Buenos Aires Moonrise

February remains hot, with daytime temperatures usually in the mid 30s. The early evening brings a welcome coolness to our barrio. The birds are noisy and then quiet, traffic seems to subside (though it never really subsides much at all), and many portenos prepare to walk and dine after the sun sets. These photos were taken in the large parks area referred to as los Bosques de Palermo (the Palermo Woods).

Amauta Spanish School ~ Mate: Argentina's drink

Today during my class at the Amauta Spanish School, Cesar introduced us to the Argentine national drink called mate (pronounced mat-ay). This is a drink often shared with friends. It is made from a rather large bunch of yerba leaves, twigs and stems (in Argentina, yerba is pronounced share-bah) and hot water. The water is hot, never boiling. The yerba is put into a gourd and the water is added. Often it is a bit harsh or strong tasting at first, and sugar is added, and more water, usually from a thermos bottle (called a termo). It is a process to develop a smooth tasting drink, and it seems a personal, daily quest to achieve that perfect mate.

The flavour of mate is reminiscent of green tea, though with a more freshly mowed lawn kind of taste. Maybe a lawn with quite a few weeds. Not to every one's liking.

The metal straw is called a bombilla (pronounced bome-bee-cha). The metal straw has a filter-like thing on the end so one doesn't swallow a bunch of the yerba leaves and stems. Something to be avoided apparently.

Mate is everywhere in this city, but due to the nature of personal taste, and the need to share that perfect taste, it isn't served in cafes or restaurants. It is common to see relaxing taxi drivers sharing a gourd of mate at any hour of the day or night, or to see young people in a park passing a gourd around, with its bombilla, adding hot water from a termo. Thermos bottle sales in this country must be astronomical.

In every mercado I've been in, the shelf space provided yerba is as much as that offered coffee, more in some cases. Yerba mate is a big deal indeed.

Amauta Spanish School ~ First Day of School

Sherry's first day of school began early in the morning with a long walk to the Amauta Spanish School. Well, actually it began with a macchiato and a medialuna at a cafe near the apartment, and then the long walk. It was a beautiful day, with a just a hint of autumn in the air.

Sherry arrives and like every student on the first day, poses for a photo and then enters the building to meet others in her class.

Sherry meets one of her classmates. Mika is from Holland, as are many others at the school, including the two young fellows to the right, Luuk and Wessal. They speak Dutch, German, English and a bit of French. They have finished high school and are taking a year to travel before going to university. I have socks older than these guys.




Sherry, first in the classroom (five others will arrive soon), meets her first teacher of the morning, Magali. After two intense hours with Magali, she will meet the charming, and humorous, Cesar, and spend another two hours in class.





So you might ask "Where is Jeem in all of this?" and "What was the result of our faithful correspondent's placement?" Well, Sherry and I are not in the same class, that's for sure. More about my experiences at language school,and the great activities they have us doing, later.

Photos by Jeem. Copyright 2013 by Jim Murray.

Amauta Spanish School ~ Placement Test

The thought of taking language lessons came up one day. "Oh, that's a great idea," I said perhaps too quickly. I had been in South America before, long ago, and took a course, of sorts, ahead of that trip, and the idea of taking a class while in-country seemed an even better idea. One gets to use his, or her, new found conversational skills immediately, and thereby learns the language even more quickly. Yes, it seemed a good idea.

That was a week or two ago. The Google has since provided the answers to all our questions, excepting how to actually speak Spanish of course, and we are off to visit a school in Belgrano, a bit to the north, or is it to the west, of our apartment in Palmero? If, after an entire month in Buenos Aires, I still can't even tell directions, how am I going to manage with language lessons?

Our "interview" with the school's office manager went well enough. In fact, the school, Amauta Spanish School is small, friendly and rather charming. And then she took our money.

"Okay. Now what happens?" I queried, in my best combination of Spanish and English, with possibly a bit of French thrown in to keep things interesting.

