I left off before dinner in my last post. As it’s my style, I’ll bring you up to date with unecessary amounts of detail.
The restaurant I mentioned on the corner of Chacabuco and Chile was really rather good – cheap and owner-run. I arrived at about 2130 and it didn’t start to get remotely busy until 2200 Initially it was too cool with the air conditioning, but that was soon adjusted, and I ate a very reasonably priced beef burger and chips (like nothing you get at home: the meat fell apart and the roll was flat and crisp). I took to watching the polo, realising that whilst I understood the concept intellectually, I’d never seen it played. What a sport. The horsemanship is incredible and the precision, elegance, class and skill seems unmatched by any other sport I’ve seen. Would like to see some live, so I’ve put that on the growing list for when Kokila gets here. I stayed in the bar/restaurant longer than planned because the Quilmes beer only comes in 970ml bottles… I was shattered and none-too sober by the time I hit the sack.
I spent the morning working on the computer and dealing with e-mail, and actually woke earlier than usual, around 0915. I think the feng shui in the room is pretty excellent. Black turtle behind my head in the form of a solid wall, mirror to the side, door on the opposite wall to the bed head. Lourdes had written to say that she was going to church at 1100, so I thought I would meet her in the Juramento area of Belgrano where the Rey des Reyes church is, trying to time my arrival to when she would be emerging at 1400. But I turned the wrong way out of the flat and ended up walking south, only realising when I hit San Juan. Turning left, I walked along to Plaza Dorrego which was a big mistake on a Sunday as the antiques fair and the lower end of Defensa was crawling with (other?) tourists. I strode up to Plaza de Mayo in and entered the Subte at Bolivar, planning to buy a card a bit like London’s Oyster. No, the man in the ticket booth told me: I had to buy one in the post office. Mad! So I bought five tickets (on one paper card) and walked along the tunnel to the D line which goes north-west toward Juramento.
I walked to the church on Cuidad de la Paz and got there just after 1400 somewhat against the odds after all my wandering around. Little did I know that the service had finished early and Lourdes had in fact left about half an hour before. I waited. I waited. Whenever I planned to go, a number of people seemed to emerge. I grabbed a Milanese in a bread roll and some juice and waited some more. at 1430 I called the number I had for Lourdes and got someone else who had never heard of her. At 1530 I gave up – not even South Americans delay the ends of their church services that much – and headed to a cafe on the main road which had wifi. I sat there and added 11 to the beginning of the phone number (noticed with with another number stored in the phone) and sure enough, Lourdes answered. We agreed to communicate her address details by Skype, so I hung up and sure enough the details of her address in Retiro/Recoleta area came through. After two coffees I decided to take the Linea D to Tribunales and walk up to hers – about 6 blocks, towards Plaza San Martin. By the time I’d got there and called the flat again, her housemate Lucy answered. I was too late – my friend had misunderstood and gone to the square to meet me. Two blocks and a lap of the square and we finally saw each other.
As we neared her flat I made a mistake and asked how much she was paying for it. I think from her answer that the studio apartment she and Lucy share costs them less than AR$300/month. She nearly fainted when I told her that the 2 bedroom place I managed to get as a tourist cost about AR$4300/month. There’s no doubt that if I wanted to stay longer than a month in future, I would try to make arrangements differently than going through a holiday rental. It is notoriously difficult for non-residents to get accommodation, normally requiring a guarantor, and I suppose ByT made it very easy for me.
So on entering, this tiny studio already had four occupants seated listening to pop music streaming from the computer and the television humming out some detective show from the 70s. They were some of Lucy’s family. Although from Peru, she has settled here and these relatives live nearby also. They were immediately welcoming and I’ve had the first sensation of being in a local’s home which was moving as well as challenging from a language perspective. I used Google Translate on their computer, which was, I estimate a 7 year-old Pentium 4 with 256MB of RAM, a virus and a sticky keyboard. I did my best to clean it up but there’s only so much you can do without a memory upgrade which was sorely needed. We sat at the table together and ate some dessert, laughed, talked about tango (I played some on my phone via the computer speakers) and tried to make ourselves understood. Lourdes’ English has improved incrementally, as has my Spanish, and Lucy spoke some English. Her niece was too shy to, though they said she was learning. Kokila and I should apparently attend her dance performance at a central theatre on 17th. Should be doable.
