Chronicles from the South // Crónicas del sur

New-to-you blog

2009-07-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Hola a todos! Please visit my new blog project: http://livedcartographies.blogspot.com.

Chronicles from the South

2009-01-17T07:14:00.001-08:00

I taught my first class in over a year earlier this week. Suddenly, after months away—comfortably sheltered between parentheses—I stood once again before 27 pairs of eyes, stressing the importance of proper pronunciation and the position of accent marks. “No one gets out of doing their homework, and everyone should do their best to participate,” I heard myself saying. In the span of an instant, I felt a world away from Uruguay.

However, what I hope to teach my students over the course of this semester (and all those yet to come) is to look through the cracks in this grand structure we call language—just one of the metaphorical dividing lines between us and them, here and there—to find what unites their lives with the world around them.

I will tell them, for example, that my time in South America has actually resembled my experience in the southern part of America. I will reiterate what they already know: My wanderings through the South have taught me that sometimes the simplest things in life are the finest, and that even if you don’t earn much, humility and respect always pay big. I’ll introduce them to something new: Life—like sweet tea and mate—is always better when taken slowly and with friends. Most importantly, though, I hope to convey what may be the best lesson of all: Even the most far-off places are intrinsically connected by a common journey we must all undertake—the pursuit of life.

So, the position of accent marks may never be relative, but our position in the world is, since the path we choose to create is always more significant than our final destination.

Thank you for joining me on this phase of my journey, and may the chronicles of your life lead you to the South.

New Old Life

2009-01-02T05:20:00.001-08:00

I recently read Nando Parrado´s Miracle in the Andes, a first-person account of the 1972 plane crash that took the lives of 29 Uruguayan rugby players, and launched the remaining 16 into reluctant stardom. You might remember the 1993 film "Alive." It was fact, not fiction.

Anyway, for lack of a better term, I devoured the book, hanging on every word, every harrowing moment, every attempt to stay alive. Parrado´s perspective transported me directly to the crash site, where I tried to imagine my role had I been trapped in the Andes for 72 days.

It was a futile attempt; I will never know how I would´ve reacted in that exact situation. Be that as it may, aspects of Parrado´s story resonated with me. At the time of the crash, he considered himself a dreamer: a wanderer in constant, restless search of new challenges and adventures.

As he and his childhood friends clung precariously to life—merely existing from one breath to the next—Parrado mentions a revelation, one that ultimately saved his life. It went something like this: Love is the only force worth living for and the only real adventure. His account turned the “tragedy in the Andes,” as it often referred to here, into a miracle, proving that love—the kind we feel for our family, friends, lovers, and life—is the only thing powerful enough to move us over mountains.

I´d like to think I know what Parrado is talking about and that, in some small way, I´ve united my biggest adventures and challenges with the love I feel for others. The circumstances of my life may have led me far from the place I was born, but they have´t led me away from the people I love and who love me, since I seem to find both everywhere I go.

So, as 2008 transitioned seamlessly to 2009, I remembered it doesn´t take being trapped in the Andes to realize such an important lesson. It doesn´t take being far from home, and it certainly doesn´t take a new year. Each day gives us the opportunity to build a new life based on the old, in which we construct who we are and the path before us on one foundation alone: love and miracles.

My first sunrise of 2009.

A Uruguayan Christmas, recounted in reverse

2008-12-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

I can’t recall when exactly Christmas began in the Southern Hemisphere. Intuition would tell me that it started on the morning of the 25th, but like my friend Christina (very eloquently) observed in her blog, among the distance, sun, and sand, my internal compass has sent me off course more than once recently.

Although, I do have the distinct impression that Christmas actually began in the waning hours of the 24th, as my Uruguayan family and I launched wrapping paper and fireworks towards the sky, watching with wonder as each shot through the air with a dull roar--suspended briefly on our breath—and quickly descended back to Earth.

Maybe Christmas started earlier that evening, as I took just one more pull from the yerba mate my friend handed to me on his rooftop terrace—overlooking the city that’s taken me under its care this year--, where I held my breath and tried to suspend reality for just one more instant.

Or maybe it started earlier that afternoon at the Mercado del Puerto, where I joined the masses as we drenched one another in cider and excitement, where young men suspended themselves from fountains and monuments—new targets for the jeers and bottles circulating among the crowd—and where I sighed a breath of relief for having toughed it out: filthy, but alive.

But maybe—just maybe—Christmas started earlier that morning, as I opened my eyes and drew in my first conscious breath of the day, suddenly unsure what to expect from what would have been the most familiar of days.

If ever I intuited that this life would be normal, I’m glad my compass has led me so far off course.

A reluctant idealist

2008-12-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Fernanda says she is a misanthrope. That’s what I understood, at least, when she confessed recently to not liking most people. In fact, I heard echoes of Holden Caulfield as she deconstructed her disappointment in humanity, chiding herself for having once had high expectations.

Fernanda says she is a misanthrope, but I’m not sure I believe her. If anything, she is a reluctant idealist.

This is how I know why:

We met about a month ago, at a tango bar in the heart of Montevideo. I was with a friend. So was she. At some point in the night—although, I can’t remember when exactly—we exchanged a friendly glace, toasted our wine, and began a conversation that flowed with as much ease and grace as the couples dancing around us. Talking to her was exciting and felt, in a way, like a transgression.

She told me about the place where she was born—Tigre, a small town near Buenos Aires—and the origin of her family, which unites the Old World with the New. She referred to America as a concept, a fantasy—a verb conjugated in the future tense—, and admitted to having learned German for a man she once loved. She recounted her adventures as an archeologist in training and traced the circumstances that led her from the northernmost point of Argentina, where Chile and Bolivia share a contested frontier, to the tranquil coast of Uruguay.

In the story of her life, I saw reflections of my own.

And for all of her misgivings about the world—which she confessed to me in secret—I discovered a woman brimming with life, whose heart still beats to the rhythm of new opportunities. Whose eyes focus on the possibility of what is yet to come. Whose arms embrace new friends with love.

Fernanda still swears she is a misanthrope, but reassures that, for me, she’ll make an exception.

Fernanda, another friend, and I spent last weekend in Cabo Polonio, a national park and beach community to the East of Montevideo. There's no running water or electricity, and it is, by far, the most "tranquilo" place in Uruguay.

Cumplimos años

2008-12-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

My tattoo turned a decade old today.

I got it in Spain, near the red-light district in Madrid, at a vintage clothing store that also served, to my delight, as a tattoo parlor. I spent weeks sizing up the place, returning with some frequency to revise racks of clothing and thumb through pages of designs, trying to appear as non-committal as possible.

After months of this silent, one-sided courtship, an employee finally approached me and reassured that they could have me pinned down, inked up, and ready for a family lunch in under an hour. I muttered a few unintelligible phrases in Spanish and quickly backed out of the store, just as my fear was giving way to a complete loss of self-control and proper bodily function. It was clear to me: she who hates needles would need more time. So, I considered more designs.

I contemplated a Japanese fish and even glanced at an Egyptian eye.

Finally, though, I settled on a sun. Just a sun. Although, really, it’s a sun people often mistake for a wheel, which is just as good, in my opinion. It reminds me of Apollo in his chariot, dragging a huge, fiery disk across the sky, and thus giving rise and rest to the day. It reminds me of the word revolution: change and continuity.

I can’t attribute my tattoo to any famous artist, or some raucous night of partying. Rather, it was born of the imagination and intuition of a 17-year-old girl who knew that no matter how far she wandered from home—and, at times, it would be far—the sun would always shine on her back as her head and heart faced the future. It marks the decision I made to become a part of the world—the kind of birth I could control.

My tattoo turned ten today. The canvass it graces turned 27.

I pass by this stand on the way to the gym.

2008-11-26T17:24:00.000-08:00

For this, and many other things, I am thankful.

Laugh at the lemons

2008-11-20T04:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, I confess: I cried today as I rolled up my winter clothes and packed them tightly into the suitcase, anticipating my departure in a little over a month. This year has been amazing, intense, difficult, and beautiful—all at once. Each aspect overwhelmed me, in the span of an instant, as I packed up the pieces of my Uruguayan life.

I’d like to think I’m beyond clichés, and that years of academic training have taught me to avoid them. However, my only consolation in that moment was the saying: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

They are words to live by.

Take my middle name, for example. It’s Millington. Yes, Millington. As you can imagine, having a name associated with a 1960s British porn star has made life a little more, well, interesting. And my pre-teen years? Call it Murphy’s Law or just bad luck, but I always seemed to find myself among bubbly girls with cute middle names like Mary and Michelle, Sarah and Clara. Occasionally there was an Elizabeth. From time to time, there was a Yvonne. I, on the other hand, was no more and no less than Rebbecca MILLINGTON Pittenger. Count ‘em up—that’s a nine-syllable name. It seemed to belong to someone older, stronger and more convicted, which I guess could be true now. At the time, though, it felt like dead weight—worse than baby fat, glasses, and getting hit by a car combined—and only made heavier the pre-adolescent tonnage that was seventh grade.

But, with time, Millington became Millie, and with her, my fabulous alter-ego. Millington, who was once shy and awkward, became a sharp-tongued, Chanel suit-wearing force of a woman. Suddenly, life made designer lemonade.

Plus, if it weren´t for Millington, there would be less of Rebbecca (fewer letters anyway).

And since I’m in the mood to confess and this has been a year that, in many ways, has brought me full circle in life, I think it’s only appropriate to admit that, for me, multiple sclerosis is also shaped like a lemon. I found out ten years ago—the day I returned from Spain—that my mother has it. I didn’t tell anyone at first, and then when I did, only one of my closest friends. It was a secret, another Millington.

Eventually, though, just like my name, I got used to the idea and lightened up about my family’s new reality. We now poke fun at my mom’s occasional lapse in memory—her “blueberry” moments—and the thing that scares us most actually brings us closer together.

