La Rueda de Oro

Last Thursday my Rotaract club and I saw the realization of months of hard work for the event, "Wheel of Gold" or "Rueda de Oro".

The event was a type of Academy Awards for the Rotary districts 4980 and 4970 here in Uruguay. It was an innovative idea that brought together Rotarians from both districts while raising funds for a good cause.

Prize categories ranged from best service project in the community to best project to raise funds. Clubs submitted the service projects they realized throughout the year, there was no limit to how many categories they could enter. When the awards were presented for each club the nominees were read off as well as descriptions of the projects they realized within the category. Thus, my rotarct club not only did a great job of bringing rotarians together but also of creating an awareness amongst Rotarians of Uruguay of what each club is accomplishing.

Dia del Patrimonio

Last Saturday, the old city of Montevideo came to life with music, dancing and a variety of spectacles. There were so many people dressed up and out to celebrate a day of cultural heritage. In reality it was a whole weekend but I spent just Saturday seeing all that there was to see. Not only were their street performances, choirs singing and people dancing tango, all museums and antiquated, historical buildings were open to roam around and discover.

Peru!

Two weeks ago I arrived home to Uruguay from an exciting trip to Peru. My sister organized everything to ensure an exciting stay. I toured Lima, flew to Cuzco, treked along the inca trail for four days to arrive to Machu Pichu at Sunrise, visited ancient ruins in smaller pueblos in Cuzco and ate amazing food!

And even among all of our adventures we still found time to attend her Rotaract club meetings. When Katie came to visit me in Uruguay, she brought with her a cultural exchange box that was filled with gifts that represent Peru and so when I flew out to Lima, Peru, I brought with me gifts from my Rotaract club that represented Uruguay.

DIA DEL NINO!

In Uruguay there's your typical mother's day and father's day, but there is also grandparent's day and kids day. I think I remember celebrating--or at least ackwnoledging--a grandparent's day when I was younger...but a kid's day? And one in which you get gifts? It's like another Christmas! What kid wouldn't want that?

To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled to celebrate "kid's day" as I knew my mischevious and rambunctious host sister would enjoy reveling in "her" day. I love this little eight year old host sister of mine but at times she can really try your patience!

However, my Rotaract club turned "kid's day" into a great experience for me. We celebrated the day with kids from two organizations. The first one we celebrated the day with was an organized soccer club in an at risk neighborhood. The club boasts a membership of 100 kids that joined to stay out of the streets. The other organization we went to is a shelter for teenage mothers and their children who come from extreme poverty situations and have often faced abuse in their lives. We spent the day playing games with the kids, handing out gifts, sharing stories with the moms and just having a blast!

The Falls of Iguazu

VACACIONES!

I just enjoyed 3 weeks of winter vacation back in July. Buenos Aires is just an easy 2 hour boat ride away from Montevideo so I met my sister Katie there and we toured and enjoyed the city for 3 days. Then, we hopped on a 17 hour bus ride (it’s cheaper than going by plane) to reach the Argentine, Paraguay and Brazilian border where the park of Iguazu Falls is located.

Ever since I saw the 1986 film, The Mission, I’ve wanted to see these wondrous falls. They truly are breathtaking! I hope you enjoy some of the pictures I managed to take before my camera broke, it’s definitely more impressive in person. Here’s some information that Wikipedia offers on the falls:

“Upon seeing Iguazu, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed "Poor Niagara!" Vastly larger than North America's Niagara Falls, Iguazu is rivaled only by Southern Africa's Victoria Falls which separates Zambia and Zimbabwe (this is excluding extremely large rapid-like falls such as the Boyoma Falls). Whilst Iguazu is wider because it is split into about 270 discrete falls and large islands, Victoria is the largest curtain of water in the world, at over a 1600 m wide and over 100 m (350 ft) in height (in low flow Victoria is split into five by islands; in high flow it can be uninterrupted).”

