Argentina. Te Amo.
This week I passed the two-month mark of living in South America. It is the longest I have been in a single country (outside of the United States) and the longest I’ve stayed put in a single city. Holy wow, has this been an experience!
A few nights ago I laid down in bed with Tony. We had been speaking in Spanish the entire evening. Before I closed my eyes, I said “I love you.” I can’t bear to utter the words “Te amo,” which means I love you in Spanish. The language – every single broken Spanish word I mutter – sounds like a cartoon in my head. Tony laughs when I tell him this, of course, but if I were to close my eyes and never open them again, I wouldn’t want my last words to be that of a cartoon. They have to be real, and right now, I’ve got a reality and a cartoon simultaneously playing in my head.
I am spending about four hours a day with instructors, intensively drilling words and phrases into my head. I have learned an immense amount. Of course, I’ve acquired some of the language, although I admittedly have quite a ways to go, but I’ve learned more about these strangers crossing paths in my life than I could have ever imagined. We talk about everything – climate change, artificial intelligence, food, religion, diversity and inclusion, boyfriends, girlfriends, families, travel, politics. We go into great detail about anything that seems to keep us engaged. At the end of every session, I always walk away with new information to share with Tony. Often, I wonder if what I’m communicating back is being received well, not because we would have a difference in opinion, which I’m sure we have at some points, but rather because I don’t have the vocabulary to effectively communicate my thoughts, views, opinions on a topic. I mean, in all seriousness, I have a hard time effectively and intelligently conversing about artificial intelligence in English, and now I’m trying to have a conversation about a robust topic in Spanish when I don’t even know the words for most produce items in a supermarket. It’s been two months and I’ve been told that some semblance of fluency takes six to twelve months. I’m not convinced it’s possible, but I suppose there is only one way to find out…
When we decided to move our life to South America for whatever length of time it ends up being, we tossed around all sorts of ideas on what our housing would look like. In the end, we decided to use AirBNBs which allowed us the flexibility to experience different neighborhoods, and at times, different cities and countries. Our current AirBNB is in a neighborhood called Palermo. The streets here are lined with restaurants and cafes, and we’ve vowed to not eat at the same place twice. It’s been an easy feat, and with hundreds more places to try, I have no doubt we’ll continue to eat our way through the streets of Palermo.
Two blocks from where we are staying – and we’ve been here for almost two months – is a butcher. Tony visits every Monday morning to get fresh meat for the week, a concept so different than the way my American mind works. Why wouldn’t you just get your meat at the supermarket? I’ve been told ‘it’s fresher from the butcher.’
There is a local ice cream shop on the same block and it’s become our Sunday evening routine to visit there, the only place we have eaten at twice. They know us well there! Amazon delivery doesn’t exist in Argentina, so when we wanted a new pillow and blanket for the bed, we spent an entire Sunday walking from store to store to find something suitable. The conveniences of a department store or delivery is a foreign concept here, but the experience of walking through a neighborhood, stopping for a coffee, and experiencing a culture while shopping for a pillow is a foreign, but much welcomed, concept for me.
In our bathroom – and all bathrooms in Argentina – is a bidet. There is immense influence from Italy in Buenos Aires, and when the Italians migrated to Argentina, they brought their customs with them – pizza, pasta, bidets, and so much more. The bidets in the bathrooms are not what many Americans would be accustomed to, where the device could be attached to an existing toilet. Rather, they are their own separate device, much like a separate toilet. Anyway, because of the size of the bidet, the bathroom is quite…full. And because of the limited space, I can’t get directly to the toilet from my wheelchair. It’s become quite an ordeal, not just in this AirBNB, but in all restrooms in Argentina. The doors won’t close, I often have to get out of my wheelchair, transfer to the edge of the bidet, and then finally transfer again to the toilet. I’ve stopped thinking about what a bidet is actually used for, knowing that I quite simply have no other option but to use it as a stool, and knowing all too well that I must continue to hydrate myself, and thus, bounce around all of the bathroom devices several times a day.
On the opposite side of the bidet and the toilet is the bathtub with a shower. Weeks ago, on our first night in this AirBNB, we realized that I would need a stool to sit on in the shower. Much like the pillow and blanket, we scoured the city on foot searching for a plastic stool that could work as a shower stool for me. The sun had set after about ten hours of searching and I had given up when we walked by an office supply store and Tony yelled, “There it is!” It was perfect, technically a plastic step stool that would serve wonderfully as a seat for me to shower with each day.
The next morning, bright and early, I hopped onto the bidet, then onto the toilet, and finally made my way into the shower. I sat on the plastic step stool and waited while the water warmed. Right as I was lathering my hair, soaking wet with my eyes closed to avoid soap getting into them, the stool slipped out from under me, throwing itself behind me and dropping me rapidly and unexpectedly onto the shower floor. I rubbed my eyes clean of soap, felt my tailbone, and looked up at Tony, who had rushed into the bathroom with the sudden bang of so many things. “This isn’t going to work,” I said with defeat.
I finished rinsing the soap out of my hair and crawled, soaking wet, to the toilet back to the bidet and finally to my wheelchair. Tony and I spent the next few hours brainstorming on a solution. The plastic seat wasn’t going to work…the plastic gave in when it got warm from the water. I remembered that I had once used a small tripod camping chair, the legs made of metal and the seat of a durable cloth. We spent the next afternoon scouring the city – again – for a seat that allowed me to shower. We went home with nothing. The next morning, while Tony worked, I was on a mission. I had found a camping supply store online and I made the 15 minute walk to this store, showed the gentleman working a picture of what I was trying to find, and wheeled myself home with a tripod camping stool.
Nowadays, while I still bounce from the bidet to the toilet to the shower, and back again when done, I do have a sturdy seat and have been able to successfully shower over and over. And I haven’t fallen again!
A few weeks ago I was chatting with my sister about my journey, not just my travels but my path to authenticity and coming into my being, finding myself within my own skin. She commented, so nonchalantly, how cool it was to see how much I’ve changed in the past year. I asked her what she meant, not really feeling much different. She pointed out that I had new friends all over the world who really cared, who loved following me, who I talk about all of the time (even though they have absolutely no idea), who might see my wheelchair but don’t care – at all – and I realized that this amazing circle of people in my life really has changed me. They haven’t changed who I am – I’ve always been me – but instead, they’ve allowed me to spread my wings and they are cheering me on. Complete strangers a year ago, and people I hold near and dear to my heart today. For one of the first times in my life, I’ve made a conscious decision on what ‘my circle’ includes, and I’m telling you, it’s so different than I could have ever imagined!
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation my sister and I had sitting at a table in scorching heat in Colombia (that’s a story I still have to write). I kind of thought my journey to self-discovery was coming to a close. After all, how much more could I discover after a year of traveling the world alone? And yet, here I am, still learning more about myself, the world, and it’s amazing people. In an ironic way, slowing down here in one place and processing what I thought I already knew has become an even more confusing part of my journey. But maybe that’s because I have a cartoon constantly playing in my mind, scratching at the walls to become my reality!