This week I had my first experience with mexican-vacation-style upset tummy here in Buenos Aires. It wasn't too bad, I wasn't sick-sick, but my tummy hurt for three days or so and I didn't want to leave the apartment for a day or so. And I found out that you can't buy Pepto Bismol in buenos aires, or anything remotely resembling it. (Pink Bismuth? I've seen it called that in generic form in the states. Bismuth, hmmm...)
Which is fine, not everything has to travel internationally. But really, this would be a good thing to travel. I see it everywhere in mexico and central america, at least everywhere where foreigners might go, probably for good reason!
But one thing that shouldn't travel is this -- daily updates on the doings of Britney Spears on the local news. And I mean daily, like, every single day. We get the big news of other stateside 'stars', like j-lo's twins and, I don't know, Victoria Beckham or whoever. But swear to god, every single morning, around 11:45, the "entertainment news" comes on my favorite news channel here, and i get the Britney update.
The world is a strange place.
FWIW, here are some other things you can't get in Buenos Aires which would be nice: pseudoephedrine (for sinus headaches), hydrocortisone (for mosquito bites, which are ridiculously frequent), a decent chocolate chip cookie (please, just some chips ahoy!), swiss cheese, turkey (never did I think I'd miss turkey sandwiches, boring as they are), and, maybe worst of all, screens for the windows.
Everyone has these little devices that they plug into an electric outlet, which take a little "tablet" of some toxic chemical. It seems the device melts the tablet, causing the toxic chemical to permeate the air and kill or annoy or tranquilize the mosquitos. And nobody, nobody has screens on their windows. (My spanish teacher says "en el campo", out in the country, they have them.)
I hate to admit it, because I'm generally anti-air-conditioning, but I took to keeping the windows closed and running the AC when I needed to, just to keep the damn mosquitos out. Now it's March, the equivalent of Sept. in the northern hemisphere, and there aren't many mosquitos left, thank god. Fresh air in the apt. again.
Oh one last thing that travels in surprising detail -- coverage of the US primaries. I wouldn't think the primaries would get that much attention, but they spend tons of time on the local news channels seriously analyzing what's going on in the US political process. This is probably a good thing -- lord knows it's going to affect them, a lot more than whether britney breaks up with her current loser boyfriend or whatever.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Friday Afternoon with the Cats
Within a year or two of moving to New York City from bucolic Portland, Oregon, I found a book called Marcovaldo, or Seasons in the City by Italo Calvino, an Italian writer. Its a short collection of beautiful stories about Marcovaldo, a simple laborer in an unnamed Italian city. Marcovaldo is a simple creature, who goes about his business as best he can, but he's also a bit of a dreamer and so he gets into some adventures.
I loved this book when I first moved to the city, because Marcovaldo was very soulful and had a craving for a natural sort of life, and he sought it out in the nooks and crannies of the harsh city. For instance, in one of the stories (I believe - it's been a long time!) he finds a mushroom growing in the city and he gets very excited and tries to protect it as it grows. My favorite story, the one that has stuck with me over these many years and the subject of this long introduction, is called "The Garden of the Stubborn Cats". In this story, Marcovaldo befriends a cat near his work, and he starts following the cat around, seeing the city from the cat's point of view. This eventually leads Marcovaldo to the titular garden, the last free space in the city for cats to gather. There's not much too it, narrative-wise, but it's a lovely story. It's actually available online (maybe some grad student's translation?) here. And if you like it, I highly recommend the book, which I just saw is available new on Amazon for a whopping $2.60!
Which brings me to the real topic of this post -- my trip today to the Jardin Botanico in Buenos Aires. This park, perhaps the nicest in the city, is about a half-mile from my apartment, and it is the home to many abandoned cats. I had some time to kill today, so I did what I've done many times, and went over and hung out with the cats. I love to do this. I find it incredibly charming when there are cats lounging around a public place. Mind you, I like dogs just fine, but I wouldn't want a hundred stray dogs in a big park. A hundred stray cats, though -- it's kind of sweet.
I found two nice cats who wanted to be my friend today. There were actually many cats out today, but I got enough action out of these two, so I didn't go looking further. Here is the first cat:
As you maybe can see, this cat was very clean and healthy-looking. Perhaps it had not been in the park too long. Most of the cats are no doubt abandoned by owners, and some of them can get pretty scruffy. This cat was very pretty and seemingly healthy. Unfortunately, this cat seemed to be more interesting in doing the self-petting routine in my presence than in actually having me pet him. It's a strange habit of cats, something to do with spreading their scent, I guess. Anyway, this cat took off, so I focused my attentions on the other.
