Live from BsAs

Months before my arrival in Argentina, Cristina Kirchner´s government has increased their taxation on farmers and their products. They also have limited the amount of beef exportation to keep down the national price on meat products. This has caused lots of civil unrest on the parts of those who own farm lands and are in the agriculture business.

The neighborhood where I live, Recoleta, is rather wealthy and many of its residents are landowners whose incomes come from the profits that products on their lands provide. Ever since government´s new taxation on the "el campo,¨ people have been organizing protests against the current president. Besides street demonstrations, everyday there are people who just start banging their pots and pans simultaneously as a form of protest. Every night when I get home, around eight o´clock, the whole neighborhood is drowned in those banging and clanking noises.

Today (Wed). I witnessed my first huge demonstration on Avenida de Mayo, the heart of the Buenos Aires. Av. de Mayo is the street where most government buildings are, starting with the Plaza de Mayo, where the president´s office resides. It also happens to be where I work. So going to work this afternoon was rather difficult. The bus dropped me few blocks away from I usually get off, and I had to walk through mobs of people to get to where I intern. People were waving flags of different colors, rifles were being fired on the air, protesters were beating their drums and shouting angry phrases. Some guy saw me walking down the street, trying to get past all the protestors, and screamed ¨china!" (chinese girl) - I have no idea why.

But in any case, I got the cross street where I work, Av. de Mayo and Av. 9 de Julio, which happen to be the two biggest streets in BsAs and where lots of demontrations start. Trying to get to work, I found myself right between two masses of people facing each other, each carrying a different color flag. "Oh crap, a crossfire!" I thought and started running in the opposite direction. Apparently, these demonstrations were to support the government and its actions of taxation on the rich farmers. At 4pm, Kirchner gave a speech at Plaza de Mayo, attended by thousands of supporters, protestors, politicians, etc.

While this protest is a big one for this month, protests and public demonstrations are just a part of Argentine life, especially in Buenos Aires, where people are forced to care about politics and accept this political instability as a way of life.

Local Election

Last Sunday, I went to a municipal election for villas 21-24 in Buenos Aires (villas are basically urban slums), and the election was for their local representatives. I was designated was an “observer” along with the rest of my colleagues at ACIJ. Because of past military rule, rampant political corruption, and the instability of democracy here in Buenos Aires, civil society, as represented by the NGO that I work at – ACIJ, is trying their best to intervene and make sure all the rules are followed. My position as an observer was just to “observe,” taking notes on any irregularities, enforcing rules of democratic elections, and notifying the authorities if something suspicious occurs.

I planned on waking up at 6am because all ACIJ people were supposed to gather in front of our office building at 7:30am and take a special bus down to the villas. Being me, of course, I woke up 2 hours later at 8am. Thank goodness for lawlessness in Argentina (I lost count of how many red lights the taxi driver ran over) and for the traditional tardiness of Argentines (the bus ended leaving at 8:30 when I get there at 8:20ish), I was able to make to the elections. It was set up at a local elementary school and upon my entrance, I was immediately overwhelmed by the number of people that was surrounding me. These were not the voters, however; they were fiscales and presidents of each voting table. Because of multi-party system in Argentina and rampant election sabotaging, each table has a representative from each political party (they are the fiscales) and a non-partisan person to oversee the whole operation (they are called the presidents of the table). The fiscales’ role is basically to make the other parties don’t do something underhand. The presidents’ role is to be there to resolve any issues between the parties, handle the whole election and such. The reason an election needs all these people is that the voting system in Argentina is not electronic and everything has been entered by hand. It’s a rather cumbersome system. The ballots are basically photocopies of a piece of paper with a candidate’s name on it. For example, at my table, we had 100 ballots for candidate one, 100 ballots for candidate two, and so on. Each table is in charge of a section of the voting list, sorted out by the alphabet, and there were around 30 tables in this election. Each voter would enter the school, find out which table he/she’s suppose to vote at, go to that table, and show the president of the table his/her identification. If all the information he/she provides matches what’s on the official voting list, he/she is handed an envelope with an official stamp and signature of the president on it. Then he/she has to go into a voting booth, sealed off from outside view, and all the ballots from all the candidates will be in there. He/she will pick out the ballot of the person he/she wants to vote for, put it in the envelope, and put that in the ballot box of the designated table, which is right in front of the president. After all that, he/she is handed back the identification document and allowed to leave.

