Finding My Masa

A little over a week ago, I had the good fortune of going to Masa Critica here in BsAs. For those of you who don’t speak bicycle, Masa Critica or Critical Mass is the only day a month when cyclists ride in a massive pack. For one day, we are stronger than the mighty car, able to control the roads simply by virtue of the fact that there’s so damn many of us.

It was a cloudy spring day, the sunshine fighting as hard as a cyclist in Buenos Aires traffic to come out. We took the train down to the Retiro train station and on the ride I made a new friend, Julian who was also holding onto his bike as we bumped along. Julian asked me if we were going to Masa Critica. Yes, we were, I responded and Julian joined me and my friend and a journalist from a local paper while we rode along the widest road in the world, Avenieda de 9 de Julio to arrive at Obelisco.

When we arrived, there was a small crew of bikers. My favorite part of Critical Mass everywhere (I have been in DC, San Fran and now BsAs) is the diversity of the attendees. Here there were young and old, the heavily spandexed, the heavily hipstered and everything in between. There was a bike gang with shirts emblazoned with a bike and lightening lettering proclaiming so. A family with their nine-year old who was enjoying his second Masa Critica. I even saw a fixie!

In true Argentine fashion, we started tardy. But before we began, there was a moment where we gathered to hold our bikes up in the air and chant “Masa Critica”.  I loved it, because it made me feel bonded to these fellow misfits in our love of the bike.

We hit the streets, cruising down Avenida de Julio.  The cars were pissed and just got more pissed as we took over the roads. Along the route, there was the sound of horns as loud as thunder, yells as forceful as a slap and raw anger that we were in the way. I never really felt scared because I knew that the masa would protect the masa.

We continued, weaving through the barrios of the city, getting more comments than a teenage girl in a short skirt. “Que raro” or “How strange” was a common one I heard murmured among the crowds who were walking down the sleepy Sunday streets.

Raro. Hmm… To me, I felt at home, home with the guy that had the bike that towered 10 feet high. At home with the punky girl who had a death to cars sign that hung on the ass end of her bike. No matter where in the world you are, you can find your own masa.

Comments Revised

I recently did an interview with a fellow blogger in Argentina and among her questions was one about the cultural differences between how men treat women here versus how women are treated in the U.S. I made some smartass reply about how the male flattery is sort of charming here and that I don’t let it bother me too much.

Well, I spoke too soon.

The other night I was coming home from dinner around midnight. The bus was stuffed with people just starting their night, the smell of too much cologne and freshly washed hair temporarily overpowering the odor of the bus fumes. There was a guy who was drunk, crazy, unstable, who knows what exactly and itching for someone to talk to. With a mullet straight from 1977, disheveled clothes, and a bag that looked like he has fished it out of a garbage can somewhere uptown, I considered he might be homeless.

Two stops after me, a young woman dressed in painted on jeans, a powder white jacket and a tiara (and no, she was not a drag queen) got onboard. Homeless mullet began to try talking to her, but not in a nice way. He began saying nasty things to her and just generally being a pain in the ass. And no one did anything.

Tiara left, he got worse. Two young girls got on, no more than 16 years old, with heavily lined eyes and shorts that were perhaps half an inch more than your standard issue Daisy Dukes. The minute these girls boarded the bus, mullet man was like a wolf going for two little cublets. The bus settled into an uncomfortable silence as mullet man made disparaging comments about girls with the budding bodies of women, but the maturity of munchkin sized maidens.

They stuck together and scampered off for a seat right in front, next to the bus driver. I wanted to yell out, to curse, to scream at this fucker. But I also did not know how mullet man would react. I was a coward, unable to pull the words in Spanish from my gut.

There were two boys who were nervously gigging at mullet man’s demeaning diatribe and to them, I shot daggers. They couldn’t even look me in the eye and stopped with their girlish giggles before too long.

Finally, mullet man got off on the edge of Palermo and we were all free from his sexist terrorism. But this incident changed my mind about the “charming flattery”. Fuck that – it’s the sweet nothings that paved the way for the mullet man to act with impunity and yes, it does bother me.

To this end, my own Spanish homework is now my fuck you, leave her alone speech. Will share soon.

