Fast Times in The Switzerland of the Americas

Ok – so I admit it, I’ve been terrible at keeping up with this blog lately. Two months in Uruguay and nothing. For all you dedicated readers, if you exist, my bad.

Currently I’m living in Montevideo, Uruguay researching candombe, percussion-battery music that dominates Carnival here, which as Uruguayans love to point out, is not the biggest Carnival in the world, but the longest. Living in Uruguay is quite a change of pace from the last bunch of countries I’ve been in. Nicknamed “The Switzerland of the Americas,” Uruguay is unusual for Latin America for being economically and politically stable for most of its history, It’s the only country in Latin America that has no official religion – Easter Week is renamed Vacation Week and Christmas is Family Day. Uruguay also has the distinction of having completely killed off the indigenous populations who once lived here, so unlike Argentina which basically tries to pretend that a large mestizo population simply does not exist, Uruguayans are almost entirely the descendents of European immigrants: Italians, Spaniards, Jews, Russians, etc.

I’ve come up with a list of criteria for how I know I’m living in a pretty developed country. If you live in a country where people voluntarily leave their homes and sleep in a tent for vacation, you ain’t too third-world. When there are meters in your taxis, hot water in every apartment, and an Urban Outfitters in your city, and more art cinemas that you can count on one hand, you ain’t too third world. My hippie friends hate to lose their developing world credibility, but I have to say, my life here in Montevideo is not to different from my New York life, in a lot of ways.

This of course isn’t the whole story – there are glaring inequalities, and despite a large middle class, a huge wealth gap. There are shanties on the edges of every city, leading to the growth of a vaguely criminal and very visible sub-culture of planchas, who can be found in all parts of Montevideo intimidating people into giving them money and cigarettes. This is how you recognize a plancha: skinny dudes with Nike baseball caps tilted upwards, Nike sneakers, soccer jerseys, capri jeans going to their ankles, bling in one ear, and brilliant bright dyed blonde hair. Especially where I live, I got accosted constantly by such people, but they never really seem to be dangerous, and besides, I can’t feel too intimidated by gangsters who kiss each other hello.

Right now I’m living in Ciudad Vieja, the historic old city that is filled with tourists and bankers during the day and stalked by junkies by night. It’s a strange, bipolar and melancholic neighborhood, and there is a lovely sort of loneliness watching the cargo ships get loaded up by rusty old dinosaur cranes every night and head off into sea. I’m sharing an apartment with a diverse crowd: an Iranian quantum physicist, a Mexican fashion student, a Dutch biomedical engineer, and an Uruguayan acupuncturist. My first month however, I spent couch hopping in various apartments of friends of friends (all leading back to my Argentine host-family) until it seemed inevitable that I should find a permanent place to settle in. One such house was shared by Uruguayan blugrass-indie-rock musicians, funk aficionados, and a socialogist who founded Uruguay’s Marijuana Liberation Party. (Go to viejahistoria.com and closet.com.uy to see the websites of the bands I was living with). It was an absurd place, and my housemates were very amused to learn from me that they were perfect specimens of hipsterism. Theres no word for it here yet, but hipsterism is incredibly alive here in Uruguay – bicycling tight-pantsed, pink wearing, gigantic sunglass-toting, armchair philosophizing hedonists who live in former ghettoes are everywhere.

My first week here I had my first taste of hostel living with the international-South American-backpacker crowd. Montevideo tends to be a one-day stopover for people on their way from Buenos Aires to the famed beaches of Uruguay, such as super-luxurious Punta del Este, where as everybody knows, Shakira summers. As such, the hostel was re-populated by another 60 people every night, ranging from Brazilian backpackers to large groups of Australians who would get funnel beers and piss in the plants. (As a side note – I find it funny that of all the people I’ve met on the road, its rarely the Americans who are the biggest assholes, though I still find most people amazed that I am not an ignorant war-loving capitalist). There was something both fun and maddening about telling my life story to 60 new people every night, but the worst part was being suddenly surrounded by the one-upsmanish of travllelers, who tout their travel experiences as unique badges of hardcoreness and passive-aggressibly criticize everyone else in order to protect themselves from realizing that other people share those experiences. I found myself completely guilty of this myself, and decided I needed to get out of there as fast as possible to not become that asshole.

Uruguayans are mostly chill folk, but if there’s something they get riled up about, its not being Argentina. Argentines, on the other hand, casually all joke that Uruguay is just a province of Argentina. After all, there are just 3 million people in this little country (that’s less than the population of Brooklyn), and they share mate, tango, good meat and Italian last names with their big Argentine cousins. The one-sided rivalry (something like the Boston-New York baseball rivalry) has heated up because of a bunch of paper mills Uruguay put up that Argentines claim will pollute touristic parts of their river, and there are protests and harsh words being exchanged on this silly topic all the time. I have to say though, that after living here, I have to agree that Uruguayans have their own thing going on – the culture is just more chill, maybe because of all that beautiful beach, and Brazilian music and culture has a big impact here. Cumbia and other Latin Music is popular here, if not as popular as rock nacional, and people front just a little less. I think I’m being converted, despite my love for Argentina.

But none of this has anything to do with why I’m here – which is Carnival, the central event of the year for millions of Uruguayans (the other million can’t stand it). For those used to seeing pictures of Brazilian Carnival with their scantily glad samba dancers and mad tropical fornication in the streets, you will have been misled. As one might expect, Uruguayan carnival is more, well, relaxed. The month focuses on competitions and performances by groups in various categories, but the most important are murga and candombe. Stages, or tablados, are set up all over the city ranging from rickety barrio productions to corporate-sponsored arenas, and local street-parades in various neighborhoods go on every day. This all prepares for the competitive event, nightly performances in a huge open-air amphitheatre called Teatro de Verano, where groups get one hour to show what they got. (To former Stuyvesant students – think a large scale Sing!, because that’s really what its like.)

Murga is a weird but great Spanish-decended type of comic opera, in which 15 dudes dressed in ridiculous medival-looking costumes sing political commentary in crazy four-part harmonies to a battery of bass drum, snare, and cymbals. Strange as it is, this is immensily popular here, espcially among the lower-classes. I guess I was kind of skeptical the first time I went to see one, but its actually incredible. Even understanding only around 15% of what they sing, its hilarious, and the harmonies are really amazing. This has led to Uruguayan music in general to be really on top of vocal harmonizing. Here’s a clip.

On the other side of the spectrum, is Candombe. Coming from the relatively small afro-Uruguayan minority, the drums of candombe have exploded into the top symbol of national culture, with kids from every race and social class enthuiastically picking of drums and marching through the streets during Carnival time. The biggest event of Carnival is really Las Llamadas, a two-day parade in which 30 plus candombe groups thunder down a narrow cobbled street in the old decaying Afro-Uruguayan neighborhood, and its immense. If I wrote about it now, this blog post will never end, so I’ll have to continue at a later time. Heres a taste of what a candombe comparsa looks like, however: