Sometimes things happen.

Gallery: Baja California

vietnamviking — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:39:00 GMT

Montevideo to Mexico

vietnamviking — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 08:26:00 GMT

The goodbye in Montevideo was a sad one, indeed. As with all last weekends, it was a hectic one, but fun all the same, despite the sadness. The girls from the pensión had organized a goodbye party at a club and I was very happy that most of my friends were able to come. The weekend was also spent making dreads that have now been washed out due to dandruff (yummm) and saying goodbye to everyone else. On the Monday night, Ana and I left the Montevideo bus terminal to go to Buenos Aires, and the pensión girls, Sofía, Maryse, Pepe, Javier and Anderson were there, and there was a lot of crying. Either I've become more sentimental in my old age, or the fact that I received so much love from a lot of wonderful people in a very short time lay behind the torrent.

Ana and I spent a week in Buenos Aires, and unfortunately, a large part of it was filled with sickness. We stayed with Scott, always the gallant host, and despite sore throats and feverishness managed to make some rounds to Palermo, Recoleta and the Microcentro, as well as going out for some food and beer with Belu and friends.

After a rather tranquil week in BA, Ana and I parted ways and I headed on to Mexico City. My parents picked me up at the airport and it was great seeing them after so long (it's been a year with my mom and a year and a half with my dad). We spent a few days in DF exploring the center where we lived, visiting museums and watching naked indigenous demonstrators. Oh, and we were also treated to some excellent Vietnamese food by my old math teacher from UNIS, Marc Jessop, his girlfriend Hang (who is really the one who treated us to the food) and their really cute 1 year old daughter Sao Mai.

We then took a bus north to Chihuaha, passing cacti and desert, and from there took a train southwestward to Los Mochis by the Pacific Coast, passing through the Barranco de cobre. The ride was a day long and comfortable and though the scenery was very pretty, it failed to arouse me for some reason.

From Los Mochis we took a boat across to the peninsula Baja California and made our way north toward Ensenada, passing little towns on the way, and eating lots of Tacos de camaron y pescado. In Ensenada we stayed with my mom's old friend Marisa and her son Daniel, in their very pleasant house. We spent a relaxing weekend there, Marisa and mom catching up and reminiscing about old times, my dad taking care of the cooking (yum yum), me hanging out with Daniel as well as Araceli, a girl I met last time I was there, and Marisa chastising me for my Uruguayan accent.

We then headed back to DF for a few days where we met up with another of my mom's friends, Alejandra, who took us to a place I don't remember how to spell and San Angel, really beautiful colonial, arty neighbourhoods.

Now we've stayed a few days in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Chiapas. It's a beautiful city with a lot of colonial architecture and colourful houses but though it's pretty and pleasant, I've unfortunately come to a point where these colonial towns don't excite me as much anymore. Those Spaniards were good at conformity. However, it's a very nice change from northern Mexico which feels more like how I imagine small towns in the US. The indigenous influence is more pertinent here too, though as always, the people that still live according to indigenous traditions are those at the margins. Interestingly, we went to visit a couple of villages outside of the city today, one of which is the most traditional in the area and apparently they are at the same time the most constricting. Quite an obvious observation, but it's always interesting to see how different people react to outside influences and how they deal with these influences. More on that sometime later perhaps, maybe, possibly.

Tomorrow it seems we're off to the jungle for a couple of days to see Maya ruins and other indigenous villages, and I'm very excited.

Gallery: Chihuahua to Los Mochis

vietnamviking — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 06:43:00 GMT

Gallery: Nueva Palmira

vietnamviking — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 01:50:00 GMT

Uruguay: an ensaoclopedic entry

vietnamviking — Thu, 22 May 2008 07:46:00 GMT

I thought I would try to write a little summary about what I’ve learned about Uruguay during the time I’ve spent here. I have to confess that I was largely ignorant about the country before leaving Sweden; I had heard that it was once considered to be the Switzerland of South America and I knew that most of the Uruguayan immigrants in Sweden had fled a dictatorship in their home country. Having once barely been able to distinguish it from its northern neighbour Paraguay, I like to think that I’m a little better informed these days. The summary will probably be quite unfocused since I’ll write about things that I’m personally interested in, and I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the information either*. But hopefully it might serve as a bit of a starter to anyone who’s interested.

