El Campo

At the invitation of some of my friends I live with, I've had the opportunity to spend two weekends at an organic farm and permaculture project in San Carlos, about two hours from Montevideo. At the farm  I have spent time doing the following things: hauling rocks, cutting everything within arms reach with a machete, learning about permaculture, sleeping in a tent, watching a thunderstorm, eating supper by candlelight, learning how to make adobe and drinking absurd amount of mate with a great group of Uruguayans. Here are some pictures from the farm.

Taller on permaculture

Relaxing after an amazing lunch

The group after completing the garden

The garden in all its glory

Buen provecho

On the way to the creek

Cutting firewood with a machete = fun

The house

Las sierras

A Friday Adventure

Last Friday I arrived at La Obra and was asked if I wanted to go for a walk. Every once in a while, the staff of La Obra makes house visits to teenagers that haven’t been coming. Although it sounds simple, these visits are actually pretty complicated because even though we had the address, actually locating the address is difficult. The address read 58 Diagonal 3, so house 58 on diagonal 3.  In Barrio Borro there are main paved streets that have names but then there are tons of pedestrian paths, alleyways and gravel roads leading away from the main avenues so the challenge was to figure out exactly where Diagonal #3 was.  Our first stop was at a kiosk near where we thought the address was. The owner of the kiosk didn’t really know and sent us farther up the street.  The second stop was at a random house, which proved to be fruitful because the woman at the house knew the family.  She gave us pretty good directions and we continued farther up the main street. Third stop was at a small corner store for more directions. We were getting warmer. From the corner store we crossed the main street and walked down a gravel path for a bit. After walking around asking neighbors for directions we finally arrived to the house, the numbers 58 were scrawled in white paint on the side of the house. We called out the teenager’s name for a bit without any response and then walked back to La Obra. 

This isn’t a typical morning at La Obra for me but I enjoy going on the visits because it gives me a chance to see more of the neighborhood than I usually do. Friday is fair day so the street was filled with vendors selling fruits and vegetables. I also got the chance to see one of the high schools that several of the teenagers from La Obra attend. We even passed the neighborhood’s supposed haunted house. A long time ago, where Barrio Borro is today was out in the country and two men from Argentina came to build a hotel. The hotel failed but the building remains to this day, it is an ornate building but has definitely seen its better days. The story goes that several grisly murders have taken place inside. Not sure if it’s true but the house looked creepy enough from the outside, I’ll take everyone’s word for it. Creepy haunted houses aside, it was an interesting way to spend my Friday morning at La Obra.

Learn About Uruguay

Don't know much about Uruguay? Here is a video you might enjoy, it's just a little dated.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuQ-FxCgU3Q

Los Mellizos

There are two different sets of identical twins at La Obra. As if trying to learn names and getting to know everyone wasn’t hard enough already. However, this week I have finally figured it out.  Gonzalo and Guillermo, two brothers that are in second grade, are nearly indistinguishable from each other. They talk the same, act the same and look so much alike that they are usually not referred by name but are just called “los mellizos”, the twins.  The difference between the two is that Gonzalo has a mole on his left cheek and Guillermo doesn’t.

The other set of identical twins, Diego and Jose, are two teenage boys that come to Casa de Jóvenes.  They are much easier to tell apart because they both have their names tattooed on their forearms. That is what I call a great idea.

Piriápolis

Getting of the bus

Waiting for the bus

fun at the beach

Everybody at Cerro San Antonio

Las sirenas

View from Cerro San Antonio/proof Uruguay has hills

Last week was the end of the summer trip with Club de Niños to Piriápolis, a small city on the ocean north of Montevideo. We left La Obra at 7 AM and spent the whole day at the beach, getting back at 8 PM that night. It was a long day but lots of fun. We spent time swimming, playing beach games and also went to the top of Cerro San Antonio to check out the view.

I❤Uruguay

View from La Rambla

18 de Junio, downtown Montevideo

The intricate beauty of the average house in Montevideo is unbelievable

Neighborhood up from La Rambla

Typical Montevideo street

I am going to start this post by apologizing to anyone reading this in the Northern Hemisphere that is slushing through March, hey at least it's better than February. I had to preface this blog post with an apology because I just got back from going to the beach. Almost everyday for the past two weeks, thanks to the great weather, I have had a chance to go to the beach after La Obra, which for me is something I really enjoy.  Having the chance to go on a run to the ocean is something that just hasn't been a part of my life before. (Ok, so the geographer in me wants to point out that technically it is the Rio de la Plata and it's an estuary and is a mix of freshwater and saltwater but there are waves and it's kind of salty, so I'm saying it's an ocean)

However, aside from being a beach bum, there are just lots of things that I have come to really appreciate about my life in Uruguay. When people find out that I am from the United States, they always ask if I like Uruguay and I always have an enthusiastic reply.  As of today, I have been in Montevideo for about seven months and sometimes it amazes me how much at home I feel here. One of my favorite things to do here is simply take walks and see what is around. I don't plan where I am going, I just walk out the door and see where I end up. Of course, I usually end up at my favorite place in Montevideo, which is La Rambla.

However, the most interesting thing about my love for Uruguay is that I somehow ended up living here.   At one point when I was in college I was debating graduating early. I had enough credits but I still hadn't gone abroad, which was something I had always dreamed of doing. I thought I could take the money I would save from graduating early and go travel somewhere. At the time I was reading a book about Montevideo in my Spanish class so I actually spent a lot of time looking into traveling to Uruguay because it seemed interesting.

As it turns out, I didn't graduate early and I did study abroad (which was the right decision) but I still ended up in Uruguay!  Funny how that worked out, eh?

Accompaniment

One of the core concpets of the YAGM program is the model of accompaniment.  This model covers a lot of different things but the simple definition, as provided by the ELCA Global Mission unit’s handy dandy website, is “walking together in solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality.”  I think this is a very pretty sentence. 

Before YAGM I was not familiar with the accompaniment model but after several orientations before I had learned a lot more about what it encompassed. After four high paced years of college, I loved the idea of making relationships and people more important than things like deadlines and projects and could not wait to get to Uruguay to see what accompaniment was all about.  However, even though I was excited, I still had doubts about my ability to accompany others. Would my lack of Spanish hinder me from making meaningful connections with others? Would my tendency to be introverted in new situations keep me distanced from others?  Would the fact I was living in another culture make it difficult to get closer to people?  These were just several of the many doubts I had before coming to Uruguay.  

Fortunately, I found many opportunities for accompaniment at La Obra Ecumenica.  Whether it be eating lunch with the teenagers, jumping rope with some of the kids from Club de Niños or sharing a mate with one of the educators, there is always a chance to simply be together.  I saw that my doubts about were just, simply not that big of a deal.  I learned it was more important to know how to give someone a high-five after scoring a goal instead of knowing how to say it in Spanish. After hearing so much about the accompaniment model, it was great to finally see it in real life.

Except I was not seeing the whole picture.

At one point in the past few months I found myself go through a very ugly situation, now resolved, in which my own sense of privacy, trust and personal safety had all been negatively affected. This period of time was really hard for me.  However, during this rough period, I woke up everyday excited to go to La Obra because I knew there would be smiles, hugs and a tasty lunch shared with others. La Obra, which seeks to be a safe and welcoming place for the youth of the community, became my escape from my own uncomfortable environment elsewhere.

During this year, including this rough period, I have been happy, sad, mad, frustrated, amazed, confused and just about every emotion you can think of but but what has been constant has been the way the communities of La Obra and Nuestro Salvador have accompanied me.  

I think I am finally starting to get this whole accompaniment thing.