“Iguazu, however, affords better views and walkways and its shape allows for spectacular vistas. At one point a person can stand and be surrounded by 260 degrees of waterfalls. The Garganta do Diabo has water pouring into it from three sides. Likewise, because Iguazu is split into many relatively small falls, one can view these a portion at a time. Victoria does not allow this, as it is essentially one waterfall that falls into a canyon and is too immense to appreciate at once (except from the air).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazu_Falls

After looking at the date of my last entry I realized it has been a while since I have been able to make a post to my blog. With exams, traveling and projects with Rotaract, the time flew by and my blog was neglected. However, in the next couple of days you'll start to see more entries about Katie's visit, Rotaract and other exciting events in Uruguay.

Human Rights Tribunal

Since my classes are in the night time from 7pm -11pm I most often can sleep later than what I use to sleep back in the states. This morning however, I woke up bright and early to head to MERCORSUR. There I had the opportunity to witness a tribunal of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As an international Relations student and enthusiast of Human Rights, it was a great opportunity to see such a tribunal take place.

The Court, established in 1979, is an autonomous judicial institution of the Organization of American States. It interprets and applies the American Convention on Human Rights and other treaties concerning the matter. The jurists are from member states, and the current panel’s president is from Peru.

The case we heard today was concerning slander. A Panamanian human rights defender, Santander Tristán Donoso, was being sued for publishing slanderous articles about the Attorney General of Panama. Tomorrow, another case will be heard concerning the country of Bolivia and the court's sessions will end in the afternoon.

"El Cambio de Autoridades" Changing of Authorities, Rotaract and Rotary

I recently had a weekend of Rotary! I attended the second Bi-district conference for Rotaract in Carmelo, Uruguay. This time, instead of cabins with bats and spiders we were in a hotel with warm beds and most importantly, a heating system!

And once again I had a blast with the members of my club. They are an enthusiastic and involved group. 16 of us attended the conference, that’s almost the entire group! I also got a chance to explore the city of Carmelo with the help of some Rotaracters from another club and
at night there was the ceremonial change of authorities and of course, a fiesta!

A few days after the conference, I attended the changing of authorities for my host club, Rotary club Malvin. The pictures I have put up are of my host counselor and I, Perla Rocha, I call her “Perlita”, and of the past and current presidents of the club exchanging authority. Perlita has really started to take on her role as my “consejera” host counselor. As soon as she found out I had yet another problem with my VISA situation, she called upon the rotary family, found a Rotarian who works in the Migration office here and we took care of the situation ASAP. It’s really wonderful to have that kind of support, if there are any problems I know I can turn to the Rotarians.

Punta del Este and the Rotary Conference for District 4980

This last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Punta del Este for the second time. Punta del Este is a very touristy, developed area. It is a peninsula with miles of gorgeous beaches. You can stroll along the rambla and enjoy the calmness of the River Plata, or walk along the side of the Atlantic and listen while the waves crash against the rocky and sandy shores.

The first time I was able to stay for free. By chance, I met a very nice Canadian who had a time share in Punta del Este and she did not want to enjoy it alone so she invited me. The pictures I’ve put up are a combination of both my trips to the Peninsula. The second trip was only for a weekend and there were not as many opportunities to photograph touristy areas as I was attending the Rotary conference. However, there were opportunities to photograph the Rotarians at work and enjoying themselves during the formal dinner. They really love to dance and I had such a fun time dancing along side them. One of the Rotarians even pulled me up on stage to dance with her!

Why Uruguay

One of the first questions I am often asked when I meet someone new here is, “why Uruguay”? Which then provokes me to ask, “why not”? I think the issue here is that we can forget how blessed we are to be born in a country of opportunity and sometimes it is difficult for others to understand why we would leave to come to their tiny corner of the world.

