The Adventure to Punta del Este

Javy, February 25, 2015

Yesterday we went on an adventure to Punta del Este.  From Atlántida to Punta del Esta was about an hour's drive in our car that we rented.  When we got there, we found a lucky parking space next to the beach.  We walked down and rented chairs and an umbrella.  Teo and I took off our shirts and ran into the water.  It was a hot day, so the water was refreshing.  The waves were at least two times taller than me.  Think of how tall your dad is.  If your dad is short, that wouldn't work.  One wave knocked me into the sand and I floated to shore.  It was fun, even through I got my breath knocked out.  Sometimes the waves were so big, I felt like a piece of trash.

We found a place where you can take surfing lessons.  Our mom asked us if we wanted to do a lesson.  It was a definite "yes"!  We put on our wet suits and put on a yellow shirt that showed that we were part of the class.  We did our stretches, talked about how to stand up, and we went into the water with our teachers.  There were some waves that were so big that I went flying.  The waves were so big that the teacher had to hold us so we wouldn't fall off of the board.  My teacher said I was a natural!  I surfed very well, not very many mistakes, and the funnest part was doing races.  A race is where both of the surfers line up and the teachers push us and we go rocketing, and we stand up and we see who can on stay on the board the longest.  I was never good at the races.  I won a couple times, and Teo won a bunch of times.    

I explored with my dad and we found some live jellyfish and some unfortunate dead ones.  They were in little pools in the rocks.  There were a bunch of small little crabs and some big ones that hid in the rocks.  We walked around for awhile and we found an ugly surprise.  It was a dead seagull that lost its head.  It was disgusting.

We walked a little more and a little more and then we found some clams.  I found a pretty cool snail shell, and then Teo found one, and then Dad found one.  Then we found some cool seashells.  After that we walked back to our mom, who was reading in the sun and getting tanner.   We packed up and rinsed off and walked to the car.  We put our stuff in the car and walked to a fancy restaurant near a bay.

We got dinner and looked at the sunset.  Our mom told us that during the fight for Uruguay's freedom, there was a ship with Spanish soldiers that wrecked in the water near where we were eating.  If the ship had made it to land, and the Spanish soldiers fought, then the whole Uruguayan history would have been changed.  Teo and I thought that the water was haunted with Spanish soldiers' ghosts.  When the tide came up,  I saw a figure in the water staring at me.  I ran back to shore and did not want to go near that water again.

We thought the day was pretty awesome.  We drove home and got into bed and slept well after our adventure.

Poco a Poco

Marilyn, February 23, 2015

We are approaching the halfway point of our time in Uruguay, but we've only been in our final home for a week.  Last Monday, we moved from one side of our duplex to the other, and are starting to feel settled into what will be our home for the next four months.  We are spending a lot of time at the beach, and enjoying the beautiful views from our house.  Here are a couple of my favorite recent photos.

My two beautiful boys out in the surf

Sunset view from our roof

We're not feeling much like tourists any longer, and although a lot of the confusion and frustrations of our first weeks in Uruguay seem like distant memories, the work of acculturating is far from done.  Most of the time it seems like we take three steps forward and two back.  Poco a poco, though, little by little, we're learning how things are done, getting more comfortable in our surroundings, and feeling more at home.  

Today we took a bit of inventory and each listed three things we feel like we've accomplished since arriving, and three things that will be challenges for us in the time we have remaining.  Here are the accomplishments that we came up with:

Javy's accomplishments

1.  learning to ride a bike safely in all the traffic

2.  knowing how to ride the busses

3.  learning some Spanish

Teo's accomplishments

1.  being able to have fun with other kids even though we don't know the language

2.  exploring and learning about our beach

3.  learning some Spanish

Gene's accomplishments

1.  learning to navigate the bus system and having the driver understand one in eight times when I pronounce "Atlántida"

2.  surviving without Dr. Pepper

3.  contributing to designing a better amplifier in the lab

Marilyn's accomplishments

1.  making myself understood in most situations without relying on any English

2.  learning to circumvent the rules at the supermarket about checking bags at the door and using countless plastic bags to put groceries in

3.  meeting a lovely young woman who is eager to exchange Spanish conversation for English conversation with me 

And our challenges:

Javy's challenges

1.  learning more Spanish

2.  getting used to all the sunscreen we have to use because of the hole in the ozone layer above us