So, as I pack up my life, bringing this journey to its natural conclusion, I’m reminded that this decision represents more than just leaving or staying in Uruguay. It’s about an unspoken commitment I made to be an active member of my family, the challenge I accepted years ago to start living up to my name--and, whenenver I can, to laugh as I make lemonade.

Today was one of those days when the Rio de la Plata better resembles an ocean than a river.

Conscientious observer

2008-11-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

I become more convinced every single day that one of my roles in life—at least thus far—has been to observe the American zeitgeist from abroad.

No, really.

Exactly ten years ago I was a wide-eyed exchange student to Spain, where I used my limited, poorly-pronounced Spanish to explain concepts I was barely familiar with in English: impeachment, perjury, and dare I say, fellatio. I was in Chile in 2003, when the War in Iraq began. My Spanish was far better by that point, but since my outlook differed so radically from my hosts’, I became uncharacteristically tight-lipped. Now, for the third time in my life, I watched from distant shores as America redefined itself yet again.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous last Tuesday. But as the BBC commentators relaxed and announced Obama the winner early in the night, all I could do was smile and follow suit. As Virginia came out blue and then North Carolina, Hawaii and then California, I knew I could sleep well and wake to a new day in American politics.

And that’s exactly what I did. I got up early last Wednesday, breathing a little bit deeper—head held just a little bit higher. When I went to the store for some croissants and milk, the owner asked me what I thought: victory or tragedy? I just smiled and told him I was “Contenta. Más que contenta, de hecho: contentísima.”

I don’t know if all Uruguayans are as excited as I am about Obama’s victory. People are generally distrustful of politicians here, and some, like journalist Edwardo Galeano, are skeptical a single leader will be capable of dismantling and reassembling our malfunctioning political system. He writes: “¿Podrá cambiar el rumbo asesino de un modo de vida de pocos que se rifan el destino de todos? Me temo que no, pero ojalá que sí.”

What does seem to have people abuzz in Uruguay, where voting is compulsory and everyone seems to have an opinion regarding politics, is that Americans from all walks of life came out en masse (and with so much passion!) for this election. Like most people here and the world over, we were patient and determined as we stood in line for hours and mailed in absentee ballots, just to have our voice heard. Here they seem less concerned about race than the fact that Americans finally motioned for other important changes—in ideology, rhetoric, perspective—and defended the nation’s founding principles. In fact, one friend even told me that, although he resents “Yankee imperialism,” he finds his respect for democracy in America renewed.

I have to say I agree with him. I’m proud that people my age overcame their disenchantment with the voting process, and I’m proud that people my brother’s age made their first experience so meaningful. And as long as I’m away from home and far from the people I love the most—and all things familiar—I’m proud just to be a conscientious observer.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear: yes we can, yes we did, yes we will.

2008-11-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

Standing on the shores of the Río de la Plata
I hear America singing.

I hear America singing from the edge of Grant Park to the hollers of Appalachia, from the low country delta to the peak of Katahdin.

I hear America singing the old hymns of democracy to updated melodies, renewing faith in the poetry of today, the possibility of tomorrow.

I hear America singing and the grassroots rustling under winds of change.

I hear America singing in the voice of the voiceless and tears of joy captured in song.

I hear America singing.

I hear America.

A semi-chance encounter with Padre Felipe

2008-10-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Padre Felipe, a Uruguayan priest who is also my dear friend Joshua’s spiritual advisor. We met in the plaza near my house, where we talked about everything from the tragedy in the Andes (he counseled the survivors and their families) to cold Chicago winters, the worldwide financial crisis to the difference between Evangelicals and Episcopalians.

He asked me not to hold on to his arm as we strolled along the rambla--he claimed it made him feel like an old man--, and I realized in that instant that I was in the presence of Grandpa Tress' Uruguayan doppleganger.

I enjoyed our encounter so much that it inspired me to write this poem. Enjoy!

Padre Felipe

It felt like chance
When I saw him waiting for me
At the edge of the plaza,
Right hand in his pocket,
Exactly where he said it would be.

He smelled of serenity
And ambrosia,
The stuff divinity is made of.

A river runs through Carrasco

2008-10-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

I hope I´ve convinced more than a few of you to pull out a map over the past couple of months, if nothing else to confirm just one more time the coordinates of this tiny, faraway country called Uruguay. If you have, you’ve noticed that the capital fans out from the banks of the Río de la plata, which keeping within the parameters of the marvelously real, supersedes the limits of any normal river. In all actuality, it´s an estuary. But no one ever tells you that: it´s referred to here as either river or sea (río or mar), even though everyone knows perfectly well it is neither. And in a country that shuns all things extreme—in politics, natural disasters, love—the Río de la plata represents a sobering exception to the rule.

With a body of water as wide as the one that entrenches this former military stronghold turned port city, it´s easy to find tributaries. In fact, the neighborhood where I live—Pocitos—was founded along the banks of one of the city´s many streams, where immigrant women from Italy and Spain would come to wash their clothes.

More recently—last Saturday, in fact—I became part of a rambling human river that cut through the heart of Carrasco, a wealthy neighborhood to the Northeast of the city center. Donning dark-blue shirts with at least four written references to the race´s sponsor—Reebok—five thousand Montevideanos (and at least three Americans, a Swede, and a Peruvian) congregated to run the city´s first of many spring-season 10k competitions.

The levee wall broke at exactly 5pm, releasing a body of seasoned and less-than-seasoned runners out onto the normally quiet, residential streets. From a distance, we must´ve looked like a river, running through the city, defying logic and the basic principles of engineering as we passed over the Bridge of the Americas.

To maintain my flow of energy, I focused on the ripples, watching the heels of those in front of me as they beat against the river bed, and then rapidly kicked back up--churning the stream, propelling it forward.

I tried my hardest to keep my running face on (which permits even less emotion than poker´s equivalent) during the entire race, cursed my joints and then quickly blessed them for holding out, and sailed past the finish line no less than six miles and an hour and seven minutes later.

And although Carrasco´s river won´t appear on any map you´re likely to find on the Internet, I´ve come to expect the unexpected from Uruguay—this, the most moderate of countries--, which unpretentiously turns rivers into seas over the span of generations, and bodies into currents in the matter of an instant.

Just in case you were wondering, only one person stopped me to ask if I was really from Kentucky.

I found this as I was backing up my laptop, which is finally working again. Yay!!

2008-10-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

(Nighthawks, Edward Hopper)

Isolation refracts
against reflectionless
glass walls,
caging the hawks
from the night.

Solitude is
sipped slowly,
kissed by lonesome lips,
silenced in
voiceless throats.

They sit
waiting in mute anticipation
for the new machinery of urban life
to produce better,
more efficient answers

to the question of seclusion,
the new industrial solution
to loneliness.

The fragments of my day, connected by commas and semicolons

2008-10-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

*Today I: counseled a friend on my living room couch, went to the ciber café, researched the “Constitución de Cádiz” in fit of mania and nerdiness until 1am, sent birthday wishes to a friend; slept, woke up early (too early), continued sleeping; woke and got up, retrieved dog from walker and thought for a second that both are adorable; *café con leche y pan*… just like every morning; called Florencia to tell her she´s a goddess; another day without my laptop, another second-long, grade-five panic attack; studied, pondered the significance of my name, dressed for gym; lifted . weights, laughed at my orange gym pants; listed to radio, showered, dressed; fixed lunch of fish and potatoes (but not fish and chips); collected coins for thus bus, rode to town; listened to private Tom Petty concert: “She was (I am) an American girl”; resisted urge to sing (typical), tapped feet instead; bought barrettes and headband on street, saw a shirt that read “angle” instead of “angel”; went to favorite ciber and laughed with employees, printed a bunch of articles but forgot them there, resisted urge to blush when I returned; *BLUSHED*; read articles at library for a class I refuse to get credit for, took a 5 (er… 45) minute break with Dave Brubeck; drank coffee while staring at mate machine, read about the philosophical dimensions of suffering; *phantom phone ringing*; read revolutionary pamphlet while waiting for class, left early; kissed a friend on the cheek and gave her three sips of red wine because she was nervous about a boy and poetry; laughed with abandon at bad rhymes, landed job as a graphic designer for a literary magazine called: Paréntesis (______); met up with a friend for beer in the barrio, sang tango, held my breath, and said Good Night to September.

*By "today," I mean yesterday.

¡¡VOTE!!

2008-09-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

This is my hand. My hand holds a pencil. The pencil allows me to fill in a bubble on the absentee ballot form. The absentee ballot form counts as one vote.

One vote represents a right and a civic duty.

This is me exercising my right, fulfilling my civic duty.

This is me voting.

Inspirado por Almodovar

2008-09-15T16:33:00.001-07:00

A veces, cuando me siento livianita de humor, voy al almacen de al lado y les cuento a los dueños, en un tono imperioso, que mi disertación doctoral se tratará de la alcahueta Almudena de Al-Andaluz que alcanzaba alimentarse exclusivamente de alfajores y alcohol, sentada todo el día sobre una almohada de algodón, cuya forma parecía a la de una alcachofa alucinante, desde dentro de un gran palacio real, que se llamaba: alcázar.

Se miran el uno al otro, y finalmente, sin decir ni mu, se me extienden la mano para que les pague, para que me calle por una sola vez.

¿Será que no les agrada

la aliteración?

Did I forget to mention I went to Machu Picchu?

2008-09-14T15:44:00.001-07:00

After my stay in Arequipa, I took an overnight bus ride to Cusco, Peru, former capital of the Incan empire. I heard the change in altitude could cause nausea and shortness of breath, so I prepared myself by sucking on coca candy throughout the night. The indigenous remedy worked, but I still felt sluggish my first day in this ancient city of just over 400,000.

That didn’t stop me, however, from touring the city, getting a quick bite of adobo (a traditional Peruvian dish consisting of… well, I’m not really sure what, but it’s good), and purchasing a ticket to Machu Picchu for the next day.

Cusco, located high in the Andes, is actually several hours from the most recent addition to the Wonders of the World, which is unofficially considered a gateway to the Amazonian jungle. Taking advantage of daylight hours, we departed Cusco around 7am and made our way along the treacherous pass leading to the lost city of the Incas. Six hours later, the terrain had changed radically, and the temperature, too. Mountains green with vegetation now surrounded us, banana trees, and mosquitoes. After a short train ride through the mountains, we arrived to Aguas Calientes, where we spent the night.

No earlier than 4:30am, our guide came knocking on our doors to make sure we were awake. Wiping the sleep from my eyes and dressing quickly, I made my way to the bus that would slither up the side of Machu Picchu, which means “Old Mountain.” When we finally arrived, the ruins were draped with a dense fog, adding to its air of mystery.

Machu Picchu, which served as a kind of university for Incan elite and then as a secret enclave after the Spanish invasion, is made up of hermetic stones, which speak to those who know how to listen.

And excites the imagination of those who visit.

Machu Picchu is more than just an image on a postcard. It’s the flight of a condor, the pulse of a heart, and the last effort of an empire to conceal its riches from sight, from inevitable plunder.

This is an electric baby Jesus I found in one of the cathedrals I visited in Lima, the capital of Peru. I toured the city briefly before heading home to Buenos Aires and then Montevideo.

Omnibus Diaries V - Diarios de omnibus V

2008-08-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

After a short stop in Tacna, Peru, I headed to Arequipa, or the "White City," a title that points as much to the city's European heritage as its white colonial buildings. It just so happened that I arrived on Arequipa Day, a yearly festival celebrating the city's foundation more than 450 years ago.

There was dancing in the streets.

And each embroidered skirt was more beautiful and ornate than the last.

I was asked to participate in the procession on more than one occasion.

The city of Arequipa is situated over 7,500 feet above sea level.

I stayed with Aroly while in Arequipa. She was an amazing tour guide and constant source of inspiration. And although she'll never admit it, she also makes the best roast chicken in town.

Omnibus Diaries IV - Diarios de omnibus IV

2008-08-25T19:08:00.001-07:00

This installment actually includes a few plane and car rides as well. From Santiago, I headed North to Iquique, where I spent the night, and from there to Arica, Chile, where I finally crossed the border into Peru.

Dunkin Donuts at the airport in Santiago: nothing could make me feel more at home.

Sea urchins are a delicacy in Chile.

On the border between Chile and Peru. The "Campo Minado" sign is testament to the strained relationship between these two countries.

Special taxis take you across the border from Arica. I traveled with a family from Iquique who was spending a long weekend in Peru. We listened to Milli Vanilli and Celin Deon on the way.

This monument, located in Tacna, Peru, is a memorial to the Peruvian and Bolivian soldiers who died in the War of the Pacific against Chile.

Omnibus Diaries III / Diarios de Omnibus III

2008-08-21T06:56:00.001-07:00

Chile is a country of constant change. The ground always moves here, shifting slightly throughout the day. Slowly and imperceptibly. At times, though, it shakes with such seismic fury that the country and its people come tumbling down.

Military dictators rise in violent coup d´etats and then gradually fade away… but never disappear entirely.

The most arid desert in the world gives way to a fertile central valley and flows south to the land of lakes, which eventually meanders around fjords and glaciers, at the bottom of the world.

And, in Santiago, a city I left behind five years ago, change is the only constant.

Tall buildings now stand where they did not before, defying the shaky ground beneath them. Business executives circulate among the city´s newest channels, chasing dreams and dollars. A few city plazas have disappeared; a few more shopping malls have been erected.

Even past the walls of the Larrain household—which had seemed so timeless, so cordoned off from change—things were different. My brothers are older now; in fact, I didn´t even recognize a few of them. No feelings were hurt. A new dog now keeps guard at the main gate, and an already numerous family has grown again, almost by the dozen.

Most importantly, though, coming back to Chile and the Larrain family I realize just how much I´ve changed since I was here last. I finally feel at home in this country, which, as Chileans will tell you, is no country for “debiles de caracter,” or the weak of character. I finally see that Chile and I even have a lot in common: We both have a strong, spiny backbone—which throws life out of joint from time to time—and a lovely interior. And amid all this change and transition—as Chile and I move in tandem—I realize that I have finally found a kind of peace at the precipice. From these staggering heights, I can finally see with clarity how far I´ve come and the road that lay ahead.

The Larrain household. In a changing world, the generosity and spirit of this family remains unchanged. Fittingly, the sign above the door reads: Pax, or peace.

These stairs lead to my room, affectionately known as la pieza de Becky, or "Becky´s room."

One of my adopted brothers, Jose Antonio (far left), some other friends, and I enjoy Santiago´s nightlife.

One of my favorite Aquarians, María Jose, and her daughter Martina. It took us meeting at Hiram five years ago to finally meet up inValparaiso.
Valparaiso,

de mis sueños, de mis versos, de mis suspiros.

Omnibus Diaries II - Diarios de omnibus II

2008-08-12T08:18:00.001-07:00

I guess if I had to be stranded somewhere in the world, I wouldn't mind it being Mendoza, Argentina.

My original plan was to leave Mendoza early Monday morning, cross the Andean pass by noon, and arrive to Santiago de Chile by early afternoon. However (and I feel like this trip has been defined by "howevers"), when I purchased my ticket and boarded the bus, we were informed that the road leading to Chile had been closed because of inclimate weather conditions (ie snow and high winds). So, what is normally a hypothetical statement--"if I had to be stranded somewhere in the world..."--quickly became reality. Fortunately, I had just enough pesos to get me through the night (I found a few more for the rest of my trip, but not without a day-long battle with the ATMs of Mendoza), and by 9:30 the next morning I was on my way to Chile.

The trip between Mendoza and Santiago is approximately six hours long. That all depends, of course, on weather conditions and traffic. Yes, traffic. The mountain pass is often closed at a moment's notice, which means that tour buses and truck drivers alike must either return to their starting point or wait out the delay, which can last as long as two days. It's not surprising, then, that this quiet mountain pass can quickly become a bustling highway.

This is a small community cemetery I spotted along the way. Just one of the many advantages of traveling by bus.

One of the advantages of waiting an extra day was that I got to see the Andes with a fresh layer of snow. It looked like a white cotton blanket and reminded me just how far from home I really am.

The "W" doesn't have anything on these s-curves.

Omnibus Diaries I - Diarios de omnibus I

2008-08-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

If I thought this trip were novel in any way, I would be terribly mistaken. The road that has led me to Mendoza, Argentina and which will lead me soon to Santiago, Chile is already well-traveled, and I’m hardly the first wide-eyed adventurer attempting to pave the ground beneath her feet with the written word. Truth be told, in many ways, Latin America has always been something of a literary creation, fashioned out of the vision of its explorers: conquistadors and chroniclers alike. Christopher Columbus faithfully documented his perception of the New World during his three trips to the continent, for example, exciting fantasies of earthly paradise and material wealth for centuries to come. More recently, Ernesto “Ché” Guevara’s “Motorcycle Diaries” map his wanderings around South America as well as his account of an ideal, unified America, a vision that continues to divide the continent.

I am by no means the first person to chronicle this kind of journey through the south, nor will I be the last.

Accordingly, I find myself adjusting to the footprints left behind in the path before me—some of them belonging to members of my own family—and pages already written.

Like any good traveler, though, I continue to search for ways to make this journey mine--to find my own way and write my own story. So, as I roam along this well-beaten path, which will take me far from home and then back again, I hope to learn from the people who have made this journey before me, relishing in all of the steps and inevitable missteps along the way.

Crossing the plain in Argentina. The bus ride was 24 hours long. I read an enitre book along the way, slept, and was silent.

I stayed with Valentina (to my left) while in Mendoza. Shortly after my arrival, we went to her friend's house for a girl's-only lunch, where we looked at lots of pictures and discussed politics. They were all GREAT!

On my last full (scheduled) day in Mendoza, I went with my hostess, her family (read: mom and dad, grandma, sister, sister's boyfriend), and best friend Natacha on a tour of the city. We even drove high into the Andes and took this picture from this less-than-steady bridge.

Nuevo Amanecer

2008-08-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

I invite all of you to check out the website I have created for Nuevo Amanecer, a community center I´ve been working with in Montevideo.

Nuevo Amanecer forms part of a network of community centers in Piedras Blancas (a community on the outskirts of Montevideo) and provides approximately 200 underprivileged children an after-school snack during the week and a small lunch on Sundays.

As well as creating the site, I am also working with my sponsoring club (the Hamilton Place Rotary Club in Chattanooga) to construct an on-site playground.

Check it out, and please feel free to share your thoughts!

Just another uruguayo

2008-08-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

So what does it mean to be Uruguayan? Most simply, it means to have been born in the country bearing the name “Uruguay.” However, being Uruguayan is also a way of life, one that includes, at least superficially, sharing mate (an herbal infusion sipped out of a leather gourd) with friends, devouring alfajores, and taking long walks along the rambla. And, as if anyone could forget, eating lots and lots of meat.

Over the past two weeks, Salman had the chance to share with me what it means to be Uruguayan. His first day in Montevideo began with a crash course on how to properly drink mate, a brief history of the alfajor (an Arab pastry dating back to 8th-century Spain), and an introduction to the Spanish of the Rio de la Plata. The days to follow included a trip to Colonia, long walks around Ciudad Vieja, playtime with Lucas, and a family barbecue, where Salman was officially inducted as another member of the Caja/Arocena clan.

