Young soy (Photo: Julia Kumari Drapkin)

When the wind rustles through the trees and the air smells like wet earth, everyone in the Argentine farming town of General Villegas stops what they’re doing.

“Finally, a storm is coming,” said Gisela Giunti, who grew up here on the edge of the Argentine Pampas, about 290 miles west of Buenos Aires.

Giunti said when neighbors and friends greet each other; they don’t say “How are you?” They say “Te llovio? Did it rain to you?”

It’s an odd phrase. After all, it doesn’t rain to people. But to farmers, nature’s volatility can seem pretty personal.

“Actually, it’s a very clear way of how people feel the weather is part of their lives,” Giunti said.

She would know. Her family is full of soybean farmers. I asked her brother, Ignacio Giunti, if “it rained to him” last night. He said hardly at all. “It moistened the dust on the ground,” Ignacio said, but it wasn’t enough for his crops. A strong La Nina this year has kept Argentine farmers like Giunti on edge about drought.

Rains determine crop yields

Just outside town, fields of young soybeans and corn stretch for miles into the horizon. Without rain, the crowns on the corn crops have turned yellow. Many won’t survive. But the soy harvest still has a chance. Giunti stooped down among the knee-length greens to show me small purple flowers. The flowers mean the plants are just about to enter the critical phase. That’s the time of year when rains determine crop yields. Without water, the soy plants don’t produce beans.

Argentina is the third largest producer of soybeans behind Brazil and the United States, so it’s not just the farmers who get nervous when there isn’t enough rain. Fear of La Nina droughts helped push the price of soy beans up $150 in January. Corn and wheat hit highs too.

“This is creating a lot of nervousness on the prices,” said Sebastian Lago, who advises farmers in General Villegas about global grain markets.

“My job is to help them to sell their grains at the best prices, and what I try to tell my clients is this: in the last 10 years, we had a huge change in the financial markets. We have a lot of new players in the grain markets.”

After the stock market crash of 2001, Wall Street investors looking to diversify their portfolios discovered agricultural commodities. So now in addition to changes in the weather, Lago said, Argentine farmers have to worry about currency markets and interest rates.

Speculating with grains

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the grain markets, but it makes a lot of change in the price of the grains. Why? Because you have a lot of funds speculating with grains,” he said.

Wall Street speculators have added even more volatility to global grain markets because they’re trading food like stocks. “A stock is a part of a company,” Lago said. “But when we’re talking about a commodity, we’re talking about supply and demand.

Today, the problem is the supply. Global grain reserves are at historic lows owing to increasing demand from the world’s two biggest consumers of soy and corn. China’s rising middle class is eating more protein and importing soybeans to feed its livestock.

“China is like the video game Pac man,” Lago said. “Every year they need more soy beans. In the corn market, the Pac man is the ethanol industry in the United States.”

And Wall Street speculators are gobbling up grain commodities. At any given time investors can pull their money out of grains and move it into another market. But farmers who finance their crops with their own money, can’t be so nimble.

So Lago is helping the farmers of General Villegas develop strategies to protect themselves from the additional market volatility, especially when they’re not sure enough rain will come.

Farmers like 72-year-old Jorge Olano meet with Lago every month before the USDA publishes its monthly grain stock reports.

Of course, the first thing Lago asks Olano is if it “rained to him last night.”

Olano responds that it rained to him on both his fields. He’d like more, but it’ll do for now.

Peugeot driving near Santa Fe, Argentina (flickr image: Facundo Fernandez)

Hernan Valdez and his girlfriend Milagros Garin are the proud owners of a brand new Peugot. It’s a gray compact, immaculate, and still has that new car smell two months after they drove it home from the dealership.

“It’s a lovely smell,” says Valdez proudly as he shifts the car into gear. A year from now, it still might smell new.

“The traffic in Buenos Aires is pretty hectic,” he says and with a great public transportation system nobody really needs to drive here. Valdez says they plan to keep the car in a garage most of the time. They’ll use it on weekends or holidays, if at all.

Argentines like Hernan Valdez are buying cars to park their savings. With inflation expected to reach 30 percent next year, people reason it’s better to buy a car than watch their money disappear.

“Those who can, buy property, but those who can’t, buy cars,” says Valdez.

Lately Argentines have money to spend. Argentina is one of Latin America’s fastest growing economies, but with currency markets uncertain and double digit inflation, Argentines are turning to cars as surrogate savings banks.

Car sales among local dealers nationwide are up nearly 70 percent from last year, and inflation definitely factors into the decision to buy according to Hernan Dietrich, owner of one of Argentina’s largest car dealerships.

“In one year, you can sell your car for more money than what you paid for it,” says Dietrich. In the United States, a new car depreciates about 20 percent in value as soon as it leaves the lot, but not in Argentina. “Here the loss is absorbed by inflation and the equation balances out.”

With chronic inflation in Argentina, there’s no incentive to save. For higher income earners with access to credit, there’s an added incentive to spend: you can profit.

“It’s a way to earn in one year,” says Hernan Valdez. To buy his new Peugot, he got a five-year loan with fixed payments at 16 percent. Yet with annual inflation believed to be 26 percent, his effective rate of interest is negative.

