Some cultural differences that I have observed:
(***Disclaimer: I haven’t been here forever and these are just things that I have observed. I don’t want to group the whole culture into categories and I could be way off. Que se yo! Haha what do I know!)
Lateness: If you’re told that something is at 10:30, that means just any time before noon. For example, the first week of classes, I arrived very early to my classes, with fear of being late. After sitting there for 45 minutes being the only one in the room, I assumed I had the wrong floor, room, day, or year. Then, one by one the classmates casually trickle on in. After an hour sitting there like a nervous dork for over an hour, the professor finally meandered into the classroom and asked, “Are we missing people?” “Oh they’re downstairs smoking still?” “No big deal. We’ll just wait.” Crazy!
This exact situation has happened in every one of my classes. My classes with Argentines are the most ridiculous. I don’t even see the need of showing up within the first hour, except to swipe my ID card for attendance. Some days, I swipe my card for attendance and then go and grab myself some lunch and show up when I feel like it, knowing that class hasn’t started yet anyways. I realize that part of the reason that they are just so laid back with time is because you pretty much have to be. Some days you wait 50 minutes for a colectivo (bus) and some days you can just hop on. Some days (many days) the subway and train stations are shut down because the people here apparently love to have strikes, demonstrations, and protests. Churches for example, I was told that if it says it starts at 9, that means sometime within an hour and a half of the said time.
The whole classroom dynamic is so different! Literally every one of my professors have talked on their cell phone during class on several occasions. In the middle of a lecture, a student will just say “I want coffee” and will get up and leave and come back 15 minutes later with café con leche. And some students are just flat out rude to the professors. I’m not used to seeing that in the U.S. Not only disrespectful with the eye-rolling, but sometimes they just straight up argue with the profs and don’t hold back! It’s hilarious. Just today, a woman to the prof said, “I’m not even gonna tell you what I think about you” and he replied, “Well that’s fine I won’t speak of you either. Instead, I will talk of Marx” and then continued on lecturing about Sociology.
· Crazy how expensive anything to do with technology is here! I have a very very crappy phone here and I’m surprised how many argentines have the same one. One argentine told me that it’s because it’s so likely to have your phone stolen that it’s best if it’s cheap. Welp, seeing how after 3 months here I’m already on my phone #2, I can totally understand!
· You can buy illegal movies almost anywhere on the street. Usually they just have like 80 movies in paper sleeves lying out on a blanket on the sidewalk every couple blocks. If you go to a magazine stand and ask, they’ll whip out a cardboard box where you can purchase pretty much any movie (including ones before they’re in theaters) for $2.50 (U.S).
· The mate (pronounced “mah-te”) is a HUGE part of life here. If you don’t know, it is a drink/event. It’s in a cup made of what I always thought was wood, sometimes metal, but really I now think it’s a hollowed out gourd type thing(?) filled to the top with green herb shreddings inside that look like weed. Also inside is a straw (usually metal, sometimes with fun designs) called a bombilla (“bom-bi-sha”). It is filled with hot water. They try to make the water as close to boiling as they can without it actually be boiling. There are actually social rules to drinking mate. It is passed around the group in a circle and between each person, is given back to the distributer to refill. You are never supposed to touch the bombilla(straw). When you don’t want any more, you say “gracias” when you hand it back to them. I don't know, there are so many rules, I feel like I probably do it wrong, if that's possible. Drinking mate is done all day. Every Day. In every location. Seriously. I have seen people in class, on the street, on buses, on the train, in their office, at the park, while driving, and of course at home. Instead of a pop machine at the university or a junk food machine, there is a mate machine. People always walk around with thermos in hand. Even on hot summer days! I really don’t understand it. It’s even more popular en Uruguay. When I went there, my friend described it as “the people had an indent in their hip where they always walked with their thermos under their arm”. When someone invites you to share a mate, it means that you’re “in” or accepted. A friend of mine even shared a mate with her bus driver! Inviting someone over for mate is a really common social thing to do. Almost every morning my host mom goes over to her mom’s to “tomar mate” with her mom and sometimes her daughters. It tastes like tea. Really bitter. Most North Americans don’t like it unless it’s with sugar. I love it! One thing funny I heard is that if you don’t really like someone, you can offer them mate, but you make the water boiling and then they have to drink it to be polite J Mate poop is everywhere. This is what I call the left over herbs when you’re done re-filling and re-filling with water. It is a common thing to find in bathroom sinks and trash cans.
