Luciana!

Whew.

Where to start? So in the last week I finished up all my classes in Argentina. I got all A’s! I even got an A+ in my Argentine History class. Great right? Now that I’m done with classes I’ll be traveling all over with some other students from the program. We just left Mendoza to cross the Andes into Chile. Any minute now we’re going to have to disembark and deal with customs for what will probably be several hours. Going through customs is about as fun as going to the dentist on Christmas. Speaking of holidays, I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving. Believe it or not they don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving in Argentina. Go figure.

This is my friend Anne and her host sister Luciana. I interview her last week and an ice cream shop so that I can share with you all what it’s like to be your age in Argentina.

First off Luciana is 13 years old and just finished what is the roughly the equivalent of 8^th grade.  Luciana plans to go to college after high school to study to teach PE, which is her favorite class.  Outside of school she likes to play soccer (of course) and volleyball at the local sports club.

Besides school and sports Luciana likes hanging out with her friends, going dancing and watching Tv. She told me that in Rosario there are dance clubs that are all ages that will let anyone in over 14 but that her and her friends have no trouble getting in at 13.  Her and her friends like to hang out at Luciana’s favorite restaurant McDonalds. Yep. McDonalds because it’s burgers are better than Burger King.

Luciana’s favorite type of music is reggaton. Here’s one of the groups she likes:

You all probably know way more about reggaton than I do. Is this popular music back home right now??

Luciana told me that strictness of parents varies a lot amongst her friends but that she is allowed a lot of freedom. She says she has an allowance of about 30 pesos a week (which is like 12 dollars or so). Her parents allow her to go out with her friends on the weekends to dance club and that she only has a curfew on week days when she pretty much needs to be home (9ish) by dinner and stay home after. And yes, as an Argentine she loves the food here (which is, as you might remember, pretty gross.)

Okay, I just rolled in to Santiago and have had the unbelievable bad luck of being incredibly sick for the last two days. Right when I start traveling I got sick! It’s actually really common to get a bit sick when traveling because you aren’t accustomed to the food or water. In fact, the water in many parts of Argentina hasn’t been safe to drink. I’m hoping it’s better I’m going to find a taxi, a hostel and a bed to hide in while this passes. Ok, wish me luck.

Also, if you have any questions for Luciana I have her email and would love to pass them on.

La Elección

This is Agentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She just won her second term in the presidential election here on saturday with 55% of the vote. The second place politician, Hermes Binner, only received about 17% percent. That’s a huge margin of victory. I was really interested in this election because in talking with my host mother and professors I got the idea that nobody was very happy with her as a president. How could a someone so unpopular receive such a high percentage of votes? Or was my sampling just wrong? Perhaps I just talked to many people who, by coincidence disliked her? To find the answer to my questions I decided to walk around the school and the outdoor mall to ask Rosarios what they thought about the election.

“La verdad es que no me interesa mucho.”

This is Walter. I thought he’d be a good person to interview because he works for the city, maintaining the parks around town. I actually tried to interview his entire crew but he was the only good sport in the bunch. Walter was without doubt, a fan of Cristinia. He said that he trusts her word and that he simply knew more about Cristian than the other candidate. He has a good point. Not only was Cristinia the incumbent, her husband was also the president before her so she has a great deal of name recognition. Binner on the other hand was running for the first time and simply didn’t have much name recognition. Walter said he wasn’t terribly interested in politics and didn’t see any reason to learn about a new candidate when he was content with the old one.

“Sí, ella tiene un buen recurso de palabras y ella es carismática pero dudo que ella vaya a hacer las cosas que dice.”

Guadalupe here couldn’t have been less in agreement with Walter. Guadalupe recently graduated from college and is currently worker as a server in a restaurant. She told me that she voted for Binner because she has doesn’t trust Cristina’s word. Guadalupe told me that Cristina is a skilled orator and because of this she’s won over many fans. Her ability to debate is highly acclaimed. She’s has a reputation of being about to talk to anyone, anywhere and convincing them that’s she’s right. Gaudalupe thinks this is problematic though, because she doesn’t think that Cristina actually follows through on the things she says. It’s a dangerous combination of consistently not doing what she says but being able to convince people that she’s working on it or that someone else is responsibly for impeding her work.

“¡Ella ha levantado el país!”

This is Esteban. Esteban is in his 60’s and (happily) retired. I came upon him reading La Capital (which is the most popular newspaper in Rosario) so I though he might have an interesting opinion about the election. Esteban had conflicting opinions about Cristina. He likes what she’s done in the last several years after the economic crisis and believes that there has been more jobs for more people since she took power. Although, he doesn’t like her policies on what we in the US would call welfare. I don’t know how much you all know about welfare but it’s a highly controversial topic anywhere you go, but especially in a place like Argentina where Socialism on Peronism (a political party which certainly emphasis social programs for the poor) have strong support. The problem, according to Esteban is that Cristina provides money for the poor depending on whether they have job, go to school or have kids. So the people that are receiving the most are uneducated, unemployed and have several children. To Esteban this seems backwards. We should we give money to people who contribute nothing to society by taxing those that do? He asks.

“No parece democratico, Peronismo controla todos.”

This is Emilia, Cecilia and Josefina. They are all studying international studies at a university near by. Cecilia (middle) didn’t vote while Emilia and Josefina both voted for Binner. They both agreed with Guadalupe, Cristina is a great speaker but they don’t trust her to follow through on her words. They said they didn’t have confidence in the current system because voting is obligatory. Basically they believe that because Cristina is part of a political party that believes in providing a lot of financial aid to the poor, and because voting is obligatory by the law, all the poor people (there are many) vote for her because it means they receive more money. So instead of the candidate with the best policies or most experience, the person who makes the most promises to the poor will win the majority vote. They brought up another interesting point, that the welfare is not well controlled. Instead of giving poor people medical care or money for food, they just receive cold hard cash, with which they can do as they please. The common belief (I want to emphasis that this is what has been related to me, not fact or my personal opinion!) is that people take this money and use to to by conveniences like TVs instead of using it to better themselves or become self reliant.

So of the six people I interview 2 voted for Cristina, 3 voted for Binner and 1 didn’t vote. Six people is of course not representative of the population at large, but I hope it gives you a bit of an idea as to what some people in Rosario think about the election. Also, I forgot to ask Cecilia what happens when you don’t vote, but my host mother tells me that they restrict your passport so you can’t leave the country. It’s a bit ironic right? Don’t take part in our political process and we’ll hold you captive in the country!