Maybe Salman´s most important discovery during his stay in the Republica Oriental de Uruguay, as it is known officially, was that being Uruguayan also means being a good friend and an active member of the family. It means talking about football (the international kind)… lots and lots of football. It means saying hello to your neighbors and chatting with the shop owners from around the corner. It means enjoying the simple things and being equally unpretentious and hospitable.

I guess you could say that, by the end of his stay, Salman figured out that he had come all the way to the end of the world only to find people just like him, that he was just another Uruguayo.

El verbo America

2008-07-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Si la palabra verbo es conjugar los jugos de tiempo, el verbo América es la historia
y los juegos que allí se enjuagan entre el Mediterraneo y lo que la Europa llama América.
Vínculos y culturas del Mediterráneo, que es Asia, Africa y Europa, con las,
conjugares, araucanas, patagónicas, quechuas, incaicas, tahumaras, hopi, zuni, haida, esquimales y milientas otras del extremo occidente del Pacífico (rusias, coreas, japones, chinas, indias, malayas, sepic, maori, pascuences etc.) porque el Océano Pacifico será el futuro Mediterráneo y las Américas su puente de tierra con la Europa.

El verbo América es conjugar participios pasados con presentes condicionales, es reorganizar todos los pretéritos de las cuentas, cuentos, de indios del Mediterráneo con, los indígenas de América y del Pacífico; es poner bien los dedos en lo que los une, en vez de -preciarse con megatónicas megalomanías.
El verbo América es estrujar la cultura tradicional del Mediterráneo con un probable arte nacional de América.
Todo esto es todavía , una arriesgada convicción,
un proceso de construcción,
una concentrada ficción,
un aparato de recuerdos,
un tormento mítico,
un matrilmonío, cósmico,
un mundo tan reciente que parece escondrijo,
una búsqueda de tierras prometidas,
una gana que carece de nombre,
una amenaza de pecado,
un catálogo de nudoso,
una recreación circular como un puente de tierra.
No importa! lo que parece, pero funda y difunda apareceres.
Que se descubran, que se vean sin trapos los unos en los Otros.
El verbo América, es búsqueda de acontecímientos que no se cuentan en el cuento.
Porque el lago de logos que es el Mediterráneo será el lago del Pacífico, el lago global.

Roberto Matta

Neither on nor off the beaten path.

2008-07-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

For some reason, when referring to whether or not what we do or see in a day is commonplace, we tend to think of things as being either on or off the beaten path. What, though, about all the random, slightly bizarre things that make up our everyday lives? Do they jolt us from our stroll along the beaten path, or do they do they simply make that well-worn trail just a little less tedious, only slightly more tolerable?

Here are a few pictures of everyday things that just didn’t seem to fit anywhere else.

I love this mural; it leaves me wanting to know more, like what the woman on the right is doing and thinking.

The sign above the tube reads: "Stop. Under repair."

I'm still convinced this is the best way to get around Montevideo.

Carlos Gardel and his impersonator. There are actually several in this city...

An asado. On the street. Next to a construction site.

4th of July rhymes with Uruguay! (I am SO sorry about this title)

2008-07-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

It had all of the makings of a traditional Fourth of July celebration: cotton candy, hotdogs and hamburgers with all the right condiments, hordes of Americans milling about, indiscriminately double dipping and discussing pleasantries, like the weather and the potato sack race taking place outside. The only thing that made my Fourth of July different this year was the fact that I celebrated it on a cold day in July (which still sounds funny to me, if nothing else because it’s slightly reminiscent of another saying we have in English) in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. To be more exact, from exactly 12-3 pm last Friday afternoon the neatly manicured lawn of the US Ambassador to Uruguay, Frank Baxtor, better resembled the setting of a Tennessee-style barbeque than the residence of an international dignitary.

I arrived to the event uninvited but with my passport in hand, ready to prove that, by virtue of being born in the US—and Texas to boot!—I should be granted admittance to the party. I approached the security officers guarding the entrance and smugly handed them my documentation, knowing full well that my name did not appear on the list. They searched for a second among the Pattersons and the Pottingers but could not find me. Finally, sensing that I wasn’t going anywhere, they simply waved me on to the second phase of security: the metal detector. I was suddenly starting to feel at home in my surroundings.

The day’s celebration had a few aspects that were new to me, though. After passing by the hotdog stand more times than I care to admit (those of you who have attended a Lookout’s game with me know what I’m capable of), I made my way back inside for Ambassador Baxtor’s formal greeting, which included singing the Anthem and a short performance by an a cappella group from San Luis Obispo, California. Baxtor then addressed us directly, peering out over the crowd from the stairs of his home. In a speech more reminiscent of a fireside chat than a Fourth of July salute, the Ambassador reminded us of the generosity of the American spirit, something Toqueville observed in his early writings on America and which still stands true today.

I didn’t stay at the party much longer after Ambassador Baxtor’s speech; I had found the food comforting but was ready to slip back into my anonymity as an undercover American among Uruguayans. All the same, though, it was worth crashing the party just to say I had, spending a few welcome hours and inside jokes among compatriots.

They exist!!!

2008-06-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

In one of my recent blog entries, I doubted the existence of the afiladores, the modern Pied Pipers of Montevideo, who traverse city block after city block, in search of those in need of sharpened knives. Well, I’m here to confirm that seeing is believing, and afiladores really do exist.

I was working at the ceramics studio on Monday, when I heard the sound of a flute in the distance. One of my classmates mentioned, offhandedly, that an afilador was passing by. I think everyone thought it was strange (if not slightly rude) when, all of a sudden, I jumped out of my seat, flung open the door, and yelled out: ¡vení! I was only slightly embarrassed when the sharpener turned his bike around in the direction of the studio.

As Flor searched for something to sharpen, I asked permission to take a few pictures and explained my interest: This profession simply doesn’t exist where I come from, and I doubt people there would believe me if I couldn’t let them see for themselves. I guess we’re just kind of cynical like that. Plus, I fibbed and told him the pictures would soon appear on a Yankee website, making him instantly famous. He was suddenly willing to comply with my somewhat strange and totally unexpected request to document his work.

The movement generated from pedaling his bike turns a small metal wheel, which the afilador uses to sharpen everything from butter knives to household scissors.

Afiladores are really few and far between, my classmates tell me. This just happens to be a street where they commonly make their rounds.

This is my first lesson towards becoming an afiladora. Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I think I'll keep my day job.

Winter's solstice

2008-06-20T13:26:00.001-07:00

The word “solstice” derives from the Latin words sol (meaning sun) and sistere (meaning to stand still). Winter solstice, which occurs on the 21st of June in the Southern Hemisphere, is known as such because, during that day, the sun is as far as it will ever be from this half of Earth and its movement at a virtual standstill.

That doesn’t mean that life stops during winter months; rather, it just slows down a bit, giving us the time we need to catch up with ourselves.

And in our frenetically modern lives, which only continue to estrange our bodies from our souls, winter begs us to remember what makes us fundamentally human—the aches, pains, and occasional discomfort of existence…

while allowing us to better appreciate the things that really give our lives color and warmth.

Surreal/So real country

2008-06-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

Uruguay is a strange place. It is still difficult for me to wrap my mind around the fact that just over three million people make up this tiny country, only slightly smaller than the state of Washington. Less conceivable still is the fact that an average of 20,000 (young) people have emigrated annually since 2002 (the first year of the bank crisis, simply known as “la crisis” in this part of the world), something I will address in a later blog entry. I am convinced that I will never completely understand their pathological nostalgia—especially among young people, who really only know the present—nor the compulsion of most Uruguayans to introduce themselves as a poor, depressed, and rather gray group of people.

There are other attributes of this country, though, that make it downright surreal. For example, imagine this: you’re lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, when all of sudden you hear the explosion of a car muffler as it goes rumbling by. Not such a strange sound, really, coming from a large, modern city. But wait: you try to go back to sleep, grumbling that everyone here drives a 1978 Chevrolet Better-Left-in-the-Past, when you hear the clip-clop of horse hooves. You’re suddenly relaxed, transported in an instant to your grandparents’ horse farm, the one where you spent sunny days and restful nights as a child… until you realize that what you’re hearing is totally incongruous with your surroundings. You spend the rest of the night wondering if you’ve ever heard that sound before in any of the other major cities you’ve visited. You realize you haven’t.

Before jumping to any overly exotic conclusions (or into a big steaming pile of magical realism), this is not a Gabriel García Márquez novel, and horses do not run wild through the streets of Montevideo. Rather, they pull the carriages that transport cartoneros from one on-street dumpster to another. Cartoneros provide a vital service to the city by collecting, classifying, and then selling its waste, mainly cardboard boxes, glass and plastic. And, since Montevideo has no official recycling program, cartoneros ensure that certain refuse will indeed be reused. They are a resilient group, having successfully resisted every attempt by the city to privatize trash collection and unionized under the more formal title of Clasificadores de residuos (Classifiers of Residual Waste).

Cartoneros themselves may seem to be what gives this place its hint of surrealism. However, they are precisely what make the country… well, “so real.” In one form or another, cartoneros are a universal phenomenon, synonymous with globalization, expanding cities, and mass migration. Wherever a culture of consumption and socio-economic marginalization exist, cartoneros are sure to follow. In fact, although more out of protest than necessity, “dumpster divers” in the US have taken to foraging for their food as a way of subverting consumer culture.

What makes the cartoneros of Uruguay so unique, then, is the extent to which they, like the rest of society, cling to the rustic traditions of this country’s past, traversing the city in horse-drawn carriages instead of on foot and contrasting the culture of the interior with the modern city at every pass. In fact, cartoneros confirm Chilean author Alberto Fuguet’s observation that everyday life in Latin America straddles the traditional and the hypermodern: “Latin America is quite literary, yes, almost a work of fiction, but it’s not a folk tale. It is a volatile place where the 19th century mingles with the 21st. More than magical, this place is weird.”

