4/27/12

Here, Buenos Aires


When we were in Once, the buildings stretched straight up towards the sky and hemmed us in like great walls.  The streets a maze that extended towards infinity in all directions.  If there is an end to the city, I haven't seen it.  We have since moved to Palermo, where every corner is a cafe and the smell of a hundred restaurants keeps saliva in your mouth.  Meat grills, empanadas bake.

Down the streets that are still cobbled run metal rails that once carried cable cars when the city was young and promising.   Great trees line the sidewalks instead of the piles of garbage like the heap of rags that a homeless couple had burrowed into and fallen asleep.

The house is large and international.  The girl from France speaks Spanish with a Porteño accent, and the Brasileña barely speaks English at all.  She is learning and loves to practice with the British couple and the two girls from Seattle.  Nobody really talks to the woman from Korea because she only speaks her own language.  Now we are here in our rooms with our things and our ways, and means.

Argentina has beautiful daughters who know how to carry themselves.

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