Back in the day, the area which is now Uruguay was populated by Charrúa Indians. Then the Spaniards came along, took their land and killed most of them just like the European colonial powers did to the rest of the people originally inhabiting the continent. The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was then established, reaching from the tip of the continent up to the gold and silver mines of Potosí in what is now Bolivia. Montevideo, which is now the capital of Uruguay, rivaled with Buenos Aires, another important port city across the river, a rivalry which continues today – if not economically, at least in the hearts and minds of many a Uruguayan. Uruguay’s independence was declared in 1825, and apart from conflicts with Argentina and its colonial master, little Uruguay has also had some skirmishes with its other giant neighbour, Brazil. Following WWI, Uruguay became rich exporting meat to Europe, but in the mid-20^th century, demand fell and poverty made headway, exacerbated in contemporary times by financial crises in Argentina.

A visitor to Uruguay, especially if they come to Montevideo (which is inhabited by 1.5 of the country’s 3.3 million people), will immediately notice the distinct Europeaness about the place. The houses, the food, the gestures and at least the exterior of most people draw strong comparisons to countries along the Mediterranean, especially Spain and Italy, from where most of the population originates. However, there is apparently also a significant Armenian and Jewish part of the population. In the capital there is also a good deal of Afro-descendants; I think I read recently that 5% of Montevideanos identify themselves as such. Supposedly, there has been an effort to unite the country under a ‘European’ or ‘white’ identity during the building and maintenance of the nation, but I think this is slowly changing. Candombe, which I wrote a little about in a previous entry, a musical expression created by African slaves, is now practiced in a lot of Montevideo’s neighbourhoods and forms the major part of the country’s carnival held in March each year. According to a study I read, not only are more people starting to acknowledge their African bloodline, but also that stemming from the Charrúas, which have otherwise been considered to have been completely wiped out (Ana informs me that they almost were, when ‘father’ and founder of the Republic, Fructuoso Rivera, betraying the indigenous leaders that fought with him against the Spaniards, conducted a mass killing of the indigenous population in an episode called ‘Salsipuedes’. ‘So we were kind of born with genocide all over,’ she says.)

The political scene in Uruguay has historically been dominated by two parties: Colorado, representing city interests, and Blanco, championing those of rural landowners. From what I understand, support for these parties tends to stem from family tradition and money/power interests. In 1973 began a military dictatorship which lasted during 11 grueling years, resulting in thousands tortured, exiled or dead (of which the remains or death records of many are still to be found, lending them the infamous label of ‘desaparecidos’). Not at all coincidentally, Argentina, Brazil and Chile were also under CIA-backed military rule under this time, and the persecution of opposition was smoothly handled by a project of coordination between the four countries, called Operation Condor. In 1984, Uruguay went back to become a parliamentary democracy with the two old power-brokers as the main political contenders and an amnesty law for the perpetrators of the dictatorship; a law that is still in force today. However, in 2004, a broad leftist coalition called Frente Amplio won the elections and is now in its second term, led by president Tabaré Vázquez. With a purported focus on social issues and poverty, the party is deemed too tame by some, disappointed by the compromises that have been made partly due to its diverse make-up, while many others continue giving it strong support as it is the first progressive government seen in Uruguay so far and the only strong alternative to the traditional parties.

In terms of society, most of what I can say about it comes from personal observation and includes quite a bit of generalization. Poverty is widespread and the difference between wages and commodity prices is big, which means that people work like crazy to make things work and that a large part of the country’s young population is emigrating. It’s a macho society, with whistles and comments directed at women heard everywhere and Argentine shit like ‘Bailando por un sueño’ shown on a national channel as some examples. As in most of the world, the national passion is football, with Montevideo clubs Peñarol and Nacional inducing most of the fervour and a strong pride in its national world championship titles in 1930 (at the world’s first ever World Cup) and 1950. A macho (or rather, macho-fied) sport in a macho society does not bode well for women’s football in Uruguay, but that’s a whole other chapter which I will rage about some other time.

Much more can be said about Uruguayan society, but I think I’ll leave it at that for now. What I would like to add, though, is that I’ve enjoyed learning about the country and society immensely, and wish I had time to explore it further (only two and a half weeks remain). On a final note, another national passion is the drinking of yerba mate; most Uruguayans can be seen walking in the street sipping it from their gourd and holding a thermos under their arm. The drinking of mate is a very social procedure, as it’s passed around to all in a company to be shared among them. I have a feeling it will turn out to be one of my fondest memories of my time here, representative as it is of the great friendships that I’ve made.