Whenever a voter comes in, all the fiscales go through their own copy of the voting list furiously, find the name, and make sure all the information matches. This is to prevent any unauthorized voter to wreck the election (the official voting list is assembled by the government, anyone not on that list cannot vote). They would also constantly check the voting booth together to make sure all the ballots are still there and such. It’s rather interesting to watch them taking this election thing very seriously and working hard to preserve their democracy.

One thing I found interesting when I was talking to the fiscales at my table was that they are mostly housekeepers and vendors – I expected them to be teachers and such, you know, to be so active in the political process. Another thing was that the election was almost like a fiesta, everybody drinking their mate (an Argentine herbal drink) and eating postres (cookies and whatnot). There were people going around to each table, handing out food to their own party fiscales. The whole lasted from 9AM to 5PM, when the polls closed.

Counting the ballots was the biggest pain in the rear end. Starting at 5PM, the presidents of each ballot destroyed all the remaining ballots in the voting booth and all the fiscales have to sign these forms. They first counted the number of envelopes in the ballot box, making sure it matched the number of voters recorded on the official voting list. The presidents then opened each envelope and counted each ballot by hand. There were some envelopes with two of the same ballots in it, so those counted as one vote. There were some envelopes with no ballot in it, so those counted as an empty vote (usually a high number of empty votes indicated a decrease in citizens’ confidence in their government). As the presidents were counting, the observer, the fiscales, and another official counting scrutinizer were there to watch them count, making sure the whole process is clean. We counted ballots until 6:30PM, and the whole thing was finally over.

I had much fun during the whole process. Everyone at my table was really nice, and I was fed lots of food by all the party members. Our table were assigned 500 voters out of the entire voting list and 87 people voted out of that 500. It was not a bad turnout and I had lots of downtime to chat and learn Spanish.

After that, my friends and I went to a local restaurant to watch the second half of the game between Argentina and Ecuador, a nice conclusion to an exhausting day.

Monedas and tramites

If you ever come to Buenos Aires and will be using the public transportation system here, please hold on to your monedas, or coins, because while they are in great demand, they are not that readily available.

So on Tuesday, I needed to ride the buses to work as usual but I was out of coins. I thought, “oh no problem, I will just go to any store down the street, buy something, and ask for the change back in coins.” Simple, right? Well, after 5 stores and no luck, I began to doubt the cordiality of Argentines. It was not until I went to a kiosco (like a tiny 7-11 but individually owned) did I realize that the kiosco only has 2 coins in total and was only to give me one as part of my change. The vender told me to go to Banco Francis (it’s almost like Citibank in the States) to change my bills into coins. I had to wait in line for half an hour (with everyone glancing at me once in a while –I have no idea why), and guess how many coins I was able to exchange after all that hassle?! A brilliant amount of five pesos! That’s 2 days’ worth of buses. Legally, the bank should be able to exchange however many coins you needed but the problem is, they don’t have enough.

It is just one example of the many problems here with the city in general. But waiting in line for half an hour just for 5 pesos seems to be nothing to Argentines because they have to deal with trámites everydays. Trámites are like transactions/steps and for things like paying for electricity or doing anything with the government, Argentines have to wait in a huge line only to get a receptionist who tells them they need to go to window 5, then a huge line at window 5 only to have a representative telling them need to go submit a certain form to desk 8. They get to desk 8, they fill out the form (if they are unlucky, there might be no more forms and need to go to another window to ask for more) only to realize they need documents A, B, and C. Well, that’s swell because they might have never been notified of such requirement and need to come back tomorrow, only to start the whole process again.

That’s trámites for you, and it’s part of Argentine life. My half an hour at a bank does not even count as a part of the process but it’s already wearing me out.

First Week and demas

(I am currently watching “Los Simpsons” in my host family’s house )

So I arrived in Buenos Aires this Wednesday and it has been rather lovely. My connecting flight from Texas to BsAs was delayed for like 5 hours, so I didn’t get to leave until 2 am. I got in around 2pm in the afternoon and Jorge, my designated taxi driver, picked me up. He was such a pleasant Argentine, rather round, with a goofy smile. Right when we left the airport, we were attacked by “a mafia of taxi drivers (as Jorge calls them),” and thank god that Jorge was there to fend them off with his perfect castellano.