I’m not trying to be patriotic in this entry rather, I am trying to explain a perspective that is much easier to appreciate when you are living on the other side of the hemisphere. The United States doesn’t only have the allure of Hollywood, Starbucks and the Big Apple, it’s a place where if you don’t like your hourly job at McDonald’s you can work at Starbucks and they’ll even offer you an insurance plan. Here if you have a decent job but you don’t like it, tough luck, you keep it because you are happy you have it. I asked some Uruguayan friends what was the first thing they thought of when they hear the words United States, and their response was, “Money”.

So why would I leave a country of wealth and opportunity to come study in Uruguay? Of course without the Rotary foundation I may never have had the opportunity to be here but what I would like to do with this entry is answer the question of why Uruguay with a list of all that I love so far, (that way if anyone asks me I’ll just tell them to visit my page).

Mate
Carnaval (The Murgas, The Tambores etc)
The friendliness of the people
Greeting with cheek to cheek kisses
Sunday Asados
Saturday Tambore rehearsals that parade down the streets of the neighborhoods
Soccer games, especially the loyalty to teams and the enthusiasm of the fans
The 29th of every month you eat a special pasta called ñoquis
Tango—on weekend nights in certain plazas people of all ages (even 80 and beyond) gather to tango.
The Market of the Port in Ciudad Vieja where you can eat asado while you sip on the special wine that is half champagne, it’s called Medio y Medio
Going for a walk along the Rambla that lines the coast of Montevideo
Being able to walk or take the bus anywhere I need to go
The relatively relaxed life here, no one seems to be rushed and in a hurry.
Time with the family means you spend all day, not 2 hours or just a meal, you sit around enjoying eachother’s company while sipping mate or eating asado and you don’t worry about what needs to get done for the day.
This list could go on…

Food:
Dulce de leche
Alfajores
Faina
Asado
Chaja (famous desert named after a bird here)
The olives here are much better
Ñoquis
Biscoches
This list could go on too…

Acampar!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to join seven other members of my Rotaract club (Paso Molino) for the bi-district conference held in the department of Colonia, Uruguay. We all braved the cold for a weekend of planning, networking and of course, a bit of festivities!

The enthusiasm of my group brought back memories of my experiences at the USCC Rotaract convention two years ago with ASU’s club. And although it was quite cold sleeping in our cabins with the bats and the spiders, I enjoyed every minute of it!

Taking a moment to reflect on the experiences I had, it was especially interesting to see the differences between Rotaract of ASU and Uruguay. There are still the same goals, the same themes such as “service above self”, but in Uruguay they have the added obstacles of working within a third world country.

Those obstacles meet them at every turn, for example the session that I was a part of for the weekend was called “Public Relations” and its focus was how to use the limited resources available to put the word out about Rotaract. The Rotaract clubs of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay have decided that the word needs to get out about Rotaract, all the clubs have pledged that by 2010 the membership in each club will be no less than 15 members, more members means more Rotary in action—RotarACT. I remember when our ASU club was trying to come up with ways to advertise Rotaract and increase membership, everything seemed possible to accomplish. Here however, if you want to hand out flyers, host a concert or anything else, it costs money and they don’t have the money to spare. It becomes a major obstacle, and it is something they want to overcome because more Rotaracters means more Action!

And the Guiness World Record Goes to…Urugay!

Believe it or not but this country, that’s just slightly smaller than the state of Washington, cooked up 12,000 kilos of meat and is now in the Guinness World book of Records for the world’s largest Barbecue! My friends from Rotaract and I tried to get into see this amazing sight but it was sold out. The pictures I have are of the swarms of people waiting to get in, and of course I had to capture the protestors outside.

Since we could not get in to see the spectacle, my friends invited me to their place for a barbecue, not the world’s largest but we still devoured our fair share of meat. Before I go any further though, I need to explain that barbecue here is not the same as in the United States. The meat is cooked a lot differently and I tried to document it as well as possible with photos in the event that I lacked the skills to explain this tradition. Here barbecue is called “Asado”, and you always invite friends and family if you are going to have Asado. From what I’ve learned it’s a tradition that started back in the time of the gauchos of this country (gauchos is loosely defined as the cowboys of Uruguay). The meat is placed on a “parilla” which is an open grill and slightly slanted. The fire is started on the side with logs of wood and the meat is cooked in a slow heating process as you gradually push the embers from the fire underneath the parilla.

