finally, montevideo

I have been waiting for an opportune time to write, when I could fully describe the color, texture, smell and taste of this city, but I am a slow student, and I struggle with my homework each night. Even tonight I have thirty pages to go before I can go to sleep, but I need to put some thoughts down before I’ve become so inured to the distinguishing characteristics of my temporary home that I have nothing much to say. So I will write in unconnected, but perhaps temporal bulleted paragraphs. And when I can, I will add pictures (the problem in doing this will be explained below).

Arrival: Daniel, who drives a remise and greeted me with a small white board displaying my name, demonstrated the first new thing for me: air kisses are to one side only—the right. Several times I’ve automatically gone for the left as well, or even started that way, but I think I have the hang of it now. On the other side of Daniel’s whiteboard was written: Hi, I’m Daniel. Please wait for me while I get the car. Oh, and since accents are such a huge part of the written language, my name is always spelt correctly with an ё.

Montevideo is very proud of its malls. There are three, and each hotel—there are very few—describe themselves in terms of their proximity to a mall or the Ciudad Vieja. The one I can walk to is a rehabbed prison. Imagine many little shops, probably the size of three or four cells, around a central area with a pathway for guards….no windows….and you have it.

The 1980’s are big in Montevideo. I read this before I arrived and wasn’t quite sure what this meant except that I’ve heard Billy Idol in television ads, seen lots of graffiti about Guns & Roses, and their visit to the city in March is being heavily advertised. Fredd says this is more the early nineties but what do I know.
The city is an amalgamation of gorgeous turn of the 20th century buildings, many of which are now home to squatters (I do have pictures of this), and lots of concrete 1970s monstrosities near the rambla, which is the avenue or promenade near the river platte. In between are very lovely single family dwellings.

The city is easy to navigate—a few main streets, all cross-able by pedestrians, and a significant bus system. Unlike most things, the buses are not unified—there are four or five companies and they share bus stops, but not numbers. Some of them are express buses and they cost 21 pesos—they have mobile seats—and the rest cost 16 pesos. 16 pesos is about 80 cents, by the way. Only the direct buses (the D buses) appear to have schedules; the others appear whenever. One thing they do have in common is curtains. At first I thought I was supposed to pull a string to get a stop but it’s just the bottom of the curtain. Some buses have conductors as well as drivers. And all buses need to be waved down. They do not stop just because it is a bus stop, and you have to be emphatic with your wave.

Streets have no signs, but I’ve easily gotten used to that with my map. Once you are on a street, you can read the nameplate on a residence or business and figure out what street you are one. So it is only a momentary inconvenience if you’ve not read the map correctly.

Another physical characteristic is phone booths…not booths exactly but those things we had before they disappeared. People have cell phones of course, and they are all ‘topped off’ with purchased minutes via a card. In fact, that is how I use internet. I have a 3G network modem and I’ve run through 3 cards because I was not understanding idea of traffic going both ways. At least this is what the guy at Movistar (yes that’s the spelling) told me when I showed up within 36 hours of purchasing a 500 pesos card. He even found someone who spoke English (yes, yes, yes) to give me a lecture about kb and gb and my general disregard for the preciousness of internet traffic. That is why I am going to wait until I am at the Academia to upload pictures since I think they have a different agreement with the Internet lords.

The Academia: I am learning a variant of Spanish called rioplatenese. It is peculiar Uruguay and other places on the Rio Platte, namely Buenos Aires. There are several things I could tell you about this, but the most important is: instead of ‘ll’ being pronounced as a ‘y’ it is pronounced as a ‘sh’. So, ‘cash-e’ for calle, and ‘shama’ for llama. And, it extends to y’s in general. So, instead of ‘yo’ or ‘jo’ it is ‘sho’. Now, one of my friends who studies languages says that I will not be totally confused once I leave the area, but who knows. I think it is my nature to be confused, so perhaps it doesn’t really matter at all.

The people: they really could give a **** about touristas. They are here, they love it, if you want to visit that’s fine, but they aren’t going to make an effort to get you to come. It’s refreshing that there are not tourist traps. It is refreshing that the people are unpretentious and dress for the weather (hot & humid) rather than in the heels and fancy clothes that other women going to other Latin countries wore on my plane from Dulles to Panama City (a gateway to central & south America!) It is refreshing that this is a secular country and religion—what religion—is underplayed.

The thing about the people that is the most peculiar to me is the Yerba Mate (pronounced Sherba). Here it is 80-90 degrees and humid. And a large number of people walk the streets with a thermos of hot water and their mate gourd containing a metal straw and the tea. So, always the thermos under one arm, and the gourd in the same hand or the other depending upon whether or not you’re actively drinking. And slurping loudly is a sign of enjoyment. I’ve been told that it’s a sign of being with the people to have setup, but I’m not there yet.

On the other hand, as a vegetarian, I’ve made great acquaintance with the Italian influence on the city. Some even say the pronunciation of the Spanish is an Italian influence. But I’ve also seen this refuted in scholarly journals o who knows. What I do know is that I’m having some of the best Italian food I’ve had, even compared to Italy. I know now to order pesto when I can because no matter what I say, I might get meat otherwise. The best thing, for me, and perhaps only a few people would guess that this would be a surprise treat, is that the Uruguyans (Uruguashans) make a mean grappa! Lynn Connaway if you are reading this I am definitely talking to you! And their red wine (which is tinto not rojo as I learned) is also wonderful. But they don’t care if we know about it or not.

Everyone seems to have a job. Every building has a doorman (yes man). And there are people who drive horses and carts through the city. Their job is to go through the garbage for the recyclable items. You can hear the horses hoofs amidst the street traffic and it’s so discordant that you can’t help but look. I have a picture of that too. I did however see some kind of truck thing that was being loaded with cardboard. Maybe there is a hierarchy of garbage sifting…

People seem to be uninhibited sexually and about drinking. If you don’t finish a bottle of wine at a restaurant it is put in a bag, but the top is left exposed in case you want to continue to drink it on the way home. Ads in the bus shelters are beyond provocative and television—as in the kind I get with rabbit ears—has all the juicy parts of R-rated movies left in. On the playas and park benches, PDAs are curiously intimate and people sometimes stop and observe.
And yet some things seem like throwbacks to the fifties. When buy my six ravioli at the grocery store it is wrapped with paper and tied with a string. A funny little package to bring home and microwave.

So the fruits and vegetables are fresh (and no preservatives in prepared food!), the toilet paper is scratchy, the sidewalks are uneven and missing pavers, dog poop is all over the place, Visa signs are banners in every public place…I absolutely love it.

More real stuff later, Z