· I feel like smoking is 20x more common here. I don’t know many people here at all who don’t smoke. Everyone. Sometimes, I feel like it’s a social disadvantage to not be a smoker here. I stand awkwardly outside and am the only one that doesn’t have something to do with their hands. [This is when I whip out my ancient phone which doesn’t text and pretend to text so the world doesn’t know I’m just standing with nothing better to do…]. Smoking is also part of the reasons why professors start class late and give us breaks half-way through. Walking down the streets, I feel like half the people I pass are smoking. This doesn’t come from a legit source, but my friend gave me her theory. I was told that Argentina is the #1 place in the world for eating disorders. I haven’t seen the statistic, but I would believe it. Women everywhere are tall, tan, and stick thin. My friend’s theory was that maybe instead of doing what I do and buy a bag of Oreos and/or Cheetos and eat my feelings when I’m stressed, here it’s more common to smoke to relieve your stress. With the skinniness: I was also told that a big contributor to that is the fact that it is super hard to find clothes in larger sized here. If you can’t fit into what they sell at all the little personally owned businesses, it’s much harder and more expensive to find clothes. I really don’t understand how people are so skinny. They have alfajores (2 soft cookies with dulce de leche in the middle dipped in chocolate) at kiosks every half a block! At the rate I’m goin, they’re gonna have to roll me onto the plane and give me a whole row to myself when July comes around! Part of the reason they stay so thin though, is because of the mate. They drink it all day every day. When their stomach is full of hot water, they’re less likely to snack on alfajores and empenandas like me.
Many Many things I won’t miss about public transportation:
· When the subte is so packed that it takes longer at each stop to wait for the doors to shut because people’s body parts are always hanging out. When you are squished from all sides between countless sweaty and smelly old men who are eyeing your purse. When it’s really really hot. When it’s really really hot and you can’t breathe. Then, when the train is a little bit less full but you can’t reach the germ-filled metal bars so instead are just falling over and toppling into people.
· When you have the exact amount of change to take a colectivo and the machine eats your monedas without registering it and you’re awkwardly standing there, short 10 centavos.
· When you accidentally get off the colectivos 15 blocks to early late at night. (Or… when you are telling a friend stories about your favorite campers from Camp Huntington and get too into it and miss your stop… and then comes the many more blocks of walking…at night…on a sprained ankle. [yea lesson learned]).
Many many things I won’t miss about public bathrooms:
· The fact that in many public places, toilet paper doesn’t exist.
· The fact that where toilet paper does exist (wax paper), it is accompanied with a woman sitting there, staring at you and expecting you to pay her. Even if you don’t need paper towels, she makes you feel guilty for drying your hands on your pants.
· The fact that you’re not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilet. I feel like a heap on the floor next to the toilet isn’t the most sanitary thing…
While walking down the street:
· I won’t miss being whistled at on the streets every day by creepy old men.
· I was going to say that I can’t wait to actually be able to wear my backpack on my back, however the new style of it on my belly is starting to grow on me.
· About 1/6 of the tiles that make up the sidewalks are missing, broken, or wobbly. Normally no big deal, but you have a sprained ankle, it becomes quite the concern.
One bummer is that it’s hard to hang out with friends without spending money and without eating. We can’t always just go to someone’s apartment to hang out and talk or watch movies like back at home. Now that it’s getting too cold to go to parks, we have to go to places like restaurants or cafes.
Now for things I’ve been doing here in the city!
A few weeks ago (the week before Easter) is called Semana Santa [Holy Week]: this is a Catholic country, so we had a 5 day weekend from school to celebrate Easter! A couple weeks ago I went to museum called La MALBA . I saw artwork from Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, etc.. Awesome!
