Augustin the Argentine

I've come in contact with a number of characters over my few months here; Augustin Naif is one of the most memorable.

I met Augustin and his wife Angela at a Rotary meeting. They are both long-time members - Augustin is in his sixties and I think he was one of the founding members of the San Vicente club. He often jokes about his Santa Clause gut, but eats the choripan and cerdo anyway. Augustin is a second generation-Argentine, meaning his family came here before many other San Vicentinos. Yet Augustin can still speak a bit of German and says that his favorite music is polka - not the Hispanicized kind.

In the eighties Augustin started his own company which rents tractors to farmers. Now his son runs it - his job: show up with mate in the afternoon. He clearly takes great pride in his work - he anxiously invited to show me his factory with the same eagerness that my grandpa Moe would explain the plumbing of a New York building.

A few weeks ago, I took Augustin up on his offer. I arrived at his house in the afternoon and Angela, Augustin and I shared mate. Afterwards, I helped him prepare for that evening's asado - a pig roast for his daughter-in-law's birthday. "Let's go prepare the pig" he said. We entered his garage, and there in a little tub laid a small dead pig. "Caught by surprise" is an understatement.

Augustin laughed as I jumped back. Nevertheless, I helped Augustin carry the pig onto the table to be cut, trying my best not to look at its tiny tail poking over the side of the tub. Augustin cut sliced up the pig without any reservations; I watched from a few feet away.

Later in the afternoon he showed me around his factory, his farm and his two horses. Then around 7 we brought the pig to the grill and started cooking. Two and a half hours later, the whole family had arrived (twenty-something people in all), and the pig was ready.

Now, "pig" is one of those foods which I don't usually eat. One would assume that after seeing it the way it looked alive and then seeing little bits of meat on a platter, pork would be even less appetizing. This was not the case.

I devoured the pork. I loved every bit of it - the skin, the spices, the meat, tearing away the bones, the juice that oozed out as I stuck my fork in.

Augustin congratulated me on broadening my palette. Perhaps next time he'll successfully tempt me to eat ham. We'll see.

The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary

I know Christmas isn't for another three weeks or so, but in Argentina everybody's already saying "Happy Holiday."

Today, December 8, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. It's a public holiday so that means no one goes to work. It makes sense - to honor Argentina's Catholic heritage and to allow people to participate in their religious activities.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that no one is participating in religious activities today, or any day for that matter, including Christmas. They don't even know what today's holiday is for. When my host father, Ricardo, told me I couldn't take a bus today to Rafaela, he couldn't think of the name of the holiday. "Something about the Virgen Mary," he said.

So I wikipediaed it. The significance is, well, the immaculate conception of the Virgen Mary; it's a national holiday in a small handful of other very Catholic countries, many of them Latin American. I wonder if the citizens of those countries know at least the name of the festival.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so critical of Argentina. After all, America has a number of holidays for which most don't know the significance or history. Could "Memorial Day" get any vaguer? And how is it different from "Veteran's Day?" Is "Labor Day" anything more than an excuse for an asado?

The problem with Argentina's random holiday is its claim of religiosity. Why not just call it what it is - an excuse for a day off? Here are some ideas for replacements to Argentina's Feast of the Immaculate Conception that have some real relevance to Argentine culture:

Tango Day: everyone dances tango in the plaza. Terere is served for free to tired and sweaty dancers.

Irigoyen Day: to celebrate the time when Argentina had a strong economy and solid government. (Note: it was a while ago).

Gaucho Day: the entire Argentinean population must, by government law, dress in gaucho clothing and ride around on horses all day.

Becoming an Argentinean: a South American Addiction II

This morning, I found myself very tired despite having slept for a solid nine hours. "Well, of course!" I thought. "I haven't had my coffee yet."

I reached in the cabinet for a mug and pulled out the instant Nescafe mix. But the idea of drinking coffee was incredibly unappealling. The heartiness of a cup o' Joe is great in a New England winter (especially right before Period 3 Orchestra). But in Argentinean summer? Even on a cooler day like this, coffee just feels gross.

So today, for the first time, I chose mate over coffee. I have recently complemented coffee with a thermos of mate, but today I finally accepted the truth that I actually like mate better than coffee.

This presents a dilemma. Will I bring my mate and thermos to Starbucks from now on? Will I pressure my friends to drop the latte for a mate? Perhaps I'll just have to organize massive demand for a special Starbucks mate latte. (What that would be, I have no idea. But it couldn't be worse than the Starbucks "green tea.")

A South American Addiction

Part of the exchange student process is leaving behind your home life and embracing your new country as if it were your own. Facebook seemingly allows you to have both - stay up-to-date on all your old friends' lives with only thirty to sixty minutes of efficient wall-posting, messaging and Facebook stalking, a skill I have mastered. One would think that this would be a truly wonderful thing - it's like I can stay with all my old friends while still being an Argentinean.

And, for the most part, it has been a wonderful thing. Pangs of loneliness could quickly be erased by seeing a wallpost or Facebook chat from an old friend. When you throw AIM into the Internet 2.0 mix, I was talking to my friends almost as much as I did at home.

The problem was that I was only talking to them on the internet. I have seen my friends' faces maybe once or twice on Skype, but other than that, their voices have been temporarily replaced by their fonts and their appearance to the way they look in the newest Facebook pictures.

It is not only my friends who have become their Internet alternatives - I too have found that I am defined by my Facebook page. My personality is my "About Me" and my name is my screenname. My self-image comes not from the mirror, but my Facebook default. This unconscious obsession with self-definition exists to some degree in every Facebook profile, but for me it's gotten pretty intense because my Facebook page is the only thing that defines me in the U.S. right now.

My solution: a complete withdrawal from my Facebook and AIM addiction for two weeks and the deletion of all personal content on Facebook.

We'll see how that goes.

Crisis...?

For Christmas, I am writing my friend a comedic novel with the premise that oil companies hired al Qaeda to carry out the 9/11 attacks (Yeah...I have a lot of free time). I think the sequel will be that the media is causing the financial crisis. Except...could that be true?

Bear with me (no pun intended). I'm not suggesting that we've been completely fooled. There's no doubt that things are not so good. But would it be such a wild conclusion to say that the media has exaggerated the crisis?

It's easy to forget that the media is an industry and that media companies need to make a profit, too. Sensational stories sell papers - that's the basic premise of the industry. Obviously, during a crisis or at least at its outbreak, the media will make more money. During the present "crisis," don't you think that the Wall Street Journal sold a few more papers? Isn't it very possible that the New York Times Business section got a few more hits? That would make sense, wouldn't it? The more companies that fall and the more the stocks plummet, the more interesting this story gets. I think one of this week's PostSecrets sums it up best: "I'm a little excited about the financial crisis."

Everyone talks about a liberal bias in the news, but how about a pessimistic bias: How many op-eds have been written saying that the financial crisis may not be as bad as everyone says? I've read only one so far in the New York Times, shoved into the bottom corner of the Opinion page, titled "No Really, the Fundamentals of the Economy are Strong." There have got to be at least a few more economists saying the same thing. John McCain can't be that crazy.

And the headlines? They show little sense of objectivity. For example, take one of the Times' headlines today: "Officials Warn That Economy Will Remain Weak." When you read the whole article though, you'll see that the officials are warning that the economy will remain weak only for a while, and that long-term outlook is good.

The implications of an exaggerated financial crisis is a very chilling political thriller novel - the deterioration of all industry except, of course, the media. I can picture it now - a dozen old men smoking cigars in a dimly lit room laughing the Dr. Evil mwahaha.

Shake-up! the Musical just got a whole lot darker.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10mulligan.html?scp=68&sq=financial+system&st=nyt