Croeso Mawr! Hope you enjoy being part of this community as much as I have: 
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If we’d known we’d have waved at you…
Maybe next time… 
Diolch yn fawr iawn!!
I saw your signature and your place on that map!! Here there is a thread, “The Please add me to the map” thread, I think. You see the map by clicking on FAQ and then on Map!! @tatjana can you send @sibilazachrau an easy link to where she can ask to go on the map?
Diolch!!
Sorry I got confused about the Mimosa. If you tell your friends about SSiW, we may have a few descendents on here yet!! There was a very sad story on S4C about an old lady in Patagonia wanting to know about her people back home. The young people brought her to Cymru and they finally found the right place, but it was the village drowned in living memory to give Liverpool water the English city didn’t really need! I cried!
Dear Henddraig,
I think I have seen that movie, too. You are right, a really sad story.
I wish I could still share your enthusiasm about people around here wanting to learn about Wales. But I sense it is disappearing with the generation of that old lady. And it happens with all the inmigrant groups. People just want to fit in and look to the future. Many traditions are simply forgotten. Like lent, in Spanish “Cuaresma”, so you even have the ancient root with the number 40 there, but although this is a catholic country people are convinced that lent starts the thursday before Easter.
After returning from my two trips to Wales, I felt really anxious about sharing my experience with friends who do not have the means for long distance travel. I took a lot of pictures in Wales, bought books and I cooked Welsh food. The idea was a Welsh evening with food and stories about the land of the settlers. I believed it to be a good idea. But for two years now, no single friend has taken me up on the invitation!!!
For me it is really difficult to understand that lack of interest, as in a regular day I walk past a Welsh flag several times a day. So it raised at least my curiosity. But well I guess I am curious by default.
Just as a reference. I am 37 and my friends would be between that and their late 50, but zero interest. And we are talking about middle or upper class.
I guess it is just the sad reality of inmigrant nations that the traditions of the nations that make them up get lost without being replaced by anything. Resulting in a cultural vacuum.
Take care.
Sibila
That is a sad story indeed, Sibila. The idea of the Welsh evening sounds really wonderful, maybe it could find more success with very young people? I believe Gumilyov in his theory of ethnogenesis remarked that they are those who have the most passionarity, thus more curiosity and energy to pursue their interests. It’s been my experience that in the countries where there are some endangered languages - Ireland, Bretagne in France, well, even Belarus, - the middle and upper classes and older people are those, I think, who are the least interested in languages that are not “useful”. But very young, passionary people are often those who feel a great need to find their place in history and they are those who will ensure the survival of languages and cultures, I think. As the young German “golden youth” did at the beginning of the 19th century, when all those rich and talented young men went around the country to write down stories, traditions, songs - and they saved them for us. How are things in Patagonia among younger people, do they show interest towards their Welsh heritage?
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Here’s the link to the map: https://www.saysomethingin.com/welsh/info/map
and here’s the link to the The ‘Please add me to the SSiW map’ thread
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Dear Justin,
Patagonia is really nice and definitely worth a visit. I live close to the UNESCO world heritage site “Peninsula Valdez” where you can actually watch killer whales.
And in the winter the southern whales (franca austral) come to our little bay and have their babies here before heading into the open water. So you can actually watch them while walking on the beach!!!
In the Trelew area some big dinosaur bones have been found and there is a big dinosaur museum in that city!!!
And a little further south we have some big penguin colonies where you can walk on a signaled footpath between the little animals. But be careful, they have priority on these little paths!!!
I do speak fluent German and I am also familiar with german costums and traditions. I consider it very important to know your own roots. But here the same applies not everybody who is of german descent would still be speaking the language. Customs and traditions are dying out. Should I one day happen to have children, I hope to pass things on.
Take care
Sibila
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This is such an interesting thread - thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Our national orchestra and youth choir last year went over to Patagonia (I watched a very interesting documentary about it at Christmas time), and as well as putting on concerts went to play with elderly people whose parents had been on the Mimosa, to share traditional Welsh music with them. They also went into a Welsh-language school at one point. More projects like this could be helpful, but of course they are very expensive 
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I believe some teachers from Cymru go to Patagonia to teach there, yes/no?
Re-generations, it is certainly true that enthusiasm for our own language seems to go in cycles in Cymru. My Taid’s generation were beaten out of it and raised my dad’s generation to see it as useless. My generation varied, but a lot of us were very pro and very Nationalist, not that I ever believed in the meibion Glyndwr approach!
Dear Seren,
Unfortunately I do not see any interest among younger people either. But I think it has more to do with the country and its structure.
This is in the heart of the people a centralistic country. People still think that in the capital everything is better. Life is more thrilling or exciting, there are more possibilities and opportunities in the capital. And people from the capital would look down upon us, the ones from the province, the countryside. Even economically, we get the left over goods from the capital down here in the far South.
Apart from that young people here are on the technology hype and show a great interest for the US. Without giving it a further thought everything seems to be better in the US. Newer, bigger, more advanced,…
So I think the real problem is what does Wales represent? Country life, many sheep, history, …the first Welsh settlers here were fruit farmers.
So it really doesn’t coincide with the current interest of the people.
Just think about, last year we celebrated the 150 year anniversary of the arrival of the Welsh and a couple of months before that the local government closed the museum and tore it down. Supposedly to build a new, more modern one. Currently, there is no construction work being done on the site. The museum was old, but in good enough shape. So why tear it down just before the big anniversary event? Why not do it afterwards? And people don’t even bother.