* Though a little help with dates and figures has been provided by Wikipedia, which as we all know, is the trustiest, faultless source out there.

Anarchy in the Uruguay

vietnamviking — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:44:00 GMT

To celebrate the May '68 protests in France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_68), anarchist groups here in Montevideo organized a get-together on Plaza eléctrica last Saturday. Being a word-of-mouth thing, not a whole lot of people showed up, but the atmosphere was great with a very mixed group age-wise and really eclectic perfomances; from clowns to ska bands, from funk and hardcore punk bands to trapeze artists spinning around in trees. Leo also performed African-inspired music and dance together with his theatre group. Photos can be seen under 'Mai 68'.

I've forgotten to mention that I started playing football with River Plate's women's team a few weeks ago. Am enjoying it a lot more than with Rampla but unfortunately won't be able to play any games with them due to lack of time for a transfer from Sweden. Will hopefully upload some pictures from a game soon though. Meanwhile, pictures from River's men's game against Nacional a few weeks ago can also be found in the photo section.

Gallery: Mai 68

vietnamviking — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:58:00 GMT

Gallery: Nacional vs. River

vietnamviking — Fri, 9 May 2008 00:32:00 GMT

Candombe - La Roma

vietnamviking — Tue, 6 May 2008 04:09:00 GMT

Last night I went to see the weekly comparsa with Leo's candombe group, called La Roma (named after the street where the clubhouse is, nothing to do with Italy), and Leo told me that there were videos of them up on YouTube. Lo and behold, one of the videos can now be watched on this blog. It shows the group preparing for Las llamadas, which is the name of the procession of candombe groups that is held during Uruguay's carnival. Oh, and that bearded guy in a hat that shows up in the beginning of the video - that's Leo. If you're wondering what the fire is all about, it's used to heat up the drumskins. Incidentally, it makes the winter comparsas very cozy.

For more information about candombe, take a look at this article on Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1145/48/

And some of my own photos of La Roma can be found in the right hand margin under 'Tambores'.

Enjoy!

A pritty assy goodbye

vietnamviking — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:19:00 GMT

Since the 6th of September of last year, I've been spending almost 24 hours of nearly every day together with Monica the Benitez, save for a stay with relatives here and an overstayed visa there. Other than with my parents, I've never lived so closely to anyone for such a long period of time. The fact that we share almost the same tastes and interests in movies, music, people, clothes, art, politics and society, made our existence together even more intense. Luckily, at least speaking for myself, the experience has only been rewarding. Especially here in Montevideo, where I think we've both felt that we've reached some kind of consolidation of personality (mostly in terms of perspectives on the world, especially politically), it's been really helpful to have someone to discuss new ideas with, someone who is going through the same thing as yourself. It's all extremely cliché; we go off to South America for a year, discover ourselves and emerge as shiny, enlightened versions of our old selves. However, I don’t think the experiences of the past months have pushed me into any new direction in life, nor that I’ve suddenly come to a new understanding of the world, or any related such thing. I merely feel more certain than ever of where I stand on a lot of things. And I’m not sure how much of it has to do with new experiences and how much of it has to do with boring old maturity. Well, look at me; here I was, trying to talk about how much I’ve appreciated getting to know Monica and having her by my side during the trip, and instead I just ended up talking about myself. However, from our discussions, I’ve gathered that she feels more or less the same about these things, and just to really drive the subject firmly into the ground, it’s been fantastic to be able to talk about it with someone you can identify with. I can’t wait to see her in Sweden again, and I’m even more excited about seeing how our paths will continue to cross during the remainder of our adult lives.

So that was all very formal and high-brow; time for a descent. The reason why I devoted so much time on the subject of Moni is of course because she was the hottest thing in Montevideo last weekend. As it was her last one to be spent here before returning to Sweden, the whole city decided to party in her honour.

On Friday night, Maryse and her roomie Caroline had a very much delayed house-warming party that was partly a celebration for Monica as well, as she wasn’t supposed to know anything about the surprise party we were planning for her at our house on Sunday. It was a lot of fun, partly because it brought a whole bunch of our friends together (Maryse, the RYCEs, Sofía and Ana), partly because it was attended by people from quite a few different countries and partly because it had that slight edge of craziness that good parties should have, at least according to movies (a non-functioning toilet containing vomit, neighbours calling the cops, etc.). The cop thing ended up with the whole party ambling the streets in search of a good club or pub but never actually finding one, and our group of friends finished the night at a fast food stand.

