Now that the weather gods have answered my prayers and have cooled the earth off, just a little bit, my desire to leave my beloved city is about nil. It is an unpleasant trip that is awaiting me, as I have to install my first born in an apartment at the other side of the world. He has decided to trade the 3th world for 1st world again, leaving his mom (and father and sister) behind. I know, it is the normal flow of life. It is not unusual for an almost 19 year old to chose his own direction in life, different -and in our case, very far-  from that of your parents. But still, for the last 19 years this boy has been a non stop part of my life, we have never been apart for more then 2 weeks in a row, and now we won’t see each other (in person) for at least 7 or 8 months. That is a definitely big change.

I have picked out 5 days to do it all : buy furniture, do all the “tramites” like apply for ID, get health insurance, enrol in university, get drivers license and a lot more. Living in this inefficient slow country that Argentina is, I figured that would be enough. But well, I realise (much too late, of course) that life in Belgium isn’t that magically fast either. And it starts off well : the first day of the 5, there will be a national strike.

In Belgium there are no piqueteros, but we have national strikes. In general this means that all the state run offices and companies, and a lot of big (multinational) companies and factories, don’t work. The most important being the public transport. The strikers don’t go out on the street with drums to molest the people by blocking the roads. That is forbidden. They just stay at home to watch tv all day while the rest of the world is forced to take his car out and drive to work, thus paralysing the already congested roads and highways. It is a day that people are recommended to not leave their house, if possible, to avoid complete chaos.

Meanwhile I am still not packing. Any excuse is good to leave the house and walk through the streets of this city that I love so much, and I think about my son. How he will not be able too see all this for a long time, and I realise I couldn’t exchange this city for any other yet, I would miss it like crazy…

And my son? Well I guess it’s just time for me to let him go. Isn’t that what a mom is suppose to do eventually?

Centro cultural Borges, on San Martin and Viamonte.

Now I know why all the Argentines leave the city in January. The streets are empty, you can cross the streets even when the lights are red as there is no traffic anyway. Many restaurants are empty. Apartments are locked up. And when you want to organize something with your friends, you must wait. Until when? February? Probably better until March, when life will slowly get back to normal, and when temperatures get bearable again.

Now, one should be by the pool or on the beach… Will put that on my to do list for next year.

Fortunately, apart from French, he speaks very well English. At least if you go to the late night show in the movie theatre. Then you get the subtitled original version of the Steven Spielbergs latest movie.
It’s a nice adventure movie, with Mission Impossible type of scenes, but then funny, and pirates of the Carabean scenes, but then I certainly prefer Captain Sparrow (or rather Johnny Depp) as he is far more sexy then Captain Haddock.

I avoid all action movies, as I really don’t like all those bloody scenes, but Mission Impossible is an exception to that. This last one I particularly like, as everything goes wrong. For once the mission really was impossible. Tom Cruise is (next to Johnny Depp) one of my favourite actors…

Today is Gauchito Gil day. Did you ever wonder who or what those red ribbons at the side of the roads are for? Well, they are places to worship this saint, to ask him for favours and to let him know what you will do in return. Although he is considered a saint, he isn’t recognised as one by the catholic church, but that doesn’t have any influence on his popularity here in Argentina.

Gauchito Gil was a real person. There are several legends about his live. Some parts are facts and others are uncertain and, made up? This is one version :

Once upon a time there was a gaucho called Antonio Mamerto Gil Nuñez, who had a love affair with a wealthy widow who was engaged to a policeman. When her brothers found out, they accused him of theft and wanted to kill him. He ran off and joined the army to fight the Paraguayans. After the war he went back to his town as a hero, but still he wasn’t wanted, and was forced to go back into the army to fight in the civil war, against his own people. But he was tired of fighting and he deserted, and thus became an outlaw and had the reputation of being some kind of Robin Hood, helping the people in need. When the police finally caught him they hung him upside down in a tree, and just before they cut his throat, Gil told the police agent that his son was seriously ill, and that if he would pray for him, he would cure the child and it would live.
When the police officer arrived home he found his child seriously ill. He got scared and started praying for gaucho Gil, and his son recovered.

This was on January 8, 1878. Since that day it became popular to pray for Gauchito Gill to cure one of your beloved ones. There are hundreds or maybe thousands of little chapels or praying places alongside the roads. Some big, some small. Easy recognisable at the red ribbons. But the main chapel is in Mercedes, Corrientes. Where every year thousands of people go to pray.

