A story on the way (Patagonia)

Last night at Rabanal Del Camino (after walking 36km) I was resting my very weary self eating sausage and tinned peaches in the kitchen of the Albergue and making conversation with the other pilgrims. We were intordocing ourselves and sharing where we were from - in my very stumbling Spanish I said I was from Wales. A lovely older lady called Maria from Argentina got very excited when I said this and (with great translation assistance from Rosa from Spain) told me about the Welsh settlement in Patagonia. I knew a lot of what she was telling me - although it was fabulous to hear it from her context - but she did tell me somthing I did not know about the Welsh settlers´ first encounter with the indeginous people of the land around. I´ve been thinking about this alot today and rather than try to recount the way Maria told the story (with great gusto but attention to detail - she was a school teacher after all) I have put together a fictionalised version of the story from her facts and my imagination.

Once you've read it you might guess it had a huge impact on me both emotionally and intelectually! I wrote this in my head in Welsh but for the sake of sharing here´s the translation! It is best read in a Welsh acent :)

Y Cyfarfod (The Meeting) 

Looking back you might say it was a daft thing to do.
 But it seemed so natural - we´re all just people right?

When I got on that boat with our Dai and our two little 'uns in Liverpool we had so much hope and idealism. Fed up to our back teeth of not being able to live our own way at home we left Wales, with alsorts coming in and  pushing us out. Our Dai heard about Michael D. Jones of Coleg y Bala and his plan to go out to Argentia where we could live as a Welsh people, in Welsh, following our own ways.So 200 odd of us got on the Mimosa on 28 July 1865 and a year later 153 of us got off. Nearly 50 souls were lost on the way including our youngest then, Myfanwy. Mind you, there was little to do on the boat too so 3 months before landing our Taliesin was born.

When we landed the lush green pastures we expected was not there. At all. It was hard land without no drinking water. Not a slacker among us we stared to try to work the land. We found some great caves and set up home there while we built our own houses. We started with building a chapel first though, of course!

Then came that day. We'd finished the chapel the week before and had started on working out how we might grow crops and we saw them coming. Men, women, children walking towards us. Dark skin, funny clothes. Different from us. I do't know why I wasn't scared, but like I said we´re all just people right? We'd left Wales because we felt pushed out. Well I'd be damned I was going to push anyone else from their place.

I had just been nursing our Taliesin so I was sat on a rock just away from the main group - closer to them. I got up, smiled and went to say hello - as you do. We couldn't understand each other of course, but there's a languge deeper than words, right? One of their women smiled at our Taliesin so I just handed him over to her. He was a lovely babe, it has to be said, and she just cooed over him. It didn't strike me that it was dangerous or daft or anything like that. We're all just people right? And everybody loves a baby!

After that we just got on. We had bread and butter and they had material and meat so we just started to trade and it went from there. It's not been easy on the land but we've better neighbours here. Now our eldest, Gwydion, is walking out with a Tehuelches girl. Ahhh if it works out they'll have beautiful babes.