San Telmo

San Telmo is the barrio where I live here in Buenos Aires, and it doesn’t get many tourists on the weekdays.  On Sundays, you’re as likely to hear English as Spanish on the street, especially at the antiques fair, the ferria.  On weekdays, I’ve seen lots of school kids wearing what looks like lab coats—perhaps they have the world’s most intensive biology-training program for elementary school-age kids.  Often, you see huge groups of them at the same time, but somehow without giving the impression that they’re on a field trip.

The area seems very family-oriented.  At all hours (really—the other night, I saw the playground in the park nearby with a bunch of kids playing on the swing set and jungle gym at about 11:00 as their parents watched on), mothers walking around with their kids.  The other day, I saw two really cute mother-daughter interactions.  Well, the first was really just about this incredibly cute chubby girl (maybe four?) reaching her hand out for her mom, but her mother was carrying bags and not close enough to grab her daughter’s hand.  And then she kept her hand up, but stared at me as I couldn’t help but smile at her.  The other, right in front of my apartment, a mother seemed to be trying to motivate her even younger daughter to follow her, by saying ‘chau chau chau,’ and then running up ahead.  The daughter was fake-crying and whining.  The mother had a wonderful smile and was very pregnant, which made her running even more impressive.

It’s not super-high fashion down here and few suits on the men.  There are not a lot of the kinds of businesses that require that kind of attire.  They wear a lot of denim, but it somehow looks more European than North American.  Perhaps that’s because they’re neither schlubby about it, as we can be in the States, nor wearing them at or below their pelvis.  Women almost uniformly dress in tight clothes, except for women of grandmother-age, who wear dresses.  Otherwise, it’s mostly pants for the women, skirts for the girls (school-age). 

Just one block east of my apartment is Parque Lezama, and I go there often to read.  Entering the part nearest my apartment (which I only realized I could enter after about a month), there is a bright playground like when I was a kid—metal painted in primary colors, swings, jungle gym, etc.  Up to the left there’s a grassy slope with a few trees, which is where I go to read.  The park is sliced up by concrete paths, and where I sit about halfway up the center section, there were paths about thirty feet away on either side, and one cutting perpendicular to them at the bottom of the hill.  It’s surprisingly steep—it would work for sledding if it ever snowed enough here.  There are a few trees—smooth-barked beeches or birches, I think, trees with rough bark that might have been oak.  In a different area, there are evergreens, but not near where I sit.  Thebuds are starting to show on the trees.  The grass is not terribly thick—there are brown patches (from which the dew burns off quicker than the green areas) and at the bottom of the slope the trees grow mostly out of dry, sand-colored dirt.  In front of me, away maybe a hundred feet, is a monument that looks like the charred smokestack of an ocean liner.

Today it was perfectly comfortable in shirtsleeves—the sun was not too hot, the wind was not too strong.  It was, in fact, a perfect temperature.  The path across the bottom of the slope is popular for people with wheeled things—bicycles, skateboards, even one girl wearing in-line skates.  There were kids sitting on skateboards racing down the slope and trying to turn onto the path with greater or lesser success.  A lot of kids have soccer balls—whether at their feet or in their hands.  Orange ones seem to be popular.  There are also a ton of dogs—it’s incredible, especially when you’re feeling down, how happy a dog can seem.  There was one little guy just running around and around in big circles, taunting a big German Shepherd, or maybe asking him to play.  Another was playing fetch and just so damn pleased with himself.

There were three different kinds of birds I noticed; pigeons, some of whom are fearless and come right up to you.  A pretty though not terribly colorful bird just a little smaller than pigeon; and beautiful green birds sized between a parrot and a parakeet I was told is called a loro.  Many times I’ve seen these birds chew off relatively big twigs at the ends of branches and fly away with them.  It’s funny to see a bird carry off something twice its length.  Today, one of them was looking for the perfect piece for a long time.  He’d try one, either give up or change his mind, then try another.  When he finally got the one he wanted, he had to maneuver himself so he could fly without losing his twig, trying to free himself of the branches so he could take off.  He looked annoyed.  Another bird, this one the plain-looking type, was close to me pecking at the ground.  He pecked pecked pecked, and then his whole head disappeared into the ground.  There was a broken sprinkler there where it was getting water, I think, but I didn’t realize that, and was surprised when the bird’s head disappeared.