Ministry of special cases

January 1, 2010 - Went to the Recoletta Cemetery and stumbled upon a good tour guide giving a walking tour of the area, which we happily joined. His English was excellent and the tour well organized and thought through. He would talk about the dirty war and then share his own stories of witnessing kidnappings as they happened. Reminded me of talking with Cambodians about the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which happened around the same time. The scale of the murder in Argentina wasn't as large, but for those touched by it, the wounds are as fresh.

Takeaways from the walking tour: Argentinian politicians are crooks, only a fool keeps their savings in an Argentinian bank, and the country's recent history is alternately a tragedy and a farce.

Courtney talks a lot about Nathan Englander's Ministry of Special Cases, which she finished reading just before we came to the country. It's about a Jewish family during the Dirty War, and lots of the book's period details keep popping up on our tours here. For example, mothers and their murdered children, the significance of cemeteries, and nose jobs. Nose jobs are important in the book, and to hear people tell it, plastic surgery is quite common still today.

Ate more ice cream. Freddos, a small chain of ice cream places that has since been superseded by Persiccos and Una Altra Volta as the it places for a good scoop. But the original isn't fading away, and the one we went to outside of the Recoletta cemetary had a 15 minute line.

Afterwards, went in search of some restaurants that had been recommended. Note to self: things close on New Year's day, especially in Buenos Aires. I felt like we were in some dystopian last-person-on-earth film, walking around that city. Not a soul to be seen for blocks on end.

Went to shul Friday night at Bet Hillel, the congregation where a specific style of musical, celebratory services in the Conservative movement got started. If you go on Friday night to B'nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side, which unitl recently had an Argentinian head rabbi, you will see a very similar service. Nice service, though both of us fell asleep during the sermon -- Spanish is a very soothing sounding language when you can't really follow what's being said. As we left, we encountered another American couple, from the bay area, who, as we talked with them, revealed that they were also on their honeymoon, and had gotten married the same day as we did.

We hung out with them all evening, a very serendipitous meeting, and a nice start to Shabbat.