I have heard, in passing, that if I listen closely enough on Sunday mornings I will hear the whistle of the afiladores (or sharpeners), men who ride around the city on bike, summoning out to the street those in need of having their kitchen knives sharpened. To date, as far as I’m concerned, afiladores only exist in Uruguay’s modern urban lore.

I'm sorry about the distance...

2008-06-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

I know how you must be feeling right now. You’re feeling somewhat slighted, like I’ve abandoned you in this vast blogosphere. You’re a faithful reader, but weeks have gone by, and I’ve given you nothing new to read, nothing to ponder, no new perspective on life in Uruguay. I could ask for forgiveness, or I could just confess what’s been keeping me so busy.

Here’s a list of the five most interesting things that occupy my time:

Portuguese: I’m taking Portuguese 101 at my university and absolutely loving it! Forget sudoku; learning languages is the best way to train your brain. Eu gosto muito do portuguese—é ótimo! Salamao e eu tentamos falá-lo cada dia por meio, a vezes durante uma hora! Espero viajar ao Brasil este ano também. Olá Rio de Janeiro!

Ceramics: As you know, Flor owns her own ceramics studio, which has meant that, largely by virtue of living with her, I also get to learn her craft. Don’t expect to find me at home on Monday and Wednesday afternoons; I’m throwing pots at the studio. And if you didn’t already know what you were getting for Christmas, now you do J

Dissertation research: I sometimes forget that I have to write a dissertation when I get back to the States. Such a small thing to forget, right? … Anyway, despite temporary gaps in my memory, my dissertation is really never too far from mind, which means I spend my time meeting with filmmakers, scouring bookstores for new works, and taking lots and lots of notes. Not a bad job, really.

HTML/English lessons: Once a week, I meet up with my friend María (we call her “la flaca,” which means skinny) to learn HTML. We are creating a website for a community center where I volunteer on Saturdays (see Piedras Blancas pictures). In exchange for her expertise, I help her with her English. We both agree that verbs in English are easy to conjugate, but that correct pronunciation can make you want to pull out your hair.

Auditions: This really only took up about an hour of my time, but, all the same, I feel like it’s worth mentioning. Flor, Lucas, and I auditioned for a television commercial last week. Flor and I got the short end of the stick, since all Lucas had to do was read a book with a pretend grandpa, and we had to hang laundry. Flor was a natural, singing and dancing while she worked. She hung the shirts up perfectly! I, domestically illiterate, was not so graceful, dropping pins and nervously hanging up shirts as quickly as I could, even if they were upside down. Maybe they’ll call me back for the commercial about the American woman living in Uruguay who can’t even hang her own clothes. I think I’m on to something there… Anyway, enjoy the pictures!

Sunday dinners, Uruguay style

2008-05-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived to this tiny country of just over three million people at the end of February, I felt like the only person without a social network. What I was feeling is really pretty common among exchange students; in fact, it's expected that they will feel lonely at first and as if they didn’t know a single soul in their entire host country. Rarely is this impression ever as grave as it may seem at first. However, in a country as small as Uruguay, where over half of the population lives in one major city and family members reside within blocks of one another, it became even more evident that everyone already knew everyone else and that I, sadly, did not. Thankfully, I’m finally starting to find my place among the Uruguayans.

For example, Flor, the woman I live with, her son Lucas, and I go to Flor’s parents’ house every Sunday for a family dinner. Flor is from a large family of five children, who are all adults now and have children of their own. Needless to say, our dinners are loud but jovial, and I’m really starting to feel like just another member of the family. In fact, Flor’s mother Margarita affectionately refers to me as her adopted daughter and jokes that I speak better Spanish than her other children.

(Here I am with Margarita and Enrique, enjoying the fire).

At tonight’s dinner, we tried thinking of all the expressions in Spanish that use the word “hand,” or mano. There are lots if you really stop to think about it: mano derecha, right-hand man (er, person); mano de obra, work force; manos a la obra, get to work; and so on.

All in all, I think it’s pretty clear that “hacemos buenas migas.” I’ll let you look up that one on your own…

Otros Aires

2008-05-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

HELLO,

Buenos Aires!

(Argentina: Where the currency is candy).

There is a shortage of coins circulating in the Argentinean economy. For this reason, shopowners and other merchants are likely to give you a piece of hard candy as a substitute for hard currency. It's the only place in the world, that I know of, where you can really put your money where your mouth is.

(The heart of Buenos Aires).

Its obelisk is the symbolic center and most iconic image of Buenos Aires.

(The Recoletas Cemetery).

The Recoletas Cemetery, which occupies an entire city block, is a city within a city.

(The tomb of Evita Peron).

Thousands of flowers and nearly a dozen onlookers confirm that Evita, as much in life and in death, is this area of the world's Lady Di.

(Galerias Pacifico: The most beautiful shopping mall I have ever seen.)

I study shopping malls.

(Those are all hand-painted murals).

I love my job.

(Buenos Aires wakes up at 1am)

(We are enthusiastic about the nightlife).

My travel buddy Anthony and I still have lots of energy for 4am.

(Buenos Aires' hypermodern port district).

Chao, Buenos Aires.

We'll be back soon!

Chronicles from the City: Parque Rodo

2008-05-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

Del encuentro entre flujos celestiales y la conciencia, nace el Parque Rodó, donde astros fugaces chocan con platos oscilantes y suspiros ascienden en un crescendo colectivo hasta estallar en gritos de alegría, fracturándose en infinitos fragmentos de luz y vidrio que descienden en arcos enormes, lloviendo cenizas resplandecientes sobre la tierra; donde lágrimas furtivas chorrean de ojos involuntariamente entreabiertos, confluyendo en grandes vías lacrimosas, y manos temblorosas buscan instintivamente, con cada nueva revolución, el centro estable de la órbita mecánica; donde la ilusión y la realidad se trenzan en flamantes cintas coloradas, convirtiéndose en un magnífico aurora austral ondulante, y donde cada beso cuenta intuitivamente la misma historia ancestral de la creación y destrucción del mundo.

Being Rebbecca Pittenger (in Uruguay) // Siendo Rebeca Pittenger

2008-04-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday in Uruguay.

We call it "martes" here.

(7:50 and I'm still in bed. I have Portuguese class at 9:00a.m. // Las ocho menos dias y sigo tirada en la cama)

(See, mom, I do make my bed. // Mens sana en "cuarto limpio".)

(It may be instant, but it's still cafe. // Por lo menos no es agua sucia)

(Waiting for the bus. I take the 62 to the university. // Esperando... filosofeando en la parada de omnibus)

(This is my ticket to ride // Omnibus 62. Destino: Plaza Independencia)

(The Humanities Department: This is where it all happens. // La Facu)

(Cyber Azul = cheap connection to the Internet // Una pausa para ponerme al dia)

(First, I have to open the door // Abriendo puertas... del ciber y de la conciencia)

(Back to Pocitos // Lo que el omnibus se llevo)

(Home sweet home // La puerta principal)

(Maria and I set the table for today's lunch (we had fish and a salad) // Maria, preparando el almuerzo)

(Quality time with Oscar // Perro que ladra a veces muerde)

Time to clear the air...

2008-04-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

Just to keep you informed about what’s going on in the news in my part of the world, imprudent farming practices have led to widespread fires 150 miles to the north of Buenos Aires, bringing the capital city of 11 million people to a virtual standstill. In addition to clear environmental and health problems—the smoke contains high leveles of organic material—low visibility in the city has led to nine traffic-related deaths.

(Yesterday's paper read: "Smoke in Argentina has caused another death, widespread debate" )

Argentina may have started the fire, but Montevideo and other neighboring cities are also going up in smoke. Although the air has temporarily cleared on this side of the Rio de la Plata, a shift in this weekend's wind pattern is expected to bring smokey air back to Montevideo.

Chronicles from the City: Ciudad Vieja

2008-04-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

Uruguayans are known for their nostalgia, and nestled between the charismatic Brazil and the forever dramatic Argentina, they are quick to tell visitors that they are most pessimistic of the three. Although, in my experience, Uruguayans have been nothing but warm, generous hosts, it doesn’t take much effort for visitors to uncover this society’s nostalgia for better days. In fact, it’s been the inspiration for some of the country’s best tangos, less spectacular than the Argentine version, which has conformed to the taste of tourists and the country’s upper class over the years, and shapes the self-deprecating, ironic humor typical of the murgas performance during carnival.

As I wandered the streets of Ciudad vieja, or the “Old City,” last Sunday, I was reminded of this country’s bittersweet embrace of the past. It occurred to me that, as well as being the symbolic heart of Montevideo and the original city, Ciudad vieja is itself the materialization of Uruguayan nostalgia. Its cobblestone streets and colonial homes, ornate fountains and wrought-iron fences are the remaining physical vestiges of Uruguay’s past, which give spatially intelligible dimensions to this country’s near-constant wistfulness.

Although the Portuguese (obtaining the territory in the Tordesillas Treaty of 1494) claim to have settled first what now is Montevideo, the city only really began to take shape when the governor of Buenos Aires founded a military base there in 1726. The city soon grew beyond the limits of its barrier wall, which stood erect until 1829, preventing possible invasions by the Portuguese. Of the original wall, only the gateway remains, inviting city dwellers and visitors to cross the threshold to Montevideo’s past.

As the sole slave port in the region, the young Montevideo only continued to expand and prosper economically. In more recent years, however, political instability, periodic economic stagnation, and the catastrophic bank crisis of 2002, have caused this part of the city to fall into virtual disrepair. Somewhat paradoxically, Ciudad vieja now serves as a destination for both tourists (largely because of its proximity to the port) and migrants from the country’s rural interior.

