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Tucumán is also the smallest province in Argentina, but one of the most densely populated per square kilometer (it is the same size as Luxembourg, but with 3 times the population). The city and surrounding suburbs have about one million people (and a lot of them are born in the Maternity Hospital that sees over 35 births per day, being the largest maternity-only hospital in the country and third largest in South America). That’s a lot of movement for such a small province. Tucumán is considered the most important city of the northwest region of the country that includes Salta, Jujuy, Catamarca and Santiago del Estero. Being the most important city in the region, it holds the most important University, and one of the most important in the country. All of the provinces have a university, but not all have such an ample offer of things to study. They have a medical school (where my husband goes), all sorts of engineering, liberal arts, law, economic sciences, psychology, languages, and other things I can’t quite remember now. The Universidad Nacional de Tucumán is a public university, meaning that anyone can go, and you don’t have to pay anything. There may be a little stipend to pay once a year, because of funding issues, but other than that, it’s free. Even though in theory anyone can go, there may be an entrance exam, but that’s because they have a limited amount of space, and have to put some sort of filter up, otherwise it would just be pure ludicracy. That is something that has been in the news lately: most of the national universities have been on strike for the past month because they aren’t receiving the money they need to stay open. And that isn’t new either. For as long as I have lived here, there has been at least one school on strike, at least once a year. And it’s a shame because the public education here in Argentina is outstanding, but has really been beaten down by lack of money. In Latin America, the university system in Argentina has always been at the top of the list. Back in the days of Peron, they use to import teachers from France, Spain and Germany to come teach here. And if you are interested in digging a little deeper, you’ll see how almost all of the highly accomplished Argentine professionals (doctors, lawyers, architects etc.) have all graduated from the public universities. Does the name Cesar Pelli ring a bell? (World Financial Center, Petronas Towers in Malaysia). Take a wild guess where he’s from, and where he graduated college from? And the guy who developed the by-pass? His name is Rene Favaloro. I’ll leave it up to you to see where he went to school (but I guess you get my drift). I graduated school last year, with a degree in Business Administration. Aside from the occasional strike, I have to say that the education I received was excellent. And my degree is a “Licenciatura” degree, which is more than a Bachelor’s, but less than a Master’s. I am now working at the Government house (Casa de Gobierno). If you read my last article about life in general here in Argentina, I mentioned a little about how everybody is in someway or another related to - or friends with - with everybody else. It goes the same way if you are looking for a job. I would open up the newspaper for the classifieds, and there would hardly been any want ads for the type of job I am was looking for. So I asked my father-in-law if he knew anybody, and that’s how I ended up here. And everyone I talk to says the same thing: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. That’s just the way it works here. But you have to be able to do the job of course. Just because you’re Juan’s cousin doesn’t mean they’ll let you run the hospital. If you run a company, or manage a bank, and you need someone for a particular job, you ask around first, and then put the ad in the paper. And now since I’m on the “inside” I’ve met a lot of new people, and now they are my contacts. So if I ever decide I need a career change, I now know a lot of people in different areas that would be happy to help me out in whatever they can. The only bad
thing about working at the Government Palace (or House) is the politics.
I personally do not get involved in politics, but working here, I’m surrounded
by it all day, especially in the department where I work, which deals with
the Administration du jour. The bad thing is that it isn’t a fixed sector
so the employees change with the elections. But I’ve gotten good at blocking
things out that don’t affect me personally, which is what a lot people
here in the office do. My reality is that come the transfer of power in
about 2 years, I’ll be emptying my drawer (yes, I only have one because
my desk is shared by different people from different shifts).
We used to live in an apartment downtown, but at the beginning of this year we moved to Yerba Buena. Yerba Buena is actually another little municipality 7 or 8 kilometers away, but it’s all city. It’s a 20 minute drive from downtown, but it has the tranquility we were looking for. We actually have a yard now !!!! And (small) trees and everything !!! The birds chirp in the morning and the roosters crow. But believe it or not, we heard that downtown too. I have no idea where they (the rooster) were, but they made it clear they were around when the sun came up. Maybe it was just some quirky thing about our block, who knows. Yerba Buena used to be the area that the “rich-folk” used to have their summer houses, but over the years it just sort of meshed into one big glob with the city. And they had their summer houses for a reason. It gets really hot here in the summer. Like easily 42 C, (110 F). But you can actually feel the temperature difference as you leave the city and go west, and Yerba Buena rests at the foot of the mountains in that direction. And at the top of the mountain there is this tiny town called Villa Nogués that has beautiful weekend homes, and a little weekend coffee house. It reminds me of a fairy tale setting. I pasted some links at the end of the article for some more information. The first year my parents came down to visit, they said that when they landed, the door was opened, and this awful burst of heat came into the plane. They just looked at each other and knew they were in trouble. But that same night we had a thunder storm and things cooled off. It has something to do with the geography of the region, being next to a mountain range, the heat comes in but then has no where to go so it sits on top of the city. My mother-in-law has a degree in meteorology, and has explained this phenomenon many a time to us, but it just doesn’t seem to stick (I’m sure there is some mental block or something because she’s my mother-in-law, ha ha). There is a
little town about an hour away from Tucumán, it’s called Tafí
del Valle. It is nestled within the mountains, and there are a couple of
roads to get to it, but the most used one is a windy one that goes up and
down, and around and around (for a bit we were driving behind a truck that
had a passenger in the back of the bed, that we decided was going to be
hungry for dinner, because his lunch was all over the road!) I’ve only
been there once, on one of the trips that my parents made to visit, but
a lot of people have weekend or summer houses there. It borders on the
pre-Andes, so it is high up, and is definitely a lot less green than Tucumán.
