Colonia

(Colonia-where the cars come alive)

When the alarm goes off, the rain is drumming down on the tin roof in the courtyard and I am dizzy and dehydrated. I feel that bad things are going to happen today. I have had two hours sleep. I was ill during the night and spent most of it in the bathroom. But it was my plan and we bought the fares in advance and we had to wait a ridiculous amount of time to get them in the first place so I get onto my wobbly feet, call a taxi for in half an hour and jump in the shower.

I have just started shaving when the buzzer rings. I jump out and pick up. It is the taxi waiting downstairs. Moments later, still dizzy, dehydrated and wobbly on my feet and now wet in places and with a half-shaved face, I am shouted at by the driver for taking too long. I am in no mood for discussions. It is a two-minute drive to my parents´ apartment. The rain is still slashing down. I get out, cross the road and ring the buzzer, now wet all over.

It will take a while before the day gets any better. The sea is rough, with bouts of wind hitting the catamaran from all sides and waves that are far too high for a river delta, even a big one, creating an exceptional demand for plastic bags in the duty free shop. Somehow I manage not to be sick. I suspect this is because I have nothing left in my stomach to be sick with after my night of agony on the toilet.

Eventually the plunges and twists slow down and the grey-green outline of the coast appears in the windows. We get off, are whisked through immigration and find ourselves once again cold and in the rain outside the ferry terminal. We don´t have a map or any clear idea what we are supposed to do now we are here. So we grab a taxi and ask to be taken to a café in the old town.

The journey takes around forty seconds and essentially consists of turning round two corners. Of course we are charged a chunky fare. We are embarrassed by our cluelessness and pay without grumbling. The driver senses an opportunity and offers to pick us up again in two hours to give us a guided tour of the whole town for twenty-five dollars. In the absence of any other plan and thinking it might continue raining for the rest of the day, we accept.

It is midday and I have gone without drink or food since the night before. I don´t want to eat anything for fear of spending the day on the bog as well. Thankfully Jochen talks me into ordering a glass of cognac. As I am sipping it, the rocky waves in my belly begin to subside. I start to warm up and it even stops raining.

(our lunch table from above)

After two hours of pleasantly doing nothing, the taxi returns. We get in and are treated to a leisurely drive around the town. Colonia was founded by Portuguese and Spanish settlers and in the old town the way the streets are cobbled depends on which group lived there. There are remains of a town wall complete with a draw bridge and moat. The property market for the old part of town is booming and the simple one-storey stone structures fetch six-figure prices in dollars. Quite a few of them are painted in gentle tones of yellow or pink and there are flowers and weeds growing in cracks in the walls and coming up between the cobblestones. There are even two once elegant 1930s cars with bushes growing through their open roofs.


The rest of the town, if not the most interesting place in the universe, nonetheless has a quiet, safe feel to it that is a luxury after the heat and the traffic in the summer in Buenos Aires. Our guide slows down whenever we come to a house occupied by German immigrants or their descendants. We pass a bullfighting arena that was closed down when the paper industry left a few decades ago. Every now and then our driver stops and greets someone on the street. “Everyone knows each other here”, he says.

From Colonia the only thing you can see of Buenos Aires are the tops of a handful of skyscapers in Puerto Madero. In a few days I will start working in one of them.

(Jochen at the draw bridge)

We spend the rest of the afternoon eating, ambling about, dozing on a bench in the park and drinking too much cola. Our ferry goes back quite late but this is a good thing as the sea has calmed down considerably by then.

(my mother at the draw bridge)

In the end nothing bad happened. On the contrary. We had a very relaxing time, learnt a few things about Uruguayan history and took some nice pictures. But best of all, I discovered a taste for cognac and my mother promised to buy me a bottle before she leaves to help cure any future stomach troubles I might have.

Argentinian Splendour

I cannot imagine the neighbours in our block of flats getting together like this to sing and dance in historical costumes every Friday and Saturday. Our neighbours cannot even face talking to each other about their mutual noise complaints, preferring to send handyman Pedro instead. But we live in a busy street in the anonymous centre, Congreso, and this is La Boca, a mainly working-class and much more hands-on kind of place. La Boca´s most famous son, incidentally, is Diego Maradona, whose old football team, Boca Juniors, still inspires religious fan worship across the country.

Translated, the title of the performance means something like „Argentinian Splendour“. A musical history of Argentina of the last eighty years, it is funny and moving and the enthusiasm of its hundred-strong amateur cast is awe-inspiring. It is a „people´s production“, with actors of all ages who say they are „neighbours“. Taking place in a converted warehouse the company bought with funds from shows on streets and public squares, its three hundred red plastic seats are sold out. Barbecued sausages and burgers, sandwiches, homemade cakes and salads are on sale outside.

