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| Dear Friends,
I arrived in one piece last Friday, after a long but smooth journey from Mendoza to Buenos Aires to Dallas to Nashville.
I hope you are doing fantastically, and I hope to see all of you very soon.
Cuídense,
Caitlin "Tatum" "Catie" Clinton-Selin
Take a peek into my last four and a half months.
¡MENDOZA!... My normalities of life down under.
A description in the Argentine tradition: the numerals imply order, but I assure you there is none.
1. Two drinking waters – the one has gas, the other doesn’t
2. Constant dehydration
3. Bidets
4. That sinking feeling when you throw toilet paper in the toilet (weak plumbing)
5. Ice cream everywhere, all the time, available till 2 am
6. Measuring internet time in 5 minute increments
7. Walking everywhere, trolleying/bussing everywhere else
8. Fresh pasta
9. cheap wine
10. All restaurants having the same menu
11. Large firearms on the streets
12. Getting offended when people spoke to me in English
13. Planning what to say in all interactions
14. Cereal aisle (2 feet long) versus cracker aisle (15 feet long)
15. Milk and yogurt in bags
16. Grades on a scale of 1 to 10
17. A 10 hour bus ride not being far
18. My madre dressing up to go to the Shopping
19. Stop signs having no meaning.
20. Never knowing what room to look for my class in
21. Never knowing if my prof was coming to class
22. Going to see bad French films because they were free
23. getting out of the car when they filled it up (explosion hazards)
24. Skeleton keys
25. ugly mutts
26. Tile sidewalks
27. Widespread obsession with the Simpsons in Spanish
28. acequias (hidden mammoth ditches)
29. First get-to-know-you question: “tenés novio?” (“do you have a boyfriend?”)
30. Short local calls—-you pay by the minute
31. Dirty clothes, always
32. Pillowcases that open on both ends
33. Mayonnaise and salsa golf (mayo and ketchup, premixed) on everything. This includes pizza and sushi.
34. Panqueques salados, as in ham and cheese pancakes.
35. No toilet paper or soap in public restrooms
36. Political propaganda everywhere, and zero faith in politics
37. Schoolteachers in plaid uniform jumpers
38. Verdulerías (vegetable stores), fruterías (fruit stores), librerías (paper stores), ferreterías (hardware stores), pañalerías (diaper stores), everywhere
39. Greenday and Coldplay playing, all the time
40. Watching the exchange rate
41. “Cómo?” (literal translation=how. Functional translation=repeat please)
42. Never having change
43. People smoking in class
44. People drinking mate in class
45. The question from classmates is not what grade you got, but if you passed.
46. Tutor Cochi reading and underlining lecturas for me
47. Not being excited about an American movie on TV till I knew it wasn’t dubbed
48. Paying to take tests
49. Fighting for photocopies of readings (they don’t do textbooks)
50. Oral exams in Spanish
51. People who think they’re making your life easier by throwing in a “word” in English
52. Being asked if I knew any Spanish before I got there. that’s just ridiculous.
53. Being asked where in the states I was from; getting a blank look for saying anything other than NYC, Chicago, or Miami
54. Feeling the filth in the air
55. The !zonda wind! And its nasty effects
56. Calculating reading times at 15 minutes per page
57. My madre waiting on me hand and foot at dinner
58. Mammoth chunks of meat
59. Alfajores in so many shapes, sizes, and flavors
60. cholera in the bus bathroom
61. Playing bingo on the bus for a bottle of wine, and always losing
62. Getting the wrong flavors of ice cream at Sei Tu
63. Spanish constructions in English. My English.
64. Searching in vain for cognates
65. Clothing size small there=extra large here
66. Pastries and instant coffee
67. Abundance of pregnant women and dearth of maternity clothing
68. It never raining
69. Lowering expectations
70. beautiful people everywhere
71. Dividing prices by 3
72. words not coming out the way I heard them in my head
73. Fake pumas and fake moneychangers
74. Common nicknames: fat, skinny, and black
75. ice cream cones with spoons.
76. T-shirts in unintelligible English
77. Kissing strangers on a daily basis
78. Fruit for dessert and cake for breakfast
79. Canned fruit as a special treat
80. The pedestrian’s right of no way
81. Special Argentine coke that doesn’t make my mouth feel nasty
82. Tipping 1%
83. 1.5 liter glass coke bottles
84. Bracing myself when walking by males on the street
85. The smell of roasted nuts on the street
86. The smell of blood in the kitchen
87. translating civil engineering (retention pond?)
88. empanadas
89. Machismo—why would a guy clear his own dishes.
90. One black enrolled in the whole facultad
91. Being that retarded foreign exchange kid
92. Anti-absorbent napkins
thanks to Saritah and Tereh for their contributions.
