The Streets of Buenos Aires Among 14 million people, armed with the vocabulary of a 2-year-old. by paul gerald My waitress had just figured out she had a foreigner on her hands. She had asked if I wanted something to drink, and I looked at her and said “tiene un menu en ingles?” The answer to that was no, and then the dance was on, each partner with the verbal abilities of a preschooler. She raised a hand to her mouth in a drinking motion, and I said “Coke?” She said, “No tengo — Pepsi,” and I thought I was on Saturday Night Live. She went for the Pepsi, and I looked around to see if anybody was staring at me like a freak. I hoped no one would speak to me. She brought the Pepsi without ice, and when I asked for ice she brought it in a little silver bucket with tongs. It was my first day in Buenos Aires, an 85-degree February 11th that was as sticky as Memphis in August. I had spent a few hours with a “Learn Spanish” CD-ROM, and a few dollars on a Spanish-English dictionary, and I was armed only with that knowledge plus some vague memories from 10th grade and my best “I’m a cute foreigner” smile. Each time, it was the same: I would go in with a prepared script which, I dared to hope, would get me the item or information I needed. And each time came a response that baffled me. It was easier when I had my uncle with me; we would just walk in speaking English, or people would look at his Hawaiian shirt and know we were Gringos. But on my own, it was tough. I didn’t have the real advantage a preschooler possesses: a complete lack of shame. I was afraid to try the few words I had, for fear of sounding stupid. And besides that, the Spanish in Argentina doesn’t sound like the Spanish on my CD-ROM. There’s an old saying that “An Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish, acts French, and wishes he were English.” And they do have a lot of Italian in them. They say “ciao” to each other more than “adios,” they talk with their hands, and they even look Italian: men with shirts open to their stomach, wavy hair, and shades; women tall and thin and dark and pretty, and dressed, as a fellow American put it, “the way men would dress them.” Besides all these distractions, their Vs sound like Bs, on their Zs are Ss, they drop any S that ends a word (“bueno dia!”), and — most significantly — all their Y sounds (even the “ll”) are ZH sounds. So when I was looking for a restaurant on Lavalles Avenue, which sure looks like “la-VA-yes,” I didn’t know for a while to say “la-BA-shay.” Other conversations turned into mutual practice sessions. I asked at the hotel, in Spanish, “At what time … breakfast?” And the response came back, “Yes, it is at the 6 hour until the 11 hour.” So I took it upon myself to teach. I got a free beer for telling one waitress that longaniza, which was on our pizza, is pepperoni. I also had a fellow traveler from Brazil, as a pronunciation drill, saying, “There’s a dark duck on the dock.” And by the time I left I was up to maybe a 3-year-old in Spanish. I even had a conversation with a cabbie once — I think. There’s plenty of room for mutual instruction between the two cultures. They could teach us to make lettuce a minor element in salads, for example, and to shamelessly enjoy grilled red meat on a daily basis. They also have these things called empanadas, which are pastries filled with meat or cheese and peppers and might be the best and handiest snacks in the world. Their coffee is far superior to ours, as is their rich, moist ice cream, and their schedule of taking a nap in the afternoon and then eating dinner at about 10 or 11 is sublime. What they need help with is, for starters, napkins. That might sound trivial, but after two-and-a-half weeks of trying to wipe your mouth with a piece of wax paper, you’d feel the same way. The soft-drinks-without-ice thing, of course, makes no sense. Still, it’s a heck of a town, Buenos Aires. It has about 14 million inhabitants and it is sometimes called “The Paris of the South” — a comparison that, like many other things, is something that used to be true. A hundred years ago Argentina was so prosperous and promising that the expression “rich as an Argentine” was used worldwide. But the theme of its modern history, as well as the feeling of so many of the city’s inhabitants, is “It didn’t work out.” The government and economy weren’t stable enough, too much of the money left the country, and what’s left is a city that feels distinctly Second World. Certainly, it’s not Indonesia, but comparisons to Paris are a little off. If they surrounded Paris with slums and quit cleaning the center of it for a year or two, it would look like Buenos Aires. Beneath grand, turn-of-the-century buildings (many designed by Europeans), the sidewalks are falling apart. In no other place I’ve visited do the lights turn yellow before they turn green. It’s like the start of a drag race, with cars revving their engines in the crosswalks. For a full second, the lights are yellow both ways, and it’s entirely common for the first two cars in each lane to be all the way through an intersection when the light turns green. All this madness comes to a peak on Avenida de 9 de Julio — July 9th being one of their independence days. Independence from Spain, Independence from Britain, it gets confusing to a foreigner. July 9th Avenue is 472 feet wide. They claim it’s the widest avenue in the world, but they claim a lot of stuff, like the British-owned Falkland Islands, which they call the Malvinas. As one person told me, “They don’t have much to cling to here.” Crossing 9 de Julio’s roughly 16 lanes is one of life’s adventures — and it usually takes two light cycles to accomplish. I had crossed it once when I ducked into the restaurant, and after I finished my meal I was contemplating going back across it, to my hotel for my siesta. By this time, I was something of an attraction in my corner of the place. The waitress had explained to some folks that it was my first day in town and I didn’t speak much Spanish. At least, that’s what I think she said, and since there was neither laughter nor finger-pointing, I assumed the best. Of course, most of these people were engaging in something else we could learn from their culture: drinking wine during a two-hour lunch on a weekday. When it was all done, and I had asked directions to el mejor helado (the best ice cream), the waitress brought my change and counted it out in English. She got it right, she was thrilled, I tipped her massively, and several of the patrons waved and wished me a buen viaje in Argentine as I headed back out into the madness. All the way on the other side of the world, it was nice to be in town. Paul Gerald is a former Memphian living in Portland, Oregon. You can e-mail Paul at letters@memphisflyer.com.