The Subway in Buenos Aires

Buenos tardes, amigos mios y familia.

It is Saturday afternoon -- a sunny, beautiful day with a blue sky and not a cloud in sight. I´d guess it is around 72 degrees, but it might be warmer -- maybe 73! Such a lovely summer day. ¡Me gusta mucho! How blessed I am to be here.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about "El Subte" -- the subway in Buenos Aires. I live on La Calle Olleros (Oh-YER-os), near its intersection with Avenada Cabildo, the continuation of the major Buenos Aires street, Aveneda Santa Fe. Right on our corner is a subte station, and each day I take the train from the Olleros station to the Pueyrredon station, walking 9 blocks or so from there to the school. The trip takes 30-40 minutes, door to door, depending on how frequent the trains are running and how crowded the streets are (and the streets are almost always crowded!).

The Subte is clean and efficient, though there are a couple of things that I find quite interesting. One is the crowds. Buenos Aires is an exceedingly dense city, and in the busy times the subte reflects this. I am amazed how many people can continue to squeeze into cars that are already jam-packed with people. It is not unusual in the afternoon, when I return from school, for there to be so many people that I don´t need to hold onto a rail to stand securely. We´re packed like sardines! There is no WAY anybody is going to fall!

The other thing that fascinates me are the people who try to sell wares on the train. Here´s how it goes. Somebody enters the car at a station and immediately walks up the aisle (even when its really crowded!) and places an item on everybody´s knees, or if she or he is lucky, into the hands of some of the passengers. These vendors (usually appearing by their clothes to be very poor) distribute everything, then return to the starting point to pick them up. The items vary from tiny, yellow staplers to bus tour guides, from packets of 8 bobby pins to 8 1/2"x 11" plastic envelopes with cartoon characters on them. I´ve never seen anybody buy anything. In fact, usually, people don´t even acknowlede the vendor, unless to show by simple "stop" hand gesture his or her disinterest. Before we arrive at the next station the vendor has collected the unsold goods and is standing by the exit, prepared to move on to the next car while passengers load and unload from the train.

I´ve also been interested in the tile work on the walls of the stations closer to downtown. They seem to tell the history of the city, but with the trains being so packed and entering and exiting the stations so quickly, I´ve yet to be able to look at most of them.

Several of the stations have old, wooden escalators. I find them to be remarkable. There are vast numbers of passengers daily on the subte, yet the escalators have survived in tact.

Also, it is not unusual to have singers in the passages from the streets to the trains. There´s one fellow every day when I take the afternoon train back to the apartment, playing his guitar, singing, and sometimes playing a harmonica as well. He´s good, and I´ve tipped him a few times (a few centavos only -- probably not even $1 U.S. as of yet). He sings very well, and is an accomplished musician. I wonder about his story. There are also vendors in the passages, most of them consistent day in and day out: a seller of leather wallets, a vendor with men´s socks (not the usual "impulse buy" item, eh?), and an elderly gentleman sitting on the floor, plastic models of antique cars arranged neatly on a pink and white towel.

The subte is usually comfortable, though on the really hot day, it was almost unbearable down there. In the mornings I can usually get a seat. In the afternoons I have always had to stand.

It stops running at 11:30 p.m., which seems strange in a City That Never Sleeps, as they say of BA (como NYC). But the buses run all day and night, so there is always public transportation.

Every day I have done a lot of walking --something I´ve enjoyed very much. Sometimes with friends from the school, but usually on my own, I have walked to many different parts of the city. Sometimes we stop for lunch. Alone, I am more likely to buy a couple of empanadas de pollo (chicken pasteries, two of them a little smaller than a hamburger and costing about $70 cents) and eat them under the shade of a tree in una plaza, or while I walk on my way to a different part of the city.

I´ve got lots of pictures, but this computer (rented in a "internet and telephone" shop) won´t let me up-load pictures from my camera. Good Lord willing, and the computer technicians, too, I hope to have my computer back on Wednesday. It will be easy to up-load pictures then. Also, every time I use a borrowed or rented computer, I´ll see if I can post photos.

Take care, dear ones! I do miss you very much, and at moments can be quite emotional about the distance between us. But I´m having a wonderful time here in Buenoso Aires, and it is passing SO quickly. Only two more weeks in Argentina!! Then I head for Chile next for three weeks there.

More later.

Much love to all of you. Do, please, keep me in your prayers!

-- Bill

P.S. Whenever I use a local computer, it is set for the Spanish language. If I ask it to run a spell-check, it highlights ALL of the words that aren´t in Spanish! So please excuse the misspellings. (Pretty good excuse for poor spelling, don´t you think? Also, all of the punctuation, and a fair number of the letters, are in a different place on Spanish computers. Just so you know!)