TangoSpam:La Vida Con Deby

Life in Buenos Aires: Gripe "A" more than a week in isolation

I feel like the prisoner of Zenda.  Well maybe not.  Maybe more like the Birdman of Alcatraz, but instead of a bird I have a demonic dog named Maximiliana to keep me company.  Last Monday I got the flu.  It hit me all of a sudden.  I went to have coffee with Amy.  Everything was great.  Then suddenly around midnight, everything changed.

My hair didn't turn green.  (That was in 1987 I think, or was it purple?)My stomach went into reverse flip flop and my body temperature did an amazing somersault.  That was when I knew I wasn't feeling very well.  I kept hoping it would reverse itself, but oh no, that was not to be.  Once or twice the thought crossed my mind I should probably go to the doctor, but when you feel like a truck has driven over your body, the thought leaves really quickly.

Had they not suspended home visits I would have called for the doctor to come.  I just could not get myself motivated to get dressed and go sit with a group of sick people, just to hear that I had the flu.  I mean what would they tell me?  "Drink plenty of liquids and get plenty of rest."  They should have also added "And turn off your television."

Every 1.5 minutes in full color digital graphics all the news stations were presenting mini-epics on "Gripe A", "Gripe Porcina".  If you weren't sick, it was enough to make you sick.  The minister of health resigned right after the elections.  She had been telling everyone for weeks she was going to do it and she did.  La Presidenta installed a new minister of health and in the middle of the worst flu epidemic she took of to circle the airport in Honduras with her new pal the Ex-sort of president of Honduras, Zelaya.  The only South American president to do so. Go Christina.  Even Hugo only sent his pilots.

Life is pretty boring on the couch. I didn't answer my phone until Thursday.  Actually I didn't hear it.  I was kind of surprised when I looked over and saw the little light blinking. My cell phone gave me no choice. You can always answer text messages with "OK". Friends would text me in both languages telling me that they had either called or emailed and that I hadn't answered.  Was I OK?  So I would text back "tengo gripe, estoy mejorando."  Which would then elicit more furious text messages.  So I would text back "OK".  It is a little late to play the language game with friends.  I just did not have the strength to type long text messages on my stupid cell phone and I really didn't want to talk to anyone.

Sandra was a little frantic.  So I went to send her an email.  You can only imagine how much email I had.  I pretended I didn't see it.I didn't even want to check my FaceBook.  I sent her a message and told her I had the flu.  I told her I didn't hear the phone when it rang and I just now got my messages.

This flu has been very boring.  I do not like being bored.  The news media made it sound like the hospitals are overflowing with people sneezing and coughing.  My friends keep telling me I need to go get something for my cough.  The thought of being locked into a place with 100s of other sick people sneezing and coughing is not very attractive.  I decide to take my chances.

On Saturday I decide to venture out. THE STREETS ARE CLEAN.  This is the first thing I notice.  The streets are never clean in Buenos Aires at 10 in the morning.  This is weird.  There is no one out.  I know I should take a taxi.  I decide to take the subte.  I cough my way down the street.  I still can't believe how clean it is.  Scary.

I get to Swiss Medical.  I am really going to see my favorite doctor, Dr. Brain, to get a prescription refill.  I brace myself for the deluge of people I assume are going to be in the guardia sneezing and coughing and full of the flu.  I open the door.  The place is like a tomb.  Wait a second.  The news media said thousands were descending upon the hospitals with this modern day plague.  I must be in the wrong place.

I look around.  Yep.  I am inside my HMO.  A guard comes up to me and asks if she can help.  I can barely understand her with the mask.  Everyone is wearing surgical masks to keep out or in the germs. I tell her why I am there.  I walk down the hall.  In the elevator there is a nurse.  I say to her "There is no one here."  She says "Yes, we are working."  I wonder if she misunderstands me.  I say to her "I was afraid to come because I thought that there would be so many people here. There is no one."  She tells me it has been like this all week.  Maybe people have been afraid to come out.  Like me.  Maybe all those people are in the public hospitals.

