, he turned around and directed his comments about my body, my face, my everything to my legs. Now don’t get me wrong, I run, I bike and all that crap. I have nice legs. But talking to my legs? Over the top.

We arrive at my destination and as I am rummaging through my bag looking for my 20-peso note, he turns and asks me if I would have coffee with him. There is a pleading in his eyes that I am not sure I have ever seen in a man before.

Do you just shoot a wounded man or leave him dying?

If you’re Jill, you just let him die a slow death. I took his number.

Being A Foreigner

The other day I went to look at an apartment (my roommate is moving South, which sadly means that I have to move too). Before I went to look, I emailed and spoke with a guy about the place. All of our interactions were in Spanish and when we met, he asked, "Where are you from? I can tell you are a foreigner because of your accent."

That comment about my damn accent (which I am told is cute, although I don’t believe it all) reminded me how obvious it is to others that I am a foreigner.

I know it. Looking at that apartment, there was just something I could not fully understand about the situation, the place, the people. Conversation would not bring me answers. I decided I couldn’t take the place because I couldn’t get the situation or the people… it was like trying to read a book in Russian to me.

This happens when you are a foreigner. Things and cues that may be obvious in your home country are just not available to you when you are in the middle of something. Sometimes its the language sometimes its the onda. Look, there is an entire tense in Spanish to talk about things you want but may never get and this impacts how people interrelate.

At the end of the day, soy una extranjera.

With this label comes the ignorance of not always realizing how deaf, dumb and blind I am to local customs and sometimes utterly failing to know when I have contorted them to their outermost limits and offended someone. If you know me and know even a morsel about Latin America, you know I have done this.

For example, there is my brazen indifference to my femaleness that is a regular feature of my blog and my life in Latin America. Here’s another example of it: I have a friend, a Brazilian woman. She is in her late 20’s and still lives with her parents and she is deathly terrified of walking to and from the gym at night alone in her neighborhood. Mind you, she is not living in the Buenos Aires equivalent of the Bronx, it’s probably closer to Long Island City.

I, of course, find this completely nuts. Is this because I have no idea really how safe or unsafe it is? Or is this because my definition of sketchy is worlds apart from a Brazilian one? Or maybe it is because I wouldn’t even know Latin American sketchy til’ it stabbed my gringa ass?

I’ll take option number three.

The good thing about being a foreigner is that people will just forgive and forget most of your transgressions. Aside from my femaleness, my other issues seem to be my punctuality (although I am learning how to be a half hour late to EVERYTHING, it’s great), my inability to stay up until 5 am and live on four hours of sleep and my severe resistance to underwear that is the size of an eye patch.

At least I have that accent to charm them, right?

More Women Talk

Sorry for the slack in writing, I have been swamped with work and haven’t had the time to give my blogging and thoughts about my first world white girl life much attention.

But I’m back and thinking about so many of the women I have met here in Latin America. I’ve met women who are smart, strong, successful and confident. Some are also scared, afraid, and unsure about their role in society because they are women. This is not a condition exclusive to Latin America, but definitely this is definitely a place with masses of mujeres that are afflicted.

When I travelled through Latin America in the winter, I met this one chica in Bolivia that still blows my mind. She had gone to college, she spoke at least three languages and when I told her about my trip wandering around South America, she told me she could never do anything like this. Her reason? Because her dad told her that she could not do anything alone because she is female. And since she had heard it from the time she was little, she believed it.

WTF?

Another dear friend lives here in Buenos Aires because in her home country in Central America, it would not be acceptable for a woman in her 30’s to live alone, to be unmarried, to have a life that does not include a husband and/or children.

Even here in Buenos Aires, some women move from their parents’ house to their husband’s house without ever having a chance to be on their own. We spoke about it in my Spanish class the other day. Sometimes it is economic, but it is equally cultural, with many parents not understanding why a woman would need to live on her own.

Hell, it existed in North America not too long ago. I recall several years ago having a conversation with my mother, grandmother and a close family friend. They all remarked how they had never lived on their own, going from the house of their parents to the house of their husbands. Even after getting divorced, they had children camped out at home. In fact the only people around the table who had lived alone were my grandmother and I.

She had been recently widowed and I asked her about living alone. She looked at me with the raw grief, sadness and anger that could only come from the loss of the biggest piece of your life that can never be replaced and said to me, “I hate it.”

A few months later, she mentioned our conversation from that day and told me she had changed her mind, “It’s amazing to be able to do whatever you want.”

I’ll leave it at that.

Sexism Produced (and Washed Too)

I am a fruit and veggie addict. When I worked in an office, I was known to bring a veggie bag to work everyday as a snack. Since arriving in BA, I have had some dreams about Whole Foods. I either dream about the one on P Street in DC or the one in Columbus Circle. All of these dreams usually involve the produce section where I can see for miles and miles and miles the endless rows and piles of crunchy fresh overpriced goodness. In my delicious dreams, I see 55 types of apples, every newly plucked spice known to man and piles and piles and piles of exotic organic greens harvested by some third world child.

