Monday, May 14, 2007
We arrived at our destination, La Cumbre, mid morning and are met by Diana’s brother Carlos. Diana comes from a large family of second generation Italian immigrants who have maintained the excitability and hand waving of their ancestors.
La Cumbre is a tourist town in the mountains where many wealthy Argentineans maintain second homes that they occupy in the summer to escape the heat of the coastal and other lower regions of the country. It is very reminiscent of Santa Fe, NM twenty years ago, with a population of 10,000 that swells to 30,000 at times during the summer. The architecture is very European executed in the local brick with rock accents around doors, windows, and corners.
Given that the winter temperatures drop to -10 to -15 Celsius brick and stone are not the best building choice for maintaining heat. It is my guess that forests once grew to the edges of La Cumbre and the fireplaces were stoked day and night and now that the forests have been cleared the houses are miserable in winter. One of our reasons for being here is to come up with some economic ways to insulate these old structures and to present some alternative construction techniques for new construction as the city grows.
La Cumbre has a large immigrant population of both Italian and English. The English were brought to Argentina to build the railroad system and many stayed on once they were finished. It is startling for me to go into a store, start mumbling my inexecrable
Spanish, and receive a reply in Etonian English from a third or fourth generation resident. Many of the residents of La Cumbre graduated from the local English school that was established in the early twentieth century.
The Italians were primarily farmers who moved to this region for its rich and inexpensive land. Prosciutto abounds, available in the smallest corner shop, grown from abundant corn crops fed to healthy pigs.
I must say this is the most carnivorous culture I have ever witnessed. Every time you turn around someone is inviting you to a barbeque. This does not in any way resemble what we know as a barbeque. This is a barbeque with every animal represented and every part of every animal – I’m talking glands, blood sausage, liver, kidneys, and everything else except the moo and the oink. All cooked over coals of mesquite which is the keystone vegetative species of this region, and is being lost to deforestation and fire at an astonishing pace.
Next week will be full of appearances before august government bodies, the local English Language Prep School, and the municipal television station. This being the first time a permaculture creature has appeared publicly in La Cumbre – I can’t wait!!
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