Buenos Aires is a city of apartments; it rather reminded me a lot of China with its tall, raised apartment buildings and clothing lines outside. My host family lives in Palmero/Recoletta, which are the nicest neighborhoods in BsAs. I am not sure why they are considered wealthy because the buildings were not as beautiful as the ones in central city, but I do feel very safe walking around it.

I have a host mother and a host daughter, who is a lovely girl. She’s very vocal, which is great for me to practice my Spanish. On my first day, I just slept for like 12 hours. And the next day, I woke up at one in the afternoon and for breakfast, I had hot chocolate con leche, which is sweeter than regular American hot chocolate. I dipped in it some sweet pastries. Argentines don’t eat a lot for breakfast (either do they for other meals), but that breakfast was rather too sugary for me.

I then walked down Avenida Santa Fe, which is one of the longest streets in Buenos Aires and has many, many, many different types of stores/cafes/restaurants. People in Buenos Aires adhere to the definition of “window shopping” like no other as there are so many display items in the windows that people really had reason go inside the store unless they want to buy something. I bought a leather wallet and the sales lady told me that to know if something is real leather, you need to smell it. If it smells like a cow, then it is real. I also bought a copy of Borge’s “Ficciones” because I want to read his short story “El Sur.” It is about Buenos Aires.

After shopping, I went to a cafeteria below my host family’s apartment, which is one of the millions upon millions of little coffee shops in Buenos Aires. It was a lovely place, filled with chatty ladies. I ordered a cup of wine, which only cost 2 dollars around here.

On Friday, I went down to Avenida de Mayo, which is the central street on which all the government buildings/political NGOs are located. I was supposed to meet with my boss at 1pm but having arrived at 11am, I went inside this restaurant for a cup of coffee to pass time with a copy of the daily newspaper. Famous for its theatrical theme, the restaurant, called La Clac, is quaintly decorated with pictures of past actors/actresses, movie posters, and newspaper clippings. I ordered a cup of coffee, and the size of the cup was that of three thumbs. It was so freaking tiny that it looked something for an overweight Barbie. Apparently that the typical size because Argentine coffee is a lot stronger than American Starbucks, which according to my mother, is like agua. The menu of the restaurant was rather interesting has it had the names of television programs and movies as its dish names. I sat there for like 3 hours, studying the menu with my trusty dictionary. The waitresses thought I was a spectacle.

After the meeting with my boss, I discovered my work schedule is from 2pm to 6pm everyday. And actually, they don’t have a place for me yet the new office is not done yet (it was supposed to be done by the beginning of May, but by Argentine time, that means September). So for now, I am just going into the office like 3 days a week for a tiny bit of time. It’s pretty sweet.

On Saturday, after sleeping until noon again, I went the Latino Americano Art Museum with some of the Yale Law School students who were here. We then walked for an hour in this neighborhood called Palermo, which is just dripping with wealth, for lunch at a place called Café 69 (or was it Café 6, I can’t remember). The place was packed at 3:30pm, you know, the normal time for lunch. For 15 bucks, I had some fish and grilled vegetables. After dinning until 6pm, you know, the normal time to finish lunch, I took a subte (or the subway) back, bought some groceries, and then went out again for dinner with the Bulldogs people at Siga La Vaca. It is an all-you-can-eat restaurant filled with beef, beef, and more beef. We ate until 11pm, and as we were about to leave, Argentines were just barely coming in for dinner. Oh, you know, the normal time for dinner.

We then wanted to go to this random concert in La Boca, which is a rather sketchy neighborhood. But what we did not know was that it was soooooooooo sketchy and dangerous, the taxi driver refuses to take us there. “muy feo” he kept on repeating, and something about it was too dangerous for him to drive there. None of us were wiling to go some place that a local did not event want to go (never mind the face we are paying him to drive us) so we all called it a night at 1am.

On Sunday, I went to la Plaza Recoleta, which has an entire mall dedicated to home decorating. There were sooooo many people buying the most random crap for their homes. There was also an outside artisan fair – pretty nice stuff. For dinner, I had beef…again.

And today (Monday) was my first day of work, from 2pm to 6pm. It was cold as it was raining. I had beef for lunch…again.