The Other Side of the World

Sean has already described what our many of our experiences were like in Rosario so I won't spend too much time repeating him.  What I would like to discuss is his comment on the people you meet while traveling and how such meetings and experiences are an important part of why some people travel, including myself.  The people are a huge factor in whether or not you enjoy your time in any particular place so for me, traveling has always been more about the people than anything else.  Whether it's Germany (my favorite country still) or Argentina, the people, their customs, culture, attitudes and history are what separates one set of people from another.  Every country has museums, churches, parks and monuments and while they may be of varying degrees of quality or importance, they still only represent one aspect of that particular city or country.  I prefer to judge a place by the quality of their people rather than by the quality of their cultural or historical sites (i.e. wealth) and I especially love people and societies that are open, welcoming and inviting, eager to talk to foreigners, proud of their culture and history, and aware of what's going on in the rest of the world.  There's a reason why I've never been to Paris.  For now, I want to describe more of my experiences so far in Argentina. 

 

Federico: I don't know where to begin; Fede is simply an amazing guy.  At 24 years old, he's very worldly and aware of what's going on, not only in his own country, but also in other parts of the world.  He lived in Granada, Spain for a while, but has otherwise spent most of his life in Rosario.  Fede is very mature, intelligent, and talented.  He's very knowledgeable of art and music and is even a talented artist himself.  He showed me some of his sketches and I am always impressed and somewhat envious of people with such amazing talent.  He also has a very nice voice and was often singing, even while just cleaning up around the hostel.  I've mentioned before in my travels how I always meet these young people who seem so much more interesting and evolved than the young people back home, but whenever the experience repeats itself, I am always reminded of how sheltered, shallow and thus, disadvantaged our young people are back in the States.  We really need to focus more on education in our country.  And while most professionals and experts will acknowledge the continuing decline in our students math and science scores and abilities, funding for the arts has been declining for as long as I can remember and I believe the arts are equally important in a well-rounded education.  Whenever I travel, I am forced to realize that I received a substandard secondary education by international standards and it makes me sad and angry to know that it's even worse for kids growing up in the States now.  I'm not just talking about language classes that don't start until high school, I'm also talking about world history, geography, literature and comparative politics, among other things.  We like to blame our economic woes on cheap Chinese and Indian labor or big multi-national companies that ship jobs overseas, but that's ignoring the other half of the problem which is an education system that produces people with few skills and ridiculously high expectations; they demand more than what they're worth.  Anyway, enough of the rant.  We just need to do better. 

 

Fede is the one who actually received my online reservation before we arrived in Rosario so I had already communicated with him via email because of a question he had about my reservation.  When we arrived to check in, he was working the desk and welcomed us.  It was nice to put a face to the name and I was instantly curious about him.  He's quite an attractive guy, and I'm quite the flirt, so it didn't take long to establish that he was gay.  We were sitting around drinking and chatting our first night after his shift was over and he mentioned his ex-bf from San Francisco.  The funny thing is, even though part of our conversation that night involved the quality and difference between saunas in South America and Europe, I guess he wasn't sure if Sean and I were gay until the following night when we were trying to find out information on local gay bars and he, in a somewhat confused manner, asked if we were gay.  In his defense, there was also a "straight" Dutch guy participating in the gay sauna conversation, so I guess he initially thought we were just very open-minded, LOL.  I guess we are from California.  Anyway, as Sean mentioned, we spent a few evenings at the bar/club with Fede and his friend Jose and had a very enjoyable time together.  As I said, Fede is an amazing guy and I'm really glad we met. 

 

Mate: First of all, mate is a stimulant drink, like coffee or tea, made by steeping dried yerba mate leaves in hot water.  It's the national drink of many countries here in South America and drinking it is a common social practice with it's own culture and set of "rules".  There's an informative Wikipedia article about mate here [link].  When reading the guidebooks and other materials about Argentina, one of the things they always mention is mate and the culture surrounding it.  Much of what they say is true; you see people everywhere, in shops, parks, etc. with their gourds and thermoses and they sell a hundred different varieties of mate in the grocery stores.  Needless to say, it's an cultural experience I was curious to know more about.