Flora of the 'Hood

I am finally almost settled into my lovely newish neighborhood, just a hop, skip and a jump from where I used to live. It’s a little more glam, with lots of yuppie type dudes driving shiny new Volkswagens with preppy sweaters lazily tossed over their shoulders. The woman are a bit more catlike than my other ‘hood, slinking around in skintight denim and hooker-height boots, decorated with vampy nighttime makeup even during daylight.

Despite the different varieties of flora and fauna, it’s a relatively nice neighborhood and I am enjoying it. There are nice little shops to browse, a wide choice of verdulerías to buy my veggies, my fave gym close-by. As in my other barrio, there’s also a telo or sex hotel within a couple a blocks should I need one.

Yes, gringos, a sex hotel. Here in Argentina (and other parts of Latin America), there are hotels where you can go to have sex. This is mostly because many people live at home until they are married or into their 20’s, unlike us who are thrown out on our asses days after turning 18.  I have yet to try one, but I have heard they can run the gamut, from mirrored walls to lovely romantic spots. Some of them even have “menus” where you can order toys and other appetizers to help get in the mood.

Not sure what fare is offered at La Fusta, my neighborhood sex stop. But in the parking garage, they have a large white statue of a woman with her legs invitingly open and a flower at her most fertile spot with a light that is always on.

The place is ironically located on a street called José Ortega y Gasset, a Spanish philosopher from the early 20th century that lived in exile in Buenos Aires during the Spanish Civil War. Part of the school of liberalism and a strong humanist, he was influenced by such big names as Husserl and Hegel.  His philosophy is neatly summed up by, “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" (I am myself and my circumstance).

He also believed that we have the choice to be free inside our own fate and within our fate we choose our destiny. Can’t think of a better reason to hit the telo.

 

I'm Toxico

As I am getting settled back again in Buenos Aires, I am faced with the grim reminder of how business is done here. Or rather not done here. I have decided that there’s no word in porteño (the Spanish dialect that is spoken here in BsAs) for customer service.

Here it goes… My beautiful, gorgeous Nokia has been declared “toxico” by the cell phone company because I had used a chip a friend had given me when I lived here earlier in the year. The account is in arrears because my friend has been trying to close the account for four months, but there is no one at the company who will help her. Nice, right?

I tried to resolve it the nice way, but ultimately end up screaming like a banshee at an unhelpful and rude drone who works for this horrible company, Claro. The guards circle me, maybe afraid I am going to do something crazy beyond yelling? No, he tells me, this is not our problem. Your phone is the problem, the other cell phone companies are the problem, but we, we are not your problem.

I stormed out in a whirlwind of rage with a littering of expletives echoing behind me. But I realized that I just wanted to prove this asshole wrong. So like an American invasion into an Afghan village, I storm back in with guns ablazing. I get a number and I sit. After a couple of minutes, they announce that the computer system is down and the masses spill from the sliding glass doors into the street. But not me. I’m not going anywhere.

I make small talk with a young woman, Sabrina, who is clad in purple ankle boots and slightly overmade for a daytime appointment. She tells me that Claro sold her a bad phone and she has been unable to use her phone for 6 months. Is that insanity? Yes.

They come ‘round again, telling us it will be at least another hour or longer. But the insane part is that there are people covertly droning on, printing out documents, quietly talking to customers. I notice the asshole manager looking my way now and again. I’m not one to be filled with too much ego, but could this work stoppage be because they don’t want to deal with me? Yes, Sabrina tells me, probably.

Finally, a woman Moria tries to help. We’re halfway there, but my phone remains “toxico” to companies that are not the horrid Claro. Supposedly, it will take a few days to clear this nasty list. Still waitin’.
As much as I hate to blog about my own trials and tribulations in this mundane sort of way, there's a point here. The system in Argentina is pretty broken, the people are pretty broken by it and violating people’s rights is not a big deal to these greedy companies and people just expect it in their everyday lives. The government steals, why shouldn’t the big boys steal when they can? That’s life in a kleptocracy, I guess.
Note: Photo from http://www.que.es

Feriados

I have had more than my fair share of extra holidays or feriados as I have been wandering. When I was in Colombia, I got Colombian Independence Day (which is also my birthday), the Battle of Boyacá and the Assumption of Mary (yes, I am a Jew but I'll take the freebie).  In Argentina, I got some extra Catholic holidays too and one or two nice remembrances of Argentine victories and defeats.  The gift of an extra lazy day even if I had to do some work, since my stuff is all based in the states.

