Palin

Say what you want about Karl Rove.....I'll probably agree with you. I personally think that the guy has a huge chip on his shoulder. I don't think he cares at all about the future or people of the United States. Politics for him is a combination of chess and ultimate fighting. A game. And one at which he is undeniably a genius.

Sarah Palin. Why? Why would John McCain choose such a green running mate with such duffel baggage?

The simple answer is Karl Rove told him to.

Karl Rove is a master of political jiu jitsu.

In 2004, John Kerry's campaign focused on his service during Vietnam as his strength against George W. Bush, who more or less deserted from the Air National Guard. In response, Rove masterfully turned Kerry's strength into a weakness. Rove helped organize the devastating Swiftboat Veterans for errrr 'Truth' ads that collected dozens of veterans to refute the stories of Kerry's bravery, the ones for which he received a Silver Star and Purple Hearts. These men didn't even serve on Kerry's boat or close to him, but were somehow able to recall that Kerry had lied about his chivalry, that the stories of his bravery were a sham. Even though the men whom served on Kerry's swiftboat corroborated all of his stories (even the Republicans), the American public bought the former story and ignored the latter. Rove was able to organize a media frenzy that spent months questioning Kerry's stories of valor. As a result, Kerry could no longer focus on health care, education - issues that could have actually helped the country. The rest is history. Kerry loses and we were stuck with George W. Disaster for 4 more years.

4 years later, Rove is up to his old tricks. The strategy hasn't changed.

Barack Obama is an intelligent, thoughtful, poised, educated, worldly, and honorable guy. But none of this matters. The reason he attained popularity so quickly is that he's a great speaker, people think he's cool, pretty, are intrigued by his name, and he's the first serious black presidential candidate in history. This combination of factors made him a great media story.

What strategy did Karl Rove use to combat this?

Sarah Palin.

Yes, Sarah Palin was a huge risk, a hail mary pass as so many have referred to her. But a hail mary pass from Joe Montana to Jerry Rice (cerca 1990s)-one that has a good chance of working. The jiu jitsu is that Palin is everything Obama is, but on the hardcore conservative end of the spectrum. She's a great speaker (if you're a conservative audience), she's young, she's attractive, she's extremely savvy, and most importantly, she has a great story. Americans are intrigued by Alaska and previously knew nothing about Sarah Palin. Add to this that she has 5 children and her husband is a dog sledding(or snow mobiling) champion and you have the makings of a media feeding frenzy. Never mind that she is under investigation for having fired the chief of police to settle a family affair or that her teenage daughter is 5 months pregnant or that her husband was a member of a political party that called for Alaska to cede from the union.

The Palin pick was also used to fire up conservatives. Sara is fire and brimstone and McCain is not. The evangelical base was not enamored by McCain's one time moderate credentials but they love Palin. And, Palin's sex alone peels away a minority of former Hillary backers, not to mention makes it so that she would be the first female vice president, meaning that Obama's election wouldn't be the only historical first to come out of the election. In spite of these counterbalances against Obama's strengths, Palin was still a risky pick. Rove knew then that the execution of the pick would be key....

If you're Karl Rove, you don't have much to prove? He got George W. Bush elected not once, but twice. Only a genius could do that. Now, he's having fun with us. He has undertaken one of his greatest jiu jitsu moves of all time, something that absolutely shouldn't work...And he's seeing if he can pull it off. It's as if he's lining up to kick the longest field goal of all time, preparing a dive that incorporates more flips and spins than has ever been achieved.

Upon picking Palin, the media immediately focused on the negatives and perplexities of the pick. Rove must have anticipated this. What did he do? He used it as an opportunity to attack Obama through 'defending' Sarah Palin. That is, he directed the full force of the conservative media to say that the Obama camp was spreading false rumors and attacking Palin's family, even though Obama and Biden had both said that Palin's family was hands off. The 'defense' as attack method worked and offset the attention on Palin's substantial baggage. It gave her enough time to tread water until she unleashed her secret weapon-she's a great speaker (to conservative audiences). From her convention speech on, the media forgot about her baggage and instead became enamored in her story. Score one for Karl Rove. A masterfully executed cuadruple lindy. The fanfair and popularity left Obama like helium from a baloon and suddenly the hottie from Alaska with the dog sledding husband took center stage. Since that point in time, the election has been all about Palin all the time. Never mind that health care in the U.S. is a disaster. Never mind that it costs a fortune to send a kid to college. Never mind that our trade debt is obscene. Never mind that the taxpayers were just forced to bail out badly behaving banks, lenders, and insurance companies to the tune of trillions of dollars. What's apparently important is the meanstreak hockey mom from Alaska (although I admit that before that what was important was the cool hip young black guy from Chicago).

