Carol and Jim have a fight

26 March 1991
Buenas Aires
Well, it was bound to happen. Spending 24 hours a day and months on end with each other, little disagreements are bound to happen, and Carol and I have had our first major fight of the trip. We were in Ushuaia at what they call El Fin del Mundo, and we were listening to a lecture on the Ona indians. The lecturer said that one of the traditions of the now extinct indians was that the men fished while the women rowed the canoes. I simply mentioned that I thought it sounded like the firm foundation of a good, working marital arrangement and that was all it took. Carol countered that she wished the indians were not extinct because she wanted to teach those women to get the men to stick their own oars in the water. But in the end it was all smoothed over and we are now back on speaking terms. I am sure that you are all relieved to hear that.
I wish there was some nice, easy way to describe Argentina like there was to Chile. There, everything could be categorized: Clean country, things worked, and if they didn't, they got fixed, stabled government and economy. Things just seem to be the opposite here.
Everything is in chaos here, but it is so alive, so vibrant, that in spite of all the problems the nation has, it is impossible not to be impressed with the spirit of the people who just keep on going in spite of what seems to be overwhelming odds. For instance: Economically, things could not be worse. The currency is now worth half of what it was just one month ago. In the time we have been here in Bs. As. prices have jumped 10-20 percent across the board, and this follows a general doubling just before we arrived. Everything for sale is quoted in $U.S. because the Austral means nothing from one day to the next. They are trying to formally "dollarize" the economy. When you ask the price of something from seats in the concert hall to the price of sweaters, they are quoted in dollars. Prices of cars and houses listed for sale in the newspaper are listed in dollars. People want to be paid in dollars for goods and services they provide, and there seems to be little hope that things will improve. The people believe things will only get worse.
Because of these problems, there is a real brain drain here. People with all the know-how leave the country. There are not enough trained professors to stock the universities because so many of them have left, and the ones who have stayed have gone to private universities, so that essentially there is no longer any public higher education in the nation. This has always been one of the strong points of the nation: Free public education for as long as you continued to study. Quality elementary and secondary schools are now almost entirely private too, because the state schools simply do not pay a living salary to teachers.
Unity: This country definitely is not together. We ask so many people why, and the answers are as varied as the individuals answering, but they all agree that they are not together. The only time they were, they seem to agree, was during the "Malvinas (Falklands) War", and even that turned out to be a rip-off. Up until the very last day, they were all told that they were winning, and then the ugly shock that they got their collective buns whipped was a terrible blow. It had the effect of making unity an even more difficult task, because they all felt so used over the war. At the end of the war, all the soldiers were flown back to Argentina at night. No mention was made of them in the papers, all those killed were buried on the Falklands, and overnight, all the medial went from nothing but stories of the war to absolutely nothing about it. Last week the papers told that for the first time since the war was over, the parents of the soldiers killed were able to go to the islands and visit the graves of their sons, husbands, and loved ones. NINE YEARS LATER!!! Up to this time, the people could only grieve. As a parent whose son was in the Gulf, this was an especially touching story.
Contrasted with the Falklands conflict, what they refer to here as the "Dirty War" is still a touch story here. That is where during the 70's up to 80,000 young boys and girls in their early 20's were kidnapped by the military junta and about 20,000 of them were never heard from again. To this day the mothers of those never accounted for still march demanding the truth. Rent the Video "The Official Story" for a realistic picture of that period.
But enough negatives. There are many positive items to talk about as well. The best of which is the Levezzi family. We met them in Calafate. We had to agree, it wasn't hard to do, to call them when we got to Bs. As. There are three children. Marcela is celebrating her 11th birthday with us tomorrow at a local restaurant and is a real live wire. A totally free spirit, the kid of kid that every teacher would love to have in their class because she would add so much. Pablo is 14 and very interested in computer. I brought him down to the Apple outlet here (where I'm typing this letter) and he and I had a great time together. He had never worked with a Mac before, and they let me use a color monitor and he really freaked. It was great. And there is Maria, A serious 16 year old who loves to draw and writes her own comic books. Mom is a teacher (in a private school of course) and dad is an electrical engineer. They display a unity and closeness which seems to be so common here. I think that their's is special, but they do not. They are just an average family, socially at least. Obviously, professionally they are not average. They had us over for an "Asada" the other night. That is the Argentine equivalent of a barbecue. In a city of 12 million, barbecues are held on rooftops. They picked us up at 7:30 and I thought, "Oh well, we will eat and be home around 10. We finished eating at one in the morning and when we finally got home at three we just could not believe it. It was like Monday morning traffic. I mean everybody was out. There were traffic jams, the late movies were just starting, and there were thousands, hundreds of thousands of people just walking the streets. Suzi, the mom, said "It's early, let me take you by and show you my school." Right lady, I always visit schools at three in the morning. These people are just incredible. Not only adults, either, little kids are out, teenagers, everybody. We old folks went home and went to bed. All I know is that no matter what problems the country has, with people like the Lavezzi family, Argentina is in great shape. We consider all of them to be our very good friends. If we didn't have any other reason to return to South America (we do) they would be reason enough.
The Argentines operate their traffic by what Carol calls "Supply and Demand Traffic Control." Bs. As. is made up almost entirely of one way streets. The large boulevards, up to 12 lanes are two way, but smaller Avenidas six lanes and under are all one way. There seems to be a law that there are traffic lights only on streets with four lanes or more. So to get across the street the people, or cross traffic, simply begin piling up until there is a slight break, or until some brave soul is willing to stick his neck out and then there is a massive surge of pedestrians or cars in cross traffic, again until there is a slight break or some brace soul..............etc. And this goes on from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 in the morning, and that is not a typing error.
There seems to be a serious shortage of material here for women's clothing. They are about six inches too short at the top, most of them being the off the shoulder type, and about a foot short at the bottom. Half of the women walking down the street are either pulling their blouses up or their skirts down. The other half should. Well, at least one of us thinks they should, anyway.
About the only thing that is not expensive here is food. There are many "Tenador Libre" places here. Literally translated it means "Free Fork." What it really means is that they are all you can eat places. We get vegetarian places for $3 with drinks and dessert included, and Chinese or other smorgasbord types at dinner for $2. no drink or dessert. We porked out for the first week, and finally asked, "Why are we doing this to ourselves." We now have one or the other for lunch and skip dinner entirely.
We have been attending school in the evenings, while Carol also has private lessons with a very cultured and well informed woman during the day. She gets to talk about the things she wants to talk about and has really honed in on Argentine literature and culture. She writes voluminous notes. One whole session was about the tango. The heart and soul of Bs. As.
It has been great to stay in one place for a while, but we are getting antsy to get rolling again. Mail has been sporadic. We had mail forwarded to us at Puerto Madryn, but it is taking about three weeks time, not two as we anticipated. We have heard from Jackie, Dennis, Several from Angie (daughter), my mom, Mickie, Amy, and the Vaters. If others of you have written, well keep trying. We would love to hear from you.
We went to a soccer match here, complete with barbed wire fences and a filled moat to keep the fans off the field. The visiting team has to come out from an air filled tunnel and doesn't appear to the public until they are well out of throwing range. This is for their own safety. The fans shout taunts at each other all game, and you wonder who is actually watching the game. It was great fun, but you wonder who can afford to go. The tickets cost $18 a piece. Everything is really expensive, except for the food.
I had my usual fight with the American Embassy. Bastards they are, and I don't care who hears it. When I was young and traveling, I felt the same way and nothing has changed in 30 years. I wanted to see if there were any messages left for me about my son, following the way, and was informed that they don't accept letters or messages. They return all to the sender. They wouldn't even check for me. I have always felt that as an American citizen, the embassy was totally a waste of time unless you lose you passport. They are not for Americans. They are there for the people trying to get visas to get into the country, but are useless to their own citizens. from some of the conversations around the room while there, my feelings are not isolated.
The American kids we see traveling around here by backpack are, by and large, very good ambassadors for our country. I can't say the same thing for the adults, but the young ones are great. They mix well and don do a big, "Hey, I"m an American" number.
We ran into Paul, the 75 year old lawyer from our last letter. He was supposed to be in Antarctica, but the boat sank before they left and obviously, he never made it. We ran into him on the street 2000 miles from where we left him.
We bailed from Ushuaia by flying for 1,000 miles but Carol made me tough it out instead of wimping out, and we did another 22 hour bus ride. After the first one, I swore I'd never do another one. I said it again. Who knows?" Next week is my 50th birthday, I'm going into mourning somewhere in Uruguay. We leave in two days to hit the road again.
Everything is wonderful here. I have not left the Lavezzi's yet, but I already miss them. I really want to polish my Spanish so that I can talk more with Carlos (dad). Argentina has been wonderful. I didn't know what to expect after our first short visit. But you really can't compare countries. Each has their own strength and differences, and each is wonderful. You just have to get to know the people. Luckily we have.
Hope all of you are well. This is Easter vacation for many of you and we thing of all of you. Carol had a dream about Marty at school the other night.
Two months down, and it is going fast.

Love to most of you, Ha!

Jim and Carol