Second Thoughts on the Third World

Today in the práctico for my Genocides class, we discussed the politics surrounding the conflict between the military dictatorship and guerrilla groups in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s. I understood about four percent of what was going on, which is way below my usual average of somewhere in the 70% range. Yesterday in my Literatura Latinoamericana II class, the lecturer referred to so many words and people that I didn't recognize that I kept a list at the top of my notes of things to look up later. (Piqueteros, Tercera Internacional, Mayakovsky, Haya de la Torre)

The problem wasn't the language barrier; it was the historical background that I just didn't have. I was as lost as someone with no knowledge of the racial history of the United States would be if she sat in on a discussion of Martin Luther King's assassination. (I use that example because it makes me feel better — Argentines generally just don't understand why race is such a sensitive issue to North Americans.)

After a post-class Wikipedia binge, I'm still confused about what my professors were talking about, but I understand better why I've been so lost.

When I wrote a few days ago about what made Argentina a third-world country, I was talking about economics, but actually "third world" is a political term used during the Cold War to refer to countries that belonged neither to the communist Soviet Bloc nor to the capitalist NATO Bloc. (Wikipedia, by the way, classifies Argentina as an "Upper Middle-Income Country" or a "Secondary Emerging Market.")

Obviously, the Soviet Bloc no longer exists, but as far as the designation of Argentina as neither purely communist nor purely capitalist goes, the concept of a political "third world" is still very apt. Before I got to Argentina, I honestly thought that no one took Marxism seriously anymore. Even the most liberal schools in the United States (like every school I've ever attended) teach Marx as a guy with cute ideas that just didn't work out. In Argentina, though, Marxist theory is the starting point of essentially every political discussion — at least at UBA, which admittedly is a pretty rarefied place.

The Argentine economy itself is solidly capitalist, but the concept of class struggle has as central a place in political theory here as Locke's social contract has in political theory in the United States. A large part of the reason I've been having such a hard time understanding the discussions in class is that they assume not only a grounding in history, which I can learn, but also a Marxist frame of reference, which is harder to pick up. In my Genocides class, we read articles that describe the dictatorship as a reaction of the bourgeoisie against the rising power of the proletariat; in my Literature class we read almost exclusively Marxist authors. The intricacies of the political subtext can be hard to pick up unless you've been reading Das Kapital since you were sixteen — which it feels like most of the students in the class have.

Honestly, I'm getting frustrated. I really feel like pointing out that the Soviet Union collapsed almost two decades ago, and it collapsed because Marxism isn't a viable political system. It seems pointless to keep holding on to a framework that doesn't hold up and focusing on the literature of a failed movement.

I know that attitude makes me either a bad liberal or a good American, both designations I have mixed feelings about. Anyway, I probably just don't get it. And probably never will.

Pictures

I have about nine million pages of reading to do. It's all in Spanish and about either genocide or avant garde-poetry. Here's a sample of a translation of Trilce, a poem by César Vallejo that we're reading in my Literatura Latinoamericano II class:

Finished the heated afternoon;
your great bay and your clamor; the chat
with your exhausted mother
who offered us a tea full of evening.

Finally finished everything: the vacations,
Your obedience of hearts, your way
of demanding that I not go out.

It goes on like this for 150 pages. I think that explains pretty succinctly why I decided to make a shutterfly account. You can access the pictures here. I'll label more of them after I'm done. Or after I decide that one more page of impenetrable babble about night-flavored tea might turn me off books for life. Whichever comes first.

Why Argentina is a Third World Country

I just got finished with an epic lunch with my host mom, Mónica. We started eating at 2:30 and ended up talking for the next two hours. We discussed American and Argentine politics, mostly. Mónica explained to me why Argentina grows so much soy (answer — it's like the corn of the US; there are lot of subsidies and the economy depends on it even though no one actually eats it or even really uses it for anything). I tried and failed to explain to her why the US impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blow job but hasn't so much as slapped Bush on the wrist for lying about Iraq.

