probably so long that only our parents will read it...

Cultural blending 101
Our experience of culture shock has had two stages: 1) diving head first into the deepend on the first day and over the next few days doing what we could to keep our head above water(can’t see the forest for the trees kind of thing) until we got to the side of the pool where we got out and went for stage 2) taking the steps one by one into the shallow end and gradually being more and more exposed to the little details that will help us to eventually swim in the pool that is Argentina. Aren’t I so insightful? Here are some tidbits for you:

The other night Caitlin and I went out in Palermo to a restaurant/bar called Limbo with a friend of a friend and all of her friends from her Spanish class. We met at 11:30 b/c that’s the normal time to begin your evening, and upon entering saw at least 5 children under the age of 6 running around. This is also normal, we’ve come to learn, and there were little kids still running around at the party we went to last weekend when we left at 2 am. Among the people we hung out with that night were a girl from Holland, a Norwegian boy, a few Swedes, a couple of Brits, a Brazilian girl, and a yankee (New Yorker to be exact). There were 5 different native languages alone, not even counting the varying dialects of the redneck, the Brits, and the yankee, and countless spoken languages. But with all of these options, the one language we could all communicate in was English. This stirred up mixed emotions of excitement that I would actually be able to participate in the conversation and embarrassment that we were the only ones who were not proficient in another language besides our own. You can only imagine how all of us sound in Spanish…our poor waitress.

ATMs are almost all inside banks. Banks are only open from 10 am to 3 pm. If you’re counting, yes, that is a five hour workday. It’s a rough life as an Argentine worker. When we need money and can’t go to a bank between those hours, we’ve found an ATM at the Village where the McDonald’s is. The only problem is that about 3 out of 5 times we’ve tried to use it, it has “run out of cash”. Did you know this was possible? I didn’t, and I confess that the impatient American comes out in me at moments like these, and I get frustrated.

Caitlin and I have to go to the grocery store at least every other or every third day. This is due to the fact that cereal boxes, loaves of bread, portions of lunch meat, and every other item we purchase come in quantities about a third of what we buy at home. The phenomenon of “family size” does not exist here. Our hostess Amalia has been dumbfounded b/c she supplies our breakfast and has to get us a new box of cereal twice a week. We have hidden the fact that in between we buy our own b/c we are embarrassed to have to ask for more.

There are no black people here. We have started a count, and we are up to 3 in 2 ½ weeks. When we mentioned this to our Spanish instructor he enlightened us on the historical explanation for this: In the war between Brazil, Argentina, Uraguay, and Paraguay, black people were always used on the front lines. This resulted in a tragic near extermination of a race that had contributed so much to the cultural diversity and uniqueness of Argentina.

Chivalry is still very engrained in the culture here. For example, on the bus, men who got to the bus stop first will step aside and let the women board before them. Once on the bus, men will never take an open seat if there is a woman who might want it. And, when a woman who is older, pregnant, traveling with a child, or even carrying stuff a man will stand up and she will take it. Most of the time these interactions aren’t even acknowledged between the man and the woman. We’ve found that we give ourselves away as foreigners when we thank the men for their acts of kindness b/c that’s just the way things are done.

Oh, and if you’re curious where I found the time to post such a detailed update, it’s b/c I have been typing it up in Word while sitting at the apartment all day in anticipation of putting it online. “But, Darrah, why are you at the apartment all day when you should be out living life as an Argentine?” That is b/c after two weeks of trying to get in touch with someone at the internet provider, we were finally promised that an installer would come between 8:30 am and 1:30 pm on Monday, so don’t leave. It’s now 2 pm…still waiting…praying for patience.