Keagan’s World

Hola! Vivo en Sud America ahora.

Well sorta… for 3 months with a host family. Then another month as a crazy nomad. Emphasis on crazy.

Anyways, I’m alive and well as today is my second day here. So much has already happened it’s crazy I can’t even begin to consider putting everything in this post. I had my first class today and met a lot of new people, but I’ll save that for another day. Today, I want to talk about my “ay mierda” moment yesterday.

I wanted to write this last night, but the truth is I was too exhausted to motivate myself to do it.

I know… promising start to my blogging journey.

Alas, once I explain why I hope you give me a Get Out of Jail Free card like Lukashenko gave himself a couple days ago.

So, for those of you who don’t know Spanish, “ay mierda” means “ah crap”… but just a little stronger (catch my drift?). In other words I had my first “what in the world am I doing to myself” thought. Pretty early to be having this type of moment I know. I’m stupid for thinking even for a second everything was going to be a walk in the park. I’m in a foreign country.

Alone.

For 4 months.

I mean yeah, what could go wrong..?

Well, let me walk you through my list of surprises from Day One

My host family doesn’t speak almost any English (either that or they’re really good at acting so I have to learn fast).

Admittedly, I should have been prepared for this one. But like I guess I thought maybe for the first couple days I could ease in with a little classic Spanglish until I had taken a couple classes and revamped my knowledge. No.

I was in the deep end immediately.

First two hours I sat in the living room talking with them about myself, asking questions about them, going over different things I should know – all in Spanish mind you. I was straight up a deer in the headlights. Honestly, I think I did relatively well with understanding what they were saying 80% of the time, but it was a lot of catching 3-4 words and deducing what they were trying to say. Speaking was a different story lol… but that’s what I’m here to work on.

Once I got over the initial shock of zero English, it was better and honestly I’m happy because now I have to force myself to speak Spanish regularly. I can’t sit on my butt and take the easy route. Even in Day 2 I felt comfortable enough to converse with the vendor at the local cell store while they helped me with my international SIM. My host family is lovely, and I will enjoy my time with them.

The other conditions that led to my “ay mierda” moment on Day One weren’t necessarily things I would have known beforehand. Let’s start with the minor inconveniences and move toward the bigger “uh ohs”.

The roof has a leak in my room.

Told you – minor inconvenience. I was getting situated in my room while it was storming outside and all of the sudden I got hit by water. I looked up and realized one corner of my room had been getting dripped on for some time so a puddle had formed.

I threw a towel under the spot for the rest of the night, and I think it got fixed this morning so no biggie.

The house doesn’t have AC.

A little step up, but nothing too major. But if you know me well, you know I sweat like a pig. I don’t mind hot temperatures, but my body disagrees. I only have a fan and the ability to open the window in my room… but there are other problems with opening the window that I will get to in the bigger “uh ohs” 🙃

Everything is closed on Sunday.

So I probably should have guessed this might happen since catholicism is huge in Latin America in general. You may be thinking “oh but it’s only one day that’s fine” – well, I arrived on a Sunday. I couldn’t exchange money. I couldn’t get a SIM card. I couldn’t get some toiletries I just planned on buying once I arrived.

I couldn’t get anything before I hit the ground running on Monday (today) with my first class. In the end, it’s been alright so far – I still haven’t been able to get cash so I need to do that BADLY tomorrow, but other than that I managed until today. Just something to be mindful of in the future too when I need things that I shouldn’t count on stores to be open on Sunday.

The prices in Buenos Aires are skyrocketing… but the currency value is stagnant.

So, this one is a little bit more of an “uh oh”. One of the nice things about being an American traveling in Argentina is that USD is king here. The country is in the middle of a quite horrible economic crisis that has seen crazy inflation (like over 100% YoY). To illustrate how bad it’s been, I see the idea floating around in a lot of forums that it’s important to remember that in Buenos Aires “today’s price isn’t tomorrow’s”.

Unfortunately, that’s not an exaggeration.

As a tourist with USD however, it was (and still is for now) the case that you had some insulation from the inflation. It’s common for Argentines to exchange Argentinean pesos for USD at rates that are much higher than the official exchange rate of the country. This is called the Blue Dollar Rate. The reason is while the Argentine peso is experiencing rapid devaluation, the USD is seen as a stable value almost like a commodity like gold. The USD appreciates in value in comparison to the Argentine peso, making it valuable to possess.

Honestly, it’s totally possible I explained that incorrectly, and, my friends in Argentina, if you see something incorrect there, please let me know lol.

What you need to understand is USD typically gets an extremely favorable exchange rate which maximizes purchasing power in Argentina.

However, recently I’ve been seeing notes in expat forums that locals have noticed extreme increases in prices for various goods in services in the wake of Javier Milei’s election, BUT without increasing Blue Dollar Exchange Rates.

^{Javier Milei}

Effectively, the rumor mill is saying the purchasing power bump I was budgeting for while here may not exist much longer. This change DOES NOT mean Argentina is on the upswing economically unfortunately either.

I promise I’m not heartless lol.

I just am going to need to reassess my spending expectations and hope my bank account doesn’t hit zero… or that the rumor mill is full of crap (very possible) 🤞

So there’s a mosquito infestation going on and they are carrying diseases.

To make matters worse, it’s impossible to find bug spray. It’s a very current panic in the city at the moment from what I have gathered. Apparently there aren’t usually a lot of mosquitos in Buenos Aires, but there’s been a huge increase in rain this spring/summer creating ripe conditions for mosquitos to populate (climate change, high five bro!). With them has come an outbreak of Dengue. It does sound like I shouldn’t have to worry to an existential point (I know super comforting to hear that I have to consider that possibility) but it knocks you out for like a week. In rare cases, old age or being immuno-compromised CAN make it fatal though.

Luckily I am not immuno-compromised and don’t think I quite qualify as old yet at 22 years of age.

To be honest though, I have refused to read much about it because I don’t want to freak myself out. Everything I know has been word-of-mouth and I plan to keep it that way unless it becomes serious.

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So that’s all! There’s my “ay mierda moment”. Hope you enjoyed.

I wanted to share some more pictures here, but it’s dinner time + it smells divine.

Also like the natty is on in 30 minutes so.

I also didn’t do any spell check or editing so sorry not sorry!

Enjoy this photo of me drinking Mate for now 🙂

Chau!