I left Sydney for many reasons but chief among them was a fear of committing to a working life I wasn't ready for, when I felt like I still needed to see the world and experience new things. During my final year of university I was watching so many of my clever, talented friends signing up for clerkships, internships, their first full-time adult jobs, talking about career stepping stones and benchmarks that had to be achieved and hearing too much of it made me struggle to breathe. It wasn't a life for me, and more and more I was realising that although I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself, it wasn't that. So much in Sydney seemed to be about status, money, work work work, and when I thought about myself running on that little wheel I wanted to cry. I needed to get out of the bubble for a while, and like everyone else who panics about not knowing what to do with their life, I've run away to another world. I suppose I needed to make sure that a Sydney life was what I wanted... and I'm not yet convinced that it is.
It probably comes as no surprise that I'm being seduced by life here. So far I've only seen how people live in Buenos Aires and a small part of the Uruguayan coast, but already in the last month I've found myself yearning to stay. If I didn't love my friends and family so much, I would, but I can't just leave everyone in my life behind and forget about them. I need them. Like the Argentineans, for whom everything is based around family, I want a life of lunches, dinners, bbqs and beach trips, of sitting in cafes watching the dog walkers swirl past with a dozen dogs winding around their legs. I want all the little moments, and I don't want to feel like I'm on the clock all the time. I want to be part of an anarchic society, as Argentina has been described to me... a place where anyone can do anything they want, anytime. At first the thought of that scared me; I had been envisioning drug traffickers, kidnappings, mayhem in the streets. And while that certainly exists, in parts, it's definitely not all bad. There's a comic twist to life here, and so much happiness. It's a wonderful reminder that no one really needs much to be happy. No one needs swimming pools filled with money, designer shirts and dresses, expensive cocktails and cab rides. I know it's a different world here, and the standards can't apply to back home, but I wish they did. Quality of life here is high, although so is unemployment, the government's engagement in some questionable practices, and environmental concerns are a long way down the list - take for example the supermercados, where you're given only two items in each plastic bag. Cashiers make "crazy foreigner" eyes when you ask them to fill the bags right up, doing so dubiously, as though the bag will explode and they can say "I told you so".
But despite economic troubles, people have standards. They're neatly dressed; the sheer number of cosmetics stores, hairdressing and manicure salons would indicate that they take a lot of pride in their appearance. The ubiquitous dogwalkers show that people love their pets, but no one wants to walk them... and there has to be money around if they can pay others to exercise their dogs (NB: This pride in themselves and their country does not extend to picking up dog shit, and Buenos Aires makes Paris, that paradise of poop, look like the pinnacle of public cleanliness). Cars are a status symbol like anywhere else but you could never accuse the Argentines of handling them with much care - a typical attempt at parking here involves bumpering into a too-small spot, alternately and repeatedly colliding with cars in front and behind until thoroughly wedged in. Apparently handbrakes are left off as a matter of course so that cars can be nudged forward or backward without submitting to the dents that are evident all over the city and denote a BA parking attempt. People are free and liberal with their horns, and lean on them at any opportunity. There is a strong sense of "I'll take my time doing what I want here, because I'm Number One" which is most clearly demonstrated in traffic, when it's common for a driver to leave their car in the middle of the lane and stroll off to the shops, leaving the rapidly-banking traffic behind livid with rage and tooting furiously. Upon their return, the driver takes in the scene, strolls back to their car and takes their time strapping on their seatbelt, checking mirrors, and testing the anger of those behind before leisurely pulling away from the kerb. It's theatre. Bus drivers, too, have all equipped their buses with musical horns, which they play every time they pass a pretty girl in the street, the horn sounding like a wolf whistle. Sometimes wolf-whistling buses are all you can hear for blocks - Argentinean women are gorgeous.
