A mi, no me gusta la lluvia (Ken)

Buenos Aires, the City that drips . . .

Air conditioning is not standard here--anywhere. So, in older buildings, of which there are many, it is a retrofit. Even our expat friends, Tom and Maya, who bought a new apartment here had to order AC as an option. Además, when you walk down a street, any street in Buenos Aires, you get dripped on from the unchanneled condensation valves of individual air conditioning units.
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Some negocios put a piece of hose into a three liter bottle for the street level units which inevitably overflow into a mosaic of broken tiles, but the majority of the above-street-level air conditioners drip on helpless passers-by all day. I still have not grown accustomed to being dripped on. I guess they have never heard of Legionaires Disease. Helen and I think of it constantly.

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Today it rained. So, the city was just one big drip. The sidewalks in front of the buildings are the responsibility of the building. As a result, many are in serious disrepair.



(A Shakespearian aside: there is a sense of personal responsibility here that is seriously lacking in the USA. In Argentina, you pays your money and you takes your chances. There does not seem to be the culture of victimhood here--or the participatory sport of civil litigation. Sin embargo, Peso-for-Euro, lawyers are paid about what they would be paid in the USA or Europe (according to my German-lawyer-fellow-UBA-classmate, Ulie) about $1,000 pesos a week. Teachers, however, are paid only about $800 pesos a month. It is only a matter of time.)

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Mostly, these sidewalks are constructed of paver tiles in various stages of disrepair. Also, some of these tiles are really slippery when wet. I actually saw a woman skate home. And there are the "landmine" tiles. You step on the edge of a perviously-rained-on tile only to have a spray of black gunk of nepharious composition erupt upon your legs.


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On the upside, the rain washes away the ubiquitous dog piles. And, for the moment, supresses the soot spewed from the colectivos and the mopeds--most of which have never seen a muffler.
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It is summer in Buenos Aires. It is humid, it rained, todo de ciudad está mojado.
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I really don´t like the rain.
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Then again, at home, in Maryland, right now, it is 27 degrees (-3 for those of you in the rest of the world) and it snowed today. On balance, I love Argentina.
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Bring on the drips!