Falling in Love with Argentina

            I am finally ready to really write this thing.  In the past month I feel like I got slapped in the face with Argentina, but after having some time to process it all, I realize that I am in love.  It turns out that the Argentina I have come to know and love is a lot like that guy that makes fun of you relentlessly and annoys you to no end: at the end of the day, it just makes you want to be with him even more.  So I have compiled my reflections on my experience thus far, from the most bizarre to the most embarrassing, but rest assured that I have loved every minute of it.

Rafaela, la ciudad chica

            Rafaela, Argentina.  My home for 2011.  A hard-working city of 100,000 inhabitants who cannot believe I got stuck in such a tiny city but at the same time have never thought to move anyplace else.  So why don’t they leave?  And why am I content in this itty-bitty city?  The people.  The words I’ve used so far to describe the people are amable (kind), amigable (friendly), and simpática (nice), but I am sure I will learn many more.  There are the grand gestures they make like the friend I made on a bus: I was coming back from a trip to Córdoba and after we finished our dinner (buses here are like airplanes: they have “bus attendants” that serve food and drink and the seats recline into full beds) the girl next to me asked me where I was getting off.  Once we realized we both lived in Rafaela we talked and talked for 3 hours about everything from travel to foreign romance, ended up sharing a cab home, and since then have met up a bunch of times and become pretty good friends.

            Then there are the smaller gestures: when I ask someone where the bathroom is in their house, even if it is right next to me they will get up and personally show me the bathroom and turn the light on for me.  When I ask for directions in the street (since maps do not seem to exist in this city and the first directions I get to any place are from people that have lived in this city for at least 50 years), after I thank the person they usually respond with “Por favor, mujer, espero que lo encuentres y que tengas un muy buen día” (Translates to something like “Please, don’t even worry about it, I hope you find it and you have a great day”).  I think if I responded to someone in that way in Boston they would send me straight to the psychiatric hospital.  And finally, the most touching gesture is when I am introduced to a new group of people: “Esta es Estacy (my name in Spanish, I have completely given up on using the correct pronunciation).  Es de los Estados Unidos, pero habla rrrre bien castellano (she’s from the U.S., but speaks excellent Spanish).”  There is no better confidence boost than that statement in front of so many new faces, and I appreciate it and cherish it every single time.

            And finally there is my stand-in Argentine family: Mini and Rodolfo.  Mini is like my boss and mentor here: she organizes all of my involvement in classes at the teacher training institute and also makes sure I am happy in every other aspect of my life, and cares so much that I think she cares a bit too much.  She is as firm a boss as she is a loving Argentine mother, and she has helped me to understand Argentine social customs, the wacky organization that is the Instituto where I teach, and even the text messages my friends send me in shorthand without realizing that they don’t teach text language in school.  She also has offered to go over literature with me once a week so that I can improve my vocabulary alongside my fluency, which is a huge help for me, as teaching Spanish is one possible route of many for me after this experience.  And she taught Spanish for six months on Martha’s Vineyard, which is just crazy!  This woman in the middle of Argentina has seen my town, Falmouth!  And her husband, Rodolfo, is a jokester but loves to reflect on life and what is truly important, and I can never get enough of that.  So together, they have made my transition a very smooth one, from putting me up in their house for a few weeks while I was still looking for an apartment to even inviting me to a wedding they were invited to because I had no friends yet (I was listed as “USA Girl” at my table because no one knew my name.  That was back in March, in the days that I was still affected by embarrassment; now it is daily routine).

            In the beginning I felt lonely, a bit disillusioned that I was not in a bustling metropolis like those I am used to back home.  But it did not take long to realize that I am incredibly fortunate to be in Rafaela.  Not many Americans pass through here – I have already met or heard of all of them – and that opens up many social doors for me, turning every single part of my day into a social interaction.  In the supermarket, once I hand over my American Capital One credit card and my Massachusetts license, the questions begin.  Sometimes I of course wish they would just leave me alone, but in general that curiosity factor is what keeps me going here.  In such a small place, those conversations have led to so many new friendships and experiences that I never feel alone, and this is not a culture where one would ever want to be alone – I’m no longer surprised when friends invite me to go the supermarket with them and I continue to shock people by walking through the streets alone so much throughout the day.  I’ve been here for little over a month and I already feel like I am in good hands, that I am surrounded by many people that care about me, and I’m fully willing to admit that self-proclaimed independent me could not do it without them.

