Watch your step, the side walks need attention but that’s not why you’re here. Watch your head, the tree branches might get you, but that’s not why you’re here. Brushing your hand against the walls as you pass house after house, all different, exposing the various influences through the centuries. From brick, to concrete, rooftop patios to decorated balconies. Beautiful dilapidating houses next to a house built with folktale imagination before the red brick house on the corner.
The secret is to come roughly between school hours when the barred window opens and the ‘kiosko’ sign turns blue and red. Close to anything a passing buyer’s heart desires. Quench your thirst with anything from water to anything carbonated, even top shell Mendoza wine. Satisfy your hunger with a hotdog made in front of you while you remember you needed toilet paper, antacids and school supplies. Just a taste of what a house in the name of a kiosk has to offer.
Silent afternoon streets indicate that morning hustle is over, store fronts close and kitchen windows ajar. Warm welcoming wind flows through the neighborhood streets, taking the aroma swirling through the lunch bells with it. Feet become as light as air, the sidewalk has got you so far. Lean forward and let the smells be the motivation for the destination. A community with a myriad of backgrounds, the presence of all of the different culinary creations prove that this place is generations from segregation.
The journey back home is almost over. Notes start flowing through the northern warm wind, with a slight musical note of rusted bike chains. “Churrrrrooooo” ‘brrrring’ followed by a unique whistle ‘Doodooduuuu!’ For fresh fish, lunch and a snack from hustling locals. Your feet land at the gate to the open passage way to the house. Through the gate and past the little ground floor apartments, all at one point in time belonging to one big Italian family. Now a collection of beautiful differences. The destination has been reached, relax, have a maté, listen to the birds, the neighborhood, it has a lot to offer.
Jordan Boucher, es un escritor y viajero canadiense, viviendo actualmente en Buenos Aires, Argentina.