The Palin jiu jitsu undoubtedly worked for a time. It knocked the Obama campaign off guard, but in the meantime, the U.S. banking crisis took center stage and Americans were forced back to reality. Now, it is unsure whether Palin will be able to carry McCain to victory as her pick was intended.

My prediction is that from this point on, Palin will be downplayed. The media seems to have lost some interest in her for the time being and the focus has shifted once again to her baggage. In short, Palin has served her purpose and is about to overstay her welcome in the limelight. The question now is what will be Rove's next move? Or, what will be the October surprise?

If McCain does win, though, and the oldest man ever to assume the presidency must relinquish his duties to the second in command, Rove's little game will put in charge of the most powerful country on the Earth a woman who was until quite recently mayor of a town of 6000 (in Alaska) and whose foreign policy experience consists of being able to see Alaska from her home. And this just because Rove needed a quick boost in the polls, not because he cared at all about Palin's ability to lead the country. Rove is no patriot. And despite McCain's amazing service to the country during Vietnam, I'm beggining to question any more whether he is.

Leer

I took Spanish classes in 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. It was a requirement in my school system to take 3 years of a foreign language and so I did what I could to complete my obligation as soon as possible.

In college, I eschewed Spanish and all other foreign language classes. Instead, I indulged in things I was passionate about and that were more or less easy for me like psychology and creative writing. To be honest, I was afraid of taking foreign languages in college. I was sure that the classes would be extremely difficult and that they would pull my GPA down and ruin my chances of maintaining my scholarships and or getting new ones. In short, I more or less didn't believe that I was smart enough to succeed in foreign languages in college.

Spanish had always come somewhat easily to me in high school so I'm not sure why I was frightened away from it in college. In any case, upon starting my career as a school psychologist, I made a list of personal and career goals, one of which was becoming fluent in Spanish. At the time I wrote this goal, it was like a New Years resolution-a nice idea with little chance of being carried out.

People ask how I ever got the idea to go to Argentina last winter to immerse myself in Spanish. And so I guess it all started with writing that goal and growing increasingly close to age 30. Then came a short trip to Italy with my brother and sister that stoked my interest in travel. This was followed by the realization that I was incredibly bored during the summers of not working in my job and the idea that I should take advantage of them by travelling.

So, I began researching ways to learn Spanish in a Spanish speaking country. Spain immediately came to mind due to its 1st world status and membership in the European Union. It would have been a safe and fun place to visit, albeit expensive due to the dollar's precipitous fall against the Euro. Mexico was an option, but it didn't intrigue me and I was concerned about health and safety standards. I considered cities throughout South America, but the only one about which I received overwhelmingly positive feedback was Buenos Aires. No one I talked to had a bad thing to say about the city and my Argentine friend, Marcelo, was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about my plan to visit for the summer. So, I googled, researched schools, found one, met a host family through my school, and off I went.

I spent the U.S. summer of 2007 taking 4-6 hours of Spanish classes per day in Buenos Aires and the rest is history.... Now I'm back for a year, already more or less fluent in Spanish and, I hope, getting better every day. I think it's fair to say that I reached my goal sooner than I had anticipated, although the measures I took to get there were a bit extreme.

Although I have learned to read basic newspaper and magazine articles in Spanish, I had never found it enjoyable. My ritual last summer was reading Newsweek in Spanish while riding a stationary bike at the gym. I had to basically force myself to do so and always carried a pocket dictionary to look up words whose meaning I couldn't glean through context. It was tedious and most of the articles were trash so I never before was enamored with the idea of reading in Spanish.

During my year of work back in the states, I carried on instant messenger friendships with conversation partners throughout South America and Spain. I spent almost 2 hours of every day chatting in Spanish and without even really realizing it, my ability to read Spanish improved remarkably. Upon returning to Buenos Aires, I continued to avoid reading in Spanish and instead read magazines that my parents had schleped down here for me. Reading The New Yorker or Kiplingers was like candy. Sure, I enjoyed it, but it was unhealthily separating me from the culture and language here.

About 2 weeks ago, I resolved to attempt reading literature here as a means of improving my Spanish. I sensed that my skills were slipping away due to working most of the day in English. I had to find a way to continue to gain Spanish skills. That's partly why I'm down here. So, I decided to start reading books for young adults. A book for a 10-12 year old Argentine kid should be readable, I thought.

One day on my way back from the butcher shop, I walked to what seemed like a cheap used bookstore and sheepishly asked the owner if she could recommend a book for adolescents. She lead me to a small section and pulled out two books. I chose the one with less writing in it and bigger print, figuring that I had to start with something that wouldn't frustrate me, something I might even enjoy.

That same day, I carried my book off to the city's botanical gardens to read in the sun. I brought my dictionary along, but quickly realized that I didn't need it. I found the experience of reading fiction in Spanish exhilerating. I could picture the characters in my head and hear them speaking, just as if it were English. The story was about a wealthy Argentine family who lived in San Isidro (A wealthy northern province near the city). The family of four, parents and two boys lead a reasonably storeybook Argentine life until the older prodigal son contracts HIV. The book is what we would call a problem novel, very common in the U.S. These books became prevalent in the 60s and 70s through novels by authors like S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders), Robert Cormier (The Chocolate Wars), and Paul Zindel (The Pigman). Basically, the main character or characters are brought into conflict with some type of very concrete and serious life event such as death, gang violence, class wars etc. The outcomes of these novels are rarely happy and instead function to provide a dose of reality and to help adolescents prepare to deal with these types of difficult situations that they will no doubt at one point or another encounter. At the end of this particular book, the main character learns to accept his older brother's condition and to improve his relationship with him inspite of it. The main character has to go through a process of seeing past his brother's scary illness to the core of who his brother truly is.

I finished reading my first book in Spanish in a matter of days and was off to a different bookstore for another. Emboldened by my success, I searched through the adult section, looking maybe this time for an adult book translated from English into Spanish, so that at least I would recognize the phrasings and style of language. In the end, I settled on a small book written by a British author about turning 30 years old-perfect for a 29-year-old guy like myself. As I had anticipated, this book proved slightly more challenging, but within 5 days, I had finished it too, without relying much on the dictionary.

On my previous trip to the bookstore, I had spied one of my favorite books of all times-Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. I love survival stories and this is the ultimate. I kind of see myself as Robinson Caruso in AR, starting a life in a new an alien place without family and having to learn more or less how to live all over again. The only problem with this book is that it is extremely long and written in an older English style, which makes its translation into Spanish that much more difficult. However, the translation is by Julio Cortazar, one of the most famous Argentine authors. For me, this sealed the deal. I have learned from my previous interest in Russian litarature that the translation is extremely important. I have read two different translations of The Brothers Karamazov and found them to be two very different experiences. So, when I found out that one of my favorite books had been translated by a literary genius, it was for me like finding a giant Mario Batali made piece of Tiramisu on a half off sale at a bakery 3 blocks away from my house.

So now, I'm starting book number 3, a behemoth Spanish translation of one of the great classics. Reading in Spanish has become my new favorite hobby and I don't feel guilty doing so. After all, not only am I reading, I'm also improving my Spanish.

I must be about to turn 30, though sometimes I feel more like 50. I have no idea when my favorite activity went from climbing sheer rock faces in Oregon to sitting on a bench in a garden on a sunny Sunday and reading books in Spanish....

Immigration

Visiting and staying in Argentina for a long period of time is not hard. It's nothing like the herculean effort that it takes for Argentines to visit and/or stay in the United States. And what does a new U.S. immigrant receive in return for years of toil and thousands of dollars in legal fees to attain citizenship?

Basically, it comes down to opportunity. In the U.S., you have the opportunity to make a ton of money and to have access to mountains of cheap but relatively high quality products. On the other side of the coin, you also have the opportunity to lose all of your hard earned money the moment you get sick and the hospital wipes out your savings because you don't have insurance or because your insurance stinks. Or, you can easily blow your savings on your kid's college education.