Argentine Cuisine = Comfort Food

            I have found very few redeeming qualities of Argentine food, except that at the end of a long day in a foreign place there is nothing I crave more than the overly carnivorous, cheesy and sickeningly sweet cuisine of this country.  The most typical is the asado, which is the Argentine barbecue, and which many families eat on Sunday afternoons or to celebrate birthdays.  Platter after platter of chorizo (a type of sausage), different cuts of meat, and matambre (a rolled-up combination of meat, vegetable, and egg served to kill, “matar”, hunger, “hambre” – even though by then hunger is a very distant memory) are served fresh from the grill.  Rather than filling up their plates with food from the start, everyone continuously picks at all the different cuts of meat, so that at the end we have no idea how much meat we have consumed and can move on to a guilt-free dessert and coffee.  For dessert, the staple of any recipe is dulce de leche, a very thick, sugary, caramel-like sauce generously added to cakes, pastries, candies and ice cream.  For dinner, empanadas, which are like little meat pies, stuff anything from meat to vegetables in a pastry shell, but I assure you that any nutritional value the stuffings may have had before has been fried or boiled out of the mix.  Another typical dish are milanesas, which are thinly sliced cuts of meat or chicken fried up to be served alone or a la pizza, which is a lot like the American chicken parmesan.  And finally, as many Argentines are of Italian descent, many typical dishes are Italian and always heavy on the cheese: gooey, cheesy pizzas and to-die-for lasagna stuffed with cheese, meat, and spinach are just a few of the dishes I have sampled.  The ice cream is also creamy and rich like Italian gelato, a fun fact I learned a bit too early in my stay here.

            So the temptation is there, and to make matters worse I have found that the Argentine people like to eat more than anyone I have ever met.  I will never tire of listening to Argentines talk about food; their eyes light up while they over-roll their R’s saying Que rrrrico que rrrico (how delicious) over and over in their beautiful lilting accents.  And they take their time to enjoy their food and a lot of it.  When I have dinner with friends, the whole process can take up to 4 hours!  Even at restaurants, where once you sit down you can stay for the whole night if you wish (a tradition I wish I could bring back home with me), I have stayed for hours chatting over appetizers, main courses, and dessert.  For the first time in my life, I am not self-conscious in the least about my eating habits because these people cannot get enough of their food and drink.  There are always seconds and the wine keeps flowing until everyone goes home.  I am, however, a bit self-conscious about the state of my waistline, but if that is the price I must pay to be culturally appropriate, I will take the hit.

Tipo 10:00

            Hasta luego planning and punctuality and welcome to a new sense of time.  In the U.S., we are expected to be on time for everything.  In Spain, no one is on time for anything and everyone knows it.  In Argentina, I have found that everyone and everything shows up whenever they feel like it.  A common expression is tipo, used with a time to say something like “around 10:00”.  After my experience in Spain, I thought I was ready for this, until I realized that any time between 9:30 and 10:30 is fair game for tipo 10:00.  One night I invited a friend over for dinner and he got here just as I had started cooking because he was bored and felt like coming early.  Another night I practically fell asleep waiting an hour for friends to come by late at night to go to a pub.  I have learned that I need to be prepared for anything: people will often make plans on the fly and will show up whenever they feel like it, two things that I still have not completely gotten used to.  My friends probably laugh when I text them in the morning to have dinner that night – and they don’t know how much self-restraint it takes for me to wait that long to make plans!

Boliche Boot Camp

            In Argentina, the word boliche refers to their nightclubs, which open around midnight but no one shows about until after 2:00 am.  Things start to wind down around 6:00 or 7:00 am, when everyone starts thinking about where to grab breakfast or the biggest burgers I have ever seen to go to bed full and content.  This is not the first time I’ve experienced partying of this caliber: in Spain we went out until 8:00 am churros con chocolate for breakfast.  I am, however, pathetically out of shape after being shepherded out of Boston bars at 2:00 am every weekend for the last 8 months.  My first attempt: one of my students invited me to go to a boliche with her and her friends.  We did not leave for the boliche  until about 2:30 am.  After an hour of initial excitement that the club was playing all music in English, I headed out to the patio to rest up for the rest of the night.  Well rest I did!  When the group came looking for me, I was fast asleep, head down on a table.  I was mortified.  I think I have already learned all of the ways to say “I’m so embarrassed” in Spanish and I know the group will never forget how to say it in English either. 

At my second attempt, I was determined.  I got a good night’s sleep the night before and had a big cup of coffee at 8:00 pm to keep myself going.  And I made it!  Despite fielding questions from “Why don’t you straighten your hair so you look more Argentine?” to “If I visit you in Massachusetts, what kind of animals can I hunt there?” all night, I was still standing at 6:00 am and made it all the way to breakfast, after which I still was not tired.  I think I may have overdone it with the coffee.  In this overly-caffeinated country of mate addicts (mate is a very strong green tea that Argentines drink from a straw out of a communal drinking gourd – sounds very hippie dippy but it is delicious and a really fun experience to drink outside in the plaza sharing stories and lots of laughs) and coffee at all hours of the day, my very sensitive body has not held up well.  I am working on achieving a balance, but when it comes to drinking- and eating-related things, Argentina is not the best place to find that balance.

