Week 1 in the ARG

Greetings from Córdoba, Argentina! I arrived Tuesday at around 3:30 pm safe and sound and super tired. If you remember my last post, I left Tucson on Monday at 4:30 pm. That’s right, 23 hours of man, I hate trying to sleep while I sit. It’s just weird. Luckily I had with me an article entitled “The Tinpot and the Totalitarian: An Economic Theory of Dictatorship” to keep me busy. Thank you Mr. Waggoner! Other cool things that happened during my flights: I flew to Chile with the Chilean rugby team (not sure what is so cool about that), on that same flight I sat next to an elderly man from Argentina (he was really nice and funny and entertaining), and on the flight to Córdoba from Chile I flew over the Andes. They were covered in snow (keep in mind it’s summer down here in the southern hemisphere). On Wednesday I went straight to the newspaper with my grandfather. I met the woman in charge of the archives, the director of photography, and the editor in chief of what many have said is the New York Times of Argentina! I sat down with all three of them and told them a bit about what I was planning to do and they were all very excited. After that the editor in chief showed me around the newspaper, it was really awesome. Then I sat down with him and we talked for a good two hours about my project and the best ways of going about collecting information and organizing it, it was really great. After that I went home mega excited to get started right away. So I got home and got to work right away on my grandfather’s collection of articles from the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s. I quickly found out that his collection is massive. It really is an amazing sensation to rifle through yellowed pages of past realities. On Wednesday I just sat there absorbing it all, amazed. On Thursday I reread all the stuff I had read on Wednesday with a digital recorder sitting next to me on the table and read aloud for three hours. I figured that recording it all would be much faster than taking notes on it and that I could easily translate it at home. Now I’m not so sure. There is such a huge volume of recordings now and it has only been a week. I guess that’s why we have a few months to get this done. On Friday I spent the day reading some books my grandfather has and going through his collection of articles again. I then came up with a really basic outline to help guide me through the incredible amount of information that I had at my disposal. I decided to break up my research into sections based on important events and to focus more specifically on the last five years of the dictatorship, from 1978 to 1983. I feel that this five-year period most accurately demonstrates and highlights the role of the press in the downfall of the dictatorship. On Saturday I sat down and watched a few documentaries that my grandfather has with footage from the time I am studying. They were really helpful in placing my research into not only a broader context within Argentina, but also placing it in a global context. Tomorrow I am going to watch some of the videos again with my trusty video camera and microphone and record some of the footage so I can have it for research and for my presentation. Today I did some more reading and had a big old arg style barbeque with all my family. Soooooo good. Anyway, tomorrow I am going to hit the archives again, I really can’t wait. It’s so exciting. I am also really excited for the interviews I will conduct this week. I have scheduled two this week, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday. I will be interviewing really important journalists who wrote during the 60’s and 70’s. One was the head of photography during that time and the other was the editor in chief of that time. Not bad for a 17 year-old. Then on March 3^rd I have scheduled an interview with the current boss of all bosses at La Voz del Interior (the newspaper, in case you don’t remember from my last post). I’m really excited for that one. Anyway, I’m really starting to dig all this investigative journalism type research that I’m doing. Not only is it really fun, but it just feels so special. I guess it might not seem like a big deal, but I get to read what people read 50 years ago. It’s really incredible to think about how they reacted to this and what it meant for them and how it impacted their lives. Crazy.

And with that, I’m off to bed.

Agustín

Here is a picture of a front page article (a very important one) from 1974, written by Mr. Temporini himself

This isn't even one third of my grandfather's collection!!

Dr. Zellmer, I daresay it was delicious and nutritious