These days, you can even lose your money by putting it in the stock of a big supposedly stable bank or lender like Bear Stearns, AIG, Countrywide, Lehman Brothers, New Century Financial, Merril Lynch, Freddie Mac, or Fannie Mae (I'll stop there even though I could go on:(). As an aside, has anyone noticed that our financial system is melting down and the President is insisting on bailing out failing banks with tax payer money? Of course, this makes since.... We are in an election year and if there is a big enough financial crisis, the Democrats win.

The truth is that the banks shouldn't be bailed out. They were extremely greedy and made horrible bets in subprime mortgages and now they should pay for it. The banks who played by the rules should emerge victorious and lead the way ethically into the future. If we bail out the banks with overexposure to subprime mortgages instead of allowing them to fail, we will only be prolonging this mess. The U.S. government needs to allow this crisis to happen (let the free market do its job) so that we can move on with new rules, lessons properly learned. In a sense, we are like a sick person injecting ourselves with adrenaline every day so that we can continue with our lives. What we should really do is stop with the injections, allow the illness to run its course, rest, pay attention to our condition, and address our core needs until we get better. Instead, we are choosing to wander zombie-like, ignoring the illness until it turns into a pneumonia of sorts, driving with the check engine light on until the engine melts down.

Instead of allowing banks to feel the consequences of their actions, the lessons of this mess will be blunted and bad behavior will continue because the lesson learned is that the government will bail out big banks despite the risks they take. Here's a reasonable metaphor... A kid leaves home for college, signs up for a credit card, drinks almost every night, incurs 1000s of dollars in debt, and then flunks out of school. Any outside observer would say that this kid needs to deal with this crisis himself by getting a job, paying off the credit card debt, and maybe going to a community college until he can find a way to earn the right to return to his original college. Instead, his parents, like the fed, swoop in, make a large donation to the university as a means of getting their son a second chance, and pay off junior's credit card. In the end, the kid experiences some trauma, but will his behavior change? No, because the lesson is that you can screw up as much as you want and it's ok because mom and dad will bail you out every time. Same thing with the banks. Only the members of the Bush Administration are the enabling parents and WE are their wallet.

The worst thing about this is that I'm almost certain the decision to bail the banks out was about politics and not about what the country really needs. The tax payers are getting slapped with billions in taxes to reinforce bad behavior so that the Bush administration and Republicans can save some semblance of economic face in this election year. I don't care which party you are in support of, this decision is disasterously short sighted and without a doubt as irresponsible as the behavior that provoked it. But I digress.....

As I was saying, it's easy to stay in AR legally. What do you get as a visitor or resident of AR? On the plus side, you have access to free health care at public hospitals and verrrrry affordable care at private ones. Folks, I'm paying 60 dollars per month to have full access to arguably the best private hospital in the city, the Hospital Aleman. In the event of an illness or accident, I receive free ambulance transportation and everything at the hospital is covered-no copay or deductible. My only expenses are when I set up an appointment with a doctor (I pay a copay of less than 2 dollars) and half of meds. The most expensive service is that I can pay an exhorbitant 3 dollar copay IF I WANT TO HAVE A DOCTOR PHYSICALLY COME TO MY APARTMENT TO TAKE CARE OF ME!! (I almost want to call one up and have them come, just to see if it's for real). Can anyone imagine a doctor in the states doing that?? I know it was common in the past, but these days, you would have to be rich to access a service like this. Anyhow, health care is an advantage of being in AR.

In addition to health care, public universities are also free to citizens as well as visitors from around the world. Of course, you have to pay for housing and books, but tution is gratis or free. The truth is that public hospitals and universities here have taken huuuuge hits in the last 50 years as Argentina's political and economic fortunes have stuck a one time wealthy and thriving nation in a gooey morass from which escape any time soon appears more or less impossible. All public institutions have lost millions, maybe billions of dollars in funding and as a result, professors and doctors are horribly underpaid and the buildings which house universities and hospitals are in gross disrepair. Still, the quality of professors and doctors is supposedly very high, in spite of their pay. Perhaps they do their jobs because they really care about taking care of people or teaching students as opposed to making lots of money. Or maybe they have no other choice.

