AFTER FIFTEEN MONTHS in nine Latin American countries, I arrive in Argentina. The people and paseos of Buenos Aires are enticing and fine, but I'm worn out on big cities after Caracas and Lima. I miss the countryside and the feel of the pueblo. So I go to the pampas and to San Antonio de Areco for what will be the last stop on my journey. — AD

San Antonio de Areco: The End of the Day

It's late afternoon in San Antonio de Areco and I'm on the go walking. Autumn is here with her magic light. The cool air feels good in my lungs. The otherwise drab-colored homes and tree-lined streets are painted with the nostalgic tints of dying day. I'm nostalgic about this place, and I only just arrived.

Maybe it's the way this town wears nostalgia on its sleeve. Areco calls itself the Cuna de la tradición, the "Cradle of Tradition." The tradition they're referring to is that of the pampas, the frontier, and the gaucho. Silversmiths, leatherworkers, weavers, and artisans call Areco home, as do folk artists and folk musicians who elaborate the lore of small town life and country Argentine values.

Nothing sells tickets quite like nostalgia, though. For its proud heritage, Areco is a town of national and even international tourism. When the suits and city slickers of Buenos Aires want to get away for the weekend, Areco is the first, best stop outside the capital city. Near to town are some of the finest estancias (country estates) turned hotels on the continent.

The result is that Areco's simple, authentic tradition is available for purchase, and there's a price to be paid for that. On holiday weekends the town floods with brash Porteños^[1] who crowd its restaurants and riverbanks, pouring money into the town's economy—yes—but also pouring pollution (both visible and noise) into the pastoral setting so treasured by its residents. Areco caters to them, of course, putting its past on display: artisan workshops are open to visitors, town festivals romanticize pampas life, and the municipality offers regular folk dance classes and gaucho games. All this show maintains a certain cultural pride, to be sure. But how does Areco stay true to its past while moving into the future?

I've been thinking a lot about memories. The past often brings me comfort and wisdom in the present. But unresolved memories—the ones I keep bringing back, replaying and re-imagining—they can become haunting, like ghosts.

San Antonio de Areco is haunted by the ghost of the gaucho.

The gauchos were originally men of varying immigrant pools and low birth who settled beyond the fringes of Argentine society in the vast and untamed pampas. Hardened by an unforgiving life in an unyielding land, the gauchos fought to survive and became master horse riders and horse trainers in the process. Ranchers hired them for this indispensable talent, but the gauchos rarely stayed in one place long, preferring the freedom of movement in the wild, sprawling landscape. Yet freedom—combined with their darker complexions and fraternization with the native peoples—brought the prejudice that they were lawless, brutish, and dangerous. Suspicion and fear furthered his myth and kept him safely in society's periphery (where mythically he prefered to be). Still, for many years, the gaucho served an invaluable role in the development of Argentine livestock, ranch life, and expansion west.

His heroic destiny in Argentine history arrived with the War of Independence, when the country called upon the gaucho to help in the fight. Hundreds of gauchos lent their expert knowledge of the terrain and horses to aid the rebel generals. Yet even after the great nation was born, the gaucho—despite his wartime heroism—remained misunderstood.

Independence brought expansion bleeding outward from the port city, and with it: fences. Fences stretching as far as the eye could see and the cattle roam. The pampas were becoming privatized and great swaths of land were divided up by owner. No longer free to roam from place to place, the very essence of "gaucho" came into question. With the emergence of a modern Argentina, the gaucho had disappeared almost entirely.

Then in 1872 came the release of the epic poem Martín Fierro by José Hernández. The reactionary spirit of the poem—protesting President Sarmiento's Europeanization and at last hailing the gaucho's contribution to Argentine independence—catapulted the gaucho from fringe vagrant to cultural icon. He became a nationally treasured rebel without a cause.

Ever since, the image of the gaucho—viewed through the lens of nostalgia—has been branded, marketed, and sold.

Now the question is put to Areco: Is the lingering memory of the gaucho worth balancing its economy on? Can the gaucho of today truly be called a gaucho—and if not—who is he?

The youth of Areco are ready to be part of the new millennium. While the mythology of the gaucho and pampas life is in their blood—and comprises the soul of this town—it also hinders their own aspirations. Because it is a part of them, they cannot divorce it. Because it is more legend than reality, they cannot embrace it.

During my time in Areco, I learn about gauchos, memories, and ghosts.

