In the time of the life when the days are blue, as the bandoneon's accords, my big apartment seemed to be so big, I was alone and this situation gave me a strange feeling.
As a game, I began to receive guest, so as not to feel the solitude of the walls. And, as a game, I decorated the walls with tango advertising; they were happy, the music began to (expandirse) from them, and day by day my home became another home. And day by day, each guest gave me another experience. My photo album grows and grows, like a tree, and now has a strong trunk. There are 53 guests who have lived in my home during one year and a half (One for each year of my life. )

This is the representation I have: My tree is begining to have leaves and may be in a short time will bear fruit. The house is not so big now; somedays when we are together in a (fortuito) breakfast, sharing our experiences the night before, preparing the itinerary for the day, or in a organized little party, the day that a guest is coming or going, the place is the right size, and in these moments I see the walls smiling, and that is because my home has become another's home.

At first, I didn't understand that people can come to Buenas Aires only to dance tango, and this make me angry. We have an obelisk, and Corrientes Street, and the Colon Theatre, and Museums, and the River, and, and, and, ...but they only come to dance tango.
I decided to give information about what you must see in Buenas Aires; places like Cafe Tortoni you cannot miss, choripan - you have to eat, and I was surprised when they said me "Why not?" When I see them in the milongas, dancing with my milonguero friends, closing their eyes (to hear the music and words better) and I see myself as in a mirror, because I love the tango too.

I understand this passion to come to Bs.As. and to wish to eat everything: the milongas, the classes, the choripan, and the obelisk. Today I can say I have another family: my international family of tango dancers, because, as a family, we have mails and letters coming and going each week, telling about the other guest, the milongueros, the new and old milongas, news about Buenos Aires, sometimes, the little, but great time we share is proof that we became friends.

This work,is a real experience. Sometimes I think it is a metaphor of the tango. Perhaps you don't know a person, and you dance with him; in this 3 magic minutes you can feel so deeply, as if you know him all your life, and then you see him with another feeling.

That is what sometimes happens with the guest; I don't know them, they arrive to my home by internet. I know nothing about them, then we share some days, (of course it is not so magic than the 3 minutes of the tango) but, the simple things of the day, the kiss of the night or the morning, the smile when I arrive home, the coffee, beer or whisky after the milonga, that make the relation sometimes so magic in a few days, and then, they go home, and their smile and their feeling remain in the home.

I feel we are not the same persons than the first day when they arrive. Something has happened, "something like the magic of the tango".

 

                                                                     Maria Teresa