Here is one of the prayers for Gauchito Gil :

OH! Gauchito Gil
Te pido humildemente
Se cumpla por intermedio
Ante Dios, el milagro que te pido:
Y te prometo que cumpliré
Mi promesa y ante Dios
Te haré ver,
Y te brindaré mi fiel agradecimiento
Y demostración de Fe
En Dios y en vos Gauchito Gil
Amén

My husband said I was crazy. Said I should be careful. ‘Does your teacher know how old you are?’ What the heck??? If my teacher thinks I am 25, I will certainly not be the one helping him out of that dream!
My kids on the other hand, from out of the sofa in the air conditioned living room, would probably be calling me a pussy. And which mom wants that, right? Not me anyway!

I started having some doubts when arriving at the tennis club : 30 degrees and it wasn’t even 10 am yet! I looked up at the sky, desperately praying for relief, a cloud? A drop of rain perhaps? But no answer, the sky was deep blue. As always.
And when I saw that 2/3th of the always-full courts were empty, really serious doubts came up : what was I doing here, if even the few Porteños that are still in town, give up???

Upon entering the court I knew that even my last hope -that my teacher would call it off- was in vain : the first thing he said was “don’t tell me it’s hot!”. And when I told him that it looks like only crazy people play in this heat, he just smiled and said that only the real sportsmen don’t hide from a little bit of warmth. Besides, he said, it’s all in your head!

And I suppose he was right, it is in my head. So I just kept my head cool by putting it under the waterhose, and I played… and for the first time this summer I had to agree with my teacher : your body does get used to playing in the heat!

So this must be it. This is what they call summer. How I love summer. I just loove summer!!!

Today it is hard to imagine that one day their was a vast number of black people in Argentina. During the 18^th and 19^th centuries, in some provinces, like Santiago del Estero and Catamarca, even half of the population were of black slaves. In 1810 in Buenos Aires the almost 10,000 blacks (about 1/3th of the popation) lived in Montserat which at that time was called the ‘barrio del tambor’. They have had a huge influence on the Argentine culture as we know it today. Isn’t tango originally a slave dance?

Today, studies say that only about 3% of the population are descendants of these ex-slaves coming from Africa. So what happened to them? First of all the percentage blacks diminished because of the huge immigration wave coming from Europe in the 2nd half of the 19^th century. Besides that they were also used as foot soldiers in the war against Paraguay (1865-1870) where a lot got killed. And thirdly the yellow fever epidemic in 1870 wiped out another big amount. It was already in 1887 that only 1,8% of the population was black.

There is at least one little place that testifies their existence, and that is in Chascomus. There they also had ‘barrio del tambor’, where the blacks lived. It was close the old castle. In 1861 the black community asked the municipally for a piece of land where they could build a house to perform their African religious rituals and store the festival artefacts. They never called it a ‘chapel’. They were given this piece of land next to the lake where they build this house.

In 1868 during the epidemic of cholera, and in 1871 the one of yellow fever, it was used as hospital to nurse the dying blacks.

In time it was converted into a place where Catholics went to pray. As it is not recognised by the Catholic Church there are no church services given. Today it is still a very modest and simple place that can hardly be called a chapel. It has a mud floor; the walls are full of images of saints and rosaries. On the chimneys and where ever there is room stand little statues representing different saints.

There is a very peculiar atmosphere in this little chapel. There always seems to be someone praying, or at least someone had just been there and let the candles burn. it is quiet and serene. It is a ideal place to pray. An unusual one.

La capilla de los negros, Chascomus (km 115 ruta 2), esquina Lamadrid and Venezuela. Declared historical monument in 1962.

Dakar, formerly known as Paris-Dakar, is a off-road rally for cars, trucks, ATV’s and motorcycles. Originally it went from Paris to Dakar, but in 2009, after security problems in Africa they moved the race to Latin America. The location changed, the name remained the same. It was good news for me to see that Dakar, literally, came to my doorstep 4 years ago.  I have always been intrigued by either fast cars or adventurous races, such as the Camel Trophy and the Paris-Dakar race. But actually seeing these cars driving past my house, made me want more.

It comes as a big surprise to see that there is hardly any publicity in Capital, and that many people have never heard of the race, although this is the 4th edition that starts in Argentina. It was only when I checked the internet to check when the technical controls took place that I saw that this years edition does not leave from Capital but from Mar del Plata. So that is where we went, this time with a specific goal : to meet the Belgian team. Not that I am so Belgium-minded, as you probably might have guessed (hehe). But our guests had brought the press kit and knew all about the team, had already been in contact with them and even had their contact details, so there was no way around it. Off we went. All 8 of us in the car, heading 400 km south, together with the thousands of other Porteños who were starting their holidays at the seaside. We were not alone…

We met the Belgian Feryn team by coincidence when driving into the city of Mar del Plata -they have an easy recognisable truck- and we were able to have a nice and interesting talk with them. Nine really nice guys, going for their passion, full of energy to start off this tiring and exhausting race, that is so much fun that they will put up with about anything. Driving for hours and hours without stopping and without changing drivers. Having to shovel, shovel, and shovel even more. Lack of sleep. Heat (they have no air conditioning and drive through the desert in the midst of summer). Are they crazy? They probably must be, at least a little bit.