“Imagine that you could take out a mortgage to buy a house and the mortgage had a negative interest rate. How cool would that be?” posits Carnegie Mellon economist Lee Bransttetter. “If I could borrow at a negative interest rate, I would have bought a much bigger house!”

Branstetter says the reason Argentina has effectively negative interest rates is that the government has been underreporting its official inflation rate to help pay off its own debts. The inflationary spending works great in the short-term, but it undermines the basic foundations of the financial system and long-term growth.

Argentina has had problems with chronic inflation and even hyperinflation since the 1950s. Branstetter likens Argentina’s addiction to inflationary spending to watching a relative with extraordinary potential fall prey to an alcohol problem again and again.

“There’s Uncle Bob-he’s drinking again and he winds back up in jail,” says Branstetter. “I mean some of us have these people in our families and it’s horrible to watch.”

Branstetter says Argentina’s government is unlikely to act on inflation anytime soon given that tackling inflation could result in a recession and next year is an election year. Meanwhile, as Argentines spend more to save more, it stokes even more inflation.

“Those you who can’t buy cars are buying flat screen televisions or cellphones,” says Hernan Valdez. As a financial analyst himself at an international bank, Valdez knows this is the bright side of inflation. “This has to end sometime.You can buy one flat screen TV maybe two, but you don’t really need them. You’re not going to put a flat screen TV in the bathroom.”
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• Cars: Argentina’s new piggy bank

A poster of the 'disappeared' Argentinians created by the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Photo: Pepe Robles)

Claudia Poblete Hadzic wishes she could find a Spanish equivalent for the word “hindsight.”

“It’s a good word for me,” she said. “Hindsight helps me understand some things about my life.”

Poblete said with hindsight, she thinks she knows why she named her first doll Pepe and why she used to pretend an office chair was her wheelchair.

Poblete gained that hindsight in a court room 10 years ago, when a judge ordered the then 22-year-old to submit to a genetic test to determine her true identity.

Up to that point she had refused to cooperate with the investigation. She asked the only parents she’d ever known what to do. They told her it was her choice whether to go the hospital for the test.

“I went because I really didn’t believe it would come to anything,” she said.

When the judge announced the test results, everything changed – her name, her age, her family.

“The family that I knew had disappeared,” Poblete said. “The other family I distrusted because I didn’t know them and they belonged to a part of the world that for me was completely unknown. I felt very alone.”

Poblete is not alone. She is one of hundreds of young adults who were stolen as infants. They’re the children of political prisoners who were “disappeared” during Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s.

The grandmothers of those stolen grandchildren never stopped looking for them. The grandchildren are adults now, and some are being forced to learn who they really are.

“It’s an incredibly difficult and painful situation that these young adults are put into,” said anthropologist Lindsay Smith. She is writing a book about these stolen children and their struggles with being identified.

She says the grandmothers of these children pioneered the use of DNA testing to help find and identify them.

“It’s an important legacy to honor, but with it, comes profound moral and ethical dilemmas that are different than the kind we face around DNA data banking for criminal purposes,” said Smith.

A key question is, do the grandmothers’ rights to know the truth trump their grandchildren’s rights to privacy? A controversial Argentine law passed last year sides with the grandmothers. The law stipulates that anyone suspected of being a child of the disappeared can be forced to take a genetic test to determine their identity, even if it’s against their will.

“On a gut level, it feels wrong that someone can tell you who your family,” said Smith, “but you have to understand this debate within the larger history of the repression.”

You can see some of that history in the Navy Mechanics’ School in Buenos Aires. It is now a memorial with tour guides, but in the 1970s, the school was a notorious detention center. Those deemed politically suspect were detained, tortured, and often killed there.

The school also served as a clandestine maternity ward for pregnant prisoners. Once the babies were born, the dictatorship took them and gave them away to political supporters.

It was the peculiar logic of the dictatorship: They killed a whole generation of young adults, but they didn’t kill their children.

Smith said, “They thought by putting them with new families, good Argentine citizens, they could make new citizens.”

Meanwhile, the families of the children had no idea what happened to them, or their missing parents. Burcarito Roa’s son, Pepe disappeared in November 1978. He was a wheelchair-bound activist for the disabled. When Pepe disappeared, his wife and 8-month-old baby daughter, Claudia, were taken as well.

“We looked everywhere for them,” Roa said.

Roa said she joined the mothers in white kerchiefs going round and round the Plaza de Mayo, demanding to know what happened to their missing children.

Roa became a founding member of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, the grandmothers who were also missing grandchildren. Then ten years ago, an anonymous tipster came to the Abuelas with new information about Claudia’s disappearance.

“We found out Claudia was still alive,” Roa said, her voice cracking. She learned that her granddaughter had been raised by a military colonel and his wife, who called her Mercedes.

Roa and her family started the process to prove Claudia’s identity, but Claudia resisted. Roa credits the judge in the case, Gabriel Cavallo, for ordering Claudia to take the DNA test. “He was a very good judge.”

Judge Cavallo himself said it was a difficult case. Cavallo is now retired, but he said he’ll never forget the look on Claudia’s face when he told her the results of the test.

