The Lost Colony

I love Argentina. It is an incredibly fascinating place. If one were dropped in the middle of Buenos Aires, with all the classical architecture, they would be forgiven for thinking they were strolling through one of the capitals of Europe. Argentinians are a rare breed, beautifully exemplifying the melting pot of the New World and the Old. People that wanted new lives for centuries washed up on their shores; seeking work opportunities, fleeing oppression, and even war. The Spanish spoken there is unique to the rest of the world. It is an ancient dialect that was kept from the age of conquest. It has a very particular accent (pollo pronounced as poyjo for example) and grammar structure (they use vos and sos for you and you are respectively.) However, especially in Buenos Aires, there is a lot of Italian thrown in for good measure. There, beer is not a cerveza, it is a birra. 

Argentina took a lot of skills from the Old World and managed them with adroitness. The wine of Mendoza rivals Tuscany, Bordeaux, or Napa. The buildings were constructed by the same kinds of men that built the grand cities of the United States. Their wide-open spaces and centuries of know-how allowed them to raise some of the best cattle in the world with beef and leatherworks second to none. Not to mention the world-renowned seduction of the tango. Buenos Aires is one of the cities that has the most book stores of any city in the world. 

But, there is one stark reminder that this is indeed a lost colony of Europe. Their unique place in the world allowed them to think they could handle more than they could. Loans, debt, default, and constant inflation marked my time there and had well before; for almost a hundred years. But facts and figures only tell a sterile story.

Argentina was the first place in the world where I saw an entire family on the street. They were all huddled together on a mattress begging strangers for change or food. It was difficult to see kids like that; dirty and malnourished on the same street where the more affluent went to Broadway-like shows. In less than a month, the exchange rate went from 80 Pesos to the Dollar to 90. Imagine being a pensioner and seeing your life savings evaporate in front of your very eyes. Or a worker needing to take their wages and exchange them for dollars so they maintain some value. Or a restaurant owner that had to put prices in post-it notes daily as they kept fluctuating. When I was talking with an Argentine industrialist, while he was showing me pictures of his barely legal foreign mistresses, she said that most of the food from Argentia, a billion dollars worth, was being exported to pay debts. 

Why did this happen? The answer rung true throughout the region; government mismanagement and downright theft. Although Argentina was no longer Spanish property, there was still certainly a ruling class; ones that could trace their lineage back to the Criollos, or direct Spanish blood born in the New World. They were educated abroad, of course. And much like the aristocracy of the past, many considered themselves “too big to fail.” But fail they did. Only instead of losing a principality or kingdom, they would lose a country when bigger institutions offered to lend them money at usurious rates. These rulers would be fine though, spiriting away pilfered funds into foreign accounts, but their countrymen could not. A revolving carousel of politicians would come, demanding they be brought into office so they could fix the wrongs of the previous leaders, only to do more of the same. This would be a harsh lesson I would learn during my time in Latin America. But as Robert Frost would say about life, even in this state of economic uncertainty and decline, it goes on. Only there, the background music is an accordion and a violin.