note to self: next time, take camera
Amazing sunset on the beach, awesome clouds
Forty five, schmorty five
I called the guy who installed our Ñuke wood stove (two years ago) to clean the stove pipe. He finally showed up.
First he cleaned the stove. Then, unable to cleanly remove the bricks of the upper combustion chamber, he broke them in order to gain access to the stove pipe from the bottom. His cleaning tool: 1/2″ flexible black pipe with some wires stuck in the end.
He couldn’t get it past the second elbow. So they’ll have to clean it from the top. And replace the bricks. Some day.
I asked them why they didn’t use 45° elbows originally, which would have worked a lot better.
They were supposed to be, he replied.
As someone (was it me?) once quipped: How do you say ‘quality control’ on Latin America? – You don’t.
When the rain comes
When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. They might as well be dead.
~ Rain, John Lennon
It rained much of the night, and the morning was unpleasantly rainy still. Our son went to catch a bus to his class in Montevideo.
There were no buses.
No strike, no holiday; simply no buses on the road in ugly weather.
My wife called the friend who agreed to translate for her at the hairdresser. Let’s do this another time, the woman said, it’s ugly today. This despite door-to-door transportation.
Perhaps the bus drivers knew no one would go anywhere, so they stayed home too.
My best guess is that people here have learned to avoid the risk of getting wet, and consequently chilled, because homes here aren’t built to be warm. There is evidence that this has a historical basis (1897):
In the winter, their surroundings are equally pretentious, but very uncomfortable, for the houses of Montevideo are as frigid as the white marble in which they are finished. The people believe artificial heat unhealthy, and in this city, which is as large as Washington, and quite as cold, there is not a furnace or a steam-heating plant. During cold snaps, a hostess often receives dressed in furs, with her hands in a muff and her feet on a hot-water bottle, and gentlemen and ladies come to state dinners in over-coats and fur capes. Source
Little brown waves
I’ve never thought of myself as beach person. The thought of hanging out on a beach for hours makes me a little numb. That said, I love being able to walk to, and on, the beach daily. During summer – January and February – it has to be early or not at all (and I will find sun-worshippers at 8 AM). Off season any time of day works.
But there remain two issues: 1) the waves are tiny, and 2) they’re often brown.
1) Why are the waves tiny? Theoretically, you could sail in a straight line from Uruguay over 16,500 kilometers before making landfall (and you’ve always wanted to visit Myanmar, no?). That much open ocean and diddly little waves? Why?
2) Brown waves – let NASA tell the story (even if they can barely get within 90 degrees of correctly identifying north).
On the day of this photo, we enjoyed blue or green waves ‘north’ (actually east) of Montevideo. A little change in current and winds, and you have brown waves.
Sometimes we have fresh (brown) water; sometimes we have salt water at the beach. So sometimes the fisherman catch freshwater fish, and sometimes saltwater fish. And sometimes the wrong ones get caught in a shift, and their carcasses end up carpeting the beach.
Today’s project: build an ugly table
Beautiful San-Diego-weather kind of day.
Today’s project: turn remains of crappy wooden gate we replaced into a table to replace the crappy plastic one we bought.
No, I have no dark stain to finish it (and no buying any: it’s Sunday). Yes, it is ugly. However, it also has significantly more weight than the plastic one, so that when bearing things like wine glasses that can easily topple, it is less likely to end disaster because of a dog fumbling about underneath.
The dog in the door, indicating that it’s time to walk to the beach, will no doubt put it to the test given the next opportunity.
Chimney sweeps
They didn’t come last Saturday. Weather or something.
Today showed up mid-afternoon. Cleaned inside Argentinian Ñuke wood stove, scraping off chucks of oxidized metal – a.k.a, rust – broke bricks to secondary combustion chamber because something wasn’t removable to allow access to stove pipe. Their weapon, a half-inch black flexible pipe with wires stuck through the end (read: brush) unable to clear second bend in stovepipe, advertised as 45 degree elbows but instead 30 degrees.
Investigated rooftop; decided they’d come back tomorrow to replace broken bricks in stove (how?) and next week to clean chimney from (precarious) above.
Ya veremos – (now) we will see.
Sorry if a bit incoherent. Es lo que hay – that’s how it is.
Still life with cat and squash
Hospital elevators
We went today to visit Mauro of the motorcycle accident in the hospital, who sports a large and ugly scar from having his spleen removed – Frankenstein-style stitches from his navel up (to remove the spleen – ?). He’ll be there another few weeks.
We had to take a couple elevators to find him. The elevators are the type with a single, automatic door and buttons you push to go to the desired floor. You know, like in a hotel – ? Seen them before?
An additional feature in each elevator is a chair with a person in it to push the buttons, taking up perhaps 20% of the floor space. As a result, a wheel chair would not fit in the elevator.
But, a full time job for a few more people. Welcome to Uruguay!
Later: told Santiago* about the elevator operators, adding es Uruguay.
Soy Uruguayo, he replied – ¿Me lo vas a decir a mi?
Or roughly, Hey, I’m Uruguayan – YOU’RE going to tell ME about it?
*masseur: 1-hour+ ~$30
Paying bills
How to pay bills in Uruguay:
Electric, water, telephone:
- Set up automatic debit through your Banco Republica account in pesos.
- Forget to fund the account one month, at which point automatic-debit contracts cease.
- Go to individual offices, take a number, wait – nah.
- Take bills to supermarket, pay at cashier when you check out.
Property and vehicle taxes:
- Go online, enter property ID numbers, transfer money from bank account.
- Or, spend an hour or more in a dreary government building
- where the main entertainment consists of guessing how many thousands of people have rubbed against the concrete columns painted flat white a dozen years ago, in order to make them so filthy looking.
- That, or staring blankly with the ‘waiting is our second national sport’ look of resignation.
In some regions, like swanky Punta del Este (nya nana na na na!) they have only the latter choice since their departamento lacks an online payment system.
And then there’s Abitab.
You can pay bills at the ubiquitous Abitab, buy concert tickets, wire money, and probably a half dozen other things, but since paying all our bills there for six months yielded not a single ‘Abi’ on my points card, I had decided Abitab was the last resort, refuge of computer illiterates and credit-less souls.
Once our son was set up in Gato Dumas in Montevideo in March, the school gave us a sheet with payment options – bank transfers through three banks, or Abitab. Since any in-person dealings at the bank have the same tenor as the government building above, and being wary of an online transfer (because what a nightmare undoing a mistake!), I went to Abitab, expecting a blank stare, and lackluster and/or indifferent service, and a struggle.
What a surprise: school name, student name and ID number, tap tap tap and up comes the total, late fee included (oops: duly noted): fast, friendly, professional.
Who’d a thunk?
Yes, Virginia, there is no paradise.
Uruguay may once again prove to live up to its official motto of “liberty or death.” Already considered one of the freest countries in the world in terms of economic and political liberties, the Uruguayan government has agreed on draft legislation that will legalize possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption.
Meanwhile, prisons in Uruguay are at almost double their capacity, resulting in (politically motivated?) riots and fires recently.