Today was the perfect start to our final week in Buenos Aires! Due to the itinerary getting all messed up from the rainy weather the past few days, we had lots of free time in the morning. A group of us decided to revisit the colorful and beautiful neighborhood of La Boca to do some shopping! We then began the cultural activity for the day, which was a walking tour around the city near our hotel including the neighborhoods of Retiro and Recoleta. We walked through Plaza San Martin, which is a historic square in the center of Retiro and one of the oldest squares in the city. We learned about the rich history of San Martin who was a great military commander, and one of the major Liberators of Spanish South America, freeing Chile, Argentina, and Peru from Spain’s control.
We concluded the walking tour at La Recoleta Cemetery. This part of the walking tour was my favorite as our tour guide brilliantly mixed stories into an education lecture of the cemetery. The Recoleta Cemetery encompasses 14 acres of land and housing nearly 5,000 vaults aligned in a street/alleyway set-up. It features beautiful ornate mausoleums, sculptures, and tombs in various architectural styles. We learned that 22 presidents are buried here, as well as many other notable figures such as Evita Perón, military leaders, Nobel Prize winners, and influential writers of Argentina’s rich history. The stories our tour guide told us were fascinating and added to our toolboxes of knowledge of the country’s history. My favorite story was the ghost story about an 18-year-old girl, Rufina Cambaceres, who suffered a bout of catalepsy and was tragically buried alive. There have been quite a few sightings of her in the cemetery, unfortunately, we did not see her today. We then had the rest of the late afternoon to browse the pop-up tent market outside of the cemetery to end a day full of beautiful weather!
Over the past 2 days of exploring Argentina’s history through walking, we have gathered quite a bit of information on Juan Perón and his role in the development of Argentina’s healthcare system. Perón played a transformative role for the system as he used social justice, state intervention, and union participation to place the foundation for the public health sector in Argentina. In 1950, Perón hired a ministry to finance healthcare which began the public healthcare services in the country. He approved a massive expansion of infrastructure for the system by building hospitals, clinics, and sanatoriums. His wife, Evita Perón, also played a crucial role in improving the healthcare system as her foundation established over 1,000 schools, multiple hospitals, provided free medication for the poor, and funded children’s health programs. Perón was heavily involved with the labor unions as well, as he united fragmented unions and centralized the labor movement to support the working class. However, with the unions he bound them closely to his state and political movement sparking public controversy as well as further integrating them into the healthcare system. Overall, Perón’s policies remain a cornerstone of the Argentina’s healthcare system even with some of the major changes taking place in the last few months.
Pro-Tip: Sometimes you have to limit yourself from shopping! During our free time we did a LOT of shopping, some would say too much, others would say way too much. Even though money was certainly spent today, we all bought and collected so many fun souvenirs today!