"Well," Maria responded, "You need to take a placement test."
"A placement test? Aren't we in the beginners class?"
"Ah, no Jeem, "We have many classes and we want to place you in the right class for the level of your ability and comprehension. Sherry might be more advanced, or you might be..." Maria's sentence didn't finish for some reason.

Ability and comprehension. Not necessarily a good combination, nor even good on their own come to think of it, but never mind, she has our money after all.

"How long will this placement test take?"
"About fifteen of your minutes Jeem."

After a brief consultation with Sherry, we agreed to take the placement tests that very day. Why come back, when we can do it now.

The test was a simple two page thing. In fact, page one offered only ten questions and multiple choice at that. That's easy enough. What are my odds if I have to guess at every question? And what are the odds of me having to guess at all ten?


Page two of the placement test asked the student to write, in Spanish, one paragraph, using as much of the language as the person might know.



What can I say? I did my best. The multiple choice: easy. However,  while writing my paragraph, which really amounted to random words patched together without any real sentence structure, I realized, very clearly in fact, that less would ultimately be better. That the more words I put down on paper would only make it look worse. Less, but of some quality (and I hoped these were actual words I was putting to paper), would serve my cause. I looked over at Sherry's paper and she appeared to have an actual paragraph in place; sentences that seemed to have subjects, and predicates, and the use of feminine and masculine. Oy vey, I thought to myself.

We took our papers to Maria for marking. Obviously my thoughts about multiple choice weren't altogether correct. I might have had better odds with the Loteria Nacional. Hell, my odds are better on the lottery. Ten questions. Ten wrong answers. In fact, I had originally answered one question correctly and changed it to a wrong answer!

As for my paragraph of chicken scratch... well, it provided some humour for the early afternoon. My one real sentence, "La cuenta por favor," was applauded, as was my listing of a number of wines of Argentina, but my attempt at developing a conversation on the page provoked a polite but not quite suppressed laugh.

"Gracias senor."
"Da nada."
"No, da nada."
"No! Da nada!"
Oy vey.

Maria was gracious, gentle and supportive too I would suggest. Obviously Sherry will be placed in a slightly more advanced beginner's class. My fate is less clear. I'm thinking my class might be taking a number of out-trips, to the zoo for example, or the park perhaps. One day we might make bird houses. Painting might be a good activity, or simple drawing.

Our classes start soon, and we won't know our placements until that very day.

Book Review: Canada by Richard Ford

I'm not sure how I came to the American writer Richard Ford so late in the scheme of things. It was only recently I came upon his most recent novel, Canada. Why I hadn't been reading this wonderful writer long before is one of those unknown unknowns that Donald Rumsfeld must have been talking about. I have been missing some terrific storytelling indeed.

"Children know normal better than anyone else," says Del Parsons, narrator of this rather forlorn novel, and the book proceeds to investigate what that normal might look like, through the eyes of the teenager. The book's opening lines are brilliant. "First, I'll tell you about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later."

Set at the beginning of the sixties, the story tells the strange tale of Del, his twin sister Berner, and their parents, mother Neeva and father Bev. The portraits of Neeva and Bev are masterpieces. Neeva is an aspiring writer who somehow gets mixed up with wartime fly-boy Bev, who is haunted by what he did in the war. How they turn to crazed and desperate measures to solve rather simple difficulties is amazing, funny and sad. Pathetic actually.

There is a soft slowness to this book, a flatness that seems to match the landscape of first Montana, and then Saskatchewan. The characters that reside in the second half of the novel, the Saskatchewan half, are incredibly written, reminding me of some of the actors that live in books by Cormac McCarthy. There is a weirdness, and certainly at times an undercurrent of wrongness, perhaps evil, in several of the people Del meets. The landscape Ford paints of southern Saskatchewan, near the Cypress Hills, is true and clear. The air smells right and the skies are never ending. Our young Del, comes to appreciate, and so do we, the distance and emptiness of the land. And to accept his place in that land.

Canada is rich and beautiful. It catches the grinding sadness and loneliness of what a life can often be. And normal, at least for Del, is determined, in the end. Difficult to put down, Canada is a work that lives with the reader long after.