comida -¿hay otra cosa?

Interesting as it is to see what a family from another culture eats like, I feel like there’s lard coming out of my pores.
We eat good food here, and there’s definitely always enough for me (at points I’ve literally had to defend my plate with my fork to prevent Lili from spooning more onto it) but I want my veggies, damnit! And I’m not exactly a vegan or a health food nut (although I suppose that depends on your definition of health food nut). There’s usually meat and potatoes in something in every dinner, and I’m pretty sure that when Lili lets her brain stop running the automatic filler is for her to say “Hay pollo, ¿sabes?” [There’s chicken, you know!] – because there is. Always.
This isn't just a complaint about my host family (I shouldn't complain at all, really: they buy me cake at random); this country in general does not value its greens.

¡Miravos el queso!

I’ve been noticing lately that people often ask each other what they ate. I feel like this would be Awkward Small Talk in the U.S., but my host mother or the random girls trying on clothes in the fitting room next to mine seem genuinely interested in whether it was spinach ravioli or cheese someone else had for dinner yesterday, and who cooked it, and what kind of sauce was on it. Good grief.

Parrilla en la Feria de Mataderos. I think the smell would have been much more expressive than this picture.

You can get nearly everything delivered, from ice cream to sushi to alcohol to a fresh cup of coffee in a ceramic cup, poured in front of you. This is probably the reason that I haven’t seen anyone eating while walking (unless you count mate – thermos and all – and the amount that Argentines carry mate around is nothing compared to the Uruguayans). It isn’t uncommon to see the occasional waiter with a covered tray popping out of a café, though, or to have to dodge the food delivery scooters when they decide the sidewalk is the faster route, pedestrians be damned. Food is not for ‘on the go,’ it’s to sit down and enjoy!

This is the chivito uruguayo. It contains: a hamburger patty, a slice of cheese, bacon, and an egg. (Plus bread, ketchup, mustard, and a single piece of lettuce… and corn or mayo if you want it). I can feel the cholesterol attack from here.

I’d be willing to bet Argentina’s cholesterol levels aren’t great, as a country. I’m not saying they eat unhealthily, despite their love of meat and their propensity to stuff dulce de leche into everything. I imagine the average American doesn’t eat that well either, and, well, we all survive without being ‘foodies’. One thing I’ve realized, being here, is that my family at home eats really, really well (and yes, I am unreasonably smug about it). But I suspect that Argentines enjoy their food more, in general, than Americans do.

Alfajorjito.

Damn. Now I’m hungry. I’ll have to fill up on empanadas and medialunas and alfajores before I leave; those are something I’ll really miss.

Personajes de Argentina: los mujeres

Mafalda

"Lo malo de la gran familia humana es que todos quieren ser el padre."

Someone described her to me as the “Argentine Charlie Brown, only more political.” She’s pretty cute, and shows up around town on kioskos or the Subte.
Her author is Quino, who stopped producing Mafalda comics in 1973 and moved to Milan (hmm, I wonder why?)


Evita

You could write a novel about just what happened to this woman’s corpse, so I’m not quite sure how to sum her up other than slapping on a big ‘Controversial!’ label. Born an illegitimate child in poverty, former showgirl and radio star, wife to the first and most influential dictator Perón, fought for women’s suffrage and worker’s rights, died young from cancer in 1952; her body ended up in the ritzy Cemeterio Recoleta (I went for a visit) and the leftists during/before the Guerra Sucia of the 70s used her image as a banner – instead of that of the still-living Perón’s second wife Isabel. Oh, dear.


One week until the program's over, most of my friends here have gone, and my family arrives; two more weeks in Buenos Aires; one month until I get back to Montana and all its American-ness; two months until I arrive at Wes once again. What a semester!

(pero mi querida, todavia creo en vos)

Photos from yesterday afternoon:

("During the Argentina games, 30% off").

Folding up the flag.

Consolement (the best kind).

Me too.

Happy 4th!

Personajes de Argentina: los futbolistas

I've got some Argentina personalities for you to meet!
The list includes three Santas, two soccer players, one cartoon character, and one equivalent of Paris Hilton; it got a bit long so I'll start with one saint and two soccer players.

Diego Maradona

Here’s a general video of his futbol feats, with song by the marvelous Mano Negra (to whom you should listen even if sports bore you).



His biggest accomplishments: this spectacular goal against England in 1986 (Mundial, quarterfinal match). Side note: Malvinas war? 1983. (Also re-start of democracy). Of course Argentina would make a national hero of anyone who’d put the English down a little.

And then, what he later called the ‘Hand of God’ goal – made in the same game, the referee never caught it.