“I spent two years in therapy talking it out, to make sure I had done the right thing,” he said.

Claudia Poblete’s case proved to be a landmark in Argentina’s reconciliation process. Judges here can act as investigators, and in the course of investigating Claudia’s disappearance, Judge Cavallo ruled that amnesty laws protecting those who helped the military dictatorship were unconstitutional. That ruling paved the way for prosecutions of crimes committed during Argentina’s Dirty War.

According to Claudia Poblete, prosecution is the reason some stolen grandchildren resist being identified. When she ultimately agreed to get tested, the results became evidence against the couple who raised her.

“If you love the people who are going to go to jail because of you, it’s impossible to make the choice,” she said.

Claudia’s adopted father was sent to prison and her adopted mother was held under house arrest.

“I was crying all the time,” she said. “The world as I had known it stopped existing. I had to start building a new one.”

It has taken Poblete some years to reconcile her identity issues. She has decided that experience matters more than genetics.

“Who I am is everything that has happened to me,” she said. “It’s the 21 years that I’ve lived as Mercedes and the 10 years I’ve been living as Claudia. And the eight months that I had with my parents after I was born.”

It is not always easy, but Claudia now enjoys relationships with both her biological family and the one that appropriated her.

“Nobody can tell you who to love,” Poblete said.

She looked down at her eight-month-old daughter, the same age that she was when she was taken.

I asked Claudia when she’s going to tell her daughter about her past. Claudia said as soon as she can understand, but she added that her daughter will always kind of know.

“Photos of my parents are everywhere,” she said, opening up an album. There are old Polaroids of Claudia as a baby, her father Peep in a wheelchair, and her grandmother, Buscarita Roa.

There’s also a photo of Claudia’s mother. Guadalupe looks just like the grandmother she will never know.

Claudia says despite all the pain, uncovering her past has been all for the best. “An uncle used to say to me, ‘The truth is sad, but it has no remedy.”
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Claudia Poblete’s story had some resolution, but others in her situation are still struggling over their identity. In fact, the judge in Claudia’s case is now defending a brother and a sister who don’t wish to be identified. Hear reporter Julia Kumari Drapkin talk about that case and some of her personal observations in reporting the story. Download MP3

• Comparing New Orleans to the Netherlands
• New Orleans’ immigrant flavor since Katrina

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon has denied charges that the authorities are collaborating with drug cartels. He said earlier this year that his government has “attacked without favor all criminal groups in Mexico.” Immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America have played a major role in helping New Orleans rebuild from Hurricane Katrina. Many of the workers are undocumented. Sometimes, they’re paid for their labor. Sometimes, they’re not. Julia Kumari Drapkin tells us about a group of lawyers trying to get the workers what’s owed them.

JULIE KUMARI DRAPKIN:  Cicadas start singing just after dusk in New Orleans. But the work day is just beginning at the New Orleans Wage Claims Clinic. Workers wait to speak with volunteer lawyers about their claims for unpaid wages. And it’s standing room only. Honduran Dennis Salgado says he’s missed 4 months of pay from a construction job.

SPEAKING SPANISH

DRAPKIN: Salgado says the guy paid him whatever he wanted and some days not at all. With two babies at home and bills to pay, he came here.

SPEAKING SPANISH

DRAPKIN: Thank god, they’re defending us, he says. Lawyer Vanessa Spinazola is one of his defenders. Behind studded horn rimmed glasses, Spinazola calculates stolen time.

VANESSA SPINAZOLA: Ok, that’s 54, so that’s 14.5 hours of overtime.

DRAPKIN: Spinazola brings a fiery Boston-Irish disposition to the laid back shores of the bayou.

SPINAZOLA: Once it is established who is making a claim against him for unpaid wages, capital U, capital W.

DRAPKIN: She’s been working for the wage claims clinic since it started after Hurricane Katrina. And there are no shortages of claims.

SPINAZOLA:  Construction workers, restaurant workers, housekeepers. We do have a couple of oil spill clean up workers. It’s just amazing how the same it is since right after Katrina, really.

DRAPKIN: After Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, undocumented Latino workers began arriving to help rebuild. With residents displaced, the city needed to begin cleaning up as quickly as possible. Sociologist Elizabeth Fussel says the stage was set for wage theft when the Bush administration temporarily allowed employers to bypass safety, labor and immigration laws for 90 days.

ELIZABETH FUSSEL: That definitely sent the signal to employers that this would be an employer regulated recovery.

DRAPKIN: In other words, employers could hire whoever they wanted. And when some employers didn’t bother to pay their workers, the newly arrived laborers didn’t know they had legal options. Five years later, Spinazola says workers are better informed. They know that several state and federal laws protect them from wage theft, regardless of their immigration status.

SPINAZOLA: Because why wouldn’t everybody just hire people if they don’t have to pay, right? So the law says, yeah, you have to pay them.

DRAPKIN: But even with the law on their side, it’s not easy helping people like Dennis Salgado. One of the volunteers asks him the name of the company he worked for but he doesn’t know. And he’s not sure exactly where the construction site is.

