You may never hear more vociferous complaints about cravings for vegetables than when you circle around foreign exchange students in Argentina. While it is true that the Argentine diet is wanting in the veggies, this gastronomic disparity is the premise for my study abroad motto: just bite the bife (translation: just bite the beef). Much in the style of “carpe diem,” this maxim stresses the value in doing as the Argentines do and embracing a life filled with world-famous meat, spontaneity, and soul-nourishing activities.
As an individual whose entire life has been characterized by organized chaos, I have been thriving in an environment bereft of rigid structure. In the United States, heavy scheduling and preoccupations about punctuality generally dictate the pace of life. Here in Argentina, I was able to book an apartment for my father to stay in during his weeklong visit to Buenos Aires two days before his arrival without anyone questioning my sanity. After bearing witness to a lifestyle that encourages aimless meandering down cobblestone streets and impromptu participation in the city’s cafe culture, I arrived at a liberating conclusion: I could increase my sense of contentment by abandoning a plan-centric modus operandi and adopting the Argentine vision on how to have fun.
Here are two instances when I have pursued this new course of action and profited immensely.
1. A misadventure in Maipú, Mendoza: For those of you accustomed to the pedaling and establishment of equilibrium basic to bike riding, a sightseeing bike tour through the rustic heartland of Argentina’s wine country would be a thing of leisure. For me, someone with minimal bike-riding experience, it was a potential life hazard. After an hour of precariously wielding a bike on both dirt and asphalt roads, I fell…into a ditch…on the side of a motorway. My friend Tommy furiously pedaled back 150 feet (how far ahead the rest of the group was) to find my bike and me both a little broken: me in spirit and my bike in mechanical function. Wonderfully, I received a confidence booster when I walked my bike back to a darling Mr. Hugo, the fan-favorite owner of the Mr. Hugo rental bike company. Thanks to his and my friend Victoria’s encouragement, I was back on the tour, albeit one with less road time.
Since Argentine culture delights in the participatory, I felt I owed it to the objectives of immersion to say, “What the heck, let’s do it.” Getting back on the bike afforded me the chance to cruise along wide dirt pathways flanked by overhanging trees towards the vista of the grand Andes mountains. With the clarity of mind that only fresh country air could provide, I took note of the contrast inherent to Maipú’s landscape: the dryness of its vineyards contended with a vision of snow-capped mountain ranges— a reality that attested to the ingenuity behind the artificial methods of irrigation that turned an extremely arid desert area into a wine enthusiast’s paradise.
2. A rescue attempt of an intoxicated porteña: The pitch-line of the commercials for Movistar, one of the country’s largest cellphone service providers, best describes the Argentine penchant for communication: “Argentines love to speak so much that they even talk about what they do not know.” Thus, a foreigner wanting to live like Argentines has to be willing to dive into the possibility of making grammatical and idiomatic errors with reckless abandon.
Dive I did the time my friend and I found a very inebriated girl clinging to my arm outside of a discotheque. As I strained to understand her slurred Spanish, she had already flagged over a cab and begun to climb into its backseat. I did not know her name, her address, or what to do other than to not let her ride in a cab by herself. Thus commenced an hour-long adventure through the city with a suffering, incoherent stranger, clueless taxi driver, and ever-running meter.
We eventually managed to find her cellphone, and I dialed the number listed under “Padre.” When a male voice answered, I calmly identified myself as a foreign exchange student who was in a taxi with his daughter and trying to get her home. Once he alerted me to the fact that they lived twenty miles outside of the capital, the next thirty minutes were marked by the following: asking the taxi driver to take us back to the club, alerting the girl’s parents to our new location by the security post, and awaiting their arrival.
Finally, a crowd of young adults walked past and recognized the semi-conscious figure of their friend (um…where were you guys for the past hour and a half?). The experience impressed upon me that the language-immersion process would necessarily entail tests of my ability to communicate all things at all times. Without taking some risks with one’s manifold interactions, one’s language skills may hit a plateau.
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A week ago, the owners of the horseback riding company Caballos a La Par, Adrian and Miriam, offered me testimony that actualized the spirit of “just biting the bife.”As a group of us “study abroad” students sat on their expansive grounds, surrounded by their foraging horses and enjoying the asado (barbecue) they had prepared for us, Adrian and Miriam told us about how they resigned from their soul-crushing jobs in order to do what they loved: bring horses and humans in contact with one another in the serene countryside of Buenos Aires. Miriam, who is originally from Holland, remarked that she found the way Argentines enjoy each day to be truly inspiring. Well, I am with her on that one, and I am glad to have a poignant perspective on life to take back with me to the U.S.
