 |
It has been a busy day that started when I moved into my new apartment in another area of Palermo. This bright and airy top floor apartment is a welcome treat after the smaller starter apartment with its tiny balcony and lack of light, but I already know I will miss the old neighborhood, which had become as comfortable as an old brown shoe.
After moving, Michael, Nico and I got together for a brief meeting to discuss our pending trip to northern Argentina. Because of continued heavy rains and flooding in the areas around Salta and Jujuy, we agreed to start working towards a February departure. We will reconvene in a week or so to review our plans.
Carina and I then visited the Evita Museum (Museo Evita) and had a late lunch at the museum's lovely restaurant looking onto the leafy green outdoor garden patio.
This trip to the Museo Evita was prompted by an incredible story that Carina and her mother had recently shared with me about the young Evita.
In her childhood, Carina's mother had a favorite aunt who was an actress in Buenos Aires. Shortly after Evita moved to the capitol city (at the age of 15), she and the aunt met while working on a play and became friends. Evita, who had no relatives or connections in the Capitol, became a regular part of family outings and dinners, even accompanying them to the beach in summer. There are old family photos, anecdotal stories galore and even a fascinating film clip of Evita and the aunt acting together.
Carina's mother, a retired MD, formed highly unfavorable opinions of Evita from this early exposure that she has carried with her for life. She thought Evita was crass and coarse, unfit to be a public figure, let alone First Lady of the nation. Of course, in this socially conservative pre-war era, actresses were nearly equated with prostitutes in Argentina because their lifestyles challenged so many social taboos. Given that her favorite aunt was an actress, Carina's mother may not have shared these prejudices, but her negative opinions of Evita remain unchanged to this day. She is the ultimate anti-peronista, which is rich with irony in its own right given the passionately articulate peronism of Carina's husband Sergio and Carina's own empathy with Evita. Carina is not a peronista, but she does have a finely tuned appreciation for Evita's emotional impact on the people and for her unique role in Argentine history.
 |
 |
The Museo Evita, as the name implies, is completely dedicated to artifacts, photos, filmed and written records of Evita's life, especially her time as first lady of Argentina. Carina accompanied me to the museum with the intention of taking one of their tours. We arrived late and missed the official tour, so Carina became my guide for the day, which turned out to be a fortunate turn of events.
Perhaps like many others, I have never understood the Evita phenomenon in Argentina. The fairy tale princess aspects of the story are familiar worldwide thanks to the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage play, the Golden Globe winning Madonna movie in 2001, and the great song "Don't Cry for me Argentina." The Museo does not shortchange visitors on this account. But the full impact and meaning of Evita, and by extension Juan Perón, is admirably brought to life by this excellent small museum.
It is one thing to read about Evita's famous emotional connection to the poorer working classes of Argentina, the "shirtless ones," but as Carina and I explored one exhibit after another displaying peronist five year plans, the extensive peronista literature distributed nationwide to educate workers and women in the tenets of peronismo, the elaborate programs run by Evita's foundation to ensure that all children had food, medical care and even annual trips to the beach, the full Soviet style impact of Peronism and Evita's role in its dissemination were driven home forcefully. These excellent exhibits are supplemented with film and recordings of her speeches, including newsreel footage of the two million people who turned out for her funeral procession.
Even the building in which the museum is housed was once part of a nationwide network of homes established by Evita for the poor, homeless and displaced. Evita's foundation launched ambitious programs to build thousands of schools, provide medical aid to the poor, promote Latin American solidarity, send aid to foreign nations in distress and more. The extensive display of her personal affects, from shoes to dresses worn on now famous occasions, to jewelry and handbags, goes hand in hand with the numerous pamphlets written and distributed nationwide by Evita exhorting women to take pride in their appearance, to stand up for women's suffrage (which she helped attain) and to learn the essential political philosophy of peronismo with its search for a "third way" between capitalism and socialism.
Carina was the perfect tour guide. She is quite knowledgeable about Argentine history, always ready with a salient fact or historical anecdote to bring a subject to life, and her considerable knowledge of Evita's story combined with her obvious empathy brought home the poignancy and tragedy of Evita's ultimate fate at the age of only 33 years.