The second cat was also handsome in his own way. He had beautiful black fur, and seemed relatively clean. He was very, very skinny, though -- definitely not well-fed. And there was one other thing that you might notice if mr. black cat came up to you for a little pet -- he was totally missing one eye:
This was not a damaged eye, this was a missing eye. Like, a sunken, kind-of-puss-encrusted eye socket with no eye in it. So of course my heart goes out to the disadvantaged kitty, and I tried to be as nice to him as I could. These park cats tend to be a little wary though, so you often don't get to spend too much time with one before it slinks away. This one actually went away and came back a few times, which is how I managed to get the picture. Poor kitty -- I'm going to have to start bringing some food down there and feeding them. I hope I can find this one again.
I'm clearly not the only one who likes going to the park and hanging out with the cats. It's kind of heart-warming, actually, there seems to be quite a number of people who come to the park regularly to be with the cats, and sometimes to feed them.
And speaking of feeding the kitties, I saw a lady today who the cats really seemed to know. As I said, they're usually a little wary, even when there's food around, but not with this lady:
This was great, and I wasn't the only one who thought this was hilarious. A nice moment in our own little Garden of Abandoned Cats.
I loved this book when I first moved to the city, because Marcovaldo was very soulful and had a craving for a natural sort of life, and he sought it out in the nooks and crannies of the harsh city. For instance, in one of the stories (I believe - it's been a long time!) he finds a mushroom growing in the city and he gets very excited and tries to protect it as it grows. My favorite story, the one that has stuck with me over these many years and the subject of this long introduction, is called "The Garden of the Stubborn Cats". In this story, Marcovaldo befriends a cat near his work, and he starts following the cat around, seeing the city from the cat's point of view. This eventually leads Marcovaldo to the titular garden, the last free space in the city for cats to gather. There's not much too it, narrative-wise, but it's a lovely story. It's actually available online (maybe some grad student's translation?) here. And if you like it, I highly recommend the book, which I just saw is available new on Amazon for a whopping $2.60!
Which brings me to the real topic of this post -- my trip today to the Jardin Botanico in Buenos Aires. This park, perhaps the nicest in the city, is about a half-mile from my apartment, and it is the home to many abandoned cats. I had some time to kill today, so I did what I've done many times, and went over and hung out with the cats. I love to do this. I find it incredibly charming when there are cats lounging around a public place. Mind you, I like dogs just fine, but I wouldn't want a hundred stray dogs in a big park. A hundred stray cats, though -- it's kind of sweet.
I found two nice cats who wanted to be my friend today. There were actually many cats out today, but I got enough action out of these two, so I didn't go looking further. Here is the first cat:
As you maybe can see, this cat was very clean and healthy-looking. Perhaps it had not been in the park too long. Most of the cats are no doubt abandoned by owners, and some of them can get pretty scruffy. This cat was very pretty and seemingly healthy. Unfortunately, this cat seemed to be more interesting in doing the self-petting routine in my presence than in actually having me pet him. It's a strange habit of cats, something to do with spreading their scent, I guess. Anyway, this cat took off, so I focused my attentions on the other.
The second cat was also handsome in his own way. He had beautiful black fur, and seemed relatively clean. He was very, very skinny, though -- definitely not well-fed. And there was one other thing that you might notice if mr. black cat came up to you for a little pet -- he was totally missing one eye:
This was not a damaged eye, this was a missing eye. Like, a sunken, kind-of-puss-encrusted eye socket with no eye in it. So of course my heart goes out to the disadvantaged kitty, and I tried to be as nice to him as I could. These park cats tend to be a little wary though, so you often don't get to spend too much time with one before it slinks away. This one actually went away and came back a few times, which is how I managed to get the picture. Poor kitty -- I'm going to have to start bringing some food down there and feeding them. I hope I can find this one again.
I'm clearly not the only one who likes going to the park and hanging out with the cats. It's kind of heart-warming, actually, there seems to be quite a number of people who come to the park regularly to be with the cats, and sometimes to feed them.
And speaking of feeding the kitties, I saw a lady today who the cats really seemed to know. As I said, they're usually a little wary, even when there's food around, but not with this lady:
This was great, and I wasn't the only one who thought this was hilarious. A nice moment in our own little Garden of Abandoned Cats.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Inundacion!
