Life in South America, where the absurd is daily reality
It has been about four and a half months since I wrote my
last email ¨Celestial Waterfalls await in South
America¨. Though it has taken me so long to sit down
and compose this email, it has been in my head for
months, constantly nagging me to write it down.
Ever since I arrived in Argentina, I have been
constantly surprised by random occurrences on a weekly
basis. This is not a place that lends itself to
boredom that is for sure. One day, I was walking
toward the newspaper office and approached a
demonstration. I heard a succession of loud noises
which sounded like bombs. Struck by the powerful
sounds, I asked what was going on, ¨Oh, it’s just the
demonstrators and their drums.¨ Drums, what kind of
heavy duty industrial mammoth drums are they talking
about? Those drums sounded like air raids! I got to
the office and the sounds continued. No one seemed to
care, all they did was close the windows. If I had
been back in my old office in California and a similar
sound had been emanating from the street, people would
have gone outside to find out what was going on, but
in Latin America, the incredible is the normal and the
normal is inexistent. Regularly functioning
telephones, running water, dependable electricity
service, dream on.
The most striking moment for me was about 2 months ago
when the exiled Paraguayan military leader, Lino
Oviedo was making daily headlines. In March, Lino
Oviedo and the president of Paraguay planned the
assassination of the vice president and ran off to
Brazil and Argentina for political asylum. Oveido
planned a murder, headed a military coup, and Argentina
gave Oveido and his family asylum outside of Buenos
Aires in a huge ranch. When the government decided to
send him to Tierra del Fuego, the southern most part