Author: hwilkie@mhwcom.com

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Siege Mentality Setting In

Today I went to the supermarket, and the first thing I saw was that there were no carts available, as there were so many people shopping. I had to take a basket, which meant I couldn’t take everything I planned to buy. As I walked around the aisles I saw that the shelves, while not empty, were rapidly thinning out. The people who had managed to get carts had loaded them up mountain high, and it took forever to check out.

This struck me as an indication that siege mentality has set in. And you should know that so far we have a total of 40 cases of coronavirus in the whole country!

Other signs

Most public events have been cancelled, including football matches – gasp! Now that is really serious in this football mad country. An annual gaucho fair we were going to attend today was cancelled. All events of the expat organization I belong to have been cancelled until further notice. Concerts some of us attend at the Kirchner Center cancelled until further notice.

Yesterday I had lunch with four women friends, only a couple of whom did the usual Argentine hug and kiss when we met. That’s part of the national culture here and it’s hard to see it go. I hope it comes back when the virus goes away. There was to be a fifth friend at our lunch, but just yesterday the government decreed that anyone arriving in the country in the last eight days had to self-quarantine for fourteen days, and Joanna had arrived from the US seven days before.

And in a move that devastated those of us who dance tango, all the milongas have been closed until further notice! Mind you, I have to admit that with all that close contact and the fact that at this time of year many of the dancers are visiting from other countries, it was probably a wise move. Thank goodness I still have my lesson with Alejandro so I can get my tango fix at least once a week!

It’s very strange to look at my social calendar for next week and see it empty. Still, it’s worse in many other countries, and I hope that by taking these measures this early, we can avoid a major outbreak.

Wherever you are as you read this, I hope you are managing to live as normally as possible through the crisis and taking care of yourself as much as possible. This too shall pass.

Self-isolating Argentine style

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Bar Britanico

Four of us went on another book research outing on Thursday, this time to a lovely old place called Bar Britanico. It’s in San Telmo, where so many of the older and more interesting ones are.

It has an interesting history, but I’ll just tell you one funny part of it here. As you can see from the photo, the name is painted on the windows. Back in the time of the Malvinas Conflict/Falklands War, it was deemed not a good idea to have this name on the bar.

In another place, they might have renamed it and painted on another name. But this is Buenos Aires, where there’s always a different approach to life! They simply covered up the BRI at the beginning and everyone started calling it the Bar Tanico. Then when the conflict was over and things quieted down a bit (although they have never really forgotten it), they simply uncovered the letters and once again it is known as Bar Britanico. That is so Buenos Aires!

Lina and Venetia both enjoyed their food, but Joanna and I opted for the fish and chips, reasoning that it would be good in a place with a name like Bar Britanico. Wrong. Very dry and disappointing. But as you can see from this photo, Lina’s chicken was absolutely yummy!

It’s a lovely old place, and I’ll be going back soon to do a sketch for my book.

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Lucy’s Birthday

Lucy is one of our group of expat friends who moved away from Buenos Aires for her job a couple of years ago. Although she now lives in Boston, she takes every chance she can get to visit Buenos Aires and we are always happy to see her. This time her visit coincided with her birthday, so we went to a really fun rooftop bar at the top of her hotel. You can see how much fun we were having!

It got better when she went down to her room for a minute and found the management had left her a bottle of champagne. So she brought it upstairs for us all to share!

After spending a couple of hours there, we went on for dinner at Abdala, a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant we like. I didn’t take any photos there, but trust me when I tell you the fun continued!

When you have a group of badass women like these, fun just naturally happens!

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Drip…drip…drip…

I woke up at 3 am to the sound of dripping, and I found water leaking through the bathroom ceiling. I didn’t want to wake the portero at that time, so I stuck a bucket under it and went back to bed.

I told him in the morning, and when he checked he found the people upstairs had gone away for the weekend and left a tap running! He stopped the problem upstairs, but it will take some time for all the built up water to come through, and the mark on the ceiling is still spreading!