More than anything specific we talked about, the conversation was fascinating because it helped me understand why Argentina is a third world country, and how that makes it different from the US. It's easy to forget while I'm eating a a veggie tort with squash in a four-bedroom apartment that has wireless internet and three cable TVs that I'm not only not in the US, but that I'm technically not in the developed world. What exactly does developed mean if not home to a comfortable middle class and able to provide its citizens with basic amenities like education and (ahem) health care? Argentina has all that. Of course, it also has people living in abject poverty in shantytowns, but that tends to be pretty insulated from city life.

And yet certain things Mónica says remind me that not everything is as clean and functional as it seems, even in the city of Buenos Aires. As an American, I tend to take things at face value. If airplane is supposed to take off at 3:45, it will take off at 3:45. If the president says the economy is improving, the economy is improving. The money in my bank account will be there until I spend it.

Argentines, on the other hand, approach life with the assumption that the bus will break down, that the government is lying, and that the money they have in the bank could be gone when they wake up tomorrow. This pessimism — or realism, depending on how you look at it — is the real difference between Argentina and the US. Because the fact is that the buses here are old, the government's figures understate inflation by some 20%, and once every ten years or so, there's an economic crisis, a rush on the banks, and the money that had been safe in an account the day before just no longer exists.

Life here has a sense of precariousness that doesn't exist in the US. People expect to be inconvenienced, delayed, lied to and cheated, and it comes out in the details. For example, when I took a bus to Uruguay, it was delayed for three hours. The only reason I knew it was delayed was because it wasn't at the station, and I wasn't even sure of that because the bus company didn't know yet where the bus would stop — only the general area. They also didn't know how delayed the bus was, or when it would come, or whether it would come at all, and were both mystified and annoyed when I went to ask. How should they know?

Somehow, Argentines don't end up bitter from all this uncertainty, just resigned. But it makes me realize (and I know this is totally cliché) how lucky we have it.

A Típico Weekend

I have six hours of class on Monday, seven on Tuesday, and three on Wednesday. That's more than I ever have at Yale, where even with a five-class course load last semester I only was in the classroom for 10 hours a week. But I still feel like I have way more free time here, which is partly because my weekend starts Wednesday night. (It's also partly because I don't spend five hours a night in the Yale Daily News building.)

Anyway, this last weekend started Wednesday night with "Peluquería Día." After class, I went over to Molly's house, where she, Veronica and I tried ourselves mechas, or highlights, in various shades of red, blue and purple. We bought the wrong kind of dye, but Molly's 24-year old host "mom" — whose rainbow-color highlights change with her mood — came home in the middle of the process and showed us her stash of permanent hair paint. I now have a fuschia skunk stripe on the underside of my ponytail. Some other friends came over towards the end of the process, and we made breakfast for dinner, drank wine, and watched Juno as our hair dried.

Thursday I barely left my house all day, having gotten home late the night before. Around nine I went out to dinner with Melinda and her cousin at a norteño restaurant in Palermo, where I had a delicious cazuela, or beef stew, that probably contained about a third of a cow. I left at eleven to meet some other friends at a bar. We went from the bar to a club a few blocks away from my house, and six hours and two new phone numbers later, I walked back home as the newsstands were putting out the morning paper. (Don't worry, Mom — I was going to go on a date with a guy I met, but it didn't end up working out.)

Friday I woke up at noon, went for a run, made chili for a potluck at my friend Beth's house, and then went back to sleep until five. I got to Beth's around seven and ate a freakishly early dinner. We ordered ice cream for dessert and talked awhile, but most of us were tired from the night before, and Karen, Logan and I left at around ten for the three-odd mile walk back to our houses. We all live just off Santa Fe, one of the biggest streets in Buenos Aires.