Anyway, my admiration grew, the race now has a face to me. I will follow them through Facebook, twitter and their website, but besides that, I think I will stick to the dunes of Cariló. With an ATV. For a few hours. Maybe once a year. That will do for me.

this is the official site , as all the Feryn-sites are in Flemish

We visited it the first time we came to Argentina, in 2003. Our friends had warned us not to go to Ostende, but to go to Pinamar, Cariló, Villa Gesell or Mar del Plata, which are -according to them- much nicer places. But we wanted to see that coastal city founded by 2 crazy Belgians -you must be crazy to want to found a new city in the dunes in the middle of nowhere- and named after our Belgian city Oostende. On top of that, we had read an article about that place in the Belgian paper, somewhere around the year 2000, which made us curious and decide to visit Argentina. The 2001 crisis made us postpone our trip.

We didn’t like Ostende all that much, so we never went back, but as we are having visitors over from Westende, Belgium (neighbor city and competitor of Oostende, Belgium), we couldn’t do but pass by and have a quick visit. We were surprised to see how it had changed for the better over the past 9 years.

In 1909, two Belgians, Fernand Robette and Auguste Polli bought 14km2 of dunes from Don Manuel Guerrero, who had inherited it in 1870, via his father from his brother in law Martin de Alzaga. Later the Frenchman Jean Marie Bourel joined them in their project to found a new city by the sea. At that time it was unthinkable to do so. The place was too far away from everything, and it was necessary to fix these huge dunes before being able to start construction. The 2 Belgians decided to do both things at the same time : fix the dunes while they were constructing the houses..

Plans were made of this city to be : avenues, diagonals, public houses, a train station, cemetery, parks, hotels and houses, and a rambla. The Belgians also wanted to bring about 50 Belgian families from their home country to start a new life in this Argentine Ostende. Just like Pedro Luro brought Basque families to Mar del Plata before him.

In 1912 they started constructing the rambla alongside the coast with changing rooms underneath, which they never finished, and the small part they made soon disappeared under the moving dunes. In the same year they start building the dock, as well as the hotel “Thermas” (now “Viejo Hotel Ostende”).

On April 6, 1913 they oficially celebrated the foundation of the city, which was then called ‘the pearl of the Atlantic’, ‘the most beautiful beach of South America’.

Unfortunately the first world war ruined the plans as they all returned to their home country to fight. While they were gone, the dunes took over, as the forestation plans, to fix the dunes, hadn’t worked. Various houses disappeared under the sand. Only a few houses remained visible as a proof that the whole Ostende project wasn’t just a dream.

In 1920 Robette died in Europe, and Poli gave up the fight against the dunes, and with this the whole Ostende Project. Only Bourel stayed in Ostende to finish the plans and to continue to fight.

And he succeeded. The hotel was sold to the Pallavidini family. Tourists drove to Puesto Tokyo by car, about 4 km inland on solid ground, or took the train to Juanchon where Pallavidini picked them up. From Puesto Tokyo they took the decauville (little train with movable rails) up to Ostende.

Don Carlos Gesell said that when he went to the Viejo Hotel Ostende in 1931, he had to enter the hotel through a beam on the first floor, as the ground floor entrances were blocked by the sand. Other tourists said they often had to get in or out of the hotel through the windows, which made their stay much more exciting and adventurous.

As the whole project of Ostende and the Viejo Hotel Ostende seemed like a fantasy, it comes as no surprise that writers like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote his fairy tail ‘Little Prince’ in this hotel.

The only buildings of that time that survived up to now are the house of Robette (private property), the monks house, the atlantic city hotel (now youth hostel), and the hotel Thermas (Viejo hotel). The part of the rambla that remained is declared historical monument in 1995, but is in desperate need of restoration.

Ostende, 340 km from Buenos Aires, ideal to escape from the heat in Capital…

I absolutely loved his work. Beginning with paint only, then adding carton, then using plastic and other material. It is as if the images in the works move as you walk past them, as you change position. Not just me, but many visitors were constantly walking back and forth in front of the works to get all the different views, and trying to get a closer look to find out how he has created that effect.

I started to look some things up about this artist from Venezuela, and found that his website is so good that I can’t really add anything. It gives a good explanation about how he created his works, and has beautiful pictures. You can find everything you need to know here.

I didn’t know him, but now I would also love to see his architectural works, as shown on the site, as well as in the exhibition in the MALBA.

Put it in your agenda. It ends march 2012. MALBA, Buenos Aires. And check out his webpage.