From the Beginning

I feel as if I have been here for twice as long as I actually have because since I have arrived, (my first day was about 36 hours long for me) I have had a siesta every day which breaks the day into two very separate halves. Also, my room has shutters which I don’t open because of the heat – so, in the dark, it feels like morning after waking up from a siesta. I have a window in my room but it is alarmed at night or when there is no one at home. I don’t tend to use the window because I have (thank you, Lord) an option of a ceiling fan and a heat pump with a mega-cool option. I am indeed becoming acclimatised.

The fan, necessarily on warp 10, tends to have a hurricane-like impact on anything in the room unsecured, and a framed picture belonging to the original inhabitant has just fallen off the wall after I turned the fan on. Oops.

Going back and filling in the gaps briefly….Auckland on Friday, I met up with Paul-from-Hukanui and Veronica-from-Wellington and Olivia-the-exchange-student-from-Christchurch so we were a small party until we all went our separate South American ways by midnight Argentina time about 30 hours later.

The flight was long but not interminable – probably because it was an incredibly smooth trip – not an iota of turbulence – and I have a “Princess and the Pea” sensitivity to any aircraft in-flight twitches and wriggles. Veronica and I immediately found common ground and chatted together until the meal, then the long enforced sleep for which we had to have all the blinds drawn as it was daylight throughout. We would not have noticed this except that one of the blinds was broken and the sun shone brazenly through the magazine page taped over the window. The plane and all the services and accessories felt old and dodgy. The meal was bland and the coffee and tea indescribably bad, and at room temperature. One of the toilets was taped shut and one of the tvs (the drop down kind) flickered in its death throes for a while before stopping completely. I couldn’t find a tv channel in the in-flight entertainment section of the magazine, but then I couldn’t find a magazine either and used Veronica’s. In the end I dozed pretty much awake with my eyes closed, for most of the “night” part of the flight. The near-by toilet flush sounded like an explosive sneeze and was disturbingly audible, waking me with a start every time I dozed off. We landed in the afternoon after a breakfast meal, so from the start it was a pretty disorienting arrival.

We went straight through customs and were met by an AFS volunteer, a young man who organised two taxis for us, both of which gave a “Welcome-to-Argentina-get-used-to-the-traffic” demonstration between the airport and the AFS office. Olivia’s and my ride was gaspingly rapid with unpredictable ducks and dives around other drivers. We left first but somehow the second taxi beat us to the office – in spite of a near death experience with a truck along the way.

The AFS people were wonderfully friendly and helpful. We were able to have a drink, a snack and a shower which was glorious and so strong it just about pinned me to the floor. There were volunteers and paid helpers but all were generous and couldn’t do enough to ensure we had a good start to Argentina. Olivia went with an AFS person and the rest of us caught taxis to the bus stop. Paul was the first to go at 9pm. Veronica, Mariana (from Patagonia – how cool is that!) and I had a snack at a new part of the bus station. There is kind of a departure lounge like at the airport so that travellers can be safer before they catch their bus. (You would have certainly noticed the difference, Viv. I think this is all new since your experience. ) At about 10.45pm we went to the bus forecourt which went on forever. There were numbered bays for over 80 buses and there were people everywhere. Buses came and went and the smell of diesel fumes and cigarette smoke was overwhelming. It was hot and dirty and there were several dogs wandering with a purpose and barking as if they owned the place. They were not confrontational but just staunch and going about their business with confidence.

Such juxtaposition! The buses were something again. Huge new-looking double-decker buses, the kind that look as if they have short droopy antennae, all painted with their company names and in absolutely top condition. There is an absolute contrast between these and everything else in Argentina that I have seen so far. I am not sure why the bus companies are so modern and sleek when much else appears tired and under-maintained. Once on the bus at midnight, I was alone for the first time in Argentina. (Refer to earlier post for my ¨hungry and frozen*¨ experience on the bus. * Title of daughter Laura´s cooking blog for those who don´t get the in-joke. http://hungryandfrozen.blogspot.com/ )

As the bus started moving, an in-flight safety and services-available message came across the speakers – in Spanish only and I couldn’t understand a word. There was a ‘flight attendant” on board but she just wandered past making sure we were all in our seats and then rattled off a list of drinks available – the only one of which I understood was the first, “agua –water” so that’s what I had!.

