Friday, May 31, 2019
Buenos Aires
Second Day of NYU Conference. Lecture on Domingo Sarmiento, Visit to the Tigre Delta and Farewell Dinner
Buenos Dias from Buenos Aires!
Wow! Just went through another fascinating day in Argentina! How fortunate can one gal/couple be? It was a day to member as Buenos Aires provided us with unforgettable memories and invaluable cultural, historical and literary lessons!
So, as usual, Llew and I got dressed and ready for brekkie in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel at Recolletta where I had scrambled eggs with bacon and sausages, a small bit of irresistible muesli with vanilla yogurt and good decaf coffee. Colleagues milled around as we greeted and chatted and it was good to catch up with David Crout, my former colleague at NYU-London, who is also a part of our group.
It was not long before we were forming our customary crocodile to get to the NYU campus which is a good 20 minute walk from the hotel. We passed by the famed Atheoneo Book Store which I have yet to visit and which The Guadian of London calls the second-best bookshop in the world (should anyone know which is the best, I would be happy to have the information).
At the global site, there was coffee and tea and matte (pronounced ma-tay) which is the national drink. It is a tea made of a variety of herbs and spices that is drunk in a gourd that is dried out and hollowed. It is served with a metal straw at the end of which there is a small sieve to keep the residual herb particles out of your mouth. I found it strong and very unpalatable and after a couple of sips, I am afraid I had to abandon it. Still, I held on to it long enough to take a picture with it!
Keynote Address by Patricio Navia
Our first program element this morning was a keynote address by our colleague Patricio Navia who specializes in Latin American Studies. A Chilean himself, he grew up in Santiago and told us about the peculiarities of being a Latino minority in New York whereas his light skin and Spanish ancestry privilege him in his own country. He offered a very good economic analysis of the current disparities in Latin America with special reference to Argentina and did a rapid comparative analysis of the position of the country in relation to the hegemonic Global North. There was a lot to be learned from his talk which I found deeply insightful.
Lecture on the Literature of Domingo Sarmiento—The James Fennimore of the Pampas:
What followed was a breaking up of the audience into concurrent sessions that offered something for everyone depending on their individual areas of interest. As I was interested in the Spanish literature of Argentina, I had signed up to listen to a lecture by Dr. Adriana Amante of NYU-Buenos Aires speak on the literary contribution of one of the country’s best-known writers, Domingo Sarmiento. The lecture was delivered in Spanish but we were fitted with head phones and a contraption that offered us simultaneous interpretation in English by a young woman named Nancy. Once we learned the drill, it was easy to get fitted up and to understand how it worked.
The lecturer was definitely an expert on Sarmiento’s work and took us rapidly through his early life and birth in San Juan in the mid-19th century to his move to the Tigre Delta (which we would be visiting in the afternoon) where he made his home and found ways to make the environment sustainable. We discovered that his most famous work is Fundaco and that scenes from this work (that are set in the Pampas or grasslands of Argentina) have been well interpreted by artists such as Felipe Nio who have actually used excerpts from Fundaco in their paintings. Using a great deal of critical commentary on the author (which she projected on a screen), she explained the finer points of his work.
After 90 minutes, there was a Q and A session and then we were ready for lunch as all the delegates reconvened in the Great Hall for sustenance and for a lunch-time panel discussion. The food was very delicious today—I had mashed potato with a chicken stew, halved eggplant stuffed with rice and carrots, a quinoa salad, a green salad a bit of goat cheese with flan (caramel custard) for dessert.
During lunch, a bunch of my NYU colleagues got together to talk about ‘New Paradigms for Teaching Global Perspectives’. Professors from NYU centers such as Paris and New York talked about the ways in which they approach the global topics they teach and the reaction such methodologies have upon students—and then how they deal with those reactions. It is always interesting to find out what our colleagues are doing in the classroom and what they choose to include or leave out in their syllabus design.
Off on a Feld Trip to the Tigre Delta:
The next item on the agenda had all the Sarmiento fans excited as we were off to visit Casa Sarmiento, the home of the writer about whom we had learned so much in the morning’s lecture session.
The journey was a long one but vans had been organized for us and about eight of us got together and off we went. We had almost an hour’s journey in the van as we left the confines of urban Buenos Aires behind and entered the swanky suburban region of San Ysidro with its beautiful houses and the swimming pools that I had seen when our plane was descending at Jorge Newbery airport following our trip to the Iguazu Falls.
We arrived at Tigre, the beautiful town on at the River Tigre’s Delta which the rich and famous have colonized as their weekend hangout. The town itself is small and cute, but we did not stay long as we headed straight for the river front where tickets are sold for boat rides on the river.