The word for 'flood' in spanish is "inundacion", which I love. It sounds so much more dramatic than "flood".
So today we had inundaciones around the city. It was raining buckets this morning, for several hours. Way, way more rain than we get in New York except maybe once a decade. This is a pretty regular occurrence here, the semi-tropical downpour that floods the streets.
There was a big lake in the street outside my window, though only two or three inches deep. But a few blocks away, it looked like this:
I saw an image like this on the TV news at around noon, and got all excited. Oooh, baby, here I am, so close to trouble! (Right -- in my comfy apt on the 3rd floor, with the cable TV on, etc.) Then shortly after the electricity went out. Trouble indeed! But no, the rain stopped shortly thereafter, and I just laid in bed and read a book for an hour or so. I did have to take a cold shower before heading out, though -- oh, how I suffer!
I had spanish class downtown, and I wasn't sure if the subte (subway) was running, but amazingly it was. Delays, of course, delays in jam-packed cars full of hot damp people. (No AC in the trains here, not for 30 cents a ride.) But amazingly, it was running, right under the street where this picture was taken a couple hours earlier.
I swear, it amazes me that places like Buenos Aires and Mexico City, and for that matter New York, manage to run as smoothly as they do, with all the things that can go wrong. God bless those hard-working civil servants and whoever else keeps the cities running.
This evening the local TV news (which I watch for spanish practice!) was full of hand-wringing about the flooding in Buenos Aires and how the government has not planned well enough and has not done the public works that it should etc. etc. etc. But honestly, I was shocked that the city cleaned up as fast as it did. The first thing I said to my spanish teacher was, hey, you guys have some good alcantarillas (sewers) here. She wasn't buying it.
So today we had inundaciones around the city. It was raining buckets this morning, for several hours. Way, way more rain than we get in New York except maybe once a decade. This is a pretty regular occurrence here, the semi-tropical downpour that floods the streets.
There was a big lake in the street outside my window, though only two or three inches deep. But a few blocks away, it looked like this:
I saw an image like this on the TV news at around noon, and got all excited. Oooh, baby, here I am, so close to trouble! (Right -- in my comfy apt on the 3rd floor, with the cable TV on, etc.) Then shortly after the electricity went out. Trouble indeed! But no, the rain stopped shortly thereafter, and I just laid in bed and read a book for an hour or so. I did have to take a cold shower before heading out, though -- oh, how I suffer!
I had spanish class downtown, and I wasn't sure if the subte (subway) was running, but amazingly it was. Delays, of course, delays in jam-packed cars full of hot damp people. (No AC in the trains here, not for 30 cents a ride.) But amazingly, it was running, right under the street where this picture was taken a couple hours earlier.
I swear, it amazes me that places like Buenos Aires and Mexico City, and for that matter New York, manage to run as smoothly as they do, with all the things that can go wrong. God bless those hard-working civil servants and whoever else keeps the cities running.
This evening the local TV news (which I watch for spanish practice!) was full of hand-wringing about the flooding in Buenos Aires and how the government has not planned well enough and has not done the public works that it should etc. etc. etc. But honestly, I was shocked that the city cleaned up as fast as it did. The first thing I said to my spanish teacher was, hey, you guys have some good alcantarillas (sewers) here. She wasn't buying it.
Neihgborhoiod Rallies in Support of Cartoneros
As I noted in an earlier post, I think the presence of the Cartoneros here in Buenos Aires is pretty much the most interesting thing about being in Buenos Aires right now. Throughout the whole city there is a small army of freelance recyclers combing through all the garbage looking for anything of value. Anything they find they carefully pack up and pull around in these very primitive two-wheeled carts:
They are called Cartoneros because most of what they gather is cardboard, or carton. Though they'll take anything of value. You see things like toilet bowls, old beat-up mattresses, and discarded computers in their carts -- anything, really.
They used to have a train that ran specifically for the Cartoneros, called the Tren Blanco, or white train. This ran from downtown out to the outskirts, where most of the cartoneros live. (They couldn't possibly afford to pay rent in the city. They make about a hundred bucks a month. And they work hard, all day, for a hundred bucks a month.) They canceled the Tren Blanco about a month ago, though I don't know why.
So now lots of the Cartoneros are screwed. The only option they have for moving their findings
is on a truck. And lord knows there are trucks working with the Cartoneros -- I see them loading up late at night when I'm out on my bicycle.
