Sunday in San Telmo, Argentina, "Che" and thoughts about other times...

    You're staying at a youth hostel a few blocks from the flea market in San Telmo and your head is still a bit woosey from the wine and dancing that escorted you gently to some relatively unknown somewhere. Outside someone is singing the tango as if Carlos Gardel had not died. So, blurry eyed and all, you wander towards the "Plaza Dorrego," almost bumping into a fellow dancing with a doll, a young man playing with a ball as if he were Diego Maradona, an ancient looking lady rendering "the saints go marching in" on an asortment of home-made instruments...until finally you stop in your tracks in front of a poster featuring the most famous Che.

    The revolutionary leader, killed in Bolivia in the late 1960's, seems to be still alive and kicking--although perhaps not the way he might have imagined. You can buy T-Shirts with his face on it, buttons, photographs, and, well, in this motely collection of popular faces his stern yet affable image seems to be a must. How the world has changed since then! And Argentina! And America! Well, wait a minute! After all maybe he might be happy that all over the continent governments seem to be sprouting that remember him with varying degrees of enthusiasm. And they talk about political and economic union, throwing off the legacy of the pro-U.S. military dictatorships which mushroomed in the area when Che's guerrillas took up arms in Bolivia...

    Then you leave the Plaza, buy a newspaper and order a "cafecito" at a nearby bar. What? Fernando Lugo, a progressive leaning former Catholic priest, booted out of robes by Rome, elected president of Paraguay? Hmmm. You fold your paper up carefully, sip the last drop of your coffee, and go back to take a more carefull look at that poster. It's true, you mumble to yourself, change is something that lot's of people crave for but it never comes the way you expect it to.