Warmth

I dropped into the Edinburgh jazz bar on Sunday almost by chance. I was hungry and remembered as I walked past that there was some people from the Queer Tango scene who go there at that time to dance blues. In the Ladies someone said a warm hello. It was a new tango dancer from the QT group who danced amazingly, naturally well after only a month. That’s the nice thing about that group. Their teacher goes with them to the local milonga and dances with them. 

The new tango dancer told me where she was sitting with her friends. The seating was cabaret style at small tables, some of them pushed together. I got a drink but didn't want to gatecrash her large table of dancers so sat at the back to watch for a while. But she came to find me, chatted to me, sat down, and then persuaded me over to her table where she introduced me to everyone. It was simply the warmest, most sensitive gesture of welcome I've seen in ages. It isn’t that she has decades of social and hosting experience. She is young so it must simply be that she was brought up to be like that or is just that way naturally.. 

A guy from the milongas was there. He knows many dances. We only danced once two or three years ago, I’m not sure why. I suppose I assumed he didn’t want to invite or he assumed I didn’t want to be invited and then gradually - partly through choice, partly to protect my dodgy knee - I danced less and less with guys conventionally.  But he welcomed me too. And then when I was about to leave after half an hour or so to go to the milonga he said persuasively that I shouldn’t leave without dancing. I wasn’t ready and pled my outdoor shoes but I expect I will go back. 

In my experience in the milongas this sort of welcome from habitues is amazingly, sadly rare even - especially - among the well-heeled, well-educated middle classes of the south of England which should indicate that those sorts of things have nothing to do with warmth. It is because of this friendly group of Queer Tango dancers that I have started going back to the regular milonga in Edinburgh which I'd effectively left for the best part of two years. The blues dancer had evidently been warned off entering the milonga scene by people who do other dances along the lines of “tango is such a cold/snobby/unfriendly scene”. 

We in the milongas have in general an appalling reputation for welcoming new people and visitors and welcoming them not mechanically but genuinely, warmly with the same sensitivity shown by my new friend. I once saw a host crash - metapahorically - in supposed welcome into a group of new people a regular had brought to the milonga.  The same host has a tendency to crash, bulldozer-like into conversations between other people. This isn’t welcome, it’s assertion of dominance.

Look around your local milonga and see how very few beginners come into the milonga from class. So those we bring with us, visitors, the curious who drop in are as precious to the milonga as newborns to life. And yet mostly they are treated like Spartans: survive or die. The attitude reminds me of one recounted by the former local from a small island off the west coast of Scotland towards new residents:  It was quite a tough approach: we’ll ignore you for now and see if you’re around/still alive in a year.

Do you like the milonga? I asked the blues/tango dancer. I like our corner of it she said cautiously. When they weren’t there on Sunday I missed them.

Cultural divide

Although I made no claims for my skills in acknowledging people inside the salon I still feel rather hoisted by my own petard.

I went to this milonga where there was a visiting Argentine teacher and very musical dancer who I have seen at a few dances and chatted to briefly, mostly about music. He was nearby in the salon as I arrived and I nodded an acknowledgement. He nodded. 

So I was about to move away when he said “Hello” in a surprised tone by which I understood he thought I had not acknowledged him properly.  I was taken aback because I was sure he knew I had acknowledged him. He must have realised I was surprised because he said “A kiss?” which surprised me further yet by which I understood him to mean: because isn't this what we in the milongas normally do with people we know? and indeed in Argentina I found it so, even with people I had met only lately.  He embraced me. To explain my more northern approach on this occasion: I didn’t feel I knew the guy well.  But Argentina is a different culture in terms of how people interact with one another. I was glad he had bridged the divide and better than me. 

Someone I know from South America was there and though I don’t know her well, I know her better - in fact I was there because I knew she was going. Her Latin warmth is infectious. Talking to her is like being in the sunshine and boy, does she understand the guy-girl thing in the milongas the way women from South America and more Latin cultures than ours often instinctively do. 

Personal? (II) and Buenos Aires: Palace of the National Congress

On my third day in Buenos Aires I did a tour around the National Congress building.  Janis told me about it, helpful in this as in much else. It is free.  Note:  you need to bring your passport.

