Queridos Amigos,
It was my dream to come to Argentina all my life. My grandfather told us stories about General Jose de San Martin and the long Argentine fight for independence. He carried a copy of Sarmiento, the early literary president of Argentina along with Don Quijote and the Odyssey with him when he crossed the plains in a covered wagon to Nebraska. Later he told us that in crossing the Great Plains he thought they might look like the pampas that Sarmiento described. John Stevens, my grandfather, studied a book of Spanish grammar during his last days at the hospital in Onowa, Iowa. "You never know, he said, "when I might go to Mexico." He infected me with Spanish but it took five generations for the condition to come into full contagion.
Now I was landing in Argentina with my son, his wife from Mexico, Yasmin, and my two bilingual grandchildren, Linda 12, and Andrew, 6. We arrived on August 9 and we were met by Dario who helped us through customs. We were in Canning, town of the international airport, but where were all the people? The streets in the town were empty except for the signs advertising media lunas for breakfast tomorrow. We finally found an Italian deli open. Servers were carrying out giant trays of antipastos: cheeses, olives, cured meats... Parties were going on, but where? It seemed to us that August 9, 2016 was the day the Martians came to Argentina and carried off all of the people. It was a historic day, and we and the Italian deli servers who kindly made room for us on a table they pulled out from behind the wine crates, were the only ones who survived the abduction. Lucky or not?
Well, it was a historic day but it was not until I saw the paper when we arrived in Iguasu the next day that I realized the importance. The front page pictured a throng of thousands in front of La Casa Rosa downtown at the Proclamation marking 200 years of independence for Argentina. The president, the citizens, the soldiers, the musicians and the Italian antipastos were all there, except for us. Argentina's 200th anniversary and we missed it!
El dia de los Amigos
We nearly missed another important celebration, el dio de la Amigos, if it were not for the taxi drivers we came to rely on for local information. It was terrible to forget this day which is as important as Mother's Day in Argentina. It was July 20 and still new in Baires, we had only three friends: Marlen, a native Argentine who invited us to her elegant apartment in Ricoleta, the area of parks and statues, Paula, the young dean of education, who showed us all around Baires on our arrival, and Peter, recently arrived back home from his native Scotland. How to get messages to our three friends?
When we returned home from the museum, I found Marlen sent a message about a friendship between a rose and a frog. One day, the cobra said to the rose, "You are so beautiful. Why do you have the ugly frog for your friend?" So the rose told the frog he could no longer come to the garden to see her. The frog was very sad, but one day he did come back to the garden and saw the rose looking wilted. He asked, "What happened?" The rose said, "When you were here you ate the insects and the aphids who attacked me. Now there is no one to take care of me. Please forgive me". The rose and the frog became friends again and she was restored to her former beauty.
At dinner I told this parable to my family. They were captivated.
"Don't listen to the Cobra," said Andrew.
"Be kind to people that help you," said Linda.
"Know who has your back," said Tom.
I found out the history of el dia de las Amigos. It was proclaimed by an Argentine senator in honor of Apollo XI manned by US and Russian astronauts which landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. Ironically, it was also the day on which I published the first issue of Cafe Solo.
July 28, 2016
It was the day we visited the tomb in the famous Ricoleta cemetery of Evita, the most controversial woman in Argentine history and its president. She was the champion of the homeless women and orphans and she built a home for them which is now a museum showing her gorgeous gowns and jewels she wore at receptions. She became so powerful that it is rumored that her husband, Juan Peron, had a lobotomy performed to keep her under control. He himself escaped on an underground passageway to a ship headed to Uruguay. Evita's greatest fear was that she would be forgotten. Judging by the cascade of flowers on her tomb and the poems pinned to the stone, she will never be forgotten.