I go see my doctor who gives me my prescription.  He doesn't really want to take time to see me.  He says better for me to go home and rest.  "Don't forget to drink lots of fluids."  He says to me.  He tells me to make sure to come back here if I get a fever again.  "Rest and fluids."  he says.

I go back down to the guardia.  In the hour I was upstairs, it is still dead down here.  I am still amazed. I go back to the street.  It is still clean.  There are more people on the street.  It is July.  July and January in Buenos Aires are dead.  July has less people on the street because it is cold.  The flu is not helping the situation.  I take the subte home.

Today is Tuesday.  I have had enough of this cough.  The government is urging people to go to the doctor.  He says 90% of the flu is Gripe A. Our new minister of health is now doing the things the old minister of health wanted to do but the president wouldn't let her.  She thought it would screw up the elections.

I go back to Swiss Medical.  Not only is there almost no one working, there is almost no one there. Usually there are 4 people who work in the guardia.  Today there is 1.  I tell her my problem.  She asks me a few questions and gives me a mask.  I am total klutz when it comes to putting on.  She takes pity on me and leans over to help me.  The mask is made for a big face.  I don't have a big face.  We have to make it fit.

I go downstairs and wait for them to call my name.  There are only 4 other people down there.  Usually there would be at least 10.  Finally it is my turn.  I get a sour doctor.  I don't know what is happening to Swiss Medical but lately the doctors I have had from them have been pretty disagreeable.  She asks me what my problem is.  I wonder if she wants to know about how Maximiliana ate one of my dining room chairs.  I am sitting in front of her coughing like a chain smoker on Camel non-filters and she wants to know what my problem is. OK.  I giver her the run down.

She takes my temperature and then demands to know why I didn't come in last week.  "Because I couldn't move."  What I wanted to tell her is and "I didn't want to have someone like you examine me when I felt even worse."  She tells me that the worst is over and continues to lecture me. In the end she gives me a drug for my lungs and cough.  She makes sure I understand it is not the anti-viral nor is it an antibiotic.  It's a steroid.  Whatever.  She says I should feel better tomorrow. "And if I don't?  I ask.  I get the feeling she doesn't like being asked this question.

Itake a taxi home.  It was good to be outside for a bit.  Brande calls.  We talk a bit.  A few more friends call. Ani, Jorge, Jose.  I am going crazy.  No one wants to visit me.  The government is trying to close everything.  I think this is a bit excessive.  People will go crazy with nothing to do.  The holiday is on Thursday.  I am supposed to teach with Brande if I feel better then go to a milonga.  They say the milongas may be closed.

The government is giving people Friday off as well.  A least the Birdman of Alcatraz got to see the people who brought him his food.

Are you listening La Presidenta? The people have spoken.

I love politics.  I love politics the way some people love movies or television.  Only to me politics are real.  I have loved politics since I was a teenager.  I don’t remember exactly when it was I began my love affair with them, but I suspect it was when Lyndon Johnson ran for President. I was mesmerized with the entire process.  It was much more interesting than the Miss America contest.  At least to me, young as I was.  I was too fat for a bathing suit, although I loved the talent contest. I never wanted to be Miss America. Never.  The bathing suit thing was a real hangup. Besides, listening to all those senators was much more interesting.  They really had something to say.

I never remember a time where I was not involved in politics at some level, national, city, state, and even neighborhood.  I was always fascinated by how the machine moved and who moved it.  It was like playing checkers. 

Now I live here, in Argentina. I am happy Obama is the president of the U.S., but to be honest, I am not really all that interested in U.S. politics anymore.  They do not affect me on a daily basis.  It is the politics of Argentina that affect me.  They cause my daily expenses to go out of control.  Make life a little less secure.

Argentine politics are complex.  Especially when you need to learn about them in another language.  I don’t read the Wall Street Journal and Mary O’Grady to get my opinions. She would probably prefer to colonize Latin America and be done with it. The Economist is another.  While maybe they don’t want to colonize Latin America they certainly think that the Western world is the only world that knows how.  (They certainly do, just look at the mess they created.)

