The Trip

       

           

October 23, 1971

Landed at B.A.  I am frantic  and I have blisters on my hand.  I am shocked to see that as I get off the plane, people are standing on top of the building shouting and yelling and waving their hands.  Nothing happens in customs.  I think I could be smuggling in anything.  I’m really scared because my plane is a day late, I don’t know where Lili is.  I was counting on her being at the airport to meet me.  Now I’m on my own.  I’m so tired as the Braniff representative gives me a slip of paper for a meal, a taxi and a night in a hotel. 

I’m so surprised at how cold it is.  I call Lili from the hotel.  Her English is SO good and I’m stunned at how little Spanish I can understand – like NOTHING.  But she tells me her mother is in Buenos Aires, and she will call me.  I go to the bathroom and find a toilet and something like a toilet. (Lili explains later that it is a bidet!)

I sit by the phone and her mother calls.  I understand nothing.  She comes to my door.  I am so relieved to see a face that is smiling and calling my name that I cry.  She and a friend take care of cancelling my ticket.  We go to Florida street – there are NO cars – just people walking and lots of colorful flowers.  I’m really kind of dazed.  Everything is so different, so strange.  Streets are grey.  I feel like I’m in a movie.  Then we go to the train station.  It is HUGE and noisy – newspaper vendors yelling – a million people at least – little boys in short pants.  Lili’s mother gets a ticket, and we get on the train.  Just like in 1940 movies.  It is well—lit with red plush seats and green walls.  Mrs. Bassi explains about me to the porter and he says that he will take care of me.  A man listening in says that he speaks English and will watch after me.  Much much much hustle and bustle.  As I ride, I feel awkward and really tired and really grateful that people are watching after me.  I eat a sandwich with ham and cheese on a hard kind of biscuit and drink orange soda.

The train ride is forever.  We finally get there at 11:00.  I don’t remember Lili being so little, her hair is long; she looks like my cousin Marilyn.  We get in their citroen.  NOBODY USES HEADLIGHTS.  Streets seem so small. One street is blocked by police (Lili says because of urban guerillas!! And she says it so casually…wha??)  We stop and park. Or rather Milko pulls into a tiny space and proceeds to bump the car in front, backs up and bumps the one in back.

I don’t see a house. Lili goes to a door in a solid wall and opens it. We go upstairs to her mother’s house—my house for the next 3 months.

I am struck by the dining room with its massive, carved furniture and lots of silver shining with touches of deep red and chandliers hanging. There are windows across the front of the dining and living room that lookdown on the narrow streets. I look down at the parquet floors with colored rugs as rooms pop up in unexpected places. The patio has windows that open out with no screens. Lili shows me my room – there is a fur on the bed. Tiny furniture. I’m ready to go to bed. However,…

Lili (whose English is SO good and Milko (who speaks faster than anybody in the world) and I go to eat. We walk down narrow streets on narrow sidewalks filled with lots of people for about two blocks to a restaurant. Inside, I am struck by the white tablecloths and waiters with white coats—lots of waiters in white coats—lots of hustle and bustle. There is a formal-informal feeling to the place. We take the food—wrapped in paper like meat used to be—back home where I meet Alberto and Graciela—they come to have coffee with us. She kisses me on the cheek; she has an interesting face and a crackly voice, one octave lower than normal, that is enchanting. I understand nothing.

They leave and I finally get into my fur-covered bed at 4:00 AM.

Looking Back

Present Day Reflections

As I re-read my journal from over 50 years ago, I see my younger self going through the throes of severe culture shock and having Culture Bump after Culture Bump. And today, I think of all of the people that I have had the chance to help pass through cultural adjustment—both folks coming into the USA as well as Americans going to other countries—with more compassion and awareness than I had for myself in 1971. That experience was transformational, not just for me but for so many others whose paths I have crossed in the following decades.

  Furthermore, even though I struggled with Spanish on a minute to minute basis while in Argentina and was constantly confused – except when I was with Liliana, I was acquiring a foundation in a language that I still treasure today and which provided me with my first professional job – as a bi-lingual social worker with Houston Independent School District when I returned to the USA.  For at least a year after my return to Houston, my second language continued to emerge—I would find myself in the home of a client and suddenly a Spanish word would appear—as if by magic—and I would recall having heard it in the marketplace in Argentina. So truly as I reflect on the past years, what I did not know in that September of 1971 was that I was embarking on an experience that would genuinely change my life and set the tone for a career and life that continues to the present.