            So my dear friends, I am happy, extremely happy with how everything is working out here.  I realize that I devoted this entire post to my social life here, but that is the result of my new Argentine patience.  I am still trying to figure out what exactly I have to do in my job here and how I would like to spend my time outside of work, but I must be patient in that process, as nothing here follows schedule.  If it did, they would not have as much time to be so damn nice to each other!

Step #1: Falling flat on my face

Hola a todos!  And welcome to my blog which I hope will amuse you, enlighten you or even entice you to visit the beautiful Argentina!  After many failed attempts at coming up with a URL and title for my blog (How can one come up with a title for a story that has scarcely begun?), I have settled for "Becoming Argentine," which acknowledges my deepest desire for the next 8 months.  The beautiful travel destinations will always be there to visit.  The Spanish language will never cease to challenge and confuse me.  But what I cannot repeat is this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attempt, and continue to attempt, to be a little more Argentine.

March 12, 2011.  Logan Airport, Boston, MA.  I arrived at the airport, new hiking backpack and one, only one, packed suitcase in tow (with the help of the luggage scale I got for Christmas and deciding that my wardrobe for the next year will consist of some variation of a black shirt and a scarf every day).  I met up with Sam, my fellow New England Fulbright ETA, and had the perfect last supper: clam chowder and a Harpoon.  With that we were off to Buenos Aires!  I was immediately introduced to Argentine hospitality when the man next to me on the plane started answering all of the questions that he had heard Sam and I asking while in the boarding line (apparently I'm not very discreet about my travel anxieties).  With his advice I was able to change money and find a shuttle bus to our hotel, but unfortunately he could not help us to distinguish between Hotel Libertad and Liberty Hotel for the van driver, who drove us in a few circles before dropping us off just in time for orientation.

Day 1 we went on a bus tour of Buenos Aires and my half-asleep self struggled to take in the enormous and complex city from the bus window.  We visited many neighborhoods and walked around La Recoleta cemetery to see Evita's tomb, but I will have to get back to you on the rest after a future visit because I was exhausted.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we had orientation with the Fulbright Commission and the Ministry of Education.  The most useful part of that was the advice from ex-pats living in Buenos Aires and post-Fulbrighters.  The following have been the most helpful:

1. Watch out for traffic: In Rafaela, I think I have come across six traffic lights thus far.  Every other intersection is treated as a yield sign.  One car goes, then another, without following any sort of law or order.  And it always works!  Ana, our ex-pat advisor, sees this as a result of the Argentine tendency to look out for one's neighbor.  Rather than looking to the law, the people look to the driver next to them to decide what to do next.  Beautiful theory aside, I am still a bit terrified that a car will crush me into the quaint little cobblestones of Rafaela every time I cross the street.

2. Making friends in a new country is like extreme friend dating: So far in Rafaela, I have been thrown into multiple dinner parties, usually accompanied by one person who I met briefly or who I may never have met but someone else decided I should meet.  These parties usually include that one friend who just cannot believe I would choose to leave my family to come live in little, tiny Rafaela, the inevitable "What do you think of Argentine men?" question and that moment when everyone forces me to embrace an Argentine custom, be it drinking Fernet (their liquor of choice) with Coke or listening to cumbia (a type of Latin American music played in some of the nightclubs here).  I go wherever I am invited and despite the moments when I am not sure what to say next or am falling asleep because speaking Spanish all night has left me physically exhausted, I love it!

3. A balance between patience and asking for everything three times: The key to survival in Argentina.  The pace of life here is another universe compared to my college and investment firm days.  Many things, from finding an apartment to having running water, will happen if you just wait a few hours, days or weeks.  Other things, such as the beautiful theoretical project proposals we made to the Fulbright Commission in our application essays, will take a bit more force and persistence (I will let you know how this part goes).  The bright side: When I left Buenos Aires for Rafaela, I went through security at 5:00 for a 5:12 flight and was still able to make the flight!  (Not my choice of course, I was following our Argentine mentors who were very unconcerned about our tardiness)  Apparently they are so patient here that even planes will wait a few minutes for everyone to get through security!

Outside of our hours of orientation, I was able to experience a little bit of Buenos Aires, starting with a night out at a milonga, an old-fashioned tango dance hall, with about ten other ETAs.  After I sat to the side for a bit, I decided to join the group in learning from our Fulbright dance aficionado, Boris.  I learned the basics with Boris beside the dance floor and once I thought I was ready we took it to the floor.  I was just following Boris with what he had taught me when he stopped and told me to hook my leg - according to his blog this is called a gancho - I was a bit cautious but he kept telling me to go for it, so I did.  And then I was falling.  And I took him down with me.  In the middle of a milonga in Buenos Aires.  Apparently I was supposed to unhook my leg at some point and not let all of my weight come crashing down on top of him.  But we got up, shook it off and continued on, and in the end the embarrassment was far less than my regret would have been had I not even tried!  Last weekend, Boris finally admitted that his hand hurt for four days after that fall.  Sorry!  And in case you think I was turned off by this experience, I already have found two dance studios in Rafaela that teach tango.