SPEAKING SPANISH

DRAPKIN: Spinazola says that employers take advantage of the immigrants’ lack of familiarity with the area, and especially their fear of being deported. That’s one reason employers feel safe taking advantage of workers in the first place. Sometimes forcing them into slave-like conditions and refusing pay. But in court, Spinazola has used that kind of harassment to protect workers.

SPINAZOLA: If you’re helpful in catching the bad guys that did that, then you get this visa.

DRAPKIN:  Thanks to Spinazola’s work, 40 men in New Orleans were offered rarely-granted U Visas. That’s a special type of visa, generally given to immigrants who’ve suffered abuse or have been witness to crimes. In this case, the crime was their own forced labor. While Spinazola and the lawyers at the clinic are creative when it comes to helping their clients, she says there aren’t any special secrets of success. Just hard work.

SPINAZOLA: The 13^th Amendment of the Constitution outlawed slavery in this country, so there is nobody in this country that works for free.

DRAPKIN: The evening wears on and the workers keep coming in. A group of 13 hotel workers, children in tow, enter the clinic. They haven’t been paid for the past two months. But they’ve got enough evidence to build a good case. Spinazola says thanks to word of mouth, her job is getting easier. For The World, I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin, New Orleans.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  Argentina is one of the favorites at The World Cup.  During the tournament the team can count on unanimous support back home.  Until then, most Argentines remain fiercely loyal to their local club teams.  Choosing which one to support is serious business as reporter Julia Kumari Drapkin found out after moving to Buenos Aires.

JULIA KUMARI DRAPKIN:  In the Oscar winning movie “Secreto de Sus Ojos”, there’s a line that pretty much sums up what it means to be a soccer fan in Argentina.

MOVIE/INTERPRETER:  In your life you may change your religion, your political ideology, your love, your woman.  But there is one thing you may not change; you may not change your passion.

DRAPKIN: And the passion in Argentina is club football.

MOVIE/INTERPRETER:  You say soccer.

DRAPKIN: Eduardo Sacheri is the author of the book “Secreto de Sus Ojos”.  He also writes a lot about soccer and he’s worried.  I haven’t picked a team yet.

MOVIE/INTERPRETER:  It is your most important decision in this country.

DRAPKIN: In Argentina club soccer isn’t just a sport, it’s a social identity.  And in Buenos Aires the choice can boil down to two of Argentina’s biggest clubs.

MOVIE/INTERPRETER:  Boca Juniors and River Plate.

DRAPKIN: They’re archrivals.  Imagine the Red Sox and the Yankees but in the same city.  Boca and River were even born in the same working class neighborhood, La Boca, along the shores of the Rio de la Plata.  So, first stop to indoctrination, La Bombonera.  Boca Junior’s famous blue and gold stadium is in the heart of La Boca.  Many Argentine soccer legends call this stadium home, including Diego Maradonna.  Inside guide Alejandro Lobo Fuentes stands guard over two gigantic silver trophies while fans take pictures.  Wait a minute, this is a plastic trophy.  I’m not convinced about the trophies.  And besides, in Argentina being a fan isn’t about choosing the winning team anyway.  It’s more about where you come from, literally.  Have you always been a Boca fan?  Del womb?  Like inside of you Mom you were a fan of Boca?  He says his whole family roots for Boca.  And that’s how soccer is in Argentina, a family affair.  So, no pressure, choosing a team can affect your entire lineage.  But some cases are more complicated.  Alejandra Moniatowitz is one of the announcers at Boca stadium, only he’s not actually a Boca fan.  You’re the announcer of the stadium and you’re a River supporter?  He doesn’t want to broadcast it, but he admits he’s a River fan.  And he’s staying a River fan, you know, lifelong family allegiance and all that.  Except, his son has decided to defect.  It’s awkward.  The young man doesn’t mince words thought.  He says Boca is fun and River boring.  That’s it; I had to go check it out for myself.  River’s stadium, El Monumental, is far from working class Boca now.  It’s in a wealthy neighborhood across town.  It’s a much bigger stadium.  Argentina’s national team trains and plays all of its game here.  But my guides at River aren’t too interested about soccer.

GUIDE:  This is a social club; it’s not just a football club.

DRAPKIN: It’s true.  At River most fans are also club members and in the stadium behind every door there’s something different.  Volleyball.  Tae Kwon Do.  Tango?  And a bunch of other stuff as well.

GUIDE:  You have a bank here.  You have a school.

DRAPKIN: You guys are like a town.

GUIDE:  Like a town.

DRAPKIN: One of my guides, Dario Santilli explains that soccer at River is important.  But they’d rather sell their best players to fund their community activities.  And club official German Negro says that’s the big difference between River and Boca.

INTERPRETER:  Boca is a good soccer team, but that’s it.  We have a soccer team and more.  We have an institution.

DRAPKIN: An institution they’re eager to cultivate.  After my tour they scuttled me over to membership service.  You guys are moving really fast for me.  I’m not committed yet.  After two hours at River they never even showed me the soccer field.  And I just didn’t feel right making a decision about these two teams without going to an actual soccer game.  First I went to see a River match.  And then I saw a Boca game.  I even tried to see the game, Boca versus River.  But it got rained out.  Still a lot of Boca fans stayed and chanted for another three hours before going home completely drenched.  Later one of the fans explained why.  Because we’re only here once in life, he says, and you have to live it.  And that’s what it boils down to when it comes to picking a team.  Choose your passion and live it.  So, live for the moment Boca, or live for the legacy River.  Eduardo Sacheri, the author, is still waiting for my verdict?