Named one of two ‘futbolistas del siglo,’ there seems to be nothing this man can do to bungle his own popularity. And oh boy has he tried – cocaine, alcohol, illegitimate children he refuses to acknowledge, relations with the mafia in Naples, relations with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and the military dictatorships here in the 70s. Swearing at journalists or running over their feet with his car (no, really), and now a relationship with a much younger woman who ‘spontaneously aborted’ when it was discovered she was pregnant…


Well, this year he’s coaching the Argentine team, and the cameras make sure to cut to him any time anything interesting happens on the field, because he’ll be glowering or waving his arms around or tackle-hugging people (in a manly way, of course). He’s promised (threatened?) to go run naked in the streets of Buenos Aires if Argentina wins. I guess it’s rebellion against that suit his daughters convinced him to wear.

Lionel Messi


Currently suffering under the title of the ‘New Maradona,’ he's the star of the Argentine Mundial selection this year (though Higuain and Tevez are doing pretty well for themselves, too). There are rumors flying right now that he has a cold – and if I, in my eh-sports and language bubble, have heard of this, you can imagine what a big deal futbol is here. The country literally stops for the games – there’s a law that federal employees must be allowed to watch Argentina games. I don’t even need to watch to know the score, just count how many times the city has erupted with horns and yells. There was a man singing and throwing confetti off his balcony after Argentina won against Greece, and after Portugal lost to Spain I heard two separate people enquiring the results of strangers on the street. Versus Germany tomorrow should be an exciting game.

Back to Messi – he plays for Barcelona, and they call him ‘Pulga’ – flea – because he’s just little (and seems to get knocked down a lot by the bigger players), but oh man can he handle the ball. Maradona seems to alternately treat him like the favorite and a scapegoat – probably jealous of the attention.

That is quite enough of futbol. The excitement is infectious, though - chau chau, y VAMOS ARGENTINA!!

Eat your heart out, Baskin Robbins, 'cos I ain't ever coming back

Heladeria count: 14
Current favorite: Volta
Runners-up: El Vesuvio (on Corrientes right next to the Obelisk) and Persicco
Left to visit: 3 – that is, of the ones I've had recommended to me. All existent is too many to count. Also one has moved so I'll have to hunt it down [insert battle cry].


Flavors include: - starting with the weirdest flavors I’ve seen (though some of even those pop up in every heladeria):
Kinotos/quinotos al wisky – kumquats! With whiskey. Who thought of that? The one time I tried this, it was not good, but it’s surprisingly common. As is champagne al limon. Ristreto granizado: ristreto is one step stronger than espresso, and granizado, which is often an option for popular flavors, is what I would call shredded with chocolate. Needless to say, caffeine-y!

Sambayon (yes, the wine and egg). Marscapone, mousse de limon, crema de chantilly, gancia (a type of ‘vino espumate’ – bubbly wine? It’s popular in Uruguay too). Other random ‘let’s add alcohol!’ flavors. Frambuesa (raspberry), maracuya (passionfruit), mango, pomelo rosado (pink grapefruit), frutilla (strawberry), durazo y naranja (peach and orange), blueberry mousse…

If you avoid strawberry ice cream (which I do in the U.S., because it always tastes like cotton candy and not actual strawberries), they really do it right here. The fruit flavors are delicious, because they use real fruit and not flavored syrup, and don’t use too much milk – sometimes none at all – which really lets the fruit stand out.

Then there’s the twelve or so variations on chocolate every place has (I am not exaggerating – I’d better take a picture of their menus one day), and a whole selection of ‘cremas,’ which I usually don’t bother with because I don’t find them as interesting. They’re like vanilla (with less vanilla flavoring) with nuts, or chocolate, or fruit, or dulce de leche swirls…
Speaking of, can’t forget that every place also usually has at least three variations on dulce de leche.

The apparent reason the ice cream is so good here is the Italian immigrants. The older places (El Vesuvio began in 1902!) sometimes have little blurbs about their history posted somewhere, and it usually begins with a variation on, "in such-a-year, the family such-and-such travelled from North Italy with their gelato skills..." which I think is always a good beginning.


My method of trying ice cream (yes, I have a method) is to get two flavors each time: one experimental, and one that I know I’ll probably like. That way I will be happy even if my ‘ooh, what’s that? Let’s get it!’ urges don’t prove fruitful. The smallest cone with two flavors is definitely enough – they tend to pile it high.
And that way I get to try all the different kinds of chocolate (it’s my safety) without missing the other things.

I also like to ask what things are and to try them beforehand, as it results in either lots of delicious varied spoonfuls or very confused workers trying to explain than it’s a “red fruit that grows in the forest, and it’s not a strawberry” – or, once, a man warning me very seriously that it “has alcohol, you know!” I guess I looked like At Risk Youth that day.

Presently, I mean to post addresses (if I kept track) and ratings and things, so that anyone in Buenos Aires can visit them, but for now I’m a little busy with my sugar coma. Mmm.
/end fluff

Life outside the bubble: ¿sos feminista?

