OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : exchanges : Music Is Constant Backdrop in Argentine City

Ross Weinberg, 16, a junior from Laguna Hills High School, is spending the school year as an American Field Service student in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, where he is attending a Catholic school and living with a family of eight.

Here’s a report on how it’s going:

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When I arrived in my new town last summer, I couldn’t see much because the wind was blowing dirt and trash everywhere. I remember thinking: So this is where all the trash goes. As it turned out, the road from the airport is in the middle of The King of all fields of trash. Everybody here throws trash on the ground, which blows into this great field, where it has been collecting for the past 450 years.

I immediately fell in love with my AFS family. I have six--that’s right, SIX--sisters, ranging from 7 to 17 years old. The oldest, Ingrid, has been a terrific help as I got used to my new surroundings. She is also a knockout and knocks over every guy in this town.

My AFS mom is always running from school to school, teaching students. She loves to talk and be a kid. I only see her at noon and at night. Same with my AFS dad, who is manager of the main auto service station in the city. He also stays busy with many part-time jobs, like beekeeping or at the lumber yard or oil fields. He is a serious person, but perhaps the strongest in town. We like to wrestle and joke.

I would have to say this house is small for nine people: guest room, kitchen, two bathrooms, four bedrooms and a small outside house, which has a room and bathroom.

Since I am the only boy, I got a room to myself. The parents have a room and bathroom to themselves. Ingrid decided to isolate herself and took the outside house. So that leaves two rooms and five girls. Not too much privacy. The youngest three raise a storm--running, playing hide-and-seek, jumping rope in the kitchen at 2 a.m.

Since the oldest three girls and I are so close in age, we tend to fight for the telephone, music or TV. But the biggest problem is that none of us drives. Since the partying doesn’t start till 1 a.m., and public transportation stops at that time, the parents have to get out of bed at 5 in the morning to pick us up--that is, if they feel like it and we have all decided to go to the same disco, which we usually do. Our favorite disco is Tusini. You can always meet at least 10 to 20 people your know. The music is good, the people are nice and the girls are pretty. And, man, can people here dance. Half of the music we listen to is in English. I would say that the discos here play a very important role in the culture. No matter who you are, you listen to music. A question many ask when meeting a person: “What music do you like?”

Mostly the elders listen to folklore music. The instrumentation is normally an accordion, guitar drums, trumpet and one or two voices. The closest thing we have would probably be music in a Western hoedown. This music is a tradition of the people of Santiago del Estero. Their parents’ parents’ parents listened to this music. The elders appreciate this music because it is of their own past, something that defines them from other parts of Argentina and the world.