Alcohol Induced

Lunes, 11 de Diciembre, 2007

I crossed the Bolivian border a couple of days back now and almost immediately noticed the difference in Argentinian lifestyle. An interesting lunch in Club Futbol de Argentina in the border town of La Quiaca was spent chatting to three Pensioners all slightly tipsy after a couple of bottles of wine. I found myself saying no entiendo quite frequently but when they offered up that subtly placed and lingering hand followed by the name Maradonna and plenty of smiles, I neither needed nor desired further embellishment of their point.

The next day I jumped aboard a coach heading to Salta only to find my seat had been double booked. I went back into the office and started to explain that seats 23 and 24 were already occupied by two women when I saw the bus leaving; rushing out to the driver I asked him to wait. A flat no resulted in me getting back on the bus anyway to prevent my backpack from riding off without me. There were spare seats available luckily and I tried to keep up with the rapidity of the women in the double booked seat’s conversation as blurs of cactii passed by the window. They actually kindly insisted that I stay with them in Salta, although in the end I managed to talk them down to a firm dinner invite.

At the bus terminal I shared a taxi with Danish and Icelandic cousins into town and we ended up all going to the same hostel where in the dormitory we met an Irish trio.

The following evening a large group congregated in the kitchen over a few beers and we began to prepare our blood alcohol levels for a night out on the town. Out of novel friendship situations, this was certainly a good one. Salta continued to impress. My Argentinian perception to date is one of sophisticated elegance with an all important edge. As the band played in front of me in the bar we had visited, I felt like I existed in the realms of cult cinema.

We went on to a pool hall for late night drinks and cards, but the crux of the story is really confined to the walk home at daylight. The Danish woman and I walked about a block ahead, turning every so often to let the staggering Irish guys and Icelandic woman catch up. I turned my head for a third or fourth time to check their progress and the first still that flicked clearly into vision was that of the Icelandic woman upside down and in mid air. I strung the frames together and realised that one of the Irish guys had decided to lift her off of the ground only for her to fall head first onto the road. Her lack of willing for the initial lifting had led to any reaction she may have had to diminish.

The scene I ran back to consisted of two dumbstruck Irishmen staring at the screaming woman with the outlines of her shattered teeth visible through blood, swelling and bruising. I lifted her out of the road and the Police who had arrived on the scene called for an ambulance. If I had been drifting through a film plot, there was certainly no glamour in this most vivid scene of hurt and hysterical display of grief.

There on the pavement sat two characters who within one second of their happy travelling lives, had reached far flung states of despair. One, eyes etched wide open, producing haunting wails of emotion whilst clutching at her bleeding face. The other, head in hands sobbing ruefully to himself about how foolish he had been.

I made the two guys go home which took a lot of firm persuasion, but was necessary due to the rage that their sight invoked in the poor woman. The ambulance arrived and we set off for the hospital.

Hospital

The two women went straight in and I waited in the reception. Situations arose that would have been far more comical had I not been thinking about the snap like change that can occur within lives. A group of nurses stood behind the counter sharing round a cigarette under a sign which read Fumar Prohibido. Another group stood watching football on a television screen and as Boca scored a huge cheer went up in the waiting room.

I went to enquire again about going through and was met by a nurse with a wooden bowl stuffed with mate and a slim metal straw protruding from it in a curve. Despite her friendliness I wasn’t allowed inside.

They emerged at 10am, the patient with stitches and temporary capping. The final outcome depending on nerve damage as to whether teeth have to be replaced or permanent capping applied. She gingerly got into a taxi and we went back to hostel.

I felt exhausted but not tired. I sat on my bunk trying to quell a concoction of sorrow, anger and something else in my head. Although no use explaining or patronising her with my thoughts now I deliberated about good and the shock of bad, yin and yang, whichever terminology that may be applied to it. To me it seems that one should show a real gratefulness to the yang because when the yin invariably bites they will need all the non-egoist appreciation they can muster to truly and swiftly overcome it.