Although the Uruguayan government is attempting to revitalize Ciudad vieja, many of its buildings appear beyond the point of repair. This is not to say, however, that this part of the city lacks signs of life. On the contrary, children play among the rubble of Ciudad vieja’s fallen buildings, while couples sit quietly in its parks; small shops and even modern nightclubs are springing up among the ruins of this urban landscape. And although Ciudad vieja may no longer represent the center of daily life in Montevideo, it does serve as a physical testament to this small country’s illustrious past and the root of its nostalgia.

MEAT. It's what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Uruguay.

2008-04-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

It is rumored that, upon seeing Machu Picchu for the first time, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was so moved by his surroundings that he exclaimed: “This would be the perfect place for a barbeque.” Although barbeques may not seem the stuff of poetry and we can’t say with certainty what the poet was thinking as he stood among the ruins, high in the Andes Mountains, one thing is certain: barbecues, or asados, are a way of life here in the Southern Cone. And, after last Friday, it’s safe to say that no country in the world throws a better barbeque than Uruguay.

Competing with Mexico for the Guinness World Records title of “Largest Barbeque in the World,” a title it held since the 80s, Uruguay threw its own barbeque en masse, with nearly 1,000 in attendance and over 26,000 pounds of meat on a mile-long grill. As well as the dubious honor of being mentioned among other record-breakers, the National Meats Institute, the event’s organizers, hoped the occasion would generate publicity for Uruguayan beef at home and abroad. In fact, the asado created so much of a stir in Montevideo that tickets were sold out weeks in advance.

It may be a poor substitute to actually going to the asado, but if you have a minute, I invite you to view CNN’s footage of the event. It’s ok if you don’t understand everything in the video; the most important message just happens to be the theme of the day: MEAT. Vegetarians and the faint of heart, beware…

Pocitos/Punta Carretas Rotary Club

2008-04-08T19:50:00.001-07:00

(Dinner on Tuesday with the Pocitos/Punta Carretas Rotary Club)

Chronicles from the City: Tristan Narvaja

2008-04-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Dr. Tristan Narvaja St., lined with as many sycamore trees as book and antique shops, normally represnts an escape from the city in the middle of downtown Montevideo. Rounding the corner from Ave. 18 de julio, the capital's always-busy main thoroughfare, to Tristan Narvaja, as it is commonly known, the city suddenly becomes quiet, slower-paced and even tranquil. In fact, it's not uncommon to find oneself, in what would normally be a busy day, suddenly spending hours meandering up and down both sides of the street, browsing through stacks of books and antiques, and sipping coffee with merchants. Every Sunday, though, this street bustles with life, transforming itself into the center of one of Montevideo's largest outdoor markets. With everything from socks to snakes, cantaloupe to chanaliers, the enitre city seems to converge on this narrow street in hopes of finding what for one will be trash and for another, treasure.

A Rotaract Week

2008-04-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting with not one but two Rotaract clubs this week: the Parque Rodo and Malvin Club Rotaracts. Both groups of young people, ranging in age from 19 to 34, are excited about starting the year strong and undertaking new community service projects. The Parque Rodo Rotaract has already been involved in bringing 200 computers to Uruguay, through their collaboration with Computers for the World (an NGO based in Seattle, WA) and the Emerald City Rotary Club, and currently lends a hand to El Merendero Nuevo Amanecer, a community center that feeds more than 200 children from Piedras Blancas, a low-income neighborhood of Montevideo. The Rotaract club--in collaboration with its sponsoring Rotary club--is currently helping to expand its facilities in order to accommodate more children and offer a wider range of educational activities. The Parque Rodo Rotaract has been in existence for twelve years and has ten members.
The Malvin Club Rotaract (pictured here with a member of the Malvin Rotary Club) has nine members and is currently working on coming up with ideas for new projects. One of the group’s more recent initiatives has been to invite foreign nationals to speak about life in their respective countries. For example, a representative from the Japanese Embassy has already agreed to deliver a speech about Japanese culture and traditions, and, following suit, I have agreed to give a much-anticipated talk about country music and other musical traditions from Tennessee. The club is also helping to organize an inter-district Rotaract conference this July.

Chronicles from the City: Pocitos

2008-03-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to show you what life is like here in Montevideo, I will be featuring the city´s many neighborhoods in a section called "Chronicles from the City." I have already posted photos of the neighborhood where I live, Pocitos, a neighborhood of avid joggers, artists, small business owners, health food enthusiasts, and, in my case, the occasional American. Although just a short bus ride from downtown Montevideo, Pocitos, with its tree-lined streets and family-owned shops, is more like a small town than a bustling metropolis. In the weeks and months to come, I´ll continue to chronicle the city as I see it so that you may begin to form your own impression.

Bridging the Digital Divide

2008-03-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

The belief that advances in science and technology represent the first (and most crucial) step toward economic, cultural and social progress is by no means new to the Americas. Over 150 years ago, Brazilian scientists and the socio-economic elite, greatly influenced by the French positivists, rallied around the idea that developments in science would pave the way for social order and material progress in that country. Its flag alone, which in fact boasts “order and progress” as the national motto, proves to what extent Brazil has championed the ideals and potential benefits of scientific innovation.

More recently, like many other facets of social and political life, technological innovation often has been discussed on a global scale, since it pulls the strings of the international political economy now more than ever before. Likewise, the advent of communications and other forms of electronic media have prompted some to envision a kind of “network society,” whereby these technologies have come to dictate social interaction, urban space, and more than anything, the modern workplace.

While this may be the case in many developed countries, advances in science and technology remain a local issue in developing countries, where technological innovation is now widely considered among one of the only viable paths to economic growth and prosperity. One of the many challenges developing countries face, however, is how to advance their scientific and technological capabilities without exacerbating existing social and economic inequalities.

Last Friday’s “International Seminar on Science, Technology, Innovation and Social Inclusion,” sponsored by the Universidad de la Republica and UNESCO (the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), was testament to the effort of governmental and non-governmental organizations, universities, and other associations in Latin America to eradicate social inequality through scientific innovation. Many of the speakers—among them researchers and other representatives from the public and private sectors throughout Latin America, Europe, and the US—spoke to the importance of establishing socially oriented innovation that will seek both to promote the sciences as well as address issues of social concern. The speakers challenged other business leaders, politicians, and members of the academy to look beyond profit gain as the sole outcome of technological innovation and toward a form of social inclusion that will work to bridge the digital divide. Their message was clear: Advances in technology will only really begin to benefit the developing world as soon as they are used to benefit all sectors of society and not just the technologically elite.

In case you were wondering what all of this has to do with my time here in Uruguay, I inform you that I will be meeting with the Parque Rodó Rotaract Club later this week, a 12-year-old club that has collaborated with the Computers for the World organization and the Emerald City Rotary Club (Seattle, WA) to bring 200 computers to Uruguay. It is inspiring to know that Uruguayan Rotarians are at the forefront of this effort and are actively helping to bridge the gap between the technological haves and have nots. I look forward to working closely with the Rotaract group while I´m here, and, as always, I promise to keep you informed of our progress.

First day of school

2008-03-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

I remember, when I was young, my mother used to take a picture of me on the first day of school every year. During all of elementary and part of middle school, I would stand with my back straight, hair neatly combed, and smile radiantly for the camera. It should come as no surprise, however, that as I transitioned from childhood to adolescence my mother’s ritual seemed intolerable at times and always horribly uncool. But, for good or for bad, family traditions have a way of enduring even the most turbulent teenage years, and so I continued the practice in college, often asking a roommate to snap a shot before class.

Recently, I altered our tradition somewhat by taking pictures at the conclusion of my first course, not at the beginning. Then again, I guess it only seemed appropriate, since the courses I’m taking here in Uruguay are different from what I’m used to at home. Instead of the semester-long graduate courses offered in the States, masters-level coursework in the humanities (including anthropology, history, literature, and philosophy) is divided up among week and month-long seminars that meet between 7:00-10:00 p.m. Most of the graduate professors are guests of the Universidad de la Republica and hail originally from universities as close as neighboring Argentina and Brazil, and as far away as Europe.

(Here I am with a few of my classmates--companeras de curso--and our professor, Haydee Coehlo, second from right).

My first course of the semester, which met between the 10th and 14th of this month, discussed the scholarly work of Brazilian anthropologist and public intellectual Darcy Ribeiro. Always controversial in his unwavering support of indigenous rights and conscious building (concientizacion), Ribeiro spent several years in exile in Montevideo during Brazil’s 1964 dictatorship, where he forged an important and long-lasting relationship with Uruguayan intellectuals. Logically, the class was divided almost evenly among students, many of them teachers and professionals during the day, from anthropology and literature. Others, taking advantage of the fact that the public university system is free to all Uruguayans, were proud to admit they are simply life-long students interested in learning something new.

(After a long week of classes, a cold cerveza with the profesora is the best way to unwind).

To my surprise, as well as most of the other students, the seminar offered us not only exposure to new material, but also a new language. With the exception of student-led discussion, Professor Haydee Coelho of the Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais dictated the entire course in Portuguese. With a little effort, though, lots of gesturing, and even more concentration—especially on my part, since I’ve never taken Portuguese!—by the end of the course at 10 p.m. on Friday night we found we shared a common language.

When in Rome... or Montevideo, Uruguay

2008-03-21T08:34:00.001-07:00

Just in case you were wondering where I´ve been since my last entry, I´m writing to inform you that most traditionally Catholic countries are on state-sanctioned vacation this week, which, in Spanish, is known as Semana Santa (Holy Week). Even Uruguayans, who celebrate their long history of secularism, take advantage of this week to escape from the city to one of the country´s many beach communities.

In the name of cultural immersion, I have decided to join my hosts here at la Pedrera, a small coastal town three hours to the north of the capital that serves as a refuge for amateur surfers, fishermen, and artisans alike. Once I am back in the capital and, like most Uruguayans, resigned to winter´s inevitable (and prompt) arrival, I will be happy to share my stories with you.