The show starts with the iconic 1920s and 30s Tango scenes that made Buenos Aires so famous. A varied cast of local folk who meet, drink, dance and do politics in the social club of the name of the title is introduced through scenes in the club´s bar and a series of hilarious call and response choruses.

Inevitably, The Girl From The Rich Family falls in love with The Dashing Rebel, a socialist in a sharp suit and pomaded hair who soon incurs the ill will of the local establishment figures and even sooner gets his girl pregnant. It is the fate of this daring couple and their son through the next fifty years of military coups, attempts at democracy, exile and return, repression and hope, that gives structure to the patchwork of historical snapshots that characterises the performance.

The social club´s members´ divisions, of course, reflect the divisions in wider society, and so we witness rich old ladies whispering their agreement with conservative dictatorships while trade union youths fight over whether „peronism“, a doctrine that mixes nationalism and social justice, means socialism. Breathtaking is the silent arrival of the nameless destitute, the „cartoneros“, in a shopping trolley during the portrayal of the economic decline of the 1990s. Ubiquitous today, the image of youths going through rubbish in the search for paper is now as iconic as that of the Tango dancers.

The show finishes with an underdeveloped Mad-Max style vision of the future, but by then it has well won me over. The melodies are catchy, the comic potential of some of the actors huge and the issues real. But most of all, it was a passionate performance by an ensemble cast who really do appear a... wait... community.

Buenos Aires is a Safe Place

Buenos Aires is a safe place. About a month ago, a security truck loaded up with pension money got robbed in broad daylight in the city by an armed gang who did not hesitate to gun down the driver and the security officer who was with him. Only one of them survived. The security company went on strike to protest about their daily exposure to violence and death, leading to cash shortages all over the city. This had such diverse consequences as not being able to take out money from the bank to pay the rent (boo) and being able to use the Subte (underground) for free for two days (yeay).

I have only received one death threat so far. It was issued to me by a punk with a speed hangover smoking and gibbering to himself in the doorway of the illegal venue across the street just as I was leaving the flat in my pyjamas on a sunny Sunday morning to get facturas for breakfast. I successfully pulled the “I´m foreign” card on him to avoid escalation, to which his irrefutably logical reply was “don´t look at me then”.

The most dangerous thing I missed by two weeks. Before I got here, Francesca got caught in a crossfire of police and a fugitive bank robber on Cordoba (main street near where we live) and had to jump into a garage to let the being-shot-at robber run past her. Action! Yeah!

No, it really is safe here. I have witnessed three street robberies in Corrientes (main street right where we live) and Jimmy´s mum had an expensive necklace ripped of her neck as she was leaving the Subte but the good thing is that you never feel that you are going to be the victim of violence for any motivation other than money. This may sound odd but I mean it, as long as a) you don´t look rich (easy) and b) you never take really important things such as credit cards with you and c) you are fully prepared to give what little cash you have on you to the first bidder with a shiny metal friend for backup, you´re fine.

I didn´t always feel like this. In the first few weeks I made the acquaintance of a street kid of about fourteen or fifteen who was always asking for change one block from our house. While I lived in Paris I learnt to ignore people who wanted something from you because every now and then, they will either turn out to be an absolute nutcase or they will take your acknowledgement to mean you want to spend the rest of the day with and all of your money on them. The rules could not be more different in Buenos Aires. Here it is a mortal offence to ignore someone asking you for change/the time/a cigarette/your drink/the piece of paper you were about to throw away. Not parting with your pennies on the other hand is fully accepted. You just have to be nice about it.

It wasn´t until the third time I passed the kid on our street, desperately holding onto the cool I thought I had picked up so well in Paris, when he started running after me, calling me deaf and skinny (well, I suppose he´s got a valid point there) and other insults, that I realised my strategy wasn´t working. I struggled to think of a way to avoid the menace of almost daily, escalating confrontations with a scrawny little kid with nothing to lose and a lot of similarly scrawny friends just round the corner. In the end it was Francesca who suggested that the next time I passed him, I should say something to him to show I was aware of his existence.

It wasn´t long before the plan was tested in action. Once again, the kid, seeing me, came running over the street, breaking off from snorting paco (a cheap and nasty residue from cocaine production) with his mates to launch into the “have you got some change for me” routine. This time I looked at him, and, according to my instructions, politely said, “I´m really sorry mate, I haven´t got any”. To my surprise he just mumbled a few half-mocking replies and shuffled back off to his crew.

