| Micaso's Musings | |||
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Tuesday, March 04, 2003 ( 3/04/2003 04:02:00 PM ) Jeanne I'm back and bleary eyed (spent last night on the plane from Buenos Aires to DC and then on to Indianapolis this morning), but I thought I'd do a little trip post. We made it down there fine got out just in time before more weather descended. We arrived on my birthday and my MIL met us at the airport and we drove another 6 hours to the ranch of a cousin of Juan's. More cousins and their kids showed up and we drank champagne, ate chorizo and Micaela and Sofia had a wonderful time running around outside with their (second) cousins under the beautiful starry skies of the Southern Hemisphere. The next day we went to the town where we used to live and I finally, nine years after beginning the paperwork!, got my Argentinean "document" basically my green card, making me a legal and permanent resident in Argentina. Not sure if it will see action, although I would be so very, very happy to live in Buenos Aires...As an English speaker work is practically guaranteed (teaching English of course) even with the high unemployment. We got to Juan's family's ranch 2 hours further south the next afternoon. That night it started to rain and both Micaela and Sofia woke up vomiting, so the next day was spent nursing sore tummies, but at least it was raining! All recovered we spent the next two days walking around the (200 acre!!) lake that is behind the house, the kids rode their ponies and we swam in the tank cleaned out for swimming. One of these days my MIL fell ill with the evil stomach virus as well as two of the girl's cousins. The doctor at first tried to tell us it was a traveller's thing with the water, but it seemed odd to us that Micaela would get this as it is the water she drank her first two years of life as well as on subsequent visits. My visit was laced with the feelings I always encounter in the place were I passed what were both the happiest and most miserable years of my life. I was so head over heels in love with Juan that I managed to survive extreme trial by fire MIL treatment (including living with her my first 6 months there), then extreme isolation (we lived on a remote cattle ranch, nearest town pop. 300), language difficulties, my first pregnancy under these conditions and a total lack of money in a country that was, at the time, incredible expensive. I lived there for 3 1/2 years, but never really was able to create a life for me, myself and that always feels somehow strange. Juan's family does wholly embrace me though. Well, its definitely not cheap for Argentineans at the moment, but it was for me (with my dollars) the first time I ever "shopped" in the way you do for anything besides groceries and absolute basic clothing. We spent the last two days in Buenos Aires at the apartment of the cousin who came to take care of Sofia my last semester in school. Buenos Aires is a *must see* city IMO. I always wanted to live there it is so incredibly beautiful and vibrant, even in the current economic crisis...which is a crisis for Argentineans in some ways, but not in others. Now that they are no longer tied to the dollar they can actually compete in the world market and national industry is possible once again and while there are many problems, there is also a lot of hope and guarded optimism. We went to one of the artisan's markets in the city. I bought an incredible hand tooled traditional portfolio purse, lots of CDs of local and Spanish rock and folk music, books for the kids in Spanish (mostly historical fiction about Argentina for Micaela), and a hand woven wool and silk shawl. It felt completely bizarre to me to be buying things, and such beautiful things as well. Micaela got some money from one of Juan's cousins for the market and bought a brass and tin mirror in the shape of a crescent moon that I had wanted to buy for her room when I was pregnant with her 10 years ago, but couldn't. Porteños are so warm and charming and have a wicked and witty sense of humor, I so didn't want to come home! Neither did the girls they were surrounded by family the whole time and were excellent and good humored travellers. The visit was probably just a little too short for all the actual travelling we did, but it was definitely worth it! I'm already thinking about the return this time through Boliva to Salta (an amazing colonial city in the north of Argentina) where a friend of Juan's lives and then South to see family...The problem, as always, the airfare for 4. # |
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