Light Witness in Buenos Aires, Argentina

I arrived in Buenos Aires on August second, and it was raining. Five days later it was still raining. A cold and fine rain, only slightly more humid than the low and gray clouds sitting on the buildings' roofs. I bought myself a polera, a turtle neck sweater, since I was coming from the hot summer of the Northern Hemisphere, and I kept it pulled up to my chin all the time. I wandered the city looking down at the sidewalk in order to avoid stepping into the frequent puddles, while wearing a baseball cap that hid the upper part of the buildings from my view. Buenos Aires, to me, wasn't more than puddles and two-story-high palacios.

I wanted to buy a scarf, but that would have meant surrendering to winter, so I held my neck tight between my shoulders. Not to mention the continuous discomfort. Every time I sought a break from the weather I sat in a bookstore, one of thousands, entered a shopping mall, one of hundreds, went into a bar or coffee shop for a submarino made of hot steamed milk and sweet melting chocolate, one of millions. I read La Nacion or Clarin in order to feel more porteño while the crowd around me shook umbrellas and dipped into books on Evita Peron or El Che. Nothing could warm me up, not even the stories that people were telling me about the serious summer heat that usually traps the city for long months. Nothing could cheer me up, not even the huge gaucho style portions of juicy steak and kidney and ribs and hearty red wine served in fine restaurants. There was absolutely no way I could get in tune with the city. It is me, I kept telling myself, I'm missing something, but what? Suddenly, one morning, the rain stopped and I left cap and umbrella at home. And then I saw the rooftops, I saw the straight lines and the gentle curves of the towers and pinnacles and the reflecting windows and the cramped cement and the watery colors on the walls and the futuristic architecture of the New South America and the Eighteen hundreds Europe and the melancholic Nineteen hundreds and the light poles and the ubiquitous TV antennas and electrical aerial wires. And I also saw, above the Casa Rosada, the magnificent Argentinean sky: white and pale blue like the national flag. Starting that day I could see the city previously precluded to me by the gray clouds and the cap's peak. Starting that day when light and white clouds gave a depth to the sky, I lived Buenos Aires, the one I was told about and I always dreamt of experiencing. I kept wandering around as I did before, but now I was walking along the beautiful avenidas and crossing immense squares and vast parks, I was sitting at the outdoor tables in cafe' for a Quilmes, and my nose was always pointing up: to the sky. Enthusiasm grew daily as I discovered the reason why this city has been celebrated so much by those who live here or have had the chance to see, at least once, the beauty of the sky above the avenidas.