This piece was delivered as a reading at our first Herald Night, An Ode to Buenos Aires. Join us for the next one on April 18 at Sheikob’s Bagels, 8 p.m., Uriarte 1386 — this time, it’s a trivia night!

I was secretly a bit worried about preparing an “ode to Buenos Aires,” because I was wondering how I could write over six years of thoughts, reflections and impressions about this city into a ten-minute reading. 

But then I realized: I had already written it. Like many writers, I’ve kept a diary on and off for most of my life, and my past self is better at capturing those moments in time than my present self could ever be. The challenge, in the end, was figuring out what to cut. So without further ado, here’s my ode to Buenos Aires.

28 January, 2018: Arrivals

Well, we’ve made the leap. Packed up our things — they fit into six pieces of luggage — and left Bolivia for the metropolis that is Argentina’s capital.

Now we’re in Argentina, and I don’t know what to do. We need to formally apply for our masters degrees at UBA, find a place to live, get new phone numbers, figure out how to buy beans, and do the plethora of things you need to do when you move country.

It’s a three-way tie as to whether the beans are bainitas, judías or chauchas, and whether bananas are bananas, plátanos or cambures, so I’m open to suggestions.

We’re trying to make headway, but God, it’s so hot here. Sometimes it feels so hot I literally can’t do anything at all. It’s a humid heat that gets into your hair and sticks to your skin. 

Wandering around the city center the other day, we reached a huge, grandiose building overlooking a square, the Argentine flag flying proudly in the wind. 

“That building is pink!” I said. 

“No, it isn’t,” Andy said.

“Yes it is!”

“It’s more of a dusky red,” he said.

It turned out to be the Casa Rosada.

We went to a free electronic music event outside Recoleta cultural center with Astrid and her friends. Andy looked at me full of excitement and said, “people are so cool here!” 

Inside, we saw the most incredible art — an exhibition of vivid, cartoonesque images of women and street scenes. One of them mapped the final steps of Santiago Maldonado, the missing man.

18 February 2019: Criticism

I found an English-language Argentine news site. One of the items on its FAQs page was “Why are you criticizing my country in English? Why don’t you go back to where you came from?” 

Their response was essentially, “We’ve chosen to live here so it’s our country too.” That response doesn’t entirely satisfy me, but as a journalist, it got me thinking. When does it become appropriate for you to comment on another culture? Does it depend on whether what you have to say is good or bad? What about the privilege dynamics between the countries? There’s a lot to that question.

I got my grades back for the masters coursework I finished in October, and I passed everything. It’s gratifying to know that I’m not failing.

9 January, 2020: Summers

Buenos Aires in good weather is gorgeous. Everyone gets into the summer spirit and heads to the beach, the pool, or the asado. There’s a collective sense that however calamitous the nation’s politics and economy are, you have to get out and enjoy the summer any way you can. 

Late last night, as I reconciled myself to another quiet night in, I briefly switched my phone back on to check my messages before going to bed. 

A WhatsApp message popped up. 

“Hoy sale?” Sent: 22:04. Received: 23:50. Shit.

“I’ve just seen this. I guess it’s too late?”

Of course it wasn’t too late. This is Argentina. Our friends hadn’t even arrived. Twenty minutes later, I was cycling to a cultural center in Abasto that holds a weekly peña. My friends were on the back patio, smoking and drinking red wine with grapefruit soda and ice. Everyone greeted me with a hug, and we drank and talked late into the night, dancing chacareras and zambas to the thrum of the band.

When the cultural center closed, we went to the park at the end of the street. The musicians brought their guitars and continued playing and singing until the sun rose.  

People quite often ask me what I like most about Buenos Aires, and last night encapsulated my answer. I love that this city is so bursting with culture, it’s creaking at the seams. And I love that this city has so many public spaces, and that so many of those spaces are beautiful, and that there’s this impromptu civic coexistence between the folklore hippies and the reggaetoneros and the tangueros and the families just drinking tereré while their children play. 

23 March 2020: Lockdown

Yesterday we washed clothes, and I swear it’s the first time we’ve argued because we both wanted to hang the laundry out. Our building has washing lines on the roof, but Andy thought only one of us should leave the flat.

From the roof, the view is a concrete and corrugated iron patchwork of the rusty car park roofs, grimy walls and advertising hoardings of Constitución. It’s not a view anyone would call beautiful, but I drank it up with my eyes, seeking thirstily for detail: who has patio furniture, where there are peeps of green marking people’s plants? I hadn’t been in the open air since Thursday. From the far corner I could see the street below. There wasn’t a soul, just a glimpse of a taxi, driving plaintively to who knows where?

Today’s Spanish word of the day is “guisazo,” which is basically the motherlode of stew. I went to help out at La Dignidad’s cafe on the corner, which has been repurposed as a comedor, or soup kitchen. We spent the morning scrubbing and chopping a heap of muddy potatoes, carrots, squashes, and onions, piling heaps of veggies into bowls on the long wooden tables where in more normal times, we might be drinking mate together. Sharing straws is frowned upon nowadays. But still, if Argentina has taught me anything, it’s taught me solidarity.

A lot of people were waiting outside by the time my friends heaved the huge pot of stew onto the table. Some needed to feed their children. One woman was pregnant. A few of them could still scrape together the cash for a hotel room, but most live on the streets. 

