change of barrio

Folks, I've come up in the world. From Monserrat to Recoleta. You'd hardly recognise me these days. I even have a washing machine in my house! And a security man at the door. There are lush, green open spaces visible from my balcony (I have a balcony dontcha know) and a garage where my neighbours keep their cars. Needless to stay, it´s not my place. I'm temporarily lodging with my friend the British diplomat, whose fridge is twice the size of my previous kitchen, and five times as full. But I miss the crazy, curly lady who manned the newspaper stand at the corner and kept offering to reiki me, and the huge, iron eyebrows of el gallego who ran the hidden shop on the corner of Solis, where you could by cream cheese dusted with flour and wrapped in thick white paper. I miss the 168 and the 50, Congresso plaza, living six blocks from Clara and meeting on Belgrano, I even miss the shrunken t-shirts that came back from the chinos who laundered my clothes. There's no doubt about it, the little street I'm living on now is pretty, central, and without the sweet stench of rotten rubbish I'd become so accustomed to. But it ain't Monserrat my friends, and Monserrat, well, it's always going to be the neighbourhood where I did a lot of growing up. It's mi barrio.