Hello and welcome to the 44th issue of Place! Today we are headed to Uruguay, a quiet country squeezed between bombastic neighbors where nostalgia for a glorious past is so intwined in the culture it is institutionalised via a national holiday, writes Ceci Arregui. While she grew up rejecting this solipsistic history, in her time away she found herself looking back and seeing her paisito in a new light. Sometimes it’s ok to be doing just fine.
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The queen of nostalgia
My home country of Uruguay feels tiny, squeezed between its neighboring giants Argentina and Brazil. It has neither the snowy Andes nor the tropical Amazon. Instead, Uruguay features far less impressive rolling plains that melt into a sleepy sandy coast: green, vast, mostly flat with some low hills spotted here and there. There are three times more cows than people. It is so empty in rural areas that it is customary to eagerly wave at all other humans that you may cross while on the road. Life is slow-paced, even in the capital Montevideo, home to half of the country’s three million inhabitants. Weekdays are for earning one’s bread-and-butter. On weekends, the most exciting activity is either a football game or a traditional barbecue, that involves long hours of wine-sipping and chatting to loved ones while excessive quantities of juicy beef are slow cooked over wood fire. It is considered a sin to season the meat with anything other than some salt and pepper, the smoke and a little patience is all it takes for the flavour to shine. On a Sunday afternoon, thousands of Uruguayans can be found strolling along the Rambla, the 22-kilometer-long promenade that follows the entire coast of Montevideo. Most carry mate under their arm, the sacred, bitter infusion drink that is the country’s staple, while minutes easily turn into hours.
This calm is disrupted on two uniquely Uruguayan occasions. First, during the longest carnival celebration in the world, which runs from November to February and fills the warm summer evenings with colorful parades to the sound of Candombe drums. Second, on ‘Nostalgia Night’, which, by law, is celebrated every August 24th (Uruguay probably is the only place in which nostalgia is institutionalized). Parents, grandparents and all of those who spend most other evenings stuck to the TV switch their muted outfits for sequin dresses, disco pants and over-the-top make-up and dance the night away to the hits of yesteryear. Radio stations and nightclubs play songs that range from Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees or Los Lobos’ La Bamba to local and regional classics from the 1970s and 1980s. Couples in their fifties act like they are teenagers again under the mirror balls. Younger generations roll their eyes, but also join in on the dance floor. The aim of the night – started by a radio DJ in the 1970s – is to reminisce. Dancing to the songs of youth, reliving the days when a heroic group of football players crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat in 1924 to bring back an Olympic gold medal, remembering the golden days of Batllismo, a political current from the early twentieth century known for social reforms that were ahead of its time. Since then, the rest of the world has caught up, while Uruguay has settled into its rhythms. It’s an occasion that is a clear emblem of a country that is obsessed with celebrating its glorious past, sometimes, I’ve thought, at the sake of looking forward.
“Unfortunately, we are doing just fine,” wrote journalist Leila Macor.
This is, roughly, the English translation of her book, Lamentablemente estamos bien, a collection of essays about Uruguay and its people. Leila is a Venezuelan journalist who lived in Montevideo for several years. At some point, she worked with my mum at an international press agency, and that is probably the reason why the book first found its way to me, as a teenager. I love her clever observations and descriptions in the book because they perfectly capture Uruguayan idiosyncrasies, perhaps most sharply observed by someone who has lived elsewhere. Uruguayans are famous for being modest and laid-back, especially when compared to our more bombastic neighbors, the Argentinians. Our unpretentiousness makes us play everything down, sometimes to a fault. And so, Uruguayans describe the historic buildings of the Old City as ‘grey’, and consider the easy-going lifestyle in the city ‘boring’. The title of the book, based on an expression the author once heard a woman say, is a clear symbol of that Uruguayanness: no matter how good things are, there is always something to moan about.
