Hay varias opiniones a favor y en contra de la pastera que costará 1,2 mil millones y que están construyendo en la orilla del río Uruguay en frente de la ciudad argentina de Gualeguaychú. Ninguna otra planta como ésta, que fue construida por la compañía finlandesa Botnia y será puesta en marcha en estos días,…
Author: Migrant Tales
Argentinean roots: The Immigrant Hotel of Buenos Aires
If you want to know where one of the places Argentineans are from, visit the Immigrant Hotel Museum. Here’s a picture of some of the baggages and belongings immigrants brought from Europe to Argentinean shores. In the 1914 census, 2.391 million people, or 30.3% of the total population of 7.885 million, were foreigners. In Buenos…
Pre-fall blues or where happiness lives
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. William Blake (1757-1827) Of all the seasons that pass over the Nordic region, possibly fall is the most magical. But what makes it stand out from the rest? Is it the pitch-darkness? Is it the vast universe above and its peppered celestial inhabitants…
A pulp mill that has polluted relations between Argentina and Uruguay
There are many arguments for and against a $1.2 billion pulp mill being built on the shores of the Uruguay River right across the Argentinean city of Gualeguaychú. The plant, which is being build by the Finnish company Botnia and will become operational at the end of August or early September, has done more damage…
On the road with Varig Airlines
After four weeks on the road I’m back to where I started the journey to Argentina. Believe it or not, the flight from Buenos Aires, which includes brief stopovers at São Paulo and Frankurt, took about 48 hours to make it to the doorsteps of my home in Finland! The odyssey started Saturday at 4:30am,…
All good things in Argentina come to an end
Time flies and all good things come to an end in Argentina as well. But the ending this country had after it was ruled by the last military regime (1976-83), the presidency of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-89), which ended with hyperinflation, and another character Carlos Menem (1989-1999) leaves a lot to be desired. Menem privatized almost…
Argentina: How much corruption is enough?
Corruption is one of the biggest challenges facing Argentina and other Latin American countries. It’s tougher than military regimes that once ruled these parts and committed outlandish crimes against their countrymen. The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index is an excellent source to measure corruption. Finland, Iceland and New Zealand are the least corrupt with Haiti being at the…
To be or not be mestizo
Mestizo is a term commonly used in Latin America to classify a person that has a Spanish and Amerindian ethnic background. There’s been an interesting debate in Bolivia recently that suggests that the country, whose inhabitants are mostly Amerindian, are mainly mestizo. An article published July 1 in La Paz daily La Razón reported that 64% of Bolivians identify themselves as mestizo. Guatemala is another Latin American country…
Returning to where I was once from (Part II)
After tomorrow it’ll be a week since we arrived in Buenos Aires. I’m traveling with my son Martin. The first time Martin traveled to Buenos Aires was about 15 years ago. He’s 18 now so he doesn’t remember a thing from that trip. One of the matters that has struck Martin the most about the country is how cheap it is. We…
Brazil is crowned Copa America soccer king
There was an air of manifest anticipation and a fair dose of dread all day before the final Copa America soccer championship game kicked off between Argentina and Brazil. As far as these two countries are concerned, it’s never a light matter when they face each other on the playing court be it soccer, volleyball, field hockey, track and…