Blogging since 2002!

Many people are complaining about rising prices on basic food items. At the grocery store in mid-February, a woman told me she thought Argentines were cowards for putting up with price increases… an interesting opinion. I’m not sure what she would do, but my idea is to stick with a group of basic food products & monitor prices at the three largest chain supermarkets over the next few weeks. One of the first big news stories after devaluation was the rise of bread prices by 30%. Now the milk industry is following suit.

There has been a lull in big stories during the past month, but many smaller events to track. In spite of the economic and political crisis (or precisely because of it), the 4-day holiday during Holy Week saw a huge increase in local tourism as almost the entire city of Buenos Aires left on vacation. Many stayed in Argentina to keep costs down, & it was bizarre to see so few people in town.

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates & photos. I’ve been improving the website design & adding information to other sections. I hope you enjoy the results. So what’s been happening? Lots.

The first week of March has come to an end which means two things: autumn is coming & the school year has begun. Naturally, the education system is not immune to current political & economic problems in Argentina. Faced with less funding for schools & salary cuts, threats of striking teachers in half the provinces of Argentina had many people wondering if classes would be in session or not. Buenos Aires had no problems on the first day of class, but the strike was adhered to in seven other provinces. The following day, news media reported that most teachers in the country reported for work, & the story quickly disappeared from headlines. President Duhalde went to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego to inaugurate the school year. Fortunately there were students and teachers present to listen to his public address!

My first experience exchanging dollars to pesos in Argentina went surprisingly well. After over a decade of pegging the peso to the dollar (known as convertibilidad), most exchange places outside of downtown Buenos Aires had gone out of business. Also ATMs previously offered either pesos or dollars, but that’s not an option now. Everyone heads to the microcentro to exchange cash, so off we went too.