Argentina / Australia

Here I go adding my ideas to what Em said below - just over a week's worth of first impressions.
Argentina looks a bit like Australia on first glance, and from certain points of view. The faces in the street show a grand mixture of diverse heritage - this looks like a country of immigrants. On the other hand, there's little variety in the architecture, and almost all streets cross at right angles, a hallmark of cities that were installed in the landscape rather than growing more or less organically. There's a privatised metro system that doesn't really work, and that hasn't been improved for decades.

The cuisine here seemingly owes far more to convenience than to tradition. The guide book we are using bangs on about Argentine cuisine, but it was written by a local. Lots of meat is in evidence, displayed, advertised, touted or spoken of, and otherwise there are lots of flour-based meals. Outside Buenos Aires there are loads of sheep and cattle stations - introduced and probably inappropriate beasts wandering all over the countryside to graze and compete with native species; ditto for crops. More memories of our wide, brown land. Meanwhile, back in Bs. As., we're getting stuck into home-made salads!

Argentina is a big country, well situated across a broad range of latitudes. It has grand rivers that rise high in the Andes and in the tropical rainforests, extensive plains, rainforest, mountains and a very long coastline. There are plenty of resources here. The population is about forty million, of which we are told fifteen million live in poverty. I mean, not the sort of poor we know in Australia, unless in Aboriginal Australia. Why should a land so rich in resources not be able to feed its people? The same question could be asked for the planet we live on, and the profit motive figures large in the answer from both historical and current perspectives.

As Em has said on this blog, financial hardship is very visible in Buenos Aires. In the evenings, in the streets of the city, many people sort through garbage for recyclables. Some target paper, working in teams to extract if from bins and bags, sort, bale and transport it away on hand carts and spluttering 1960's trucks. Others go for metals, targeting building site refuse; still others collect plastic bottles or glass. On the trains, streets and in the parks, people busk, beg or sell stuff, often trinkets.

The spontaneous appearance of musicians, comedians, magicians and others on the metro make a trip quite colourful, though those asking for pity can be very confronting. There are also plenty of markets around the city, with many citizens choosing not to participate in the mainstream economy. That would not be surprising - as recently as 2001 the Argentine Peso crashed, leaving even the middle classes in dire trouble. My new mate in Bs. As., Oskar, tells us they passed a law in about 1999 that specified that, when a person deposits money in a bank, the bank has to give the money back. Like, you have to be allowed to withdraw your own money from the bank. What a quaint idea.

So Buenos Aires bustles with life, with the energy of people whose living depends on grabbing attention, entertaining a crowd, or making a sale. This is very different from the energy of people who are just trying to pay off a car, a mortgage, a mobile phone or some other accessory. Besides anything else, it's a latin society in a warm climate, but it also seems to me more raw, more honest - and it reminds me rather a lot of Bangkok.

From 1976 to 1983, the Argenine populace suffered what is called the 'dirty war', or guerra sucia. About 30,000 people, mostly young, disappeared during this period, kidnapped and murdered by the Argentine state in acts recognised as genocide. At the end of this period, many of us will recall that Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands - a political stunt, it seems, aimed at whipping up support for the regime. The manouevre backfired when Britain, led by Margaret Thatcher who was herself in trouble in the polls, fought back.

Little wonder there is almost no confidence in the government. Numerous times we have heard words to the effect of "they just don't care about the people", "it's all just a circuit (of funds), and we don't get anything". The word "pigsty", or "porquerí­a" is most frequently to describe the activities of the political class. Political scandals here can be pretty hot, it seems. Hot enough for presidents - even several new ones in the space of a week - have to leave parliament house in helicopters. Though this hasn't happened for fifteen years or so, that's recent enough to live in the public memory.

This week another new president was sworn in. Argentina's first woman pres, congratulations. But hang on, doesn't she have the same name as the last president? That's right, he's her husband! I can't claim to know much about her politics, but it seems clear that Argentines aren't too convinced that family ties are a good qualification for the presidency. People speak of her as the least worst option - 45% of the vote only means that, 45% of the vote, and it's not that dear to buy. Then again, there's the example of George and George W. Not only are they father and son, but they are also multi-billionaires with oil in their viens. Surely these are appropriate qualifications for leading the "free world", aren't they?

Anyway, back to Argentina. Our thus far limited peek speaks of squandered opportunities, which I guess, the citizenry was unable or unwilling to prevent. The Spanish colonisers considered indigenous south american peoples unworthy of existence, and walked all over their country in the name of profit. The gold, silver, wool and other riches were promptly sent back to the mother country to be wasted on opulence, war and such. This story will possible ring a bell for our Australian readers.

Today the place is full of foreign companies, with banks especially prominent, who continue to drain the place of its resources. This whole continent has a fiery history of colonisation, slavery, immigration and unrest; nearly all these countries have endured dictatorship, some of it recent, and American interference in their politics. Then again, who hasn't? I look forward to getting some insight into the other countries of this continent, and knowing more of Argentina.

I think we Australians are far milder than the Argentines, which I guess relates to the Anglo weighting of our heritage. But if we look a little behind the stories, I suspect we'll find we put up with some pretty serious porquerí­as as well.