Hello everyone! I have been in Argentina exactly 100 days now. I’ve made awesome progress with the language, taken more than two hundred photos, and been having the year of my life down under the equator. School is almost out, just two more weeks, and it seems like a lot of the teachers are starting vacations early. My physics teacher, for example, hasn’t come to class for the last month!
I just got back from a trip to Neuquén with AFS, the exchange program, and 35 or so other students from twelve countries around the world: U.S., New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. I met some new kids that had come in January of this year, but some others I’d already known from Miami or Buenos Aires. It was really fun to talk to all of them and share my experiences.
We first went from my city, Viedma, to the city of Neuquén, the capital of the province Neuqén. After an eight hour bus ride, I spent the night with a host family afiliated with AFS. The next morning, it was another long trip to Aluminé, a small town in the Andes mountains. On the way, we stopped at El Chocón, where there is a large dam, and also is where dinosaurs were found. The Gigantosaurus is the largest carnivore every found, and it lived in Argentina, millions of years ago.
When we arrived in Aluminé, we had quite a receptión. We stayed a gendarmeria, which is somewhere in between the National Guard and the Police, so when the bus pulled in they were all standing at attention. A cameraman was filming our every move. Some students volunteered to speak for the local radio.
Over the next three days, we visited various places in the area, and saw some beuatiful scenery. This was really cool for me, because I hadn’t seen a mountain since I’d left home, three months before. In Viedma there isn’t even a lousy hill, just flat, open, windy patagonia.
One night, we had to do a talent show. Each group of kids from every country came up with something interesting about there country to sing or dance or show off in some crazy manner. We Americans talked about the significance of each part of our flag, said the pledge of allegiance, and did a small version of a football game. I think the best act was from Turkey, where the single guy sang a really cool song in Turkish.
After all the sightseeing and cultural reflexion activities, we went back to Neuquén (the city) and stayed with the same host families. That night we all went out to eat at McDonalds, then went to a bar type place from midnight to 3 AM. It was kind of hard to say goodbye to all of them, becuase some of them I’ll probably never see again. Others I hope to visit sometimes in the next few months.
Overall, I am still enjoying my experience here immensly, thought I do miss home quite a bit. Two times now I’ve dreamt that I was back home, that tells me that I really do miss it. I hope everyone who reads this is having a great time doing what they’re doing, and that you haven’t forgotten about me down here. I’d love to here from all of you sometime, even just a quick email.
Here’s the article I wrote for my school newspaper this month:
Coming to a differnt country can really change your life. It can make you miserable at times, and at others, immensely thrilled to be immersed in a totally new way of living. But for me, there is more than just being happy or sad at times. I came to Argentina with my own view of the world, life, and my own set of personal values. Being here, in a new culture, has changed these in a way that I will never forget.
When I first entered Argentina, I found myself thinking I was still in the U.S.. I arrived in Buenos Aires, the federal capital and home to 11 million people in the greater city area. The city is very similar to any in the U.S., with thousands of cars, tall buildings, stores, and plenty of noise.
That night we ate dinner downtown, in a McDonalds. It was inside, in a place very similar to a U.S. shopping mall. As I ate my hamburger and drank my coke, it felt like I was still at home. American music was playing, I was eating American food, and I was at a place that some would call the heart of American culture: a shopping center.
It’s really made me think. I’d never realized how big of an influence our country has on others. I’ve had to completley change my point of view on the world. Before coming to Argentina, it hadn’t ever occured to me to take interest in what’s happening in other countries. Why should I care about people that I don’t even know, who’s decisions don’t affect me? If they don’t have an effect on my life, they don’t matter to me. This was my general outlook on world events, before I came to this country.
Now, I’ve been forced to see differently. I see now where I was wrong, what I failed to see before. As the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America has a huge influence over the lives of billions of others. Our country retains the power to turn any other country into a radiated wasteland. It also has an unsurpassed economy that is continuously growing.
Millions of people rely on us for financial aid, mediation in regional conflicts, millitary intervention, and for general leadership. A lot of technological items come from us, such as computers, medical equipment, electronics, agricultural machinery, and more. Other things, too, such as music, movies, clothing fashions, name-brand foods and drinks, and most of all, language.
Most people here don’t speak English as an everyday form of communication, but the majority know at least some. It’s practically a necessity. Almost every electronic gadget I have seen here has English instructions on it. Every stereo has the buttons labeled in English. Every computer starts up reporting in English. Clothing too: about three quarters of the brand names I’ve seen here are American. Most T-shirts have English lettering on them, and even advertising posters are in our language.
Everything that I have seen here has made me change my point of view. I see now that I was looking the wrong way. I thought that if people in another country didn’t affect my life, then I had nothing to do with them. What I failed to see is that we are the ones who affect them.
We, the 285 million people of the USA, have the (rather unfair) power to affect the rest of the world. Every time we vote, that vote probably will affect someone in another country, in some way. Right now, almost 10,000 miles away from my home country, I still get excellent news coverage over the presidential election. The people here care about it because it will affect them.
I’ve had to think a lot about all this. I really don’t think it’s fair that our country has so much money and power. It’s really kind of sad, the way I see it now. We complain about high gas prices when it goes over a buck fifty a gallon, but down here, it is close to five. That’s considered cheap. It just isn’t fair that some people don’t even have access to clean water, while us Americans use an average of 100 or so gallons a day.
There are so many things that we take for granted that others can only dream of. The Internet, for example. Unlike in the U.S., where almost everybody has at least one computer and access to the Net is practically free, it’s very different for people in some other countries. Here, less than a quarter of the people in this city have computers. Last month, our Internet bill was $120. On top of that, there were connection fees, but I don’t know how much it came to. The point is that many people don’t have all the luxuries we do.
I’ve learned a lot about cultural diferences in the last three months. As an exchange student in Argentina, I feel that I’ve gained a greater understanding about the way the world works, how people interact, and just life in general. Now, I can see how amazingly similar people from completely diferent continents are, and at the same time be shockingly different. I believe that if everyone could see the world from a different point of view, they would find out the same things that I have. They would find that their country is not the only country, that their culture isn’t only one. And hopefully, they would also come to realize that even though we live in different places and live differently, that, regardless of their economic status or cultural background, all people are created equal.