Steve is my age.
He is standing on a ladder in work clothes scrubbing graffiti off pieces of slate glued to a concrete wall. We both agree it is a stupid place to put slate – stucco, or plaster painted, would make more sense. Still, vandals have marked the wall and the manager has to have it removed and Steve is the man hired to do it.
He tells me he is from Uruguay but migrated to the U.S., lived and worked there twenty five years. He came back to Uruguay because he still has a daughter here. For now, he works as a maintenance man for this apartment building but back in the states maintains large resort hotels and keeps commercial kitchens running.
“My wife went back last month,” he tells me, as he washes off graffiti. “I want to go back and drive my truck. I love it. I like Miami. My son has a construction business and a big house I can stay in .”
The conversation confirms that Uruguayans know all about the United States . A young man at the bus station , who spent five years trying to become a legal U.S. citizen, but couldn’t get accepted, expressed his belief that getting ahead is tough in Uruguay and immigration is a way to move up economic ladders.
“In the U.S.,” he said, “it is different. People think ahead.” Here, if your family is not important, you have difficulties.”
Graffiti is on the move around the world and is Punta Del Este’s a canary in a coal mine.
If they catch the culprits, Steve is pretty sure they won’t do a thing to them.
The cost of keeping people locked up has killed more than one government budget.
Lunch is hours away but a foreman is already buying food for his troops before it rolls around
A sale unfolds as I stand on the sidewalk in front of a construction site and watch sandwiches and sweets go into a five gallon bucket. A stooped figure is retrieving orders from shelves in the back of a little van and the subs he pulls out look big to me.
“What you got in there? ”
The young man, bearded, points at two front rows of sub sandwiches, and a back row of desserts.
“Did you make them,” I ask?
“No, I have a supplier.”
“How much for the big subs?”
“In U.S. dollars, six.”
“What’s your name?”
“Edgardo.”
We shake and make a sandwich deal for tomorrow morning same time, same place since I didn’t bring any money on this stroll. He wants to give me a sandwich now and I pay tomorrow but I don’t want to do that because there is lots of static that can get between now and tomorrow. It is nice that he trusts me enough to make such an offer.
I don’t see a permit but I don’t need one because his business is popular, and, for that reason alone, advertises itself.
Helping local small business guys is high on my list of things to do, even when I’m traveling. .
When I work construction I eat out of concession trucks when they are close by at home.
I can’t make this sandwich for what he sell’s them for, and, even if I bought from his supplier, I’d have to walk there and convince them to sell to me.
Paying people for their time and money is never a bad idea.
I appreciate being paid for my knowledge, skills, and service too.
The crane must be fifty feet tall.
” She comes from Europe,” the man in the hard hat tells me as he walks over.
“Que donde esta?”
“Estados Unitos, Nuevo Mexico …”.
He holds a small orange box in his hand with buttons. As he pushes buttons the crane lifts a load of cement in a metal bucket. The bucket was attached moments ago by men who have since disappeared into the building to work on plumbing, wiring, plastering, clean up. The building is seventy percent done and then the real job of filling it with paying tenants begins.
“Is constuction bueno aqui?” I ask.
“Medio,” he says, and, in English, tells me that Uruguay is doing well from immigration.
“You are playing video games,” I joke.
“Si,” he smiles, “but I need to be careful. Mucho responsibilidad.”
He wishes me a good day and returns to his job.
New buildings are a good economic sign.
Uruguay is one of the more prosperous countries in South America and Punta Del Este is a playground for people of means.
With cheap money, the mantra becomes, ” Build it, and they will come. ”
I’m thankful for people who still know how to build things.
I like to watch buildings go up, one floor at a time, and hum along with the tangos playing on construction worker’s radios
Jose Artigas is to Uruguay what George Washington is to the United States.
You see enough statues in enough places and finally you wonder about the men behind them. You do a little research and discover that Jose Artigas is a real person with a real history. Some of his history has been romanticized, but he played a huge part in Uruguay achieving its independence from Spain. Born in Buenos Aires, he spent the last years of his life exiled in Paraguay, but he is the man that people of Uruguay salute as their national hero.
As a boy from a wealthy family ,who settled in Uruguay, Artigas was sent to church to learn religious studies but refused to accept the discipline and dropped out of the school. At 12, he was sent to work on family farms and became close to the gaucho way of life.That stuck with him through his life and when, at 86, he felt he was going to die, he asked to be placed in the saddle of a horse so he could die there, which he did.
In his early days he had a price on his head for cattle smuggling and got a pardon in exchange for joining the military. He escaped capture several times, and made life and death decisions in his role as a military General fighting for Independence.
This compound, in Maldonado, occupies a city block and holds remnants of what used to house Artigas and his troops, men who were loyal to him to the end.
What is odd is that the kid who didn’t like discipline turned into a man who lived discipline, made rules, and had them enforced.
Men of substance often do things they don’t want to do, and live by rules they don’t like.
Discipline and success are not strangers.
The noise draws you. With stands visible, and walls keeping people out, this spectacle is a city road race. There are cameras and cameramen strategically placed and, in retrospect, the best way to see the race is to see it on television.