The Casco Historico is the heart of historic Areco. Buildings have a 19th century colonial architecture; some with lovely Spanish tile fascias and arcades, others of roman brick with Tuscan columns. Streets run outward in a grid from the Plaza Ruíz de Arellano and the tallest building in town-sí, you guessed it-is a white cathedral anchoring the north edge of the plaza. The sound of church bells has been practiced and perfected here over centuries. Their tempered clang is as much a part of Areco's natural music as the song of the hornero^[2] birds and the wind. It's as though the bells are neither man-made nor man-rung, rather something Aeolian evolved in time to mark the cosmic process.

Streets bear the names of great Argentine patriots, like Zapiola, a captain in the War for Independence. Placards throughout the Casco Historico make record of these great men (all men), like the Irishman, Patrick Island, who rose to become a commander of the Areco Federalist troops.

The most famous Arequero was Ricardo Güiraldes, whose family owned the La Porteña estancia dating back to 1823. La Porteña was built of brick-and-mud with a French-tile roof and an Acacio tree sent to the well-to-do family by General San Martín, himself, all the way from the Argentine embassy in Paris. At La Porteña, Ricardo Güiraldes practiced his writing, tossing his first frustrations down a well on the property before penning what would become his masterpiece, Don Segundo Sombra, whose characters and setting drew directly from Areco. The novel is a nostalgic coming-of-age tale about a boy who learns the gaucho ways under the tutelage of an adopted father figure for whom the novel is named.

Despite a surge in growth over the past few years, Arequeros maintain that it's a small town, at least in feel. I can attest to that. Areco is the kind of town where co-workers ride to work together on their bicycles. It's the kind of town where a friend stopped her car in the middle of the street to get out and say hello to me. When the new owners of the Tienda Carlitos arrived, the neighbors came out to welcome them. When I want to find bread at midday, I can't because everything—everywhere—is closed.

A girl passes me on her bicycle. Her scarf is wound tightly round her face and only her eyes are visible peering out. It's getting colder here. Soon I'm nearing the famed bridge from the opening line of Güiraldes' classic: "On the outskirts of town, ten blocks from the central plaza, the old bridge extends its arc over the river uniting the quintas with the tranquil countryside." A sign nearby reads: Prohibido Arrojarse del Puente.

Swat! There's a plague of mosquitoes on Areco, and I'm swinging away. Mosquitoes in biblical quantities invade the entire town. Inevitable and intolerable insects! Three old men are talking on a bench by the river as I pass.

"At 20 degrees or higher the mosquitoes reproduce," says one.

"Yes, but now with global warming it's lower," says another. "They can reproduce down to 15 degrees."

"You see?" the third man adds. "The bugs are stronger now."

I cross the bridge en route to the Ricardo Güiradles Museum of the Gaucho and the old Blanqueada pulperia, a notebook and pen tucked into my back pocket. When the pen is portable, so is the mind, free to open doors, jump fences, and cross pastures; able to rise up and transcend reality like a Chagalian figure.

A writer must listen, fill with awareness, and encajar like the clown. The landscape impacts how we think and behave: from Nicaragua's mountain forests to Caracas' urban jungle. A writer must resemble the land, in order to take it inside. And then there's the ingredient of time. Spending a week in some place will not develop the same understanding as spending a month, a year, or a lifetime. Time allows the elements to impact you. To think like an Andean or a gaucho, I must walk their landscapes and breathe their air. I must see the sunset through their solitude, and strain my body upon their soil. Slowly, I may come to share their thoughts, and know their energies. The smithy of the mind is the world around us.

As I cultivate my own mind and identity, I should consider how the world around me forges the world within me. The tactile world that I see, smell, taste, hear, and touch. The people I drink with, where I buy my bread; who bids me goodnight and how.

Autumn and evening in San Antonio de Areco. Autumn and evening of my journey. I need to remind myself to stay in the moment. Nostalgia and memories of home flood my peripheries and for the first time I let them trickle in. From Nicaragua to Peru, I fought to focus on today. Now in Argentina, I allow myself to reflect in these pastoral surroundings so conducive to remembrance and to longing. And it heaves in me. Remembrance so strong that it becomes a physical being, pounding at my heart, aching up and down my skin.

I'm not a gaucho, but I feel the sympathy of isolation. Stay here, I have to remind myself. Just a little longer now.

Now

In the reflection of the river, I watch the birds fly
Heading north for the winter.
Therein lie the tree limbs and the old bridge
Colored pink above the rippling passerbys.
There is poetry in my life, I thought today,
As I walked the tranquil neighborhoods of Areco:
To end my travels in autumn,
Like a marvelous flaming sunset
     Inside of me.

I am on a horizon-reached it-and before I pass
Into a beyond unknown, before my eyes readjust
To a new horizon: a sunset burns within me.
The reward at the end of this rainbow.
I think about the rainbow, a tragicomic image:
Progeny of the sun and the rain,
Like a smile triumphant through the tears.
My journey has had its tragedy and its comedy
As all journeys and always more to come.

