My
5-year-old, Sofia, likes peanut butter and bananas for breakfast but
favors sweet-corn empanadas, Chinese egg noodles, or sushi at dinner.
She and her sister enjoy their merienda, afternoon teatime, and
sometimes sip bitter Argentine mate from a gourd. At Thanksgiving last
year, we ate Korean kimchi and chapchae, along with turkey.
There
is an endless list of “different” things we do in our home, customs
collected from our diverse histories, the places we've been, and the
people we've...
Not
sure you're raising your kids the best way? Turns out there is no best
way, or best place, or best continent, for that matter. Don't believe
us? Meet five moms and dads whose parenting POVs prove that no matter
the time zone or cultural background, family is a language spoken
everywhere.
My 5-year-old, Sofia, likes peanut butter and bananas
for breakfast but favors sweet-corn empanadas, Chinese egg noodles, or
sushi at dinner. She and her sister enjoy their merienda, afternoon
What the Argentines taught me about blowing off bedtime, and more parenting practices from around the globe.
We
are dining out with friends in Buenos Aires, sipping Malbec from short
glass tumblers at a hole-in-the-wall steakhouse. The crowd is lively;
the waiters charmingly surly. But what has really captivated our table
is the family sitting to our right. It's 11:30 p.m., and a toddler and a
baby are bouncing on laps as they gnaw on bread rolls.
What the Argentines taught me about blowing off bedtime, and more parenting practices from around the globe.
We
are dining out with friends in Buenos Aires, sipping Malbec from short
glass tumblers at a hole-in-the-wall steakhouse. The crowd is lively;
the waiters charmingly surly. But what has really captivated our table
is the family sitting to our right. It's 11:30 p.m., and a toddler and a
baby are bouncing on laps as they gnaw on bread rolls.
The
hottest prime-time television program in Argentina is not your usual
slapstick comedy, rowdy variety show with practically nude dancers or
soap opera about a forbidden love affair.
Montecristo, the
telenovela that has Argentines glued to their sets weekday nights,
explores darker themes: the atrocities of the military dictatorship
here, including torture, murder
and the kidnapping of
children - with a few torrid love scenes thrown in for good measure.
You might call Enrique Piñeyro the Michael Moore of Argentina's airspace.
The first movie he directed, a dramatic re-creation of his experience
as a whistle-blowing pilot and a deadly LAPA Airlines crash, became a
local and international film-festival hit.
His latest work
accuses the Argentine air force of corruption, incompetence and
negligence in managing the nation's civil-aviation system. A day after
that movie's debut, the government announced that it was shifting that
Latin
Americans generally sympathized with Fidel Castro Tuesday, with reports
that the Cuban leader had stepped aside to undergo surgery leading news
coverage throughout the day.
In a region where Castro tried -
but failed - during the 1960s to export his Communist revolution, the
Cuban leader is generally seen as an affectionate wise elder, especially
at a time when President Bush is so widely disliked in the region.
The strongest expressions of concern not surprisingly came from
The
Argentine media is making much ado about the friction between Argentine
President Néstor Kirchner and Fidel Castro last week over a dissident
doctor who wants to leave Cuba.
Kirchner took the opportunity
to ask the Cuban leader, who was a guest at a meeting of the trade bloc
Mercosur, to allow surgeon Hilda Molina, a one-time Castro ally, to
leave Cuba to be with her children and grandchildren already in
Argentina.
According to the media covering the South American trade-bloc
In
a rare trip abroad, Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrived in Argentina's
second-largest city Thursday to join a summit of heads of state, boost
his island's trade with South America and visit the childhood home of
revolutionary hero Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara.
The landing of
Castro's plane about 8:20 p.m. was broadcast live on many local news
channels, and hundreds of curious people waited around the city to catch
a glimpse of the 79-year-old who has ruled Cuba since the revolution in
1959.
On
the busy street of Boedo, in the immigrant neighborhood of the same
name, there is a gray door between other unremarkable doors.
Ring bell number four, Timbre 4. You will be met and led down a long,
dimly lit cement hallway. In a back room, a kind of living room-turned
makeshift theater and stage, a team of actors will tell you the darkly
funny and sad story of the dysfunctional Coleman family.