Fotos: the whole semester. You have to join, but it’s free.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=efp9eeb.q9k4ri3&x=1&y=qgublf
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| I think I made a friend. I left my Cultural and Social Anthropology class early, having found out that only half the class had to come today, and that that half did not include me. It didn’t include the girl who approached me to ask what was happening in class, either, so she decided to accompany me to the fotocopiadora. A good thing, too, because it was one with which I was not acquainted. The one in Ciencias Políticas still scares me, and I have fought my way through its “lines” (ha) countless times. Anyway, we tracked down the reading for my sociology class (in the philosophy department, don’t ask me why) and the girl asks me if I want to go to the ¨internet,¨ as in the library.
By the time we get there she has asked what I’m doing this weekend, and we decide that she is coming to the study abroad program’s Halloween party with me on Saturday night. She’s pretty inspired when I tell her I’m going as Salsa Golf (pre-combined ketchup and mayonnaise used here for sandwiches as well as pizza). She asks what she could possibly dress up as, thinks for a while, and it finally comes to her—she can go as a witch. I tell her that sounds like a great idea.
We have to wait for a computer, of course, and I get to know her a little better. She is 23, loves the night life, wanted to move to Buenos Aires because Mendoza is too sleepy, has family in Spain, Bolivia, and Peru, has been married three years and has a 15-month-old son who stays with a sitter while she takes Social Work classes and her husband buys and sells things that have been processed. I say, wow, you’re young for all this, and she says, yeah, but I love my husband.
We get on a computer. I ask, “what do we do now?” “Chatear,” she replies. “Do you know how?” Haven’t the foggiest, and neither has she, so we sign into her hotmail account and she tries to figure things out from there. Neither her complete ignorance on the subject nor the fact that chatear is not allowed on the library computers fazes her, but we give up when we find out that you have to answer a screening question to get into a group (“I don’t like the way this one looks, do you?” she asks), and we spend the rest of our hour looking at vacation packages for Mexico, Argentina, and Peru.
We part our ways, and I find out her name is Silvana and she doesn’t have a house phone. She gives me her cell number and invites me to a concert in the plaza Friday night, noting that she won’t bring “el gordo” (the fatty) because of the cold. She did offer her house as a staging grounds for the witch and condiment attire, though, so I may meet the family yet. | | |
| OCTOBER 10, 2005
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=efp9eeb.156yxr83&x=1&y=-2o8stp
Salta pictures... We rented a car, figured out manual (except for reverse; thank goodness we’re buff), saw multicolored mountains, and ate Krach chips (say it out loud). Uncomfortable at times but the scenery was out of this world. | | |
| OCTOBER 5, 2005
Yesterday I decided that I no longer wished to be here, for many reasons. First, I have failed at making friends with the Argentines in my classes, and am not certain why. I’m not outgoing, but they are not reaching out either, and topics of conversation do not present themselves after “where are you from,” “where are you living,” “do you have a boyfriend,” and “how old are you.” (Yes, I tell them, I know that I look 19 and not 20. If I had ten centavos for every time I had been told that I would not worry about having change for my partials—yes, you pay by the page to take tests here.) To make things worse, I have not tried as hard as I could in many circumstances because I dread the moment that they ask me if I like dance clubs, I laugh and say no, and they don’t understand.
Second, I am going North for the long weekend with four girls from the study abroad group, and the trip that I have been looking forward to for well over a month may not be as splendid as I had hoped. We started as a group of two a month ago; a few minutes later another joined in. The next week we had a fourth, and for logistical reasons decided to terminate enrollment there. Thus, the other founding group member rebuffed a would-be fifth. She came to me and asked what I thought of her going, as she might not have another chance at this destination before returning home in December. I told her that we would find a way. She gave up on the idea and made alternative plans.
In the past week, one of the original four dropped out of the group. Someone else jumped in. I was uncomfortable that we did not approach the aforementioned reject, but the cake really got iced when the second founding member told me over the phone that she had told a fifth girl that she could come. I come to realize that all of these other four girls have formed their little grouplet of friendship during the past couple of weeks, revolving around the Mendocinian night life. (Our remark at the outset of trip plans about the virtues of a three-person group, which is manageable for decision making and leaves little chance of one person being left out, has been forgotten.) So now I go as the fifth wheel, preparing myself for exploring the city on my own.
