ARGENTINE QUIRKS - Episode II

March 2006 – In my ongoing identification of the little things that catch one’s attention living in this spectacular country, I’ve identified a few more for your edification – or not, as the case may be.

§ Standing/waiting on line: The cultural norm here seems to be that when it’s your turn to be waited upon by the clerk in a store, a supermarket, the post office, a ticket office, or anywhere people stand on line, it’s really Your Turn. You are free to occupy the clerk’s time as long as you wish, regardless of subject or need. I was behind a fellow on line at a kiosko that sells it wares through a window opening directly onto the sidewalk. This was a typical kiosko, selling everything from cigarettes and candy to personal hygiene items and postage stamps. The gent in front of me was engaged with the clerk in a discussion about buying razor blades. The clerk very patiently showed every different kind of razor blade he had to offer, and the fellow looked carefully at each one. Finally, he pointed to a packet of two click-on Gillette blades and said he would take it. The clerk told him the price, and he said, “Is that for both of them?” The clerk said it was, whereupon the gent replied, “but I only want one.” After a bit more discussion about whether this particular blade was available in a single packet, the resulting decision by the clerk was that he would take one out of the two-pack and sell it to the fellow. Now we’re getting on to about five minutes of conversation. As the fellow was opening his coin purse to dig out the money and the clerk was holding the single blade cartridge, the fellow said, “But, wait. Don’t I get the plastic package to protect it?” The clerk paused a minute to think, and finally agreed, handing the fellow the packet with one cartridge in it, well protected. The gent took it, now having it in one hand and the second cartridge in the other along with his change purse. After a painfully long pause, the fellow finally said, “Oh, well, I guess I can take them both,” and he handed both items back to the clerk, who then re-inserted the loose cartridge into the pack, handed it back to the man, who then paid. But before leaving his place on line, he pulled out a handkerchief from his pants pocket and carefully wrapped the plastic-protected two cartridges in it and returned it to his pocket. In no way did he consider moving aside to perform this act; it was part of his tourno. Thus finally ended the sale. I have learned in these situations simply to stand there and try to understand all the Castellano I’m hearing, as a way of better learning the language. To get upset on line because of such antics on the part of another, however, is considered incredibly rude and bad-mannered. The underlying point seems to be, “When it’s your turn, you can take up ten minutes of the clerk’s time, too.” Other similar events have occurred in line at the supermarket, where a person will say, “Oh, I forgot one thing… wait just a minute,” and then disappear down an aisle to return whenever, as everyone on line calmly stands and waits. I used to look for another cashier but now I just wait like everyone else. The same at a ticket office for the opera; although I must say I have experienced the long-time factor at Lincoln Center as well, where a person will say, “Well, I’d really like this seat, but I can’t afford it, so I’ll take that one.” And then pause after the agent has printed out the ticket and say, “Oh, no, to hell with it. I’ll take the more expensive seat.” And so on. Here it’s always best to just try to shift into brain-neutral state and wait ‘till it’s over. Or read a book or newspaper while waiting – which many people do, I’ve noticed.

§ Postscript to waiting on line: The existence of the almost intimate relationship that can be presumed to exist among many Argentines, as I have written before, probably has many roots, one being the “we’re all in this together” feeling that has occurred in so many times of economic destitution. The 2001-2002 collapse affected all but the very, very rich who didn’t have their money here anyway. Families still observe very limited gift-giving at Christmas and birthdays, for example. In each case I’ve been involved with since arriving, I’ve been told to spend not more than 10 pesos (about three bucks) on a gift. And in Maria del Carmen’s family, the whole family in effect gives one gift to each of its members. So I received a nice polo shirt and that was my Christmas present from everyone. Of course I chipped in and my money help buy each of the other 16 or so family members an equivalent gift. It all makes sense to me and is a very healthy way to avoid consumer-itis. But there’s another background to the day-to-day relationships, and all I can figure out so far is that it relates to what the famous Jewish theologian Martin Büber wrote about in his landmark book of 1923 called “I and Thou.” The basic idea is very simple: Everyone normally views everyone else in his or her life in one of two ways – either as an “I-Thou” (personal or intimate) relationship or as an “I-You” relationship. This is of course evidenced in the structure of many languages, which offer both the You form and the Thou form – even in English, although it is not much used except by some Quakers and other religious groups. Büber argues that it would be great if all of our relationships could be at the I-Thou level, starting with God and spreading to our families and intimate friends and on beyond. But, he says, it’s simply impossible to have such a relationship with everyone else in our daily lives, because if we did, human commerce would slow to molasses-speed. For if every day when you got on the bus to go to work you needed to inquire not just after the driver’s health and emotional status, but also that of all the other passengers on the bus, life would grind to a halt. So we have the friendly-but-distant I-You category that allows us to continue moving along in our daily lives. The Argentines, however, come closer than any group I’ve seen in stretching out these common, daily occurrences, and as in the story above, the person at the head of the line feels quite naturally that his time with the store clerk is both personal and not time-limited. The customer has earned the right, by standing on line, to take all the time he wants to, because that’s just the way it is. If I peer over his shoulder with a quizzical look at the shop clerk, he or she will not even acknowledge me because he is focused on the here-and-now of the customer he’s serving. So perhaps Büber should have visited Buenos Aires!