People come to the river's edge and stare into the dark water.
Some see themselves reflected and some see deeper.
They agree that the river has a simple beauty.
They agree that the river is wise.
Then they leave the rivers edge, fondly remembered
Forgotten until next time.
A child throws a stone that sinks at the middle,
Spreading concentric circles across the surface.
I think of the hanan pacha, the uku pacha, and the kay pacha^[3], which is Now.

Now he sits beside the river Areco
As the sun sets through leafless trees in the west.
A girl strums a guitar farther up the bank,
And the sound of water rushing over the locks
Is like the hush before a lullaby.
Tourists sit on blankets in sweaters and sunglasses
Passing mates between them. The water steams
From the thermos like smoke from a gelding's wet nostrils
     In the morning, in winter.

Now he feels the first chills of evening,
Now he breathes deep scents of dead leaves fallen,
And the tempting char of an asado fire burning.
Now he sees the people fishing with sticks and strings
(Fathers, sons, and children all),
He hears the girls singing, and off over there are people on horseback.
The scene seems tinged with gold,
Like the binding of an old book.

Now it seems the world is smiling at him
In that honest way it has.
Now he smiles back at the world (on the inside)
Writing from his heart,
From his place beside the river.

In the Workshops at Night

What I love most about San Antonio de Areco is walking through the streets after dark. Lights glow in the windows of the workshops, and the sounds of the craftspeople working make staccato, hopeful music in the otherwise silent night.

Juan José Draghi

The first sound that goes into the making of a facón-a gaucho dagger-is the hum of the laminadora through which Martín passes silver nuggets mined in Bolivian hills. It sounds like an old elevator whose slow gears can be heard churning somewhere unseen within the mechanism. The product is a dull, smooth rectangle, as unremarkable as the number plate on a high school gym locker.

The second sound is the ring of a hammer pounding the silver over an iron mold called a mandril to form the blade. Martín lays into the edges, too, and then the sound becomes a steady grating as he refines the vaina (sheath) with the quick frictions of a long iron file. This can take a while, filling the workshop with repetitions like the braying of a horny donkey.

Then, shhh! Tink tink-tink (pause) tink. Martín's chisel engraves the facones with winged women, eagles, sunbursts, laurelled profiles, lions, griffins, condors, Ombú trees and roses. This particular facón is emblazoned with Juan José Draghi's personal symbol: the flor de Cardo.

A hiss and a bubbling initiate the acid bath that follows. The acids clean and whiten the dagger, accentuating the details and eliminating impurities in the silver. When this relatively short step is done, the point is soldered sharp with an anticlimactic (to be fair) hum of the soldering wand.

At last, Martín places the hollow, silver handle vertically in a bowl of fine wood shavings and pours a hot liquid lacquer inside, capping the top so that it will stick fast when the lacquer cools. The completed facón is polished to brilliance and then all sounds cease.

The glint of light on its lethal blade evokes a deadly silence.

Juan José Draghi was born to a family of jewelers on June 4, 1943 in San Antonio de Areco. By the time he was young, the once-proud Areco tradition of making silver adornments for gaucho festivewear and pampas homes had been relegated to museums. So it was at the Ricardo Güiraldes Museum of the Gaucho that a young Draghi fell in love gazing at the masterfully crafted facones , bridles, stirrups, boleadores, and mate chalices. He visited often as a young man, studying the works, ultimately deciding he would learn to craft them, himself. Working from his parents' shop, Draghi built piece-by-piece what would become an internationally celebrated workshop and museum of his own. Apprentices sought his training. Rivals opened shop. Today, Areco silverwork is once more a renowned and coveted prize.

Five or six workers sit at their stations at any given time of day or night in the Draghi workshop, hunched over their projects like Santa's elves beneath bright lamps that keep them in perpetual daylight. This is a narrow room. Work desks are arranged in parallel rows facing outward so that employees sit with their backs to each other. The wood desks are custom designed to suit the height, angles, and tools of the craft. The light is as necessary as the metal itself for a job requiring intense focus and deft attention to detail. One worker wears glasses as thick as Oreos.

continued on page 2 >

<< back to the Table of Contents for Issue 3

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1. People from Buenos Aires, literally "people of the port." //back >>
2. The national bird of Argentina, named hornero because of the oven-like mud home it makes atop tree branches and fence posts (horno means "oven" in Spanish). //back >>
3. The three spheres of Time in Qhapaq philosophy (Qhapaq Ñan, 134). //back >>