I hurt all over from my three-hour skiing experience on Sunday, and I love it. My madre’s friend from work had offered her the use of an apartment at Penitentes, a ski resort two to three hours from Mendoza by car, so we five packed into the padre’s king cab Toyota on Saturday morning and arrived at lunchtime. My skiing experience (first ever, effectively) took place the next day, at a tiny slope on the Argentine Cordillera army base. An off-duty soldier taught me the basics for 25 pesos, after which hour of training I fell quite effeectively on my own for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, the camera died so you don’t get the full effect, but here is something. http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=efp9eeb.53dpg9v&x=1&y=-h773br
After retiring from the slope I struck up a conversation with the man behind the bar, who informed me that the whole operation was under military purview while conversing with the short-order cook (another officer, of course) about the menu for the day, which consisted of hotdogs, the hungry skiers having exhausted the supply of hamburgers. He asked me why I had never skied before. I cited long distances and steep prices. “But everyone there has mucho dinero, no?” No, I tell him. No, the houses that you see in the movies are not what everyone has. I don’t know if he believed me, and maybe I am the rich American (I know, he is American too, we’ve appropriated the entirety of the word) who goes around telling people we have problems when problem has a world of a different meaning here. | | |
| 29 minus 9
equals 20 days
a few pictures to show for them
I jotted something down one Sunday evening a long time ago now. my family and I had gone to a birthday party for my father’s great-uncle, or something like that. Big family gatherings here are pretty much the same, but maybe bigger. the younger generation doesn’t want to go, and the older people get all gussied up, as my father would say, and try to be as interesting to the kids as the kids are to them. It doesn’t work if you’re a kid of the family but I was not, so I didn’t mind when Uncle Anton (was that his name?) wanted to tell me all about his peach trees, his heavy machinery shop, his European heritage, his artichoke bottling, and the water storage plan that the city of Mendoza rejected. My civil engineering Spanish skills are not up to par, but “keep it in the ground” sums it up. Anyway, we returned home too full from salads, roasted goats and chickens, champagne from the vineyard, empanadas, birthday cake, bananas, apples, and oranges, pastafrola, lemon pie, orange pie to do anything but watch twin towers documentaries and BBC news. (I think I was the only one who understood what they were saying.)
**Monday, September 12
George W. Bush was on the job after Katrina, embracing the homeless.
From my madre: “qué falso que es—“, followed by my semi-padre: “y después va a bañarse porque ha tocado un negro.”
I laughed, but not heartily, because race makes me skittish here. Granted, he was turning 80, and he thought that a white spot meant skin cancer, and it could be that he just has an excess of family pride, but... Uncle Anton was telling me that his grandparents came from Italy, stopping in Brazil before starting a grape and vegetable farm in Mendoza. “It’s a good thing we came here, to mix in some good blood. They just didn’t know how to do anything, didn’t want to work. It’s like all the black people in New Orleans.” I mumbled out something about lack of opportunities, sufficiently veiled or grammatically incorrect to leave him thinking we were on the same page. What was I to say on his big day? Mention good Italian Mussolini blood and nazism in Argentina? Heck, maybe I had him all wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gotten lost in translation.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=efp9eeb.10vqbhor&x=1&y=-46my13
What more of the past three weeks? No earthquakes, no paro (that old friend is coming tomorrow and staying till Wednesday).
My dear cousin Schnara and her dear Jake finally made it across the pass for their week-long vacation for Chilean independence, passing a few nights here on their way North. Let me just say that I was more excited about visiting them in Santiago before I actually talked with them about the city. Bad air, bad food, bad (as far as comprehension is concerned) Spanish, bad host program, who wouldn’t want to be in their boat. But then they mentioned the street of thrift stores and the homemade salsa and I’m back on board.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=efp9eeb.pgje5v7&x=1&y=-6ytbp3
The latest picture links have shots from both of these occasions, as well as images from the field trip last Sunday to a boarding school for Huarpe children Northeast of the city. To be honest it was an uncomfortable afternoon, because what was advertised as a service trip felt much more like a tourist outing. To be even more honest, I wished I hadn’t brought my camera because it depressed me to see the kids want to be friends when they saw I had one. Is this unreasonable? The no-nonsense director of the school had told us that these kids were happy without the slavery of e-mail and whatnot and that he wanted to give them the tools to enter the “outside world” but also to stay where they were if they cared to, and that they did care to. I don’t know if the kids’ attitudes or their applicability for humanity upset me.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=efp9eeb.crh3hcj&x=1&y=-bqy0ph
Finally, I am polishing a shiny new facet of my being every Wednesday night with dance classes at a local gym/community center. This will interest some people because I don’t dance, and it will interest a very select group of others because they are salsa lessons taught by an Israeli locksmith.
The true parts of that last sentence were the parts about me not dancing and the lessons being salsa. Anyway, I am having a great time stumbling along trying to look like our beaming (and I mean beaming) Colombian maestro. His Argentine wife was, as my madre pointed out, lucky to get ¨such a charming black.¨ | | |
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