19.07.2005 Running In My Ex’s Ex’s Shoes |
   Not smoking rocks, and blessed are those South Americans who cane the sweetest Sativae rolled up in a nice little tuca without tobacco – I rarely enjoyed toking ganj as much as I do here. It feels like my brain expands to a higher level of consciousness, Jah have mercy. Similarly religious: My happy-go-sweaty running routine. I head out of the house feeling like a multicoloured misplacement in the quiet midweek drift of slowness of Tigre’s residential streets. The locals here are gobsmacked when they see me, the chica rubia filled with tons of gringo verve. I whirl down the calles and speed through their Latin world grinning widely while shouting “hola” at everyone so they get to know me and used to my pinkish white sight. I am jumping over puddles, through rubbled fields where dirty kids kick balls over fences, then follow a track that leads to one of the villas, slums, here, but just before I head right bang boom into the police "protected" area of deep poverty, I make an exit and bounce over the railway tracks, racing it on the grassy grounds along the smelly canal that will lead me to San Fernando, the district next to Tigre where I live. Many a tired looking men walk along the cemented arm of the river to get back to their shattered shacks, whilst I am heading the opposite direction, all the way to Carupá station. When you come here later at the evening you see strong butcher men unload the camiones, lifting giant segments of deep frozen cows, sawed in halves, out of the heladeros. Long shadows cast all over the streets because the sun is so low. I keep on running all across the railway tracks and follow the main street as there is some sort of dusty laws next to the rubbled concrete. Just before I hit the Panamericana, the fat motorway that takes you out of the city and apparently all the way up to Mexico, I take a right turn and dive into the suburban shabbiness of brick walled dwellings. Not a soul in sight. Well, I could go on philosophing (he?) about every step I take because it's a celebration of rhythm, uniting mind and soul in bolts and bucks of bones, but I will conclude all this blurb with the note that I am running all this mileage in the shoes Ben gave me, the ones that belonged to his ex girl friend – he met her after we broke up and then he dumped her and the shoes were still in his house. He gave them to me when we met one last time. Strangely symbolic. I am happy cos I like the way I run in them. Although they are way too small. On that note: There are some guys here who organise trips to the villas here so tourists from the first world can check out the slum ghetto villas. The Argentinean people find this particularly sick and the press has raised a debate if this kind of tourism is morally correct. I guess there is nothing more demeaning than a fat wealthy tourist poking his zoom into some derelict kitchen window to capture some really fucked up individual’s misery. Of course I cannot agree to this kind of curiosity. But I really find myself in many arguments here because I feel it is wrong to just ignore the social injustice that makes most middle class Argentineans just look away. Ignoring the problem doesn’t mean the villas will eventually disappear. Just as demeaning: The usual prejudices like “those people want to live like this, otherwise they would try to change their situation” or, even worse, the excuse why no-one is ever thinking about doing something about it: “If you go to these kinds of areas, you just end up being killed”. Mmmh. There are people who actually did get killed. So it’s reality and just not funny. To be questioned by some German who doesn’t know anything about the people here doesn't make the people deal more openly with this no-no topic either. Maybe it's better to leave it at that, not start a stupid discussion that I could be having with anyone from Berlin as well who might tell me the same thing about Kreuzberg or Marzahn, and make my own judgement quietly by experiencing shit at first hand. This is what I have resorted to know because, fuck, I can't help it, I am curious. But in a gentle open minded way, I hope. I can't do anything about it. I don't want to be blinded by the beauty of the walled and fenced enclosed paradises that can be found all along the coast (Punta Chica, San Isidro, Acassusu) and that seem to show only one thing: Look, we made it. We have a car port and a yaught, and if you try to enter our premises, we will get you into court, and then you can just forget about the future. We are stronger than you. Look at the private security corps we are paying to keep the filthy lot out of our quiet, tree shaded streets where girls in bonbon coloured mini skirts can roller blade to diet ice cream parlours without you rotten sick person trying to molest them... NO. I really find it a lot more interesting and animating to run