EDUARDO SACHERI:  Have you decided?

DRAPKIN: I haven’t decided.  I’m thinking is there a way to be independent?  The soccer philosopher grins.  He’s been plotting all along.  He wants me to root for his team, Independiente.

SACHERI:  The name is beautiful.  And you think about freedom

DRAPKIN: It’s worth thinking about.  Boca Juniors and River Plate have both played terrible lately.  For The World, I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin in Buenos Aires.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• BBC: Voices from the Falkland Conflict
• BBC: Falklands Conflict 25 years later

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, this is The World.  Britain and Argentina fought a brief war over the Falkland Islands in 1982.  Britain won the war, but Argentina still claims the islands as its own.  In fact, it still calls them the Malvinas.  And there’s another dispute over the Falklands that still hasn’t been settled.  Argentina’s government officially recognizes as war veterans, only those who fought the British.  That leaves out one group of former Argentine soldiers.  So they’re camping out in the heart of Buenos Aires.  Reporter Julia Kumari Drapkin visited with them as their protest camp turned two years old.

JULIA KUMARI DRAPKIN:  Ruben Dario Gonzales reaches into the fridge and unwraps a home made chocolate cake.  But this isn’t his home.  It’s a tent camp, a homey one though.  There are beds, a dining mess, a kitchen, even electricity, all in the middle of the Plaza de Mayo, the city’s iconic political plaza.  The cake says “Happy Birthday to the Veteran’s Camp of the Plaza de Mayo”.  It has two candles.  Two years without an answer, says Gonzales.  He and his buddies, all former soldiers, want to be recognized as war veterans.  They admit they didn’t fight the British directly; instead they were on the home front defending Argentina’s coast and air bases during the war.  Sergio Freire says that makes them all war veterans, just like the guys who fought on the islands.

INTERPRETER:  They are all recognized, we’re not.  Event though we were thrown in a ditch for 45 days without food, without sleep and without dignity.  We were abused by our own officers.  All our human rights were violated.  We are nothing, we are nobody, we don’t exist.

DRAPKIN: That sort of bitterness is borne out of what many former soldiers say were the other battles fought during the Malvinas war.  They say that back on the mainland their worst enemies were not the British, but their own superior officers.  They starved, humiliated, and even tortured their charges.  One common form of punishment involved tying a naked soldier to stakes on the ground and leaving him at the mercy of the Patagonian cold for days.

TULIO FRAVOZKI:  It’s not necessary to have a mark on the body.

DRAPKIN: Tulio Fravozki is President of the Plaza de Mayo Veteran’s Camp.  He and others say many of the men have psychological wounds that haven’t healed.  But he says the worst part is being treated as if they never served at all.

FRAVOZKI: They never gave us honors.  They never receive us like veterans or people who go for war.

DRAPKIN: Many of these former soldiers say they were told to keep quiet after the war.  But now they want the truth to come out and justice to be done.  That’s what they’re fighting for now.  And they’re making their stand in the place where Argentines come to demand truth and justice.  The stars of the Plaza de Mayo though, are the mothers of those who were disappeared by the military junta.  They still march here every week.  Tourists snap pictures of the women, but seem not to notice the men in the background.  Still, the former soldiers have tremendous respect for the mothers.  What’s important, says Ruben Dario Gonzales, is that they feel our presence, referring to Argentina’s politicians.  Recognition would mean government benefits for these men.  But it doesn’t look good for them.  Combat veterans of the Falklands/Malvinas war who already receive pensions are fighting for back payments.  They would get priority and increasing the veteran payroll is difficult for lawmakers to justify in cash strapped Argentina.  The sun starts to set on the Plaza de Mayo and the men stand in formation to sing the national anthem.  Friends and family take pictures.  People en route to the subway pause.  The former soldier’s presence is felt, at least for a moment.  For The World, I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin in Buenos Aires.

WERMAN: We have pictures of some of the veterans Julia spoke with at the world dot org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• BBC coverage
• BBC country profile: Argentina

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  Nobody loves Argentine beef more than Argentines.  They eat more beef per capita than anyone else in the world.  But beef prices have been going sky high. Inflation and a severe drought, along with government price controls, have forced cattle farmers to liquidate their herds.  In fact, many cattle farmers in Argentina have switched to planting soy, which can be more profitable.  Correspondent Julia Kumari Drapkin found vegetarians and places that cater to them in Buenos Aires.

JULIA KUMARI DRAPKIN:  In a country where beef on the grill might be considered a sacred rite, Agostina Senese says eating vegetarian can feel like an act of heresy.

AGONSTINA SENESE:  You are doing something really wrong if you don’t eat meat here, you know, it’s like a sin.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  It’s not easy to go vegetarian in the world’s biggest beef eating nation.  On weekends and holidays, a beef barbecue is the signature social event and Senese says she feels left out.

