Mid February heat wave

For days I’ve intended to write as soon as I finish my debedres (homework). The truth is, mi profesora Soledad, gives me at least six hours of work to do each night. With three hours of class, one hour each way of commuting, an hour or so of walking, maybe a few hours at a restaurant if I can wait that late to eat and I have no ability to extract words from my puny brain (while you can eat at a confiteria anytime between opening and closing, most restaurantes close between lunch and supper (if they serve lunch at all) and supper doesn’t begin until 8 at the earliest). I like the late start to supper but if I don’t have time for lunch I’m often hungry after class. A few restaurantes have reduced menus until supper begins—this week I was lucky to grab a pizza in my neighborhood at around 7 p.m. Pizza in most places is considered a snack because the main draw besides Italian is grilled meat of any imaginable variety, many of which I have to look up in my dictionary. At this place, the pizza varieties were unusual, for example, spinach and sliced hard boiled eggs (which show up in almost everything), and roquefort and mushroom (which I had and enjoyed). They are shaped as rectangles and cut into little squares. Pizza is a good option for me as una vegetariano since I can trust that there will not be any hidden meat (unless it comes in the pizza sauce but that’s usually stated). The first week I was here, before I knew better, I said ‘yes’ to ravioli with tomato sauce not knowing that it would be stuffed with jamon. I’m buying and ordering fewer unexpected things (like a pound of ground coffee with sugar—who reads a coffee bag?) so I think that I’m making progress.



Which leads to what am I doing here, as some of you have asked me. The short answer is that I am studying Spanish intensively, thus the three hours of private lessons and six hours of homework five days of the week (and twelve hours of homework on the weekend). I came here without speaking any Spanish (except for words like mucho gracias and tequila and no hablo español) and I’m happy to report that I ‘graduated’ nevel I (I don’t know—that’s what it says on my book) this week and am now moving rapidly through nevel II. And why am I studying Spanish? That’s the long answer that I will only touch on now. Plan A is that I’m leaving Montevideo on February 26th for Buenos Aires where I will begin volunteering on March 1st. I am going to have to get back to that part of my trip later because this week I’ve also considered Plans B, C, & D and there are convincing arguments for each. But that at least provides you with an idea of why I’m in South America.



There are a few more things that stand out about Montevideo that I want to describe because even now I’m getting used to them and I might forget later on.



The first thing is the random appearance of men with guns. I do not know much about guns but these are always long so they are not pistols, and the size helps provide a threatening visual image. Generally the men are in pairs, but once I did see a solitary man. They are not policia, who wear labeled uniforms, and who never seem to be carrying visible guns. Nor do they have a unified uniform—I mean any given pair matches, but one pair doesn’t match another necessarily. The first time I saw an armed pair, they were in front of a travel agency. Actually I have seen some pair there three times. I concluded that it might have to do with the fact that Montevideo is a cash based society and the travel agency probably brings in many pesos and dollars (most transactions can be completed with dollars and ATMs usually give you the choice of pesos or dollars). So that made sense until I saw a solitary armed man standing over a huge hole in the road next to a curved sidewalk. He was dressed in an ochre uniform with a black sash and beret and he had his gun pointed toward the ground. I subsequently returned to the spot where I’d seen him from the bus, and discovered that it is next to a bank. I don’t know—maybe the fear was that someone would jump in and tunnel through to the bank or that a tunnel was being closed up? I keep forgetting to ask about the men with guns because so many other things happen that are more curious. Several times I’ve tried to take a picture of an armed man, but I get funny looks.



Like yesterday—I left class and started my walk. I either walk a mile or so and then catch the bus, or get off a mile early, or get off a mile past my stop or some combination thereof. I’m discovering all sorts of little neighborhoods and corner markets this way plus physically moving, reading new signs, and taking pictures. Yesterday I wanted to catch the bus at the stop closest to the Academia because it was very, very hot and I figured a walk along the rambla would make the most sense. Only something was very wrong. The Plaza Independencia had been barricaded, and no could travel around it. I thought it must be an impending parade but that was questionable since the school usually plans outings for Carnaval activities. Also, I saw a few people come out of buildings to cars that were parked within the barricades and look at them with confusion. I walked through the Plaza to get to the next block and saw two young guys, maybe twins, with shaggy blond hair, bare chested, wearing multi-colored hula skirts, walking up to people asking a question, having a finger pointed ostensibly to direct them, and so on. That added to my hypothesis that some kind of parade was imminent on Av. 18 de Julio. That’s where one of the big parades had been held earlier in the month, so really it was a safe assumption for me to make. But then I arrived to San Jose, the next street over, where people lined the street in a chaotic mess. It appears that I was not the only one who did not know about the parade. Unless your bus route happened to be along that street, you didn’t know where to stand, hoping that your bus would eventually make its way along this most logical, parallel street. So lots of people were standing in the street, asking each other where to go. Buses from Av. 18 de Julio (I don’t know—it’s always written that way) drove down the street and buzzed on by, or stopped every 50 yards or so when a person stood in the street, arms a-waving. I asked a woman if she knew if the 14 or 104 was going to come down this street and she told me that no, those buses stopped on Av. 18 de Julio. Not new information and in fact irrelevant. So. I just started to walk, hoping to arrive at a corner at the same time as one of those buses, or a 128 or D1 as well. The 14 came first and I basically stepped in front of it so it would stop (along with a few other people…I’m not that brave in traffic). People were squashed into what is usually a happily full bus and it was so, so, so hot that you could smell the confusion. I had to get off as soon as I recognized a landmark so ended up about two miles out, but it was amazing how much the confusion jostled people and how uncomfortable it was to be part of it. I am in a perpetual state of confusion, so it was not a new feeling for me…but the mass confusion was something else. To cap this story: when I saw the administrator at school the next day, a woman born and bred in Montevideo, she told me that this most amazing thing had happened—a parade she did not know about interrupted her commute home. Surprises for everyone.



