I’m not a gymnast.

So I guess it’s been about a month since I updated, and it’s about time to get back on the horse.  For those of you that check the site semi-regularly, sorry for being a terrible blogger, but many thanks for reading.

I have been trying to resist reading English news sources so I’m not going to touch on anything that is socially relevant to anyone in the US in this post, but I think I should provide a few updates on life here, and some thoughts perhaps.

The reason I am here, still, is to improve my Spanish and that has been going well.  I start at the University of Buenos Aires next week.  My background check for the US government is still brutally slow, unforgiving, and totally obscure.  I have not the slightest idea when it will be finished, though I hope in January.

I’m working on a project called Arte.SanTelmo.  Follow the link to read about it, but it is more or less a way to make a little guita, learn more about art, meet some interesting people and keep myself busy.  I’m starting it with my flat-mate here and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.  Summer in Buenos Aires is unbearably hot, so I don’t expect walking gallery tours will be the most popular thing initially, but who knows.  The other problem is that here, business literally just shut down for the months of January and February, with the tourist economy slowing to a near standstill.  But if some the galleries are open (we know a few that are so far), that may be to our advantage.

Christmas and New Year’s were strange here.  On Christmas Eve, thousands of fireworks began exploding across the city sky around midnight, while many people were opening their presents before a night out on the town.  On New Year’s Eve, I attended one of the most bizarre gatherings of people I’ve ever encountered.  It was a fairly professional party at a trendy, Belgrano apartment.  Characters:

• American latino freestyle rapper:  This little guy continually interrupted conversations (albeit awkward ones) throughout the night by busting into a terrible, supposedly free style rap, which included the line: “I eat your motherf-ing sh** like bread”.  Eventually people just ended up telling this guy to go away, and he could be seen at the end of the night gorging himself on a watermelon in a dark corner of the apartment.
• LA “Film Guy”:  This guy and his wife continually asked tired questions about “what you do”; raved about the resort they stayed at in what is more or less Cancun, Uruguay; and warned people about the risks of contracting diseases by staying in hostel beds.  They also kicked me out of my seat on the terrace, so they could sit together. Rough.
• Three extremely flamboyent gay men:  Tried to start a naked party at the stroke of midnight, which actually amounted to the Brazilian one taking off his shirt and pleading with the rest of the party-goers to go nude in front of bunch of people they never spoken with.  They also lectured me and my roommates on the benefits of many taboo acts not to be discussed on this dignified blog.
• Various other awkward mingling sessions.

I think I’ll try and do a photo-summary of the past month or so rather than give the play-by-play, so below are some photos of places or things that I’ve been doing, pulled from Flickr.

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1.  Asado (BBQ at Chebo’s house) 2. La Catedral (tango every Tuesday) 3. San Telmo Crew 4. My apartment building in Plaza Dorrego 5. Pizzeria Guerrin, best muzzarella in town 6. Mercado San Telmo, buy groceries 7. Parque Lezama, read/study 8. El Federal, regular haunt

Piqueteros

Protests, or manifestaciones, are such an important part of the Argentine national identity that they are considered tourist attractions here.  In class today, my teacher mentioned today’s protest as if it were a holiday.  If a protest of thousands of feminist activists descended upon the White House, surely it would be a newspiece in the Washington Post.  And yet on the front page of La Nacion was a headline describing Michelle Obama’s gown at the State dinner and no sign of protests.

Piqueteros, which get their name from the English picketers, ostensibly protest in order to have their demands met, yet there protests have devolved into something approaching nihilism (it is no wonder that Nietzsche is a national hero here) — thinly veiled efforts to discrupt the flow of commerce in order to show their disapproval for the goverment.  For me, as someone almost-employed by the US government, it adds another dimension to my education here, in a place where government seems to be invariably an enemy of the people.  I’m still not sure how I would describe the government’s relationship with the people of the US.  I believe that the duty of government is to protect people’s liberties, which can mean actively taking a role in the private sector, because the private sector has no constitution, and wouldn’t have any safeguards to protect people’s welfare if it weren’t for the government.  But there are certainly libertarians and neo-liberals out there would disagree.  I’m sure my description of Argentinean politics (which are discussed in every cafe and grocery store you can find here) are more than just “government is corrupt” discourse, but I have a much harder time simplifying American politics.  Bear in mind that this is sort of a stream-of-consciousness post.

And on the subject of education, as trite as it sounds, the marginal benefits in the way of learning during the first few months in another country are inestimable.  I am always stimulated here, and especially now because I’m working hard to learn the language.  My boss at Zizek wrote in his bio that he was educated by the world (he went to college as well), and though it sounds like a (perhaps) pretentious or elitest cliché, I understand what he meant.  I met a, for lack of a better word, meathead, construction worker from New Jersey the other day who told me that this was his way of educating himself, and he certainly couldn’t be considered an intellectual elitist.  Admittedly, he did say he has partied almost every day on his year-long world tour, but I do think he seemed to have learned quite a bit from his travels. It makes a lot more sense to me now why some social scientists believe that living abroad and learning a language breeds creativity.

