My 2nd Conversation Partner

Today I met my 2nd conversation partner, Luis. We met at Recoleta Village, an entertainment complex right outside of the Recoleta Cemetary with a multiplex cinema, bookstore, McDonald's, Freddo and some other shops and restaurants. From there, we went around the corner to a little corner "bar" - a typical old cafe that serves sandwiches and light meals. I had two empanadas and Luis had a sandwich.

This conversation exchange stuff is interesting, though I don't know how much of an exchange it has been. Like my last partner, we started off in Spanish, and then switched to English. I was fine with speaking to Luis in Spanish, but he made the suggestion that we switch to English because he thought I was tired (I told him I had been up until 3 a.m. last night). We then spoke mostly English for the next few hours. I guess we spent about 2 1/2 hours together.

I can see that I am going to have to set some guidelines from now on. Maybe a time limit for our meetings, and also a division of the time between English and Spanish. Luis lived in Miami for 16 months and his English is nearly perfect. He didn't really need the practice like I need practice with Spanish. While I enjoy meeting Argentinos, I also really need the speaking practice, so I am going to have to take control of these exchanges a little more I think.

Luis was not as interesting for me to speak to as Mario, my other partner. What I didn't like about Luis was that he was very conservative, and said so. He criticized immigrants in the US, saying they are looking for handouts (when my direct experience tells me that is not the case). He said he doesn't like the Madres de Plaza de Mayo - the mothers of the disappeared, because they want to have everyone take DNA tests so that they can find their grandchildren. During the dictatorship, many women who were disappeared who were pregnant were kept alive until they bore their children. Then the mothers were killed and disposed of and the babies were given to military families or their cronies. Luis thinks it's time for the Madres to forget what happened. He said a few other things that bothered me, but I didn't mince words in letting him know what I thought. I will concede some points to him however. He said that the problem with the discussions of the last dictatorship is that no one ever talks about what the other side did. There were some incidents of people setting bombs and innocent people being killed, and I agree that no one should be absolved, but I think the number of people killed by the leftists pales in comparision to the kidnappings, torture and disappearances of the right wing military lunatics who were in control after the coup.

I can't say that I learned a whole lot new from Luis like I did with Mario. Mostly it was him saying stupid shit, like he didn't support the Democrats (in the US) because while he thought they had good ideas, he didn't think they would ever be able to carry them out, and for that reason he supports the Republicans, even though he can't stand Bush, because he thinks the Republican agenda is more doable. It was kind of crazy shit he was talking and I had a hard time following his logic. I guess I should also mention that Luis is not working. I don't know how he is supporting himself, but he did mention that he has medical insurance, which I believe is something he can thank those lefties for.

It's too bad we spent so much time speaking English because the topic would have been a really good one for me to try to express myself in Spanish.

I got home to find that Norma had been here and to my delight, she didn't move anything from where I had it. Even my flip flops were next to the closet in the bedroom instead of inside it. The past two weeks I felt like my mom was cleaning my apartment because I would come home and find clothes put away and things moved to where she thought they should be rather than where I wanted them. I e-mailed Tomas and asked him to talk to her and I guess he did and she listened. I feel a little bad for 'turning her in', but it was kind of ridiculous that the cleaning woman was passive-aggressively telling me where I should keep my dish soap.

I guess I am going to have some leftover Thai food for dinner and then try to find something to watch on TV that is in Spanish. I really need to find a way to begin speaking more Spanish. If everyone wants to practice their English with me I might make friends, but I am not going to achieve one of my goals for being here - becoming fluent and comfortable communicating in Spanish.