A few days ago, there was a solid ten-minute segment on some talk show on how women don’t understand football. I got so annoyed by the repetition of clips of various overbleached, prominently cleavaged women looking confused as the host shot rapidfire technical sports questions at them that I gave the television the bird. I hadn’t meant him to, but my host father saw this. Fortunately, he thought it was hilarious – and once he stopped cracking up, he asked,

“¿Sos feminista?” (Are you a feminist?)
Ever been asked that question? Ever seen anyone be asked that question? I’ve heard it a couple of times recently. It sounds straightforward, but when I was asked it, I was taken aback and I’ve been trying to figure out why.
I can remember having heard it in the US too (outside of Wes, of course). Sometimes it’s perfectly innocent; sometimes it’s full-on mocking, and sometimes there’s an insidious ‘of course you have a right to your opinion, little one’ contempt lurking underneath. Sometimes it’s asked by people I have respect for (I like my host father); sometimes, no. But what caught my attention was the way that the person it’s directed at often goes, “Er… yes?” or even “No, I just think…” and shrinks away a little bit. (Including myself, this time: “…er, I think so, yes.”)

Now that I’m thinking about this –
“Um, I’m not really a feminist, I just think that generalizing women as stupid isn’t right.”

I’m sorry, what?

What am I missing here? So there’s resentment for sexual harassment laws, and for the fact that employers sometimes have to hire people who challenge their world views just a little bit, and who might go on maternity leave sometime in the future. So there are angry bra-burning penis-hating lesbians in existence. Are any of those things particularly pertinent?

To me (fill me in if I’ve missed something), feminism is the belief that women should have equal rights. If I’m glad every day that I’m not a man, or if I think that women don’t like soccer or bother to understand it because we require something slightly less trivial to catch our attention, that’s my own opinion and I won’t bother you with it. What I really, really, really don’t understand is why anyone should think they could mock someone else for believing in equality. I don’t even understand why you would want to tease someone ironically, as you’d do at Wes, for those beliefs. Equality: women are people too. Women are as much real people as men are. That sounds stupidly obvious to me. Why, then, does it stick out as something that someone could hold in contempt, or as something that makes someone uncomfortable enough that they have to tease a person who voices it out loud?

Maybe feminism sticks out to men in this machista culture (Argentina) because it’s new, because for them it’s normal to think of domestic abuse as the woman’s personal problem or of rape as female-provoked – because they can’t imagine having those kinds of problems, obviously the problems are merely womens’ and women should deal with them by themselves. Maybe they only ‘put up’ with feminism because it’s made itself a political nuisance, but they’re not going to listen to what the feminists are saying.
I don’t think the message is so hard to understand that if they were listening, they’d disagree. All it is is this: women are human beings, and they deserve everything men do.

The part that maybe I take for granted, the part that’s maybe why I don’t understand, is that I believe that this idea should resonate with everyone. That if you think about it, this is absolutely logical – that people who don’t think this aren’t thinking; that women who don’t think this are practicing self-hatred just a little bit. (Really, though, what evidence does any woman have to make her decide that her place in life is subservient to a whole bunch of people she’s never met, just because of their gender?)

Apparently, some people are stupid. I would appreciate it if everyone understood how dumb a question “Are you a feminist?” is. I would appreciate it if I hadn’t briefly felt hesitation in answering it. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to and I did hesitate.
I would like to change this. I can’t force people to understand; I can’t stop them from being stupid. But I can change my own reaction.

I would like to say, “Yes, I am a feminist. I don’t hate men. I hate rape. I hate the idea of one human being assaulting another and getting away with it. I hate the idea that someone could assume I’m stupid or incompetent or defenseless or temperamental because I have breasts; that I only value material things because I like shiny shoes and think every woman should have the perfect bra (it’s empowering, damnit); or that someone else should be more valuable than I for no reason other than gender.
Are these things a problem?”

I probably won’t. (Especially not in Spanish, because that’s a lot of subjunctive tense).
If I can restrain myself, I might not even say, “So, you don’t think women are people too?” in contemptuous tones.

What I will say is what I really want everyone else to say too. I know some of the girls I’ve seen who go “uh, no, but –” in response, taken aback (hopefully by the stupidity of the question), believe in those very simple equal rights like I do. The only answer I want to hear to that question is the truth, without hesitation, confusion, or shame (because the people asking that question are the ones who should be ashamed):
YES.

(And while you’re at it, my far-too-skinny female friend, the answer to “do you want this delicious free cookie?” is always YES too).

guia fotografica de Jujuy

That's 'hoo-HOO-ey,' in case you were interested.
I don't feel like research, so I shall simply plop these photos down. They're possibly a bit small, but it's the kind of landscape that makes all photos look small anyway.

Here is where Jujuy is. The Andes, border with Chile and Bolivia.

Here are things I saw:
In the clouds.

The pyramid is not an actual ancient ruin. It's a monument to a archaeologist from the 20s, put there to confuse future archaeologists. The wall in front of it is a reconstruction from the 20s of ancient ruins (using their original stones and - of course! - making complete bollocks of any possible future archaeology to be done with the originals).


Cerra de Siete Colores.


Graveyard. The most colorful thing we saw.


Salt flats.
"In time of rain and in nocturnal hour, circulate with caution."