Crisis, search for new opportunities and goodbye: stories of Argentines and young Argentines who choose to leave the country

"I decided to leave the country in August of last year," Luis explains. "It's a decision I've been studying for some time," says Gino. "If I go back to Argentina, it is a question I ask myself every day, but today, I would not go back there," Camila confesses. "I was afraid to go but the crisis, government policies and an insecurity have convinced me," said Aldana from Barcelona. "By the middle of 2018, I began to feel uncomfortable at the professional level," says Antonella, who recently arrived in Berlin. "I am one of those who left because of the disappointment of a future without great aspirations," says Hernán.

Stories accumulate, they are easy to trace. For this note, it was enough to launch a simple question in social networks so that dozens of stories of young people leaving the country or who left less than a year ago join the narrative of this chronicler . Why do they do it? Who are they? Where are they going? None of these questions are answered in the state. In fact, there is no record of the number of people who have gone abroad because the phenomenon is so recent that it is unclear who is traveling and who has left so as not to return..

A young person in Buenos Aires aged 20 to 40 knows that this new wave of migration occurs. While thousands of Venezuelans arrive in the country (an estimated 130,000 admissions in recent years), thousands of Argentineans are trying their luck elsewhere. Reach with reality look. Who are they leaving? For the moment, those who can, those who have a situation that allows them to try their luck out, to pay a ticket, to save in dollars. This is not a brain drain or a desperate exodus. It's just, it seems, the last station in the train of despair. This is at least what more than twenty Argentines who have been consulted for this note say. If Argentina is a trap, as I said Federico Luppi in this movie scene Martin Hache, more and more people do not want to fall.

"In March 2018, my boss told me that the place where I worked would not continue, I found out that since July I would be unemployed, but luckily I was working for a friend. So she informed me in advance, compensation and other details, so that I had all the cards in hand when deciding what I was going to do from there. After a lot of thought, I decided to try my luck in Barcelona, ​​Spain, "he says. Luis Oliveto, porteño of 34 years. Today, he is renting a room with friends and looking for a job. This is a visual artist. Since his arrival, he has been able to work on a mural – in his job– to survive. Finally, he managed to mount an exhibition with his work.

"For the moment, I would not go back to Argentina, it's a constant conflict that, with Latin friends with whom we often talk, I'm 34 years old and I start again in a new city. To go back to Argentina now would be when I left, at least at work; and I think when I come back, I would like to do it with something armed. I would like to go back there, yes. But I do not know how to put a date, I just do not know it now, "he says.

Gino Di Benedetto is not from Buenos Aires but from Santa Rosa, La Pampa, but he also travels to Barcelona. He is 26 years old and is a professor of physical education. He has pbadage for May 13th. "The decision to leave the country I've been studying for some time, the idea was still there to make a long trip after the end of my studies but the final decision I took this last time to obtain a professional and personal development ".

He does not know when he will come back, but he is preparing for a long trip, without predefined projects. His family will take him to the airport and he hopes that a friend can also take the time. "When you're on a long journey, far away and with high expectations, you do not know what's ahead and how your life will evolve elsewhere, but I think at some point I'll come home, whether it's to say hello or to return full of experiences to relive. I leave many diseases in Argentina and it's something that always throws"he says.

Camila Brandoni is 28 years old and is also in Spain, but in Madrid. He arrived on August 1 of last year. Since the day before July 31, 2018, he does not see anyone of his family. "I lived alone in a studio in Palermo.Well, the truth. But I worked a lot of hours a day, twelve or thirteen hours, and I had no room to write, that's what I want to do. and what I came here for, to orient my career on that side, "he says.

Although he claims not to have gone there strictly because of the crisis, he acknowledges that there is a trend. "I know a million Argentines who left at the same time as me. When I left, from my group of friends, for example, we left five. My brother has just moved to Barcelona and my other brother is coming to the end of the year, "he says.

Barcelona is certainly one of the most chosen cities by the Argentineans. According to the official figures, the majority of foreigners living in Barcelona are Italians, but there is a disadvantage in the data: Many Argentineans who go there do so with Italian citizenship, for which they grow in the wrong column of statistics.