That week on Thursday at 15:00 I went to the Plaza de Mayo. I saw Las Madres y Abuelas marching around the plaza circle. History of course always has many sides to any story. I have been told many different things and as of right now don't know what to believe exactly. It's all really complicated and senstive for a lot of people to talk about. It has been 35 years since the dictatorship which is pretty recent. Some say that 30,000 people have “disappeared” or been taken by the government for their communist ideas. Many of the women who were taken were pregnant. The babies of the women were given to other adoptive families (usually military families). Now, those babies are about 30 yrs old and are now doing DNA tests and discovering that they were adopted and their real parents were “disappeared”. Also, I was corrected and should add that there is another side of the history. I still didn't understand completely and don't want to mis-inform on a subject so important, but just know that many don't believe that the statistic is 30,000 and instead that the government did what it had to do to protect itself from Communism. However, the moms and now grandmothers of many of the desaparecidos(disappeared) have marched in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada [Pink House = equivilant to our White House] every Thursday at 3 for all these years. I hope I understood the history right… it was explained to me in Spanish and so perhaps don’t take me word for word. The Thursday that I went was I think a little bigger than most Thursdays too because of Semana Santa. The crowd was holding pictures of their loved ones and all yelling. It was really powerful to witness. There are two groups. I was told that one is still demanding for an answer of what happened and where their family members are. The other group just marches to bring awareness in memory of their loved ones.
Then, we took a free tour of the Casa Rosada or the “Pink House”. (equivalent of the White House). It was AWESOME. We went in Cristina Kirchner’s office and everything!
Then, right there in the plaza we checked out the main Cathedral of the Capital. It was huge and beautiful and busy because it was Holy Thursday. This is where San Martin’s body is buried.
Then, we went to check out the International Book Fair (La Feria de Libros Internacional) in Plaza Italia. The line was super long so I came home instead. As I walked in the door, Silvia (my host mom) was sitting in the living room watching Vargas Llosa speaking live on TV from the book fair that I had just been at. No wonder the line was so long!
A few nights later, I returned to the Feria de Libros and toughed out the line. To my surprise, it was absolutely HUGE event. I was shocked at the amount of young people there on a Friday night.
Later that night, I went to one of the thousands of Catholic Churches within a mile of my block. It is called San Benito. For Good Friday, the group of Jovenes (college age ppl) did sort of a drama in the church. There were loads of people. They literally acted out the story of the Passion and it was actually really cool. I'm not used to people yelling and shouting in church (pretending to be the crowd and such). Really powerful!
SATURDAY: I went to Tigre!!!! I went with my friend Megan and another girl from here in BsAs that we met in one of our classes with Argentines. It is an hour train ride, so across the city. There was sunshine, the fruit port, the river, we checked out the casino (so I could use the bathroom, of course!), and finally we took a boat ride down the river to a place where we laid on the dock together in the sunshine. Train back to Belgrano. Perfect day.
One night, I met three people from Peru through my friend Megan and a church. They are seriously some of the nicest people I have ever met! I was super excited to finally have friends that don’t know English! They had their first ever taco and then we walked super far to go ice-skating. This place seriously made me laugh out loud when we entered and I first saw it. There were 50 people skating in a square about the size of my living room. Instead of a wall all the way around, there was just a railing, so people constantly kept sliding into the bar and sliding underneath. It was possibly one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my life. I was loving it. Never seen so many grown tall men fall. Unreal. Like a movie. I would laugh and clap and they looked at me like I was mean or something. But it was probably because instead of ice, it was pretty much snow. You could hardly see the ice under the 6 inches of shreddings! We didn’t want to pay for skating, so we just watched people fall.
Our 3 new Peruvian friends invited Megan and me to their place the next day for lunch, Easter Sunday. I was so grateful! So Easter was good. It was my first Easter away from home, so different, but turned out good. My host mom doesn’t do anything to celebrate Easter, but I went to church in the morning by myself and then treated myself to the holiday by purchasing a giant hunk of chocolate which was gone entirely by the time I reached my apartment. Good day!
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