Asado also refers to the roasted meat you end up eating which, from what I have eaten so far, has always included a thick cut of the cow, morcillas (blood sausage) and parrillero (chorizo) sausages. Many of my friends and family can attest to this, before I left Arizona I was not your most avid fan of meat but I would miss out on a lot of cultural traditions if I kept that fear of meat. The saying here for all new food is, “Hay que probar” You have to taste it! So I’ve done my fair share of tasting, and I definitely eat more meat today then I did in the past but I still can’t bring myself to eat more than a taste of the blood sausage…

Take a Tour of the Old City with Me

I decided to do two entries in a row because I am eager to put up photos and what’s more, I have a lot of free time since for the last two weeks there have been strikes at my public university so I have not been able to go. As I drank mate yesterday afternoon and chatted with a former professor of psychology from the university, I learned a lot about the strikes that are going on this year. They say this year will be a pretty bad year of striking in the education system.

Some years are worse than others, this year the faculty is asking for a higher salary and improved classroom conditions. What kind of conditions? From my matte chat, I discovered there might be some 1300 students in the psychology master’s program and they are all supposed to fit into a lecture with a capacity of 600. There is not enough room for all the students, not enough finances for the materials etc and the teachers are underpaid. And I thought ASU had difficulties!

Also on my time off I took the opportunity to take some photos of the Old City in Montevideo. I was told this part of the old city that you see in the photos is more developed and remodeled than other areas. For now, I’ll call this slideshow, “part one” of the old city. In a couple of days I hope to show some other areas of buildings that have the same antique appeal but are abandoned or just beginning to be bought and redone. (So let’s hope for another strike tomorrow and I'll take more photos!) It surprises me how many people from Canada, the U.S. and other areas have come down here to buy up some of these old buildings and begin to remodel them. They definitely have good taste in places to live,Uruguay is a diamond in the rough.

My host club! Mi club anfitrión!

A few weeks ago I received an email from a very nice Rotarian, Perla. The title of her email gave me the idea that she was my host counselor here in Uruguay, however, when I asked her if she was she didn’t know the answer until she asked the district governor and he responded that it was an excellent idea for her and the Rotary club Malvin in Montevideo, District 4980 to become my host club. I am so grateful they have taken me under their wings. Last night I attended their meeting and enjoyed every minute. They are an upbeat, warm and welcoming group. It was a pleasure to meet and chat with everyone, they were all eager to help connect me with other Rotary clubs and organizations in Montevideo.

I was their speaker for the evening and shared about who I am, the scholarship, about my sponsor district and club and about my home state of Arizona. I answered the questions I had as best I could and at the end of the meeting they were gracious enough to take me home. I hope to be able to visit their club as many weeks as possible.

The rest of this entry is now going to be the same thing only translated in Spanish as I promised them I would translate what I wrote about them.


Hace algunas semanas recibí un e-mail de una rotaria muy simpática, quien se llama Perla. El título de su e-mail me dio la idea de que ella era mi consejera anfitriona acá en Uruguay. Sin embargo, cuando le pregunté si iba a ser mi consejera anfitriona ella no sabía, así que le preguntó al gobernador de Rotary de Montevideo para averiguar quién iba a ser mi anfitriona.

Él le respondió que sería una buena idea que ella y su club Rotary Malvin de Montevideo fuera mi club anfitrión. Y quiero decir que estoy muy agradecida a ellos. Es un grupo energético, amable y que me hacen sentir bienvenida. Fue un placer conocerlos y charlar con ustedes, y además todos están dispuestos para ayudarme y vincularme con otros ruedas y organizaciones en Montevideo.