I read both papers – Clarin and La Nacion.  I read Perfil, Pagina 12 and my all time favorite, the magazine Noticias.  Noticias is not afraid to come out and say what they really think about the government. Then there are the taxi drivers.  They always have an opinion.  I am a news junkie.  I started watching Argentine TV news when I got here to better understand the accent and pick up the language. TN, AN, TeleFe, C5N.  I watch them all.  Little by little I started to understand.

What was becoming obvious is that the media was not printing or broadcasting was was really going on.  The emperor’s new clothes was becoming the reality of living in Argentina. The government would quote figures that were unreal.  Prices were going higher and higher, yet the government said they were not.  The signs were all around the economy was going to “baja” and La Presidenta was saying how great things were.

Christina and Nestor wanted to rule forever.  They had this dynasty thing going on. Along with Hugo in Venezuela they thought they had things figured out.  It was amazing to me how a President would continually ignore the demands of the people. It is amazing to me how arrogant she and her husband are, and how they think they can get away with it.

Then things began to change. First Julio Cobos the vice president voted against her and voted with the “campo”.  It was a historic vote.  Amazing when you stop to think about it.  Rather than hold out the olive branch and take a step towards healing wounds, “La Presidenta” raccoon eyes and all chose to ignore the situation as well as the vice president.  To this day she has refused to speak to him and has turned him into a hero.  He is adored throughout the country for taking a stand on principle. He has continued to speak in favor of the people and go against the president and her policies.

Little by little the support for the old Peronist party was falling away.  We needed change here.  The old way of doing business was not working.  People here admired Obama and felt sorry for him having to deal with years of corruption.  “We need an Obama.” is what they would say to me.  To preserve the dynasty the President decided to move up the October elections to June figuring the opposition would never have time to mount a reasonable campaign and her husband, the other part of the dynamic duo decided to run for diputado. (Congressman of the lower house)The official excuse was we the people would be too bothered with a bad economy in October to deal with elections.  Huh?

What they didn’t plan on was Francisco De Narváez a wealthy businessman running a well organized campaign.   He admired Obama.  He spent time analyzing the Obama campaign and met with representatives of Obama’s campaign staff.  He patterned his campaign much like Obama’s.

He is an interesting guy.  He dropped out of school, yet Harvard Business School uses as a model his company Casa Tia.  He owns many companies including American TV. He is a Colombian by birth.  He came to Argentina when he was 3 and is a naturalized citizen.

He united with Mauricio Macri the mayor of Buenos Aires and Gabriela Michetti to run his campaign.  People were doubtful he would win.  “They will pay people to vote for Kirchner.” is what my friends said.  “They will falsify ballots.” “They will do what they have to win.”  I did not want Nestor Kirchner to win.  I did not know anyone who did.

What was the turning point?  Was it when Christina helped Hugo buy an Argentine business in Venezuela?  That seemed to scare the hell out of the business community here.  Finally.  De Narváez asked people “Do you want to be like Chile and Brasil?  Or do you want to be like Venezuela?” No one wants to be like Venezuela and the sale of Techint to the Venezuela government pushed the envelope. It was a wake up call.

Or maybe it was when they tried to make De Narváez look like an ephedrine drug lord because one of his 350 employees used one of his 350 company cell phones in his name to make drug buys. They were trying to get a hearing against him 2 weeks before the election. Jeesh! Even my cleaning lady saw through the dirty politics of that maneuver.

When all fails in dirty politics you can always use the flu.  Five days before the election the government was going loco publicizing the swine flu.  50 times a minute were the perils of the “gripe porcina.”  Along with the travails of the “gripe porcina” were the dangers of voting.  Explicit instructions were given on how to best vote during this horrid epidemic of flu.

What effect do you think this had? In my building I overheard a conversation between several neighbors debating whether or not to go vote because of the flu. La norteamericana stepped in “You have to go vote.”  I told them.  “You have to. They are using the flu to manipulate you to not vote.”  Can you imagine?  All eyes were on me.  “Look,”  I told them, “This flu is bad, but last year in Argentina over 8,000 people died of the flu, this year there are 17.  My HMO is not full of people.  It is the same as always.”