The acting team at Timbre 4 does not advertise, but word has spread. All their
And the cameras roll on another episode of Desperate Housewives, the
one where Gabrielle throws a fashion show featuring the femmes fatales
of Wisteria Lane.
Only in this version, the ladies actually are
starring in a Moda Show in Buenos Aires, and their home is not Wisteria
Lane, but the Manzanares neighborhood. Here, sexy Gabrielle Solis is
Gabriela Solís and the saucy blond divorcée known to U.S. audiences as
Edie Britt is a curvy brunette named Carla
Less than a month until the World Cup opens, soccer-mad Argentines are
asking for time off from work, buying new TVs to watch the games,
saving money for celebrations and biting their fingernails over the
prospects for their national team.
Taxi drivers and tour guides routinely ask foreign visitors: Whose side are you on?
All over the world, soccer fans are discussing their teams' rosters, placing bets and planning trips and house parties for the
Chorrillos,
Peru -- After school, 13-year-old Franki Sototapia does his homework
and heads for the beach. The fishermen of Chorrillos (pronounced
choh-REE-yohs) are there sewing nets and rowing tiny boats.
"They share the fish they bring in," Franki says. "They teach you new things" and pay him to fish.
His mom sells seviche, a seafood, at the beach. His dad drives a taxi in nearby Lima, the capital.
For fun, Franki plays soccer and goes to little restaurants called
Neuquen, Argentina -- How's this for a weekend hobby? Santiago Calvo, age 9, hunts dinosaurs.
During
the week, he does the regular stuff a kid in Argentina does: He goes to
school, plays computer games and hangs out with friends.
But on
most Fridays, Santiago and his dad drive 55 miles from their home in
Neuquen (new-KEN) to a desert area of Patagonia. Patagonia includes the
southern halves of Argentina and Chile. It's bigger than Texas and
California combined and once was a
The president of the world's top beef-eating nation wants his people to do the unthinkable.
He wants Argentines to stop eating so much beef.
President
Néstor Kirchner has all but cut off red meat exports and called on
citizens to reduce their consumption until prices reverse their sharp
increase.
``If meat is expensive, you can lower the prices,''
Kirchner told supporters in Buenos Aires recently. ``May the people help
me so that all Argentines have access [to meat].''
A
spat over a bar has led to a new, controversial occupant in one of the
wealthiest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires: a soup kitchen.
Earlier this month, a disgruntled landowner decided to hand over one of
his prime sidewalk locations in the heart of Puerto Madero to a militant
socialist group called the Independent Movement of Retirees and the
Unemployed.
Puerto Madero, a series of docks and brick warehouses that were part of Buenos Aires' thriving port in the 1880s, is now one of
OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS, THE ARGENTINE CAPITAL HAS BECOME A HOT SPOT FOR FILM PRODUCTIONS, ESPECIALLY COMMERCIALS
The Xbox360 ``Jump in'' commercial could be based in any downtown,
with kids and adults blasting each other with water balloons from
graffiti-covered cement bridges and gray buildings.
But look closely and you'll see the name of a Buenos Aires church scrawled on the wall.
This Argentine capital has become the latest Latin-American hot spot for film
When
a provincial newspaper reported on a corruption scandal, the state
government cut off its advertising. And when a well-known journalist's
national TV show was canceled, he blamed the decision on economic
pressures from Argentina's federal government.
Free press and
civic activists here are expressing growing concern about subtle
government censorship, especially as President Néstor Kirchner's
administration has grown in power. A recent survey of journalists here
said financial
The
U.S. government will shift the orbit of one of its weather satellites
to help South America better cope with natural disasters, U.S. officials
announced in Argentina Monday.
U.S. satellites monitor all of
the Americas in good weather, offering images of North America and parts
of Central America every 15 minutes and South America every 30 minutes.
But when a hurricane hits the United States, the monitors concentrate
on the northern regions and much of South America is left with
Jorge
Calvo walks the dusty terrain slowly, eyes downcast, combing the red
dirt of Argentina's desert for bones. He does not have to look far.
Calvo spots some gray chips. Bits of dinosaur fossils, the scientist
says. Just yards away, massive vertebraes of what may be a new species
remain partly excavated. Nearby, the rib of a smaller prehistoric beast
protrudes from the rocks.
For now, Calvo leaves them. There are many more dinosaur remains in this part of west-central Argentina