But unfortunately there appears to be more Cartoneros than trucks. So there are Cartoneros who are essentially trapped in the city, living on the streets, in lots, in parks, waiting for the weekend, or whenever they can get a truck to pick them and their findings up.
There was a big group of Cartoneros living in the fancy neighborhood of Belgrano the last few weeks. This isn't so far from where I live -- maybe two miles. It's pretty upper-middle-class, maybe like the upper west side of manhattan. (Recoleta would be the upper east side, I guess.)
Last week I was watching the local news, and they showed a "desalojo de Cartoneros" -- the police forcibly evicting the Cartoneros. There were a number of people passively resisting, and the police picked them up by the arms and legs and dragged them through the streets into police vans. And there were tons of people screaming and shouting and just general mayem all about. It looked pretty ugly on TV, and I guess it was.
This kind of bugged me, of course. These poor Cartoneros, lord knows they work hard, for probably the lowest possible pay. These people -- men, women, and lots, lots of children -- don't dawdle, they hustle around all day, very industriously. And then they have to manually pull these carts through the street, sometimes loaded crazy high with stuff. So all I could think was, oh, the fancy Portenos (residents of Buenos Aires) couldn't stand to have the unfortunate unwashed around, so they got the police to do their bidding. The bitter taste of vastly uneven distribution of wealth.
But my faith in the Portenos was renewed a few days later when I saw on the news again that there was a demonstration of residents of Belgrano protesting the police action to remove the Cartoneros. There were lots of man-on-the-street interviews with people at the demonstration, and almost all of them said some variation of the same thing -- these poor people, they are just trying to make a living, there's no other work out there, you have to respect them for trying to feed their families, etc., etc. It was nice, a nice reminder that despite its current economic situation, Buenos Aires still has a strong liberal, communitarian ethos.
Lots of good people here, even in the fancy neighborhoods.
They are called Cartoneros because most of what they gather is cardboard, or carton. Though they'll take anything of value. You see things like toilet bowls, old beat-up mattresses, and discarded computers in their carts -- anything, really.
They used to have a train that ran specifically for the Cartoneros, called the Tren Blanco, or white train. This ran from downtown out to the outskirts, where most of the cartoneros live. (They couldn't possibly afford to pay rent in the city. They make about a hundred bucks a month. And they work hard, all day, for a hundred bucks a month.) They canceled the Tren Blanco about a month ago, though I don't know why.
So now lots of the Cartoneros are screwed. The only option they have for moving their findings
is on a truck. And lord knows there are trucks working with the Cartoneros -- I see them loading up late at night when I'm out on my bicycle.
But unfortunately there appears to be more Cartoneros than trucks. So there are Cartoneros who are essentially trapped in the city, living on the streets, in lots, in parks, waiting for the weekend, or whenever they can get a truck to pick them and their findings up.
There was a big group of Cartoneros living in the fancy neighborhood of Belgrano the last few weeks. This isn't so far from where I live -- maybe two miles. It's pretty upper-middle-class, maybe like the upper west side of manhattan. (Recoleta would be the upper east side, I guess.)
Last week I was watching the local news, and they showed a "desalojo de Cartoneros" -- the police forcibly evicting the Cartoneros. There were a number of people passively resisting, and the police picked them up by the arms and legs and dragged them through the streets into police vans. And there were tons of people screaming and shouting and just general mayem all about. It looked pretty ugly on TV, and I guess it was.
This kind of bugged me, of course. These poor Cartoneros, lord knows they work hard, for probably the lowest possible pay. These people -- men, women, and lots, lots of children -- don't dawdle, they hustle around all day, very industriously. And then they have to manually pull these carts through the street, sometimes loaded crazy high with stuff. So all I could think was, oh, the fancy Portenos (residents of Buenos Aires) couldn't stand to have the unfortunate unwashed around, so they got the police to do their bidding. The bitter taste of vastly uneven distribution of wealth.
But my faith in the Portenos was renewed a few days later when I saw on the news again that there was a demonstration of residents of Belgrano protesting the police action to remove the Cartoneros. There were lots of man-on-the-street interviews with people at the demonstration, and almost all of them said some variation of the same thing -- these poor people, they are just trying to make a living, there's no other work out there, you have to respect them for trying to feed their families, etc., etc. It was nice, a nice reminder that despite its current economic situation, Buenos Aires still has a strong liberal, communitarian ethos.
Lots of good people here, even in the fancy neighborhoods.
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