Yesterday, both in the US and Argentina (and in Colombia too), it was Columbus Day.  In Latin America, it is called “Race Day” because the natives hate Columbus for taking them out, which I totally get. At least here in Latin America, the native people weren’t decimated like they were in the US.

While some people in the states were working yesterday, people here take the term “holiday” much more seriously than those in the US. There’s no run on the malls, there is no going into the office. Instead of throngs of shoppers hitting the mall, there are throngs of families strolling the streets. Gone is the constant roar of the buses zooming by, dog walkers are sans their normal herds. It’s a day of freedom and relaxation as the parks are stuffed with people -- sunbathers in itsy bitsy bikins (yes, I did see one today and it’s only 65 degrees), mothers and daughters clustered together on benches facing the afternoon sun, a couple drinking a lazy coffee at a café, sisters arm in arm sharing ice cream.

I walked in the afternoon sun to run a quick errand, but even I couldn’t move too quickly. Instead, I meandered the streets and for just a few minutes, I joined a city of nearly 16 million people taking the day off. Too bad I wasn’t one of them.

She's Baacck!

Happily back in the good airs and starting to get settled in. One of the biggest challenges in my respites from Latin America has been keeping up my blog. Honestly, inspiration has been hard to come by as I wandered in the first world. And technically, I wasn’t even really wandering so much. Occasional respites to NYC hardly qualify. So, let me apologize to you my dear readers.

In your own culture, it’s easy to have some blinders. One of the great/difficult/sometimes horrible things about being outside the US is that everything is unfamiliar. This gives me not only insights into my own culture and the one I am living in, but also some interesting experiences to share with you.

When you are a foreigner, lots of people want to show you things and are constantly asking for your impressions about their own culture. I often write about the people I meet as I wander, since they often give me a perspective different than the first world white girl’s.

So today when I went to deal with the cell phone company over a bad SIM card, they told me that to fix it I would have to go way down to the Microcentro. I tried to talk them into helping me in my lame ass Spanish, but they couldn’t help. At first I thought it was because of my Spanish and then I just became frustrated and a string of several expletives fell out of my mouth to describe my frustration.

“Entiendo,” the guy said, “Fuck is fuck in any language.”

Influenced

I am back in the US for work, mostly hanging in DC and enjoying watching the days slowly shorten as fall begins to fall upon us. While this was my home for many years, the past year of wandering has definitely changed my view of what I need to have a home. Nonetheless, I am enjoying seeing the wonderful people that are my friends who call this home.

One thing I am missing is speaking Spanish. My Spanish has been progressing nicely over the last year and during my time in Colombia it reached another level. Progress capped off with my trip to the coast, which included traveling with a couple of Rolos (people from Bogota) and speaking Spanish day and night. By the second morning of rolling over and having to sputter to life in Spanish before brushing my teeth or drinking coffee, I knew I had gotten there.

Since arriving in the Beltway Bubble, the Spanish has been mostly in fits and starts. The highlight was helping a pruned Salvadorian woman navigate the confusing cereal sale in the Safeway in my neighborhood. After setting her straight that all Raisin Bran looking boxes were not equal (the Safeway brand was not on sale), she commented that my Spanish was good… for a gringa.

All this led me to try an intercambio, something I had done in BA and just loved. You meet someone, chat for an hour in Spanish and an hour in English. I naturally went to craigslist, the modern version of the corner store, to search for a partner. I ended up with a Chilean dude with an accent thicker than tar who wanted to talk politics.

Fortunately I am up on my Latin American politics, including Chile, since I was just there in the last year. We talked about Michele Bachlet and he remarked how she wasn’t really a socialist, since she had been influenced by the whole Chicago/Milton Friedman/free market crowd. What’s so fascinating about this is that she lived in the former East Germany, yet she still preaches and surrounds herself with über capitalists. She also lived in the US as a child, her father serving at the embassy here in DC.

She ain’t alone. Many of the leaders in LatAm these days either lived for a spell in the US or surround themselves with people who were educated here. Uribe, the president of Colombia, did a stint at Harvard. Correa, the president of Ecuador, went to the University of Illinois.

This isn’t always an indicator of policies towards the US, however. Correa kicked the US out of Ecuador. And while Fidel spent some time in the US and almost studied at Colombia, he ended up going back to Cuba and well… you know the rest.