3.  learning to do some boating

Teo's challenges

1.  actually making friends

2.  getting better at riding bikes

3.  learning more Spanish

Gene's challenges

1.  designing a still better amplifier

2.  learning to program an Arduino microcontroller

3.  understanding mate drinking

Marilyn's challenges

1.  making some Uruguayan friends

2.  comprehension, comprehension, comprehension

3.  finding activities for the boys where they can make friends and practice Spanish

This weekend marks the end of summer holidays, and most of the vacationers will clear out from our town and our beach.  In a way, I'll miss all the activity, but in a way, I'm eager to see what Atlántida will be like when it's just "us locals" here.  I am feeling a little anxious about what the next months hold for the boys and me, and I'm trying to figure out how we can integrate ourselves into the community and its fall activities.  This process has been discouraging and frustrating at times, especially as Gene and I look at school possibilities for the boys and try to decide whether they should attend school here, the best option for really immersing them in Spanish.  We don't have much more time to decide, since schools start a week from today.

Thursday and Friday were particularly hard days in this regard, with each of them being a two-steps-backward day.  The boys had been attending a summer camp for several days.  Although it started out to be a good experience, they found it increasingly challenging to fit in and communicate with the other kids.  By Thursday, Javy lasted only about an hour at the camp before he convinced the director to call me to come get him.  And Friday I could not get him to go at all, even with the promise of dinner at McDonalds afterward and one ride at the amusement park for each positive thing he could tell me about camp.  My plan that they would make some friends and gradually learn to communicate was clearly not working out; in fact, they felt isolated and bored and hurt and ridiculed.  What that all meant for the possibility of school being a good experience for them, I didn't know, but I was feeling mighty discouraged.  

Fortunately, though, two friends have been able to point me toward some potential activities that could provide the boys with the socialization they need, including music classes and sailing lessons.  Perhaps the best course of action will be to continue to home school for part of each day, and have a full slate of afternoon activities with other kids.  We'll figure it out, I suppose. 

Since then, we've had more forward-moving days.  Saturday, Teo and Javy got to play with an English-speaking boy they met at the camp, and I had a lovely time getting to know his mom as we sat together on a windy beach watching them romp and wrestle.  I also really enjoyed biking into the next town for the weekly market that takes place there, and felt good about my ability to get myself there and buy what I needed, then coast downhill almost all the way home on the road that runs along the beach.  Sunday we had three other couples over for dinner, and it was a wonderful evening.  Our guests were from Germany, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Uruguay, and both the company and conversation were great.  Just preparing and serving the dinner involved a number of minor victories, including figuring out how to operate the oven, concluding that what the man at the market had assured me was coriander was really basil, making our few plates and bowls suffice for a three-course meal for ten, and getting a Georgia peach crisp to turn out right in Uruguay.

Today, more successes.  Using virtually no English, and with only one major error, and that more of a problem of not paying attention rather than a problem of language, we accomplished the following:  got keys made, got the boys' hair cut, stopped for Cokes, exchanged money, and arranged to rent a car for tomorrow.  We got a reasonable amount of school work done at home, and then spent a couple hours at the beach, where the boys had a great time with a boy they met there (not a local, unfortunately) who spoke no English at all.  They built an intricate sand mausoleum for a dead jellyfish they found, charged through the waves, and rolled down sand dunes together.  

Tomorrow, the four of us will drive to another city farther up the coast where we'll renew our visas, then spend some time at what is supposed to be one of the nicest beaches in South America.  Poco a poco, the adventure continues.  Thanks for following along.

Catching Minnows

Teo, February 16, 2015

Our dad is working in a lab that studies electric fish.  He brought an electric fish home on the bus because over the weekend he wanted to so some experiments.  Javy and I a couple of days later went to the little stream by our house to catch some flavorful minnows to feed our electric fish.

This is the little stream that we caught our minnows in.

We got the idea of making a little trap from some boys we met over by the farm where we worked in January.  You can go back and read about us meeting those boys, number 8 of Javy's favorite things at Ecoparque.  They took a Gatorade bottle and cut a hole and put some cracker bits into it so the fish would come in but couldn't get out.  So we tried it with a water jug.  We cut a hole and put some little cookie bits in, and we rode our bikes over to the stream.  

This is the little trap that we made.

We put the jug in the water and waited about two minutes, and we had at least fifty fish when we looked again.  Javy ran back to the house and got a bucket.  We poured all the fish into the bucket and we got two fish out.  

