Mercurial Mercosur

We are encountering Latin American politics up close and personal.  This Sunday only a mile from our place was a giant "celebration" of Argentine independence.  In front of the Casa Rosada, the president Cristina Kirchner gave a speech while thousands of people waved flags, beat drums, and paraded.

Granted we could not understand the speech. But it still seemed to us like the focus of the event was baldly political.  The flags did not say Argentina... They said the name of the president, her family, her party.  The cameras at the event focused on her - we watched her dance awkwardly and kiss spectators.  The audience, our host told us, had  been bussed in.  Many were drinking heavily, forming drum circles that drowned out the speech, and even in one case trying to sell us "brownies de cannabis."  From the outside, and on TV, it looked magnificent.  From the inside, it was cacophonous.  In the U.S. July fourth is also a big party, but I feel like people are celebrating being American, rather than being Democratic/Republican or being part of a televized spectacle.

But Kirchnerism and Peronism are big, we later learned, and have as a central tenet resistance to large American corporations and in some cases American " imperialism."  I do feel at a disadvantage here compared to the other places we have been because of the institutional barriers against America.  The countries here are building a retaliatory bloc, and I don't know whether this is helping them in the end.  For instance, difficulty getting money from my US account - literally every ATM (whether HSBC, Citibank, or the local ones) is using the same network which charges six dollars per transaction on my US account and has low withdrawal limits.

And then, the reciprocity fees.  Because the US charges high visa fees, Argentina, Bolivia, and others charge us huge fees to enter.  We paid 160 for Argentina ad were going to pay more to go through Bolivia before deciding, enough is enough.  We were only planning to spend 1.5 days in Bolivia en route to Peru, but the embassy here decided (after some shady internal deliberation) that it would not grant a transit visa, and would charge the full 160 dollars each.  And since we had no dollars, they gave us a terrible conversion rate for pesos, making it come out to 172 dollars each.  And then, since the ATMs here are against us (see above), actually withdrawing that money would make it closer to 180 each.  We have decided to skip Bolivia and just go through Chile (which does not charge fees for entry as of two months ago).

I get the indignance that these governments feel against America.  But there has to be something to supply and demand, right?  I think this strategy is counter productive.  If you charge high fees for tourists, you are going to have less tourists.  And how does that help?

It takes two

Thirty hours of transit, from South Africa to Argentina, and the first thing we learn to do is the Tango!  Here in the neighborhood of San Telmo, where we are staying, the dance may have been born.  And just down the street is a place that does a night called Tango entre Muchachos.

Get the idea?  All guys!  This felt like a less threatening atmosphere for me, because I would not be expected to ask women to dance, and learn to lead, etc.  Our teacher, Edgar Fernández Sesma, was wonderfully skilled.  Even though he did not speak much English, and my Spanish was pretty rusty, his instruction came across really well.  We learned how to walk to the music and some backing-and-forthing and sidestepping.  He got Josh and I dancing with other guys in about 90 minutes, for less than four dollars each.  (Here is Facebook https://www.facebook.com/edgardo.tangoyfolclore - recommended indeed!)

When we joined the group, we realized we were much better at following than leading.  This led to some jokes about the personalities associated with conductor and conducido.  We were then forced to switch roles and do the leading to rather than the following.  That's the trouble and the challenge of single sex tango, I guess - learning both roles!  I think to learn to lead well would take at least a year, and we have only four days left.  So, we'll just fake it until we make it.  The next such tango night is on Wednesday - wish us luck!