Barring a few countries in the world, like North Korea and
China, a majority of the planet has democracy as a way of governing. There can
be a lot of talk about how democratic this democracy is in these countries, but
at least on paper these countries have an elected government by the people of
the land.
Many of the countries in South America, have seen
dictatorian politics in the past and there have been years of such rule which
still torments the souls of those who have been through it. Chile, had Pinochet
and Argentina had its own share of young men suddenly disappearing from their
houses and taken in as political prisoners in the early 80’s. Most of them never returned home.
Well, everything looks fine now until you scratch the
underbelly of politics here. In Argentina especially, there has been a
president who over the last two successive terms has seen through an economy
going from not so good to bad and ultimately hitting its worst patch in the
last one year. Its only now that the people here are seeing certain uplift in
the economic trend, but offcourse this is the election year.
As a tourist I am more concerned about the exchange rate of
the Argentinian pesos to the US $. In 2010 when I first set foot here, to
change the $ in a bank was the same as changing it on the street. The peso was
at around 7 back then to the US $. Last year in 2014, the peso lost double its
value to the $ and though the banks official price was still at 8 – 8.5, the
street exchange price or as the say here the tipo de cambio had gone to 14
pesos to a dollar.
Finance has always been my weekness but even I could make
out that with the inflation hitting the roof at 40 % the people on the street
were the ultimate sufferers. The president by 2014 had already made 3 five star
hotels in the name of her family but the people of Buenos Aires who loved to
eat out suddenly decided that it was becoming a luxury to go to a restaurant,
or to drink the national obsession, coffee in a café. I remember my guide
telling me that, in April 2014 she bought a bread, butter fruits and milk for
100 pesos. The next month saw milk being knocked out of the list and the
following month saw bread zooming to an all time high price.
Even in the internal flights we took in the continent, the
tourists all came from Brazil which is the biggest economy in the continent. I
hardly saw any Argentinian taking in the luxury of traveling outside the
country. So I was a little surprised, to see this couple from Buenos Aires
taking a month long vacation and on board my flight from Buenos Aires to Doha.
“We had it enough, they said, we saved for 2 years and at the end of it the
cost of the air ticket went up by 150 %. I sold a piece of land in the
countryside to take this trip”.
Running a restaurant has always been a challenging thing,
but with customers dropping and rents rising, the restaurant business here in
Buenos Aires is at an all time low. I had my people eat at a restaurant managed
and served by two old ladies, who worked overtime and seemed really tired at
the end of the day. I didn’t want to ask them, “why wouldn’t you keep some
staff to help you with the cleaning and stuff”, instead for that night I
decided to help them with the dishes.. It was not out of concern, but for the
pure thought of feeling amongst them working.
Its not a common practice to tip in Argentina, but with the
wages not going up, the waiters now not only say. “sir the tip is not included,
ya” but also wait at the table after they bring in the change. For some this
might be a little rude, but if this is the way they will make the extra buck,
then it has to be this. The buck then gets that extra piece of bread at the end
of the day or keeps the house warm for a little longer, and it is fine.
I don’t know and I am no one to proclaim that with the
coming of the new government here, the economic scene will change. I hope it
will but at least the so called democratic government’s mouthpiece, The
President of the nation wont be heard saying. “Any person who doesn’t support
the policies of the government is the enemy of Argentina”.
I wrote this in April this year but didn’t post it. I am in
Norway now and Argentina seems so far away. Geographically maybe only!
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