In today’s blog post we were asked to respond to one of two prompts: discuss the most important thing you learned on this trip or explain why you should smash your phone with a sledgehammer. As appealing as it sounds to take a sledgehammer to my phone and forget my credit card bill and all the money I spent on souvenirs, dinners, and other activities, I am not quite willing to take on the consequences of credit card debt. So now I am left with the question: what is the most important thing I learned on this trip? 

Well, I certainly learned a lot about Argentinian healthcare, from this class alone and from our time in the country. Being in the US, we do not regard healthcare with the solidarity and willingness to serve that many Argentinians do. Because of this, the country has a rather complex system that allows for free public healthcare while trying to create a balance of power between workers’ rights in the form of unions and the economy in the form of the private sector as well as the public’s needs and well-being. I learned how different salaries, schooling, and financing are in comparison to the US system. Yet none of these are the most important. As cheesy (or dare I say, queso-y) as it may sound, I believe the most important thing I learned on this trip is to have a little more faith in myself; faith that I would be able to navigate a whole new country with friends I had then barely known. If you told me three weeks ago that I would be wandering the streets of Buenos Aires trying to find an ice cream shop with no directions late at night, I would have told you you were talking to the wrong person. So while I did learn so much about the history, healthcare, and mentality of Argentina, I have also learned so much about myself. Now that I am writing this blog post on my couch, back home, I can say without a doubt Argentina has taught me so many valuable lessons. Going into this trip, I was hesitant if I would even remotely have a good time, now I would go back in a heartbeat.