Justin in Argentina

My story

My name is Justin and I study Digital Media and Communication at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. In the first two semesters of my fourth year I took the Spanish Language and Culture minor. The first semester covered the language and culture of both Spain and Latin America, and the idea of the second semester is to visit a Spanish-speaking country, partly for a research project. I chose Argentina for my stay, and so as not to get bored, I decided to do an internship with United Through Sport. Alongside this internship, for my minor I had to write a report and do research on a topic of my choice, in my case the slums of Buenos Aires.

On 1 January I flew from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires, and I’ll be staying in Argentina for 40 days. On Tuesday 2 January I was picked up at the airport by Francisco. He took me to Pichincha, the hostel where I’ll be staying for the month of January. It was still very quiet in the hostel, but the following weekend 35 Australians would also be staying there.

The next morning Alejandro picked me up at the hostel to go to the summer camp, also known as the colonia. Around 200 children come here every weekday to do different sports. In Argentina, January is the month when most people are off, because it’s the hottest time of the year. Because for me it was mainly about learning the language, I was placed at the swimming pool, where lots of permanent staff were on site and I had the chance to practise my Spanish. Just like in the rest of the country, not a word of English was spoken at the summer camp. In the mornings I was responsible for getting all the equipment ready before the groups came in. After that I was assigned to different groups, based on age, to either run games or help with swimming lessons.

At first I found it quite hard to get by in Spanish, but it got better and better. Of course I’d already had Spanish lessons in Holland, but here it was different. In the second week, alongside the internship, I took a Spanish course in the city centre at Expanish. It was 4 hours a day and very educational; after that week I had properly refreshed the language and got the hang of it.

After the first week I was no longer on my own: two women from Holland also arrived to do the UTS internship. They gave hockey lessons in the mornings, so we could travel there and back together. I spent a lot of time with them that month, but I also got on well with the Australians. Every weekend there was a party at the hostel, and in the evenings a big group of us went out.

“The advantage of the hostel is that big groups doing the same thing are placed there, which means everyone spends a lot of time together.”

Over the weeks a lad from England also arrived; he gave football lessons, and I sometimes helped out with those when I felt like it. At the end of January the colonia came to an end and there was a final show.

Through the internship I gained lots of experience with the language, and I really enjoyed doing sport and playing games with the children every day. It was also nice that no two days were the same; there were daily themes that all the teachers and children took part in. There was also a day when the swimming pool was the venue for a party. There were special activities and Spanish music, and it was completely decorated.