Getting around

You may recall that in an earlier post I mentioned that things are never as close, nor as far, as anyone says in Buenos Aires. That's probably true throughout Argentina, but my limited experience precludes me from extrapolating outside of the Capital Federal (Argentina's version of DC, only they have voting rights because they live in a democracy).

So here we are, living downtown, and staunchly refusing to get a car. Everyone says to us that we need a car. I refuse to believe this. I'm a big advocate of public transportation. I'm also a big advocate of not spending $10,000 to buy a car. Further, I'm a much bigger advocate of not driving in this city. Call me an environmentalist, or maybe call me scared, but just call me a taxi, please.

I figure the average cost of a taxi ride for us is around $1.50. A bus fare is about 25 cents. The subway costs a little less. Maybe once a week we will take a long taxi ride for about $10 each way. So I'm thinking that in a month we spend like $100 in transportation. Now I'm no accountant (well, I'm no employed accountant) but that's about a hundred months before buying a car pays off. Not to mention gas, or petrol - depending on which you get. And insurance. And parking (about $100 a month in our neighborhood). And the fact that I would have to drive in this city.

What's it like to drive in Bs As? Well.... Here's my favorite little example. One day we were riding with our cousins, and upon entering an intersection I innocently asked "How does everyone know who has the right of way?"

"What do you mean?"

Not a reassuring response. Not the kind of thing you like to hear as you pull out in front of oncoming traffic with your children sitting next to you. Not what you want to be thinking when you are staring at the front of a black and yellow taxi accelerating into the intersection.

So apparently they don't use stop signs here. And not every intersection has a stop light. So there are a lot of cars going through a lot of intersections at the same time, and as far as I can tell, there is just sort of an unwritten code that people coming from one direction have right of way at each intersection. How you are supposed to know this, I believe, comes only from experience. Or luck. Or if you are bus.

You see, busses don't slow down for anything except to pick people up and red lights. Maybe, if you are nice, or old, or have a small child, when you ask the driver to let you out. They certainly don't slow down for other cars, nor do they slow down for pedestrians. So the first time I took a bus, I saw a guy jump on the bus while it was moving and I thought "Hey that's kinda' cool - like a scene in Camus' unfinished novel." Only then I saw it a few more times and realized it's just sort of something people do. Then I had to get off a bus without it stopping. I didn't exactly feel like Camus, but I did feel like my novel was unfinished.

And then there are cabs. In every city in every world, wait, that doesn't make sense - anyway, cab drivers everywhere are notorious for their aggressive driving. Our housekeeper told me she was trying to get off a bus once and the bus couldn't (or wouldn't) get close to the curb, so as she stepped off a cab darted without slowing between the bus and the curb and barely missed her. I'm sure the cab driver started swearing at her for stepping out in front of him. And probably the passenger, too. In fact, I think I was the passenger, and I couldn't believe she had the audacity to step out in front of moving traffic. What was she thinking???

Add all of this to the excitement of living only a few blocks from the world's widest road. It's about as wide as a big city block. Actually, it may be wider. It can easily take you three stoplight cycles to walk across the street (there are little pedestrian islands to make it possible to walk across the street). Oh - and the lines painted on roads to signify lanes - they are more of a suggestion than an actual lane. Kind of like an afterthought. On another road two blocks away, there are like 8 or 10 painted lanes going in one direction, but I've seen at least 14 or 15 cars side by side. Reminds me of a great movie quote "Lanes? We don't need no stinking lanes!" Or maybe it was badges they didn't need. Maybe they needed lanes, but only had badges. Whatever.

So the point of all this is why buy a car when I can have the milk for free?

And if you haven't gotten enough of reading about driving in Argentina, a friend of a friend wrote a really good blog here http://ayearinmendoza.blogspot.com/2006/03/driving-miss-mendoza_29.html (I hope he doesn't mind...)

Money

So each month, around the end of the month, all the bills come in. And these bills usually have to be paid within a few days. But unlike the US, we can't just write a check and drop it in the mail. First of all, nobody takes checks. Second of all, the mail isn't completely reliable. (I would jump in here and make an argument that it's because of privatization, and maybe even a plug for my leftist agenda, but the truth is the mail was probably worse before privatization....)

The truth is, this is a cash economy. A few people have jumped on board with paying bills online, but for the most part, cash is rey. (That would be king for those of you reaching for your English-Spanish dictionary, not some guy named Ray who prints money.)

Now, as you know, I don't technically have a "job" per se, though at this point in time I would like to argue that being the primary household care giver is a real job and housewives of the world should unite to overthrow the shackles of oppressive capitalist ummm housewife oppressors.... But it appears that people get paid at the end (or maybe the beginning) of the month, and then turn around and pay all their bills within the first week of the month. This is based purely on a healthy mix of observation and speculation. I observe a long line of people trying to pay a bill, and speculate that everyone in the country must be doing the same thing as me.

