No TP, Not on Time, Garbage, Underemployed, Children
Let’s get this out of the way: Out of all the places I’ve been, Argentina was the most culturally-shocking of all.
The things I did not like about Argentina:
- No toilet paper: In almost every bathroom, there’s no toilet paper. There’s either an attendant who takes money and gives you some toilet paper, or there’s no toilet paper, no paper towels. In one location, I made some purchases and wanted to use the bathroom, but I still needed to pay to pass through the immaterial gate. A young man, totally bored, sitting at a booth collecting pesos. Was the bathroom clean? No. But I did get toilet paper.
- Not on time: So many times we waited and waited and waited… and waited. We waited for a broken down bus, we waited for a ride after a siesta, waited for a trip to start, the guide to show up. It was like watching glass move. Oh I was so frustrated! We signed up for a half day river rafting trip, but it was actually a full day. Why? Because we finished with the trip at 12:30 but had to wait till 4pm to get a ride back to town? Why? Because the van didn’t leave till 4. Why? I don’t know. There were at least 4 drivers with about 30 people waiting, but the first van that could hold 10 people didn’t leave till 4. My only explanation: we couldn’t drive back during siesta time. So we sat for 3 hours and watched the drivers play pool and ping pong. The drivers could have taken us back, then had the rest of the day off, but instead they played ping pong.
- Garbage garbage everywhere: Argentina has a huge problem with garbage. I went there with this mystic of Patagonia, only to find that the people who live there don’t seem to feel the same respect for it that I do. There was so much life in those lakes and mountains and valleys, so many different plants, birds, insects. And then there’s so much garbage. When you’re on a trail, that’s where you find a lot of toilet paper. You have to use toilet paper and then leave it on the trail. In the cities, people just throw whatever trash they have on the ground. Adults and children: got an ice cream wrapper: use the ground; got an empty coke bottle, throw it on the ground. The river and lake shores collected the trash. I was shocked.
- A lot of people in Argentina were underemployed. We talked to a guy in the laundromat who said it’s quite difficult to find a job, not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still hard. There are a lot of extra people sitting around, a two person job is a four person job.
- Almost every woman of child bearing years was either pregnant or had 1-2 children or had children and was pregnant. As Chris told me, it must be cultural thing to have children, but I couldn’t believe that so many women had so many children. We talked to one woman who was in school to become a translator, but then she got married and pregnant and couldn’t continue with that. I felt that what was the point of her going to translator school if she’s just going to get married, have children, and stop with school? Just because you have children doesn’t mean you have to give up what you love. I wanted to ask so many women: are you happy with your children? Are you happy because you’re supposed to be or because you really truly enjoy taking care of children? If you had to do it again, would you? I know this is my value that I’m imposing on others, but I still wanted to ask…
And now we can move on to the real stories…