Of course, I've been writing of wealthy Buenos Aires, which is where I've been staying, the Double Bay equivalent. It's green and leafy, the buildings are old and grand, and the boutiques are overpriced. People sit in cafes eating pizza all day long (the country's obsession with pizza is bordering on alarming). But the other Buenos Aires is much more interesting, and it's where the true measure of the people can be made. It's underground in the subte, where punk kids give their seats up for the elderly without ever having to be asked. It's out on the Western outskirts of the city, where we went to experience some soccer matches, Argentina-style. I have never seen anything like it.
We arrived to find a dozen riot police vans with barred windows waiting for us. We were physically searched at two separate security checkpoints, water bottles and deoderant confiscated. I realised pretty quickly that I was one of a tiny minority of women present, and the others I saw looked as though they could beat me to a pulp without much effort at all. Soccer is a man's world in Argentina, which isn't surprising. Kids are brought to matches as babies, and an Argentinean four-year-old knows more about soccer than you or I ever would. The audience is 95% male, and in the entradas populares seats, where we were sitting, it's a whole different world. These seats are the cheapest, about $AUD10, and are directly behind either goalpost, surrounded with extremely high fences and barbed wire on all sides. Riot police are stationed all around the stadium, including in an unbroken line behind the goal facing up into the crowd, waiting for trouble. This part of the stadium is where the real fans, the poor fans, are. They all, without exception, wear the home team colours of red and white, and were clearly an experienced and well-oiled machine. Boys run up and down, directing and dividing the crowd, running enormous banners through horizontally as well as diagonally, and later on, working the crowd up and leading them in song.
Right before the game begins, the musicians arrive, 6 synchronised marching bass drummers and a couple of cowbells, and they set the beat for cheers for the entire game. I should mention here that the crowd arrives thoroughly drunk, and opens the game with marijunana, the second-hand fumes of which made me fuzzy-headed. They chant non-stop for the entire first half, songs about the supremacy of their team, River Plate ("smoking pot and drinking booze/we tell the police to fuck off/because here comes River Plate" being a sample of the lyrics), and their manhood ("why do I have balls/if I'm afraid to use them" is a popular chant). After the marijuana comes the cocaine, bumped off coins and only cursory attempts made to shield it from the police (who probably sold it to them). Goal-scoring is of course the most exciting time, when there is a huge cry of "GoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!" Apparently soccer commentators on TV and the radio are hired based on their ability to stretch "GOAL" out for the longest. When the home team scores this is flashed up on the board for several minutes; when the away team scores, the screen continues to play advertisements as though nothing had happened. Love that objectivity.
After the game, the riot police descend in formation upon the away team, who are swooped out of the stadium within minutes and bussed out of the area with a police escort, before anyone from the home team is permitted to leave the stadium, to deter post-match violence. Soccer games are an exercise in primal male chest-beating, and it is an intensely sweaty, exciting, and nerve-wracking scene to be a part of.
On Sunday we woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to experience another must-see of Buenos Aires, the Feria de Mataderos, in another far-out western suburb. The Feria is touted as being "unmissable", with market stalls, amazing asados and barbequed meats, and gaucho (cowboy) displays. It's supposed to be Buenos Aires province at its finest and most authentic. Imagine my dismay, then, when we spent an hour on a bus to get there only to find about two dozen tarp-covered market stalls separated by a dusty concrete path, selling the same cheap trinkets that can be found the world over, and not a single cowhide-chaps-sporting, lasso-twirling, mate-sipping gaucho in sight. You could almost see tumbleweeds blowing down the main street, which was more or less completely deserted, all the shops closed. We deduced that it was the mid-Christmas/New Year's weekend holiday that was keeping everyone away, but that being my final Sunday in B.A., I was extremely disappointed.