Europe has that big hype about the healthier life on the countryside. The latter is being romantisized. And that helped forment the interest in country cooking, had rich people move back to the countryside to raise their children and thus in the end also helped to foster the interest in the Celtic languages.
People tend to think that we are living 30 years behind here. So maybe there is hope for the Welsh culture and language around here, just not yet. Because according to that way of thinking that vintage hype, the apreciation of the countryside should arrive in a couple of years…
I hope that answers your question.
Take care
Sibila
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Dear Sibila,
Thank you for your answer.I understand the situation a bit better now.
I can see what you mean. It’s sad but true that people tend to forget or dismiss their past for the sake of being modern. It happens everywhere. Huizinga wrote in his Autumn of the Middle Ages that “modernity” “is, as always, only accessible to us at the expense of temporarily turning a blind eye on past beauty or truth”. But luckily the history and the fashions move in circles, so I’ll hope that the European fascination with their rural past and the Celtic ancestry soon arrives to you too, and that people young and old develop a deep interest for it.
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I was thinking just the same when I read @sibilazachrau’s posting. Certainly the eagerness for peace, beauty and even history comes after the rush to new, modern and polluting cities!! If we ever move to entirely non-polluting cars (electric or hydrogen powered), then cities may become livable which may alter the cycle, which would be sad as the country has so much to offer!!
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When I leave my teaching job (soon), I want to live on a farm:) And there are more and more people here who are ready to leave cities to rediscover a quieted way of life, in tune with the nature. So, hopefully, it will lead to a more acute interest in history, as well.
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Dear Seren,
Unfortunately people over here show in general a lack of interest in history. People tend to think that history started with the arrival of the Spanish conquerers. And I keep fighting, arguing and telling people that this is not right. Because the Spanish did not arrive to an empty country. People tend not to like to know or admit the indiginous past of the country. Obviously some tribes were more advanced than others, but the Mayas for example were pretty sofisticated.
It makes me really sad to see how we deny and neglect our own past!
I wish you good luck with your project. Sounds like a great plan!!! Enjoy it!!!
Take care
Sibila
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Dear Henddraig,
I think all this tecnology hype makes us forget what life is really about. We spend more time in front of the screen than with real people! Even when being in company.
I am working in the IT area and the funny thing is that the longer people work in IT, the less they tend to use it in their private lifes. We have a below average usage rate of social networks for example.
My point being that modernization and tecnology do not seem to be the way to universal happiness.
Hopefully we will soon realize that!!! And then as real life communication would recover its value, we will hopefully start again to value the humanities and the related language studies and stop single-mindedly focusing on the natural sciences only.
Greetings
Sibila
Dear Sara,
Certainly the Welsh schools are very helpful in the area and a nice addition to the public school landscapes.
Welsh schools are private, so a tuition fee applies which limits the access to certain social classes. Who are willing and able to pay for private education due to a general unhappiness with public schools. Teachers in Argentina can go on strike and they regularly do so, so the kids miss a lot of classes. In private schools the teachers’ assistance is garantied!
Thus places in Welsh schools are running out fast. Especially, as there is no real other private school in the area. So if you want to go private, you go Welsh!
The picture of the BBC documentary is very romantic, but I think this is the real motivation for people.
There is no Christian private school in the area. And in my case the closest Welsh school would be 70 kilometres away.
My place was founded by the Welsh, but soon after their arrival the local indiginous population showed them the way to the fertile valley with access to sweet water where today you would find people of Welsh descent and the Welsh schools.
Hopefully at some point and before my so far unborn kids will need to attend school we will also have a Welsh school where I live.
Not because they are private, but because I would like them to learn to appreciate the history of their birthplace.
Greetings
Sibila
This is a lesson that the Welsh politicians need to learn. I remember in my very “English” area of North Wales when I was a school-boy - there was some funding available to build some new Welsh Schools; As they had modern and better facilities and teachers who were at least as good as the other schools, English people started applying to send their children to these schools - because that were better equipped and started out with are reputaion for quality teaching.
Most parents would like to send their children to the best schools if they can - SO MAKE THE WELSH SCHOOLS THE BEST - and the rest will follow naturally - and the next generation will speak Welsh.
Justin
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I have heard similar success stories with Irish-language schools in Ireland – and, for that matter, Danish-language schools in northern Germany.
There is a Danish minority there but I have heard that increasingly, Germans also send their children to Danish schools as the quality of education is perceived to be of a high standard. (And that this occasionally causes problems when non-Danish-speaking parents struggle to understand what is being discussed at parent-teacher meetings. I believe that if you enrol your child as a non-speaker, you have to pledge to acquire at least a modicum of the language in a certain time period.)
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I totally understand the thinking. My mam wanted ti turn me from a sow’s ear into a silk purse… a hopeless task… so sent me to the Convent school!! It didn’t work! But, while I was in the primary section they had to pay and she had a ‘costs more so must be better’ notion as well! (Very common).
I hate the idea that people who genuinely want their kids to learn, for example, through the medium of their people’s native language, are priced out of those schools!
I always hoped that no RC child couldn’t get into the grant aided Convent Grammar school because I was cluttering up the place, by then free of charge!
Hello Sibila,
I’m Welsh but non Welsh speaking and I’ve just joined the SSi course. I live in the south of Brazil, the city of Porto Alegre, so (relatively) close to you! I’m planning a trip within the next 2 or 3 years, to Patagonia on my motorbike and I hope to be able to have a basic conversation in Welsh by then. Paradoxically, I’m Welsh and I speak English and fluent Portuguese!
Abraços
Alan
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