Saturday was a little more low-key. The first part of it was spent in a mall called Montevideo Shopping, where we looked for a present for Moni’s brother, and the remainder in a parallel dimension, namely at Leo’s place. We hung out with his family and some other of his and Moni’s colleagues, talking, drinking yummy alcohol made from some palm tree – the name of which I of course can’t remember now – and playing tambores.

On Sunday it was, as mentioned, time for Monica’s big surprise goodbye party. Except that I had been so concerned about her returning on time after going to her aunt’s place in the morning, and the RYCE’s faces so filled with anticipation, that the surprise was probably minimal at best. No matter; we had a good and yummy time filled with pizza (made in our fireplace!), chocolate (on pizza!), dulce de leche (on more pizza!) and good friends (eventually stuffed with pizza)*. The night was spent back in Leo’s neighbourhood again, to watch the comparsa of tambore players together with the RYCEs and Rahel, a Swiss couchsurfer I met the other week. Unfortunately the weather has gotten really cold and that night it was rainy and windy too, so they ended everything early. However, some grappa miel and nice company at Leo’s place made for good comfort and a pleasant ending to what I hope was a fun last weekend for Moni.

*New photos to be found in their usual place.

Gallery: Partay

vietnamviking — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:10:00 GMT

Saved by the co-workers

vietnamviking — Tue, 8 Apr 2008 04:35:00 GMT

As my Spanish teacher Nestor has been saying all along, when so many people live in the same house, conflicts are inevitable. I know, it's a really obvious thing to say, but things seemed to be going along so brilliantly when, suddenly, prejudices and personal insecurities struck down with an almighty ¡kaboom! Neither Monica nor I are personally involved in the hullabaloo, but the atmosphere in the pensión has been pretty high-strung all weekend.

Luckily, then, most of it was spent elsewhere. On Friday night, my co-worker Ana turned a quarter of a century, as she so fondly put it, and invited Monica and I to her birthday party. We brought along a horn for her, as yet, non-existent bicycle and spent the night partaying with her, her bf and their friends. As a side note, Ana happens to be another one of those people that make being in Montevideo so great; and like the rest of the Choike staff, has a really interesting background and insightful things to say (yeah, I'm a total suck-up... I know you're reading this, che*).

Saturday night and most of Sunday were spent with Leo, a co-worker of Moni's. He's involved in all kinds of grassroots organizations, as well as having been a militant opposer of the dictatorship (which has landed him in jail several times, as I understood it... I have to find out more), and is probably one of the most inspiring people I've ever met. The conversations we've had with him have been extremely interesting, and he's very encouraging and motivating when it comes to the potential that Monica and I have to accomplish things. On Saturday night, we hung out with him and his 1 year old daughter, Libertad (a real charm-troll, as we call such babies in Swedish) and later brought old clothes that he's collected to a community center he works at, where they, as far as I understood, provide poor people with food, broadcast community radio and - I think - have something to do with a factory workers' union. Later we were also given a beginner's lesson in playing tambore by him and his 11 year old son Nahuel. On Sunday, Monica and I cooked some food for Leo and his girlfriend Noelia at their place, and in the evening we went to watch Leo and Nahuel play in the candombe procession that beats its way through the neighbourhood every Sunday night. Though we weren't a huge amount of people, the music and the atmosphere was really lively and uplifting, and we met some fun people that we'll hopefully get to hang out with some more in the future. Monica and I have been trying to do some informal research about the Afro-Uruguayan population and culture, of which candombe is an important part, and the more we learn, the more excited we get about being here, especially when being invited to partake in such a vibrant expression of it (take a look at the photos under 'Tambores'). This, of course, goes to say for all aspects of society here; the more complexities we discover, the more fascinated we become, and with that, also more attached to the place and the people.

*I'm working hard on appropriating the slang down here.