Javy holding some very wiggly minnows

Javy and I put them in the electric fish's tank.  They are swimming around right now, not suspecting anything.  The electric fish is just sitting there, but during the night, he will probably strike.  

This is our tank, and you can't really see the fish because it's in its tube, but you can see the tail poking out of the end.

The Adventures of Camp

Javy, Febrruary 12, 2015

Teo and I are going to a camp.  We go every day.  We ride our bikes there.  Our mom leaves us for four and a half hours and we get to play whatever we want.  We play soccer and ping-pong, and there is a fun place to climb, and a pool - a big pool that is at least the size of a jumbo jet.  There are not enough kids to fill up the pool!

The kids are pretty nice.  We met some new friends named Lucas and Joaquin and Maximo.  We kind of talk and kind of use hand motions to signal what we want.  We're understanding a little bit but not enough to communicate very well.  We hope that we can understand better by the time we leave!

Two Festivals and a Birthday

Marilyn, February 8, 2015

We are lucky enough to be here in Uruguay at a time of year when there is a lot going on.  As Teo and I have reported before, it's Carnaval season, plus summer vacation, and there is much to see and do.  This past week, we've moved from Montevideo to Atlántida, where the year-round population of 5,600 grows to about 20,000 in January and February.  The beaches and shops and restaurants are crowded and the we're having to dodge a lot of traffic when we go out exploring on our newly-purchased bikes.  We're enjoying being here, but also looking forward to having the beach and town more to ourselves in a few weeks.

We timed our move so that we would still be in Montevideo on February 2, the day of an annual festival on the beach near the apartment we were renting.  The festival celebrates Yemanjá (or Iemanjá) Day, which honors the goddess of the sea in the Umbanda tradition of Brazil.  Umbanda, which combines African religious customs with elements of Roman Catholicism and Native American beliefs, originally was practiced by African slaves in Brazil.  Now their descendants continue the religious traditions, and many others in Brazil, Uruguay, and elsewhere appreciate the festivals and traditions from a cultural standpoint.

This statue of the goddess Yemanjá stands across the street from the beach, and not far from the U.S. Embassy.  She's looking out across the water, as if protecting the sailors and sea creatures in her care.  Around Yemanjá Day, flowers are left around the statue.  This photo was taken by our friend Steve Anthony.

In the late afternoon on February 2, crowds began to gather on the beach and on the Rambla above.  Many little stands sprang up, selling flowers and other items to offer to Yemanjá.  The boys and I wandered around among the worshippers and sightseers trying to take in and understand all that was going on, and Gene joined us later as the sun was setting and the energy of the crowd increased.  There were way too many sights, sounds, and smells to try to adequately describe, but I captured as much as I could in these photos.

Candles are an important element of the festival, but the strong wind blowing off the water makes it hard to light them.  So all over the beach, people dig holes and put the candles down inside them.

Here's someone who actually got a candle to stay lit for a little while.

Besides candles, offerings of fruits, popcorn, and other foods are made.  Watermelon is especially popular, maybe because it also makes a good candle holder.  

Other offerings are placed on little boats so they can be pushed out to sea to honor the goddess. 

Some families construct little shrines with their offerings all laid out in the sand.  

Individuals, groups, and families will take their boats and offerings and walk far out into the water, then push their boats out to "sea," although this is still the estuary of the Rio de la Plata, not the open ocean.  As they return to the beach, they walk backwards out of respect, not wanting to turn their backs on their offerings.

As the sun began to set, the image of hundreds of people wading out into the water and returning, still facing the sea, was pretty striking.  

Here and there on the beach, and spread out in the shallow water, were priest-like people (I'm not sure what they are actually called) who were giving blessings to all who requested them.  I was later told that the priests are most likely Brazilian.  Both male and female, they were dressed in white, flowing robes, and to my surprise, did not appear to be of African descent.  

A band with lots of drumming, also typical of the traditions of Brazilians and Uruguayans of African descent, played from above the beach on the Rambla.  

Along with the elements of religious solemnity, there was also a definite carnival vibe.  Ice cream and cotton candy vendors walked up and down the beach shouting out to potential customers,

and Javy taking a moment to be silly with a jellyfish he found didn't seem out of place at all.  

There were about as many cameras as there were candles, so I didn't feel awkward about asking to take pictures.  Journalists abounded, and this one who was barking out orders to his crew in what we took to be German was especially bent on getting a good story.  