Earlier in the week, Karen and Daniel had somehow found out that a foundation called ALAS was sponsoring a huge free concert on Saturday, and stood in line to get tickets. Daniel gave me his extra one, so on Saturday I woke up, went for a run, and then met up with my friends to go — along with an estimated 130,000 other people — to Costanera Sur, a huge field in an ecological reserve by the water where the concert was being held. The concert was supposed to start at 2:30, so we got there on time for an American concert, around three. Except we're in Argentina, so the first act didn't come on until four, and Shakira, the headliner, performed at 9:30.

At one point Molly and I got so antsy and hungry that we left to go find food that wasn't a superpancho (hot dog — essentially all that was available) even though we weren't sure we'd be able to get back in. When we got back and handed the man at the gate our ticket stubs, he just looked at us, laughed, and said, "You're not from around here, are you?" But he let us in anyway. And when we got back, Jorge Drexler was playing, who's my favorite new music I've found here (I'm going to a concert of his next Friday). Paulina Rubio, Alejandro Sanz, and Calle 13, a Puerto Rican reggaeton band, also played, and Shakira did a duet with Mercedes Sosa. I didn't know a lot of the music, which made parts of the eight hours I spent at the concert seem incredibly long, but when Shakira sang "Hips Don't Lie" with a fake Wyclef Jean, I almost died. I had a moment where I got really sad because as long as I live, I'm never going to be her.

Today I had lunch with my host mom and her friend, and we talked for two hours — about Argentina, the United States, boyfriends, smoking laws, you name it. Ever since then I've been successfully not working. Now I'm going to go make myself dinner and continue the pattern.

Random Observations

Jujuy was so different from Buenos Aires that coming back made me feel a little like I was rediscovering Buenos Aires again. I've started taking certain quirks of Argentine culture for granted — and while that means I'm not bewildered and overwhelmed by everything from the city layout to which cheese I want on my sandwich, I also like to take a step back once in a while and observe.

Argentina, or at least Buenos Aires, is similar enough to the United States that the differences really only come out in the details. Here are a few of my favorites:

Kisses — This one's pretty standard in other countries, but I love it. My hands are so sweaty that I always get really uncomfortable about the impression I make on other people when I shake their hands. Then I make a doubly bad impression, because not only are my hands sweaty but I'm acting all awkward about it. A simple air kiss totally solves the problem. And it's funny to see how quickly the American guys on the program have picked the habit up with girls — and how awkward they get when Argentine guys try to do to them.

Mate — It's not uncommon to see people, on the subte or walking down the street, carting big metal thermoses full of hot water around in one hand and hollowed gourds filled with mate leaves in the other. Yerba mate is a tea drunk loose-leaf out of a gourd or wooden cup (also called a mate) with a metal straw called a bombilla, and it's one of the few things in Buenos Aires that I can think of that's totally indigenous in origin. Its consumption in Argentina is a tradition that comes close to a ritual, and I went through three mate gourds before I finally found one that worked for me. The first one molded, the second one cracked, and the one I have now (which cost me four pesos at a grocery store) is perfect.

Delivery — This is really more of a big-city thing than an Argentina thing, but you can get everything delivered to your house here. Groceries, late-night empanadas, doggy toys, even wine and beer. Stores aren't allowed to sell alcohol from the storefront after 11 pm (strangely early in a city where people are just finishing dinner at midnight), but you can call a store and have it delivered to your house free of charge. The best, and most Argentine, thing you can get delivered is gelato. One night my friends and I went looking for ice cream after dinner, but it was 1 am and all the stores were closed. So we went back to Veronica's house, called Persicco — a famous gelatería — and 40 minutes later were finishing off a kilogram of chocolate mousse, dulce de leche and lemon pie ice cream between the five of us.