In the winter it actually snows there, which for a typical Tucumano is
quite odd. There is a big lake (or reservoir) there, and on the other side
there is the town of El Mollar, but basically it’s one in the same. They
have lots of folkloric festivals there, so it’s known around the country.
We took a day trip there for lunch and sight seeing, and on the main road
they have this little casino that’s called Mississippi, and my dad just
thought that was the neatest thing, because he’s from Mississippi, so he
took a dozen photos. We had goat for lunch, along with the typical empanadas
and regional desserts that consist of goat cheese and cane syrup (what
else), cayote (which is like a sweet mix between figs and pears), and membrillo
which is another sweet local fruit, basically a cross between an apple
and a pear. The rest of our group wanted to hang out and drink mate, which
we politely declined. And then we all went back to the city and slept like
rocks.
Tucumán has a few other touristy circuits to do, but one of the most popular is the Quilmes Ruins. It is about 2 hours from Tucumán and the ruins are a pretty important archaeology find, being considered the most important pre-Hispanic Argentine human settlement. The indigenous people put up a real fight with the Spanish conquerors for about 130 years, but at the end of it, the fire-arms always seem to win. Oh !!!!! I’m forgetting something, and it is really important (shame on me....). Tucumán is where they declared independence from Spain (1816). This is where it all came together, and changed the fate of the country. The building where the declaration was signed by all of the big wigs of the time is called the “Casa Histórica” (Historical House) and is smack in the downtown area. The truth is that there isn’t much to do there. It should only take you about half an hour to go through and then go on to other things. And that has been a source of criticism for years, people saying they ought to improve it, put more historic things in the museum, and things like that. Because, after all, it is probably one of the most important places in the history of Argentina. So if you get to Tucumán, you at least have to do a quick trip through it, so you can say you’ve been there, done that. Tucumán has already elected their Queen to go to the National Student’s Festival, held in Jujuy, towards the end of September. This is something that is planned all year long, and the work on the floats starts aroung July, and the kids pretty much don’t do anything else until it’s over. All of the high schools participate, and there are float parades for 5 days straight, so all the schools get their chance to shine. Each province sends their elected queen to compete, and then at the end of it all, one lucky teenage girl is crowned the “National Queen of the Students”. It is really a big deal, and the floats are really impressive, and sometimes they have moving parts, sort of like the “It’s a small world” ride at Disneyworld. But alas, my student days have been over for a while now................ Things right now are pretty much routine for most people. Kids are in school, parents are working, and students are studying. Right now in Tucumán there is a small political “scandal” relating to the Constitutional Reformation, and to make a long story short, the Governor said that the elections would be held in January, because there was a small set back in the plans. That lasted for about 30 seconds because January is when everyone goes on vacation here (remember the heat?), especially the government employees. So that was quickly changed to the beginning of February. I personally think he had to have been possessed to even mention it in the first place. Maybe they did a quick exorcism. If you want some touristy information, the following links will help you out: http://www.yerbabuena.gov.ar/myb/index.php
To get to Tucumán from Buenos Aires there are three flights a day, only with Aerolineas Argentinas (http://www.aerolineas.com.ar/home.asp). There was another company called SW that has since gone bust, so they are no longer flying here. Some good hotels that are smack dab in the middle of town are the Tucumán Center Hotel (http://www.tucumancenterhotel.com.ar/), and Swiss Metropol Hotel (http://www.swisshotelmetropol.com.ar/). Both are very nice. And then there a few new hostels that have popped up, but I don’t really know anything about them, other than they too are downtown (for the most part). If you come off season you can probably get here and then arrange some sort of tour to go see the sights, there really isn’t any need to do it before hand. The hotels have all sorts of information too. And if you get really in the mood for something exciting, they have paragliding off the mountain down towards the city, depending on the weather of course. The following is the previous article Jaime wrote for the magazine:
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Life
in Argentina ~ 
