Going back to my first post, recounting my arrival here in Argentina, I was talking about everything new and interesting about the country. I was walking down the streets learning my way around a small town Zarate while unable to speak in Spanish to communicate with everyone around me.
Many things are opposite here, probably because we are on the lower half of the Earth and everything is upside down.one of those things is safety and security. One big one is mentioned below (and in the title).
I need met a man named Didier. He was supposed to be my Spanish teacher because he came here and learned the language, so he would know some of the struggles of the process of learning this language. He had a strong French accent but he spoke three languages, English, French and Spanish. That would have helped me learn it.
Cafetería: a place where you can buy coffee. Not a place where you get pre-made food and put it on a plastic tray in order to carry it to your table and eat.
After meeting with him only two times, drinking coffee at a cafeteria, he didn't show up one day. I shrugged it off and went back home to meet with Sue. I told her that he didn't show up for our lesson and she thought that was strange.
I went on with my days as a new expatriate with a new life the strange new land. Here I am, walking down the streets with a mix of pesos and dollars in my pocket. If I were doing that today, I would be the first one robbed because of the exchange rate. I will get to that in a little bit.
Back then, $1 was one peso and if you paid with $100 you would get a mix of pesos and dollars in your change. That is called a one to one peg, and the currency stayed that way for the next three or four years. But it started, there were rumors that the government was going to devalue the currency. Why would anyone want to make their currency less valuable? I later found out, it's a fraud tactic, one of many, that governments do in order to pay back loans using a less valuable currency. The only problem with it is you can only do it once every quarter century or so because people get wise to your tactics. As with all theft, people or governments can build a reputation or tear theirs down. About a year after the rumors started the government did that.
The first exchange rate that I heard was ar$2.90 to $1.00 and I promptly changed out all my dollars to get almost triple my money. As soon as I changed out those dollars, I went to buy something that I had been eyeing in the window of a tech store and found out that the item had more than tripled in value.
That is a valuable lesson! When the currency becomes less valuable, all assets become more valuable because they hold their value while the currency drops in value, so much so that today the currency is nearly worthless and using a purchase takes minimal time compared to the time you spend counting out cash to pay for it.
As the devaluation progressed the peso fell and fell. Just recently, it took 1,300 pesos to "buy" one dollar. Everyone talks about this topic as if the dollar was changing because they use a quote which comes out daily of how much it costs to buy a dollar. To furher illustrate this point: right now, one penny of US currency is valued at $11.15 in Argentine currency.
Here is what $10 looks like today.
Currently, if you change out $100 USD, you would need to split the pile of pesos into three pockets or it would really show that you're carrying it. Changing out a thousand is well over a million pesos and it takes a backpack to carry it.
Getting Back to Didier
I didn't tell you what had happened to Didier. At the time, back in the year 2000, cell phones were just starting to pop up here and there. They were bulky and ugly as everyone knows. as a matter of fact Susana and I had just bought our first pair of cell phones around that time. Didier had also just purchased one. He had been on a call in the streets when a band of robbers came up and took his newly purchased cell phone. They didn't just take the phone and run. They took the phone and they destroyed the man. He had a broken arm, broken shin, broken nose and they took everything else that he had on him, including any dollars or pesos that he was carrying.
That horrified me and I had nightmares for several months because of it. I still think about that today! I suddenly became a lot more cautious in the streets and rarely went out after dark.
Opposite Land
Shortly after the experiences of my time in Zarate, I took my first trip to Buenos Aires, which was a 6-hour bus trip. It cost six pesos at the time. I learned a couple of things on that trip.
First off, there are a lot more English speakers living in the city than there are in the suburbs. Good for me because I'm not good at Spanish.
Secondly, I learned that the city was much more secure (less robberies and violence) than in the suburbs. I promptly moved to the city as quickly as I could.
Sue and I lived in the city in an upscale apartment and she did not have to pay rent any longer. Her mother had just passed away and she was taking care of sorting through all the furniture and knick-knacks that were there. The rest of her brothers and sisters accused her of all kinds of atrocities during that time. It was a greedy grab for what mom had left them. The situation eventually became a stressor for her, which destroyed our relationship.
I grew up just outside a big city in the United States. Twenty miles out, you could leave the keys in your car all night long and locking the doors was never a worry. As a young child, I remember that we only locked our doors before we left on vacation. The neighbors always had a key to the house in case there was an emergency or maybe to feed the pets and water the plants while we were gone. How times have changed!
I'd love to come visit Argentina some day.. yo hablo un poquito español..
If you did come, you could then see what I am talking about regarding opposite land and stuff. I have run into some of you posts in the past. You are not going to find much worth smoking here. It exists here and I see (smell) people toking up while walking down the street a few times per month. Let me know when you are coming and I will pick you up at the airport!