Gallery: Ana's birthday

vietnamviking — Tue, 8 Apr 2008 03:10:00 GMT

Gallery: Tambores

vietnamviking — Tue, 8 Apr 2008 01:37:00 GMT

Gallery: More Montevideo

vietnamviking — Tue, 8 Apr 2008 01:08:00 GMT

Gallery: Treinta y tres

vietnamviking — Tue, 8 Apr 2008 00:48:00 GMT

Gallery: Uruguay photos stolen from Romina

vietnamviking — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 00:22:00 GMT

Gallery: Uruguay photos stolen from Monica

vietnamviking — Thu, 3 Apr 2008 05:09:00 GMT

Fluminense...

vietnamviking — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 03:21:00 GMT

... is a football team from Rio that we saw when we were there, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with this post. However, it's a satisfying name to say. Try it.

And now for some general updates on the House. Residents now consist of: Octavio, the caretaker; Romina, Yeanina, Chio and Elena from Treinta y tres; Claudia, 37 years old and also known as 'la vete', and Marina, both living in our room; the brothers Pablo and Marcelo; Yeanina's brother whose name I still haven't learned, shame on me; the newest imports, Cecilia, Maria and Julieta; and Monica and my good self. 29 % of the residents are studying psychology. Recently, Claudia almost broke her leg when she fell down the bathroom drain and the other day an inter-residential conflict ensued in our room at 1 am. However, the pervasive atmosphere is one of fun and good feeling.

A couple of weeks ago we had easter holiday. The weekend was spent in Treinta y tres and it was fun to finally see where the RYCEs come from (henceforth, this is how I will refer to Romina, Yeanina, Chio and Elena in this blog). We stayed at Romi's house and spent the Saturday afternoon walking around town with the others. Everyone was coming back home for the holidays, so there was much yelling and hugging amongst the people fillng the streets. That night was spent at the folk music festival that was being held on the edge of town and a happy happy time was had.

The next day we returned to Montevideo and left for Buenos Aires the same night. We were excited, to say the least, to return to THE city. We arrived early on Monday morning after a 6 hour bus-boat-bus ride and, once we finally found it, installed ourselves at our CS host Belen's house in the fancy suburb of Olivos. Belu proved to be another amazing CSer and we had a great time with her, going to Konex for Bomba del Tiempo again, eating Korean food, watching movies and just hanging out and talking. We also got to know her friend Martín who, besides being a cool guy, lives in an incredible house in the same neighbourhood as Belu. Just as an example of their coolioness, the two of them are going to play tango in Finland this summer to finance their subsequent trip through Scandinavia. Apart from hanging out with Belu and Martín, we also did museuming, park-going at our favourite park, watched a really fun demonstration (the demonstrators were protesting the new mayor's plan to shut down the cultural centers that operate in all the different neighbourhoods, so it was a very artistic and joyous demonstration), did some nightlife-ing, went to Scott's place, shopped in Palermo (so... hard... to... resist...), walked around San Telmo, met up with Roberto again, got on the wrong train and ended up in the suburb San Martín which, though very close to Olivos, was a completely different world judging even by the little we saw, went to the cinema... And the list goes on.

Despite the amazingness of Buenos Aires, this city which really has a personality all its own, independent even of the people that we've gotten to know there, it felt good to get back to Montevideo. Maybe the relative permanency of our existence here plays a role, and it was great to meet the others in the House again.

Oh, and in other exciting news, I've started taking Spanish lessons at the Swedish-Uruguayan institute. My teacher's name is Nestor; he's extremely pedagogic and with his help it feels like I'm making leaps and bounds in the development of my Spanish. During my class yesterday I read some Eduardo Galeano for the first time, and I can't wait to get to know more of him.

To very clumsily return to the initial subject of this post, I've quit playing in Rampla. I got sick of the egoism and gang-mentality of many of the players, the coach's complete lack of interest in the team and being patronized as a result of not speaking Spanish properly. It's extremely sad, because this is one of Uruguay's absolute top teams in women's football. Many of the girls have amazing technique and a lot of potential but there's no one there to help them realize it. The attitude of a lot of them isn't helping fostering an environment where that could happen either. Meanwhile, the system doesn't exactly seem to be on their side; most of our practices were held on a patch of uneven grass in the dark, while 5 year old boys were playing on the field next to us, spurred on by dads who had come to watch their prodigal sons make history. I foresee a dark future for women's football in Uruguay.

During the meantime, the always smiling trainer Nicholás at the neighbourhood Rocky-type gym is getting me ready for returning to Galo's practices in Sweden. Having been an obstinate avoider of gyms in the past, I'm actually enjoying myself and am becoming fast friends with the he-men that populate the locale.

Gallery: Belu & Martín

vietnamviking — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 01:10:00 GMT