Everybody knows what is Mate in Misiones

I have recently made a trip to Misiones in the northeastern Argentina, which is called Ukrainian. It is surrounded by Paraguay and Brazil to the northwest and is embraced by Parana — the second river in length ( with La-Plate) in South America and stands behind Amazone. Argentina is a large and immense country. All over the country people sing here, they support their national soccer team, they drink Mate, eat roasted meat, sausages like chorizos and marseillais’ — something you could see right in the streets or on the yards and terraces. Truly, in this careless world of non-stop 24 hours a day colorful dancing to guitar thousands and thousands of Ukrainians feel themselves at home. People are jolly here, everybody’s smiling; everybody’s dressed nice; everybody’s friendly and courteous. All of a sudden our driver in Buenos Aires — Eugene from Luhansk who has been living here for 10 years — says something, which went against our conviction and sounded like a bomb for us: “Don’t walk around and even one step with your camera here — it’s Latin America!”

Posadas means hot

Argentina is really huge: it is the seventh in size in the world. It’s got everything: forbidding tropical jungles, famous waterfalls and sky-high mountains with the highest point being Aconcagua which is 6959 m above the sea level; the coastline with beautiful beaches as well as the unique Valdes peninsula with thousands of tourists from all around the world coming here to watch gigantic whales; spacious pampas — Argentinean steppes — where local cowboys, called gauchos tend their herds and flocks. When Europeans were reluctant to move to remote country as Argentina they used a trick in the royal Spanish court — the new territory they called “silver” and spread a rumor as if “there was a plenty of silver there!..” Since then the country, which has everything including silver, has retained the very name.

After rainy and snowy Europe with its early spring (in Argentina it’s late summer) the country seemed dazzling silver to us. The first impression which would not leave us on our journey was that summer never stopped in Argentina! Never! Temperatures never drop below 20C. 18C means trouble. Not for Patagonia though. But we did not go there. It is hard to imagine — there is snow still in the streets back in Europe and here they enjoy summer! And it never snows here! Never! Eugene, our driver says that he has seen no snow in Buenos Aires in the last ten years. He and his wife went once to their hometown — Luhansk — but are not intended to move back. They’ve got used to living here. The city is beautiful and rich. Although some homeless can be observed in the streets, policemen do not beat them publicly at least. Eugene rents a four-bedroom apartment in downtown Buenos Aires for just 500 bucks. Compared with house prices in Kyiv that is nothing. His wife sews clothes — at home. He brings materials to her and then delivers the readymade things. He got a car loan and car loans are quite affordable here with just 5-6% interest rates.

We decide not to stay for too long in Buenos Aires which means “good wind” in Spanish. It wasn’t to tread on the pavements of the 20 million city that we came to South America, although there are quite many Ukrainians in this city who came here already after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But we are here to find the pioneers — the third and fourth generation of Argentinean Ukrainians, who are almost Argentineans but are still Ukrainians. So the next day we board a plane and fly to the province of Misiones!

Posadas — the capital city of Misiones — engulfs with burning 40C heat already on the air. At once I am reminded of movies about Mexico — dry air, palm trees, white several storeyed wooden buildings. Europeans are nowhere to be seen. I can smell barbeque and very heavy air. I am getting the impression that we are at the equator, although the equator is very far from here.

Zhanna, formerly Zhytomyr’s resident and her husband Diego meet us at the airport. They agree to accompany us on our journey through this not so remote but a province. Diego works at a local TV station. Zhanna is a housewife. They own an apartment in downtown Posadas. We brought them some salo (lard) and black bread — you won’t find this kind of stuff in local stores. Zhanna is glad to receive the gift just as it would some candies. The windows of the apartment look toward the Parana River. It is very wide and murky. Multistoreyed buildings are just like the ones in Kyiv city in Troeschyna district — can be seen on the opposite side of the river. That is Paraguay — explains Diego. No checkpoints are on the bridge across the river — Argentineans need no visas to travel there. We, Ukrainians, do need a visa to be allowed to enter.

We are on the quay. It is crowded here. Everybody’s wearing nice track suits, everybody’s got sun-tan — most of the people here are of European descent. Probably many of them have Ukrainian roots. It is not for nothing that the province is called Ukrainian. People look friendly. I have never seen so many people jogging. People seldom bathe here, because the water is really like coffee. There are a lot of open-air volley-ball courts — many of them are simply on the beach.

