Language and the Grand Return

I’m back in the US now. I arrived back December 14^th, to a startling lack of snow. I never really had culture shock coming to Argentina, and I haven’t had it returning. For a while I was startled by the realization that when I speak on a bus in English, anyone –everyone- can understand me. I had to start paying some attention to what I said. While on the farm, only Stephanie and I spoke English; we never had to adjust conversations for young ears, we just had to not switch into Spanish. It was almost equally startling to realize how easily I could understand strangers. Though I now speak Spanish fairly well, I always had the assumption, that when a stranger began to talk to me, I’d have to put in some effort to understand.

            As for language itself, I’ve had to check myself from putting también at the ends of sentences. That’s the only word that slips through. Whenever I want to say, “this was cool, too” or “I’ll need this, also”, I keep wanting to use “también.”

There are also a few phrases that Argentina just does better, linguistically. Sure, it’s my opinion, but 3 other English-Spanish abroad students agree with me (as did an ex-Argentinean who moved to Canada). One is the phrase “tener ganas”. It’s a way of saying you want to do something, you have a desire, a hankering to do it. Even when thinking in English, it’d often slip into my thoughts: “I don't really have ganas to rock climb today”. The other phrase is “no vale la pena”, “it’s not worth the pain.” The phrase just sounds more right, more meaningful than the English equivalent of “It’s not worth it”, or, “it’s not worth the effort”. The Spanish phrase offers a clearer vision and prediction of the situation.

-       Why won’t you date her?

-        I’m leaving in 2 weeks, it’s not worth the pain.

In this example the phrase suggests that whatever good came from the relationship, it wouldn’t outweigh the pain of breaking up, or that the wonderfulness of the relationship would make the pain of breaking up even worse. “It’s not worth the pain” seems to me to explain the why, while “it’s not worth it” seems callous and leaves you asking, but why isn’t it?

More on language

My creative writing teacher admired a few English words. Notably “hyphen” (“guíon”) and “moon” (“luna”). Moon, he thought, was perfect, because the roundness of the letters and the sound mimics the roundness of a full moon. Luna, I find, evokes the shape of a crescent moon, although I may simply be associating the two because of the crescent shaped food called medialunas. “Butterfly”, my teacher thought, was horrible. Milk fat and an insect do not draw up as pretty an image as the Spanish “mariposa”. 

Día: 1 Month+

I.               Famous

Thursday we found the Catedral, a famous cathedral, especially notable for its ability to hide in plain site. The outside of the Catedral looks more like an old bank – a large square building with pillars and a decorative top. Once inside, it transforms into a huge, multiroom church, complete with choir music playing. Mostly, it was pretty, but there was a life sized figure of a saint that I found rather tacky. It was also interesting that the confession section was not at all secretive – whereas in some churches you can’t really see the confessor, here the confessors’ head and torso where completely exposed, making  admitting your guilts a much less private act.

Earlier that day, my program visited Teatro Colon, a large, rather ornate theater, full of marble and gold fanciness. It ha one of the best acoustics in the world, which I got the impression was half do to luck and half to to conscious placement of cloths to absorb sound and metal flowers to reflect and spread sound. The first architect who started on the Teatro died at age 44, and so was replaced by another man, who was killed by his wife at 44. Fearing that all the architects were doomed to die at age 44, and that the theater would never be built, those in charge made sure to hire someone 65ys old to finish the job. 

II.               Fairs

Buenos Aires is also full of fairs, many that happen every week and a few for special occasions. Last week I went to the Ferria de los Matadores, in an area traditionally known for its slaughterhouses. There was folk dancing, which everyone generally voted a lot more reasonable than tango, and lots of stands selling crafts and food. Today I went to a fair in honor of Immigrants. There was more folk dancing, and minor acts, as each country’s booth tried to lure you over.

III. Music

Monday I saw Afrolunes, an event that takes place in a bar every Monday, and features live music. I left at 1am, too early to see the African music, but the band before that was fantastic. The singer was full of presence, and, surprisingly, sang only in English, ranging from “I Shot the Sheriff” to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. American music is popular here, to the extent that at the concert I almost forgot I was in a foreign country. In the background they played clips of animations and what looked like odd B movies, for reasons unknown to me. Probably what I appreciated most was that a good number of people were dancing, and not grinding.

IV. Sports and Death

Earlier today, I went to see two polo matches, one men’s, one women’s. It was a beautiful day for it, but it seems Buenos Aires isn’t as into polo – despite being the semifinals the stands weren’t even a quarter full.

Later we went to a murder mystery dinner,  which was pretty fun, and I appreciated the caricatured characters, but it was hard for all of us to piece together the Spanish and figure out what was going on.

VI. Language

A few decades ago (80’s mostly) there was a lot of government run torture and it’s worked it’s way into the language. Phrases like “stop cutting my face” or “don’t give me to the machine” (“machine” referring to electric prod developed for torture)

are used to mean “stop bothering me” (at least, according to my readings, I’ve never heard anyone say it).

People even have PTSD over language. For instance, in the Dirty War, or the Process, as they call the period of government run kidnapping and torture, hoods were kept over captured people’s heads to make them feel powerless, or to suffocate them. One woman who had been tortured reported that years later, she was trying to tell her kids to remember to put up the hoods of their coats because it was cold. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “hood”, so substituted a really antiquated term for it, and the kids had no idea what she was trying to say.

VII. Politics

I have more information on the deal with Cristina and the houses.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a civil rights group that formed to protest the government run disappearances  during the Process. In the beginning it was specifically mothers calling for information on what had happened to their children. Now, the group has split into 2, and at least one faction is more involved in general rights work. Cristina Krichner gave a lot of money to the Mothers to sponsor their building houses. However, Sergio Schoklender, (irrelevantly famous for killing his parents), was the financial manager of the Mothers and  embezzled the majority of the money.