We decided to stay and have a parrilla lunch nonetheless (an open grill of various types of meat). We wandered down a side street and heard music blaring from a restaurant (I use the term here loosely). We peered down a dark, long narrow corridor to see people sitting at ramshackle tables and a man on a guitar singing Argentinean tango music. The corridor opened up into what looked like someone's high-ceilinged cement garage. There were a scattering of little tables and the walls were whitewashed, with the exception of a sad little disco ball up on the wall in one corner weakly flashing coloured lights onto the walls. The sweatiest, most harried-looking waiter I've ever seen took our order (the poor guy was serving 50 tables alone) and we had a proper look around. The first thing that became apparent was that everyone dining there clearly all knew each other, as well as the musicians and the waitstaff. The guitarist was accompanied by an enthusiastic drummer beating an African drum, who'd sporadically stop drumming and wander off to greet new arrivals. The room was smoky from cigarettes and all the open grills and the atmosphere was buzzing. This was obviously some kind of local Sunday afternoon hangout where everyone came to eat, drink, sing and be merry.
The musicians were great. At one point the drummer, accompanied only by some vague guitar strumming, delivered the most electrifying spoken-word poem I've ever heard. I only wish I'd been able to understand what he was saying, but what I missed of the words I gathered from the way everyone sat spellbound and exploded into riotous applause afterwards. At no point did it seem as though this was paid entertainment, but rather a few friends that gathered weekly for some fun.
During one passionate tango-style song, a fierce-looking hard-faced couple in their late 30s got up into the central space between tables and performed a passionate mix of tango and flamenco. They were unbelieveably good, whipping around scarves and circling each other with barely-contained crackling energy. I've never been anywhere where people spontaneously do that, and how much did I wish then that Australia had a more uniform culture and tradition of song and dance. The diners were loving it, and a couple of old ladies in turbans and glittery Sunday-best jackets got up and showed the rest of us how waltzing's done.
And I haven't even mentioned the food... two grills arrived at our table of 4 laden with chunks of meat. One grill would have fed us all easily, but we were valiant in our attempt to choke down as much meat as humanly possible. Chicken, beef, and some kind of intestiney offal thing (I skipped it) were all served. The place had apparently run out of salad so it was a meat-only feast, in swelteringly humid 40 degree heat. Probably one of the best afternoons I've experienced, the fact that we stumbled upon this treasure of a restaurant, where everyone was having a great time, made the trip to Mataderos overwhelmingly worth it.
Moments like this happen constantly around this city. Not that it's all happy, all the time - The week I was taking Spanish classes in the city, the main square, Plaza de Mayo, was wracked with protests over poor working conditions. Nothing quite like finding out that the banks are closed for four days only to then see the people that dispense your cash bellowing in the street, letting off flares and crackers/shooting guns in the air. They all go to the Plaza in front of the Presidental Palace aka the "Pink House" (Casa Rosada) and drink beer and make their dissatisfaction with the government known. Argentines love a good protest; it's another excuse for a holiday from work that no one seems to do.
I was crossing the main avenida of the city (supposedly the largest in the world with about 20 lanes of traffic) and saw a man bathing and washing his clothes in its central fountain while cars blurred past. He took no notice, and after washing carefully buttoned his shirt and put on a tie. It took me by surprise because although of course there is extreme poverty in Buenos Aires, it's not particularly evident. There are a lot of people limping around the city, which I think is the vestige of polio in childhood. There are beggars in the street, taking their babies from car to car at red lights asking for money, and kids juggling for small change, but for the most part poverty in Buenos Aires isn't so obvious, so seeing this man in the fountain (and I have seen others since) just reminded me that as much as Buenos Aires might seem familiar, it really isn't.
This is an incredible city and I will be back later in the year. I'm not finished discovering and experiencing all the excitement and contrasts to be had. What's not to love about a country that puts on a photo display of glamour shots of its own president in front of the Casa Rosada for the world to admire, while outside the fence homeless people sleep on benches? Here's the president, making a phone call in his presidential sash. Here's the president, having a laugh with some buddies in a private jet. Here he is, competing in a marathon. There's the president salsa-ing in a club. And here he's autographing photos of himself. It has, however, been a gentle introduction to South America. It's not hugely different from a lot of places that I visited in Europe but I'm sure that Peru and Bolivia, which are next on the agenda, will be very different.
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