In any case, there are significant social service advantages to living in AR (To be fair, I should mention the downside: jaw dropping inflation, political instability, filth, pollution, noise, and insane drivers).

Finally back to my topic. To come to AR from the U.S., you need only have a passport. Upon entering the country, your passport is stamped and you automatically receive a 90 day tourist visa. Easy enough. After 90 days, you can extend your tourist visa in 2 ways. The easiest and cheapest (if you know what you're doing), is to go to the office of immigration in Retiro, across from the Retiro Station (Av.Antartida Argentina which is open Monday-Friday from 7:30-13:30). You walk into the office, walk past the initial crowd of people, and then down a narrow center aisle into the entrance of another large room. At the entrance, you must present a copy of every page of your passport and say (Me gustaria extender mi visa turistica). At that point, you will receive a number, which is your number in line, and will be directed to the proper desk to make this transaction. If you are lucky, there will not be much of a line for this service. If you are not, you may wait an hour or two before you even talk with someone. Once you meet with a clerk, you will hand over your passport and the copies you made of each page. Both will be taken for processing and in the meantime, you have to go to a cashier to pay a 100 peso fee. You return proof of payment to the same clerk and then wait an hour or so while your passport extension is approved and processed. At the end of this period, your last name is called and your passport is returned and you are told the date that your new visa is good until (90 days later). You can only extend your visa once. After this point, you must leave the country and return to have another 90 day tourist visa. To do this, most people take a 180 peso(RT) 3 hour boat trip to Colonia, Uruguay as a means of getting their passport stamped and thereby extending their visa.

My 3 month limit was quickly approaching and as a result, I made the decision to go to the office of immigration as opposed to traveling to Uruguay. My decision to do this was two fold: it is the cheaper of the two options and I am cheap and this weekend is supposed to be rainy and cold and the idea of walking around Colonia, Uruguay in the rain does not appeal to me.

My own experience in the office of immigration was not nearly as easy as that described above. Although, I hope by my difficulty that at least one other person does it right so that my fumbling was not all for naught....

I first traveled to the office of immigration on a Monday morning. I decided to walk there (about a 5 mile walk) and when I arrived (after one wrong turn) approached the security guard and asked him where I should go to get my tourist visa extended. He said, 'Colombiano?' or was basically asking if I were Columbian. No, Estados Unidos, I returned. He smiled, 'The United States!' I smiled back. It was nice to know that the mention of the U.S. still excites people in a good way. It made me a little proud. He directed me to take a ticket where there were at least 100 other people waiting. This going to take long time, I thought to myself. I took a number- D20. Not bad, I thought. The sign said they were on 19. How lucky. A second later, 20 was called. I was baffled. How had I suddenly leapt in front of all the poor schleps sitting around? I walked up to the desk, handed over my ticket, and said veinte or the word for 20. The clerk said, 'C' no 'D'. Sure enough, I had 20D, not 20C. I looked up to the board and at that moment realized that I was 100 people away from being called. Ugggghh.

I sat down and pulled out a book. What followed is that I learned all kinds of embarassing things about myself....My first thought was.... Am I even in the right line? What am I waiting for? Are these people just going to tell me that I have to go wait in another line? There were few indications of where to go for specific services. My sense was that although I believed myself to be in a basic information line, I didn't think I had any choice but to sit, wait my turn, and then be directed to the next step.

I began reading my book, but was too uneasy to continue at first. The building was infested with insects due to its proximity to the swampy Rio De La Plata River and general lack of cleanliness. On top of that, the Bolivian woman behind me was coughing on my back. My hypochondria as well prejudice against people from the third world started to kick in. Sitting in the immigration processing center in a 2nd-3rd world country was putting me in proximity to diseases from around the world. Most of the folks waiting next to me were from countries even more poor than Argentina like Bolivia, Paraguay, or Peru where public health standards are relatively dismal. These thoughts of exposure to disease gave way to feelings of entitlement. I felt that due to my U.S. citizenship as well as my education and status, I shouldn't have to wait with people from the 3rd world. I almost resolved at that moment to instead go to Uruguay to extend my visa, like most ex-pats from the U.S. Then I felt shame for feeling this sense of entitlement. What made me any different from all these people? Why should I not wait like the rest? Why did I think I was better or entitled or more privileged? So the stubborn and cheap part of me won out. I'd sit there and go through it all just like the African guy in front of me with a briefcase of fake Rolex watches or the family of four from Paraguay who were all sharing one small Pepsi. I sat, tried to get comfortable, and read my book. 100 people and an hour and a half later, my number was called.