My neighbors are shocked.  How come they never think of these things?  Too many years of living in the Bay Area.  “You can check the numbers on Google.”  I tell them. “They don’t want you to vote.  Intelligent people are not going to vote for Kirchner.” They laugh. “Vote.”  I tell them. “You have to vote.”

On Sunday at 6:00 pm I turn on the television.  At 6:02 all the stations except the American network are declaring Kirchner the winner. “KIRCHNER GANO” blares across the screen.  How disgusting.  They are paid to do this.  The government subsidizes the media and therefore on some levels controls it.  It was a law that went into effect during the crisis to help when advertising revenues went down.  Now it is used to control the media. 

The returns are starting to come in.  I am glued to the TV and channel surfing – TN, AN, TeleFE, C5N, Cronica, 26.  The center of the country has gone completely for the opposition or other parties, the same for Santa Cruz, home of the Kirchners.  Then at 8:00 De Narváez takes a lead that never lets up.  I watch anxiously.

At 10:00 pm it is obvious the President and her husband are getting the pants beaten off of them.  What is most amazing is the attitude of the news media.  Before they were cautious, pro-government, but when the returns were overwhelming for Santa Fe, Cordoba, La Pampa, Santa Cruz, and Buenos Aires, one newscaster broke into a huge grin and said “Oh well, tomorrow we begin with a new country.”  At that point the news media on all stations became no holds barred.  They began to report the news, not the sanitized versions, they were supposed to report.  The Kirchner loss was a gain in other areas.

I stayed glued to the television.   Like everyone else I wanted to know if the lead would stay and if there would be any word from the “K” factions.  None came. De Narváez  was out and visible thanking his supporters.  There were t-shirts that said “895 days until De Narváez is governor” others that said “Mauricio for President.” (Mauricio Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires) Daniel Scioli on the K side canceled his press conference. De Narváez never lost his lead.  When they interviewed Macri his comment was he hoped the president was watching.

Finally at 2:00 am or so the Pinguino (Kirchner) came out to concede. He said he would not contest the election. He said his wife would not step down.  He was pretty boring.  Argentines are not good losers.  At 2:45 am I finally went to bed saturated with the news.

In the morning when I woke up the headlines were blaring.  De Narváez told the president he hoped that she reads well the results of the election.  That remains to be seen.  Nestor stepped down as President of the Peronist party.

The president does not have the majority any more.  But in her press conference this afternoon when she had all the opportunity to once again hold out an olive branch, she harped on how it was only 2 points between her husband and De Narváez .  Perhaps Christina needs to be reminded of another President who was trounced in mid year elections and didn’t want to listen.  His name was de la Rúa.

10 pesos menos

It is Saturday.  A friend is leaving to go back to Europe.  She has been here 9 months.  She plans to come back in 3 or 4 months to live here.  Today is her despedida. I have no idea who is invited.  I am bringing masas from Las Violetas.

At 11:00 pm I leave to go to her house.  She doesn't live far from me.  I decide to treat myself to a taxi rather than take the bus.  This is a luxury.  Money is tight.  Prices keep going up.  I rationalize the taxi to myself.  It is the only money I have actually spent today other than the subte or buses.  It is only 10 pesos.  I should take the bus because I know I will want to take a taxi home, and then that will be 20 pesos.  Counting centavos.  Milonga?  Taxi?  Comida?

I enter my friend's apartment.  It is beautiful.  She tells me that when she comes back she doesn't want to live here.  "It is too dark, there are no windows."  This is the problem with a ground floor apartment.  You might get a courtyard but no windows.  "I want to buy something." she tells me.  I advise her to wait.  Prices are still artificially high here.  Americans and Europeans do not understand Latin American real estate markets.  One day your property is worth $250,000 and the next it can be worth $50,00.  Rampant inflation has always been a part of life here.

