We spent the the rest of the winter months in Buenos Aires in our own little camp area. There is so much to tell about that time I will probably sound like I am rambling, but I am just remembering. I will not be writing in chronological order as I have been. I’ll just group like experiences for those months together. I also want to say that the experiences I write about do not mean I thought they were good or bad (with the exception of the undercover police), they were just new and different to me. Some were funny, some frustrating and some scary. But all were experiences I wouldn’t change. Any way that said…..
We arrived in Buenos Aires on May 20th and drove to Caballito, the neighborhood where Bill’s cousins had an apartment. It is also where his brother lived. It is a right off one of the main thoroughfares of Buenos Aires - at Rivadavia and Rojas. There was also a commuter train that runs through it. We pulled into a dead-end street between the train tracks and apartment buildings. There was plenty of room to park without being in any ones way and there was a portable toilet (for the road workers) sitting over a sewer just down the street behind us. We would use it for emptying our tank while staying there. Just had to back up to it and put the hose in.
We met the people in the ground floor apartment right across from us, George and Martha and their daughter Maria who was about Paul’s age. Both spoke a little English. They provided us with water while staying there. We used our generator for electricity. Not too bad of a place to spend some time.
We went to see Bill’s brother Nestor and his second wife Nellie at their 6th floor apartment about a block away. They had a living room, kitchen, bath, two bedrooms and miracle of miracles a laundry room with a washer and dryer (that she seldom used.) To digress some - Nestor had lived in Florida and New York for twenty years and spoke excellent English. Nellie had lived in Argentina her entire life. - This was why she still liked to do her laundry by hand and hang it up to dry. The first time I used the dryer I discovered it wasn’t vented and filled the whole apartment with hot moist air - that might be another reason she didn’t use it.
Shopping - That was something I never got used to. I LOVE supermarkets!!! Here we shopped at the bakery (and you better be there early), the green grocer (produce etc), the staples grocer (boxed items, rice, beans, lunch meat, etc), the beef butcher and the meat market (chicken and pork). Shopping was a social time for the women. The women carried their own shopping bags and set out early to buy the food for the day’s meals. Along the way they visit with all of their neighbors.
If you wanted bread you had to be at the bakery first thing in the morning. If you waited till later it was all gone. We used to send Paul and Gil to the bakery as soon as they got up. As a bribe they got to buy churros con dulce de leche. - deep fried dough sticks stuffed with caramel sauce. Which were eaten before they got home.
We were always an object of curiosity when shopping because I was used to shopping for big family for a week at a time, not a meal at a time. And with our refrigerator and freezer I still tried to.
The first time we shopped at a specific place was always an experience for me. The green grocer was no exception. The aroma as we entered the store was wonderful, I’d forgotten how good a tomato or apple could smell, or taste, for that matter. As I looked around at all the fruits and vegetables it struck me as strange that you could buy eggs here too. The eggs were fresh from the chicken, by that I mean they were not washed. They were supposed to stay fresh longer that way. I hoped so as they were not refrigerated. And you bought by the egg not the dozen. The potatoes were also fresh from the farm, dirt and all. When we bought artichokes they were weighed with the stems on, when they were given to us the stems had been broken off. All produce was plentiful and very fresh and delicious. We would fill our bags before we left. Then have to go home and empty them before visiting the next market.
The staples grocer’s store was open to the sidewalk. It closed at night with iron bars. So the whole front of it was open to the outside. The building had been the same since before Bill was born. His family had shopped there when he was a boy. The walls were whitewashed, the floor wooden planks that had warped with time and use. He carried, boxed mixes: cake, pudding, jello etc. Also cold cuts and cheese, that you bought by the gram from refrigerated cases. How ever many grams you wanted was sliced off and wrapped in butcher paper. I never could comprehend grams so Bill did all that type of buying. They also sold, rice and many, many types of dried beans. These all sat in open burlap bags on the scarred wooden floor. You would scoop out what you wanted into a paper bag. Here you could also get milk and butter. And things like mustard, mayonnaise and relish. One of the things the kids loved were the big barrels filled with olives and pickles floating in their brine.
