In Argentina, There Was A Love That People Showed For Each Other

I don't have pictures, because these moments came when I didn't have my camera out, and because I'm hesitant to intrude in intimate moments, but let me give you several examples of the caring I saw among people in Argentina.

1.  People greet each other with hugs that include cheek to cheek contact

I don't know the rules of who hugs who like this.  Certainly family members, but also work colleagues, friends, and even we received this treatment from people.  This contact is male-female, female-female, and male-male.  I think this - I want to say intimacy, but maybe it's because my US cultural perspective sees it that way - physical contact breaks down barriers that handshakes can't.


2.  I saw lots of fathers really enjoying being with their young children

Men would have their kids on their shoulders, or mock battle with them, men would become little kids themselves in their play with their children.  And there was an obvious love that sparkled in the eyes of parent and child and showed in the natural smiles they shared.  I'm not saying there aren't cold fathers in Argentina, just that I saw a lot more pure love showing than I see in the US.

3.  Mate bonding

I've mentioned mate in a few posts already.  It's a kind of tea that Argentines (Uruguayans and Chileans) drink from small gourd cups through metal straws. I guess gourds were the original cups, but they also use ceramic cups.  Everywhere you see people with their mate cups and a small thermos to replenish the hot water.

Bus drivers, people walking down the street, teachers, everybody drinks mate and it's a ritual.  People don't toss their mate cups the way Americans toss their latte cups.
But I'm talking about mate again here because people share their mate.  They share their metal mate straws.  The only thing like it I can think of in the US would be people sharing a joint.  

     Here's the bus driver on one of our tours adding hot water to his mate.













And here he's sharing his mate with the guide.

  

4.  Airplane Safety Video

Aerolíneas had an animated safety video - all the stuff about seat belts, oxygen masks, that we see or hear every time a flight is about to take off.  What made this animation different was that when the mother put the child's oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the mother lovingly and ever so fleetingly (and unconsciously) she strokes the child's cheek.  And when the mother is shown helping the child get on his life rest, again, she reassuringly tousles his hair.

I've never seen anything like that in an airline safety message before.  And while there are commercials that show that sort of thing, I don't think I've ever seen one as natural as this.  I could be wrong, but I felt like the artist just put the love into the animation and no one objected.  Though it's quite possible they spent hours debating this.  But for me, the outcome was one more example of a human bonding that I saw lots of in Argentina.  (We weren't in Chile or Brazil long enough to make such observations.)


OK, that's it.  In this time of great interpersonal nastiness unleashed by the US president, I thought it important to shine a little lot of these acts of love.  I have no illusions that Argentinians aren't capable of evil - they demonstrated that in the 70s and 80s.  But these moments of caring did catch my attention.