Whirlwind trip to Paraná

Pedestrian shopping area near the central plaza

We have now been in Argentina for a little over a month, nearly the entire time spent exploring Buenos Aires. Last week, I entered a new chapter: work! I gave two presentations on English Language Methodology, one in Buenos Aires to an audience of over 150, and another in Paraná, a city northeast of BA in the state of Entre Rios. It was about a 5 hour car trip on a straight highway with grassy flat land to either side. Paraná is on the other side of the river from another city called Santa Fe. Speaking of which, due to the fact that Santa Fe is not only a major street in BA and a major city in Argentina, the postal clerk looks confused when I send packages to Santa Fe in the U.S. Anyhow, to get to Paraná, you have to wind through the city of Santa Fe (it seems as though the highway just dead ends in the city . . . ) and then go through a loooong tunnel under the river - voila! you are in Paraná.

English teachers and trainees after my presentation

In the 22 hours that I was there, I got a true small-town feel. One of my hosts, a young man who teaches at the teacher training college, took me on a short drive around town to see the impressive wide brown river, Spanish colonial houses, parks full of families relaxing, people bustling through the streets, and the occasional "cartonero" collecting recyclables. My host had gotten a scholarship recently, and he told me about his impressions of Washington, DC, Boston, San Francisco, and Kansas City. He thought that DC was "such an organized city" and that everyone was very welcoming and friendly. He was surprised that you have to move to the right on an escalator to let people pass. As he and his 11 other fellow scholarship grantees were chattering away on a subway escalator in DC, a local man came up behind them and said, "Excuse me. There should be space on the left!". In the supermarkets, he was shocked, not by the scanning equipment the cashiers had to check people out (they have giant hyper-markets here too!), but by the fact that you could opt to "check yourself out" by scanning your own items. He said it would never work in Argentina! In San Francisco, he was surprised by the number of homeless people he saw. "You see it (homelessness) here in Argentina, but I just imagined it to be different in the States." Lastly, as I notice with many international scholars that I meet, he was impressed by the diversity in the US. Here in Argentina, you see very few Asian people and even fewer Black people - almost exclusively of European descent. There are some immigrants from Bolivia and Peru, but overall, there is not a wide variety of people from other races and cultures. I think people hear how "diverse" the US is, but for some it is visually impressive (sometimes shocking) to "see" the diversity.

Church on the central plaza

Anyhow, I made it back to BA having made a bunch of new friends in Paraná! The hospitality was great, the teachers were enthusiastic, and everyone had a great sense of fun and humor. I hope I can meet up with those folks again - and next time spend more time in their city.