in six weeks here i've dealt with...

[jrockstar80]

(well, including one week in chile)

...crazy boyfriends, crazy roommates, infectious disease, being homeless (see: the aforementioned roommates), being extorted by villeros, altitude sickness, landslides, and bedbugs.

oh and on the bus back from chile today i sat next to an old woman who paid the blind man who jumped on to the bus at lujan to sell 3 pesos worth of cookies by telling him a 2-peso note was a 10-peso note, thus pocketing 7 pesos and the cookies.

is this normal for latin america or am i doing something wrong? i mean, i do like it here, but from a yanqui's perspective... this seems like... a lot of things have gone wrong. i need a reality check here...

 

[mendozanow]

Define "foreign" in the context of your text, textually speaking.

 

[jrockstar80]

..........

 

[starlucia]

A few weeks ago, we came home from dinner to find that someone had taken a humongous, incredibly foul-smelling crap on the front step of our building. It wasn't dog feces, it was definitely of the human variety, and it sat there overnight, smelling up the entire lobby and elevator.

A few days later, we watched, from the window of our cab in broad morning daylight, a young man violently beaten by 3 others (2 pinned him down while one kicked his head in, then stabbed him.)

So nah, nothing fazes me anymore (though that story about the old woman comes close...)

 

[mendozanow]

Sounds like a trip on Greyhound in the US or Canada, but safer.

Altitude sickness at only 2,500 metres (pass from Chile to Mendoza, right?)? Better not go to Bolivia, amiga.

How many boyfriends did you have in 6 weeks? Should have stopped here in Mendoza for a day to have a "non-foreign" one.

Thanks for the non-visual visuals, like a drug trip I had in the 70´s.

Suerte amiga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

[TomAtAlki]

Starlucia, what part of town do you live in?

 

[jrockstar80]

i feel like i am learning valuable "dealing with things" skills from being here but i'm starting to question if it's really worth it. oddly i found out today 2 other expats i know are having the same feelings... then there is that other thread on here with people that have been here 5 years and 8 years talking about leaving... i mean, really, can i continue to expect 1-2 major crises per week here for the duration of my stay here?

 

[Celia]

We've had the human shit on the doorstep several times...I guess it could be lucky? Oh and our granite facade was destroyed in part by someone setting fire to a mattress outside our house (thank god our wooden blinds didn't set alight). They stole our 100 year old door knobs too.

 

[AkBill]

My first weeks here were like yours, being out on the street after dark in congreso with all my stuff and my laptop thanks to a psycho apartment owner

After a while when you get a bunch of friends and a nice apartment things almost become too smooth and i miss those days

 

[Mano Negra]

I think you probably are doing something wrong. I've been coming here for 13 years and have now lived here for 18 months and have never had a problem (or nothing major that couldn't be dealt with there and then - including a rather nasty accident when a motorcycle hit my car). Admitedly being older, male, speaking Spanish and having a bit more money is an advantage. That being said, if you can't handle Argentina, you are going to be severely limited as to where in the world you can safely travel. Don't even think of India, China or Africa to name but a few. Argentina is a playground compared to them. So really the decision is do you write off large chunks of the world (and interestingly most of the places with the greatest current economic development) as being inaccesible, or do you get used to things and try and hone your intuition a little more to allow you to avoid these situations. Maybe you have just been unlucky. I know quite a lot of young, female, poor students at the UBA who have been having a great time here albeit with minor inconveniences. Strangely, most of the people I have met who seem to have had problems adapting are from the US. Maybe just not so used to travelling?