The Masses Strike Back
9 June 2005 (Thursday) – Buenos Aires, Argentina
I had gone to Casa de la Provincia de Corrientes (Corrientes House) to ask for information about Corrientes State which, for a brief moment, I was considering of going. In Buenos Aires, each province has a ‘house’ which can provide detailed information, accommodations, transportation, etc… about the cities, towns and places of interests found there. To find the address and telephone, just go to Yahoo Argentina and input the name of the province with ‘casa’ (house). You should be able to locate the address. However, more often than not, they only speak Spanish.
After listening to the guy explain the means of getting to Esteros de Ibera and the prices of the posada (bed-and-breakfast) there, I suddenly did not feel like going anymore. I mean, it is a GREAT place, I am sure. And frankly, to the regular tourists, things are NOT that expensive. But I have already visited Pantanal in Brazil and with the prices of things there, compared to how much I have been spending in Buenos Aires, and the fact that I would be staying in a sanitary posada, they all did not quite appeal to me. Yeah, my instincts do not say “Go.” Well, maybe I would wait til later in my trip to do something similar.
So, I now have to decide again where to head off next.
Anyway, when I popped out of the building at San Martin, there was a huge long line of protesters on the street, waving flags, hitting the drums, shouting something into loud-hailers. The people in the protests looked very poor, and some stared at me with a fierce look. I decided against walking out of the building and stayed at the entrance, quietly watching them go by.
Just the other day, I had seen a couple of elderly men pounding the metal grates of a bank on Calle Florida. One guy was busy spraying graffitti everywhere. The police hung around and watched on. Nobody gets arrested for such things. The police are just there, chatting, watching, organizing traffic, directing passers-by. Meanwhile, a block or more later, I came upon a guy busy cleaning up the graffiti from an earlier protest. So, they spray to say their bit, and some guy will be employed to clean up the crap later.
2 years on, people are still protesting and protesting against the government, the economy, their poverty, all their issues. Sad.
The massive crowd of protesters later parked themselves on Av. Alem to listen to someone give a speech. Traffic along Alem was stopped. I wanted to take a bus to San Telmo and the bus that I know passed by Av. Alem. Now, it was not possible.
Later this evening, I had an appointment with Pablo to go watch the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra in Teatro Colon, the famous and gorgeous theatre of Buenos Aires. I had been looking forward to this. I had visited the theatre 2 years ago on a guided tour which was very interesting but to attend a concert there, wow, that would be something!
We had arranged to meet on the steps of Tribunales (Buenos Aires’ Hall of Justice) at 6pm. OK, tricky tricky. There is a hall. But IS THERE JUSTICE?
I cannot figure out WHY in the world we chose to meet there. Today, on the steps of Tribunales, who do I see? Riot police, decked out in bullet-proof vests and armed with shields and batons.
Standing exposed at the park opposite the Tribunales was too cold for me. So, I scurried across the street and stood nervously n-e-x-t to the riot police in some more-or-less sheltered steps. At least, Pablo was on time and I didn’t have to wait long.
As we trotted off to Teatro Colon to try and buy tickets, Pablo remarked that he hoped we could get tickets as he feared there might be a strike, as today is a crazy day, with a lot of people on protests and strikes. And guess what? Indeed, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra was on strike. So, no performance today. Oh, what a shame. Sigh, but such is life here. What can I do? I guess I just have to try and do this when I come back.
Instead, we decided to head to his apartment for tea and dinner. Inside Tribunales subte, I was in for a shock. It was the rush-hour now. I had mentioned the queues for buses were extremely long during the rush-hour and the buses really packed. But the subte was horrendously packed! I stared with my jaws wide open as I dumbly watched 4 or 5 subtes pass by without daring to make an attempt at squeezing in. Finally, Pablo figured we might be standing here for 2 hours if we did not at least try, so he persuaded me to give it a go… and we slithered into the next train. The train was packed to the max at our stop. Yet, at the next one and the next one, etc… more people could still pile in, fusing together those that were huddled in the middle. And everyone did it without really pushing, you know… all stony-faced (the usual poker-faces seen in metros all over the world), but still with quiet politeness and gentle murmurings of ‘permisos’ (excuse me).
Pablo made a really nice dinner for us. We took more than 2 hours to prepare zapallitos rellenos. It was 12:30am before we finished dinner. I had 3, he had 300… nah, just kidding. He had 8. But I realised that if I continued to hang around Buenos Aires, my waistline would expand beyond the wildest imagination. I had to leave Buenos Aires really soon. Like, really, really soon!
As I could not reach out to the cultural side of Buenos Aires today because the orchestra at Teatro Colon was on strike, I swung all the way to the other end of the extreme – I checked out the CRASS side of Buenos Aires late-night television. Yes, TV programs for the masses that are beyond grossness. Every country has such programs. Let’s check out Argentina’s.
Pablo channel-surfed and we stopped at this TV show. This was a show with a priest taking calls from the watching audience. There was a bottle on display, spinning around with the caption: ‘Extracto de Quererme’ (literal translation is – Extract of Love-Me, or in proper English, Love Potion). I gapped, stunned beyond words. There was a guy who called in, explaining that since he started using this perfume potion, he could not stop attracting women. There were just too many women in his life now! So, he now called to thank the priest for showing him ‘the way’. Hallelujah!! The screen flashed a telephone number repeatedly. Pablo hurried outside to place the call, but instead he heard a sleepy “hola?” and he hung up.
Then, there was another program called 30 y pico (30 years and above… way above). There was a group of musicians called The Golden Boys, in their, what, 60s-70s, from er… USA? singing ‘Celebrations’ and other tacky English songs. They were doing the synchronised hand movements and small foot steps as they belted out song after song. Meanwhile, there were sexy dancers jiggling away around the stage and even situated in some raised platforms amongst the audience doing ridiculously sexy and happy numbers. The crowd was wild, blowing kisses and waving their arms excitedly.
Well, at least, they all looked happy. Meanwhile, I died happy too – of extreme laughter and locked jaws.
Tags: 01) Imagining Argentina, Buenos Aires
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