This episode was key to my conversion to the belief that Buenos Aires is one of the safest places I have lived in. Yes, every day there are people who want something you have that they don´t have, whether it´s a wallet or a bottle of grapefruit soda. But that´s pretty much where it ends. Noone wants to knife you in the kidneys and leave you to bleed to death, very simply because it doesn´t make a damn difference to their situation. I like that.

A catalogue of Sins

Things you´d never think you´d see.

Robin eating a beef steak. Notice Mickey eyeing a piece of my dinner. Greedy bastard.

Robin at McDonalds. Just about to vomit.

And here my partner in crime.

My girls

My sister Lorna. Looking up from reading the menu at the "Taller", a café that Fere´s studio designed.

And Francesca, looking up.

Views of Buenos Aires

The place in question. As you can see, it is next to water. The water is brown and slow-moving and belongs to the Rio de la Plata, or River of Money (with a bit of poetic licence). The River of Money is gigantic and undrinkable. No wonder the country has a history of economic problems.

I love this picture. My mother took it when she was here. It is of Corrientes, the main street two blocks from where we live, and the place we a) catch the subte (underground), b) get out videos c) buy books, d) eat ice cream, e) walk into the centre f) go to the cinema g) go to the theatre h) have all-you-can eat dinner g) stroll along at night. In the distance you can see the Obelisco, a monument in celebration of the independence of Argentina.

I am addicted to these. They are called Medialunas or half moons and are like French croissants but sweeter and made with heavier pastry. A standard breakfast is three medialunas with a white coffee and a glass of orange juice.

Not all of Buenos Aires is made of concrete. There are lots of parks in the North, in Palermo and Recoleta. This is near the Japanese Garden.

This is a picture of my feet and some fish. The fish are weird and multi-coloured. They are part of the Japanese Garden. My feet are normal. They are part of my legs.

It can rain a hell of a lot very suddenly. The city can´t cope with so much water at once. Sometimes the Subte closes down, the electricity goes and whole shantytowns get swept away cos of the floods caused.

Las Flores

A coach takes us there. I have never been so comfortable in my life on public transport. The seats recline and include upholstered leg rests. The journey is far too short. We arrive at midday in a quiet town in the pampas, the flat grassy plains south of Buenos Aires full of soya fields, cows and white settlers called gauchos.

The streets are empty when we arrive. The sun is beating down. The sky is deep deep blue. The buildings have two floors and flat roofs. We check into the only hotel and go for a pizza on the only square in the exact centre of the town. On the square a young man is handing out flyers to remind that today is the 31st anniversary of the beginning of the military dictatorship (1976-83). He is alone and the music from his small sound system echoes around the almost empty streets. He has hung up photocopies of photos of some of the people from the town who disappeared under the dictatorship. They flap in the gentle wind. The scene is idyllic and ideal for a relaxing weekend away.

We drink delicious sweet malt beer and eat two whole pizzas between the two of us. Then we go and have a siesta in the hotel. The room is small and on the dark side but very quiet.

After the siesta we go for a stroll around the town. We play the original Pacman arcade game and several rounds of table football, which I win until francesca warms up and starts giving me a bashing. We climb around in a playground sponsored by the lions club until we get cold. Later we have a simple dinner in the hotel. I spray water on the entire tablecloth because I am unable to use the ´sifón´, a big bottle of soda water with an inbuilt tap/spray so you can serve from it without lifting it up. We smoke in the restaurant which feels naughty as this is forbidden in Buenos Aires.

The next morning I am pulled from deep sleep by loud music piping out of a speaker right in front of our window. Over breakfast the waiter explains that it is the village birthday today. We are delighted.

There is a podium in the colours of the national flag and on the podium there are the mayor and other important people. In the second row there is a man in a black and red military uniform with a moustache and aviator shades. It is sunny and clear but not very warm. Men in gaucho uniforms, their wives and children on bicycles start to line the street outside the hotel. When everyone is ready there is an announcement of who is there and why they are there and the mayor makes a raising speech with lots of references to the fatherland. The national anthem is sung and the parade begins.

First up is a group of mounted police in gala uniforms. They are beautiful. Seeing them I too want to wear a sword and a pistol and a stripe down my trowsers and hold a flag that means everything to me. Then comes an old red German fire engine. Then horse carts and carriages of all sizes are drawn past us. A lot of them are decorated in swirling, colourful patterns. One is drawn by five horses, around twelve metres long and stacked high with sacks of wheat. It is painted in blue and white and for a moment we could be in Bavaria.

After a while we get scared by so much regard for tradition and countryside values an go eat ice cream and take pictures with our new digital camera. Here´s one of me and one of Francesca´s feet:

Photos! Finally photos!