The tour guide, Soledad, dances tango.  She works in the Congress kindergarten in the morning and does the tours in the afternoon.  She is a great guide - friendly, helpful and informative.

I love hearing from and talking to guides in buildings, cities and museums.  The way a guide takes you round somewhere reminds me of the way people dance - they all approach it differently.  Some tell you the stark facts. Or, what you learn can be idiosyncratic, told often through stories and filtered through the personality of the guide.  Some do both.

By chance it was a personal tour as there were no other visitors that day.  The neoclassical building, its decoration, history and current significance is, if you like these sorts of things well worth seeing.

The National Congress houses the Argentinian government which is split between the Senate (representing districts) and the Chamber of Deputies (representing the people). The main gate is only used for certain rare state events such as a visit by another head of state, funerals of previous presidents and the inaguration of a new president. On another day I went to the inauguration of President Macri but a day or two before had walked with Janis past the Congress which is very central and seen severe damage to the gates.  Janis discovered that a van had taken the corner too fast and ploughed into the gates with tragic, fatal results.  I was not as surprised as I should have been.  That morning I had walked past a car not far from where I was staying.  The window had been smashed for theft. Then on one of the main avenues I saw a road sign of motorway magnitude, the type that extends over a road from the side.  It had just crashed on to the middle of the road presumably in the strong winds. By some miracle it appeared not to have hit a car.  There was not a pattern to these things but they did not feel entirely unrelated.

The palace was built at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century.  Designed by an Italian, the interior is made with different types of stone and wood, imported in many cases from outside Buenos Aires, even from Europe as was typical at the time.  It is rich with ornamentation in many forms particularly stained glass and decorative tiling

There is symbolism everywhere:

The stained glass ceiling in the middle right of this collage is a metaphorical representation of Argentina. The chandelier in the blue room was (fortunately) lowered for cleaning. It is richly symbolic representing the different provinces of the country and key figures from history.  I think I remember that even the bulbs were shaped to represent wheat, part of the country's wealth. You can see in the top right photo that renovation continues.  The central photo shows a monogram for the library of Congress.  It all used to be open to the public but the most publicly relevant part of that collection has been moved to a building in the square outside Congress, still open to the public.  The homeless community in that plaza now pile up their mattresses on the window ledges outside.  The Congress library inside the palace holds tracts relevant to the work of government.  The library itself was designed to be warm and relaxing and it feels like that.  It is shown below in the bottom right.

The top photo of those above shows the Chamber of Deputies.  Soledad told me that up if I looked carefully I would notice that some of the desks had modesty panels installed at the time when women wore (possibly had to wear?) skirts.  It was a lovely touch.  The pink room is the anteroom in which Eva Peron used to meet with the women she worked with.   I was lucky to get to see it.  The original chair covers are underneath these loose covers and are much nicer. 

Other (better!) photos of the Congress building and interior.

I was brand new to Buenos Aires and as yet unused to how people are with one another so I was struck with how warm Soledad and her colleagues were. All of them said hello and kissed one other. I do not think it unrelated that she persuaded colleagues to open doors for me that were locked.  And yet it did not seem at all that this affection was utilitarian.   It seemed to be just a warm, easy and nicer way to go about life.  Most of us, especially from northern climes are not as used to the public embrace as they are in say Argentina.  I asked her about it.  "Oh, it’s normal here", she said. "But they are my colleagues. We all get on very well but we do not necessarily see one another outside of work."  This was confirmed by one of my hosts.  "Oh yes", said Josefina.  She has only been to England only once, briefly but her English sounds as though she has spent a lifetime listening to Radio 4, enhanced by a relaxed colour to her conversation. "We kiss each other all the time but it doesn’t mean anything."   I think she meant it’s not personal.  Juan couldn't be doing with all the kissing but then he is reserved and correct in the loveliest way and always seemed an unfathomable mix of Argentinian and something else I can't quite place.

 It makes me wonder if "it not being personal" is perhaps tangentially connected to Gavito’s comment.  I thought often in Argentina about how things are and how things seem.  A fragile and rickety bridge spans that gulf.  When things are not or may not be as they seem, people thereafter prefer to avoid risk.  They protect themselves however they can.  Trust seemed to be a significant issue there - in politics as much as in the interactions between people. I noticed it in small features of daily life and talked about it with locals.