Author: doug

Mejorar: to improve

When I lived in Europe, it seemed fashionable for ‘experienced’ expats to tell newbies how the place had gone to hell in the last (pick a number of) years.

Here, I can list a number of improvements in two and a half years. New airport, improved roads, much faster internet, better selection of white wine in the local supermarket (we must have helped), and an effort to conserve the dunes, with boardwalks erected since the first time we visited.

Alas, our nearest wasn’t particularly well built. Its entire length used to have hand rails on both sides. Still, its convenience provides incentive not to trample the dunes, and the base is solid.

Some will argue the place is going to hell (today the rumor of a revised effort to introduce a worldwide wealth tax on residents – enforceable precisely how, pray tell?) but I don’t see it. Yet, anyway.

We ponder and plan. Worrying helps nothing.

Big day for some local kids

New Zealand offers a limited number of one-year working visas for young Uruguayans, and several of our son’s friends jumped at the opportunity. One left in January, the rest today. Seeing people off at the airport here is a big deal. There were many, many people inside seeing off travelers.

Santi (center front) arrived in a sullen mood…

…but, being Santi, that couldn’t last too long.

The three in the middle in back, Matilde, Mauro (twin brother Rodrigo the one already in NZ), and Diego are the ones taking off. The boys have been like family much of the last two and half years. We’ll miss them.

¡Que tengan un buen viage y muy buena suerte!

A visit from Aramides ypecaha

Aramides ypecaha aka gallineta, bird Uruguay

Gallinetas (pronounced ‘gazhinettas’) are one of my favorite birds here. I’ve only seen them in our yard a few times, though I hear their raucous calls almost every morning. When, this dreary morning, I saw a pair of them in the front yard, I grabbed my camera – to see that one had jumped onto a fence post (behavior I’ve never seen) as though posing. Only then did I realize I couldn’t shoot through a window screen because of the camera’s auto-focus.

I quietly opened the front door a little bit, expecting the bird to spook. But no, it just stood there. Indeed as if posing.

In Argentina, it’s called Ipacaá; in Brazil, saracuruçu. In English, Giant Wood-Rail.

New, modern trash collection

Trash collection unit, Urguay

This thing appeared on the corner this morning with no notice, and no mention of whether it’s for trash and recyclables, or just one or the other. They’ve appeared around town the last few weeks, but I guessed we didn’t get one because our street was too narrow, and we’d continue using our basket-on-a-pole.

First thought: now I can rid of big stuff that doesn’t fit in the basket!

Second thought: how do they empty that thing?

UPDATE: though a neighbor told me they emptied them by hand (!) they do indeed have lifts on the garbage truck. Instead of running and grabbing bags out of baskets on poles, the two people riding on the back of the truck jump of to maneuver this bin into place.

Volatility

Brisk westerly blow-cap-off-your-head breeze during my grounding walk on the beach this morning. A degree or two lower and I would want a windbreaker over my t-shirt. Only a few days ago, wearing a t-shirt if you didn’t have to was crazy, given the heat and humidity.

The climate is volatile, the economy is volatile, the social mood is volatile – the last I know from reading, not direct experience. For now, Uruguay remains tranquilo.

The 9s of Uruguay

We’re getting closer to being (mini) farm owners. As we left the escribana‘s office, she handed me this:

Any ideas?

U$S 1.967 – or to Americans, $1,967, the balance I need to pay in the next few days. To locals here, $1,967 means pesos, or a little over a hundred bucks. Hence the U$S. It can get confusing in a store when you see price tags in two currencies – not both together, rather one or the other.

But the thing I marvel at is the ‘P’ for ‘9.’ I don’t know how they’re taught, but sometimes they get it right, and as often as not it’s backward. Sometimes both on the same paper.

The whistling postman

What does it mean, in February, when you hear someone whistling Christmas carols or Happy Birthday To You?

It means the postman, on his motorbike, is nearby. I thought of this just now because on a mobile loudspeaker somewhere nearby someone is playing Christmas carols: Deck the Halls, We Wish You a Merry…

Death on the Ruta

A friend of my son works in a filling station on a busy intersection of the Ruta Interbalnearia.

Yesterday he was a little shaken, having seen a man struck by a speeding car and killed.

The more I thought about it, the more confused I was. I have nearly hit pedestrians in the same intersection, when they step into the road without looking at either the light, nor to see if vehicles are approaching. The question is, how can you be hit by a car there if you’re paying any attention? Even if the light says ‘walk,’ don’t you still check for traffic?

Apparently not in Uruguay.