Today is a special holiday here, the Day of the Virgin. People keep on sweating, the airconditioners above keep on sweating, the trees on the avenues keep on sweating. It rains from a clear sky.

on the back of my hand the words perspectives, family, an address montevideo 138, where I slept last night. Tonight is my last night in Buenos Aires, tomorrow my last day; I left my blue bike that made this city my home, now like a snail I’m carrying my home on my back and inside an old brown suitcase. I am heading up north to Bolivia, in a few weeks I’ll fly back to Guatemala. To continue my studies and start working. With what I’m not quite sure. Come Christmas and I’ll be back in good ol’ Xela.

I’m going back to a lot of frijoles, tortilla and egg, so there’ll meat on the menu tonight!

four months
on my bike through this city, this heat, these nights of warm concrete and flies in my face, I felt that it was finally almost mine, riding around in streets well known, cobblestones and treacherous sinkholes in the asphalt, murderous city buses spewing out dark brown smoke, ridiculous maneuvers on two wheels. I’ll miss those two wheels though. They served me well, and at times I almost betrayed them.

Always busy, even on holidays like today, the famed cartoneros of the capital spend their days scavenging, picking at the garbage, sorting out recyclable material in their massive carts, hand drawn wagons or horse drawn carriages, veritable towers of garbage to be sold by the kilo at recycling factories outside the city. Pushed or pulled through the streets while North American cars woosh past them at superspeed, and I drink my cafe cortado, sitting on the air conditioned inside looking out at them, and throw in a few spare words on them.

In the shopping malls, fake snow cover the workshop of Santa Claus and his elves, and plastic pine trees are supplied with a power adapter. In the night, cicadas or crickets take to the scene, chirping away in the night.

Coolest kid on the blog.

I went to this street corner to snap a pic of a mural on Avenida Corrientes, only to find that it had been pasted over with election posters. The mural depicted what has become an icon of the fight for justice from the disappearences in Argentina, the outlined drawing of faceless Jorge Julio López. López was ‘disappeared’ by the dictatorship during the National Reorganization Process in 1976 but returned in 1979. In 2006 hours before he was going to witness against his torturers, López was disappeared for the second time. Here there was a big mural. Now it’s gone.

A plaque on the sidewalk of busy Avenida Corrientes, Buenos Aires in memory of a person disappeared on that spot in 1978, during the so-called ‘dirty war’ – the state-sponsored violence against Argentinas civilian population between 1976 and 1983. The military government of Jorge Rafael Videla referred to its systematized persecution as the “National Reorganization Process”.

Apart from the wording there’s no relation, but today I also came by the Instituto Argentino de Normalisación, which made me think about the current plans for normalisation of the free town Christiania in Copenhagen (basically streamlining and commercializing cultural heritage), which I also read news about today. In the streets of Buenos Aires, public manifestations, protests and pickets are commonplace – I passed by two just today. The country has seen its share of social upheavals, and rallying on the streets are a part of every day life. In Denmark, this traditionally peaceful social democratic model society that I grew out of, there has also been an increase of public protests in recent years, most notably against what could maybe be summarized as the Neoliberal Normalisation Process; cultural streamlining, increased surveillance, limitations in freedom of speech etc. One thing I have come to realize here in Argentina is how close my home country, an otherwise well-functioning democracy, has come to resemble a repressive police state. Given the fact that it is one of the safest places to live in the world, the extremity of repression measured out against public protest is striking. The only times the police has thought it necessary to deploy their  anti-terror team has been in non-violent youth rallies, and tear gas has been steadily becoming the first response to a crowd exercising free speech – recently seen on October 25th this year in a direct action protest against inhuman immigration policy and the conditions for immigrant asylum seekers. On this occation the police also employed horses and dogs on a crowd of non-violent demonstrators of all ages.

For anyone in the Danish politically and culturally progressive milieu, youth and anti-globalisation movement, or indeed any politically conscious person in Denmark, this is no news. But looking back from this Latin American context, on my home society -traditionally a pioneer and in recent years a selfproclaimed model country for democracy and freedom of expression- the amount of repression on the practionioners of its core values is so completely out of proportions. While certain new political changes internationally inspire me to hope for a brighter future, a look at my own backyard makes me fear for the worse. We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror … and clean up our own backyard. Hrmpf!

Wrap up from Marko:

It’s old fashioned to be greedy

It’s old fashioned to be egocentric

It’s old fashioned to be a protectionist

We is the new me

And speaking about torture… I came across this theme park on a bike ride through northern Buenos Aires. It’s a New Testament theme park, complete with trumpet blowing angels, a full-size Golgotha and nailed Jesus. I’ll let the image and very idea speak for itself.

(I wonder what are the rides?)