The Wait

  6:47am - I leave the house and walk up to the entrance of my barrio. I take a seat on the grass. It's a beautiful early Monday morning (if such as thing exists) and the week dawned upon me with a crystal blue sky. I was awaiting a taxi that would come and pick me up and take me to Capilla del Señor to work as a councillor on another camp. The idea of a taxi picking me up and driving me directly to the camp location, as opposed to negotiating a number of local buses and their awkward timetables, was a complete luxury. Even the 6:10am wake up couldn't bring me down, and the fact I'd managed to get myself ready and out the house with time to spare was pat on the back moment.

  It was going well.

  The taxi was due to pick me up at 6:50am. I wasn't stupid though, I knew that could mean anything between 6:50am and an undetermined hour (or number of hours) later. They're not exactly renowned for their punctuality here. Ever since I arrived in Argentina it has been something that has prodded and poked at my typically British obsession with being on time or worrying about something that is not. We are the class swat and they are the lazy kid at the back teasing us, dragging us into their ways. Either way, it meant I wasn't particularly phased as the minutes passed without the arrival of my horse and carriage.

  My friend and fellow councillor Michał was awaiting the same taxi a couple of miles down the road. We exchanged a few messages enquiring whether either of us had seen sign of the thing but responses were negative. We joked about how everything was late here. At 7:29am I joked that I had been standing around like a lemon for too long. It had been a mere 39 minutes.

  By this time, the Monday morning had started purring and stretching in front of my eyes. I initially settled myself down in front of an empty stage, but now the gears were in motion and the cast of rush hour were starting to emerge. The barrio sits on a main road and my view was exactly that. The frequency of vehicles gradually increased minute by minute between 7:00am and 7:30am, but none of them even slightly resembled a taxi. It took me back to the very start of my time here, as I stood in Ministro Pistarini airport staring at a congested luggage conveyor belt waiting for the emergence of my bag that simply never came.

  I was joined by a few manual labourers, who were dropped off outside my barrio and sat, seemingly awaiting further transport. We didn't chat anything further than a brief nod and greeting - in which the respect as fellow 'independent, not that bothered about talking to strangers on a Monday morning' waiting commuters was formed and assumed. We simply watched on as the inhabitants of Los Cardales left the sleepy pueblo to head off to work in the surrounding urban areas.

  At about 7:40am, a moment that encompassed the tragicness of the situation occurred. As I left the house I was the only one awake and there was no sign of movement. Yet there I was sitting outside the barrio still when Taty left in the car to take the kids to school and Carlos left for work. This meant that in all the time that I'd been sitting there they'd woken up, got ready, eaten breakfast and dealt with the problems that arise with kids on a Monday morning, and then left the house. Meanwhile I just sat, like a hopeless puppy (sympathy fishing).

  I felt like I was a time-lapse camera watching the world go by. It was just that my view wasn't anything cool apart from a main road and numerous cars flying past. It was about 8:00am and I was swarmed by the arrival of the dozens of workers that serve the houses in the barrio. The majority being cleaners and construction or maintenance workers, the variety of South American dialects swarmed around me and shot into my ear not occupied by a headphone. My brain acted like a tough bouncer at a club however and at this time on a Monday nothing was going in.

  I had messaged the transport organiser of the company to be told that we had basically been forgotten about. Once again this hardly came as a shock and was more of an inevitable outcome than would be accepted in England, I mean just imagine the rage of complaints. But it was just regarded as tough s*** here and we got on with life. So once again it was now 8:10am and there was no end of this waiting in sight.

The view I had for a very long time.

  So what did I do? Well, I decided to be productive, and by productive I meant lay my socks on my bag to dry in the sun. The obvious question there is why I packed wet socks and I can answer that (I'm no savage). I basically washed all of my socks and underwear the day before and planned on tumble-drying them over-night. So I put them in before sleeping, slept, and in the morning went to retrieve them. Foolproof procedure so far. Yet imagine the horror at seeing 'Error 11' on the machine (whatever that is) and opening the door to soggy items. Nightmare. I attempted to dry some socks over the gas stove before leaving but that only got so far - so I used my wait to complete this process. I was really setting up a cozy and productive base.

  So despite being told that the taxi was on its way at 8:10am, the minutes passed slowly and painfully until 8:10am became 8:20am and 8:30am and nothing even began to give me hope that the end was in sight. As with my luggage nightmare, I was at the point where I stopped hoping. I stopped perking my head up at the sound of a slowing vehicle, which was 9/10 times a choking motor scooter coming along to break my soul (and probably my lungs).

  The security of the barrio entrance had even stopped their amused looks and I felt something like a piece of the furniture - like one of those garden gnomes but bigger and more useless. By this point rush hour had passed like a storm. No-one was going in and out of the barrio and barely anything was going past. It was despairing and tragic. I had used over 50% of my naturally fast-draining iPhone battery by just browsing stuff I wasn't interested in and even the music wasn't appealing anymore. It's great when you're out the house and ready to conquer the world at 6:50am but after nearly two hours of waiting the thrill wears off.

  Just as I was really starting to lose hope with humanity and what was right and wrong with the world (0-100 real quick on the thinking side of things) I received a message from my fellow struggle Michał. It read: "Here it is. Coming for you bro". Let the Gods rejoice above me. If I said that no mini fist-pump or cry of 'Thank F***' happened, I would be lying. The security guys must have been confused as to why the gringo, that had been sitting on the floor waiting for nothing for two hours, was happy. I was hungry - ironically I basically skipped breakfast in fear of being late - I was tired, but I was so damn ready.

  8:51am - I watched as the yellow and navy car chugged along and stopped on the other side of the road. The familiar face of Michał popped out as we shared a look of tainted rejoice and mild exhaustion. I finally put my socks away (dry as a bone, 1-0 Jack), stood up and carried my bag over to the taxi. I probably merited a grand send off like the such of when Xavi left Barcelona or Steven Gerrard left Liverpool due to the length of my stay... yet no. The security didn't even look over. I got in the back and was greeted by the smiling driver:

"Has estado esperando dos horas?" ("You've been waiting two hours?")

"Si si..."

He chuckled as he started the engine. Finally we were off to camp and the wait was no more.

Thanks for reading.

(Sidenote - I appreciate that a two hour wait is nothing short of the norm here and many, including myself, have had much longer and more painful waiting experiences. This time just felt so typical and almost comical that I thought it would be the best way to exhibit this aspect of Argentinean culture. It's something a bit different so might be interesting or might be completely boring, it could go one of two ways - like one of those films filmed in one room or scene. Either way I appreciate you taking your time to read and the constant support for this page and my work, it means a lot!)