A Secret Feast in Argentina

Cro Raka,
Foreign Correspondent

For a Surreal time, visit Argentina during the hours of 14:00 - 16:00—the time in which the citizens of the entire country collectively partake in the daily siesta, roughly translated too: an indulgence, a transportation into an authentic Argentine minga.

Santa Fe, Argentina, Aug 22, 15:03: My first encounter of the strange phenomena. The streets were deserted, shops and houses closed, the air a bit thick. Only but a few men and women (no children) walked alone, phantoms with insomnia in their eyes. The following are single, disjointed, responses from these insomniacs when I asked the question, “What in the name of— is happening here?”

“Can you not sleep?”

“Only. Only. Only. Boredom speaks.”

“We but hold our peace.”

“Begone, stranger! Leave the awake to their trouble, join the festivity.”

With zest, I asked to the last, a man sporting a mole shaped like a guest, “What festivity?”

“Sleep, friend, sleep,” he said. So I did, with the intention of lucidity.

I awoke into a gate of gold guarded by the Pope himself. And when he riddled me with a question, a password to pass the gate, I remembered the famous Argentinian pride… “Who is the greatest guitarist to have lived?”

Any of many answers will suffice, yet be sure to whisper a name born in the territory in which your body rests.

“Lucia,” I said, and was gestured to go inside.

Thus I walked into a party like none I had seen: a beach of sand white as snow, light bulbs under said sand, large gothic light posts scattered, scratching the sky, a game of soccer hosted in the clouds, a pastry machine of infinite dispense, a DJ elevated on a multicolored blocks spun away at a machine accompanied by the timber pitch of Mercedes S. Behind her, a flag of blue and white shined with the brightness of an artificial sun.

One Argentine told me the venue sometimes changed, but that this was his favorite. When I asked about the world of the awake, he dismissed it with a laugh, then directing me to the poets playing a game of cards in the back.

So I played a hand of the national past time, a card game named The Trick on a table round with Julius C. George Luis B. and my friend Jon S. who currently slept in the capital about 500 miles away. The game encourages cheating; it is actually a rule to do so, but of course, one should not be caught. When Julius was caught with a king of cups hidden in his sock, he was asked to leave and thus did, joining a pair of twins in a game of hopscotch.

On the table next to ours, Che G. Ms. Peron and Batista played Bingo in wild jolly. O, but like any dream, like experience itself, I let myself get carried away, dropped my journalistic guise and enjoyed the party.

And when I opened my eyes, hours lived, minutes past, I realized that the real trick to understanding a culture is to learn not only what habits, arts, and words they share while awake, but also the sights they see while asleep.

For more articles by Cro Raka, click here. To get in touch with this writer, email raka@surrealtimes.net.

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