Pots and Horns in the City

March 25

We were relaxing this evening in the apartment when at 19:30 the world outside erupted into a din of banging noises, horns blowing, and people all over the place. Some out on the balconies of their apartment buildings and others gathering on the street corners.

I thought there must have been a big win for the Boca Juniors (Soccer Team). The Portenos are as crazy about there sport's team as Bostonians are about the Red Sox.

Curiosity got the best of us as the noise was continuing after 15 minutes, so we decided to go downstairs and find out. After stopping a couple of people and chatting in very broken Spanish and English we learned that the people have taken to the streets to protest the President's recent increases in export tariffs on beef and wheat.

This is causing the price of beef and wheat products to rise and also creating shortages as the farmers have been on strike. Apparently this is day 13 of a strike in the "Campo", farm country, and there are shortages of beef in the supermarkets. There are a lot of people unhappy with their government's policies....sounds familiar. Another reason I really like the Argentinians...they definitely have opinions!

We stood outside for about an hour watching the crowd grow, TV cameras show up, as did the police and we think their FBI (black suits with walkie talkies).

It appears that 60 ft from our building is a building that the president's husband has an apartment in (he's the former president...another interesting comparison to the politics going on in the US). The crowds continued to grow and the noise too! The tools of choice for making noise are pot and pans. People all over had either two pot covers which they beat together or a pot and something metallic to strike it with. I must say it's very effective. Added to that are the car and bus horns and you have a real racket.

We went back upstairs to turn on the TV where we learned protests all over the city were going on and thousands were in the streets. Magically at 21:30 the noise stopped. Barbara and I think that it's because that's dinner time.

Homework

Yesterday I had my first Spanish lesson. Diego from "Experiencia Buenos Aires" ( http://www.experienciaba.com.ar/) came to the apartment to start my education. Well the brain works a bit more slowly now than it used to but 2 hours later I was beginning to get the hang of basic grammer using 1st, 2nd and third person infinitives (I think). In any case he gave me some homework to do and I figured no sweat I'll do it tomorrow and when he comes again on Wed morning I'll be all set.

Here it is, the night before Diego is coming, and I am now going to do my homework.....funny thing is I am not quite as sure of my answers as I was 36 hours ago. Oh well, no one said it was going to be easy.

Tomorrow's Barbara's birthday, the almost big one. After dinner we are going to our first Milonga (tango hall) to check out the tango dance scene. This is where the locals dance and is not the big Las Vegas type tango review. I have been reading up on the history and ettiquette of tango, and I must say there are a lot of subleties. Here's an interesting website to whet your appetite. http://www.tangomuse.com/TangoManners.html

We'll keep you posted over the next couple of days.