27th May 2010

SWF seeks to cleanse herself of Porteño madness in the catholic ritual, but will it suck her even further into the surrealist labrynth that is Buenos Aires.

By SWF in Buenos Aires

Six priests came out from some hidden ‘behind the scenes’ area at the front, the lights went out and I couldn’t work out if this was part of the ritual or a power cut  as it has been raining quite a lot and often there are power cuts when it rains and floods here.

All six priests walked to their respective confessional boxes. Unlike the confessions I’ve seen in the films, they sat there with the doors wide open while people went and kneeled in front of them - six simultaneous confessions all going on at the same time. I was running through my head what I was going to say in Spanish. I was thinking should I tell them that I called the women on the till in ‘Carrefour’ a puta after an exchange involving me trying to use my eco bag and her insisting on putting everything in plastic bags and then into my eco bag. She threw my change back at me when I tried to explain the whole eco-bag idea and everyone in the queue had that kind of – ‘doesn’t the estranjera realize we have a lot more to deal with here than the environment’ - expression on their faces.

Or maybe I could tell him I was considering casual sex with the very good-looking ice cream man in the Heladeria just opposite the church.

While I was mulling over my long-pending confession and getting a bit nervous about my Spanish and also worried that once the flood gates opened there would be so much confessing to do……. the lights flickered back into life and everyone got up and started singing. It reminded me of when I was about 6 years old and was contemplating doing the egg and spoon race in my Notting Hill primary school ‘Fox’ sports day, Should I do it? And then of course it was over and I missed my chance.

A little Argentine boy of about seven, in blue Wellingtons, had handed out hymm photocopies. There were about 500 people, I think it was a kind of pre-World Cup confessional rush or something, it was really full. I stood very near the back, as I was a bit apprehensive as to what I was supposed to do when bread and wine time came.

A priest made a speech about how it didn’t matter how many more police there might be on street corners 'it was the people that needed to change inside'. I couldn’t get it all in Spanish, especially as there was a big echo effect in the beautiful voluptuous structure but it went something along those lines. It was a very topical speech and he mentioned Mauricio Macri the mayor of Buenos Aires a few times. Mauricio Macri is right wing and amongst many other things has provided the Cartoneras (people who pick up cardboard boxes in the street to sell on) with horrible uniforms to work in. He has also created a new metropolitan police force. According to a crime reporter friend of mine the reality is they can’t find enough police to create this new police force, and they would be creating it from recruits from the current police force or retired police, who were the problem in the first place, so that actually it’s all a bit of a fantasy the idea of creating a new ‘clean’ police force.

There are always stories here about how ineffective and corrupt the police are or that the older police in the force or the ones about to retire would have been young police during the military regime. I can never get used to the police here and always find it incongruous to see them chatting on their mobiles and smoking and giving you the once over (i.e. assessing your body in a very male way) as you walk past all whilst on the job. The priest then went onto say that yesterday is history, today is today and should be valued for today, and tomorrow is hope. When you are listening to words like these in a church in a country like this with such a different history to your own and when you are amongst people who have lived that history those words have a different impact. It felt simultaneously alien but also familiar and a story I have become accustomed to incorporating into the world that I live in here and I don’t know if I jumped outside my tradition.

I definitely felt outside of this particular catholic tradition while standing inside this church; I tried to follow the song sheet. We stopped singing and the priest said a few words and the man next to me turned to me. I thought, oh shit it’s bread and wine time and went to move to let everyone out as I was the one on the end of the pew but then realized everyone was kissing and hugging each other and so I had to quickly get back in and kiss the man next to me and the women behind me. My hugging and kissing was way over enthusiastic as I started compensating for the fact that I had initially backed away from everyone.