Yo hice una presentación para ellos y compartí un poco sobre mi historia, la beca, mi club patrocinador y mi estado de Arizona. Contesté las preguntas lo mejor posible y al fin de la reunión fueron muy atentos y me llevaron a mi casa. Espero que pueda visitar su club frecuentemente durante mi estadía en Uruguay.

Sports in Uruguay

It’s a well known fact that fútbol is a popular sport in Latin America and so I made a promise to myself that I would go to a game while I was living here. I got the chance to go a couple of weeks ago to see Uruguay’s team, Nacional , play a Brazilian team, it was so exciting! The enthusiasm of the fans is incredible. You are surrounded by constant cheering from the start of the game until the end.
You know the game is going to start when the noise level of the crowd surges and paper, toilet paper and other items are thrown into the air. Once the game is in progress, curse words fly around you like crazy and songs filled with fighting words ring in the air.

It’s not quite that intense at the basketball games though. Thanks to a visiting Rotarian, Gary Chamberlain, from my district 5510, I got the chance to attend the basketball championship in Uruguay. He and his wife were so wonderful! I took a taxi out to meet them at their apartment and from there we went and watched Bigua win it all.

Although it’s not as intense as a soccer game, toilet paper is still thrown on the court and people jump up and down while cheering their team on. At the end the crowd rushed the gym floor and the players climbed up on top of the basketball rims to cut down the net and pop open a champagne bottle to spray on the fans. It was such a sight to see!

First Rotary Meeting in Uruguay

About a year and a half ago, I found out that I received the Ambassadorial Scholarship for Rotary and was going to be studying in Uruguay. Coincidentally, the year I found out was the year that another district in the Tucson area of Arizona was hosting Rotarians from Uruguay on a Group Study Exchange. Through connections with the Rotarians in that district of Arizona I was able to obtain the contact information of one of the visiting Rotarians from Uruguay, Daniel Pagliano, who helped me tremendously with information about the Universities here and much more.

After two years of emailing back and forth with Daniel, I finally got the opportunity to meet him in person! He contacted me early last week to welcome me to the country and offer his help any time I needed it. He invited me to my first Rotary meeting last night and sent Walter, another Rotarian from his club, to come pick me up. Walter gave me a tour of Montevideo along the Ramblas which lines the beach of Montevideo and then we picked up his wife and headed over to the meeting.

At the meeting I was greeted with such a warm welcome and surprised faces because I could speak Spanish---Spanish that still gives me a way as a foreigner (even more than the red hair) because here they pronounce the LL words and words that begin with y differently than other Latin American countries. We ate a lot of meat cooked on a Parilla. There was blood sausage, chorizo and steak, and believe it or not, the once almost vegetarian Erin, is adapting to the carnivorous habits of Uruguayans.

Images of Uruguay 2

La llegada

It has been almost two weeks since I arrived in Uruguay and already I have come to love and appreciate all of the people and their rich traditions.

Arriving here was quite the experience though! There where complications with my paper work and I was not allowed to board my connecting flight from Houston to Buenos Aires. Thus, I had to stay in Houston for a while and I got to know the airport quite well until I finally departed the next day at 9pm. When I finally arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, I was so fearful there would be no one there to meet me as the language school had sent someone the day before to pick me up and I was still in Houston. But thanks to the Rotary family and its strong connections worldwide, I was able to call Rotarians in Tucson who then used their connections and got the District governor of Rotary in Montevideo as well as the District governor elect to greet me with a big Uruguayan welcome and help me cart all of my luggage to my host family’s house.

At first, their way of welcoming caught me off guard. In the United States we usually extend a hand to shake and there seems to be, as a Uruguayan rotaractor put it, “una distancia” (a distance) between strangers. In Uruguay though, the custom is much different: men usually shake hands upon first meeting and then from there, once they have developed the friendship, they greet each other with a cheek to cheek kiss. The women always greet strangers, men or women, with the cheek to cheek kiss and I wasn't expecting that from people I had never met. The way they greet each other says a lot though about how warm and inviting the culture is here, it's easy to feel at home.