Argentina. Mi Corazon Se Rompe (My Heart Breaks)

I was sitting in a restaurant with Tony having a quite intense debate about how to say “I watch a movie” in Spanish.  I was adamant that my way was correct – Yo miro una pelicula – and he was adamant that his way was correct – Yo veo una pelicula.  Finally, I suggested that we get a third opinion.  We asked the waitress, and guess what?  I was correct!  Oh my god, I was finally learning…and it was sticking! (In Tony’s defense, there are some regional differences in Spanish, so technically we were both correct, but I’m still taking this one as a win!)

I sit one-on-one with three different professors – Victoria B, Tatiana, and Victoria H – every week day learning this language.  Each session is an hour to two hours, meaning I spend about four hours a day in language classes.  Sometimes I’m learning the technicalities of the language, but most times, we’re simply talking.  We talk about climate change, depression, politics, families, food, death, life.  We talk about everything…and I think I’m actually getting a bit better!  If I’m being honest, I think the first few weeks were less of me learning Spanish and more of me learning how to learn again.  And more importantly, it was me learning how to learn a language, something I’ve never done before.  I had to let go of perfection, and man, this was hard!  For a few weeks, I was quite mute, not wanting to mess up a sentence or say the wrong word.  And now, I just blurt out words, right or wrong or confused.  It’s proven me well and is a much needed reminder that the rest of my life doesn’t need to be and will never be perfect either.  But if I’m trying…blurting out words with good intentions or just trying to navigate what my life should look like, the rest will come.  Messy, imperfect, and moving forward a little better every day.

On the day I write this, Argentina is in the middle of election season.  One week ago, the primary elections were held and the projected presidential winner in two months came as a shock to the country and to the world.  Inflation is at 115%, interest rates at 118%, and poverty at 40%.  The day after the election, the peso (their local currency) was devalued by 18% and interest rates increased by 21%.  In one day.

I talk at length with my professors about the economy and political situation.  Every time, I see and feel the fear they are going through.  They express to me how tired and frustrated the people in Argentina are.  How afraid they are.  How desperate they are for something to change.  My heart breaks…every single time I speak with them about this topic.  And yet, during each conversation, when I express how much I hate that it’s unfair, they respond back with a sentiment that ‘that’s just how the world is’ and they shrug their shoulders.  I know that ‘that’s just how the world is’ and I’ve had my own journey in accepting that, but man, I really wish I could change this for them.

A few days ago, my professor asked me what I was doing later that day.  I commented that I needed to go to the grocery and get food for the week.  She calmly told me that everyone she knows is buying food for at the least the next month, filling their freezers and shelves now, knowing that inflation is predicted to get worse in the next two months, with an even larger uncertainty looming post-election.  I asked her what people were voting on, what topics were driving their votes.  She quickly advised that it was economy and security.  I thought of my comfortable life in the United States and told her I couldn’t even begin to understand what inflation over 100% felt like, and being safe was something I took for granted more than I should.  The feelings of helplessness and gratitude both tug at my heart as I experience something so foreign to me.

Knowing that there’s nothing we can directly do to help the people here, Tony and I have made a conscious decision to spend our money in a way that can benefit at least a few people.  Since the day I arrived two and a half months ago, my exchange rate has gotten better by 60%.  That means it’s 60% cheaper for me to live here than it was just ten weeks ago…and it was already incredibly cheap then.  And every day it becomes more advantageous for me.  While Tony and I aren’t eating out every single day, we do often have dinner at local restaurants in the neighborhood.  A large salad with all the toppings cost me $5 to $7 USD.  A large steak is just a few dollars more.  It is cheap!  So we spend liberally, leaving tips larger than what we would normally, hoping a few extra dollars can help feed a family.

If you follow us on social media, you’ll see the incredible meals we often indulge in.  A number of people have asked if we’ve gained weight.  Ironically, I don’t know that we have.  Of course, we don’t have a scale, so there’s no way of actually knowing, but my suspicion is that we haven’t.  We walk everywhere.  Literally everywhere.  To the grocery store, to the pharmacy, to the local butcher shop a few blocks away, to small shops for things we might need on a whim, to each and every restaurant.  On a weekend day, it’s not unlike us to walk seven or eight miles, and each week day brings one to two miles.  The food is always fresh and never packaged.  Someday I might get on a scale again (or I might not), but in the meantime, I can go to sleep with some hope that the pasta I ate that night helped a family that might be struggling.

All of that being said, I am acutely aware that the economic situation for the next few months is a breeding ground for organized crime and violence.  I am keeping a close pulse on the state of the country, and while I highly, highly doubt it will get to the point where we need to leave, the thought has entered my mind.  I don’t actually know what I would do once I boarded a flight out of Argentina.  It’s not been quite three months and it feels like a home to me.  But then, so does Atlanta (where I lived before this journey), and so does Ohio (where I grew up), and so do so many other places in the world.  I’ve thought a lot about home, the place we create in our mind that feels safe, comfortable, and where we belong.  I realized when the thought of leaving entered my mind that we don’t really have a home.  Every place we go, every place we visit, every place we ‘live,’ is simply a place we are borrowing for a short period of time.  Maybe it’s a day, maybe it’s a few months, maybe it’s a lifetime, but at the end of it all, it’s never ours forever.  So while we are there, while we have it, we have nothing more than an obligation to respect it and enjoy every moment of the experience!