Where was I? Oh right, speculating about cash - not speculating with cash, which is totally different - though it seems a lot of americans are speculating on the Argentine real estate market with cash these days, and driving up the price of real estate, but that's for another day. So if everyone gets paid on the 30th, and they have to pay their bills in cash by the 7th, any guesses as to what seems to happen?

Guess 1: A cop around the corner gets shot trying to stop an armed robbery because everyone is at the bank either taking out cash to pay bills, or trying to pay bills with cash. OK, that's a lucky guess. Crime really is a lot lower here than in DC, but the press here is far more sensationalistic about it, so the perception is higher. (Quick stat - last year there were 175 murders in Buenos Aires - that's a litte more than half as many murders as DC with a population over ten times as big.)

Guess 2: ATMs frequently have no cash at the beginning of the month. Good one - you are catching on. Everyone has bills to pay, everyone just got paid, everyone has to pay bills with cash, ergo on Tuesday I had to go to like 9 banks to get cash to pay our bills. And every bank I went to that normally has US $ had none in their ATMs.

Guess 3: Lines are long to pay bills. Yeap. So after drawing out enough cash to pay all of our bills (I'm not going to paint an explicit picture here, but think about how big your monthly budget is and imagine carrying enough cash around to pay all those bills in one day all over the city.....) you have to stand in line in various places to pay them. Tuition, for example, has to be paid at the same bank where the school has their account. Not any branch, either - it has to be their branch. Then to another bank to pay another bill, and a kiosk to pay for the newspaper, and ... finally to a pharmacy to pay all the other bills. So, imagine, a yanqui (Yankee) walking around town carrying god knows how much cash on him trying not to look conspicous and hoping that this isn't the day that he is personally introduced to the world of crime in Buenos Aires. And for good measure, I'm listening to my iPod just to make sure I don't look like I might have something worth stealing. About once every block it crosses my mind that I'm carrying an absurd amount of cash around and feel explicitly conspicous about it. Even know I'm convinced that someone is reading this and thinking "Now I know who to rob next month!!!"

Anyway, the point of all of this is something that I think underscores a really cool part of the Argentine culture. The other day I was standing in an absurdly long line to use the ATM - the one ATM on Callao that a) accepts my bank card (which is rare) and b) has cash in it since it is the 3rd day of the month - hence the long line. This old dude walks in - you know this guy - he's got a cane, a hat that Frank Sinatra wore (I don't mean the type of hat, he actually has Sinatra's hat), a jacket that was made from the leftover fabric during the war (that would be the first world war), and glasses that remind you that once upon a time, sodas were bottled in glass. In short, he's like 436 years old. The guy walks in and doesn't realize there is a line and goes to stand next to the ATM. Now at this particular ATM, I believe you can do more than just take out cash, because people seem to be doing a lot of things and taking a long time to do them. It seems that they are paying bills, transferring money, buying cell phone cards, ordering dinner, reading the news, and surfing the internet for porn. So while this is going on, the old dude realizes there is a line, and apologizes to everyone (or no one in particular) and starts to move the back of the line. Everyone in line says "No no no, please go first - it's fine!" Only in spanish. I don't think he would've understood it if everyone said it in english. So there's a polite "No no, yes yes, no no" back and forth until the guy in front says "Listen, you don't have a lot of time left in this world, please go first" and he graciously accepts and thanks everyone. Meanwhile, the woman is finishing up her search for porn sites with news on Anna Nicole Smith's pregnancy, and takes out her cash and leaves. Apparently, this guy has never used an ATM before. Seriously. Three people in line help this guy with everything he has to do (including enter his PIN twice because he put it in wrong the first time) and at each step they all politely look away while he enters his PIN or selections or whatever. And when he's done, he graciously thanks everyone again, and everyone says "Oh no, please, it's nothing" and he's off on his way. After he's gone, people go back to patiently waiting for the next person to look up the measurements of this month's centerfold while trying to figure out how much cash he needs to take out to pay all of his bills. And nobody seems disturbed, miffed, or mutters a thing about the old man. One woman turned to me and remarked at how nice the old man was.

I think a scene like this in DC would go as follows. People walk in and see a long line and start swearing. If 30 seconds pass before the person is finished taking cash out, people start making comments with increasing volume about how long it's taking to take money out - first with loud sighs, then comments like "How hard is it to use the ATM?" If the old dude were to walk in and stand next to the ATM, at best someone would politely point out the long line, and direct him to the end. And then if he got to the front and didn't know how to use it, he would've been shot.

Unless, of course, he's escorted by three guys in dark suits, sunglasses, and with earpieces, in which case everyone would whisper "I thought Strom Thurmond was dating Anna Nicole Smith - where is she???"