§ Cash Management, part 2: A while back I wrote about giving and getting change when purchasing things. Now I have learned another little trick that helps with the always-present problem of being stuck with a 50- or 100-peso note and needing something that costs only five pesos or so. When getting money from a local ATM (of which there are hundreds, as in New York and most places these days), a good thing to do is to enter the amount you want less 10 pesos, so that for 400 pesos (about US 130), you enter 390, and instead of four 100-peso notes, you’ll usually get three 100-peso notes, four twenties and a ten. That gives you a leg up on future change needs. Normally if you’re buying anything that costs more than half of a denominated note, you won’t be questioned about “having something smaller.” But buying a 10-peso item with a 100-peso note is just about impossible! Even a supermarket cashier will balk and request that you come back with something smaller. (The previous comments about coins remains true, however.)

§ Waiting for the Canceled Train: The other night after class I stopped off at one of the English-language watering holes, El Alamo, run by an expat young physician who has always wanted to own a restaurant. After watching some tennis on ESPN and having some (sort of) American-style food, I hopped the colectivo (bus) back to the Retiro train station. I was happily standing on line (they have yellow stripes indicating the position of the train’s doors, so you wait there and hope to get a seat) waiting for the 9:25 Tigre train that stops in my town of Martinez. There were perhaps a couple of hundred people in total standing on the various lines up and down the platform. Then the public address system came on and I (barely) made out that all the trains had been canceled. Rats. Either a $9 cab ride or a 90-minute bus ride awaited me, I thought. But as I turned to leave, I noticed that no one was leaving. I asked the young woman standing behind me what was going on and she said, “Oh, they do this all the time. There will probably be a train anyway.” Eventually she and I and three others on my line got talking about commuting and trains and buses, and they were interested in some of my tales of the New York transit system. Then after about half an hour, sure enough, a train could be seen heading into the shed from the North, and within ten more minutes we were on our way up the line. Moral of the story, I guess: Do what the Romans do.

§ Amnesty International: Among other generally positive news reports about the economy and such, it has been interesting to experience follow the stories about the declaration and first celebration of the nation’s newest holiday: Henceforth March 24th will be marked as a day of remembrance for truth and justice with the date in 1976 of the beginning of the “dirty war” here, the period that began with the resignation/abdication of Isabel, the sadly incompetent second wife of Juan Peron, who had taken over the reins of government upon the death of her husband in 1974, not very long after his briefly triumphal return to power from exile in Spain. The military juntas that ran the country from 1976 to 1983 became increasingly vicious in their pursuit of Communists and other people they didn’t like, and one of the scariest parts of that era was the randomness with which the “death squads” would act. There seems common agreement that at least 40,000 persons disappeared during that time, although the official number is “only” some 20,000. Anyway, there are vast numbers of entries in Google about the period, and the only thing I wanted to mention here is that Amnesty International, which traditionally hasn’t had much good to say about Argentina, recently commended Kirchner and the country both for the national holiday and for the re-examination process that is now underway to identify and prosecute even more of those involved in the terror. There is a new openness about that era, and general agreement that the only good thing about the Malvinas/Falklands war (which many believe was started to take people’s attention away from the kidnappings) was that it ended the military dictatorship by once again proving that the Emperor had no clothes. So be it.