Uruguay is sexy / If I was a fish ….
Meanwhile, I am used being back on land with solid ground. Here in Montevideo I am going to Spanish classes every morning, learning irregular verbs and new terms, and now am able to express myself with more selected words and less with hands and feet, I am eating yummy lunches in one of these small lovely restaurants in the old town, talking with international people (most of my fellow students have an interesting mix of two nationalities in their blood), doing homework in cafes, drinking teas and enjoying the kindness of people here. Somehow, Uruguay is a country in which communication is pleasure and good energy in your pelvis.
Uruguay is sexy.
Conversations with strangers come up quickly and are easy; they are interesting and respectful. There are so many kind people sitting next to me, who mostly answer me in detail to my questions of:”el o la”.
I am really delighted by Uruguay! As it is a very small country with not even four million inhabitants (and five as many cows), I find a great openness towards internationals, which is also reflected in their language. One evening in a bar, it turned out that I could speak German with three cute Uruguayans. They had spent twelve years in a German school. And during this time, they had even made a student exchange to Bielefield (wow that is Germany ;)), and now they could still speak German fluently, and English on top. That was a great opportunity to take my culinary joker: I still had a Christmas gift bag filled with German marzipan left from my time on the ship. So I took the chance to gift this my new “amigos” and receive some thanking and glowing eyes as return.
It was also much fun to talk to them and find out more about the economy and the actual situation of the country. Here, for example, everybody is obliged to vote. The one, who does not vote, has to pay a fine. It is also the only (?!) country in South America, in which gay people can get married and there is no strict practice of Catholicism (abortion is legitimate..). Marijuana is legalized. Drinking and dancing is often practiced during the week until 4pm at night. Well, usual time for dinner is only at 22pm, in Uruguay everything is laid backwards.
Also Montevideo city is charming. It has much culture, morbid old buildings alternating with wonderfully restored buildings, old and new, ancient and modern are mixed together and get along in their own but still harmonious way.
Photographs don’t really capture the magic of that mix. I can only recommend to ramble along these roads yourself and to “feel into” the appealing energy of it, that holds true for many other places of my travels.
On one of my first warm summer evenings I was sitting on La Rambla, the town’s water front. In the evening, it is a place for meeting friends, drinking mate tea, fishing, watching sunsets, flirting, running… and “looking into the water”.
But: brown water! Okay, on the one hand I am very spoiled by the time I’ve spent on the ship on the ocean, on the other hand it is not really the atlantic ocean, but the Rio de la Plata. But when I was looking into that “broth” during the evening, some very strange thoughts arose.
It seems like the same waving movements, as I had watched from my floating home of the past four weeks. By looking at the horizon, I can also spot some “blue” again, which feels deeply familiar to me. But just in front of me, when I look straight into the water… I only see a brown swirling mass. That has so nothing in common, which what I know now, is blue and most beautiful, and clear with deep views. Here it looks like a brown soup, it seems though that somebody tries to elegantly cover it up with a blue scarf (the sky is really doing its best). And also the wind is playing with its surface. Except for the colour it looks similar to my past experience.
And even here live fish. But why? Why do they not swim out into the big ocean and enjoy the clear water? Why do they stay in the brown, unclear, turbulent water soup and why do they not take the initiative – as they are full of energy – to leave this shore and detect new things, to discover, to enjoy and realize how beautiful and clear it is outside? Fish do not have jobs that are holding them back. No house, which is fixed to a certain place.
Further, living at the edge is much more dangerous. Honestly, at this place every Uruguayan inhabitant of every age is putting his/her fishing rod into the sea and waits until something starts to fidget while sipping his/her mate tea.
What is holding back these mobile creatures? Do they just not know that there is a much higher quality of life in the same habitat? Do they not notice that every now and then one of them vanishes into the opaque mass – and that it is brighter and more beautiful, once they extend their radius and drift away from the shore?
If I was a fish….
(and what I want to say…)
It is so worth swimming out of your comfort zone. In the beginning, it will be strange, odd, strange to have so clear water all around you. Brown broth is sometimes still more familiar, as without it you suddenly see so much more. There is a different taste, you can move differently within it, you do feel yourself more strongly.
It is new outside the comfort zone, but also bigger with more space and freshness (and I love the complementary youtube clip for that, my strong recommendation: “Do you dare to dream”).
It was totally worth it for me “to leave my familiar shore”, that is for sure.
Now a new question emerges: By now knowing about these clear waters, is it possible to return into the swirling brown shore area? Can you tell the other fish about it and maybe encourage some of them to also change?
Is that knowledge of clear and good visibility sufficient to stay there?
When is the time to conquer new territories? Is there are place, inside or outside, that combines fresh and clear waters with great visibility and vicinity to the shore? Does it stir up the fish living at the edge in the broth by telling them what is out there in the world?
Mh, this week I will not have a lot of time for answering all these questions, as “I still need to do my homework”. When exactly do you use “por” and “para”? And “porque” means “why” and “because of” in Spanish.
Maybe I ask my next neighbour in a café, porque fish are living here in Rio… and maybe she/he has an idea?!