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9th-16th November: Leopoldo, the guy who promised to teach me spray art shows his other, crazy side, and I recover only 70% of the paint that I paid for... La Boca is a small world, and news of his character spreads quickly... especially in a cultural centre such as Puertas Abiertas. Some things just arent worth bothering about. I am learning more about the culture.. and capitalism is here in a big way. Argentina is different to Mexico in that it has infrastructure due to colonials arriving to live, however the mentality of the poor, the depression, is hard to combat. Betty knows that she can buy leather with very little capital, use her mothers industrial machine to make a jacket and sell it to the passing tourists in LaBoca for US$, but just has not got the urge, preferring to ask businesses for money and campaign against the government in the streets. Protests are the routine here. I have not yet felt threatened on the street, regardless of the poverty and the negligible training given to the occasional policeman. My students become more familiar - apparently the 8-15 year old range is difficult to teach, but I find it is often a highlight in my day. The days pass quickly and I start to believe that I really am an English teacher (is it this easy Paulo?). One of my students in the cultural centre wants to talk to me about exchange of information technology of children in LaBoca and Australia.. but when we sit down to talk he ends up asking me for money.. he has not done anything to set up such a project except to talk about it. I laugh at him. One night, a women comes to the door with a panicked expression.. she talks rapidly of a fight involving Betty's children.. I run with Raul from the centre to find that Jaqui, one of the women who regularly comes to the centre has been knocked off her bike by a towtruck... a broken arm. I feel for her profoundly. I become sick in the stomach for the second time since leaving Oz, but luckily it is only a 24 hour bug. Sergi promises to take me to a more upper class club in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.. an area reknown to be deadly for foreigners, who blame the USA for their problems. The night passes and I get to know more about life where Cecilia lives, but then we leave the club and a girl who knows Cecilia starts hurling abuse at her. Cecilia walks up behind the protecting transvestite Sergi and hits her in the nose. Then kicks her. Then spits on her. Friends separate them and we go to the car... and she follows us, alone. Stupid. She talks to Cecilia for a few more minutes before they start fighting again, and Sergi and Valeria join in, clawing and pulling and kicking this smaller girl until I pull them apart. The bitter taste in my mouth about the state of the girl, who staggers off eventually, does not go away in the following day as Cecilia and Sergi gleefully re-enact the beating. I make my disgust plain, but it will take a long time to change the culture which comes from the family. I cringe every time Betty slaps Augustine now in their play.. attention = naughty = violence. |
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19th November
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Betty and Sergi cook some canaloni for me to say goodbye which is very pleasant - aside from another re-enactment of the fight. I am warmly farewelled from Puertas Abiertas, the folk giving me a messaged flag of my team, La Boca as a souvenir. I will certainly miss the people there, and the work that they are doing, but I walk out the door with a feeling of freedom similar to when you quit any normal job. I know that I can escape this life in the time it takes to travel to the city centre with my backpack, but the rest will remain. I return to the Limehouse and another way of life, however everyone wants to leave Argentina. I go to the Opera at Teatro Colon (magnificent 100 year old theatre) and arrive 4 minutes late to find the ticket office closed. I thought everything was late here! We walk to the door and are told that we are too late.. NO- my last night in BA!! Seeing the tears brimming in my eyes, the usher returns with tickets and sends us upstairs. I try to pay him but he refuses. We take our seats in the rafters and crane our necks to see all of the stage. The acoustics in this antique building are magical - if an actor sniffs you feel like handing him a hankie, but the audience is as quiet as a cemetary. The singers had some exceptional voices as they sung Rossini´s Lóccacion fe de boda, however the one underperformer was booed at the curtain call - the argis certainly make their feelings known.
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