By Kathleen Stebbins for RGJ.com
It would be disingenuous to write any story about Argentina without mentioning some of the country's darker moments.
The echoes hit you almost as soon as you step off the plane -- one of my first thoughts after arriving in Mendoza was "there's a lot of pain in this country."
The "dirty war" of 1976 to 1982, during which up to 30,000 students, trade unionists, artists and political activists were "disappeared" under the military junta, remains an open wound. And although democracy was restored in 1983, Argentineans continued to suffer from a capricious government and resulting economic instability -- which culminated in the 2002 peso devaluation that threw the economy into chaos and many middle class citizens into poverty.
You can see it in political graffiti on the streets of Buenos Aires demanding "¿donde estan?" ("Where are they?", referring to los desaparacidos) and "¡nunca mas!" ("never again!") ... in wrenching depictions of torture in the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes ... and in the flowers and fond notes left at the grave of Eva Peron, of whom it once was forbidden even to speak.
But the remarkable thing about Argentina is the way its...Read Full Article
