Kilombo

"Una cosa es el mapa, otro es el teritorio." This is what my castellano teacher told us today. "One thing is the map, another is the land."

Things always look so easy on my Guia T map. There are only two little centimeters separating me from my destination: the Central Post Office. But those two itsy bitsy centimeters are filled with 9 lane highways, trucks that don't yield to pedestrians and mislabeled street signs.

The path is never as easy or clear as it looks on paper. On paper, in black and white, life makes sense, it has an order. But once you step off that page, huge semis try to run you over.

That is how Argentina has been for me. Everything was so planned out before i came from my packing list to contacts in Buenos Aires to sights to see. But then i got here and the list disintegrated before my eyes. All of that stuff on paper was not real. It was just the plans i made waiting for reality to begin.

Now I wish i had thrown the list away. Or I wish now I could throw away any plans, written or unwritten, I have for myself in this city. Because it seems the only way i actually find my way in this city is when i stop looking at the map.