I’ve never thought of Lourdes as poor in the practical sense, but she is typical of an immigrant trying to get work and carve out a living, whilst studying as well. She lives very cheaply, takes the bus and limits her movements to the square miles around the Microcentro. We had planned to go to church, and although she had already attended in the morning, she kindly offered to go there with me. The collectivo (bus) 152 went practically to the door of the church for AR$1.25 (call it 19p?), we crammed down some juice and cake at a cheap cafe and got into the building at 2030 with Lourdes’ cell group leaders who we met outside. They insisted on introducing me to a lady called Maria, who offered to interpret the whole service into English for me. An earpiece and receiver were thrust into my hands, and I explained that I didn’t need the worship songs translated (it was more that I wanted to sing them and didn’t want her wasting her breath talking to herself whilst I belted out the lyrics and got the gist). We were walked to the front of the modern hall and seated in a good spot about three rows back. The people around us had been queuing since about 1945 for their seats but we were marched into position. Special help for the English tourist, I think.
The service was very pentecostal, more so than I had remembered. A full half hour of worship as people filtered in followed by one sermon from one chap, more worship, some testimony, Bible teaching and another long, passionate and excellent sermon. Although I’ve attended this church several times before, it was interesting that Claudio Freidzon, the church leader explained about the church’s beginning back in 1993 where he described preaching to an empty church (four old ladies, apparently). As the sermon was about the valley of dry bones coming to life, he made us all laugh with his analogy of church planting. Now they run a youth service on Friday nights, three services on Saturdays and five on Sundays (take a look at the pic on that page) and they’re all full. Great to understand nearly every word spoken, though Maria, sitting about six rows away from me would get very excited at points and that could sometimes slightly affect her interpretation! The strainge thing is, at Encounter back in Marlow there is discussion about whether we should have a 45 minute or hour-long service. No one bats an eyelid here at a full 2h30 – you really don’t feel it. The whole experience is intense, challenging and moving. There must be 1500 people, praising God, cheering, crying, raising their arms, falling down. They’re predominantly of the middle class: I saw several people put AR$100 (£15) in the collection (that’s nearly half of Lourdes’ share of her rent, I suppose). The service finished with more worship intermingled with loud prayers from the pastor, he indicating to the 20-strong choir, two worship leaders and keyboard/bass/guitar/drums when to bring the volume up and down for best effect.
After the service, everyone left rather elated, their spirits dampened much less than their overcoats in the pouring rain outside. Dinner was the question. I have a favourite grill restaurant (El Establo near where Lourdes lives, so we took the bus back but didn’t get through the door until 0030! Now, everyone knows that you can get dinner anywhere at 2300 but 0030 is pushing it on a Sunday. We took a seat and were told eventually that they were closed! But we just walked in, we protested! He agreed to serve us if we were quick. As I said in my Tripadvisor review: “Salad to share, 1/2 Bife de chorizo each, 1/2 bottle of young Malbec, AR$169 including cover charge for two, excluding tip. So that’s less than £15/head for very good steak and pretty good wine. I’m going back, probably this trip”.
I walked Lourdes back then set off on foot. Although I had two mobiles on me, I hid mine somewhere no thief would dare to go, leaving the cheapo celluar argentino in my pocket. I had used up all the cash in my wallet, so I thought I wasn’t worth much. So, at 0130, 7 blocks south, Diagnonal Norte for three or so, then south on Maipu, which turns into Chacabuco, so 7 and a half more blocks to my door. Not scary in the slightest. Cultivate a scowl, be six-foot or so, have a beard and cross the street quite a lot and you’re fine. I’ll tell you how to spot a potential problem person (or group) in a later post. I rarely see one.
Bed time now. Day two down at just gone 0300. Earlyish start tomorrow to mesh with UK business hours in the afternoon. Good night.