 

I had my first experience with mate with Fede and his friends.  Sean and I tried mate de coca in Peru, but that's a completely different drink, more of a tea, made from cocoa leaves and useful for altitude sickness.  Anyway, after going to the bar Thanksgiving night, we ended up crashing at Jose's apartment.  When we woke up Friday morning after Thanksgiving, Sean had already left to return to the hostel so I stayed and hung out with Fede, Jose, his roommate Noelia and her boyfriend Bruno.  We shared mate and chatted for a while, although I didn't do too much chatting since it's hard for me to follow along in a conversation between native speakers.  It was more interesting for me to participate in the social experience of drinking mate with friends and it's at these moments when I truly enjoy traveling.  One of the museums in Buenos Aires has a collection of mate gourds and related items on exhibit, but you don't get the same type of experience seeing it in a museum, or reading about it in a guidebook, as you do from actually sharing mate with a group of Argentineans.  This alone made my visit to Rosario fantastic; but meeting and spending time with Fede made it simply amazing.  I know I've said it before, but I still find it odd, and often frustrating, that I have to travel to the other side of the world to meet such amazing guys who don't let the fact that I have a partner prevent them from getting to know me, spending time with me, and just enjoying the time that we do have with each other.  It's a very pleasant experience to meet people you connect with, on whatever level, even if it's just for a short period of time.  Why does this rarely happen at home?  After having mate, Fede and I went to the store to buy some vegetables and pasta and he made a really nice lunch for all of us.  I flipped through one of the national gossip magazines while the others went in and out of the kitchen, one cutting veggies, another doing dishes, but each doing their little part to contribute to making the lunch.  Again, it was really interesting just sitting back and being the observer and the lunch itself was excellent so I have to add cook to Fede's long list of talents. 

 

Michelle: On our last night in Rosario, we were sitting around talking to some of the other travelers and also waiting for Fede to get off work so I could spend a little time with him before we left town the next morning.  Since we were so busy chatting, we didn't get around to eating dinner and by the time Fede left to go home, everything was pretty much closed.  We learned from Manny, another really cool guy working at the hostel, that the bakery next door was open 24 hours and served sandwiches, so we ventured out to see what we could find to eat.  Nothing special about the sandwiches, but it was really fascinating taking to the girl who worked there.  Michelle was an American (by citizenship) girl in her early 20's, born in the Bronx to a Chinese mother and Argentinean father.  Although she was born in the States, she grew up and spent most of her life in Argentina.  She obviously doesn't run into other Americans too often so was really eager to talk to us.  Her English was quite good (she speaks English to her mother), but Spanish was clearly her stronger language.  She also had a peculiar accent that almost sounded like she was from New York.  It was quite interesting to hear of the discrimination she often faced, both in the States and in Argentina.  In the States, she was often teased as a child because she doesn't look like everyone else; here in Argentina, she has a hard time because of her American name, Michelle.  Even without her mentioning it, people automatically assume that she's from the States because of her name so, as with us, they assume she has money.  Rightly so, she gets even more upset with such assumptions than I do because, as she pointed out, here she is working the night shift in a damn bakery; what they hell makes anyone think she has any money.  She lives with her cousin in a not-so-nice part of town but is saving up to get her own place in a nicer area; a place she was very excited about because the already reasonable rent also included utilities.  What was really interesting to learn about from Michelle was the different classes of poor people in Argentina.  She was not shy or embarrassed about her status of being poor, but was very firm in stressing the difference between her and the other class of poor people.  In Argentina, as in most countries including America, you have the working poor, which are those hardworking, honest people who are just trying to get by given the circumstances they find themselves in.  And then you have the poor who make their living by stealing and robbing, like the ones who target tourists, and justify such actions because they are poor and they assume the people they steal from can afford to have a little less.  While careful not to over-generalize, Michelle described how you can tell which class of poor people you're dealing with just by how they dress.  The "bad" poor people tend to wear jerseys and similar sports gear of the popular futbol team here; kind of like the kids back home into the hip-hop style with their pants hanging off their ass (I know, not all kids with their pants hanging off their ass are bad kids who will steal from you, but as a comparison, you get the idea).  The tourist guide books are always careful to point out the dangers of certain areas and remind you to be careful of petty crime and opportunists.  But they never differentiate or even discuss this class of people Michelle described, who seem to be good, honest people with morals who would never think of robbing someone else, but instead just work hard at a shit job until they can pay for that next thing they need.  It's a nice difference to see and hear about, and knowing that even the locals recognize and acknowledge the difference makes me feel a little better about a culture where petty theft is so rampant.  Even if you have nothing, that is not justification for stealing from those who have a lot, and especially from those who only have a little bit more than you.  Yes, it would have been easier for me to steal and cheat my way to a better life, but instead I worked hard to get to where I am and to also do it with morals and standards.  I'm very glad to be reminded that there are poor people here who really do value honesty and hard work.  It's a wonderful quality for people to have in any country.