As we were leaving around 9:30, I noticed a group of people with these t-shirts on, proclaiming that they care for nature.  I assume that they are part of a small but growing effort I had read about encouraging people think about the environmental effect of all the candles and offerings floating out to sea, and about the trash left behind on the beaches by tens of thousands of festival-goers.  They certainly have their work cut out for them.  

On our walk back home through the crowded park to our apartment, we saw busloads of people still arriving.  The festivities continued long into the night, and even though we turned in early, it seemed like a wonderful way to end our time in Montevideo.

Four days later, it was time to return to Montevideo for another festival that I felt compelled to attend, Las Llamadas.  (See this link for an article that is poorly translated but has good information and photos.)  The boys and I headed to the bus stop in Atlántida around 5 p.m., and after almost getting on the wrong bus a couple of times, we were helped to choose a correct, but crowded, one heading for the city.  Javy and I ended up standing much of the way, but eventually got a seat and Javy even dozed for a bit.  He was awakened by a busking guitarist and flautist who boarded the bus as we approached Montevideo and serenaded us with some lovely music.  I was especially impressed with the flautist who didn't seem fazed by all the bumps that were jostling the rest of us all over the place.  We got off the bus near Gene's work, and met him at a Fresh Market (same chain as the upscale groceries in the U.S.) which had food that looked wonderful as well as wonderfully familiar.  But the prices and the length of the check-out line intimidated us enough that we went off in search of a restaurant instead.  While eating our pizza and burgers (mine was a hamburguesa completa, meaning, I discovered, that it came with ham, olives, and half a boiled egg on it), Gene told me that his colleagues had strongly advised him not to carry a backpack to the Llamadas, because of the risk of getting it stolen.  We had between us two backpacks containing three (yes, three, embarrassingly enough) iPads, a lot of cash, our credit cards, and passports.  We reviewed our options, including the option of just taking them with us and guarding them with our lives.  We finally decided to ask our very nice waiter if we could leave them at the restaurant.  So, I started the conversation with, "Our friends have told us it's unsafe to take our backpacks to the Llamadas."  He responded, "And you want to leave them here?"  So it was settled, and we turned our backpacks over to him with assurances that we'd be back before the restaurant closed at 1 a.m.

We got on another bus, complete with busking guitarist/vocalist, who was not as talented as the musicians on the first bus, but who I tipped anyway, as I have been in the habit of doing since becoming a parent of a musician.  Twenty minutes later, the driver told us it was time to get off, another passenger pointed us in the right direction down a busy street, and soon we were in the middle of the crowd of Llamadas spectators.  Loud, excited, pushing, shoving, smoking spectators, all intent on snagging a good viewing spot that no one else had yet discovered.  We rejoiced when we found what on first appearance seemed to be an ideal corner, up against a building that had a 3" ledge that we figured the boys could perch on when the parade started.  And when they climbed up there and leaned against Gene and me for balance, they did in fact have a decent view, even after the three tallest young men in all of Uruguay decided to stand right in front of us.  What we had not counted on was that since we were up against the building, the eighteen inches of sidewalk between us and the people filling in along the street became the thoroughfare for the multitude of people who thought the view might be better around the corner.  It seemed to me that the fact that thousands of people were heading west on that narrow thoroughfare might have been a clue to the thousands that were trying to head east that there was no good view to be found, but apparently I wasn't understanding the situation correctly.  In any case, for the better part of an hour that we waited for the parade to start, and the better part of another hour that we watched it trickle by us at a snail's pace, we had a whole mass of humanity pushing and shoving to get past us, with hardly a "perdón" being uttered.  I kept trying to imagine what it would have been like to have a bulky backpack or two further impeding this flow of bodies, and was awfully glad we weren't finding out.  A couple of times when the boys grew tired of perching on their precarious ledge and came down to the sidewalk, I was seriously concerned about the risk of them being trampled.  We decided to stay until the first drumming group passed us, since the drumming was really what the whole thing was all about.  I managed to hand my phone up to Teo, who was leaning on my head in most uncomfortable fashion, to take a few pictures of what he could see.

