Why?
If you’re really curious, read 1,600+ words on The Alpha Zone.
(Oh, sorry: that explains why they are there, not why I counted them.)
Price of meat in Uruguay
 | USD prices per pound: Cativelli Sausage: 4.58 Panceta—bacon: 5.20 Chicken legs:1.51 Picada—lean ground beef: 2.28 Chicken Milanesa: 3.58 Nalga—top/bottom roast: 3.90 |
After ordering at our favorite carniceria (butcher shop), I realized I had no money. No problem, the owner said, taking my name and writing the amount on a strip of paper. The next day, I saw he had a stack of these slips over an inch high. Mine was someone near the middle, so obviously this is a common thing. Interesting.
How do these prices compare with current prices elsewhere?
Give me a (small) k!
Last Friday, our fiber optic service crapped out. I called AntelData to file a reclamo, a complaint, and learned that service was down for an entire zone. Not much to do but wait.
Saturday I learned that our neighbors had their service back. Sunday we spent a delightful afternoon with a couple of friends with whom we explored northern Argentina a few years back, at our favorite restaurant. Got home: still no internet.
Monday morning, a computer-illiterate Uruguayan friend mentioned entering usario and contraseña, and suddenly it clicked: Antel insisted the correct modem lights were lit. Then I remembered that on my first call, they’d had me enter user name and password, which I did—obviously incorrectly?
So I wondered if what I took as a capital A at the beginning of the handwritten password the tech left months ago, was instead a 4. The passwords are all upper case. LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES LOVE ALL CAPS.
No, not 4.
Then I looked at out ambiguously written handwritten user name, one letter and 5 numbers @adsl… and wondered: was K supposed to be k?
Bingo! In a trice we were back to wasting huge amounts of time glued to the screen.
Se terminó.
Yes, it’s been a while since my last post. Shortly after it, I commiserated with an older neighbor whose bicycle had bogged down in the mud I’ve never seen before. We got onto the strange rain and weather, and he told me summer was over (se terminó el verano).
I didn’t believe him. But I think it’s true: by the equivalent of mid-August in the northern hemisphere, and summer was gone. One of our neighbors in the campo told me he‘d seen swallows flocking to migrate north to Brazil or Ecuador. And I have gotten nothing—absolutely nothing—from the garden. Lettuce in the supermarket costs 3-4 times (factoring quantity) as much as we’d expect.
But we had a lovely day for our neighbor’s hangi-style pig roast, complete with tranquilo sunset that reminded me why I enjoy being in the country (all of 10 km away!).
At the end of the day…
…you set aside the corruption and official incompetence you’ve witnessed, set aside the reflections of a native on a culture that rewards mediocrity and discourages ambition, have a glass of wine, and enjoy the sky as the sun sets,
grateful it doesn’t look like what you saw so often in North America and Europe.
After the rains: haven’t seen this before
In almost 4-1/2 years here, I’ve seen lots of rain, but never this: the tosca, road-building material made from soft sedimentary rock, has become so saturated in many areas that it acts as mud. Ride into that on a bicycle and you’ll regret it.
After I wrote the above, my wife mentioned that just a couple hours ago she got stuck in exactly this place—in the car. Had to rock back and forth to get free….
¡Compro!
Easily the most obnoxious character who drives around blaring advertising. He buys old stuff (______ viejos compro=I buy old ________).
The last one, garafas, refers to the propane tanks that you have to buy, but which the company that sells them to you won’t buy back, even though there’s nothing unique to your tank: you swap it out for a full one—which is obviously a different tank that somebody else had to buy from a company that won’t buy it back.
The penultimate, fósforos quemados as far as I can tell, is weird—burnt matchsticks? Obviously I’m missing something here.
The first two? I’ll need some help here….
Horny man’s tea
Hey, I’m just the messenger, OK?
The pond comes to life!
The pond has filled to its exit point, also its entrance. I don’t like that design. At some point I’ll get to work making a drain at the far end. But not today: after the temperature plunge of a couple days ago, and the flooding, the temperature has popped back up to 32/90° with oppressive humidity.
Our plan when we made the pond was to introduce plants to clear the water, then fish. That is, if it ever filled with water at all. The floating stuff on the right just appeared one day; turns out our neighbor planted it. Today brought another surprise, one which I don’t think has to do with him (but you never know!).
UPDATE: rain damage
A substantial portion of the Rambla (beach road) washed away, and as soon as the rain paused, everyone wanted to see it. It’s not the first time, but the worst I’ve seen.
At a parking area now completely unusable, water pouring through and over the boardwalk.
Heading home.