Paying it Forward

Photo: Taffe de Valle, Argentina


Sean and I try very hard to 'Pay it Forward' in life. In other words, 'Do Unto Others'. We are not perfect but we do our best to treat people the way we would like to be treated. Daddy, I know if you are reading this you are saying that 'self praise is no recommendation' but I am not trying to make us look like saints. My point is that we have just been paid back, with interest for every good dead we have ever done. First of all with Gudie watching the greenhouse, Paige loving my cats, Brucie planning our itinery and Daddy checking the seeds. Yesterday we won the lottery. We stopped at a service station to buy a map to replace the soap bar sized one that the rental agent gave us and I ran in while Sean stayed in the car. I tend to be a little less inhibited when it comes to making a fool of myself using sign language. Sean on the other hand, speaks English with a beautiful Spanish accent assuming the listener can understand every word... and then there is John, Sean's colleague from Ottawa who we will join in BA on Sunday. John just speaks English very loudly. It is hilarious! I love you, John.

I digress. While at the service station I was trying to get my point across to the gentleman behind the counter that I needed a road map of the province of Salta. A man sitting and having a coffee overheard and came to my rescue with impeccable English. It turns out that he too, was headed to Taffe de Valle (pronounced Taffy d Vachay, just to confuse me... the Spanish have still not figured out what to do with those bloody double L's) and told me that I could follow him. My spidy senses tingled and I pictured being led into a cave somewhere, robbed and murdered, never to be found again. Sean came in to see what was taking so long and the three of us got into conversation over a coffee. It turns out he studied agricultural engineering in Minnesota after a short stint of being a forgein exchange student in the U.S. He has returned to Argentina and started a company selling fertilizers and pesticides. He grew up on a sugar plantation near Tucuman. Do you think we had much in common? To top it off, he studied in Tucuman under one of Sean's Model Forest collegues. It is a small world, indeed.





Mariano is still very close to his host family in Minnesota and firmly believes in giving back, the same way that that family gave to him. Bonus for us. Not only did he lead the way to Taffe de Valle, stopping from time to time to see how we were doing, but he gave us a bag of coco leaves to chew on to help prevent altitude sickness and when we arrived showed us a few different places that we could stay before we made our final choice, then came in with us to make sure that we got the best deal. We joined him and his family as well as his close friends for drinks that evening and had an absolutely delightful time. His buddy, Alvero spent time in India working so there was lots to talk about. Between agriculture, politics, India and life in general we passed an unforgettable evening.