through the poor and dilapidated areas. It even benefits my training because I feel that if I should ever get into a shit situation I have to be able to run faster than anyone who tries to catch me. I have to be tuff and be able to impress them with my running skills cos I can run faster than Maradona on Speed. Yeah. Please don't kill me, peeps, I am coming because I am trying to understand! I actually have a friend who is living in one of the most dangerous areas here, Dock Sud, and when I go to visit her, everyone is telling me to be careful. So I am careful. I hop out of the bus near where she lives, Angulo, and hurriedly scramble down the street, trying to look tuff. Like I was born there. Haha. I see: women walking their dogs. Neighbours chatting. People going to their cars. Okay. Not very dangerous. One might think. But who knows. This areas cries out for a helping hand. Give me a few pesos so I can get a new heating fitted, the walled-up windows seem to shout. Give me some decent street lamps so I can find my way when I come home from a hard days work in the factories down the road. But nothing shouts: Gimme your bag, rich bitch or I will blow your head off. Maybe the people here have been to too many Blockbusters to rent too many of these shite NORTH American movies which are created to infiltrate the middle class with the constant fear the really poor will come and take their fenced suburban lives apart with a vengeance. Maybe it's true. Maybe someone will come and fuck me over. Steal stuff out of my house again. My turntables. Now you're crying, hehe! Nevertheless: What a fucked-up psychology (remember Michael Moore who managed to ridicule the white rich First World person paranoia by taking it to new levels: "If you see a group of white men coming towards you, cross the street. They are ten times more likely to kill you..."). Ceci and I walk to the bus stop in Dock Sur. It's dark now and fog crept into the dim lit calles. Dogs are barking as we pass to find a corner shop that will sell us a bottle of wine. Without anyone noticing. Not so easy cos every one knows everyone here, and they know Ceci is her dad's daughter and he doesn't want her to drink so much. We are both heavily inspired by the First World's laissez faire boheme with clearly had a big impact on the design of our clothes. Ceci wears a punked up jacket that once belonged to someone playing a trumpet in a circus orchestra (or similar), I, as I am not really having the spare cash to get the new look trash, erm trashed new look, sport some sort of self made flared trousers go plump revolution style which makes me look like a clown. Ceci is much taller than I am. I am blond. Let's sum it up: We stand out of the crowd. Yet no one wants to steal our bags. Although we are really pushing our luck, necking the bottle and downing its contents with the nonchalance of some private school girls on their day out in town. Mmmh. Maybe it's because everyone knows Ceci's dad. This is the magic trick... Only go in these parts of town if you are in company of someone who knows the people there. If you don't, get to know them or your life is at stake. Punto. I am bo, because…. Yesterday, I got another extension for my boxes in the customs of the airport, after these three months it will be very troublesome with this stuff here... I really don't know what to do. Hold on tight. I guess the extremity of my situation is reflected in the extremity of my experience here, sometimes I am sooo glad I made this move and sometimes I really don't know what will pull out. Is there a future here, and if so, what will it be? I wanna live here with all it enthrals but I have no idea how. Que se yo!!! What do I know? Me and Emilio have some amazing visions of the future but sometimes our vision of the other is appallingly stupid and we have some really shit fights. I am laughing at this now because at the moment I am laughing at everything. Yo, I am bo, I am living. I am healing my soul from many an uncool thing that took over in the last years without me noticing. The people here are so lovely and relaxed I am really shocked when I manage to confuse them with my European stress vibes so I really slowed down a few gears to move with the groove here. Feels good and sexy. I actually eat quite a lot of beef (considering I was a vegetarian for ten years), and yes, there is some dancing. My fave club, Cocoliche, reopened on Saturday (watch this space for an update, there will be photos too)... I was with my boy Emilio who I love dearly because he feels music like me, and I can see this with one glance when I look into his eyes, and I am in heaven because this reflected happyness sets me free. Yo. I am bo. Although it's winter. And how are you??? Good? I guess so, but this is one of my much famed rhetoric questions to keep the conversation goin'... |
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