SENESE:  Here I don’t have friends that are vegetarians.  It’s really, really difficult for me.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  But it’s getting a little easier.  There’s a small but growing community of vegetarians in Buenos Aires and a new crop of markets and restaurants that caters to them.  Like the Almacen Casero.  The vegetarian grocery opened three months ago.  Behind the counter stacked with cereal bars, owner Maria Magdalena gives Senese a pep talk.

MARIA MAGDALENA:  In the beginning you’ll find it very lonely but you’ll get to know more people when the people around you start to adapt.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  Perhaps but last year the average Argentine ate 154 pounds of beef.  That’s about two servings a day, every day.

MAGDALENA:  Our ancestors, the gauchos, butchered the cows and ate the meat.  It’s a tradition.  It’s deeply rooted in our culture.  Why do people change things?  Well they do it because everything changes.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  And things have changed a lot in Argentina, especially since the economic crisis here a decade ago.  Angelita Bianculli is the owner of La Esquina de Flores, the first vegetarian restaurant in Buena Aires.  Bianculli said she trained people how to use soy in 2001 to save money and after the crisis ease, an influx of health conscious foreigners began to transform the city’s cosmopolitan restaurant scene.  Bianculli says suddenly vegetarianism made sense.  Still, vegetarian eateries like La Esquina thrive mostly in the capitols of upscale neighborhoods where many ex-pats live.  I ask a young man at the register if he’s a vegetarian.  Estas vegetariano?

MAN:  No hablo espanol muy bueno.

KUMARI DRAPKIN: You’re American?

MAN: Yes.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  It turns out he’s from New York.  Still businessmen like Fernando Baz say a homegrown vegetarian clientele is emerging.

FERNANDO BAZ:  There is a demand.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  Baz is the owner of Jardin Organico which delivers organic produce to Buenos Aires homes.

BAZ:  60, 70% of my clients and consumer are vegetarian.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  And he says his business is growing about 20% every year.  Back at Almacen Casero, Maria Magdalena isn’t raking in the profits just yet.  But she’s optimistic.

MAGDALENA:  I don’t know if there’s a great future, but there is a future.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  She notes that her store is far from the trendy restaurant scene popular with foreigners.

MAGDALENA:  We’re in Almagro, a middle class neighborhood and it’s starting to be accepted.  We can even see it our own families.  They are already making some room on the barbecue.  This is going to grow.  It’s going to grow.

KUMARI DRAPKIN:  It looks like its already growing.  Not far from Magdalena’s shop there are several local restaurants with signs in the window that say “comida vegeteriana.”  Vegetarian food is available here.  For The World, I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin in Buenos Aires.

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We want to tell you about a mountain biker named Jacob Thomson and his two friends who’ve just finished a long journey.

We began in Prudhoe Bay Alaska. And just recently finished in Ushuaia, Argentina.

That’s a journey of 19,500 miles or more. It took them more than 3 years.  These guys didn’t take the Pan-American highway to cross continents. Instead they took the roads less travelled, sometimes even steep mountainous trails.

We call the trip ”Riding the Spine” because there’s a mountain range that really spans the length of the Americas- It starts in the Rocky Mountains, goes through the Sierra Madre and Sierra Tarahumara Mountain Ranges in Mexico and ultimately connects to the Andes in South America. So It’s kind of like a spine of the globe.

So what’s the name of the “sequence of mountain ranges” that starts in Alaska and runs all the way to Argentina?

The answer we were looking for is the American Cordillera.

It’s what geographers call the mountains that curve along North, Central, and South America like a continental backbone. Jacob Thompson just spent the last three and half years riding his bicycle along that spine:

“There were three of us in the beginning and we somehow made it to the end together. I think the idea at the beginning was to see what you could do with free time and a bike and a sense of adventure.

We started up in Prudhoe Bay Alaska and there’s all Arctic, tundra permafrost. And the first sign we saw said the first services are in 236 miles or something. So we knew we had a really exciting trip ahead of us.

In Mexico, we went through the Copper Canyon and we were trying to cross over. And we didn’t have any of these roads on our maps. But we were told by folks these roads were built. Apparently they were built largely for drug runners. And so one night we were camped out by a river. There’s three trucks filled with bales of marijuana. and two of the trucks got stuck.  And shortly after that, we see two headlights coming from the mountains. And it’s the military. They take the drivers out of the two trucks and throw them on the ground.  And we’re sitting with our oatmeal in our hands. Wondering if they’re going to come up and talk to us.And sure enough we hear this “Levantese manos!” Our Spanish was terrible at that point. And then we heard this collective “Che Che” “Levantese manos” made sense all of a sudden – and so we all raised our hands. It was three or four terrified military guys. They were sweating bullets and had their guns pointed at us. It was a pretty tense moment.

Touring the world or touring the Americas by bike gives you such an opportunity to meet the people where as in a car you could blast right by them. But in a bike you’re so much closer. They can yell at you as you’re pedalling by and say “hey come here, come here.” Just a more natural pace of life.

