Carne Argentino

Location:
Argentina

Argentina, bus, rugby

By Nili Larish

When our driver hands out steak sandwiches rolled in paper napkins to all the passengers in the bus parked on the Chilean/Argentine border, I know I am going to love Argentina, famed land of gauchos and heavenly beef.

The bus is three-quarters filled by a high school rugby team and their coach, coming home on their way back from winning a championship game. As I settle into my seat, they notice me, my unkempt hair, my backpack. They begin to blow kisses to the Gringa in the back, insisting that I see and praise their large gold-plated trophy. Though he refers to himself as ¨100% carne Argentino,” the coach’s name is Daniel, and he tells me that he has seen my soul and tries to convince me to kiss him. Thinking it might calm him down, I agree to hold his hand for a moment.

The boys begin to make fun of each other, give each other shit. They are hoping I will laugh or be impressed. They test my Spanish vocabulary, asking me to list animals, colors, foods. When I ask for the same in English, they protest loudly, each passing the challenge to the guy sitting beside him.

Rays of warm light filter through the bus’s large open windows. A quiet calm begins to envelope us. We are tired, we’ve played all the games we know, and Daniel’s hope for our blissful future together is waning.

Unabashedly, one of the younger guys on the team begins to sing a simple song, and his teammate pulls out a guitar. Slowly, they all join in, their voices bonding together to create a single strand of sound.

Outside, to our right, the setting sun illuminates the sky and clouds in pink-purple resplendence over silhouetted Andes. To our left, the sky has already turned a rich blue and the moon is out, full and low, like a humongous egg you could eat. We are caught between night and day with the perfection of nature stretching around us for kilometers, and inside the boys are all singing, smiling, clapping, the guitar is going, faces bathed in shadow, their boyish machismo melts away and an infectious joyous energy swooshes around in the confined space of our bus. The joy they’ve created has got nowhere to go but back inside of us, and in that instant it feels like we are all meant to be exactly where we are, straddling the boundary between countries, between hours, between each other. I feel myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion, one which can only be described as concentrated, distilled joy rushing around inside of me.

Evening descends and the bus pulls into the capital of Jujuy, the Rugby team’s stop. Daniel fishes through his pocket and puts a small sea-shell in my hand. It glows like a tiny moon. I thank him, and rummaging through a backpack filled with dirty clothing, I find the bundle of photos that I had taken with me from home six months earlier. One of my parents, captured with shining faces at a party; another of my older brother, taken during his first non-vegetarian meal in 15 years; a smattering of friends I’d been trying to stay in contact with through e-mail—an attempt to inhabit two worlds at once. Finally, I find a photo of New York, my hometown. There isn’t anybody in the picture, just the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York skyline behind it. I had taken it with me in case anybody wanted to see where I was from, though the image is already emblazoned in the international imagination.

It was taken in 1999, after a long walk across the bridge with my father. The sky was ash-gray, and it had been cold out. The twin towers dominate the photo and serve as a focal point for the eye. I give it to Daniel. Gripping it with both hands, he looks at the image closely and then back up at me. He smiles and thanks me heartily, eyes wide, like I have given him a rare gem or a kiss. Then the team notices the photo, and it is snatched from Daniel’s hands. Thrusting fingers into ribs, fists into shoulders, it is passed around until everybody has seen it. Finger-smudged and a little torn, the photo makes its way back to Daniel, and then he is off the bus, and I am still in it, and looking through my window, I wave.