I’ve told my landlady. Over the years I’ve learned that a perk of renting is you don’t have to bother about stuff like this — it’s up to the owner to deal with it. I hope it stops soon though as the sound is getting on my nerves!

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Celta Bar

Lunch today was another Bares Notables adventure, this time back to Celta Bar. We had been there a couple of times, once just for wine and once for a cafe concert, but when I realized we hadn’t actually eaten there I decided to remedy that. I was joined by Venetia, Lina, Joanna and Gary, Gerlinde and Thomas — a nice, fun group.

It was a stinking hot, humid day. You would think everyone would be happy to find the place air-conditioned, but no. The waitress gave us the biggest table in the place, which was an interesting old piece of furniture that might have started life as a desk, an altar or just a box. However, the air conditioning unit was above us on the wall. You wouldn’t believe the game of musical chairs we had so that nobody would have cold air blowing on them!
Eventually we settled in and ordered food. We each ordered something different, and everyone declared their food excellent. I had my standby, Spanish omelette, and I chose the mini one to be sure I could eat it. Turned out, in true Argentine fashion, the plate was mini but the omelette was not!
Lina ordered what we call here Vuelta y Vuelta, which is a steak dropped in the pan and immediately turned over so that it is barely cooked at all — kind of like a blue steak I guess. Anyway, she said this is one of the few places that actually do it the way she asks.
Gary had something called Oli Oli, which was a milanesa topped with so many items he could hardly find the meat underneath! Again, he declared it excellent.

Oli Oli

Mini tortilla espanola

Steak vuelta y vuelta

Hamburger Celta

Pasta

Celta is full of delightful old artifacts — including an ancient Canada Dry box!

Old bottles and boxes

Old Canada Dry Box – surprised to find it here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As always, thanks to Venetia for the photos.

I’m reaching the deadline for submission of my manuscript to my publisher, so I just have to fill in a few gaps. But as we agreed today, just because the book is done doesn’t mean we can’t just go and have fun — I’ll drink to that!

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A Culture Shock Moment

I haven’t posted at all this week, mainly because I haven’t really done anything postworthy, but something  happened last night I wanted to tell you about. In its way it was kind of funny, but I know you might also be a bit uncomfortable about it, so I thought I’d explain.

You may know (or you may not, because the rest of the world doesn’t really pay much attention to Argentina), but this country is currently going through difficult times. The economy is in shambles and the currency is worth a fraction of what it was a year ago. This, of course, results in hardship for many, and there are more homeless and hungry people than before. I live in a fairly ritzy part of town, and I think they must feel more comfortable here, so you often see people sleeping on the street.

Argentina seems to go through this every ten years or so, and always gets through it. So we all hope for the best and try to be patient.

What I wanted to show you, though, was the difference in society’s attitude towards these less fortunate souls. I know that in Canada, for example, if anyone were to sneak into an ordinary family restaurant and try to sell pencils or something, they would quickly be shown the door. Not so here though. As long as they are not bothering people or being obnoxious, they’ll be allowed to do what they can to make a few pesos. Some patrons won’t buy, but many do. I’ve often bought tissues or small notebooks this way. I’ve even seen waiters buy things from them. (I always buy my socks from a guy on the train when I’m going to Olivos to visit Cecilia!)

Another thing you’ll see is when someone (usually kids but not always) walks by an outdoor eating area and sees leftover bread or such, they will often ask if they can have it, and people inevitably say yes. So that’s the background to what happened to me last night.

I had gone out for dinner to a local parilla, or steak house, and was given a table at the front of the outdoor area, overlooking the street — great for people watching. I ordered medallions of lomo (filet mignon) and, as usual, there was far too much food for me. I ate the first medallion and part of the second one, but I just couldn’t manage any more. I might have taken it home, but it wasn’t done quite as well as I’d like for that, so I left it on my plate, together with some potatoes, and pushed it away. I planned to sit for a while and enjoy the rest of my wine.

