The Urban Ballerina

My husband and I left our apartment and were on our way to the bowling ally when I spotted this little girl, all decked out in Ballerina gear gracefully prancing on the corner in front of the pharmacy.  It was so stinkin precious.  Luckily we had the camera with us and I was able to catch a picture of her in all her ballerina glory.

Spring in Buenos Aires

So I guess I have never quit gotten used to living in a country with reversed seasons.  With the warmer weather and budding trees, I keep thinking its April.  The other day I walked by a shop advertising Christmas décor and for a moment I thought to myself, “Why the hell are they putting out Christmas stuff in April?  Oh wait, because it’s November…duh.”  The trees here have been budding these pretty purple flowers that are unlike anything I have ever seen.  Girls are breaking out the shorts and skirts and the number of times you get cat called in a day triples, but what the heck, it’s spring the temperature is perfect and before long everyone will all be complaining about the heat and humidity.  

"A View of Parque Velez Sarsfield"

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Four Days.

"Street Protest"

This week was a difficult week.  A series of unfortunate events that ended with a street protest.  This week started out like any other.  Monday came and went in its normal fashion.  Work, home, dinner, bed.  Nothing out of the ordinary except that on Tuesday it was unusually hot.  With the seasons being reversed, we are now experiencing spring.  Temperatures don’t usually begin to climb until December, but by Tuesday afternoon an unusual heat had descended on the city and then the power went out.  Where I live, power outages are actually quite common.  We have endured them in both summer and winter, however, they usually only last for a couple of hours, a day at the most.  So when the power went out we didn’t think much of it, a pesky inconvenience.  Yesterday was Friday and the power was still not back on.  Electricity is not exactly essential.  I can work on my computer from an internet café, and yeah it sucks to walk up and down seven flights of stairs every time we come and leave the apartment, but for us, no electricity also means no water and these past four days I have been reminded of just how essential water really is.  So we get our water from a big tank that sits on top of our apartment building.  Once the tank it empty an electric pumps feeds more water into it.  By Wednesday morning the temperature at nine o’clock in the morning was hovering around 80 degrees.  I took the bus to work early and “bathed” in the sink.  I teach a private class in Floresta and the walk from my school in Flores to my next class in Floresta was hellishly hot.  My luck continued to nose dive from there, my student forgot about our class, so another twenty minute walk to the bus stop only to discover traffic was backed up due to a car accident, I had another private class to get to so I wasted money on a cab ride back home.  I only had twenty minutes to get ready for my next class and I prayed the entire cab ride home the electricity would be back so I could take a quick shower before class.  No dice, our apartment felt like Hades and I ended up sleeping on the balcony that night.  You need water not only to bath and brush your teeth but also to wash dishes, your clothes and to flush the toilet.  This night a large portion of the Caballito neighborhood was without power.  We were told it was due to the heat wave.   On Thursday evening a student of mine was gracious enough to allow me to shower in her home.  Another night on the balcony.  Yesterday morning when I woke up I could feel that the temperature had dropped significantly.  The sky grew dark and it rained like crazy for a good hour.  Feeling grimy and gross, I stripped down to my shorts and a bikini top, grabbed a bottle of soap and took a “shower” on the balcony.  The heat wave was over; the electricity should be back on.  Nope.  I ended up working in the afternoon and the thoughts of spending another night in our dark apartment made me want to cry.  However, I am a very lucky person.  I have very good friends here in BA.  I made arrangement to stay at my dear friend Mariel’s house and planned to pack and retreat to her house as soon as I got home from work.  When I rounded the corner of my neighborhood I could hear the distinct sounds of a protest taking place.  When people in Argentina protest, they bang pots and pans with spoons out in the middle of the streets.  The people of Caballito were angry.  I spotted my neighbors in the middle of the street holding signs that said: 4 DAYS, NO WATER, NO ELECTRICITY.  I ran up to apartment and grabbed a pan and a spoon and joined it.  Someone dragged trash bags into the streets and lit them on fire, this was to ensure no cars would be able to pass, if we have to suffer, everyone was going to suffer.  The police arrived but stood by; they had no plans to intervene unless things got ugly.  The news van arrived and they filmed us in all of our frustrated glory.  I am not sure how long the protest lasted, after about twenty minutes I decided to head on over to my friend’s home where we enjoyed long showers, homemade pizza and the company of some wonderful people.

"Hot and Miserble" Poor Ula suffered this week while trapped in a stifling, hot apartment, we had a terrible joke where every time we found her like this we would shout, "The cat died again!"