Thursday, January 22, 2009
First time in five months...
I saw (am seeing) my parents today! They arrived in Buenos Aires this morning and we are presently at our Bed and Breakfast getting ready to go eat some Argentine steak with friends. Thank God for safe travel, family, and fellowship.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Holidays in Argentina
We are doing well here in Resistencia, although we´re about to head off on vacation to other parts of the country! We´re very excited and have been spending much time on the internet trying to find literary pilgrimages to take.
Today is The Three Kings day, in case you were keeping track. Parents and children fill stores looking for gifts from the reyes magos.
Anyway, as the rest of the world (and Argentina too) copes with the worldwide financial crisis, there´s another crisis here, much less documented internationally: la crisis de moneda, the coin crisis. The gist of the coin crisis is that everyone fears s/he will run out of coins, and therefore shops try very hard not to give you coins as change. We´re not entirely sure how this situation began, but we think it is mostly fear-mongered. Having everyone hoard all spare change cannot help circulate it much. The situation does seem based in Buenos Aires, though, where the buses only accept fare by coin. In Resistencia, the rumors of the situation are much more dire than the reality, since the buses here accept all coins (denominations up to the oh-so-desireable one-peso coin) and bills up to twenty pesos (although they´ll glare at you for more than a five-peso note).
This situation is complicated by the difficulties in breaking 100-peso bills, which are all that ATMs dispense. So one has to plan a bit to get money that you can actually spend. I find that stores are less grouchy about accepting a hundred-peso note if you offer coins to help out, and about returning coins if you offer small change.
At the moment, we are hoarding coins like Scrooge so we can explore Buenos Aires to our hearts´ content. Neither of us have ever done extensive backpacking before, but we´ve got a bunch of hostels picked out that look pretty groovy from their websites.
We passed a lovely Christmas and New Year´s here in the Chaco. The fiestas (party season, holidays) are relatively low-key compared to the states--people seem to prepare for about two weeks instead of a month and a half. There were Christmas lights all over town, which was comforting. On Christmas Eve, we went to our pastor´s house, where after midnight we shared the traditional pan dulce (sweet bread--but with little pieces of fruit in it) and sidra, a champagne-like citrus drink. Christmas Day really was not as big of a deal as the night before. EVERYTHING shut down then, but by the afternoon on the 25th taxis and buses were running again, and we were able to get into an internet café to call our families, which was wonderful.
Then we spent New Year´s Eve in the barrio, which was fabuloso! One of the families of the church shared their asado with us, so we were with about 30 people (extended, extended family), all of whom we hugged and kissed as midnight passed us into 2009. Again, the sidra and the pan dulce were everywhere. The kids all threw tons of firecrackers (also a Christmas pastime), filling the air with the smoke of their deep, deep happiness.
New Year´s Day we had an afternoon asado with our marvelous pastor and his wife, then passed the day listening to his collection of quality Argentine music and looking at photos and artwork. What a way to start the new year! It seems like a great start.
Like so many of our experiences here, I can´t really say if that was the "typical" Argentine way to pass the holidays, but it was our way, and we had a lot of fun.
It´s sad, however, that many people have begun the new year with terror, hunger, and warfare. We think of the conflict in the Middle East and the Palestinians who are suffering so greatly from the situation. May Christ whose coming we celebrate at Christmas bring peace, quickly, to his homeland.
Today is The Three Kings day, in case you were keeping track. Parents and children fill stores looking for gifts from the reyes magos.
Anyway, as the rest of the world (and Argentina too) copes with the worldwide financial crisis, there´s another crisis here, much less documented internationally: la crisis de moneda, the coin crisis. The gist of the coin crisis is that everyone fears s/he will run out of coins, and therefore shops try very hard not to give you coins as change. We´re not entirely sure how this situation began, but we think it is mostly fear-mongered. Having everyone hoard all spare change cannot help circulate it much. The situation does seem based in Buenos Aires, though, where the buses only accept fare by coin. In Resistencia, the rumors of the situation are much more dire than the reality, since the buses here accept all coins (denominations up to the oh-so-desireable one-peso coin) and bills up to twenty pesos (although they´ll glare at you for more than a five-peso note).
This situation is complicated by the difficulties in breaking 100-peso bills, which are all that ATMs dispense. So one has to plan a bit to get money that you can actually spend. I find that stores are less grouchy about accepting a hundred-peso note if you offer coins to help out, and about returning coins if you offer small change.
At the moment, we are hoarding coins like Scrooge so we can explore Buenos Aires to our hearts´ content. Neither of us have ever done extensive backpacking before, but we´ve got a bunch of hostels picked out that look pretty groovy from their websites.
We passed a lovely Christmas and New Year´s here in the Chaco. The fiestas (party season, holidays) are relatively low-key compared to the states--people seem to prepare for about two weeks instead of a month and a half. There were Christmas lights all over town, which was comforting. On Christmas Eve, we went to our pastor´s house, where after midnight we shared the traditional pan dulce (sweet bread--but with little pieces of fruit in it) and sidra, a champagne-like citrus drink. Christmas Day really was not as big of a deal as the night before. EVERYTHING shut down then, but by the afternoon on the 25th taxis and buses were running again, and we were able to get into an internet café to call our families, which was wonderful.
Then we spent New Year´s Eve in the barrio, which was fabuloso! One of the families of the church shared their asado with us, so we were with about 30 people (extended, extended family), all of whom we hugged and kissed as midnight passed us into 2009. Again, the sidra and the pan dulce were everywhere. The kids all threw tons of firecrackers (also a Christmas pastime), filling the air with the smoke of their deep, deep happiness.
New Year´s Day we had an afternoon asado with our marvelous pastor and his wife, then passed the day listening to his collection of quality Argentine music and looking at photos and artwork. What a way to start the new year! It seems like a great start.
Like so many of our experiences here, I can´t really say if that was the "typical" Argentine way to pass the holidays, but it was our way, and we had a lot of fun.
It´s sad, however, that many people have begun the new year with terror, hunger, and warfare. We think of the conflict in the Middle East and the Palestinians who are suffering so greatly from the situation. May Christ whose coming we celebrate at Christmas bring peace, quickly, to his homeland.
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