He also managed to film this video:

Following the first wave of flags and feathery dancers, a regiment of drummers came thundering by, and we decided we'd had our requisite cultural experience.  We peeled ourselves off of our wall and writhed our way into the river of bodies in front of us.  Our spots were vacant for less than the time it took for me to pull Teo in front of me, and I guided him out of there, shielding him with my body from the waves of torsos above him.  Just around the corner was relatively open space, and it seemed like a different world entirely.  We hailed a cab without any problem, and answered the driver's curious question about didn't we want to stay and hear drums?  It turns out that the cab driver was the best part of the whole night for me.  He was a very animated older man with bushy eyebrows that leapt almost off his face when I said we were from Atlanta.  What do you know, but years ago he had had the chance to go work in a synagogue in Atlanta but because of visa issues, ended up instead in France and Spain.  More excitement when I mentioned that I teach geography.  Why, he was a geography teacher, too!  We just babbled the rest of the way to the restaurant, and I learned more about English architecture in Spain than I every would have imagined possible.  I decided that if I really want to become fluent in Spanish, the best thing I could do is hire a taxi to drive me around for several hours and day, with the driver telling me all of his life's stories.  

We were greeted at the restaurant by our waiter who had our backpack ready to go for us, and soon were on the bus back to Atlántida.  It was standing room only for most of the hour-long ride, and we were more than ready to be home by the time the bus let us off.  

Sunday, Gene's birthday, was a day to be celebrated as well, though we did it in a quieter way.   A new Canadian friend took us on a tour of the area surrounding Atlántida, which was very helpful for getting our bearings.  I was nursing a sore knee, so Gene and Javy went out in search of a birthday cake at a pastry shop that this friend recommended.  The line was too long and the service too slow (as we are finding is typical), so they settled for going to the local supermarket and buying what appeared to be a chocolate cake but turned out to be more of a glob of chocolaty goodness in a chocolate crust, with rolls of milk chocolate on top.  

The boys whistled happy birthday, and we all watched Back to the Future 3.  Besides driving around for hours in cabs, watching movies in English with Spanish subtitles seems a pretty great way to achieve fluency, so there may be more of that in my future.  For Teo and Javy, I'm hoping that the summer camp program they started this week will be just what they need to get them over the language hurdle.  In the meantime, we'll keep taking advantage of whatever opportunities come our way to acclimate ourselves to the language, culture, beauty, and frustrations of this wonderful place!

Moving to Atlántida

Teo, February 6, 2015

A couple of days ago, we came to the house that we are going to stay at for the rest of the time we will be in Uruguay.  It is very close to the beach, so we can just walk down a little path and get to the beach.  

The path to the ocean

The bridge over the stream on the way to the ocean

This house is a duplex, and someone else rents the space next door.  Javy and I have a very nice room with bunk beds that are kind of too small for us, and the mattresses are rock hard.  

We have been having lots of fun.  Yesterday we went to the outdoor market.  It was big, but there weren't very many people there.  We bought fruit, laundry detergent, a bar of soap, sunscreen, eggs, and nuts.  For lunch, we got empanadas and they were very, very tasty.  On the way home, we stopped for ice cream by a McDonald's and a little amusement park.

We also go to the beach a lot.  We play in the waves and try to get huge waves over our heads and try to get washed ashore.   We have found some neat things, like a crab and three jellyfish.

  

I like it here a lot!

Yummy Cheeseburgers

Javy, Februray 2, 2015

In Uruguay, some of the food is odd.  Here is an example.

We were at the park on Saturday.  Teo and I were hungry.  We were going to go get something to eat at the deli, but it was closed.  We decided to go to a little food stand at the park.

They sold hamburgers (hamburguesas), hot dogs (panchos), and sausages (hungaras and chorizos).  There was a super-duper big hamburger that had cheese, bacon, and ham on it, more than I could eat. You would say what you wanted, and the people would cook it, and then they would ask you what you wanted on it.  Here were the choices:  olives, onions, peas, corn, pineapple, red peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, pickles, papas pay (which are like shoestring potatoes), garlic, parsley, and some sauces, including one called golf sauce.

This is the food that you could put on your hot dog or hamburger.

I chose a hamburger with cheese on it and papas pay.  Teo had a hot dog with catsup and the same potato chip stuff.  Dad got a cheeseburger and olives on it and our mom had a cheeseburger with pineapple.  It cost 300 pesos, or about $12.

My hamburger was very good, but the bun was too small for the big hamburger patty.  Teo said his hot dog was good, too.

There were lots of pigeons trying to grab the bread we threw out to them.  Little birds were successful in getting the bread pieces, too.

It was nice to eat in the park.  It was neat to have that food, and it was very yummy.