As we were clearing up, a mysterious white van pulled up outside. 

“You got space here?” the driver asked, with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

Two minutes later, people started bringing in sacks of onions. First one, then two. A human chain sprang up. Five, six, seven, eight sacks of onions. They started to form rows on the floor, like a dry stone wall. They got so high that we couldn’t see the rest of the larder behind the wall of onions. They were coming like clowns from a car. 

An allium army has set up camp with us, and is menacing the neighboring squashes and carrots. 

Some will go to other soup kitchens. We’ll probably take some home. I foresee a lot of slicing and caramelizing. Perhaps even a cheeky tart. 

4 April, 2021: Bariloche

We hiked out from los Coihues as the sun rose, passing the familiar trails and turning off towards Refugio Frey. I felt the thrill of adventure for the first time in years. We passed the vegetation line, breathing in awe as the forest, luminous in the morning light, gave way to a sweeping view of the valley. Around midday, we reached the refuge, and were delighted to find they made pizza. The beauty of our surroundings dazzled me. The mountains seemed to cup the lake in their hands, slender spires like fingers reaching towards the scudding clouds.

The path, now reduced to red markers, climbed rapidly after that. Soon, we were climbing over vast cubes of rock, our legs starting to complain. We crested Cerro Catedral, and suddenly, we could see everything. To the right, the ski resort, dormant for the summer. To the left, the sun illuminated the stream in Valle Rucaco like a coiled silver necklace. 

The way down was longer than we could possibly have imagined. We were exhausted. Everything we touched seemed to move beneath our feet. As we crested the ridge on the other side of the valley, the sun set on us, and we descended the second boulder field in the dark, surprising the refugieros at Jakob with our pitch-black arrival at around 9. 

It was days before I could sit on a toilet with dignity after that.

12 July, 2021: Vaccines

I got vaccinated today. Andy and I both got the same sign-up slot: midday at the Usina del Arte in La Boca. The walk there felt ceremonial.

There’s something about installing anything in a grand setting that makes the activity seem grand, too, like how El Ateneo is a palace to reading. Well, La Usina felt like a palace to public health, everyone polite, friendly and efficient as we climbed the stairs and were injected with a license to live again, bathed in the benign light of the art deco windows, waiting out the 15-minute cool-off period on slick, black chairs under the vaulted brick ceiling. 

Afterwards, we stopped off for those lurid-colored vegan empanadas and a woman passing in the street stopped.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“A humita empanada, but it’s vegan,” I said.

“But why is it like that?” she said, squinting at the purple dough.

“I think they put beetroot in it,” I said.

We get our lives back in swathes.

9 March, 2022: Residence

I requested permanent residence yesterday. I walked out of immigration, pushing open a door that had closed heavily for the end of the day, and felt a balloon of warm hope in my chest. I haven’t posted about it on social media. That’s my trademark cautious optimism: I can never believe it until I’m peeling the sticky paper label off the plastic of my DNI to reveal an expiry date in, what, 10 years? I’ll be able to witness my best friend’s wedding and use exchange houses and travel without worrying that the whole residence process will fall through due to bad timing. I might just start to feel like I belong.

Today I went to San Telmo and read in a cafe, just to leave the house. Then I went to Defensa and danced to Sandomble, the long rays of the afternoon sun illuminating the musicians as they battered their way rhythmically along the cobbles. Behind me, a British girl was cooing about how cool it was. Off to the side, glassy-eyed figures in shabby clothes clutched cans of cheap beer. Fathers danced with small kids in their arms.

10 October, 2023: Defensa

It was the most daunting Google Meet of my life.

On Wednesday, at half past eight in the morning, I presented my thesis research to a panel of three academic experts. They asked me questions, and I answered as best I could.

Half an hour later, they gave me my grade, and that was it. I had my master’s degree.

When Argentines learn I studied here, they often respond with bemusement: I’m a Brit. How did I end up in grad school on the other side of the world?

Partly, I had wanted to stay in the region after two years working at an NGO in Bolivia. But I was also drawn to Buenos Aires for reasons that had nothing to do with its seductive charms and vibrant culture: Argentina’s public education system meant that postgraduate studies were suddenly accessible to me.

My course at UBA was a demanding two-year program that required dozens of essays on texts and topics that were, at times, hermetic beyond belief. My coursemates were passionate, academically brilliant students, and many are now doing doctorates. At the end of it all came the dreaded thesis: a 40,000-word piece of research that required a plan, a supervisor, a conceptual framework, a research problem, and enough angst to fill the Río de la Plata. 

The process made me a sharper and more astute analyst, and I bring those skills to my job as managing editor of the Herald every single day. This is the course of study that brought me to Argentina. I wouldn’t be in the country today if it weren’t for public universities like UBA. 

21 March, 2024: Today

Yup. That’s today! I’ve just read you one page of my diary for each year I’ve been in Argentina. This year I’m already making new memories. I’ve been to Cine Lorca and bought provolone for the first time. I’ve taken the boat into the Tigre delta, eaten Armenian food in a basement, and met incredible new people who’ve enriched my life.

But there are still nine months to go in 2024. I know it’s shaping up to be a challenging year, but this country has taught me that whatever happens, we always have to look for the light.

So, this is my invitation to you: welcome to Herald Nights. This is the first of many, and I hope we’ll go on to make lots of new memories together.