DEL.ICIO.USFor the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/17/07
(Part 4 of a five-part series)
 Soyia Ellison/Special | ||
| Getting money from an ATM in Buenos Aires is always an adventure. Sometimes the ATMs don't work; sometimes they'll only give you a little money; sometimes they deny you money for no reason. And there's always a line, such as this one outside an ATM around 10:30 a.m. on a recent Tuesday. | ||
 Soyia Ellison/Special | ||
| A broken pipe under the street cut off the water one morning in writer Soyia Ellison's apartment building in Buenos Aires. | ||
 Soyia Ellison/Special | ||
| On a recent Wednesday, the subway in Buenos Aires was closed, the third time since writer Soyia Ellison has been in Argentina. The first two were because the workers went on strike. The third because was because a woman had thrown herself under the train a few minutes earlier and had died. | ||
 Soyia Ellison/Special | ||
| A cartonero gets an early start on his work in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He pulls that cart behind him in the same manner as rickshaw drivers. | ||
Buenos Aires, Argentina — Yesterday I awoke to discover I had no water in the apartment. I called my landlord and learned it was a building-wide problem, provoked by a broken pipe under the street. I headed for class without a shower, fought my way onto a crowded subway train, then waited in two long lines at two different ATMs without getting the cash I needed.
They'd restored the water by midafternoon, but by then I was feeling grumpy and making a mental list of things I don't like about Buenos Aires. You can see it below. But I also composed another list, this one of things I love about Buenos Aires. Next week I'll share the happy one.
Watch your step
Portenos love their dogs. It seems as if everybody has one. And unlike in Madrid, Spain, where dog owners favor smaller pets more suitable for city living, many people in Buenos Aires own big dogs. That's fine. The problem is that no one picks up after their big dogs. The sidewalks and streets are strewn with their leavings. If you don't keep one eye on the ground at all times, you risk stepping in something nasty. And from the looks of things, many people aren't keeping one eye on the ground.
Buenos Aires is not a clean city, anyway. The other night I saw three police officers dump sugar packets into their steaming cups of coffee, then throw the empty packets onto the sidewalk. If the police are littering, you know everyone else is, too. Add to that the air pollution from belching buses and cars, and you'll understand why I wanted that shower so desperately.
Linea D and the 29 Bus
I love the idea of public transportation. Moving through a city without getting behind the wheel has always sounded ideal. But that was before I had to take the subway here.
Sometimes it's fine. But during rush hour — which lasts for hours in the mornings and the afternoons — it's miserable. Trains are not air-conditioned and they're crowded, and often operate with delays. Cars get so full that sometimes I literally can't move. And yet more people manage to enter. Men get on backward, pushing into the crowd with their backsides to make more space. Now that the weather has turned cold, the heat isn't such a problem. But there were days in the first few weeks when I could feel rivulets of sweat running down the backs of my legs.
And while I wait by the tracks, hoping that the train comes soon but dreading its arrival, the TVs above my head play this annoying commercial for a drug called Anaflex in which aging rockers sing something that sounds a lot like Kiss' "Lick It Up." I sometimes can't get it out of my head for hours.
Then there are the worker strikes. Twice now, I've found the station shuttered. Strikes are commonplace in Buenos Aires — some group walks off the job every day, holding rallies and protests in the city center.
The alternative to the subway is the great, hissing colectivos, or buses. Most portenos prefer traveling this way, because unlike the subway system, the bus system is vast.
My problem is that I can't crack the system. There are no clearly marked bus stops plastered with posters of route maps. There are no digital signs on buses announcing the next stop. You have to buy a pocket-size guidebook that contains 192 pages of maps and route lists. But all those lists tell you is that the route at some point touches XX street — figuring out exactly where on XX street is up to you. And because most streets here are one way, buses follow different routes going and coming.
I think the only way to master the system would be to take an entire day and ride routes that might be helpful. I haven't had time yet.
Sorry, you've exceeded your monetary limit
Banking hours here are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. But those short hours don't matter to me because I can't get cash inside the bank anyway, or so I was told the one time I tried.
Big restaurants and stores take credit cards, but this is largely a cash-based city. Spend more than a few minutes talking to expatriates, then, and you'll probably find yourself discussing the two ATM systems here. Some will tell you the Link system gives them more; others that Banelco does. And cash limits vary tremendously from person to person, for reasons that no one I've talked to understands.
After much trial and error, I now know exactly how much I can get at one time and in a day.
Collecting enough money to pay my first three months' rent required a daily ATM dance. If all went well, I needed to hit five banks a day. But usually I had to make a couple of extra stops, because at some point I'd run into a disappointed person emerging from the ATM entrance saying, "No hay plata." ("There is no money.") It took me a week to put together all the cash I needed.
May I help you?
Stores here are tiny and specialized. That's not so bad, though I do occasionally feel a little homesick for Target. What I really miss, though, is shopping in anonymity. The second you walk into a store, a clerk offers to help you. And he or she usually follows you around, giving you little tidbits of information about anything in which you show an interest. I suppose this is a very American complaint, but I just want to be left alone when I shop.
Too, I'm troubled by the underlying reason for this attention. There's a perception here that everyone's a thief. Many stores insist you leave bags — once I even had to leave my purse — behind the counter or in a locker. Many stores have security guards; grocery stores usually have several, and they roam the aisles looking you up and down. The other day in a clothing store, I heard a clerk tell a guard to keep an eye on me because I had a bag. Talk about uncomfortable.
It may well be that we're no more trusting in the States; we just have more advanced technology that lets us pretend no one is watching us.
Recycling the hard way
In late 2001-early 2002, Argentina suffered a disastrous financial crisis. The artificially inflated peso lost about three-quarters of its value in a matter of months. Banks imposed severe restrictions on citizens' access to their own bank accounts. Huge numbers of businesses shut down. And many of the working poor suddenly found themselves jobless and homeless.
Out of this arose a new "profession," the "cartonero" (cardboard person).
Now every night around 8, the cartoneros descend upon the trash, ripping open bags in search of anything that can be recycled — cardboard, cans, bottles — and anything that still has some use left in it. They load their gleanings onto carts that they push from one mound of garbage to the next.
Many of these cartoneros live in derelict neighborhoods on the edge of town and travel into the center on what they call "El Tren Blanco," a filthy, stripped-bare train that the government operates once a day just for this purpose. The train returns them to their homes shortly before dawn.
What makes all this especially sad is that this is family work; it's not in the least unusual to see a girl of 5 digging through a bag of trash next to her mother or father. I never deposit a bag of trash now without imagining some poor child sticking his hands in it later that night.
It's a great reminder that a morning without a shower or a fruitless wait in an ATM line is nothing to complain about.
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