Along came a young man, probably in his thirties. He didn’t look exactly homeless, but obviously pretty close. He was quite pleasant looking though, and when he eyed my plate and asked if he could have the leftover, I nodded. He took a roll out of the bread basket, split it and put the piece of steak in it. I thought he would walk away, but no! When he saw there was more food on the plate, he pulled it over and sat down! “OK,” I thought, “now I have company for dinner!”

He vacuumed up the food hungrily, but funnily enough with quite nice table manners. I asked him if it was good and he nodded enthusiastically. Then he began to chat. Asked me the usual question about where I was from, and told me he hated his country and wanted to go to America, but had no money.

When the food was almost done, he leaned towards me conspiratorially and said, “Do you want to come to my bed?”

I leaned forward and politely replied, “No, thank you.” He shrugged and carried on mopping up the sauce with the last roll. I think he just felt he had to offer something in return and that’s all he had!

Finally, he finished the food, while I was still drinking my wine. He placed the cutlery correctly on the plate, wiped his mouth with my napkin, stood up and pushed his chair in. He thanked me very politely and wished me goodnight. As the people at the next table were watching with interest, he wished them goodnight too and went on his way.

I have no idea what his story is or how he came to be hungry, but somehow having him share my table and my food was quite an Argentine moment. Neither of us was the least bit uncomfortable, and I’m glad I could fill his belly at least for a wee while.

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Outdoor milonga and Chinese food

Last night I went again to La Glorieta, the outdoor milonga in a lovely gazebo in the park. I went with my friend Viviana.

We’ve been having unbearably hot weather for the past week, but last night it felt cooler, so it was perfect for dancing. As I mentioned last time I wrote about La Glorieta, there are no chairs so when you are not dancing you are standing. And the floor is terrazza, so these two things combine to make it hard on the feet. We stayed just over an hour, but danced a lot and had fun.

Just around the corner from the park is Barrio Chino, the Buenos Aires version of Chinatown, so we walked round there afterwards and finished our evening with some lovely Chinese food and a glass of wine. OK a bottle of wine.

This could easily become a favourite Saturday night spot when the weather is good.

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Pia and Valentin’s wedding

Pia is Cecilia’s daughter, so as a “member of the family” I was invited to her wedding on Friday. What a lovely, happy day it was!

This was the civil ceremony at the registry office, with about forty guests who all then went back to Cecilia’s place for the party. There had been rain in the forecast and that was a concern because the meal was to be an asado, and they were counting on people being able to sit outside. Anyway, it turned out to be a hot, sunny day and the rain didn’t come until late in the evening when it was all over. The meal was fantastic — lomo (fillet mignon) on the barbecue, great sausages and all the other components of an Argentine asado. And lots of champagne to go with it!

These photos are at the ceremony and afterwards. I didn’t take any at the house, but when I get a link to the official ones I’ll pick out a few and post them.

Now here’s the fun part. They are having another ceremony at the end of this month — on the beach! I’ve never been to a beach wedding and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll definitely post more photos then.

It’s official!

Cecilia and I and her sister had already left for the car, so we missed out on getting into this one!

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Send a Child to School

Some of my expat friends here belong to an organization called Send a Child to School (SACS), whose main program provides backpacks full of school supplies for underprivileged children throughout Argentina. On Thursday I was delighted to be part of a day of packing supplies in the backpacks.

The event was very well organized. We went through a line-up, picking up backpacks for specific children according to age and sex, and adding supplies that had been prepackaged by other volunteers the previous day. Although it was a hot, sweltering day and keeping cool was an impossible task, I enjoyed the process and it felt good to be helping kids.

SACS sent out a message afterwards telling us we had contributed to assembling 2,768 backpacks — that’s a lot of happy kids!

Here are a few pictures to give you a feel for what it was like. The map also shows the work SACS has been doing throughout the country. Thanks, as always, to Venetia for taking the photos as I always forget!