Dietéticas — Coming from California to a foreign country can be hard. Apparently flaxseed, wheat germ and anything containing Omega-3 fatty acids aren't considered staples here like they are in San Francisco. Who knew? Most Argentines live off a diet of medialunas (mini-croissants) for breakfast, empanadas for lunch, white toast for a snack, and pasta for dinner — enough white carbs to feed the Pillsbury Doughboy for months. But fortunately, there are health food stores, called dietéticas, on pretty much every corner. (I haven't figured out how they're so ubiquitous, since the average Argentine wouldn't let a sprouted grain within a mile of his buttery medialuna.) They mostly sell dried fruit, nuts and whole grains, alongside herbal tea and cookies made with fake sugar. I'm not entirely sure what the unifying principle is behind their stock, since the aspartame in the fake-sugar cookies defeats the purpose of "natural" foods and the calories in the nuts defeat the purpose of "diet" foods, but they're good for making me laugh while I buy sunflower seeds and quinoa.

Wine — When I splurge on wine, I pay nine pesos, or three US dollars. Enough said.

Llama-spotting

This weekend I went with the FLACSO program to Jujuy, a province in the north of Argentina. Jujuy is much poorer than the area around Buenos Aires, and has a much larger indigenous population. I probably wouldn´t have visited it on my own -- it´s a 20 hour bus ride, but we took a plane -- so I´m glad FLACSO took us there.

The landscape looks something like the American Southwest, with dry riverbeds, brushy fields, and red clay cliffs like drip-castles; the towns look much more like the stereotypical image of South America than the other places in Argentina I´ve been. All of the houses, one-story clay with flat rooves, stretch down the street in continuous, split-level rows.Since it´s the desert, everything is dry and dusty, and it drops about 30 degrees when the sun starts to go down.

FLACSO trips are great since everything is organized for us and we stay in fairly nice housing, although sometimes I feel like I´m on a school trip in second grade, complete with head counts and snacktime. (Not that I´m complaining about the snacks.)

Both of the FLACSO trips I´ve been on have involved disgusing amounts of food, which in the north means things people typically associate with South America -- tamales, empanadas, quinoa. In addition to lots of beef, since we are still in Argentina, I had a delicious pastel de quinoa with llama meat. Llama essentially tastes like cheap steak, but now I can add it to the list of "Things I have eaten in Argentina that are fundamentally gross." (The list also includes cow brain, kidneys, blood sausage and kosher cow intestines.)

The weekend also involved a few walk-y "hikes," a tour of a re-creation of some indigenous ruins, and an absurd amount of shopping. Jujuy is famous for its wool products, and I came away with two sweaters, two pairs of gloves and a pair of socks. All of them have llamas on them. (Not all of them are for me.) I also bought a scarf, a ring, and a wall-hanging. And yet despite the convulsion of acquisitiveness that came over me this weekend, I spent a total of 160 pesos, or 50 dollars.

Pantsless in Palermo

It's late, and I have to wake up early tomorrow if I want to finish my Literatura Latinoamericana midterm before I go to Jujuy on Thursday. But I haven't posted in a while, and why sleep when I can blog?

That question is only halfway facetious. I've been in my new house almost a week now, and one of the many perks of moving is that I now have wireless internet, so I can post from bed. My room is small — bigger than my dorm room, but not by enough to matter — but comfortable. I have two closets, a desk, a bed, a shelf, and a TV I've only turned on once. The decor is pretty much white, but with my stuff all over the shelves (and sometimes the floor) it has a decent personality.

The girl who lived here before me warned me that my host mom, Mónica, sees her job as "strictly a business relationship." That's partly proven to be true: I get breakfast and dinner, but I'm on my own when it comes to lunch and snacks, I wash my own dishes, and I take my laundry downstairs to the laundromat even though Mónica does her own in the washing machine. But she's friendly and corrects me without judgment when I do something wrong (like put the matches for the stove back in the wrong place or eat the dinner she was preparing for lunch). I don't want a mom who's going to obsess about where I am or ask about my feelings. I already have one of those.

The big thing is that there's no such thing as a family dinner here — I think Mónica likes her personal space. Still, she's pretty chatty when I ask her questions about Argentina, and she lets me know when she's going out. She usually eats dinner in her room, and leaves me out a portion to serve myself when I want to. The food is pretty good — she makes a delicious shepherd's pie with olives and Argentine beef — and I like being able to eat what I want when I want it. Today for lunch I made myself a lentil-and-squash stew that turned out surprisingly well.

