THURSDAY 05/20/10
Fernando came in town from Posadas, as well as Silvi, Pato’s sister, from Córdoba. It was great to see both of them again!! And we put Fer to work cooking once more – this time it wasn’t at the parrilla, but making empanadas. The process of preparing food is such a community event – after Fernando prepared the meat, the three of us sat around the kitchen counter chatting while filling the pastry dough and pinching it around the meat.
Fernando came in town from Posadas, as well as Silvi, Pato’s sister, from Córdoba. It was great to see both of them again!! And we put Fer to work cooking once more – this time it wasn’t at the parrilla, but making empanadas. The process of preparing food is such a community event – after Fernando prepared the meat, the three of us sat around the kitchen counter chatting while filling the pastry dough and pinching it around the meat.
Silvi (Córdoba) and Fernando (Posadas)
the finished product
It was a great way to share a night together and hear some interesting Argentine conversations – especially between three people from different regions: Marisa from Buenos Aires (pop: 12 million), Fernando from Posadas (northeast border of Argentina, across the Paraná River from Paraguay; pop: 300,000) and Silvi from Carlos Paz (center of Argentina, 45 minutes from Córdoba; pop: 70,000). Some of the topics discussed:
Infidelity
Infidelity is rampant here…and completely acceptable for the men. There is a whole generation of younger women now who purely look to be a mistress – they receive the better gifts, the attention, etc. from the man. Although this isn’t a novel idea, it is becoming more frequent, especially with the decreasing economy. The girls are referred to as “gatas” (“escorts”). Each of the Argentines had multiple anecdotes of couples where the husband has had his gata on the side. In some circumstances, he ends up leaving his wife for the mistress, only to find that she’s just as or more demanding and intolerable than the wife. For others, the man never leaves the wife but continues indulging the mistress and wastes all of his money away. Another story was one where the man was a pharmaceutical salesman and traveled frequently. He had two families in different cities, and as far as anyone knew, the two women didn’t know about each other, until he had an accident that left him as a quadriplegic…I guess karma got a hold of him.
Clothing
Silvi is a clothing designer and has found her niche market to be the Argentines who are looking for good quality clothes without the high prices of the brand names. The material and production of the clothes here are very poor and they wear out in a few washings. And the brand names are good quality, but a fortune - $50 for a t-shirt, $200 for a simple dress, $100 for a sweatshirt. So, unless you’re going to make your own clothes, the best thing to do is go to the U.S., shop at the outlet malls where you can get articles of clothing for $5-15 and bring them back here, either for yourself or for others. There is a huge market, as well, to re-sell American clothes, and the customs officials are very vigilant about the $300 maximum for goods. Fernando ran into this problem: upon one of his entries, his suitcase was full of American brands that aren’t available here. Since he had bought them all at outlet malls during his visits and received some as gifts, they really did total less than $300.
Corruption
Oh, the various conversations that we’ve had about corruption: Menem, policemen, tax system, pharmaceutical drugs…and the list goes on. Regarding Menem, he was the president from 1989 to 1999 and through his “reign,” there was hyperinflation, recession, stabilization through equalizing the peso to the dollar, and after he was re-elected nobody admitted to having voted for him, but somehow he was.
The police here are some of the lowest paid professionals – they even have to buy their own bullet proof vests and weapons. Most are people who were unemployed and went into the service just to have a job. This is why many are not so worried about the job of protecting the public as just earning money.
A large number of the Argentine public works under the table due to the high taxes that employers pay for employees, but the employers never see any tangible return. “Tax returns” are usually a fraction of what’s been paid in and they’re issued as credit with instead of straight cash.
When it comes to drug testing, many of the pharmaceuticals on the shelf have not been properly tested. On top of that, many pharmacies don’t employ actual pharmacists – the owner generally is, but the employees are just regular people.
And many other controversial issues were raised, that at times, I tended to accidentally zone out because the conversations started to cross over and everyone wanted to dominate the topic, and I just kind of forgot what we was being discussed until I joined in and realized they were still on the same argument as before, and I really didn’t seem to miss too much.
Infidelity
Infidelity is rampant here…and completely acceptable for the men. There is a whole generation of younger women now who purely look to be a mistress – they receive the better gifts, the attention, etc. from the man. Although this isn’t a novel idea, it is becoming more frequent, especially with the decreasing economy. The girls are referred to as “gatas” (“escorts”). Each of the Argentines had multiple anecdotes of couples where the husband has had his gata on the side. In some circumstances, he ends up leaving his wife for the mistress, only to find that she’s just as or more demanding and intolerable than the wife. For others, the man never leaves the wife but continues indulging the mistress and wastes all of his money away. Another story was one where the man was a pharmaceutical salesman and traveled frequently. He had two families in different cities, and as far as anyone knew, the two women didn’t know about each other, until he had an accident that left him as a quadriplegic…I guess karma got a hold of him.
Clothing
Silvi is a clothing designer and has found her niche market to be the Argentines who are looking for good quality clothes without the high prices of the brand names. The material and production of the clothes here are very poor and they wear out in a few washings. And the brand names are good quality, but a fortune - $50 for a t-shirt, $200 for a simple dress, $100 for a sweatshirt. So, unless you’re going to make your own clothes, the best thing to do is go to the U.S., shop at the outlet malls where you can get articles of clothing for $5-15 and bring them back here, either for yourself or for others. There is a huge market, as well, to re-sell American clothes, and the customs officials are very vigilant about the $300 maximum for goods. Fernando ran into this problem: upon one of his entries, his suitcase was full of American brands that aren’t available here. Since he had bought them all at outlet malls during his visits and received some as gifts, they really did total less than $300.
Corruption
Oh, the various conversations that we’ve had about corruption: Menem, policemen, tax system, pharmaceutical drugs…and the list goes on. Regarding Menem, he was the president from 1989 to 1999 and through his “reign,” there was hyperinflation, recession, stabilization through equalizing the peso to the dollar, and after he was re-elected nobody admitted to having voted for him, but somehow he was.
The police here are some of the lowest paid professionals – they even have to buy their own bullet proof vests and weapons. Most are people who were unemployed and went into the service just to have a job. This is why many are not so worried about the job of protecting the public as just earning money.
A large number of the Argentine public works under the table due to the high taxes that employers pay for employees, but the employers never see any tangible return. “Tax returns” are usually a fraction of what’s been paid in and they’re issued as credit with instead of straight cash.
When it comes to drug testing, many of the pharmaceuticals on the shelf have not been properly tested. On top of that, many pharmacies don’t employ actual pharmacists – the owner generally is, but the employees are just regular people.
And many other controversial issues were raised, that at times, I tended to accidentally zone out because the conversations started to cross over and everyone wanted to dominate the topic, and I just kind of forgot what we was being discussed until I joined in and realized they were still on the same argument as before, and I really didn’t seem to miss too much.
Hm-m-m. Maybe the U.S. of A. isn't so bad after all!
ReplyDeleteOk...so all of these pictures and conversation topics REALLY make me want to travel again! I always talk about South America...so maybe once this little bambino pops out I'll have to come visit you. ;)
ReplyDelete