Country life in Argentina? Well my take on it is (at least the rural city take), steves is much more rural than where I live.
Weather - when its dry , its dusty. when its wet its muddy. Half the time your cleaning your car/house of dust, inside and out, the other half is cleaning the mud which gets everywhere. Because the majority of roads are mud and most poorer people who live in a muddy road are marooned for a day or two until the road dries out. Which means cleaners,nannys,builders,plumbers,etc have a day or two off when it rains.
Pets - Everyone has dogs or cats, at least one, usually three or more. They can`t be bothered to walk them so they just let them roam around the streets. This means they crap on your front garden and your back garden if your a cat. The dogs jump out in front of your car and try and bite it or just walk out in front of it at the last moment.Dogs bark all night at each other or at the cats and both will go through any rubbish that is accidently left out during the night ready for you to clean up the next morning.
Animals - People have chickens and livestock in the campo (no shit einstein). The cockrels will wake everyone up at 4am, the cows will roam around , moo and crap on your front garden. You`ll have a personal war every summer with the local Ant population who, and this actually happened , will find their way into your kitchen larder and your favourite packet of buscuits during the night only for you to come down peckish in the middle of night and in near total darkness rummage around for a buscuit which you pull out of the packet along a few hundred peckish ants.
Shopping - Most of the shops are small, family run and they all stock pretty much the same junk. Usually you end up going to 2-3 shops because theyre either out of stock or theyve closed for the day because a distant cousin has come to spend a day and drink mate . Its also more expensive than the big cities, due to transport costs and rip off shop owners. Oh and theyre only open in the mornings and a few hours in the evening, and quite often shut all day saturday and always sunday and every other tuesday when its some saints birthday or its the day of the small shop owners. If you want to risk it try mercadolibre, half the time it`ll turn up damaged or will be the wrong item and they`ll charge you ridiculous amounts to wrap it up and send it. Someone tried to charge us $150 to wrap up a computer mouse once!
Rubbish - There are no rubbish dumps or dumpsters so people just dump all the rubbish on the corner of the street. Anything from trees, old furniture to piles of newspapers. Then every week or two a lorry comes along and they collect it all if it hasnt already been taken by someone else,blown away in the wind or set fire too.
Services ie Plumbers will tell you theyre coming tomorrow morning to fix your toilet, but they wont because theyre sitting at home drinking mate. You`ll have to phone or text them several times and if they happen to be passing by your house they`ll drop in and expect you do be at home and available for them even if its 9 oclock at night.
Houses - Most will be taken over by humidty and decay, they`ll have a brand new Toyota Corolla outside but cant afford a few pots of paint to make their houses look decent. Some houses will have front pavements, some once had 30 years ago but has been left to crumble until its more mud and grass than pavement. Each pavement will be built at a different level to its neighbour, one will be 5inches higher than the next so if your walking past you are forever stepping up and down like being attached to somekind of personal gym step machine. Walking at night is a lottery because theres only 1 street light per block, so if you dont trip up on a pavement and split your skull open you`ll end up with dog (or cow) crap on your shoes. Wheelchair and pram users - stay in the city.
Technology - internet works most of the time but is at speeds from a few decades ago. It`ll go down to the whole city once every few weeks because someone in the campo digging up potatoes has cut through the only fibreoptic cable to your city. And expect to watch youtube in 15 seconds bursts before it stops and buffers.
Traffic - Cars, motos, bicycles, horses and dogs in their own minds, own the road. Everyone gives way to 4x4 pickups ,trucks and buses, Motos sometimes give way to cars but most of the time will just bounce off them and carry on with half your bumper trim attached to their exhaust pipe and a raised middle finger. Motorcyclists will ride at all times whilst txting and carrying a ladder and a baby. Young Adults usually wear a helmet placed ontop of their heads, not over it, just isnt cool to wear one properly, helmets for children dont be ridiculous, They dont need helmets, we have plenty more at home if we loose one off the side of the motorbike.
Cyclists will pedal as slow as humainly possible especially on an avenue junction causing maximum carnage. Dogs will either sleep in the road, or run out from behind a bush and try and bite your face off as you drive past. Cows will suddenly walk out onto the route whilst you approach at 70mph, you scream in terror as you try and avoid them, they casually walk across the route chewing grass and dragging their sagging ball sack (or whatever that was) across the tarmac. Oh and rush hour happends 4 times a day in the rural city, before and after siesta and on saturday and sunday mornings around 6am from the bars to home with as much shouting, horn beeping, loud music as possible.
People - Everyone knows one another in some way either related or by friendship. No matter where you are, in the chemist trying to decide which condoms to purchase, sitting in a doctors waiting room to get some treatment for a nasty boil on your backside, there will be someone who knows you that will say hello and want to know what your up to and then later theyll go around telling all their friends until everyone in the city knows what you have on your backside and you use banana flavoured condoms.
