Argentina Week: Interviews with Oldpa and Hugo

One of the goals of this project is to help our kids learn more about the different places and people in the world.  Besides eating the food from the countries we "visit" we also try to learn interesting facts as well.

For Argentina we really lucked out since both my father and my brother-in-law lived in Argentina.  My dad spent a couple of years in Argentina as a missionary when he was in his 20s.  And Hugo was born and grew up in Argentina.

So our kids got to ask them questions about Argentina and their time living there.

We had the boys come up with some questions they wanted to ask:

• Why do penguins live there?
• Have you ever seen a penguin there? (Can you see a theme here?)
• How do sea lions get in the water?
• What sort of other animals live there?
• What is the weather like?
• What do kids do for fun there?
• What kind of songs do the kids sing?
• What language do they speak in Argentina?
• What are the houses like?
• What kind of foods do the people eat?
• Where did you live in Argentina?
• What was your favorite thing about Argentina?

Oldpa lived in Buenos Aires and Rosaria (which is near the jungle in the north of the country).  He showed us all sort of fun "artifacts" he got during his stay there.  I think the kids most liked learning about the gauchos (basically cowboys in Argentina).  Oldpa showed them a polca (a whip used to herd cows) and a bolo (three round stones on a string used to tangle up the legs of cows…sort of like a lasso).

Oldpa also showed the kids pan pipes and a special cup and filtered straw for drinking tea.  And, being the great storyteller that he is, he told the kids a legend of the oven bird (a story popular among the native peoples of Argentina).

Hugo, my brother-in-law, grew up in La Placa.  He told the kids about growing up in Argentina and about what it was like to live there.  He said the houses are typically smaller than in the U.S. and that they don't have very good heating systems (although it's very common for the bathrooms to have bidets).

Hugo said his favorite part about Argentina is the food (which he said was an interesting mix of Spanish and Italian cuisines).  He especially likes these butter croissants served with ham and cheese (he said they were popularly called "Sacraments").

The kids were very interested to learn that the seasons are the opposite in Argentina from where we live here in the north.  When it is summer here it is winter in Argentina and vice versa.  

For fun, the kids play football (or soccer as we call it).  And they liked to sing songs.  He even sang a fun song for the boys about a girl turtle that wants to impress a cute boy turtle  She thinks she's not pretty enough, so she travels to Europe to get a new look but ends up taking so long to get there and back that she looks exactly the same by the time she gets back to Argentina.   And of course, the boy turtle loves her just the way she is.  

He also told the kids about some of the animals that live in Argentina:  snakes in the jungles in the north and llamas on the border with Bolivia.  He showed them a musical instrument called a chorango made out of an armadillo shell.

And, yes, Hugo has seen penguins in Argentina -- although they were at a resort area called Mar de la Plata and were basically there to beg food from the tourists (not exactly the penguins natural habitat).