I remember there were areas of Guatemala where they were really afraid of us. Sometimes, they’d sometimes send kids to come talk to us first. And make sure we were safe. But some places they wouldn’t come out of their houses at all. ‘So if we needed supplies or anything we weren’t going to get it. But for the most part, they were pretty curious. And they would surround us There’d be 40 of them’ all asking the same questions- “Where do you come from, how many flats.”

We made it to South America after about 2 1/2 years from the time that we left. Everybody told us not to go to Colombia- that it was going to be a dangerous country- that you’re going to get kidnapped.  This was a constant theme that we had ruing our trip where we’d talk to someone in a park and say “hey, we’re headed to this town. how do we get there from this area?” “Oh no, no, no. You can’t go that way. Those people are bad people. They’re all drunks, they’re all this. It’s too dangerous. That road is very dangerous.  And overtime we’d find more and more hospitable people. That really just kill us with kindness.And in Colombia- everyone was sure this country was going to be the worst of all.  And it was some of the most endearing people. One of the best places I’ve ever been in my life.

After Colombia we passed into Ecuador and passed the Equator. Which is exciting when you’re travelling from the northern most point to the southern most point.  From Ecuador we passed into Peru. And that’s where we started to get on some really remote dirt roads. Where we’d have 4000 meter climbs and 4000 meter descents and then another 4000 meter climb and another 4000 meter descent. Tremendous terrain. It’s where you start to appreciate how big the Andes are.

The Andes lasted all the way down to Tierra del Fuego. Twenty kilometers before Ushuaia was our last continental divide crossing. It was a tiny pass in comparison, But you can appreciate it being the final pass.

We realized what an epic era of our lives this has been. Three and a half years of our time where we’re seeking adventure. And definitely feel like the world is full of possibilities. I don’t think there’s anything that we’re not capable of doing. But it helps to really understand what’s most important in your life- from good friendships, to beautiful places, to just being free and living your life- which is not always easy.”

– Jacob Thompson

Produced by Julia Kumari Drapkin

Riding the Spine website:  http://www.ridingthespine.com/main.html

It’s a funnel-shaped estuary is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the Uruguay and the Paraná rivers. At its widest point — where it meets the Atlantic Ocean — the Rio de la Plata is more than 130 miles across.

Jacques Descloitres, MODISRapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

We’re looking for a big city on the river’s south-western shore. It’s one of South America’s major cities, eclipsed in size only by São Paulo.

Residents of this city can go out and dine on asado or stay home and read stories by native son Jorge Luis Borges. Two residents plan to tie the knot there tomorrow — and make history.

We’ll tell you why — when we return with this city’s name…

If all goes as planned, they’ll be the first gay couple to legally wed in Argentina. Julia Kumari Drapkin recently sat down with them at a Buenos Aires hotel.

Meet Alex Freyer and Jose di Bello. Jose is an executive with the Argentine Red Cross. Alex is head of the Buenos Aires AIDS foundation. Alex says a passion for activism and human rights brought them together.

Alex: “It’s not easy. If you are gay to find other gay with the same pride. And with the same idea to change the world to be better.“

That’s the reason I proposed this question: Do you want to marry me – but do you know, it’s not a romantic proposal only. It’s a political proposal.

Gay couples in Buenos Aires can have civil unions, but they can’t get married. So Alex wasn’t just asking Jose to commit to him. He was asking him to commit to a public battle.

Jose: “And I think why not? I know I want to stay Alex all my life. And I said- yes. I want.“
Getting politicians in Argentina to say yes to changing the law was another matter. Single sex marriage isn’t legal in Argentina, where the Catholic Church remains influential.

Alex: “They need to change only two words: man and woman. And replace the words by partners. It’s simple but at the same time there’s too much pressure from the church.”

But instead of waiting for lawmakers to take action, Alex and Jose decided to take a different tack. Alex says they went to a civil clerk in Buenos Aires ….

Alex: “We went to the register civil to say we want a date, for be married, and they say – no.”

The law doesn’t permit to you to obtain this right. So the couple sued the city of Buenos Aires for denying them their constitutional rights. Earlier this month, the judge ruled in their favor.

Alex: “The justice said yes. And the government say its okay. I say wow so much responsibility.”

It’s a big responsibility because Alex and Jose won’t be just the first gay couple to marry in Argentina. They’ll be the first to legally wed in Latin America.

Jose: “We are the first!”

And they plan to wed tomorrow, December 1st.

Alex: “December 1st is the global day of AIDS. It’s very important to us. Both of us are living with HIV. We are positive.”

Even though Alex and Jose plan to get married tomorrow, the judge’s decision doesn’t set a precedent for other single sex couples to wed in Argentina. But Alex says it’s still a victory.

Alex: “We win this round. We win. We can- we obtain. Now the rainbow is here. You know when we say, “somewhere over the rainbow. It’s here! It’s in Buenos Aires.”

The Buenos Aires mayor decided not to appeal, so the judge’s decision is final. The mayor told reporters… “The world is heading in this direction.”

For the world, I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin in Buenos Aires.

Drapkin Biologist Melva Olmos and her team tunnel through the tropical forest with machetes. They’re just twenty-six miles from Panama City. But here – in Chagres National Park- it’s prime habitat for jaguars. To keep tabs on the cats, she ties cameras with motion sensors to the trees.