Until then, I´m turning of the computer and heading back to the beach.

Carnaval, Uruguayan style

2008-03-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

After eight straight days of rain and cloudy skies, I was beginning to wonder if the sun would ever shine again in Uruguay. I felt deceived to tell you the truth, as if the country’s own flag, which boasts a cheerful-looking sun in the upper left-hand corner, had lied to me. I suggested to my host family—a good-natured, infinitely patient group of people—that a rain cloud might replace their current national ensign.

Finally, then, on Friday, just as my mood was beginning to reflect the weather pattern, the clouds finally parted and the sun shone for the first time since my arrival. My host family and I decided unanimously that there was only one way to spend a gorgeous evening in early March: ¡carnival!

Forget Rio de Janeiro and its tawdry parade through the streets; most Uruguayans are proud to remind anyone who will listen that theirs is the longest celebration in the world—nearly 40 days—and that it is based on a series of open-air theater performances, not ruckus in the streets.

Normally all carnival celebrations would’ve wrapped up by now, but since the rain put a damper on all festivities, they resumed on Friday. We attended one of the more unique and typically Uruguayan carnival events: the murgas performance.

The term “murgas” was first used in Spain to refer to any popular street music performed during town festivals and other public celebrations. The modern, South American version has been commonly attributed to a group of Spanish minstrels who made Montevideo their home in 1906 and who fused the art form with the spirit of carnival.

A traditional Uruguayan murga consists of an all-male choir of 13-17 participants. They greet the crowd with an introductory song which quickly adopts a satiric tone, poking fun at politicians and other public figures, and retracing the year’s more salient events.

Curtidores de hongos, a tribute to the rugged Uruguayan culture of the interior (as the rest of the country is known), sang about everything from the unwavering ineptitude of Uruguayan bureaucrats to the “shut-up” heard round the Spanish-speaking world. They are slated to win as this year’s best act.

Veni conmigo

2008-03-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Tras dos años de planificación y harto papeleo, me encuentro por fin en Montevideo, Uruguay. Sólo me parecía apropiado, entonces, que volviera a hojear recientemente El lazarillo de los ciegos caminantes, una de las obras más destacadas del fascinante, pero en gran parte ignorado siglo XVIII de las letras hispánicas.

El lazarillo se define como una obra itinerante, tanto por su contenido como por su capacidad de esquivar, a cada paso, los confines de los géneros literarios tradicionales. Desde el punto de vista de un mestizo cuzqueño, Alonso Carrió de la Vandera, apodado Concolorcorvo, el documento cuenta el recorrido de este inspector de correos entre Montevideo y Lima—puntuado por sus descansos en las ciudades de Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, y Cuzco—y sirve simultáneamente como una (proto) guía de viajes y un informe antropológico, un coloquio entre los viajeros de la región y una investigación cuidadosa de la sociedad colonial de América del sur.

Sin embargo, la obra no se libera por entero de la tradición literaria que le precede: toma como sus influencias la mitología griega, el tono satírico de Quevedo y, como indica el título, las famosas aventuras del inigualable pícaro español, Lazarillo de Tormes.

Parecido a la manera en que el pícaro de esta obra clásica guía a su amo ciego, Conolorcorvo asume la responsabilidad de dirigir a los demás viajeros e, inclusive, a los que no pueden viajar sino a través de la palabra escrita y las impresiones de su autor.

Aunque en la novela española el pícaro y el ciego terminan por engañarse los unos a los otros—aprovechándose el uno de la ceguera y la ingenuidad del otro—yo intentaré, como Concolorcorvo, a presentarles Montevideo como yo lo voy conociendo y las impresiones que voy acumulando como una caminante en esta tierra tan lejana y, para mi, desconocida.

Así que, entre sus propias andanzas, tantas las cotidianas como las extraordinarias, les invito a acompañarme a lo largo este camino y a conocer otros aires a través de mis palabras. O más sencillamente, como se dice en el español del Río de la Plata, vení conmigo.

First impressions

2008-03-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

I know you’ve been waiting, biting your nails to the quick, in fact, to finally hear about Uruguay; but, I’m sorry to say, you’ll have to keep waiting. I’ve been pondering this entry for over a year now, so I’m eager to finally transform my thoughts into words and share them with you.

In December of ‘06 I attended an RI conference for out-bound Ambassadorial Scholars. Most were excited, leaving for their host countries in just over six months; I, on the other hand, traveling to the Southern Hemisphere, would have to wait another calendar year. Suffice it to say that I didn’t share in my cohort’s enthusiasm.

The timing of the conference only exacerbated my already negative attitude: I just barely survived my most grueling semester yet, was anxious about grades, and as if I had nothing else on my mind, I had to drive three hours to a mandatory orientation for a trip that I only imagined would someday come to fruition.

Little did I know, however, that I’d hear at that conference, which I had considered such a colossal inconvenience, the words that currently direct my thoughts and actions.

Late into the evening, well past the span of my attention, a senior Rotarian spoke to us about his experience as a young Ambassadorial Scholar in the 50s and about his continued support of the program. Even when other Rotarians questioned the worth of the scholarship, he came quickly to its defense. With this in mind, though, he reminded us that Rotary diverts funds away from other programs, such as its effort to build water wells, in order to fund individual students.

He said something, then, that sounded more like a challenge than a question: “How can you make your experience as an Ambassadorial Scholar worth ten wells in Haiti?”

His question gave me chills, and to be honest with you, I still find it deeply moving.

The Rotarian was right: my time here in Uruguay will not generate any money, which could be used to help people at home or abroad. In fact, my time here represents a loss of funds for my home Rotary club and RI district.

But it’s only when we begin to think of capital as something intangible, something that only comes from human interaction and understanding, that the payoff of this opportunity becomes incalculable.

During the course of this year, I hope to keep you informed about my life here in Uruguay—always mindful of my place and purpose in the world—and my own attempts to affect change by participating positively in the lives of others.

In praise of geography...

2008-02-16T07:28:00.001-08:00

In response to American Idol Kellie Pickler’s gaffe on national television—although, maybe most Americans didn’t see it that way—I have decided to include a map of South America, with Uruguay highlighted in red, so that you might get your bearings.

Changing, we rest

2008-02-14T08:19:00.000-08:00

I used to dread coming home. Whether from across town or across the world, coming home meant packing bags, saying goodbye, and returning to the doldrums of everyday life. Ultimate happiness, then, for most of my youth, meant someday transforming myself into a kind of dysfunctional boomerang that, when hurled out, would leave but never return.

In literary terms, I suppose I wanted to view life more as a thread of run-on sentences—punctuated by the occasional ellipsis—than a series of declarations forced to end in a period.

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve come to appreciate the end of my journeys as much as I do their beginning. For me, coming home represents making connections more than it does severing ties, since I now see in my own culture traces of the warmth and generosity I have found in others. I now see reflected in those who are close to me the faces of those who are far away. In other words, the places I have been in the past and wherever I am in the present, and maybe even the places I will go in the future, are already connected.

I suppose that with age I am beginning to discover, not unlike the Beat poets, that happiness can be found along the contours of the globe as well as the ground beneath my feet, and that ultimate happiness has less to do with a beginning without an end than realizing that “beginning” and “end” are actually the same phenomenon.

Maybe this is more than just a Bildungsromane, though, and my change of heart represents some kind of deeper, philosophical message. Since the time of Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher, Western thought has understood change to be the central, organizing force of the universe. Simply, there is no other constant in life than change itself, no other guiding principle than reason.

At the same time, Zen Buddhism instructs us to find peace amid this chaos by accepting the inevitability of change and seeking enlightenment not through external prompts, but rather mindful introspection.

As I reflect on all of the journeys that have given my life meaning—all the jumps I have made in this game of hopscotch—it becomes clear that without an end to each beginning and a beginning to each end change would never be possible. And, no matter how significant or insignificant the changes in our lives may be, it is only in giving ourselves over to this force that we will ever come to find happiness, confirming that only by changing can we ever really rest.

While you were sleeping...

2008-02-06T06:48:00.001-08:00

While you were sleeping, Spain, like the rest of the world, was waking up to find out how you voted yesterday. Like many US citizens, Super Tuesday, pronounced something like sooperrtoosdai in Spanish, has been on the minds of the public (or at least the editors of Spain´s major newspapers) since the primaries began earlier this year.

(Today´s headline from Spain´s leading newspaper, El Pais, reads: "The US Ushers in a New Era in Politics." Similar to his treatment in the American press, Obama´s image has become synonymous with the end of politics as usual.) *All photographs in this post are from El Pais.

It would be incorrect, however, to mistake this zeal for some kind of unrequited love of Spain for American politics. The current Zapatero administration gained popular approval by challenging the Bush administration and pulling all support from the Iraq War. Likewise, if you were to ask the majority of Spaniards what they thought about the US election four years ago, you´d likely hear echoed the same complaints made at home about politics as usual.

(An equally bold headline accompanies this photograph, which occupies more than a quarter of this two-page spread: "The Duel between Democrats Polarizes the United States").

Foreign coverage of the primaries is just one example that the 2008 presidential election will be anything but politics as usual. Based on print media alone, it seems that Spain, like the United States, is also casting a ballot in this election for an entirely new brand of politics. Suddenly, a country as famous for its cynicism as it is for its tapas now appears equally enchanted as the US by the rhetoric of change and the possibilty of a new beginning.

(Despite their concern about a divided American public, for many European newspapers, the era of Republican politics is already over. Coverage of McCain´s campaign received scant attention on last pages of the entire six-page spread).

Although, maybe Spain's treatment isn't so surprising. In fact, maybe while we in the US were all still asleep, Spain, like the rest of the world, was already dreaming about a new day in American politics.

