I remembered what they were celebrating: it was January 8, the day of Gauchito Gil, a popular saint from the provinces of Corrientes who has devotees all over the country. He’s especially beloved in poor neighborhoods, though you’ll see altars all over the city, even in cemeteries. Antonio Gil, it’s said, was murdered at the end of the nineteenth century for being a deserter. A policeman killed him, hanged him from a tree and slit his throat. But before he died, the outlaw gaucho told the policeman: “If you want your son to get better, you must pray for me.” The policeman did, because his son
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