95/100 for written and oral!
Yesterday I ended up at the annual protests during the country’s public holiday commemorating the thousands that disappeared during the dictatorship. All these different leftist parties walk down Av. de Mayo, with thousands more looking on. There are so many people and parties this takes half a day.
As always at protests, I felt very moved. The communal emotion that is emitted from a mob is mind-blowingly strong. Almost like a physical field you can touch. And I couldn’t believe how many politically conscious passionate people had come out, young and old. As usual I felt frustrated that I couldn’t understand the speeches and slogans, but as I was still high from yesterday’s encouraging interaction, rather than being depressed I felt more determined than ever to become fluent in this language.
Political consciousness is much more part of the culture here in South America than it is in Australia. Little niggling thoughts of staying here for an extended period, getting my Spanish to the point where I can finally connect with the culture and people, and learn about the social revolutions in these countries, have begun to pop up in my brain.
Also, remember when I mentioned I don’t like taking pictures of hot guys face on when I’m walking the street? No such problem today as it looked like I was just taking photos of the crowd! Enjoy …
The one on the far left!
More pics from the protest after the jump:
My feelings towards learning Spanish tend to see-saw.
The last couples of weeks I’ve been hanging out a lot with English-speaking foreigners, lazily sticking to English with my Argentine flatmate and coming to class hungover and despondent.
I was on the verge of giving up. Little angry storm clouds had gathered around my head: Spanish sucks. This is boring. What’s the point? Guess I’ll always be one of those crap, ignorant, arrogant Westerners who can only speak English.
But on Monday night, in a bar with classmates, I found myself in a group containing a non-English speaking Ecuadorian, so her French friend asked us to speak in Spanish.
And to my delight I discovered words and phrases coming out of mouth that I didn’t know I knew. Suddenly I realised that I had improved. That unwittingly I had been absorbing these last few weeks. And the payoff? I was marginally better at communicating with this person I would have otherwise not been able to speak with at all.
Thanks to my rudimentary skills, I found out that she had moved to Buenos Aires to study orthodontics. There was a secondary but just as important reason – her heart had been broken. After two happy years, her boyfriend had dumped her. She didn’t know why. Was he scared of commitment? (I commented that at 28 he was too old to behave like that). Or was it another woman?
After months of moping at home depressed, her mother told her she needed a change of scene. Hence now she was living in Buenos Aires and having a great time. 
I’ve always talked about cities the way I’d talk about lovers. There are some that I’ve just flirted with. Others I fell deeply in love with. Others still that were remote, exotic and mysterious. Some which immediately opened itself to me and I felt we shared a deep connection. And some which I did not get along with at all.
And what of Buenos Aires? How will I look back on this three month love affair?
One night a few of us ended up at this incredible milonga, which is a tango club. This milonga puts on a special Thursday night which is more about listening to young bands play very intense, theatrical tango music, rather than see any dance (no one is dancing as the music is performed, and the music is much quicker than usual).
We were buzzed in through the front door, and came up the stairs that opened up into this run down but atmospheric, old townhouse. There were young people sitting everywhere – and very few were drinking. Instead they sat hushed and cross-legged on the floor, entranced by the band playing some very moving music:
Click the above picture for my videos of the band.
We took videos and photos throughout the performances. For us gringos this was a “cultural experience”. But for portenos (the local people of Buenos Aires) – young, and old – this is what people love to do, and they do it until 4 or 5 or onwards in the morning!
On Wednesday we went to a festival called Codigo Pais, the best section of which was dedicated to erotica.
It was here we joined a line leading to a small space, in which a nutty guy dressed in white told us all to sit down. On the wall was a video of a naked woman being felt up by a man standing behind her. A muscly guy wearing nothing but undies and a big bull mask stood silently in the corner.
The loco guy began ranting, in Spanish of course so I didn’t understand. A few minutes in a woman stepped out of the shadows, wearing black, lacy nickers and a gauzy shawl around her body and face. She began this extended orgasm, begging people to moleste her, writhing on the floor, and rubbing against a solid wooden chair. Then a woman came out and danced, naked except for a shawl she played with.
After she left a drag queen came out, and it seemed to mark a new section of the performance. The crazy guy stepped closer to the centre of the room, seemed to search the audience with his eyes and then pointed at me. I looked at Kylie, literally shrugged, and stood up, where I was led to a back entrance from which each performer had emerged. The crazy guy picked eight or nine others from the audience.
There I was greeted by this woman:
Who blindfolded me. My heart was racing pretty damn fast at this point. After seeing the performance I felt like just about anything could happen.
Blindfolded they slowly led me forward through a curtain. Suddenly I felt something sweet on my lips. It tasted like chocolate, so I took a bite – it was a chocolate wafer. Then I felt something wet on my lips – it burned a little. Ah yes, vodka.
Now hands were rubbing my arms, and caressing my hands, placing them on other bodies. Sometimes I felt a man’s stubble, or the hair on arms. They rubbed up my legs (I was wearing a skirt), and pulled down my singlet top a little. I wondered how far it was going to go.
I felt a man push his body against me from the back.
Then I was led further, and the blindfold taken off. Kylie and two friends from Spanish school were gawping at me, asking me what the hell happened in there. Apparently while we had disappeared into the void, the rest of the audience had simply been told to fuck off.
I never did get to see that space I had been in, or who I had been touching or touching me. And it wasn’t really the point, was it? It wasn’t about a mass orgy or anything like that, it was about each blindfolded participant experiencing a kind of ‘personal erotica’.
And how fitting considering all my talk of being sexually repressed!
