This past weekend's stroll through the local nature reserve, Costanera Sur:  Lau
within a couple weeks of giving birth--we walked slow, just happy to move
freely without worrying about getting run over by busses and/or stepping in dog
shit. Dozens of kilometers of Foxtail Pampa Grass (Cortaderia Selloana) and jay-like calandrinas and Caranchos—south American hawks—carving
the hard onshore breeze.

1,400
meters and we were at the edge of the Rio de la Plata. A
thick fog—la bruma—had swept in. We sat watching container ships head out to
the Atlantic, and then after a few minutes, looked at
each other and laughed: our hair had collected hundreds of tiny droplets. This
was the first tranquil vista we’d had together since my arrival three weeks
ago—the water having its own magnetically peaceful force on us in spite of the dismal
“beaches,” really just eroded chunks of brick, concrete, and other debris from a
crumbling city. Beside the plastic bags, bottles, and other flotsam were
hundreds of cigarette butts and clumps of toilet paper left behind by visitors.
Although I was repelled by all the trash, I wasn’t sure I agreed with Lau’s
anthropomorphizing of the pobre rio, as she called it—Was the water actually
suffering or just reflecting what had been done to it?—but then another part of
me said: go tell it to the fish.

We decided
that the trash was all just a matter of education. A native Argentine, Lau
points out “we never considered this [land] as our true place.” (Their “true
place” being some left behind somewhere in Italy
or Spain?)
Also: “people here expect somebody else will clean it up.” It makes sense.
People just get used to life as it is. Tonight I tried to cross the road when the light had just turned green. In most
places in the US
they would have let me pass. Here I had to jump back onto the curb. “Gracias,”
I said, pissed, to the driver, whose open window was two feet from me.

Que
querés? he said, not angry at all, but simply questioning, “What do you
expect?”

We walked back from the putrid water (there were signs
saying it was illegal to swim, not that anyone would think about it) and the multiple
smokestacks of Dock Sud puking toxic clouds across Buenos
Airs—strangely happy. After a short break at the park entrance we walked down
the promenade. Local vendors were selling everything from pastries to homemade
dresses for Barbie dolls. There was the smell of sausages cooking, popcorn, and
cotton candy. And at the end of it all was a closed section of street where the
musician Jorge Gordillo and his band was playing samba, danza, and other folk
rhythms of Argentina. Like bluegrass it was all strings—guitar, violin,
charrango, and the small crowd of mostly older people danced in beautiful
styles I’d never seen before—sometimes with colorful sashes, other times with
their fingers snapping and arms outstretched. I couldn’t understand why both
Lau and I were so moved by the scene. There wasn’t anything particular about it
that made it so emotive, except perhaps the age of the dancers. You could
imagine that they remembered when this waterfront, when this country, looked
different, was different. But as the
music played—the singers calling “Adentro!” and the lines of men and women
pushing toward each other—the rhythms were still familiar. 

link to Costanera Sur

link to video of dancers