Oh how I miss it.

Here the produce is pretty good. You can buy it in the grocery store (which I do on occasion) or you can but it at the verduría (vegetable stand). I prefer the verduría, if only because they usually have more variety and the stuff seems fresher. Plus, I like to help the small guy and it appears that many verdurías are owned by Bolivians or Peruvians. Sometimes you can hear them speaking quietly in Quecha or, even better for me, in the gently accented Spanish of the northern half of the continent which I find much easier to understand.

There are two joints by my house that I frequent and I’d say the quality is about the same. It ain’t Whole Foods but it ain’t the Soviet Safeway, know what I’m sayin’? One is located on the main drag near my house, the purveyors a group of young men who barely understand my slowly evolving Spanish. I typically ride up on my bike after the gym and don’t even lift my big tush off the seat while the boys scramble around fetching my spinach, tomatoes, apples and peaches. It’s like a drive thru veggie joint, Jill-style.

The other place is about a block or two away and is a little darker and danker than the drive-thru. It is filled with a couple of women who come up to my armpits and flurry about in long skirts with their midnight hued hair pulled back into messy buns. The weird thing about them is that after they gather my broccoli and red peppers, they won’t take my money. They direct me towards a man with pockmarked skin and a little belly who manages the funds. The women are not allowed to touch the plata.

This is also something I noticed at the lavadero where I get my laundry done. The chicks do the work, the men take the dough. Why?

When I see those nice woman all look at me meekly from behind their inky bangs, I get pissed. These chicks birth the kids, clean the houses, do the labor. Is it about trust? Is is about sexism? Is is about women being bad at math? Who knows. Maybe the women of Latin America need a hand from Barack to get a little more equality.

Update 6:27 pm: Just picked up some laundry and guess who took my 20 pesos? A chick!

Subte Stuff

So I am deep into my Spanish classes at the University of Buenos Aires. UBA is supposed to be the best place for Spanish, although I have my doubts. I try not to let the fact that the buildings look like the have been standing since pre-Weimar Germany (and survived that whole war thing) bother me too much, but when you have to practically go outside to go to the bathroom you kinda go hmmm.

Everyday I take the subway, called the Subte, to the microcentro. The Subte is more DC than New York with lousy hours and only a couple of lines. The upside is that when they are out of change they let you ride for free. Another fabulous thing is that they have Wi-Fi, although I can’t imagine most of the people who are riding the Subte are the kind with Wi-Fi enabled devices (although I do have one and I ride the Subte). And last but not least, I’m not sure that pulling your wireless device out on the Subte is always the best decision, as I once saw a snatching.

A friend told me the other day that Buenos Aires was the first city in South America to have a subway. Turns out it is not only the first in South America, but the first in the southern hemisphere and in the Spanish speaking world as it was built in 1913. Impressive.

I love my Subte ride to catch a glimpse of people living their lives in the city. There are stunning men in crisp shirts, looking preppy and pressed. There are beautiful women who are impossibly thin, fully made up or making themselves up as we barrel underneath Avenida Santa Fe towards downtown.

The mornings are usually cramped and hot; halfway through my ride there is usually sweat dripping from me and/or my fellow passengers. I prefer the afternoon, when the commuters are ensconced in their downtown offices and the common people are out on the prowl. The usual suspects include a blind man who regularly begs on the Green Line, his grizzled face and voice to match calling out, “Por favor, ayudarme, cinco centavos, por favor,” the tap-tap of his cane serving as the beat for his melancholy song.

Another feature of the Subte are the people hocking their wares. In South America vendors are generally more aggressive than in the North, the ones on the Subte place their selection of Guias (city guides, like London A to Z) or hairbands right on your lap to entice you.

There’s entertainment of a more traditional sense too -jugglers, actors, musicians, and singers. I was serenaded for part of my ride home the other day by a wistful tango, played on an accordion by a white haired man. Beautiful.

Sometimes what you see isn’t beautiful. Many of the people standing up and asking for some change on the Subte are children or poor men and women dragging their children from car to car, hoping for the kindness of strangers. It’s not a common sight in North America and when I first saw it, I couldn’t decide what bothered me more- the children being schlepping around alol day or that their parents are doing it in front of them. I guess if you have to survive, you do what you have to do.

Agressive Man Update

I wrote briefly about my experience as a woman here in BA, mostly laughing and a little shocked at the behavior of the men in the club a couple of weeks ago. Well, I have an aggressive man update…

I go to the gym most days near my house. It’s a nice enough place and after a month of going there, I feel pretty comfortable in my surroundings and doing my thing. My thing often is a little different than the thing of others. I am pretty into the gym and my gym in DC was a reflection of that. As my DC readers know, Results the Gym in Dupont Circle is for two things – getting laid (if you are gay) and hardcore workouts. So for me, I’ll take option two.

Anyway my gym here is decidedly more straight, more age diverse, etc. I welcome this mix overall; it is one of the things I enjoy most about leaving the gay ghetto I loved so much.