I was one of the moaners. While growing up in suburban Montevideo, I observed this Uruguayan behaviour mostly as an outsider. Apart from the family barbecues and occasional football, I skipped every carnival parade and rolled my eyes at friends drinking mate. Instead, I dreamt of going to punk rock concerts in London or sipping espresso in Rome. All I could think of was to get away. It’s not that my childhood wasn’t happy: I was raised by a supportive, loving family and lived in a house with a big garden. My days were filled with sporting events, long weekends away in the green rolling countryside and summer days at the sleepy sandy beach. But I had a constant feeling that I was meant to be somewhere else, somewhere more exciting. I saw Uruguay as a pleasant, stable place to grow old in, but not to start the stimulating life that I was craving. Maybe it was all the books I was reading and movies I was watching. Or maybe the fact that my parents were regularly traveling for work to far-flung locations only to come back with a full list of interesting stories to tell. I remember crying when my mum told me she had turned down a job in Paris. She thought it was better not to uproot my brother and I at such a formative age. My twelve-year-old self, however, felt more than ready to start a European adventure. And indeed, it took living in three different continents for me to recognize that doing just fine was something to be appreciated.
I was fifteen the first time I experienced how little people generally know about my tiny corner of the world. I had just travelled to Auckland, New Zealand, as part of a high-school exchange program. During my stay, introducing myself and my nationality was always quite the experience. Some would show interest in having met a Uruguayan for the first time. More often than not, I had to give an introductory lecture on my home country and its location on the globe. I received several of what I considered ridiculous questions: Is the weather tropical? Had it been a German colony? Is it an African country? Suddenly, in an international context, I was special, rare, unique. It was some sort of revelation, and it made me feel extremely proud of Uruguay. It made me want to continue to see how my place fit in with the rest of the world, while studying in California, interning in New York City, attending graduate school in Denmark and the UK.
In December 2019, I flew back to Uruguay from Denmark, where I currently live, for the first time in a couple of years to visit friends and family. I landed mid-morning and was met with the humid heat wave of early summer in the southern hemisphere and greetings with the very distinctive Spanish accent that replaces the pronunciation of y and ll with a stronger 'sh' sound. Everything seemed a little better than I remembered. Downtown Montevideo appeared cleaner, and an afternoon spent at the Rambla didn’t seem like a waste of time anymore. I even bought my first mate. In the past, I had regarded our cuisine as rather bland and monotonous, with its lack of diversity and countless ways of combining beef and carbs. This time around, I understood that the use of rich seasonings and marinades is unnecessary when the high-quality of Uruguayan ingredients take the center stage. A few of the buildings that I recalled as being grey, had now been repurposed as art spaces or food markets, and stood out to me for their historic relevance. The boring emptiness of the flat countryside now felt comforting and serene. A chance to hear the crackling sound of wood burning in a bonfire, of crickets singing in a warm night.
On some levels it felt like I had never left, because almost everything still was where I had left it. At the same time, there were many changes, improvements, growth. Still, I didn’t feel like I had missed out. Quite to the contrary, going away is what I needed to discover my country with new eyes.
Many people I grew up with are too attached to their paisito—little country, as its people amicably call it—to even consider leaving it. For some time, this made me feel guilty, like I was undervaluing my own birthplace. It took years for me to understand that there is not one once single way of connecting with one’s roots. In my case, my bond with Uruguay flourished once I went away. Denmark is where I have chosen to live, at least for the foreseeable future, but that does not make me less of a Uruguayan. Once in a while, I think about my mum declining that opportunity in France. Maybe I should thank her. Maybe, if I had left too early, I wouldn’t feel this way today.
Now, when I describe my country to foreigners, I still like to address historic victories like the 1950’s World Cup title, famously known as Maracanazo, or that period in the early twentieth century in which Uruguay was known as the ‘Switzerland of the Americas’ for its high quality of life. Nostalgia, after all, is in my blood. But I also tell everyone who cares to listen how they need to visit someday. Everyone should have the chance to wander the streets of Montevideo: from the central square of Plaza Independencia, with its peculiar combination of blue-square-window office buildings with dripping air conditioners and neoclassical Solís Theatre or Palacio Salvo with its Art Deco charm, to the iconic flea market of Tristán Narvaja where one can buy either vintage furniture, used books or pet food. To take a road trip to the historic town of Colonia del Sacramento, the beautiful wine vineyards in Canelones and the dreamy white-sand beaches in Maldonado and Rocha.
I have become an accidental ambassador, and I’ve embraced that with open arms. I know that my nostalgic compatriots are in need of someone to brag on their behalf. “(Un)fortunately, we are doing just fine.”
-Cecilia Arregui is a Uruguayan journalist recently turned scholar. She is currently a PhD fellow at Aarhus University, in Denmark.
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Join us next week for one last walk along Bombay’s coast.