Apart from that, its great living in the sticks.
Weather - when its dry , its dusty. when its wet its muddy. Half the time your cleaning your car/house of dust, inside and out, the other half is cleaning the mud which gets everywhere. Because the majority of roads are mud and most poorer people who live in a muddy road are marooned for a day or two until the road dries out. Which means cleaners,nannys,builders,plumbers,etc have a day or two off when it rains.
Pets - Everyone has dogs or cats, at least one, usually three or more. They can`t be bothered to walk them so they just let them roam around the streets. This means they crap on your front garden and your back garden if your a cat. The dogs jump out in front of your car and try and bite it or just walk out in front of it at the last moment.Dogs bark all night at each other or at the cats and both will go through any rubbish that is accidently left out during the night ready for you to clean up the next morning.
Animals - People have chickens and livestock in the campo (no shit einstein). The cockrels will wake everyone up at 4am, the cows will roam around , moo and crap on your front garden. You`ll have a personal war every summer with the local Ant population who, and this actually happened , will find their way into your kitchen larder and your favourite packet of buscuits during the night only for you to come down peckish in the middle of night and in near total darkness rummage around for a buscuit which you pull out of the packet along a few hundred peckish ants.
Shopping - Most of the shops are small, family run and they all stock pretty much the same junk. Usually you end up going to 2-3 shops because theyre either out of stock or theyve closed for the day because a distant cousin has come to spend a day and drink mate . Its also more expensive than the big cities, due to transport costs and rip off shop owners. Oh and theyre only open in the mornings and a few hours in the evening, and quite often shut all day saturday and always sunday and every other tuesday when its some saints birthday or its the day of the small shop owners. If you want to risk it try mercadolibre, half the time it`ll turn up damaged or will be the wrong item and they`ll charge you ridiculous amounts to wrap it up and send it. Someone tried to charge us $150 to wrap up a computer mouse once!
Rubbish - There are no rubbish dumps or dumpsters so people just dump all the rubbish on the corner of the street. Anything from trees, old furniture to piles of newspapers. Then every week or two a lorry comes along and they collect it all if it hasnt already been taken by someone else,blown away in the wind or set fire too.
Services ie Plumbers will tell you theyre coming tomorrow morning to fix your toilet, but they wont because theyre sitting at home drinking mate. You`ll have to phone or text them several times and if they happen to be passing by your house they`ll drop in and expect you do be at home and available for them even if its 9 oclock at night.
Houses - Most will be taken over by humidty and decay, they`ll have a brand new Toyota Corolla outside but cant afford a few pots of paint to make their houses look decent. Some houses will have front pavements, some once had 30 years ago but has been left to crumble until its more mud and grass than pavement. Each pavement will be built at a different level to its neighbour, one will be 5inches higher than the next so if your walking past you are forever stepping up and down like being attached to somekind of personal gym step machine. Walking at night is a lottery because theres only 1 street light per block, so if you dont trip up on a pavement and split your skull open you`ll end up with dog (or cow) crap on your shoes. Wheelchair and pram users - stay in the city.
Technology - internet works most of the time but is at speeds from a few decades ago. It`ll go down to the whole city once every few weeks because someone in the campo digging up potatoes has cut through the only fibreoptic cable to your city. And expect to watch youtube in 15 seconds bursts before it stops and buffers.
Traffic - Cars, motos, bicycles, horses and dogs in their own minds, own the road. Everyone gives way to 4x4 pickups ,trucks and buses, Motos sometimes give way to cars but most of the time will just bounce off them and carry on with half your bumper trim attached to their exhaust pipe and a raised middle finger. Motorcyclists will ride at all times whilst txting and carrying a ladder and a baby. Young Adults usually wear a helmet placed ontop of their heads, not over it, just isnt cool to wear one properly, helmets for children dont be ridiculous, They dont need helmets, we have plenty more at home if we loose one off the side of the motorbike.
Cyclists will pedal as slow as humainly possible especially on an avenue junction causing maximum carnage. Dogs will either sleep in the road, or run out from behind a bush and try and bite your face off as you drive past. Cows will suddenly walk out onto the route whilst you approach at 70mph, you scream in terror as you try and avoid them, they casually walk across the route chewing grass and dragging their sagging ball sack (or whatever that was) across the tarmac. Oh and rush hour happends 4 times a day in the rural city, before and after siesta and on saturday and sunday mornings around 6am from the bars to home with as much shouting, horn beeping, loud music as possible.
People - Everyone knows one another in some way either related or by friendship. No matter where you are, in the chemist trying to decide which condoms to purchase, sitting in a doctors waiting room to get some treatment for a nasty boil on your backside, there will be someone who knows you that will say hello and want to know what your up to and then later theyll go around telling all their friends until everyone in the city knows what you have on your backside and you use banana flavoured condoms.
Apart from that, its great living in the sticks.