Futbol and football

2008-02-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

It hit me suddenly, at 4:30 this morning, as I made my way home from the Shamrock Pub, that this has been the week of fútbol: the Spanish word for soccer and false cognate for American football.

Last Sunday, Salman and I attended our first Real Madrid game. It was his first professional soccer game and my second. As an exchange student in 1999, I went to a Rayo Vallecano game in the Vallecas neighborhood—Madrid’s equivalent of the Bronx. Although the Real Madrid crowd was tame compared to my first experience with soccer in Spain (i.e. no one was smoking hash in our section of the stadium or serving up whisky out of a leather bota), a certain electricity charged the air. Whether played in its working-class neighborhoods or in the heart of its capital, soccer is Spain’s modern catharsis.

We sat just two rows away from the playing field, bringing the players and ball into focus, and making every bad call even more egregious. In fact, in the spirit of the game and cultural integration, more than once, Salman and I unquestioningly joined the multi-generational crowd in its condemnation of the referee’s mother.

The game ended with a 3-2 Madrid win over their opponents from Valencia.

Then, just last night, bringing our week to an appropriate end, Salman and I put on our game face again, this time for Super Bowl XLII. We joined our friends and nearly 50 other Yanks for the game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots.

While most Americans watched the game comfortably from home during the late afternoon or early evening, we (the few, the proud, the die-hard, ex-pat football fans) made our way to the pubs of Madrid on a rainy, windy night just before midnight, only to leave just before dawn. We substituted Bud Light for Guinness, nachos supremos for a tiny bowl of potato chips, great American advertising for British public service announcements (thank you, satellite TV); but it was all worth it to see the Patriot's fall from grace in the last minutes of the game and to know that, at least for a few hours, fútbol could coincide with football.

Vivir para escribir

2008-01-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

Tal vez no sea gratuito el hecho de que las mejores obras literarias hayan coincidido con la angustia e inestabilidad psicológica de quienes las escribieron. Puede que la verdadera fuente de la creatividad no yazca solamente en la sublimación de los impulsos primordiales, de los que padecemos todos los seres humanos, como diría Freud, sino en la afirmación del sufrimiento y la misericordia de la condición humana.

Tomen como ejemplo algunos de los mejores escritores del canon occidental. Cervantes sobrevive la Batalla de Lepanto (aunque quedaría sin el uso de su mano izquierda durante el resto de su vida), cinco años de cautiverio en Argel y la persistente (y patente) amenaza de la Inquisición española para luego escribir la primera (y más citada) novela moderna. Dostoyevski perdura los inviernos rusos y ataques frecuentes de epilepsia, reprimiendo, además, sus deseos de ver muertos a sus padres, para llegar a ser una de las voces literarias más destacadas. Hemingway se mete, por su propia voluntad, en un mundo de lujuria y violencia—ni mencionar las grandes guerras del siglo veinte—para acabar deprimido, gastado y con ganas de suicidarse, pero no antes de haber escrito unas de las novelas y relatos más alabados de su generación. ¿Hace falta citar el destino de la pobre Virginia Wolf?

Tal vez no sea por pura casualidad entonces que, en estos últimos días, no he podido ni escribir una sola palabra ni articular una sola idea coherente. Mi contribución al mundo de las letras (cibernéticas, por supuesto) ha resultado últimamente tan vacía y tan decepcionante como la página de mi documento Word. En otras palabras: mi musa y yo hemos estado de vacaciones.

Si es cierto que una imagen vale más que mil palabras, las 100 imágenes colgadas a la mano derecha de esta página Web servirán como un testimonio visual de lo bella que es Palma de Mallorca. Pasamos tres días soleados—en todos los sentidos de la palabra—en la capital de la isla más grande del archipiélago. Y, como yo actualmente me encuentro sin el don de escribir, o por lo menos sin la melancolía existencial que requiere la escritura, voy a permitir que las imágenes hablen por sí.

Vacilando, or Lazy Tourism

2008-01-16T03:28:00.000-08:00

In his 1962 travelogue, TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY: IN SEARCH OF AMERICA, John Steinbeck defined travel as something quite different from tourism. “In Spanish,” he wrote, “there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb vacilar, present participle vacilando. It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction.” A kind of modern-day Quijote, Steinbeck set out in search of the America, not that he read about in other novels, but one which he was famous for portraying. Appropriately enough, he affectionately named his camper after the Spanish hidalgo´s faithful nag, Rocinante.

During my travels around Spain and Portugal, I am reminded of Steinbeck´s fascination with the zen-like act of vacilando, in which how one travels is more important than his or her final destination.

The kind of tourism most of us practice today—the kind popularized by the 17th century “Grand Tour” and Thomas Cook´s first attempt at mass tourism in the 19th century—focuses on the destination of the traveller, and within that destination, a circuit of mini-destinations. The kind of tourism in which travellers visit major cities, their monuments, and other pre-designated points of interest—in hopes of documenting the world´s marvels— only appears to give us the kind of direct contact with history lacking in our fast-paced, hyper-modern lives. This kind of tourism, however, better represents an attempt to check marks next to the long list of buildings and monuments we must see before we die than a genuine attempt to give and extract meaning from the act of travelling.

Every country has its own points of interest, its own architectural oddities and monuments erected to local heroes. Thanks to the Internet, they are only a click, and not a world, away. What is the point, then, of taking pictures of what has already been captured so many times, and what can so easily be seen through the eyes of others?

Why not explore what really makes us all different, and ditch the monument for a cup of coffee and the local rag, a chat in the neighbourhood pub, or even a trip through the metro station during morning rush hour?

In my experience, the point of vacilando is neither to float aimlessly through space nor to leave unbroken the cultural bubble in which we travel inevitably; but rather, to look beyond a city or a country´s selling points in order to really discover its own rhythms, sounds, smells, and cultural idiosyncrasies.

The following is my attempt to briefly document my vacilaciones through Spain and Portugal.

Lisbon: If the Iberian Peninsula represents a family and its capitals are two brothers, Lisbon would be the quiet, well-mannered older brother of an exciting but somewhat unruly Madrid.

Key words: cobble-stone streets, steep hills that descend into the river, fashionable, casual refinement, pastelerias, laid back, unpretentious, hand-painted tiles, pedestrian walkways, diverse, hospitable; An old lady dissed us when she realized we didn´t speak Portuguese. It was SUPER funny.

Porto: 15 hours in Oporto, as this city is officially called, and not a picture to prove it. Our time in Porto epitomizes the vacilando (lazy tourism) philosophy.

Key words: Amazing dinner at O Cocula, posh, metrosexual, stylish, young heart in an old city. People just smiled and laughed whenever we used our broken Portuguese.

Vigo: Proving that the rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plain, rainy days are a way of life in this port town.

Key words: solitary, quiet, rainy, the arts, verdant. I finally encountered one of the mythic Euro bathrooms where one can attend to all bodily functions in the one open, 3X3 space. Exciting!

San Sebastian: My new favorite of the famous Spanish Ss, among them Sevilla, Salamanca, and Santiago de Compostela. This city is beautiful and proud, without being boastful.

Key words: Euskera, resistance, proud, multilingual and multicultural, generous, civilized, intense but not chaotic; I didn´t notice it immediately, but graffiti in this city is almost non-existent, making it an anomaly among other Spanish cities. This city has so much pride that young people express themselves by tagging large pieces of paper and taping them to city walls. Awesome.

The Price of Prevention

2008-01-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

Salman and I finally made it to Portugal, and our trip could not have been any smoother. We arrived to the Chamartin Station in Madrid, found the platform from which our train would depart, and embarked on our journey across the Iberian Peninsula. We presented out tickets for review twenty minutes into the trip and then once again, when we crossed the border into Portugal. No one stopped to ask for our passports, even when we arrived to the Santa Apolonia station in downtown Lisbon. I would say that we traveled with the same ease as any EU citizen, but since no one had to show identification, all nationalities seemed suddenly irrelevant.

In fact, for the majority of our 10-hour trip, we seemed to benefit from the more positive effects of transnationalism. In a way, we became a band of nationless travelers, moving democratically, and more importantly, fearlessly from one nation to the next. Now that I think about it, that was the best part of our trip from Madrid to Lisbon: shedding the fear and confusion we have come to associate with travel at home in the US. Madrid also endured a major terrorist attack recently on one of its main channels of transit; and yet, Salman and I navigated the country’s train system without fear of interrogation, or worse yet, taking off our shoes in front of a long line of equally frustrated strangers.

This is not to say that travel regulations should be abandoned entirely, or that passports have lost all meaning in the face of rampant transnationalism. On the contrary, I would have been comforted somewhat if an official had attempted to confirm my identity during our trip. However, I think the US has an important lesson to learn from this experience: first to recognize and eventually to reevaluate the price of prevention.

In search of the present

2008-01-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

My journey begins in Madrid, Spain. Wait, I take that back. It actually starts where all international travel begins and ends: the airport. In my case, I've spent most of the day sitting at the busiest airport in the United States, Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, preparing my blog and watching people. When my hands aren't busy and more than once I've been caught staring, I find the airport is the perfect place for me to close my eyes and just think.

It seems only appropriate that my thoughts come back to travel. I've made this trip three times now. On the first trip, I had no idea what adventures awaited me on the other side of the Atlantic. I remember having to turn my back on my mother during our final goodbye, just to keep from changing my mind and going back home. The second time, I decided to take her with me, and we spent two weeks exploring Madrid and Andalucia. If my first trip to Spain represented an unknown future, the second united my present with my past; and my mother finally met me in Spanish. On this trip, I'd like to think that I'm in search of the present. I know where I'm going and I know where I've been, but now is the time to figure out why. Why Spanish? Why literature? Why look for oneself a half a world away from home?

Jet lagged but as determined as always, I hope to spend the next month answering these questions and just maybe finding the key to the present.