Day Three -- Learning about Argentine Politics

We walked to Plaza de Mayo, the main square where demonstrations and large political speeches are held. On Thursdays the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo march here to demand justice for (or at least full disclosure of) the crimes committed during the country’s Dirty War (76-83). Their children were “disappeared” as part of the military government’s attempt to squash the leftist opposition movement through kidnapping, torture, and murder of an estimated 30,000 individuals. It was a moving and thought-provoking experience. One bizarre aspect of this war was that the young children of the murdered were sometimes “adopted” by members of the ruling government. Even stranger is that the Argentine Catholic Church staunchly supported the government even though some nuns and priests were victims.

On a lighter note, we had two great taxi drivers today who were very talkative- one, whose wife is in remission from cancer, told us about the national health insurance you can pay into here. Tumultuous and corrupt as its history is, at least everyone in this country can buy affordable health insurance! Food today: delicious empanadas (a staple here) for lunch and “Mexican food” for dinner. Not truly Mexican, but not bad. The shocking thing was that they gave us only a tiny basket of chips and when we tried to order two entrees the waitress said, “That’s too much food for you- it’s a big plate.” When the plate came we saw she was right. They really have a healthy concept of portion size. No wonder we are the fattest people we have seen here!

Finally, I’ve made friends with the house cat- Gretta. She likes to hang out on our bed. Today she decided to curl up on a pair of Thomas’ dirty underwear. Just when we thought she couldn’t get any grosser, we caught her drinking from the toilet.

-Elva