Damn Big Dam!

We had a great meeting in Encarnacion, with TV cameras, interviews, everything. We find out we are spending a night in Posadas, across the border in Argentina, so we pack up and head out. Some Rotarians from Posadas pick us up and drive us across the border. We are delivered to our families. Before we eat lunch, we are interviewed by the local newspaper and they take a photo of the group. Lunch is at the family I am staying with, Claudio and Marta. They are a great couple and they prepare an awesome lunch with plenty of carne and wine. After such a meal we all rest for a while.

We have a Rotary meeting that night, and there are a lot of people at the meeting, probably the biggest one yet. We give a great presentation and everybody loves it. The presentations are getting easier everytime we do one.

After the meeting we head out to check out the town a little bit. Posadas is a great little city, awesome downtown with fountains and tons of places to eat and drink. You can walk to everything. We have a few drinks at one of the bars along the shoreline.

However, there is a dark side here called Yacyreta. It is a huge dam that has flooded a huge area, parts of Posadas and Encarnacion have been submerged. Thousands and thousands of people have been relocated. Its taken about 20 years to complete and cost 10 times the proposed amount, largely due to all the relocation and construction associated with the new shoreline. My host family describes it as a model of corruption. Many people are very opposed to the project.

We pack up and head out of Posadas on our way to Corrientes. We pick up the paper with our interview and photo, we are all named by name, very cool. Along the way to Corrientes we stop and visit the Yacycreta Dam. It is enormous, but its different than Itaipu. It really seems like a poor place to build a dam, it make us wonder who really profited from the dam.

We are meet some Rotarians from Corrientes at a restaurant and eat lunch. They drive us to Corrientes and deliver us to our host families. We will be here for 3 days and we have meetings tonight and tomorrow night.

Neil