Going to school or to the beach is possible in Argentina. Faced with the heat wave that has been ravaging several regions of the country for almost two weeks, a school in Rosario (north) has taken an unusual measure: allow children to come in swimsuits so that they can be sprayed at recess, reported local media this Monday.
No air conditioning
The thermometer posted up to 38 degrees on Monday in the province of Buenos Aires and several north-central provinces of the country in an interminable southern summer which saw records fall one after the other: the hottest summer since the start of records (1906) for Buenos Aires, and since 1961 nationwide.
Many schools last week suspended classes for lack of air conditioning equipment, or pending an expected drop in temperatures – in principle in the second half of the week. In an establishment in Rosario (310 km from Buenos Aires), the Francisco Gurruchaga complex, where the air conditioning cannot be used for a low voltage problem, classes have been suspended until Wednesday or Thursday in secondary school.
Bathing suit, sandals and towel
But the management has innovated so as not to deprive the children of primary school of class, for whom there is often a problem of custody. “We decided that the students […] who wish, will be able to attend classes in swimsuits, sandals, with a towel and a change of clothes, and recreation will take place in the shade, with the use of a garden hose,” wrote the management, in a letter to parents last week, quoted in the daily Rosario, The capital.
“You have to look at it from a learning perspective,” principal Marian Sanchez told The capital. “We have never seen (a heat) like this, and the school must provide a response,” she said. Adding on local channel chain 3 that water is used responsibly, and that if the supervisors refresh the children in small groups “it is not a resource for playing”.