It's not snowing

Greetings! Today is not only a day off of work for Argentina's Independence Day (for which our famous world's widest road "Avenida 9 de Julio"--12 lanes in all-- was named), but it is also my first official day off the cleanse! Woo hoo!! I made it 30 whole days, and i feel excellent. I'll be celebrating with some yummy Korean food at my new Korean friend Jessica's house, and maybe a little bit of wine. :-) But yes, I need to be careful not to fall back into old bad habits...

Today also marks the 2nd anniversary of the first snow in Buenos Aires since 1918. Yes, 2 years ago today, the city received a white dusting of snow.. the kids went nuts and all ran outside to play, and some people touched snow for the very first time. Today, it's certainly not snowing (it's quite nice out, actually) but it is a cool little anecdote, I think.

This year, we don't have snow, all we have is.... swine flu. Blahhhhh.

Slight feelings of guilt

Was I unnecessarily harsh in yesterday's blog? I dunno. But I keep toying with the idea of deleting yesterday's post, which means my sub-conscious is having some sort of regrets about my obvious dismissal of what is supposedly a "health crisis."

Here's the thing-- okay, so you can DIE from the swine flu. And 26 people in Argentina already have. But of the couple thousand total infections, the fatality rate is only around 3%, hardly what I would call an "emergency."

I will now contradict myself several times as I attempt to explain my opinion. Enjoy the train wreck.

Argentina's health care and general infrastructure, especially in the provincias outside the capital, are not so good, especially compared to the services you can get back in the US. I sometimes forget that I'm a privileged American, and that my opinions, however much I hate to admit it, probably stem from that. So a flu that I consider easily curable and no big deal, perhaps for the poor people living out the the sticks of Argentina is not such a small thing. My deepest regrets for talking smack.

HOWEVER, my opinion is that there are 2 ways to deal with this. You either 1) decide that this is not a big issue, do nothing, and not worry too much unless the problem worsens, or 2) you decide that this is a big issue, and you take immediate, hardcore action, and stop the thing before it really even starts. Duh.

Mexico City opted for option #2, and more power to them! It seems to have worked. People there had one long week of inconvenience, boredom, and lack of street tacos, and then they went back to living their lives. For a short time you couldn't go to a restaurant, club, movie theater, school, nothing, but at least the problem was dealt with.

Argentina, however, is taking what I would consider to be half-assed action, something hovering dangerously between options #1 and #2. They are closing schools for the month of July (tacking on an additional 2 weeks to their already-planned 2 week winter break), but not closing anything else. Wait, how does this help? So basically we can still go get swine flu on the street, at the nightclub, at the theater, at a restaurant, wherever, and only the schools will close down. Meanwhile, all those kids who now have a month off of school will be hitting the streets and clubs (teenagers can do that here-- wish I'd grown up that way!), spreading their swine flu all over town. Dirty kids!

I just don't think this makes any sense. One month of half-assed action that probably won't accomplish anything, versus, say, one week of hardcore action that could potentially make a big difference. Or, nothing. That's my vote.

PS. Don't forget to wash your hands!

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Oh, trendy pandemics! Hark, mighty power of thy fatal disease scare!

Remember that time that Mexico City shut down because of the Swine Flu (aka Gripe A)? You do? Or maybe you forgot because the swine flu scare is soooo 5 minutes ago?? Yeah, well, just as tucking your jeans into your boots juuuust came into style down here, apparently Argentina was the last to get the Pig Flu memo as well...

Right now, just as I was starting to settle into a nice dengue-less, paranoia-less, southern hemisphere winter existence, the city of Buenos Aires has to go all Mexico City on me. When I showed up at work today, I was informed that any of my classes involving children (which shockingly/ unfortunately is several) would be canceled for the whole month of July. Wooow!! What an awesome time to be a kid in Buenos Aires!!! And what a lame time to be the silly teacher losing money on lost hours to teach them.

The papers are saying that other stuff will still be open, but I'm worrying it won't be long now before an emergency crisis is declared, and every bar, nightclub, sports venue and bath house in the city locks its doors. Now THAT, my friends, is worth panicking about!

(With the 4th of July being this Saturday, and with that eerily coinciding with the day my alcohol cleanse ends, it's just extremely important that nothing too extreme happen.)

I, for one, am not afraid of a flu that only kills elderly, babies, people with compromised immune systems (mine's doing great, btw), and can't even out-kill the common flu. I mean, COME ON, we are going to close down for what now?

ROAR.

I've never been into systematic scare tactics. Mad Cow, Bird Flu... they all flew right over my head. It's time this one went with the way of the DoDo as well.