The Gringo Treatment: BsAs

I’m laying in bed at the El Sol hostel I hear the “happy birthday” song (in English) being sang by drunk, loud Americans and I’m not surprised. For years, Buenos Aires has been the jumping off point for many U.S. and European tourists wishing to explore South America. But each holiday season and summer more are coming; and more are staying. I hear English everywhere and when I attempt to converse in native toungue, I am rebuked by an Argentine who is staying in Buenos Aires “to learn English man!” Not to say this city doesn’t have a great deal of charm and amazing things to do, but I feel they are changing.

Tuesday night, we went to Peña de Colorado, a cozy alcove where Argentine Folk legends like the late Mercedes Sosa got started. My brother had been two times before, in ’05 and in ’08 and had gushed to me about the quality of food, live music and jam sessions that happened nightly. I first started to suspect something when our waiter informed us that they were out of the “cheap bottles of wine under 30 pesos. Our parilladada (assortment of grilled meats) looked impressive when we received it but upon further inspection it appeared that we had gotten the “gringo treatment.”

If you ever find yourself in a tourist spot in South America NEVER order the assortment, this same thing happened to me in Uruguay(see Anthony Bourdain is a Liar). When we told the waiter that this was a subpar assortment of fat, he shrugged and said he would tell the chef. Gringo treatment was confirmed when we got our bill, we were charged for an extra bottle of wine and extra empanadas, a difference of about $20 dollars. My brother, whose previous experiences at the Peña had put him in a deep funk, called the waiter out for trying to short us which was met with another “not my problem” shrug before changing the bill. The gringo treament continued, both with hassles from our hostel owner and the owner of a bar who “jokingly” said he would spit in our faces if we were American (Brent said we were Canadian).

This was only one experience, but both my brother and I have found gringo treatments occurring in far more places (hostels, restaurants, bars)in Buenos Aires than in the rest of the country. I fear that BsAs is getting “tapped out” by the increasing number of tourists visiting and increasing number of locals that try to take advantage of them. It’s endemic in both Peru and Costa Rica and it’s why I could never live in either of those countries: 50+ years of tourism + persistent poverty and inflow of rich tourists = the gringo treatment. The only difference in Argentina is that they may not know you’re a tourist until you order a choripan in broken Spanish.

Part of my reasoning in going to Colombia is to check out something that hasn’t been tamped down by the tourist Teva just yet. To my delight, the biggest tourist critique on Colombia hasn’t been safety issues rather, but the lack of people that speak English. Now I’m going to go throw some earplugs to try and drown out the cries for “Jaegerbombs” and Kanye West blasting in the background.

Radio Bemba Buenos Aires

"Tonight I dream about fraternity
 Tonight I say: one day!
 One day my dreams will be reality
 Like Bobby said to me
 Hey Bobby Marley
 Sing something good to me
 This world go crazy
 It's an emergency.”   –Manu Chao, Mr. Bobby

Never have I seen someone enjoy themselves on stage like Manu Chao and his band. He seems to let the music take him to a place only performers like Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye seem to have found while on stage. I will admit that many the songs sounded a bit similar (reggae/folk with punk/ska breaks), making the concert at times sound like one long Manu Chao song. But I’ll give it to him, the man knows his audience and he knows how to work ‘em.

From a Public Diplomacy perspective, it’s remarkable to see how a Parisian who also claims Barcelona as home can have such a powerful influence in Latin America. While he does have Peruvian heritage, his credibility is enhanced by his songs’ focus on indigenous movements and against foreign exploitation in Latin America. Singing in 4 languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, English), is another way he has been able to win over Latin American publics.

While Manu’s “Third World Solidarity” may not have as large an impact in Euro-centric Argentina, he was able to make time for announcements from two Argentine civil society groups during the concert. He closed out the show by bringing them all back onstage for a 30-minute encore, praising the Pachamama (Mother Earth).

When I was in Uruguay, the owner of my hostel showed me this video of Manu in Cabo Polonio helping to raise awareness about government destruction of some of the houses there; and it must have helped as it was just made into a national park 3 months ago:

Halloween in BsAs

So for the weekend, I headed out to BsAs for my bi-monthly lifeline of some quality Yanqui time with my 5 college buddies living in Palermo. The break from Spanish is obviously nice, as are the spicy food and American Football that come with hanging with gringos. And hey, one of them works for the "Buenos Aires Pub Crawl," so we had our Halloween festivities taken care of.

So I saddled up alongside ninja, ducky, hoopster, beach bum, grim reaper (on crutches) and "backwards man" and we headed to the Pub Crawl. Doing a pub crawl in BsAs is like...well, a pub crawl in the US for that matter: beer, dancing, hiinks on the way to the next club and of course, being loud and obnoxious in the street. Everyone who worked there was speaking English, along with the 95% of tourists who are from English speaking countries.

The interesting part were the Colombians (about 7 or 8) who made up the total Latin American contingent of the Pub Crawl. Colombians are great to talk to as they usually have a better opinion of Yanquis AND speak my preferred type of Spanish (very clearly and with a neutral accent). As I'll be going to Colombia in January, I will devote some postings to current events in Colombia as well as other musings of what's going on with Latin America.

To top off my gringo weekend, we ended up at one of two sports bars in the city that show American Football on Sundays. Since my team (Seahawks) seem to be having a stinker of a year, it's easier for me to be less involved in Football and just have fun watching the games. My friend Ellery, happens to be from Minnesota and has been going to one of these two bars every Sunday to cheer on his 7-1 Vikings. Makes me kind of glad the Seahawks aren't doing better, as I can now focus on having some level of productivity on Sundays.