I also have a brother, Mariano, who never fails to make me laugh, although I'm pretty sure he's not trying to. The key details to know about him are: he's 27, he's in the family business breeding racehorses, he only speaks to me in thickly accented English, and he hates life. He thinks Buenos Aires is too big and ugly and wants to live in the countryside, and whenever he's home he stomps around looking angry at the world and not wearing pants. (In the week I've been here I've only seen him in pants once, and that was right after he came home from work. He even answers the door in boxers when the grocery delivery man comes.)

Apparently there's another son who's in Europe right now, "testing turf" for racehorses and bumming around in Monaco. He's supposedly nicer, but I like Mariano fine. He's not mean, he's just grumpy as hell. I can see why the girl who lived here before me moved out: this family is weird. But so far I like living here a lot. It's weird in a way I can get used to.

A Brief History of Argentina

Today I got a warp-speed lesson in Argentine history in my tutoría for Analysis of the Social Practice of Genocide. It was given by Tomas, my incredibly nerdy-cute tutor, who's also my docente, Spanish for extremely underpaid TA. (Docentes make 350 pesos a month — about $120 — which helps explain why they go on strike so much.)

The Genocide class so far has mostly been general sociology with a focus on the Holocaust, which we're studying as a paradigmatic example of a genocide. Starting next week we'll be relating the Nazis to the government under the dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s. Since all I know about the dictatorship in Argentina is that it existed and that it was, like, bad, I found the tutoría really interesting. I'll give a quick summary of the highlights.

Basically, in the 19th century, Argentina won its independence from Spain and then rebuffed an attack by England to become a moderate power in South America. At some point after that, it joined with Brazil to attack Paraguay, which despite being landlocked was getting uppity. Brazil and Argentina totally destroyed Paraguay, which has been impoverished ever since.

Then Argentina turned its sights on its own indigenous population. The indigenous people of Argentina had never had a very strong presence, since the population was largely made up of nomadic tribes and distant outposts of the Incan Empite. Now they have even less of one, since European descendants took care of them in a massacre charmingly commemorated on the 100 peso bill.

[This is my own interpolation — At one point, there was also a decent population of people of African descent, but in one of the wars I listed above (not sure which one) they were all sent first to the front lines, essentially to get rid of them. It worked. There are now between 3,000 and 5,000 black people in the entire city of Buenos Aires.

Argentines as a whole are extremely proud of their Europeanness, and have a disturbing lack of self-consciousness about the scarcity of people of color of any kind. As a norteamericana raised on a diet of strict political correctness, it's offensive to hear all Asian people called chinos and to hear about how Bolivians are dirty. And yet any Argentine you speak to will swear up and down that Argentina is one of the most open-minded countries there is.]

Anyway, back to Tomas. Around 1900, there was a huge influx of immigrants from Europe who came to hacer la America, not really differentiating between North and South or New York and Buenos Aires. There's still such a large population of recent Spanish and Italian immigrants and expats here that politicians from Europe sometimes campaign in Argentina. Tomas told us a joke that an Argentine is someone who: thinks he speaks Spanish, actually speaks Italian, wants to be English, and thinks he's French.

The wave of immigrants, which started out with poorer Italians and Spaniards and spread to include groups from all over Europe, helped define the incredibly complicated politics of the 20th century. As far as I can tell, it was a constant back-and-forth between left-wing socialists and military dictatorships, with a giant chunk in the middle dominated by Juan, Eva, and Isabelita Perón.

Knowing all of this helps me fill in a lot of holes in my understanding of Argentina. First of all, we are currently in the longest period of democracy in Argentina since the beginning of the 20th century, and we're just now entering the 25th year since the end of the last military dictatorship. Also, the three main political players have been the UCR, which is a socialist party, the Peronists, and the military. That helps explain both why the figure of Perón is still so dominant and polemical and why everyone is so obsessed with Marx and social activism.

I still have a ways to go in my understanding of this country. But this is a start.