Hello everyone! I was very excited to sleep in until 9:30 this morning! Today we brought out our inner tourist and visited some popular historic and touristic destinations.
Our first destination was Museo Evita, a former house for women ran by President Juan Perón’s wife. Evita Perón dedicated her short life to helping fellow Argentines. She established a foundation to help provide healthcare to those in need. At this luxurious home in Buenos Aires, around 120 women and staff could stay here for a cycle of 8 days during times of struggle. Women would stay at this house during times of financial struggle, political unrest, or to receive help getting official Argentine documentation. She and her husband strongly believed in social-direct aid over charity work. The public greatly wanted her to be her husband’s vice president, but she declined this honor. She wanted to be remembered by her character and just being “Evita” instead of the vice President or president’s wife. I think this was a very selfless and generous act. Evita greatly impacted Argentina, which was shown in the public announcement of her death at the young age of 33. After battling uterine cancer, Evita passed away in her home. Juan Perón, the president at the time, declared 14 days of mourning to honor his wife.
Peronism greatly impacted the public sector in the Argentine health system. Through Evita’s foundation, it improved and facilitated medical care in the public sector. Evita Perón established better training for nurses. These programs increased knowledge in medical procedures and the overall quality of instruction. A new nursing school was also built and allowed people to attend from all over Argentina free of charge. This impacted the public sector because it allowed for more people to become nurses and improved the overall care provided.
After touring the museum, we ate lunch at the museum restaurant. Our options were pasta, fish, and chicken. The food was great, and it was nice getting the time to talk to friends. We then took the bus over to Parque de La Memoria.
Located along the Rio de la Plata, the park honored those innocently killed during the dictatorship 1976-1983. Over 30,000 Argentines were killed. We learned about the history of the park and got to visit a museum with art work representing this time period after. This was a very eye-opening experience seeing the monuments and statues dedicated to commemorating the victims of this time.
Overall, today was a very informative day filled with learning new things about the history of Argentina. Tomorrow we will resume our site visits by touring another private hospital.
