Having lived here for over a year now, I feel at home and settled in BA. I am sure, however, that I could live here for another 10 years, and still be utterly baffled by certain things. I’ve spoken to other foreigners and they all agree, there are some aspects of Argentine life which simply don’t make sense.
One thing I have found unfathomable since I arrived, is why the locals dress for the season, and not the actual weather. It can be a sunny, hot day, but if it is the autumn or winter months, everyone is in their coats. The other day it was 18 degrees, the sun was shining and the air was warm, people were complaining of the cold and huddling under their coats and scarves, looking frantically for their thermoses.
When it’s the same temperature back home, everyone is joyfully celebrating this wondrous weather, dusting down their bbqs and sunglasses, rushing to the beach to catch some rays. I remember when I arrived home last year in December, to a 30 degree temperature drop which sent my body into shock. People were actually rejoicing because it was a whole degree above zero.
In fact, I think it quite possible that if the porteños had to go and live in England they simply would not survive. It only seems to be us Brits (and other unfortunate souls who live in miserable climates) who are able to withstand the icy winds and frost that are normal to us. Here, it very rarely snows, and winter temperatures average at 10 degrees. Porteños are expert complainers, and moan all season about the cold. They also look at you like you’re crazy if you consider going out in the rain. I have to explain that in England, if people didn’t go out in the rain, they would barely leave the house.
Another thing the Argies are particularly good at is collecting pointless bits of paper and moving them around. I have recently completed the process of getting a work visa, the whole palaver took so long that upon receiving my DNI (national identity card) there are 2 months left until I have to renew it. Actually getting the visa was an utterly confusing and ridiculous process which involved waiting in extremely long queues at immigration at 7 in the morning to be directed to more, longer queues which lead nowhere.
Often, when I finally got to the front the clerk would suddenly decide that there was some other (invented) requirement that I hadn’t fulfilled and would therefore need to return the next day with yet another photocopy of every single page of my passport.
That was if I was lucky, sometimes it was something completely random like my bosses birth certificate or the date of birth of my mother’s mother. As far as I could tell all these bits of paper and queues were totally unnecessary and served the purpose of job creation. The system was so baffling, that they even had to employ several people just to mollify the crowds and tell you which queue you were supposed to be in.
About 9 months into the process, I was told that I had been granted residency in the country. The only problem was that I had absolutely nothing to prove it, until my DNI arrived at my address. The issue with this was, I had moved out of that address and was about to go to England for 2 months. No one in immigration seemed to be able to comprehend, let alone solve, this particular conundrum. One woman even told me that if I left the country I would have to start all over again. I eventually found out that I had to pay for a bit of paper to say that I was able to leave Argentina. This of course included waiting 2 weeks for an appointment and going back to immigration several times with countless copies of my passport for some more queuing.
Some of the people at immigration looked like they hadn’t moved from their paper-covered desk for several years. Either that or they spent all day moving, moving forms from one place to another. At the national registry of people, one woman’s job was to go to a table to pick up bits of paper to come back to her desk to shout out the names on the paper, wait for said person to wake from their slumber, make them sign something, and then pass them onto the next woman. I was mystified as to what this new woman was doing, and upon arriving discovered that she had the national registry of people, in other words, a notebook. In this, she copied names and identity numbers totally illegibly before making you sign again.
Overdressing and paperwork are not the only mysteries of Argentine life. Another, totally unrelated phenomena is particularly prevalent at subte stops. Often, when there is an escalator and a staircase, the escalator goes down, and the stairs goes up. Why, I wonder, would anyone need help going down? All last year, I cursed this as I climbed up a long flight of stairs after a long day at work. This year, I just enjoy the ride on the way down. Perhaps it’s some kind of movement by the government to keep the population fit. It seems to be working either way, as everyone looks at least 10 years younger than they actually are.
Other unsolved mysteries: the hairdressers are terrible yet no one has bad hair (apart from those with mullets and rat tails, an extremely popular look – that’s a whole other mindboggler). There are bakeries full of delicious fatty treats and people live on a diet of asados (bbqs) empanadas and pizza, but no one is fat (I forgot, it’s the escalators).
There’s a national change shortage, yet you can’t get on most buses without it. When you go to the doctor, whatever the problem is, they make you drop your trousers (I wonder if this is just my doctor?). No one considers going out before 11pm, which is still seen as early, and everyone stays out till 7am, without the need to get totally wasted. Everyone of course, looks and acts totally unfazed by this experience the next day.
The phone companies are also shit, meaning that I never have any credit, don’t listen to my voice-mails as it costs too much, and are charged to consult my non-balance. Inflation is raging so that one can’t predict the price of anything, one week a red pepper costs 4 pesos, the next it’s 10. The next week onions are a luxury and peppers become a bargain.
After living here a while, these mysteries really begin to affect the way you think. There are, for example, certain sounds that have the power to totally alter your mood. The jingle of change in my pocket makes me smile, meaning I can safely get the bus or buy things without playing the “change game” (for more on this see: kebab conscience). The fateful “no credit” beep puts me in a bad mood as I curse pay-as-you-go and the cost of a 30-second phone call.
The best sound of all is the satisfying clunk of a stamp on paper, meaning that I’ve completed the requirements for a tramite or bit of paperwork. There’s nothing with quite the same ability to make my day.
Thoughts from a Latin Land 