When I enter the living room I see many familiar faces.  I am surprised.  I had no idea she knew some of my long time Argentine friends. I go around the room and say hello.  I introduce myself to the few French people I do not know.  I am thrilled to see Carlos and Lilia.  The last time we met I forgot to give them my phone number.  Lillia is wearing an orthopedic boot on her foot. "Nena, que paso?  I ask her.  She tells me she fell and fractured a bone. "Pobrecita." I say to her as I hug her.

I see my friend Jorge.  I have not seen him for ages. I met him I think in 2002 in one of the milongas. We see each other from time to time.  ¿Como estas? he asks me.  He motions for me to sit next to him.  ¡Que cambiaste! he says to me.  I laugh and ask him how he means this.  He looks me up and down.  "My hair is longer." I say to him. "Pareces muy Argentina." he says.  "Ques estas hiciendo?" he asks me.

"I got my residency."  I tell him. "Mira vos!" he says to me. "You were lucky.  Everyone I know has had a problem.  I tell him the story of my trip to Migraciones.  He is shocked when he hears about the accident.  I don't really want to talk much about that.  I am done with it.

"Are you still dancing?" he asks me.  "Of course.  But only in the milongas.  Sometimes I dance in small cena/shows, or at a party.  Pretty much I have stopped the other stuff.  I don't like the life.  I can't support it.  I have adapted to this culture, but some things I will never adapt to."  I don't have to explain this to him.  He has his years in the milongas.  He knows what I am talking about.  He goes to the tourist milongas.  It is why I never see him anymore. 

"You know," he says, gesturing towards the Euopeans who are here, "they come here thinking they have found something incredible. They want to live here.  I always ask them why.  The answer is always the same.  They tell me how different Argentina is, how friendly the people are. How everyone kisses and hugs.  They always tell me how "cerrada" the people of their country are.  It doesn't matter what country, it is always the same."  he  says.  "The one day "sufren un golpe de la cabeza fuerte" and that is the end of the milonga, tango, and Buenos Aires for them.  They learn what it is really like."

"I always tell people who want to live here they need more than tango, but they think the idea of spending every day in the milonga dancing is a day in heaven. They have this idea of what tango is and isn't, and unfortunately it is not always the reality of what it is.  The people who live in the milongas are either retired people or those who make their living off of people in the milongas.  People who work cannot afford the time to live in the milongas, no matter how much they love to dance."  He nods his head. "You learned."  "I knew this before I came here. I have always been a person who has done multiple things. My golpe came with the accident. It reinforced what I already knew." I tell him.

Our attention turns to the conversation of the party.  One woman an Argentine is talking about tango.  "I don't understand how the foreigners learn." she says.  She is talking about steps.  "They think they know all about our dance and they know nothing." I interrupt, "It isn't so much that," I tell her.  "At least in the U.S. You need to understand American culture." She starts to argue with me when someone tells her that I am American and she should listen. "In the U.S. people dance for different reasons. In tango it is rarely for the music. Maybe they saw Scent of a Woman, or Forever Tango. They want to be able to dance like that.  To show their friends.  Here, people dance tango because they love the music."

The Argentines nod their heads in agreement.  The woman says "I am Argentine, I love the tango music and I express my love of the music when I dance.  I don't understand this need of having to have all these lessons and steps."  "Because," I tell her, "You are Argentine, and they are not. In my culture we always want to be the best. It doesn't matter what it is. We strive to be number one and that includes things we are suppose to do for pleasure, like dancing tango."

Do I tell them about the American woman who stayed with me who told me she loves dancing tango but she hates tango music?  Or the young man who told one of my partners in a lesson that he didn't care if he didn't know how to lead, he needed to know more steps because that was what got the girls?  Or the dozens of students I have had that cannot turn properly and when taught say condescendingly when they cannot do it on the first try "No one ever taught me to turn that way." (Meaning their teachers) Or the American woman who could not follow and informed me that tango is too sexist for her and she is not used to having to follow a man.

I have hundreds of conversations with foreigners about tango and none of them are about the music. It is always about lessons. Lessons. And more lessons.  Somewhere someone has convinced these people that if they take and pay lots of money for lessons, they will be incredible dancers.  Return on Investment.  There is an almost religious fervor, a frantic need.  To be the best. The music?  What about it....oh yeah, the music.  What music makes me look the best when I dance.