Zhanna is acquaintanted with only one Ukrainian who is not of the first generation of Ukrainians living in Misiones — a local TV reporter, her husband’s colleague. We are going over to his place and bring him some salo and black bread. He finds it so exciting as if he were a child. The longest roots are considered the mental roots. Even in far off lands it holds you fast as if you are having it in your genes and not only in your home. The reporter can hardly speak Ukrainian, so we ask Diego to help. We drink Mate which we bought on our way here. He tells us about himself and asks different questions. He is happy here in this tropic. He grew up here and cannot imagine living without having 40C in the shade.

And then he tells us about a Ukrainian millionaire who owns Romance, the biggest Mate producing company in Argentina and who lives in Pampa, 70 km away from Posadas.

What is Mate?

We immediately call Mr. Mykhailo, get in the car and rush away from muggy Posadas to no less muggy Pampa with as thick as jelly air, — we are going to that millionaire. Zhanna confirms that the rich people here are predominantly Ukrainians — especially among farmers. A long-long time ago, when lands would be given out for free, they accumulated so much of them that today Spanish and Italian Argentineans together with Indians work for them.

Fields and fields, and fields are along the road… there are beautiful drive ways, leading to an oasis in the middle of the Pampa — red tiled roofs surrounded by palm trees — over there in their ranchos, where descendants of Ukrainian farmers together with their families live. The road is nice, although we are who knows where in, everything is so clean and of high quality — not even the smallest crack in the road pavement. If we had this kind of roads in Ukraine we could host Euro Soccer Championship all the time. So clean, no trash around; everything is of private property — each piece of land, even the road — because it is a tollable road. We drive some 30-40 km and see a lifting gate near a Ukrainian rancho with a friendly name ‘Nova Zemlia’. We insert 3 pesos in the machine and continue our journey. So what? At least it is clean and the road is good. The highway was paved through the lands that belonged to Ukrainians who gave their permission to use it on conditions that it would belong to them.

Mr. Mykhailo is the owner of Romance,the Mate producing company. Everybody calls him senior Miguel here. He kindly meets us. His plant — he takes us there to show us around — is the only thing that has a European look compared to other things we saw in Misiones. Everything else here is typical Latin American — like in western movies. Workers at his plant are long haired, black as if covered with tar Argentineans. They smile sincerely and carry something in paper boxes from one end of the room to another. Senior Miguel is dressed in a white shirt; he is chubby and taps each one of us on the shoulder. He asks if we brought black bread and salo, but have already given away everything. He invites us to have some Mate. He really lives here in his oasis, this dry Pampa. His company is one of the largest producers of national Argentinean drink of Mate. It is very similar to tea. These are grinded leaves and caulis of the tree and somewhat it resembles both to laurel and low cherry tree. Mate is put into calabashes — big cups, made of musk-melon, then hot water is poured and it is drunk through metallic straws, called bambilla. Mate can be poured with milk also.

Senior Miguel’s grandson does not speak Ukrainian neither does his wife. But he speaks it very well. Although he has some strange accent as if he were a grandpa from Transcarpathian region — his language is a very old dialect. His great grandfather settled here in 1927. They have plenty of lands which they planted with yerba mate trees. It was this plant that made this Ukrainian family rich. He takes us on a tour around his plantation. It is a huge garden. It is super hot here and as dry as drought could be. Senior Miguel continues to talk without any stop and says that he has the dream for a long to speak out his mother tongue. He recognizes, however, it is easier for him to speak Spanish. He gives us so much mate as a gift, so we think that we will be drinking it forever.

We say goodbye to him and his plantation. We say goodbye to this tiny piece of Ukrainian land, somewhere in northern Misiones province, at the edge of the road map. The famous Iguassu falls make their noise somewhere not far away from here — not far away from the southern border of the tropical rain forests that begin to the north of the Parana River extending to as far as Brazil. We are going back to Posadas. Tomorrow we will set out in search of our other countrymen in this Argentinean province. We’ve had enough impression for the first day of our trip…

Author: Oleksandr Plotnikov