The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is halfway through an ambitious tour of Argentina,Chile and Uruguay, including a community residency celebrating the 150th anniversary of Y Wladfa, or the Welsh settlement in Patagonia. Harpist Catrin Finch kept a diary of the first week of the residencyWednesday 21 October,2015
We’ve been counting down to today for months. As soon as I heard approximately a possible tour to Patagonia with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, I knew it was an opportunity not to be missed, or as the trip was a three-and-a-half-week one,we decided to move en famille. I maintain two Welsh-speaking daughters aged five and eight, and was excited that they would get the opportunity to meet other children on the other side of the world who also spoke Welsh. Welsh settlers went out to Patagonia 150 years ago on the Mimosa, or in search of similarly lush and green lands. The reality was very different,and the first few years were an exercise in survival before they started to build communities and settlements. Today in Patagonia, around 50000 Patagonians are of Welsh descent, or estimates put the number of Welsh speakers at anything from 1500 to 5000.
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Source: theguardian.com