Just as I thought, I had waited an hour and a half only to be told that I must take yet another number and wait in another line. Perfect.

My time that Monday was running out. I had to teach English at 2pm about 1 hour away in Belgrano, a northern suburb. In any case, I decided to see how far I could get before I had to leave. I walked to the next line and asked for a number. It turned out, though, that I couldn't even get a number in this line until I had a copy of my passport. Of course I didn't. I was told to get a copy of my passport and then I could receive a number. Frustrated, I walked quickly away to look for a copier. It was then that I realized that I would have to wait through at least another 100 people in order to have my documents copied. Forget it, I thought to myself, I have to go teach my class. So, with only an hour to make the long trip, I hurried out of the office, practically ran across a cut through to Retiro Station, caught bus 152, jumped off 30 minutes later in Palermo, rushed to the Subway, got off at the Juramento Belgrano stop, and arrived at the Hewlett Packard headquarters 5 minutes late, which is early in Argentina.

The next day, I researched Uruguay:) I dreaded the idea of going back to the office of immigration. But a combination of not wanting to accept defeat, curiosity, shame, and thrift sent me back on Wednesday morning. On the previous Tuesday, my friend at HP had copied my passport for me and I was ready to go....

Upon arriving at the office, I went staight to the correct line, presented my copies, was given a number, directions to the correct desk and miraculously did not have to wait at all to talk with someone. From that point, it only took about an hour to have my passport processed and to receive my extension. I don't know what type of processing was required. I think the transaction probably could have taken place more quickly, but the clerks were taking their time and after texting on their cell phones, drinking mate, and talking about potential plans for the weekend, they realized I was waiting somewhat patiently and decided to take care of my request. When my last name was called, I jumped up excitedly, grabbed my passport and looked at the page that showed the extension. Mission accomplished. Chalk one up for the cheap guy. Two visits and 100 pesos later, I had my extension. Mission accomplished. Es asi (or it's like that) in Argentina. You have to know the rules of the game in order to get things done. It's a beuracratic pain in the butt. The right attitude to approach it is as if it is all a game, a challenge. Luckily, I will not have to play it my entire life...

Friends

One popular phenomenon that I find unfortunate is the Facebook or MySpace option of ranking your friends or even including a list of top friends. The idea that one feels the need to present to the world a list of best buddies-sometimes with a ranking order-to me shows a lack of self-esteem, lack of empathy, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, a huge ego. After all, the underlying assumption is: I can take you off this list of best buds just as soon as I put you on so what are you going to do to hold your place? It's as if friends have become to some degree like hotel reviews on hotels.com. That is, you'd better not treat me poorly or I'll let the whole world know. Just as embarasingly, this sort of behavior shows a lack of self esteem. A person who feels the need to point out their best friends is telling the world: I not only have friends, I have really close ones too (and some are closer than others). And the ranked friends have the opportunity to vie for improved spots. I have witnessed friends of mine engage in passive aggressive arguments about why their rankings were lowered on their friend's MySpace page.

I think it is also not impossible that people compete for their rankings on their friends' pages. It's almost as if people who rank friends are constantly threatening their friends by knife point. One slip and you're sleeping with the fishes, to be removed to the rest of the not really friends portion of the page where I collect friends like baseball cards.

I think that this sort of behavior disallows honest interaction. A good friend is not always someone who kisses up to you or avoids criticism out of a desire to move up in your rankings or for fear of losing their spot. A good friend tells you what you need to hear. They listen closely, try to put aside their own projections, and give you objective feedback. Sometimes friends mess up and sometimes they forget to call or get busy. But when you really need them they are there. Friends then shouldn't be ranked or held self-consciously accountable on a daily basis. They need to be free to be themselves and driven to be your friend by a mutually shared connection, a desire to interact with you as opposed to fear of penalty or desire for public praise-carrot and stick. The latter approach to friendship fulfills superficial needs while the former touches the soul.

