Welcome Back To Argentina

[rickulivi]

Hi All

I am thinking of starting a meetup group, and I thought I would get the opinion of any baexpats who might want to join.

Target market: There are many Argentine who left the country for various reasons and have been away for 5, 10, . . . 40 or more years and are considering moving back either full time or an a part time basis. Is there are need to form a group for such people?

Meetups is perfect for people who share similar life experiences. In this group I envision people like me. I left Argentina in 1975 but have been going back there for vacations each year, but now that I am semi retired, I spend a few months a year there.

The challenge: For returning Argentine's, building a new social life is a challenge. Yes, I have friends from high school, etc., but I lived abroad for 40 years and I can assure you my view of the world is pretty different from that of an Argentine who has not lived significant years abroad. This meetup would attempt to facilite a new social life; no need to give up your old network, just establish a new one.

How to organize this meetups? Do we have weekly or monthly face to face meetings, or just have a forum like this one and events every now and then. These are some questions to be answered.

Anyhow, if there are folks on this site that would be interested in joining this meetup, let me know. I still have to set it all up.

 

[chris]

Interesting idea. I think real meetings would be a good idea. Maybe in the micro-center, a central location and a comfortable setting.

 

[Rich One]

Hi Rick, you are more than welcome to participate of our Coffee Chat every Tuesday (today) from 4 to 7 PM at Starbucks, Alto Palermo, Santa Fe and Coronel Diaz. A large number of our members are Argentine Expats that have come back to Argentina, after a lifetime abroad. See you there

 

[Roxana]

I guess the word to define when you come back to the country where you were born and raised is repat (repatriated).

 

[Rich One]

I guess the word to define when you come back to the country where you were born and raised is repat (repatriated).

Good Point....!!

 

[camel]

I call them "reverse expats". There are a few at coffee chat.

 

[Silvie]

Living abroad for 3 - 4 decades, I can totally relate to that. it's like returning to a completely different world. You have an interesting idea.

 

[rickulivi]

Thank you all for your replies. I think I will execute the idea of the meetup and see what happens.

Rich One: thank you for the invitation to the Coffee Chat. I did, in fact, attend a few chats about two years ago. I compliment those that organize them because it takes time and a commitment to hold these events. One of my critiques is that I found the ones I attended to be too unstructured for a guy like me. I like agendas to "run" meetings; of course, I am sure many of you disagree with that opinion, and especially so for a social gathering, and that's OK. Having said that, a simple agenda like having every one introduce themselves, tell a bit about who they are, why they are in Argentina and what they expect from the coffee chat can be helpful.

The second critique I could offer is that I found the chats I attended to have a wide dispersion of ages. While that can be very good, my meetup would be more focused on people who developed a career, or attempted to, abroad and now for many different reasons are back in Argentina. Nostalgia, or whatever. Definitely, we would welcome young people, but I am not so sure they would want to hang around people that are just old farts!

Thank you all again for your comments and especially to Rich One for the invitation. I admire your effort to keep that group activity continue weekly.

 

[Rich One]

Rick

Keep us posted of your projected meetings, many repatriated Argentines may want to participate

 

[Noesdeayer]

rickulivi:
For what it's worth I just thought I'd throw out an idea to you. you could take a look at the many -maybe 100-MeetUps that are listed on the MeetUp listings website For example.there's one this weekend on Creatividad -Meeting de Creatividad en Buenos Aires.Una charla con un par de tecnicas de brainstorming.I am planning on attending.Most of these meetups are in Spanish and are almost always well structured with a coordinator and course plan.
There are also meetups for English Conversation which you might want to check out.
As a 74 year old native English speaker who has been living here for amost 40 years myself I have found that Argentines of all ages and backgrounds are prepared and willing to interact with older senior people.The generation gap is not a concern at these events.