The Silver Lining

image via www.nytimes.com

Swine flu is hitting Buenos Aires in a big way and although some people seem unfazed about the whole ordeal, there are just as many people up in arms and railing against the government for having put the nation's health at risk.

The Argentine government has a history of thinking it knows better than everyone else, so when the Health Minister warned the Kirchners that there was not enough Tamiflu stockpiled in case of an emergency she was dismissed. Now, with the cases of swine flu mounting into the thousands, the death toll now at the third highest in the world behind the US and Mexico, and schools shutting down for 3-4 weeks minimum, the Health Minister was forced to resign and people are spitting mad.

Probably because, in addition to not taking the pandemic seriously enough to stockpile medications just in case, the government has also been suppressing facts and figures until after the Congressional elections were concluded in the hopes that their mismanagement of this situation wouldn't lead to their party being voted out. Fortuitously they lost anyway, so all that hard work of keeping people quiet came to nothing.

But there's a silver lining to every grey cloud, and for me it's this: I don't have to work on Saturday mornings anymore! And Graham doesn't have to work at all! And he still gets paid! Hooray for school closings!

UPDATE: Now my big, multinational company has cancelled all their English lessons until further notice. I think we're headed for a Mexico type shut down.

The Mobility of National Holidays

image via www.buenostours.com

Since I started working here in Argentina I haven't gone more than two weeks in a row without a long weekend due to a holiday. In the beginning I didn't really pay attention to what the holidays were for because I was too busy enjoying my days off to really care.  But with the passage of time the novelty eventually wore down and soon I found myself curious as to how businesses could cope in this country considering the fact that their partners in the rest of South America are hard at work while they're grilling on the barbecue.  One student told me that the day off almost isn't even worth it because partners from Brazil, Chile and the rest of the continent, knowing that you're about to be out of the office for an extended period of time, start flooding you the day before in an effort to get everything they need from you before you become unattainable.

We celebrated Flag Day this past Monday and it's a day that commemorates the creation of Argentina's national flag.  If you look it up you'll notice that Flag Day is officially listed as occurring on June 20th..... and I'm writing about it today (June 18th) because yes, you read right, the entire country celebrated it on Monday, June 15th.

Apparently the government finds it really annoying when national holidays fall on weekends (don't we all?) so they've decided that it is their gubernatorial right and obligation to move national holidays around at their discretion so that they fall on weekdays.  The official justification for this is that it encourages tourism.

But what is their exact criteria when choosing a day to move the holiday to?  I would've thought that proximity to the official date would be the main idea here, but if I were right Flag Day would've been marked for public celebration this Friday, the 19th instead of the 15th.  Or, if they wanted to keep it to a Monday, then why not the 22nd which is still closer to the actual holiday than the previous Monday?

In a country where corruption is semi-accepted as a part of government I like to imagine a bunch of old men sitting in a dark library, drinking scotch and smoking cigars with their diaries out on their laps, figuring out which weekend they can all agree on to take a group trip, a boys only weekend, down to the beach together.

The next holiday is Independence Day (the second of two in fact), and much like our own American Independence Day it is so intrinsically linked to an actual date that to move it would be almost blasphemous.  This year Independence Day falls on a Thursday, so it seems highly probable that the government will either declare Friday a day off as well, to promote tourism, or 99% of the population will just take the day off anyway.

Here is a list of all the national holidays for 2009 in Argentina:

1 Jan New Year's Day
24 Mar Truth and Justice Day 
2 Apr Veterans' Day (Malvinas- don't call them the Falklands!)
10 Apr Good Friday 
1 May Labour Day 
25 May National Day (Anniversary of the 1810 Revolution).
15 Jun National Flag Day (Belgrano Day) 
9 Jul National Independence Day 
17 Aug San Martín Day (Anniversary of the Death of General José de San Martín) 
12 Oct Race Recognition Day
8 Dec Immaculate Conception Day 
25 Dec Christmas Day

Race Recognition Day has got to be the most creative reason for a national holiday I've ever heard of.