Below a couple of pictures of our flat. Left the inside with the window in the bedroom visible at the back. Right Francesca looking up from our window.

On Cohabitation

Francesca asks me what colour throw to get for the sofa. My sister is coming tomorrow and we want it to look nice. I say pink. It is a joke.

Now we have a sofa that matches the colour of my hair when we first met. When I look at it my eyes hurt but at least it gives theroom some life.

I am not very good at not being serious. This is what people who know me think. In fact I am very good at not being serious. But I am also very good at being subtle so my humour almost always goes undetected.

To the outside world I am a tall half-German who doesn´t know vot funny is. In reality I am like Grenouille, the character in Patrick Süskind´s "Perfume", lying in caves in Southern France building imaginary worlds filled with witty one-liners, puns and ironic understatements, quietly biding my time concocting the worlds biggest joke that will have thousands laugh till their clothes fall off and they want to fornicate on the streets.

Cable TV

We have fewer friends here than in our respective homes and sometimes it is too hot to leave the house.

Luckily The Simpsons are on four times a day and all the major American film companies have their own dedicated networks.

Prison Break (series 2) is on on Fox but has too many ad breaks.

There are at least six sports channels. When Boca are playing and Maradona is watching, the camera is on him more than on the players on the field. He often keeps what looks like underage eye candy with him.

I have been told that Maradona is a metaphor for what is wrong with this country. When Maradona was on the national side he was so good there was no need to focus on or encourage any other players. This meant the team depended on him and of course he let them down by becoming an irate coke-addled drunk.

It is the same with soya beans: they are the star of the Argentinian export economy but are over-relied upon and thus a potential cause for not winning the World Cup.

A Walk in the Park

The small girl with dreadlocks who walks with us doesn´t want to say her name and later doesn´t say goodbye.

Attracted by what sounds like electric guitars sound-checking, we end up where the motorway goes past the airport. The electric guitars are airplanes which is ironic because later the real guitars are so loud we can´t hear the planes as they swoop just above the stage coming in to land.

The gig is only three blocks away but out here a block is a kilometre long. This means we miss most of the gig but it is free and there are twenty thousand people jumping up and down and singing along which is inevitably somewhat moving.

The band is called Catupecu Machu and by the time we get there they have stopped playing songs. Instead they play games with the audience involving bits of their favourites, arty atonal solos and a lot of E minor power chords.

We later drink Pepsi and have burping contests as we watch several thousand people walk towards the city in search of public transport. It is then that i decide that I want to be one of the people jumping up and down and singing along when Coldplay come here in February.

Our House-Warming

For a change we are the hosts. Francesca makes stuffed avocadoes and I, nachoes like in The Forest. Too late I discover that the yoghurt I used for the tzatziki is sweet.

We eat off plastic plates on the floor as we have unsufficient bum space while Fere and Gustavo say interesting things about the Military Dictatorship.

Irene talks about the 2001 economic crisis and says they would sometimes turn up for demonstrations without knowing what they were demonstrating for. There were too many demonstrations and often the turnout was very low. Sometimes there were not enough people to carry the main banner.

Some people were also killed although not as many as in the Dictatorship. Fere knew someone who was shot in his apartment by the military government.

What in English is called The Falklands is called The Malvinas here and when the British navy arrived several weeks after war was declared, the Argentinian army gave up molesting women on the islands and military rule collapsed.

On Internet Cafés

There are a lot of them and they are full of kids. I have read that "cybers" are the new informal youth clubs where teenagers can hang for hours every day while they take turns playing internet computer games.

The one we go to there are some cheeky types who have to be violently kicked out every now and again. I think they say racist things to the Asian owner. He is big and has long hair and could be my age.

The one next door has no porn protection and I have seen people openly browsing sex sites for hours on end.

Ours is open 24 hours and is a nice place to go to to cool down late at night when we can´t have the air conditioning on anymore because of the noise.

On Insects

Some of the bites look like flea bites but are in fact mosquito bites too. The mosquitoes know that we are foreigners and attack us more than people from here.

There are also cockroaches. Some are squashed on the pavement. Some are alive. There was one on the balcony at Isolina´s flat the other day. When you squash them their eggs hatch and there are more of them.

I don´t recommend lying in the grass. There will be crawling things in your hair, itches and bites for hours.

A Trip to San Isidro

The girl who tries to grab my bag is young and on the back of a motorbike. She says "give me your bag". This is on the way back from the beach.