But I love my walks. I’ve spoken about the small markets, but there are even smaller shops and I don’t quite understand who the shopkeepers are selling to. I mean a dress shop with maybe 17 dresses of different styles, but only the one size hanging. If you go into a shop and you ‘buy by size’ it means you buy whatever size is out there. So in these small dress shops you might have 3 size 0s, 4 size 1s, 5 size 2s, 4 size 3s and that’s it. But all different styles. Much of what is out in women’s clothing now is 100% cotton, made in Peru or Brasil. (Uruguay has fine leather and wool but not cotton, it appear.) I’ve seen dress shops, shoe shops, purse shops, anything shops with tiny selections like that. Skinny, shallow, the size of my home office. And lots of the shops have a banner with liquidacion written on it to signify an end-of-the-summer sale. Other shops have odd combinations of things for sale. There is one on the Av. that seems to sell stoves and motorbikes, or maybe motorcycles. The door to it opens like a garage, and the two sides are lined with stoves, all white, and there is a large middle section, flanked by walking aisles, with brightly colored motor-things. That’s it—white stoves and multi-colored motorbikes. I’ll walk by it and take a picture before I leave.



I’ve recently given out some pesos to singers on the bus. Today a man played the guitar and sang a beautiful ballad with a strong bass. The other day someone with one of those contraptions that lets you play the harmonica and the guitar at the same time sang ‘Blowing in the Wind’ with a lovely Spanish accent that made many of the words indistinguishable. I haven’t heard any women yet. But I have discovered another way some people collect pesos—parking assistance. Sometimes a person will stand in a parking spot and then wave a driver in and get a handout. The other night I saw someone helping a driver back out of a diagonal spot and get something in exchange. I’m still very troubled by the men, and some very young boys, digging through the dumpsters for what can be salvaged. But I suspect that they make more money over the recyclables that are thrown away. I know that it will be even more difficult when I get to BA where there is greater economic disparity.



There really is so much more of importance to tell, but there is one strange thing that I happened to see again last night so it gets earlier billing. Sometimes when I am doing my homework, I turn on the television that, with rabbit ears, only gets 3.5 local channels (I don’t think I’ve had rabbit ears since I lived in Green Bay!). Since I’m working late at night, I often get the not-for-prime-time programs. On Friday nights there is a program that I have to explain visually. The top left quarter plays music videos like the old MTV, the bottom left quarter has advertisements that last for about 30 seconds each, mostly about adult entertainment, other times about vacation spots or hotels, or shops but probably related to risqué endeavors. Then on the right is a rolling banner with short personal ads—probably the length of a tweat. And while the personal ads are rolling—actually the whole time—there are two people talking, sometimes about the ads, sometimes about events of the day, sometimes even singing along with the refrain of the music video. That’s what caught my attention in the first place—a woman interrupting her discussion with her partner to sing out muy linda since I knew what the words meant. And then I realized that I could understand the personals. Hmmm. I don’t know what that says about the people writing them since I haven’t been at this Spanish thing all that long.



I thought that would be my last paragraph, but I want to write about the other students. Most of us are taking private classes, half of us are from the U.S., and about two-thirds of the students are about twenty or more years older than I am. I believe that I am the only person who came here without either Spanish or purpose (some people are studying at the Universidad and brushing up on their language skills or have come to retire). This very nice man who wears a USC cap every day had on a 1999 UW Rose Bowl sweatshirt one day so I asked him if he was an alum. He said no, but that he’d grown up in Wisconsin. I asked where, and he said I would never have heard of it. In Uruguay, even Wisconsin was an unknown. People want you to say New York or Los Angeles or Chicago. So he was positive. Ha! He said Neenah and I said Menasha, just like that, and told him about living in Green Bay to his raised eyebrows and now he is my one daily English fix, even though we are not ‘allowed’ to speak English while at school.



Well, I’d better start my essay since they take me a long time. I keep needing to use tenses that I haven’t learned and it takes a lot of brain cells to twist a sentence into present or future perfect or preterite perfect simple, or use a gerund when you want a subjunctive or conditional. (So I’m only writing that last sentence to let you know that while there are various types of profesoros at the Academia, I’ve been put in with the LINGUISTS not the straight up language or literature teachers, and this is how I have to learn to read and write). Anyway, at least my linguist has a sense of humor. Last night I had to write: Yo soy una princesa porque… (I am a princess because….). Mi profesora liked it so much that she wants me to type it (it is handwritten) so that she can keep a copy for her files. Tonight I will write Fui a Grecia y…Since the verb construction of the pretérito perfecto simple for to be and to go is the same, I’m told that I need to consider the context. Honestly! Well we’ll see if it works when I get to BA.



Oh! In my notes about what I wanted to record I wrote: …that attractive women do not seem to mind having little bellies, meaning that washboard abs are not required to be considered beautiful AND that it is really endearing to see EVERYONE air kiss, men to women, women to women, men to men. While I’ve been air kissed (right side only remember) by strangers, it seems obligatory if I see someone a second time or more, if I am meeting someone who knows someone I know, or as I make the rounds, taking leave for the day. And that the predominate brands of cars seem to be: Renaults, Peugots, and the old-fashioned VW Bug.



I will post some more pictures when I get to a real Internet connection again. I have some good ones.



Chau.