Each month in Home from Home we ask someone to compare Dublin with another city in which they have lived. Sometimes they are Irish who have lived (or are still living) abroad, sometimes they are expatriates in Dublin. This month we spoke with English-teacher (and occasional Argentine football blogger and Second Captains guest) Danny Fitzgerald who took the less travelled road from Rathfarnham to Mar del Plata, the Argentine coastal city to the south of Buenos Aires whose name translates as Silver Sea.
What took you to Mar del Plata, and moreover what made you stay?
The path to the backwater of a backwater is usually one of either love or gold. In my case, nary a monkey was thrown in a river, so it was most certainly the former. I left Ireland in 2006 just to get away for a while really, but with the idea of improving my Spanish. I was going to go to Madrid but a friend mentioned he was going to Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires! Terribly exotic, I thought. The only ideas I had about the place were as vague as they were positive: sunshine, good meat, Maradona, probably fair members of the opposite sex, etc. All of those things were soon proved to be true. I met a girl in BA who was from Mar del Plata, and we ended up moving there. When we broke up several years later, of course I considered leaving, or going back to BA. I soon realised, though, I had my own friends, work and lived in a pretty cool place. In fact, it was quite liberating to see and do things without all the little filters and prejudices that come with the being the gringo half of a relationship in a foreign country. Most important was the realisation how much other things there were to discover: literature, history, a whole section of the delicatessen, music – oh the music!
Ireland and Argentina are very different countries, although they do share some heritage. What similarities between Mar del Plata – and moreover, non-porteño Argentina – and Ireland?
The main thing they have in common, besides the sea, is that they’re both satellites. No matter how slick, how lovely they can be, they both rely on some much grander orb culturally, economically, psychologically. The occasional antagonism that inevitably entails doesn’t take away from the fact that Mar del Plata, like Dublin, is a more relaxed cousin to the power badge-hungry mega-conglomerates it depends upon for juicy news stories. For that same reason, the city is as remote from the north of Argentina as Dublin is from the, much closer, boglands. I imagine, in a scandalously general and undoubtedly nostalgic way, that Mar del Plata is a bit like Dublin in the 1980s: less road paintings, houses being built still quite close to the city, plenty of green areas, a bit more dinge about… but more free I guess. Or at the very least, less weary.
Could you imagine leading a life similar to the one you live in Mar del Plata back in Dublin? Would it be at all possible? Or is Argentina a much more ‘wild’ place?
The wildness of Argentina is overplayed, I reckon, not least by Argentines themselves, when supposedly cultural or political problems are attributed to ethics rather than coming up a bit short on the old admin. Basically, though, yes, given that I work as a barman and an English teacher, I could in theory lead a similar life in Dublin. However, while this might be a cliché, I’ve found that in Argentina there’s more scope for establishing yourself on your own merits, whereas ten years ago in Dublin you seemed to have to come ready-packaged, pre-wrapped with a sparkling CV of spontaneously-generated experience. I always found things rather locked down in Dublin, for want of a better phrase. Argentines are often the first to associate Control with a higher quality of life; it’s the hallmark of ‘The First World’, they say. To a point, for the opposite is often true: hyper-globalisation and cashier-less checkouts are pretty ‘wild’ in their own way. Conceivably you could organise your life in Dublin so you never have to talk to anyone, and it’d be seen as quite normal. Essentially, if it’s a question of doing the same thing in Dublin or Mar del Plata, I think the quality of life is higher here – even if getting paid in Itchy & Scratchy Dollars is a bit of pain in the arse.
You travelled back to Ireland over Christmas again having been back most recently in early 2013, what changes do you notice around the city?
The haircuts, food being prepared in shop windows, an incredible amount of exotic eateries, an increased attention to detail and presentation, in general. It seemed trendier than I remembered it, with less difference with respect to other capital cities, as opposed to the way that in Mar del Plata us hicks can still pick out a porteño.
Is there anything that you miss from Dublin?
I’m not really the ‘missing’ type. I’m more interested in finding out new stuff here. Then again, they say your homeland is your childhood, so no matter how much time I spend here, how much content I hoover up, that breach will never be made up and I’ll always miss, to a greater or lesser extent, the canals, my friends, Guinness, the joy in people’s step when it’s 19 degrees out. It’d be nice if it just wasn’t quite so far away.
And, subquestion, if you had to leave the bosom of Argentina, what would you take with you and introduce in Ireland? Empanadas? Resto bars?
A tough one, but I’ll go for the obvious: Charly García, Spinetta, the art of the asado and a squadron of shouty little ragamuffins to get us to the next World Cup.
Words: Ian Lamont