Olmos “One camera on each side of the trail. So there will be chances to photograph both sides of the same animal at the same time.”

Melva Olmos

Drapkin Olmos keeps an eye on jaguars for a living. She tracks where jaguars are in Panama and where they’re going.

Olmos “I’m going to mark the point on the GPS, so we have the position in the map in the office.”

Drapkin Olmos knows that jaguars live in this park, and in another park, called Soberania, to the West. Between the two parks lies a strip of scattered towns.

Rabinowitz “What you have are big green spots and just humans in between.”

Drapkin Alan Rabinowitz is concerned about the area that separates the green spots – the area between the parks. Rabinowitz is president of Panthera- a wildcat conservation group. He says, jaguars have always traveled through this landscape. But overtime, it’s filled with more people. Rabinowitz fears that eventually the jaguars in these parks will be cut off form one another, and he wants to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Rabinowitz “One main way to prevent extinction is to try to keep – at least a little- it doesn’t take much- a little genetic flow between breeding populations.”

Drapkin To keep that flow between the parks means first figuring out how jaguars cross the human landscape. So Melva Olmos is helping Rabinowitz find these jaguar pathways. But that’s not so easy. Jaguars are expert sneaks: they tend to pass unseen. So Olmos looks for clues: she breaks out the field map.

Olmos “Aqui hay un mapa, yo quiero saber. Este es Lago Alajuela. Y aqui es Soberania.”

Jaguar track

Drapkin She looks for jaguar friendly landscapes- areas with water that offer a bit of cover. Areas like this along Lake Alajuela- On the edge of Chagres National Park. Women bathe their children by the shore lined with small tin roof houses. She enters one with a big window overlooking the lake- She asks the owner- Senor Cervantes- what kinds of animals live here.

Olmos “El mas que ve aqui es el iguana.”

Cervantes “Okay, the green iguana is common in the area. Nkeyes, el gato solo. Conejo pintado si”

Drapkin Iguanas, agutis, coatimundi, and deer he says, counting on his hand. Olmos nods. These animals are typically eaten by jaguars. With prey species running around, there’s a good chance jaguars are running around here too. Even if Cervantes and his neighbors haven’t seen them.

Cervantes “No no por aqui, no. Cerca no”

Drapkin Olmos has another lead. She’s heard rumors about jaguars north of here. So she heads to the Sierra Llorona Highlands-a stretch of ranches and farms that lies between the two parks. Here the ranchers call out to each other among the rolling hills. On a clear day, you can see both the Carribean to the north and the Panama Canal to the west as the dirt road winds through fields and forests.

Olmos “Senor Illario??”

Drapkin Olmos stops along the road and asks people if they’ve seen animal tracks. She shows them pictures of four types of wildcat tracks. The men on the road point to the biggest paw marks on the page- the jaguar tracks.

Men on the road “Oh, big big big” “They were like this?”
Olmos “When was this?”

Drapkin Yes. They’ve seen those tracks. Melba then shows them a picture of a jaguar. Have any of them actually seen one of these cats, she asks? No. But they’ve heard them.

Men on the road “Grrr! Tan duro que me despierto!”

Drapkin The growls are so loud, an old woman says, she’s woken up in the middle of the night. Olmos is pretty sure that jaguars are using this area to move between the parks. But she’s not done collecting all the data yet. When she is, all that information about habitat, prey items, jaguar tracks, and jaguar sightings will be sent to New York City.

Scientists at Panthera will create a map of so-called jaguar corridors. But even as Olmos discovers these jaguar corridors, they’re already being severed by new human ones. A multilane highway is under construction right between the parks. It’s not just the highway itself that poses a threat to jaguars but the development it’s likely to bring. More access, brings more people, more houses, more stores.

Olmos ” That will stop jaguars. Cuz then basically you’ve got a city growing.”

Drapkin But Panthera’s Alan Rabinowitz says saving jaguars in this area won’t necessarily mean setting aside more parkland. Jaguars already tolerate some human development. Rabinowitz hopes that once his team finishes mapping the jaguar corridors, he can convince Panama to zone these areas for jaguar-friendly use, coffee farms, ranches, or even citrus groves.

Rabinowitz “Things which can create a mosaic that allow a few individual jaguars to sneak their way by. “It’s ambitious, but highly doable.”

Drapkin And Rabinowitz has the ambition to do this across the jaguar’s entire range- from Mexico all the way to Argentina. Melva Olmos has done jaguar conservation across that range, for ten years. But she admits the work can be exasperating. The cats are so secretive, she’s never actually seen one in the wild.

Olmos “This is very frustrating for me.”

Drapkin So she sometimes visits them in captivity. Here in the zoo near the entrance to Soberania National Park. A male jaguar stares from behind bars with yellow within yellow eyes. A few years ago, Olmos says, the zookeepers found jaguar tracks around this cage. Perhaps it was looking for a mate, the story goes. Olmos worries that if her efforts to protect jaguar corridors fail, many jaguars WON’T be able to find mates in the future.
They’ll be surrounded by too many people. And the parks they live in will be little more than large cages.

For The World I’m Julia Kumari Drapkin in Panama.

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