Tucuman. Lovely Tucuman. The Philadelphia of Argentina and the burial place of the Madison of Argentina. That is how it was explained to me (and it confused me as well until I read a little). You can read about it all here and here (Juan Bautista Alberdi). What is more interesting for my few dedicated readers is how many Argentine high school and college kids came out on a rainy Monday to meet with American Fulbright scholars, talk with embassy representatives, ask questions about scholarships to study in the United States and hear experiences from studying abroad. More than 130 kids were interested in spending two days talking about how to become a global citizen. And we didn't even offer food - just coffee and a few medialunas. They listened to Argentines and Americans talk about what it was like to study abroad and learned how to apply for a job. My colleague Federico put this all together with money from Washington's alumni office, and using all of the alumni of our exchange programs to give the talks. These kinds of events are a ton of work, but they give you an unparallelled opportunity to meet with Argentines. You never know if one of the kids in the audience will decide to go to school in the United States, or remember that they met an American and we aren't "that bad." Sometimes in the war against anti-Americanism, not that bad will do.
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