One day they banged through the motorhome door full of news for me.
“Mom, Mom! Guess what!” They had been shopping at the staples grocer with Randy. “Guess What!”
“What?” I dutifully asked.
“The cat fell in the olive barrel and drowned - he’s still in it,” shouted Gil. “He’s still in there!” (Almost all stores had a resident cat to keep down the rodent population. It must have worked I didn’t see any mice or rats there.)
“Did you buy any olives?” I asked. I thought their mouths would drop off.
“No! Don’t ever buy any,” they replied.
For some reason I never could make myself buy
any rice, beans or olives while we lived there.
I did buy cake mixes and puddings.They were very good and easy to prepare when I could get someone to translate the directions for me.
The meat market sold chickens and pork. Again everything was fresh, nothing was ever frozen. It was believed that freezing ruined the taste. Whole chickens could be bought but not parts. At least they were not alive and were already cleaned not like some of the countries we had been through. We of course would freeze them when we got them home.
The beef butcher store sold only beef. You entered through an open door with 2” wide hard plastic strips hanging in it. The strips were to keep the flies out. The whole store was probably no bigger than 15 x 30, the walls were cinder blocks. There was a refrigerated counter with a granite top. The butcher's scales sat on the counter top. On the wall behind the counter hanging from big hooks were two half beef carcasses. We would buy meat for two or three days. This brought stares from the other customers. They probably were wondering “What are they going to do with so much?” The names of the cuts of meat were different than in the states so when I would tell Bill what I wanted he had to figure out how to translate it to the butcher. One memorable occasion was when I wanted flank steak.
“What part of the cow is that?” he asked.
“I don’t know, around the hip area I guess.” I replied.
He spoke to the butcher who turned around and looked at the carcass hanging on the wall. He pointed to an area on it.
“Is that where it is?” Bill asked me. “And how much do you want.”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “I buy it in a plastic package from Alpha Beta. That’s all I know about it.”
Needless to say we didn’t get any. And our shopping for the day was over.
We arrived in Buenos Aires on May 20th and drove to Caballito, the neighborhood where Bill’s cousins had an apartment. It is also where his brother lived. It is a right off one of the main thoroughfares of Buenos Aires - at Rivadavia and Rojas. There was also a commuter train that runs through it. We pulled into a dead-end street between the train tracks and apartment buildings. There was plenty of room to park without being in any ones way and there was a portable toilet (for the road workers) sitting over a sewer just down the street behind us. We would use it for emptying our tank while staying there. Just had to back up to it and put the hose in.
We met the people in the ground floor apartment right across from us, George and Martha and their daughter Maria who was about Paul’s age. Both spoke a little English. They provided us with water while staying there. We used our generator for electricity. Not too bad of a place to spend some time.
We went to see Bill’s brother Nestor and his second wife Nellie at their 6th floor apartment about a block away. They had a living room, kitchen, bath, two bedrooms and miracle of miracles a laundry room with a washer and dryer (that she seldom used.) To digress some - Nestor had lived in Florida and New York for twenty years and spoke excellent English. Nellie had lived in Argentina her entire life. - This was why she still liked to do her laundry by hand and hang it up to dry. The first time I used the dryer I discovered it wasn’t vented and filled the whole apartment with hot moist air - that might be another reason she didn’t use it.
Shopping - That was something I never got used to. I LOVE supermarkets!!! Here we shopped at the bakery (and you better be there early), the green grocer (produce etc), the staples grocer (boxed items, rice, beans, lunch meat, etc), the beef butcher and the meat market (chicken and pork). Shopping was a social time for the women. The women carried their own shopping bags and set out early to buy the food for the day’s meals. Along the way they visit with all of their neighbors.