I have to say, I’m really excited to get a nice camera so that I can update this blog with images rather than words.  I don’t want to be using English much over these next few months.  I’m sure, if you’re reading this, you wouldn’t mind that either.

On a less introspective note, this Swiss girl said today in class that in Switzerland they have laughing classes. Yeah, that’s right, classes designed to make you (or teach you) to laugh. Ah, the Swiss.

If you’re obese, don’t go to Peru.

Well The Jaunt has been neglected for about two weeks now, and it’s time to bring it back to working order.

First order of business: I’m back in Argentina, living in Buenos Aires, where a miraculous shelter scenario has fallen into my hands.  Ï’ll be staying, for at least a month, in my own house outside the city center.  It’s a fairly large house, with beautiful a terrace above it and an asado fire oven for Argentinean grill-outs, and it is a perfect refuge away from the downtown hustle where I can study Spanish and read most of the day.  For the most part, I had been enjoying having the whole place to myself, until early this morning.  Earlier the previous night I had heard some slightly bizarre moaning coming from above my room and had assumed I was hearing sounds from someone’s bedroom, perhaps with Argentinean nuances or something.  I was awoken around 4 AM to boisterous wailing directly outside my door, on the patio, and was shaken up enough to instinctively yell “HEY!”.  I hear a loud rapping on the door and jump out of bed, realizing that whatever is making that noise probably isn’t human, or I’d have some serious problems on my hands.  Slowly sliding back the curtains, I can make out some action going on near the bushes. Turns out to be two stray cats having intercourse.  I didn’t end up sleeping well after that.

Anyway, aside from that, things have gone really well here so far.  I stayed in an minimal artistic Palermo “hollywood” apartment of a friend, a filmmaker here, for the first few days before moving into the current setup. I’ve gotten to see most of my Argentinean friends and have been able to practice my Spanish a fair amount. I’m starting intensive Spanish courses 20 hours per week on Monday, and I think I’ll be studying pretty much full time the next few months.

Secondly, I caught this article today, about human fat traffickers in Peru.  Apparently this gang lures people — people involved in the drug trade, and not tourists hopefully — to remote areas and kills them, drains their fat, and sells it for about $60,000 on the black market in Lima.  Read the article if you want the groteque details, but I found this pretty shocking, especially given that there is no shortage of fat as inputs for cosmetics, etc., making it puzzling as to why there seems to be latent demand for human body fat on the black market.

Lastly, Diego Maradona has again gotten himself into trouble with his “tell it like it is attitude”.  He’ll be sidelined from any football-related activity for a few months, to the dismay of my adopted countrymen.  An overview of what happened, from the NYT:

He was sanctioned after an expletive-filled rant when interviewed on the touchline and produced another outburst in the post-match media conference, which was broadcast live on several television networks. Maradona told the media to “suck it and keep on sucking.”

Always taking the Argentine attitude to the next level.

Lost Luggage?

I’ve always wondered why there aren’t more enterprising thieves doing this sort of thing.  The NY Times writes:

Two people the police say stole up to 1,000 pieces of luggage from baggage claim carousels at Phoenix’s airport have been arrested.

I suppose one of the reasons why it doesn’t make sense for thieves to do this is that the suitcases are probably mostly filled with clothes and toothpaste, which has a huge decreasing marginal utility to thieves after a few bags.  It also isn’t clear to me how these guys, in particular, were caught, and how this can be prevented.  I’m a bit worried given that the last time I traveled I had my laptop in the stow-away luggage.  Yet another reason to put your valuables in carry-on, I guess, for you jaunters.

I’ve been busy learning spanish with RS and missed this story which came up a few days ago.  The story makes me feel that it’s not so strange having a 55-year-old step grandma who long ago married my grandpa, who’s nearly 40 years her senior:

He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather. But Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a Somalian who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realised a “dream” by marrying a 17-year-old bride.

Thanks to modern medicine (perhaps) and Somalian social conventions, this man is livin’ the dream of which so many of his 112-year-old contemporaries are surely envious.

Last item of business for the day is that a good friend, who’s travel memoir I recently helped proofread, has begun a blog which is sure to please: http://onionthemove.tumblr.com/

Visit.

Misinformed Malthusians

An article in this week’s The Economist argues that population policy is not nearly as important as policy to make energy consumption more efficient, as the population dilemma theory provided by Malthus before the industrial revolution is, 200 years later, not surprisingly irrelevant.

As our briefing shows, the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less—the magic number that is consistent with a stable population and is usually called “the replacement rate of fertility”. Sometime between 2020 and 2050 the world’s fertility rate will fall below the global replacement rate.

I guess we should probably stop talking about a great human die-off.