We started our day with a walking tour of Buenos Aires, which was really cool since we got to see parts of the city that we hadn’t been to yet. Our tour guide brought us around to multiple different palaces/mansions that were absolutely beautiful. A lot of these mansions have been turned into either embassies or other buildings for the government. He also pointed out one of the most expensive hotels in Buenos Aires which goes for about $30,000 a night, artists like Taylor Swift and the Rolling Stones have stayed there. The tour brought us to the Recoleta Cemetery at first I was a little confused about why we were touring a cemetery but was shocked when I first walked in. Walking into the cemetery it honestly looks like a little city. Each tomb was a mausoleum and each had a unique design. It was so interesting walking around and looking at the different tombs and learning about some of the people buried there. We even saw the tomb of Evita who is the second wife of the Argentinian president Peron.
This led to the next event of the day which was going to the Evita Museum. Evita (or Eva) became an important figure in Argentina when she was the first lady during Peron’s presidency. The time that Perón was in office is referred to as Peronism. Evita did so much to help Argentina such as advocating for labor rights, and women’s suffrage and starting her charitable foundation Eva Perón’s Foundation. Peronism introduced a program that allowed children to get full health check-ups so that the government would be able to monitor children’s health, during these check-ups, there were soccer (fútbol) games for the kids to play in. Another thing that Evita/Peronsim did for healthcare was create a school for nursing students to either get a 2-year degree and become certified nurses or to go on to specialty programs and earn higher degrees. Before this was shut down it provided the country with 858 certified nurses.