I was absolutely thrilled to be out on a brilliant autumnal day in Argentina as I have missed the Fall season altogether being in India for the year and being subject to just one season. Here the trees are tinged with stunning fall color of russet and red and yellow and as we boarded the boat, all of us wanted to stay on board on top instead of heading downstairs.
It was soon evident that the homes on the river bank range in style, size and sophistication. A running commentary inside the boat (which we could not hear while we were outside) informed us that the price of these houses range from $20,000 to 130,000–not bad at all for a waterfront pad. Certainly one could not expect to buy anything this desirable in the USA or India for this price. We did a lot of clicking as we took pictures of the houses, trees in full fall splendor and the other water craft—there were row boats and kayaks and bigger vessels as well that skimmed past us, including a luxury dinner boat that offers lunch and dinner cruises on the water.
Visiting Casa Sarmiento:
After about half a delightful hour, we arrived at our destination—the home of Sarmiento called Casa Sarmiento. We found the house completely concealed behind a plexiglass shell—we later learned that this has been constructed to preserve the house (which itself is almost entirely a reproduction of the original one he built except for the roof tiles which are made of a hardy wood that have survived the ravages of climate and time). We were met by a local guide attached to the house who gave us a lot of background on the writer’s arrival in the region. In particular, she talked about the fact that riverfront inhabitation was not the fashionable thing it is today in the late-19th century when Sarmiento got there. In fact, it was his presence that in a sense made the area sustainable for he began to plant willow trees that provides the reed that ended up becoming the sturdy willow baskets that are now intrinsic to the region. Used to transport fruit up and down river, they provided the local people with a sustainable form of income while using the land responsibly.
Inside the house we were taken through about three small rooms (the only original piece of furniture is his bed). There is a desk in the living room that he used when he became an official attached to the ministry of education and there is an armoire in one of the smaller rooms. Pictures from his lifetime provide a time line through which one can see how he developed as a writer and a naturalist. Commentary throughout was in Spanish but with Nancy’s help we learned a lot about the man and his work and his work space.
There is no museum or gift shop from which one could buy anything—so basically all we had were our memories. For most of us, the setting and the time of year contributed to making the excursion magical and we felt very blessed that we had this grand opportunity to spend some down time with our colleagues in so special a place.
Return to Buenos Aires:
We took another route down the Tigre passing by several smaller streams and tributaries as we glided on past casinos, Tudor houses and museums. The silence was idyllic, broken only by the put-putting of the motor of our boat.
By the time we arrived at our hotel it was 6.30 pm which left me enough time for a shower and a chance to get ready for the final item on our agenda—a Farewell Dinner at a restaurant called Juana M.
Llew was in our room when I got there. He had spent the day with David Crout. They took a bus to La Boca, the edgy area which is the heart of futbol Buenos Aires. It is where La Bombanera, the football stadium is located and where Caminito Street is to be found. This is the street that has the painted sides to every building and where Tango dancers abound, all dressed and ready to take photographs with tourists. Later in the afternoon, they made their way to the Plaza de Mayo where they saw the Casa Rosada and the Metropolitan Cathedral again. He said they had a very good time and he was very grateful for David’s company.
Farewell Dinner Ends a Brilliant Conference:
It was another crocodile that made its way to the restaurant through the snazzy reaches of Recolletta to get to Juana M, the restaurant chosen for our farewell dinner. We assembled in the hotel lobby and then off we went following those in front of us.
The meal was served at very long tables at which a few of us congregated with friends and made a very hearty company. Drinks in the form of still and sparkling bottles of water, red and white wine and Tom Collins made the rounds and we told to go and help ourselves to the salad bar which was pretty extensive. Llew and I had Jacqueline Bishop seated at our table and she kept us in splits. Also seated with us was Nancy and her daughter Ariana and to the right of me, Heather. Conversation flowed easily and at times become hilarious as French fries and beef and cheese empanadas were brought to our table. That done, orders were taken for our main—there were three types of steak (both Llew and I chose the sirloin instead of the tenderloin and the ribeye), fish and gnocchi which was the vegetarian choice. The steak was very good but mine was not medium rare—it was a bit too well done for me. Still, I have to say that we could not complain. Desert was crepes filled with dulche de leche (a tad too sweet for me) and served with chocolate ice-cream which was fabulous. It was a totally fun meal and although I have to say that we had a great evening as toasts were raised, thank-yous were said and a number of people told us what were the most striking things they learned at the conference.
It was about 11.15 when we were ready to leave the restaurant and get back to the hotel in the company of Tim. Of course, Llew and I did not waste much time before we brought the curtain down upon another fabulously crammed day in Argentina.
We are looking forward now to our last full day in the city as I will stay occupied with conference activity in the morning followed by some more sightseeing to finish off the bits and bobs that the city has to offer in the afternoon and evening.
Until tomorrow...
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