You never find an Argentine who hates tango music in the milongas. My Argentine friends who don't dance tango either think I am crazy because they hate the music (it's too sad, it's something my grandparents did)or they just don't don't see the point.  Foreigners are always shocked when I tell them most Argentines do not like tango.

I am talking to my friend.  "I know people who have come here for years.  They pay all this money for lessons and they never improve.  They talk about their teachers like they are Gods with coveted information instead of 8th grade drop-outs who have good street sense. I am constantly amazed at how they believe when these guys continue to lead them on and they keep buying it.  There is a reason why many of them cannot get passports."

My friend laughs.  "Tango is big business.  You know that."  " I can't stand to listen to it.  It drives me crazy."  I tell him.  I go back to listening to the group conversation. It seems universal among the Argentines, they learned to dance because they liked the music.  They took lessons to a point and then just went to practicas and milongas.

Again I interrupt, "You have to understand, in some places in the US they might only have 1 class once a week and a milonga twice a month.  So it is different.  They learn with videos or travel to congresos. They are more limited.  They think show tango is tango." 

My friend says to me "The issue is tango is growing in the world and the other cultures are changing it to suit what they think it is. But it is not our tango and that is what upsets us."  I agree with him.  "They lose the perspective that it is the music, not the dance.  The music drives the dance."

After dinner there is dancing.  I watch.  No one invites me.  I don't really mind.  I would rather watch. I know how most of these people dance.  If invited I would of course dance out of friendship.  I watch the Argentine woman dance who was very vocal.  She flexes her feet so much I want to break them off.  For one who was very negative about foreigners she has tried to copy Geraldine exactly. Whatever.

I have to be careful who I dance with.  My back is doing well, but dancing with too many men who cannot is not good for me.  I dance one tanda with a friend.  He is a big bear of a guy.  I adore him. He is pushing and pulling me through the dance.  I am afraid I am going to go through a wall.  I give him a big hug when the tanda is over. "Un placer." he says to me. "Siempre." 

During dessert I go to sit with a friend who has a milonga.  We watch two women dance together. I comment to him "I cannot dance with a woman." He smiles at me.  "For me the tango is an embrace. It is a dance between a man and a woman." "I agree" he says, "although I have learned to accept this and not criticize."

"You know,"  I tell him, "You almost never see Argentine women dancing the lead. Yet American and European women have this great need to learn how to lead."  He thinks a minute. "Well they say it is because they don't have enough men in their communities."  I laugh and I look at him. "Look at our milongas, sometimes it is like 80 women to 10 men."  He nods his head. "The milongas are always more women than men. Yet you don't see Argentine women running to learn how to lead. We wait.  We talk to our friends. We have something to drink.  If there is no one to dance with, we leave.  Can you imagine an Argentine woman getting dressed up to go to a milonga to dance with a woman?"  He laughs at this. "No, I cannot."

"I think it is because we are so used to getting things the way we want it as American women, that if we can't find a man to dance with, then we will dance with other women. Europeans are probably the same.  I have never wanted to dance tango with a woman."  He allows the women to dance together in his milonga, but the other Argentines frown on it.  I told him this.  He says he knows it. They have told him.  He doesn't have to stop them.  Once the women see the looks they get, they stop voluntarily.

"You are lucky." he says to me, "You always dance. It is not always that way for every woman." "It is not always that way for me either."  I tell him.  "Look at tonight, no one wants to dance with me. It happens in the milongas too. It is OK.  I have learned to enjoy the music, my friends. It is not that important to me to dance."

He smiles at me.  "I remember when it was." I wave my hand at him, like an Argentine "Para" (stop) I say to him.  I am tired.  I tell him I am going to go. He tells me he and his lady are leaving too. "Where do you live?"  They ask me.  I tell them. "How are you getting home?"  I tell them by taxi most likely. "No, no," they tell me. "We will take you."  Que suerte...an interesting evening and 10 pesos menos.