Subways, Electricity and Other Non-functioning Appliances

I was reflecting today on the icebox I work in, as I bunkered down in a sweat shirt and pants and typed away. Let me be clear however, I live in a place that is hot. Buenos Aires could certainly give North Carolina a run for its money, and you are banking on 105 (40somthingdegrees) degree heat, no aircon (at least in this departamento) and a lot of humidity. That being said, Argentines love their aircon, the icy tundra office environment is crucial and apparently I didn't get the memo until someone decided to cut my power. I'll back up. Argentina this summer has been going through a series of power shortages, ones that seem to be random, that leave you in the pitch black for hours on end with no idea when it might be coming back on. That isn't the end of the world, blackouts happen and there is nothing we can do about it. Leave it to Argentina however we can! This is Christina, my least favorite player in the game as of recent.

Hi Christina. Anyways, little known, whilst none of us get any warning about the power on our block, Christina sits in her pink house and systematically shuts off our power so that we can all have an equal amount of aircon. Okay, fine, if you want aircon that is fine, but there is this idea called respect. When you plan on shutting off the power in my block TELL ME. I can think of little worse than being in on the edge of my seat, watching a movie when Christina decides it is time to shut things down. Black out. Point being, it is obnoxious.

Speaking of obnoxious, it brings me to my next point, huelgas. Huelgas, for all of you non spanish speakers is what we call a strike. In my past few months in Argentina, there have been several with the subte. Now don't get me wrong, I am all in favor of protesting for higher wages when you are getting shitty pay. You deserve better, but union leaders organize yourselves! The subte only takes you so far and then you get busses, and I hate to say it subte strikers, the bus system is just simply better than the subte and you will never get what you want. Take that with a grain of salt and try and convince your friends that the bus AND the subtes should strike together.

So speaking of strikes that never get anywhere and simply just end, it brings me to a story that Katita Rica once told me which i will now tell to you. Katita works downtown, in the bustling centre of Buenos Aires. This one particular day, the subtes had decided to strike for god knows why, and it just happened to be a day where it was raining. By raining I mean pouring and pouring would be a euphamism for the kind of rain she was in. SO she was happily riding the bus when she heard of the nube toxica that had overtaken Buenos Aires. A nube toxica is a toxic cloud because someone fucked up and ran into a massive ship full of pesticides. It looked something like this.

Like a responsible city decided to do, they decided to evacuate the entire southern half of the city, because the nube is just that, toxic. So one runs into a small logistical issue if they are trying to get from the south of the city to the north. The subways are on strike and in this time of evacuation crisis no one has even hinted that they may be able to get a slight raise so that they can at the very least EVACUATE. The buses are overloaded and so poor Katita Rica was stuck in the nube toxica, unable to get a bus, with many a frantic evacuees in a monsoon. Long story short, I came home and Katita looked something like this on our couch. 

I'll finish this with a suggestion to both the unions and to Christina. Chris, if you are going to be a total bitch and turn off my power at very inopportune moments, leave me a message telling me not to watch my favorite TV show at that time. Subway strikers, if you're going to strike during a nube toxica, risking peoples lives, at least get something out of the deal, give me some passion at the very least.