Expats

The highlight of the day was attending a birthday party for this friend I met in Miami.

It's another night of chatting with expats and their local friends.

It's the same people, more or less.

But the stories deepen.

First, how did I get there? I took the subte, and got off an earlier station than I wanted because they both start with "M" (Medrano and Malabia). My "linguistic" brain confuses me too much. I didn't even realize I had gotten off the wrong stop until I started wondering why I was walking so much!

I didn't go to the party then. I went to a class at La Viruta, taught by Horacio Godoy. I didn't really like it. He was showing us stuff he just assumed we knew, and I would have thought it was because others have learned it but I didn't actually see anyone doing it right! I got some concepts out of it, but, shrug, not too useful. However, it was always good to try something new, and Horacio Godoy is supposed to be one of the best teachers as well as dancers, in ze werld!

There I met up with two friends who were also going to the party, so I went there.

Being with expats is surprisingly a strange experience for me. They aren't exactly like expats at Yale. Or perhaps my perspective is different for them just because I understand their culture better than the culture of my expat friends in the US. I don't really know why this sensation is there.

In any case, I felt I was in a new place.

Surprising? I don't have that feeling when I am traveling from one place to another.

I felt I was in a new place. I could see I was making friends in a new place. I could see that people liked me, however superficial, people liked me, and even wanted to connect with me. I felt I was included in a place, accepted, without any visible cost so far. I don't love Buenos Aires because of these people, not directly, but they have helped me, not only in getting a lot more dances than I have expected in the first week, but also in making me feel conscious of where I was, more importantly, conscious of a growing, though inevitably terminal, root in this city whose reason for which I love so much is still not quite easily verbalized. (Wow, that was the longest sentence I have written since high school.) I wanted to know their stories (though as with the rest of my life, no one seemed particularly eager to know mine), I let them talk, and I had follow up questions. They felt good (I think, else they wouldn't want to talk more), especially this lawyer who wanted to work here; he had a lot to say and when he did say them he was emotional, however trivial the subject was.

Were the expats lonely here?

Why not? They were human beings, transplanted here. I was a human being transplanted to a new country, and I did so without any say in it as a child.

But they were having fun. There are few cities in the world that would offer you so much more reason to live than Buenos Aires. And if you can dance tango, all the better, as it offers you a way to reconnect, especially if you are a good dancer.

After the party, we went to La Viruta and danced till it closed, early. I actually left early, wanting to start the day earlier next day. A friend was coming, and I wanted to make sure I could help.

I would miss these expats, I already know, when I leave. But I will be happy having gotten to know them. Human connections are like rain drops around the world, they might have different chemicals dissolved in it, just little, they might come too often or nearly never, but they all are water.