The one thing that seems to be the same is the social component. At Results they are looking for a date, here maybe they are just looking to avoid exercising – they don’t seem to be working out so hard. Many of the women are caked in full makeup, sometimes even dripping in jewelry while I am dripping in sweat.

It doesn’t matter. I do my own thing; listening to my Ipod, wearing my crappy Adidas shorts, enjoying my little world sans my precious baubles. Occasionally I get stares, but I have learned to ignore them.

The other day, however, things got a bit more aggressive. I went to do some lunges, taking the 6 kg (about 12 lbs) weights from the weight rack. As I am looking in the mirror and doing my lunges, I become aware of a pair of eyes on me. The eyes are attached to a 40ish guy with a slight paunch, who has turned to watch me do my lunges with a lusty look in his eye. I am a little embarrassed (remember my long history with the gay gym), but finish my set. He then comes up to me and asks to borrow my weights and tries to engage me in a conversation. Not a problem, I respond, giving him the weights and going back into Madonna-land on my Ipod. He then proceeds to do curls right in front of me, like a peacock showing me his feathers.

I was not impressed with the colors, I was creeped out.

I took the weights back, finished my lunges, and went to the other part of the gym to stretch. My advice on aggressive pickups in the gym: always wear an Ipod. That's of course, if you are lucky enough to have one.

Taxistas

Buenos Aires is a huge city and getting around sometimes can be a bigger pain in the ass than getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan. There are tons of buses (collectivos) for the lazy, often delivering you within meters of where you want to be. There’s a price for the convenience – often you will sit forever (if you are lucky enough to get a seat!) in sweltering temperatures while your bus crawls along like an 8 month old.

For the less patient, there are taxis. Tons of them. Also NY style – yellow and black, zipping through town, commandeered by aging Argentine men who vary from straight out of central casting with fedoras and tango music blasting to those who look they missed their calling in the next carnation of Guns n Roses (Ed note: there is a LOT of this look in Argentina generally).

A taxi is pretty cheap if you think in dollars and if you are really late (not just Argentine late), it is simply the only way from A to B. I also use the taxi ride as an opportunity to work on my fledgling Spanish. Inevitably because of my lovely gringa accent, the taxista and I will get into some type of conversation, usually focused on Barack Obama or my lack of a husband.

Late last week, I was in a taxi and the taxista decided to talk to me about #2, my lack of a husband. The dialogue went like this (translated into English):

T: “So, you are not married?”
J: “No.”
T: “Well why not? How old are you?”

I told him my age.

T: “And no husband?”
J; “No.”
T: "But you must have a boyfriend, no?”

I decide to play with him a little.

J: “Yes, a few.”
T: “Seriously?”
J: “Yes.”
T: “How do you do that?”
J: “Well, there are 7 nights in a week.”
T: “So these men, how soon do you go to bed with them?"

Whhhatt? I paused. Surely I am misunderstanding him? I say excuse me. He repeats the question and it is exactly as I heard it.

I am pissed. Who asks that kind of question? But then again, recalled the whole women in Latin America thing, the sexism. Also, there are many who think American woman are easy.

He has already made up his mind about this, so I respond, ”Depends on how I feel.”

My next taxi ride, when I am asked if I am married, I respond yes and talk about Barack Obama.

Being A Woman in Latin America

I always get questions from people about being a woman in Latin America. They usually ask me if it’s safe, which is pretty silly. Of course it's safe. It’s as safe as being a woman in NYC or LA or whatever large city in the world you may find yourself in. I mean, don’t be a dumbass… watch yourself and your purse and your drink. Don’t be the fool you typically become after three vodka and Red Bulls, know what I’m sayin’? And if you do, make sure you’ve got your girls with you to get you into the radio taxi and get your sorry drunk ass home. Alone.

The treatment of women here, however, can sometimes leave you asking WTF. Sure, there’s cat calling down the street and yes, there is most definitely staring. In Chile, they will sometimes get right in your face and mutter dirty things under the breaths. But there is also carrying your bags, holding doors, and lovely graciousness. Nice. Hermosa.

Then you’ve got the dance floor. When you go out dancing (in Buenos Aires at least, this did not happen to me in other places) the men become more like vampires out for your blood. Dancing in a club on a Wednesday night in Buenos Aires can feel more like duking it out with Dracula than letting loose for a night of fun.

Last night we were grabbed, kissed, cuddled, felt up, made to feel ourselves up, and just generally harassed as we boogied down for a couple of hours. At first, it was really funny… I laughed along with everyone else, bopping my head and wiggling my hips while half the bar ogled us. But eventually it just got annoying.

I looked around at one point, trying to see if other groups of women found themselves defending their blood from the circling bats. It didn’t seem like it. Was there a reason we were the prey of the night? I’m not sure.

Being a woman in Latin America is no easier than being a woman in any other place in the world. Harassment comes in all forms here it just requires biceps.

In the end, we danced our asses off and had a grand time. And the cab ride home with a group of drunk giggly girls recounting the insanity made for a good time.