Teacher on Two Wheels

Above: Lush pasture land by the river bank, Ushpallata, Argentina.

Tuesday 1/13/09 Ushpallata, Argentina (taken from my journal from a few days ago)

I pounded the tent stakes into the hard earth below me, getting down on my knees to put more force behind my blows. After four, I stopped to catch my breath. I was spent-what I had assumed would be an easy day of downhill cruising turned into a long battle with headwinds, one that kept me pedaling down steep stretches of road I had hoped would give my legs a welcome rest from the long climbs of the day before. The wind had painted my face, arms, and legs with a thin veil of grit and dust. I needed a shower. A nap. Food. I picked up the fifth tent stake and was about to slam it with a rock when Natalia approached me.

“Excuse me,” she said in Spanish. “We have extra food from our lunch that we can’t eat. Do you want something to eat? Something to drink? We’re just going to throw it out if you don’t take it because we’re leaving the campground today.”

I looked behind her. A man sat at a concrete table next to a brick barbecue grill and waved at me. A new Volkswagen, packed with things, with its doors and hatch opened like a metal bird with wings outstretched, occupied the space next to the table and hummed music from its stereo.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t want to-”

“Of course! Please, we can’t finish it all.” She smiled. “Come on!”

I followed her over to the table and introduced myself. Daniel and Natalia explained that they were traveling around western Argentina for a week on summer vacation. They’re from Cordoba but wanted to spend a week in the mountains, away from the flat pampa they’re used to. Unlike other people in the campground, people with tents, they came just to have lunch in the shade of the trees. As I ate and drank, the couple kept piling food onto my plate, ice into my cup.

Above: Natalia and Daniel

We talked. At first Daniel stuck to the normal introductory topics strangers stick to when they first meet-hometowns, local weather, travel plans, food. I asked him about the carne asada, the slab of grilled meat, he had prepared earlier. He explained that the perfect Argentinian asada is prepared with nothing more than meat, salt, and a good fire. Then Daniel asked me how people ate meat in the U.S. I told him about barbecue sauce, about seasonings and mesquite chips. And so it went.

As the time passed and Daniel’s cup filled and drained, however, his tongue loosened and the conversation made room for opinions, for charged sentences and furrowed brows. Hand gestures whizzed about.

“So is it true what we see in the movies-is New York City filled with only black people?” he asked, pouring seltzer water into his glass of red wine.

“Uh, no,” I said, laughing. “What movies are you watching?!” I asked. “No, people from all over the world live in New York City. Walking down the streets of Manhattan, you see many different types of skin color. Lots of variety. It’s incredible,” I said.

“And do people in America discriminate against the blacks? It must not be as bad as it was because you just elected a black president, right?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah it’s not as bad as it once was,” I said, “but we still have discrimination.”

“Here in Argentina, we don’t have race discrimination, we have discrimination toward the poor,” Natalia chimed in. “If you have nothing, you are treated badly by the people who have nice cars or nice houses.”

Daniel went on to explain a type of thinking I’ve come to be familiar with throughout the trip, one held by wealthy folks. It goes something like this: Poor people choose not work, they are raised to rob and steal because they have nothing else going for them, and society is changing for the worse because of the growing numbers of its poor.

After Daniel had finished a short rant, after he described how poor people in Argentina have been stuck in a trans-generational cycle of thievery, one that leaves them willing to ‘rob you for two dollars’, I stopped him.

“Do you think that part of the reason poor people stay in a cycle of poverty is because the rich discriminate against them?” I asked.

He thought for a second. Then he shook his head. “No, no. This is behavior parents teach their children. They teach themselves to be this way, to not work, to not take the jobs,” he said, firmness accenting his words.

*****

At one point, somehow we started talking about buying lottery tickets, about luck. Daniel and Natalia don’t buy lottery tickets; they don’t do that sort of thing, Daniel said. Then, out of the blue, he said something so poetic I don’t think I’ll ever forget it:

Suerte es la esperanza de los tontos.

“Luck is the hope of the fools.”

*****

Flushed with energy from Daniel and Natalia’s hospitality, I walked back to my half-assembled tent. I had no problems pounding the remaining tent stakes into the ground. The earth felt softer.