hysteria, hip hop and hair at personal fest- oh my!
Friday night cam went with preston, zach, and their friend eve to personal fest, a two-day outdoor concert at club de amigos in Buenos Aires (we only went for one day). After arriving late (club de amigos is a bit farther than we had planned for), we were only able to see 3 acts- Gotan Project, B Real of Cypress Hill, and Snoop Dogg (and the end of Tego Calderon).
Gotan Project was amazing– and it was quite the experience to be able to see them in Buenos Aires (they are a tango electronica group, which I highly recommend. Here is their website if you want a taste of their music).
We then saw B Real. He was the frontman of the 90s hiphop group Cypress Hill, however, he played about two Cypress songs (neither one of which was “Tequila Sunrise” or “Latin Thugs”) and stuck to his own music– not recommended.
At this point, cam noticed that, going along with the publicity theme for the festival, about 30% of the festival goers were wearing bright-colored wigs. She decided that she had to have one, and raced to the other end of the park in a quest to get one. Unfortunately they had all been given away, but she was able to convince a group of people with an extra wig that, since they had never met anyone from Oregon, that they should give her the wig. I’d like to say it made more sense in spanish, or at the time, but I don’t think it did. Anyway, I now own a bright red afro, and I’ll post photos when I upload them.
We then pushed our way forward to see the headlining act, Snoop Dogg. Even advancing as close to stage as we did was quite a feat- there were thousands of people at the concert (there were 5 different stages and 30,000 people came— but remember, Snoop was the main attraction). Obviously it was standing room only and we were wedged up against all of our neighbors. After waiting for Snoop to come on for over an hour, standing room only, our feet began to hurt. we decided that we really needed to move when two 15-year-old boys squeezed up who smelled like they hadn’t showered in months. So we decided to move to the back and wait for the show to start.
And luckily we did. We had not been sitting more than 15 minutes when we looked up and saw those thousands of people– the same ones that we had been standing with before- running towards us. I can only compare it with a stampede of horses, and we only had enough time to stand up and grab our things before we were part of it and running towards the back. People were climbing over fences and cowering in corners, and, at the time, the best we could gather was “nada paso” (nothing happened). However, the stampede occurred two other times. Luckily Snoop then came on and the show resumed, but we were left wondering what happened.
What appears to have passed was that people were angry at the delay and throwing bottles, one of which stabbed a concert-goer. Out of that, the crowd, angry and frustrated at the delay, overreacted, and total chaos ensued. People literally fell down and were trampled on. It is so so lucky that we moved to the back, because we would have been in the middle of it all, and believe me, we were scared enough. what is interesting is that none of the major news organizations covered the debacle. One site claims this was because journalists covering the event were threatened by personal (the cell phone company that sponsored the show) that their VIP rights would be revoked for the next day. Some bloggers have extended the blame up to Kirchner (and his failure to require more security at big shows- even though no liquor was served at the event and a 15 block “liquor-free zone’ was erected around the show so no one could buy alcohol) but I think that what took place was frustration at the delay, and a spontaneous reaction by a crowd.
Cristina assumes power
Although it has undoubtedly been all over the news in the US, a blog entry about life in Argentina should not exclude mention of Cristina Kirchner’s assumption of power yesterday. The day was marked as a holiday here as she ceremoniously took the reigns in Congreso (actual work will start today).
Today she will meet with a handful of leaders from South America and Spain.
Paige (cam’s friend from her program before who has moved down here as well and is staying with us) and Emma headed yesterday to the Plaza de Mayo to see the festivities/ protests, hopefully they will update later today about everything that went on over there.
Cameron mentioned earlier that Paige and I went to the inauguration of Christina, the first ever elected woman president of Argentina. We decided to head towards Casa Rosa, which is basically like the white house. We were greeted with a HUGE crowd waiting for the newly elected president to drive bye and make a speech. As we were waiting, Paige started chatting it up with a very friendly architect, who was more than happy to talk to two young American girls. As Christina got closer the energy in the crowd soured. The celebration was complete with music, horses and fireworks. Paige wedged past a small crowd to get a better look at the heavily altered face of the new president,,, she is well known for her usage of plastic surgery to alter the natural process of ageing. After she passed in her limo, the crowd headed towards the stage where she was to make a speech. Paige and I forged through the crowd. As we got closer we noticed small groups of boys/men who were celebrating by playing drums. They wore the drums around their necks, and poured water as they beat the drums, sending water splashing everywhere. As we walked by one group, they splattered water on us. Out of nowhere someone handed Paige and me some drums…so we started playing. Then… as we were doing our best to keep the beat, they started pouring bottle after bottle of water on us. Luckily it was hot out so it felt good, and neither one of us were wearing white tank tops… could have been a disaster. We were soaked from head to toe, it was great. Although I am not sure if they were pouring such a huge amount of water on us in celebration, or just to see how much we could take,,, needless to say we passed the test.
After the drenching, we headed towards the stage; people were pushing, and bumping into us. I started to get a little panicky, as I am not a huge fan of large crowds. We decided to skip the speech and get some well-needed food. As we left, we were greeted with more and more people, both playing drums and holding banisters. The amount of political awareness here is great. Everyone has an opinion and is more than willing to display that opinion either with banisters of support or protests. Since I have been here I have seen countless numbers of protests, and as a political science major, and previous resident of Eugene, I find it very inspiring.
After the inauguration, Paige and I headed towards San Telmo, sat at a courtyard/restaurant and sipped on some Argentinean beer, while letting the sun dry us off. As we were sitting there, we were able to make quite a few new friends. Paige is probably the most friendly stranger anyone will meet, she has no qualms about speaking to new people at adjacent tables. Anyhow we chatted it up for a while with a German girl and Portenos. Although we were pretty much dry by this point, I had begun to get cold, so we headed to an inside bar…. As we were heading home, we stumbled upon a restaurant that had just opened the weekend before (this was a Monday). The owners were overly friendly, pulled us inside for some sangria, we were pleasantly surprised to find that they were a flamenco bar, and were presently about to play some live music complete with flamenco dancers. The owners of this bar, truly know customer service, Grandpa Farrell would have been proud, they even let me use their phone to wish my grandpa a happy birthday. The brought us pitcher after pitcher, and chatted it up with us for quite some time. After the music was over, we had meet the whole restaurant crew, (about 7, including one of the owner’s mother) and I could not stomach anymore sangria (very sweet), we decided to head home with the promise to return very soon.