Aldana Anglesi is one of those Argentinian Italians who arrived in the Catalan city. "I always had the idea of ​​living in another country, but I was scared and very comfortable at the socio-economic level of my middle clbad. But the crisis and the policies taken by (Mauricio) Macri 's government, badociated with the insecurities that have marked me, have helped me make the decision to leave Argentina. I have been in Barcelona for a month and I already have a virgin job, a health insurance, a bank account. "His decision was visceral: last year, two" very young "children on board a motorcycle flew, beat and Aldana finished, in his words," with a disfigured face and 6 days at the clinic ". After that, he did not have much to think about.

"I lived in Banfield, I had my car, my apartment, I was traveling abroad and little by little, I started to see how these little tastes could no longer continue to." give them because I had to cover tax payments and increases, auto insurance, fees, patent, gas, electricity, monotributo, municipal taxes. He worked 12 hours a day from Monday to Saturday to pay his taxes. I arrived Saturday night and locked myself at home, exhausted, stressed and even scared to leave. to be a woman in Buenos Aires Conurbano ", says of Barcelona.

Antonella Grossolano is 26 years old She says: "By the middle of 2018, I started to feel uncomfortable on a professional level, I did not like work, I felt very bastard and I started chewing new products, but there was almost nothing, or what was being offered at the salary level was much lower than I was charging at that time. Although I could afford to charge less, because I was still living with my seniors, I wanted to move alone and I had other projects for which I needed to maintain this income. Then came the fatal rise of the dollar, with my salary completely devalued (I was working in a monotributista audiovisual production company, no sign of increase), and several projects fell, began to dismiss colleagues because "it does not exist. there was no money ", so it became a little depressed psychically and professionally".

He did not have too much trouble choosing where to go, because he also had Italian nationality. She accepted with two friends with whom she traveled and they chose Berlin, where they could get a work visa for a year. None speak a single word of German, but they were told that with English it was enough and that they were going to try their luck. They are in the German capital less than a month ago.

"I have a love-hate relationship with my country quite strong, on one side I miss this culture a lot Trashera and weird we have, the social, the quilombo. But at the same time, I am very sorry to see how ideologically we are lagging behind, be it machismo, meritocratic culture, old politics, all this talk about "we have to suffer to accomplish great things. things".do not give room for young people to grow up, to have a voice. Every generation of my generation speaks, it tells me similar things, we talk about frustration, want to work, but there is no room for us. It's a speech millennium Nice shot, but every time I see it more true when I'm told Argentine things that have gone elsewhere, "he said.

Remember again farewell a few weeks ago. They went to the airport their school friends, "of all life", as well as their parents and their sisters and their friends from the faculty. A crowd walking near Ezeiza without knowing when they would see each other again. Before, at home, he had another adieu: that of his cats. The bolero says that the distance is forgotten. If that's the case, Antonella is always close, as always.

"Three months ago, I was waiting for the answer of a scholarship to a master's degree in sustainable architecture that was not published and, by the time they said no, I've said: here, I am going in the same direction.another is the way but I want to go to learn on this area that here there is almost nothing, there is no place to learn it. And that's how. "This is the case of Carolina Weisberg, who leaves in a month for Australia.

"I chose Sydney for two reasons: the first because they are very good representatives in terms of sustainability, and the second, because I wanted to go looking for a city with more nature and more appreciated, a little more air without losing the city, "he explains. You will meet another huge cash colony: since Australia has issued working visas for our country, hundreds of young people between the ages of 18 and 30 are applying and will try their luck. The visa allows them a year of legal work, but many are trying to extend the link with their employers to obtain a more sustainable license. The same is true in New Zealand, where many Argentines also travel.

"Less than 5 days after arriving in Denmark, I was working in a factory and my kitchen badistant visa in a first clbad hotel was finished.. In just 10 months, I have raised the money needed to travel for six months without working and have the opportunity to experience Belgium, Germany, England, the United States. 39, Iceland, Ireland, Thailand and New Zealand."says Hernán Etcheverría, an Argentine journalist who travels the world today.

Cases continue to come. At the end of this note, the writer had received at least ten testimonials that he could not incorporate. They all start at Ezeiza. In each of them there is a need for catharsis, a Federico Luppi in miniature pushing from the hurt heart of each one of them and wanting to speak. Who can say what is the country? L & # 39; other? Language? The scratching of a Creole guitar, as Atahualpa said? All these stories start at an airport, a departure and an arrival. It is exaggerated to say that in this Argentina everyone leaves, although everyone leaves.

But here, plunged into the trap like it was a dream.