Lessons from Patagonia’s Culture of Sharing

When it comes to bridging cultures, little things can make a big difference. For Middlebury Institute student Tom Stagg MPA ’16, one small aspect of living and working in Patagonia in southern Chile ultimately loomed large in his impressions of the experience: sharing a warm cup of yerba mate with his colleagues.

Stagg traveled to Patagonia this spring on his International Professional Service Semester (IPSS) assignment to work with the U.S.-based National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Coyhaique, Patagonia. The NOLS team asked Stagg to help them answer a mission-critical question: “How can NOLS Patagonia influence its issues of concern, such as conservation, land management and access, and sustainable and Leave No Trace practices, in its region?”

Settling into the community in Coyhaique, Stagg soon observed that mate, a caffeinated traditional drink that is popular throughout South America, is shared among community members in a specific, almost ritualistic way. The mate is warmed and prepared in a single cup (also called the “mate”), and a straw (the “bombilla”) is placed in it before it is passed around among the gathered group. Each person present sips in turn from the same cup, an act of communal sharing that is a microcosm of Patagonian culture, where everyone in a community is expected to share resources with one another.

“My first personal experience with mate was with NOLS Patagonia,” says Stagg. “However, drinking it wasn’t a big deal to me and I don’t actually remember the first time it was served to me. What interested me was how the mate custom represented all the other welcoming and sharing gestures I experienced in Patagonia: shaking hands and kissing cheeks for greetings, ride offers being so common that I could hitchhike to town and back (six miles) without having to wait more than 10 minutes for a ride, being asked to sit and eat empanadas in a stranger’s home, and open invitations to asados (barbecues).”

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