The way to the beach is past 57 Yacht Clubs. Their beaches must be nice. The one we go to is tiny and full of rubbish. We can hardly see the sand for all the plastic bags. Still there are hundreds of people. They are doing barbecues and sitting on motorbikes amongst all the plastic.

The sea is warm and unrefreshing. The sun is invisible because of the humidity and the pollution. Only the young kids swim.

The people have dark skin and have come in big groups or families in old American Dodge pickups.

The motorbike thieves wait for us ahead. A family comes and we walk with them. We feel safer when we cross the railway lines on the way back to the centre.

The American girls on the train don´t have any mosquito bites. Maybe this is because they are very tanned. They are the only ones sitting on the floor. They are wearing tie-dyed clothes and are holding hands.

We are very hungry and our legs ache. It is cold. This is a good thing. We find out that Fugazza means with onion. We eat more cheese than in a week at home.

I can´t sleep or breathe because of the heat. I use a wet towel as a blanket.

In the end I have learnt two things: One, don´t cross the railway lines in San Isidro. Two, Europeans who think that being too hot is better than being too cold don´t know what they are talking about.

The Price of Things

The price of meat is under state supervision and is less than that of fish or cheese.

The biggest and best-quality milk manufacturer is publicly-owned.

There are no non-seasonal fruits and vegetables as fruits and vegtables are not imported. Vegetables cost even less than meat.

The most expensive things are those to do with technology. Digital cameras cost twice to four times as much as in Europe.

Trains and buses cost half of the price of a bar of chocolate.

In Argentina, if you are poor, you can afford to eat good meat, buy fresh local vegetables and use public transport.

If you are poor in Britain you can eat chips, watch TV and wait for your heart attack.

On Being an Ethical Consumer

All the coffee from the supermarket that we have tried except Nestle tastes rubbish. We also buy Nestle water as all the other ones taste bad. The sugar is from plants in the North that exploit indigenous communities.

Watching "Rio Arriba"

It is a documentary. The director who presents the film is the narrator in it. He is very serious. His family used to exploit indios for their sugar factory.

When they went back home their terraced fields were eroded away.

The other character is called Bernabés. He is a musician and very charming.

The indios in the film are now subsistence farmers and trade without money. Their biggest enemy are the "volcanoes". "Volcanoes" are massive landslides when it rains.

Bernabés plays on a wind instrument and on a type of drum when the film is over. He says they are not "ethno". He is not ethno. He is articulate and charismatic and a great ambassador for his people.

Many of the people who went to see the film will want to travel to its locations. Then the farmers will have to trade with money and be able to buy new NIKE sweaters. Maybe they will also be able to send their children to university so they can make anthropological films about the people that used to exploit them.

Christmas

They call them thermostatic globes and they should be exported to other countries as they are very pretty to look at. You can tie wishes to them if you want but this only happens at New Year. One goes up in flames on a neighbouring terrace and for a moment it looks as if they will get hurt. The wind is not very strong so you can see them until they go out. We hope they don´t fall on our heads.

The rain is welcome but makes the tiles slippery. We continue dancing anyway. Fere the host puts on some very good Argentinian rock. I think it is from the Seventies.

One of the presents is a passepartout with condoms and a sachet of coke. Halfway through the night the coke goes missing. The condoms stay. Our presents are a nice pair of coffee cups. I also get a green plastic mini-tambourine. It if useful as a prop for dancing.

I think our combined sense of direction is worse than our individual ones. This is a shame as we make a good couple otherwise. When we get home it is seven o´clock and we have spent as much time travelling around the city as at the party.

A Punk Gig in a Squat

We are refused entry until we bring some victuals for a charity collection. We go to the Shell petrol station and buy some sugar and some tea. They now let us in.

The beer is cheap at 5 pesos a litre and the atmosphere very friendly. Our host Ramiro says there is an MMDA shortage but that doesn´t seem to have any ill effect on the overall ambiance.
The first band are an ageing three-piece who make dumb three chord punk rock with shouty macho/misogynist lyrics like "If I see you, bitch, I will kill you".

The next band are called The Vedettes which means stars in French. The singer has a Mötley Crüe haircut and no significant voice. The guitarist has a cool style and a foot-high mohican. They are the crowd favourites as they play "White Riot" and "Submission" and other Clash/Sex Pistols covers.

The last band are called Los Disckolos and are friends of Ramiro´s. Now it is not 1983 anymore. Their music is too intelligent for moshing to. They have cool moves and pretty guitars and clever political song titles such as "Do Not Unquestioningly Accept Authority".

They are both harder and faster and more melodic than the other bands and when the bassist joins in the shouting with the singer and the guitarist, it is like being kicked in the stomach and enjoying it.