Today I got a little taste of the pampa while staying in the city by going to the "Feria de los Mataderos." In Spanish, "matar" means "kill", and the Mataderos are the slaughterhouses where the cows are killed after being trucked in from the countryside. Gauchos or cowboys work in those slaughterhouses and this fair is given both to celebrate them and to give them a place to socialize with each other and buy and sell things. In one of the pictures below, you'll see a real, actual gaucho - they still exist! By the way, this working-class neighborhood strongly identifies itself with Chicago - another great meat-packing city. They even named their soccer team "Nueva Chicago!"
In addition to the gauchos, we saw teenage kids doing traditional campo dances, which are a fascinating fusion of flamenco and native dance styles. My pictures show the couples dances, but there is a men-only version too, which is like an indigienous version of tap-dancing. I took pictures of it, but the guys were moving so fast that none of the pictures came out!
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