I think this discussion is a useful segue for me to discus making and maintaining friendships in Buenos Aires.

It is often said that people make a place. I agree. Buenos Aires is an amazing city filled with beautiful European style apartments, incredible food, neverending nightlife, and more cool little cafes than you could dream up. But the reason I came back here was the people. At first, Portenos (people from BA) tend to be wary and closed off to new people. After a conversation or two, however, they become extremely close and before you know it, you are at their dinner table and their parents are kissing you on the cheek and shedding tears when you leave. The people are not only very close and caring, they also take time to talk to each other, to connect for hours at a time over coffee and cake. And because they've spent so much of their lives talking with each other, they're good at it. They actually listen. They are more curious about you than they are generally in need of talking about themselves (they go to psychologists for that). The point is that for anyone seeking hearty Campbells Soup connection through words, Buenos Aires is your town.

I realized again how important friendship is to me after talking with a friend at the park for over 3 hours last Sunday. I was supposed to be teaching English, which I did, but after a few hours, the conversation slipped from English to Spanish as needed in order to explain more detailed opinions, thoughts, and feelings. It turns out that both my new friend and I are at similiar points in our life. We both are looking for a city, town, or place in which to settle. We like where we currently are but are missing something and don't feel satisfied enough to put down roots. Erica and I talked about the importance of making a deliberate decision about where to live and how one goes about doing it. We came to the conclusion that it's probably like marrying someone: you have an objective list of what you want, but chemistry is also very important. We also decided that it was important that we both make lists of things that are important to us in a city and life in general. For me, the #1 most important thing is great communication with people through words. #2 is people who are open-minded, thoughtful, and willing to take the time to talk. These two things are my bread and butter and for me they come from family and good friends. (The icing on the cake of good verbal communication for me is communication in a second language with someone from an entirely different cultural background.)

I left the conversation with my new friend feeling warm and satisfied. From that point, I stopped back at my apartment to cook a carrot cake and upon completing it, carried it over to the home of Argelia and Guillermo, my former host mother and father (featured in the picture above with my mom and myself). Argelia and Guillermo were the first friends I made in Buenos Aires. They more or less taught me to relax and enjoy good conversation and had this past Sunday afternoon invited me to tea hour with the extended family. So, for almost 3 hours more, I sat around another table talking with the large extended family of Argelia. These types of days are what I love about Buenos Aires and why I will miss it when I leave.

In the months leading up to my trip to BA, I had become a bit of a shut-in, rarely leaving the apartment except to work and interacting with friends only through the internet. So, when I came here, the transition was difficult. I continued at first to spend a great deal of time working and on my computer. I had forgotten the importance of friends and felt that too much time with friends was unproductive and that I should concentrate instead on furthering myself through work and projects. This past Sunday, however, taught me anew how important friends are, that good friends and communication can be like nourishment, and that they can help you develop and grow and learn.

I'm beginning to get a handle on my work schedule and to feel comfortable in my jobs. Now, I can begin to reconnect with the friends I made last year as well as search out new friends. I feel as though I figured out why I liked Buenos Aires so much last year. It isn't the killer cab drivers, smog spewing buses, dog poop smeared sidewalks, or swindlers a plenty. It's the good people and great conversation, two things I've been ignoring since I've been here this time around. It's the same reason why Argentines, I think, are so loathe to leave their homeland, despite its unnerving and perpetual economic and political instability. Because, when you have close family and friends and nourishing communication and you value those things, you don't need much more. The world could be crumbling down around you but as long as you have what you need, it doesn't so much matter.

The Argentines I talk with during conversation classes at Hewlett Packard echo this sentiment. Many had the opportunity to move to the U.S. to work, but they didn't. They talk about how depressed they were after spending 2 or 3 weeks in Houston or Miami, how everyone there goes home after work to watch tv or play on the computer instead of connecting through conversation. They would miss the lifestyle of Argentina too much to trade it for the money, material, and stability of the U.S.

In the U.S., we often talk about how everyone around the world wants to live in the U.S. And many do. The draw of wealth and prosperity is significant. For many Argentinians, however, the money would mean very little without their families and friends. And I'm guessing too that less Argentines than U.S. citizens feel the need to rank their friends on the world wide web. After all, there isn't as much time to worry about rankings when you're actually spending time together.