Un matecito? The taste of distance.

When I was asked to tell the story of my intangible cultural heritage, I had to think carefully.

I was born in Argentina, grew up in Spain, and today I live in Palermo, Sicily.

Sometimes I feel as if my heart is divided into three parts.

One belongs to the places of my childhood in Argentina, another to the streets where I spent my teenage years in Spain, and the third to this city by the sea that has welcomed me in recent years.

For a long time, I thought that living far from my country would slowly erase certain things/ memories, habits, the small details of everyday life.

But there is one thing that has never left me.

Mate.

Whenever I prepare mate in my home in Palermo, something extraordinary happens.

The kitchen remains the same. The Sicilian sunlight comes through the window. Outside, I hear neighbors talking, scooters passing by, and the lively sounds of the city.

And yet, the moment I pour the hot water and smell the aroma of the yerba, a part of me is instantly transported somewhere else.

Back home.

Not to one specific home.

To every home that has shaped my life.

The homes of my family in Argentina.

The places where I grew up in Spain.

The houses of relatives and friends where there was always room for one more person at the table.

Because mate has never been just something to drink.

It is a way of being together.

As a child, I would watch the adults sitting around a table. They talked for hours. Sometimes they debated, sometimes they laughed until tears filled their eyes. The mate moved from hand to hand, creating an invisible thread that connected everyone present.

Nobody was in a hurry.

Nobody was left out.

There was always space for someone else.

As I grew older, I realized that what I was learning was not simply how to prepare mate.

I was learning how to share.

How to pause.

How to listen.

How to welcome others.

Today, I live far from Argentina, yet I continue this small ritual.

Sometimes I prepare mate for myself.

I hold it in my hands and think about the people I love who now live in different countries, on different continents, beneath different skies.

Other times, I share it with Italian friends who have never tasted it before.

At first, they look at it with curiosity.

They ask questions.

They smile.

Then they sit down.

And as the mate passes from one person to another, the same magic that I remember from my childhood begins to unfold.

Conversations grow longer.

Distances grow shorter.

Strangers become friends.

In those moments, I understand why I chose mate to represent my cultural heritage.

Because cultural heritage is not only found in monuments, songs, or festivals.

Sometimes it lives in the simplest gestures.

In an object carried across oceans inside a suitcase.

In a tradition that continues to exist far from the land where it was born.

In a drink that creates community wherever it is shared.

Mate reminds me that my roots did not stay behind in Argentina.

They traveled with me.

They arrived in Spain.

They arrived in Palermo.

And they will continue to live wherever life takes me next.

Because some things do not belong to a place.

They belong to the people who carry them.

And every time I prepare mate, I feel that I am doing exactly that:

carrying a small piece of my history and sharing it with the world.

HERS

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Contact

hers@odyssea.com

© 2024. All rights reserved.