I also could have titled this post “Wake-up Drums”. I’ve again been staying up very late writing (not blogging), often till 3 or 4 am, so I sleep late. Today I was awaken by the sounds of drums. It’s not the first time. I crawled out of bed to the window and saw a group of piqueteros with their drums and banners. Interesting sight actually to see below your bedroom window, particularly when you don’t live on a major avenue.

There’s a lot of road construction in this area. They seem to come in by train to the Constitucion station. Normally they would go up Av 9 de Julio or Bernardo de Irigoyen but the construction of new ramps on and off of the autopista is causing major traffic problems. So, I guess our street - calle Brasil - is a good detour.

The photo is of the piqueteros, with their sticks and masked faces, who block the traffic while the marchers go forward. Notice in the photo that they’re not entirely inconsiderate (as often portrayed) as they make way for a woman from the neighborhood who is pushing her handicapped son in a wheelchair.

Actually, that’s another story - being confined to a wheelchair in Buenos Aires must be incredibly difficult with the crumbling sidewalks and the lack of handicapped entrances to most buildings.

In a recent post about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, I mentioned the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo who are focused on identifying the children who are born in captivity or kidnapped with their parents during the last military dictatorship in Argentina. Recently, the Grandmothers announced that they had identified another missing child, which now brings the total to 82 children that they have recovered in their 27 years of searching.

An article in Clarín, in Spanish, says that the identified child is now a man of 28 who goes by the name of Sebastián. His parents, Gaspar Casado and Adriana Tasca, disappeared in 1977 and he was born in captivity the following year. His parents are still missing.

After his birth, the boy was given by an Army officer to another family. The family registered the boy as their own with the aid of doctor associated with the Buenos Aires police.

As he grew older the boy had doubts about his identity and last year contacted the Grandmothers association by email. They established his identity and introduced him to his maternal grandmother. He recently received results of DNA analysis that proves the relationship.

As I’ve also mentioned several times on this blog, an excellent book about this subject is Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza De Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina

Saturday night we went to the park in Palermo to see Mercedes Sosa perform. It was a free concert on a nice summer night, so there was a huge crowd. It wasn’t the Stones in Rio but it was still a lot of people. I’ve written before about Mercedes Sosa where I talked about seeing her in Miami Beach a few years back. At that show I had a seat on about the 10th row; last night, it seemed like we were on about the 500th row. But we really enjoyed it anyway.

She had a number of guests who came onstage to sing with her, including Diego Torres. But the big surprise of the night was Charly García who joined Mercedes Sosa towards the end of the concert for three songs.