An inquisitive old fart with a camera
It’s so common to see a man riding a woman’s bike, or a teenage boy riding his little sister’s pink bike, that I forget how threatening that would seem to a young male’s ‘manliness’ in the USA.
As with the need for punctuality, unlimited consumer choices, and total convenience, much of the message for stressed northerners living in Uruguay comes down to three words.
Get over it.
Put on your best foreign accent and repeat after me: Life is to be livid!
About a month ago, I noticed someone had dumped some construction rubbish in the road near us. Then I saw a backhoe moving it onto the lot, which had clearly been very wet during the recent rains.
And a sign: Se recibe escombro. (Clean) fill wanted. Escombro refers to bits of what houses and such are made of: brick, concrete, tile.
From that, now this ungainly mess, including plastic. And a new sign: Propriedad privada – no tirar basura ni escombro. Private property. Do not dump garbage or construction waste.
More ironic, the rather brutal potholes in the road. In five minutes, someone with a shovel and wheelbarrow could fill them, with the material right there. No one has. I would (did once before) but my wheelbarrow is in the country. One of these days….
We’re still drawing water from the well with a rope, which gets completely twisted. Our ‘everything’ guy Martín suggested a metal thingie that allows it to rotate, didn’t like the way I installed it, and did it a different way, with a knot that left the bucket at the bottom of the well in the middle of my watering routine today.
He made a hook out of thin metal construction rod and started fishing. (He’s a fisherman.)
No luck. I was heading home for lunch; said I’d bring back a strong flashlight and another bucket so they could continue work in the meantime, since brickwork requires water.
Two doors down, on a whim, I asked my neighbor if by chance he had a strong flashlight. No, but he had a bucket I could borrow. That would definitely save time. Being only 100 meters away, I left the car and walked back with the bucket.
In the few minutes of my absence, Martín had fashioned a treble hook, fished out two buckets from the bottom of the well, and assured me there was a third, which he left for now. Attached a bucket to the rope in place of the hook, and went back to work.
Not auto as in automobile, but as in self. In some stores and market stands, you help yourself. In others you tell them what you want and they bring it or pick it for you.
I haven’t been in this store, but I imagine if you walked in and asked for a kilo of oranges, you’d get a funny look.
Look what I found in the barn (galpon) – guess I get my very own Uruguayan toolbox after all. It even has a handle on one side!
Tosca:
… dirt. Actually a type of crumbly rock (my scant knowledge of geology fails me), a mountain of which appeared last week on the rambla, probably for the repair of the collapsing stretch nearby, and destined to devolve into clouds of dust, tooth-rattling washboards, and suspension-testing potholes (pozos).
I found this spot a little more inspiring a couple years ago, with a funky car and graceful pines.
They’ve gone, victim of a storm, as have the railings to the then-new boardwalk. And I haven’t seen that car in a long time either, come to think of it.
Time to get ready for a new planting.
I took a plumber/well guy to the campo to check our well (plenty of water).
Had to take a picture of his tool carrier.
You can’t make this stuff up.
I know; doesn’t inspire too much right now. But the structure gets a little more solid every day.
I’m posting this now so I can link back to it later. It’s gonna be awesome 😉
Our country property included two pig houses, one collapsing. When I took the latter apart, I discovered volunteer zapallos (I think; some kind of squash at any rate). You might recall my fascination with the volunteer zapallos last year.
At some point, I will take up the neighbor’s offer to plow the area between here and the house for a garden, in exchange for letting him graze cattle on our land. Meanwhile, I can be happy that part of my garden has already planted itself.