I went to see some friends of mine in La Plata yesterday. On the way I went through this train station. Apparently two boys, Dario and Maxi, have claimed ownership of the station by painting over all the signs with their own names.
Apart from being disgusted by the vandalism. I find this to be really, really funny. It put a smile on my face. Thinking about it makes me happy. While I am against vandalism, I find this to be somewhat more clever than most other graffiti and it must have taken a lot of effort, because they had to paint the regular signs black first and then come back later to pain their names.
I was on my way to La Plata to see more friends and I received some bad news. A good friend of mine called Luis has had a stroke or some other type of brain problem. He has a big scar on his head and couldn't remember me at all. He was pleasant enough but there wasn't even a hit of recollection. His daughter Brenda is in her last year of high school now and his son Alexi has a baby daughter. His wife, Maria del Carmen, swore to me that she couldn't believe it was me. When she looked over the wall to see who was clapping, she told me that I looked very familiar but that she didn't know who it was until I told her. Maria was very happy to see me.
Another friend of mine who lived around the corner from Luis, called Dario has died. I was told that he was hit by a car. He had two young daughters and a wife. The three of them have since moved somewhere else.
To a certain extent I regret going to see them, but having a day to absorb it all, I'm glad that I know what's happening with them, at least a little anyway. At the time I was very disappointed, but now I know how they are doing and it was nice to see them.
That makes at least two of my very good friends here dead, for those of you counting. More have probably passed away, but I don't know if I will be able to find out either way. I'm pretty sure I couldn't find the children of Lidia, and she seemed pretty old to me 10 years ago.
The others are probably fine, and I will go to see them next week if I can. There aren't many more to visit.
-Gary
2 comments:
Another post please
Hi Gary,
As a BA resident, I liked very much your blog. By the way, "Dario y Maxi" were two young men who were killed by the police inside of that train station during a protest in 2002, after the big economic crisis. There happened to be a photo journalist right there, so you can see the pictures at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_2072000/2072882.stm
Of course, there was no reason why you should know this. I hope you come back to BA soon!
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