If you wanted bread you had to be at the bakery first thing in the morning. If you waited till later it was all gone. We used to send Paul and Gil to the bakery as soon as they got up. As a bribe they got to buy churros con dulce de leche. - deep fried dough sticks stuffed with caramel sauce. Which were eaten before they got home.
We were always an object of curiosity when shopping because I was used to shopping for big family for a week at a time, not a meal at a time. And with our refrigerator and freezer I still tried to.
The first time we shopped at a specific place was always an experience for me. The green grocer was no exception. The aroma as we entered the store was wonderful, I’d forgotten how good a tomato or apple could smell, or taste, for that matter. As I looked around at all the fruits and vegetables it struck me as strange that you could buy eggs here too. The eggs were fresh from the chicken, by that I mean they were not washed. They were supposed to stay fresh longer that way. I hoped so as they were not refrigerated. And you bought by the egg not the dozen. The potatoes were also fresh from the farm, dirt and all. When we bought artichokes they were weighed with the stems on, when they were given to us the stems had been broken off. All produce was plentiful and very fresh and delicious. We would fill our bags before we left. Then have to go home and empty them before visiting the next market.
The staples grocer’s store was open to the sidewalk. It closed at night with iron bars. So the whole front of it was open to the outside. The building had been the same since before Bill was born. His family had shopped there when he was a boy. The walls were whitewashed, the floor wooden planks that had warped with time and use. He carried, boxed mixes: cake, pudding, jello etc. Also cold cuts and cheese, that you bought by the gram from refrigerated cases. How ever many grams you wanted was sliced off and wrapped in butcher paper. I never could comprehend grams so Bill did all that type of buying. They also sold, rice and many, many types of dried beans. These all sat in open burlap bags on the scarred wooden floor. You would scoop out what you wanted into a paper bag. Here you could also get milk and butter. And things like mustard, mayonnaise and relish. One of the things the kids loved were the big barrels filled with olives and pickles floating in their brine.
One day they banged through the motorhome door full of news for me.
“Mom, Mom! Guess what!” They had been shopping at the staples grocer with Randy. “Guess What!”
“What?” I dutifully asked.
“The cat fell in the olive barrel and drowned - he’s still in it,” shouted Gil. “He’s still in there!” (Almost all stores had a resident cat to keep down the rodent population. It must have worked I didn’t see any mice or rats there.)
“Did you buy any olives?” I asked. I thought their mouths would drop off.
“No! Don’t ever buy any,” they replied.
For some reason I never could make myself buy
any rice, beans or olives while we lived there.
I did buy cake mixes and puddings.They were very good and easy to prepare when I could get someone to translate the directions for me.
The meat market sold chickens and pork. Again everything was fresh, nothing was ever frozen. It was believed that freezing ruined the taste. Whole chickens could be bought but not parts. At least they were not alive and were already cleaned not like some of the countries we had been through. We of course would freeze them when we got them home.
The beef butcher store sold only beef. You entered through an open door with 2” wide hard plastic strips hanging in it. The strips were to keep the flies out. The whole store was probably no bigger than 15 x 30, the walls were cinder blocks. There was a refrigerated counter with a granite top. The butcher's scales sat on the counter top. On the wall behind the counter hanging from big hooks were two half beef carcasses. We would buy meat for two or three days. This brought stares from the other customers. They probably were wondering “What are they going to do with so much?” The names of the cuts of meat were different than in the states so when I would tell Bill what I wanted he had to figure out how to translate it to the butcher. One memorable occasion was when I wanted flank steak.
“What part of the cow is that?” he asked.
“I don’t know, around the hip area I guess.” I replied.
He spoke to the butcher who turned around and looked at the carcass hanging on the wall. He pointed to an area on it.
“Is that where it is?” Bill asked me. “And how much do you want.”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “I buy it in a plastic package from Alpha Beta. That’s all I know about it.”
Needless to say we didn’t get any. And our shopping for the day was over.
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Buenos Aires - May 20th 1978