Pronunciation lesson. In Argentina, agua – water, is pronounced as if you were going to say “arg” as in the beginning of ‘argument’ but just has you had started to form the letter ‘g’ you changed your mind and went to the ‘wuh’ part of the word, and the end of the word fades away as if you weren’t quite sure how to pronounce it.


The trip was, again, incredibly smooth and I was able to doze somewhat fitfully, mindful of the large sleeping mass in close proximity. The curtains were Velcro-closed and I did peep out occasionally but we seemed to be travelling for 6 ½ hours on pretty smart toll motorways. We came via Santa Fe and through the tunnel under the river to Paraná. It seems to be an amazingly well-designed and built structure, and another part of the juxtaposition of incredibly modern and tired and run down. (Today, some computer engineering students told me that its life expectancy was 30 years. “How old is it?” I asked…. “Thirty years,” the reply. )

I finally arrived at Paraná at 6.30 and was met by AFS volunteer Mariela and host family member Melisa who took me straight to Melisa’s home.

Language-learning Observations and Intercultural Discoveries:

- It is indeed true that speaking louder does not help comprehension.

- Being able to use a mixture of Spanish and English by all parties involved, increases the level of possible communication and leaves everybody feeling they have contributed to helping the other person’s understanding and language acquisition.

- Taking a risk to try and assemble a set of sounds to communicate a message to someone who fully understands that set of sounds… is like playing one of those fruit machines when you release the lever, hoping that all the sounds /fruit line up the way you wanted… and then hearing/seeing the “Ka-ching” when the message is understood.

- When you ask “What is this?” as you pick the morsel up and hold it closer to your mouth than you eye…. you KNOW it’s too late, and too rude to put it down when you find that it’s a thin slice of cow’s tongue on a toothpick. (In actual fact it wasn’t tooooo bad as I am used to the taste of ox tongue.) There was an also interesting texture to a piece of the asado which I later discovered was a gland… and did not pursue information on the original location of the gland. Again, it was OK , and very nice on the first taste… but pondering its origin does tend to slow down the chewing.

- Once you have invited one Argentinian All Black fan to sleep on your couch for the 2011 World Rugby Cup, you end up inviting them all.

- At a 2 year old´s birthday party you should not be surprised to find not only one person proudly wearing a Canterbury logo on a shirt but another person who can (unassisted) name at least 3 of the Counties rugby clubs and more Chiefs players than most NZers could, and another who has been to NZ for the first World Rugby Cup, and another person who has had dinner with Tane Randell when playing professional rugby in England. There is more chance of me running into such passionate Rugby enthusiasts in Paraná than Waiuku, it would seem.

- Just because I am in Argentina, it does not mean that all all cultural experiences are Argentinian culture.

- It is, in point of fact, Castillian (Carss -ti - zharn) rather than Spanish which is spoken here. The word ¨Spanish¨is acceptable but I understand that ¨Castillian¨ is more correct. (Later correction - this should read Castellano... pronounced car -st- jha no according to my hearing.)

-Goofy sounds the same in Spanish as he does in English

- It is possible to survive for a week without a cup of tea.

- While everyone from NZ to Paraná via Buenos Aires is telling me to be careful about personal safety, and security at home .. it is my mother´s home in Waiuku where an attempted burglary is made.

- My family is now geographically spread further apart than we ever have before. I´m in Argentina, Laura is in Wellington, Mark is keeping the home fires burning in Waiuku, and 18 year -old son Julian is (hopefully) on a plane to Australia to stay with his madrina* (godmother) in Broken Hill Australia, (* Learned that word when I was watching Shrek II with Spanish subtitles and soundtrack - a recommended approach to language learning).

-(Cue Fred Dagg music) We don´t know how lucky we are.