Despite what Juan Carlos says, the cars are loud and there is the smell of burning fuel. I get a General pass in the nosebleed section, way around on the opposite end of the track from where I buy my ticket, and show the little blue band wrapped around my wrist to a gate guard in the D section.The stands are full and a warm up car is leading all competitors around the track in a get to know you lap.
Fans are ready for action, standing at the rail, lounging in chairs in grass areas near the grandstands. There are portable toilets, a food concession, parking, and if you want shade you can find it under the grandstands. It is a long oval track and sheet metal walls containing it are tall enough that you can’t see the race unless you are looking down from a second story balcony of one of the hotels across the street.
My ticket calls the race the Grand Prix of Punta Del Este .
Beautiful models get out of a van. They are gorgeous. All made up and dressed in official racing outfits, they are walking to the finish line till a winner is declared and then they will get their pictures taken for the newspapers and honor the winner with multiple hugs and kisses.
Kisses are powerful motivators.
There are car wrecks every minute, somewhere in the world.
This is the first one that almost hits me.
Taking a walk down the Rambla, this accident happens on the roadway at a spot I just passed. I hear braking,turn, and watch a white delivery van moving crazily down one lane of traffic, swerving, balanced on two wheels, looking like it will hit parked cars on the curbside, which it does. It is like a stunt man driving in the movies except this is an average Joe who is going to be lucky if he walks away without a scratch.
People converge on the accident scene to make sure the drivers are okay, talk about what they see or didn’t see, who is responsible and who isn’t, and wait for police. I don’t know what caused the accident but the cops will take interviews, pictures, piece together a truth that will be torn apart by lawyers if it goes to court.
A police car almost loses control as it passes me with lights and sirens operating, dodges a car that doesn’t get out of their way, does a U-turn, then shuts down the roadway at one end of the accident scene. An ambulance,already here,tends to an older man in a small car involved in the accident.
The one they need to check on is the working man who climbs out of the upside down delivery van and slaps himself on the top of his forehead with two hands, lucky to be alive.
This could have been a disaster instead of a photo op.
This is my next to last day in Montevideo, and, it looks as if it it didn’t come too soon.
Travel is not always safe.
On Sarandi Street are groups of people, dressed to the nines, standing in my way as I pass on a sidewalk past a woman’s fashion store,
Happy couples exit a bland doorway, into the sunlight. They are jubilant.
When more smiling couples come out and take photos, throw rice, hug and toss flowers to the next lucky man or woman, it is certain this extravaganza is about marriage, a traditional and good institution, if there ever was one.
A closer look at a little bland sign on the bland building confirms that this office, next to an upscale clothes retailer, is the City’s Office of Matrimony
As brides and grooms pose outside for their wedding pictures, some with professional photographers, others with friends or family who have phones or fancy cameras, some couples do dramatic hugs and kisses. Others are subdued.
On this occasion it would be a sacrilege to remark that not all of these newly joined couples will be together in five years.
The search to find someone who will live with you, for better and worse, is worth the effort no matter how it ends.
The next historical development in weddings will be to get married at a drive up window, in street clothes, with a cooler of beer in the trunk and passes to the opera in the glove compartment.
Most marriages begin happy but their success rate is still only fifty percent, regardless of who marries you, where you get married, how much money you have, what God you worship.
Odds, as Las Vegas knows, are hard to beat, but odds don’t stop people from getting married.
Surrounded by dogs, all on leashes, this long hair consults his map.
It isn’t certain whether this group is going on a field trip, going to relieve themselves, headed for a romp on the beach, or just following their leader, who holds their leashes. They are stopped and the dog walker takes out a plastic bag and picks up a present left by one of his charges. It is certain he is the only one doing this nasty chore in this port district because you find dog presents on most streets and are surprised there aren’t more.
The sun is going down and it would be unexpected that all these dogs belong to this young man. Whether they have to be registered and need checkups and shots is an unknown but a vet supply place is near so there is a need here that someone is making a living catering to.
Putting his map away, the dog whisperer clutches all the leases in one hand and strides away, a pied piper.
Animals love their people.
This pack knows who their lead dog is even if they don’t know where he is taking them, and don’t care.
What I’m asking is – why would you have a dog if you don’t want to take it for a walk?
On my way to a lavenderia, electricians are installing a new electrical service to the front of a residential/commercial building on Main Street.
Like most of the homes in this neighborhood, there is a retail space on the bottom floor. Atop the retail space,accessible by a door and stairs, is an apartment.
In this refurbish, the retail space serves as a staging ground for conduit, PVC pipe, bags of mortar, tools and lunch boxes. In our modern times,all buildings have to have water, sewer and electrical capabilities meeting city codes. These building exteriors, protected by Historical Site designations, are brick or adobe plastered with a cement veneer and will stand for another hundred years if they are kept repaired.
Electric was provided, up to now, through the splicing of two large thick wires joined and carelessly wrapped with electricians tape dangling down the front of the building. After the new panel box is anchored and wire pulled through legal conduit, power will be reconnected.
Inside,new occupants will be able to power more gadgets from more places in each room, have power to run things that weren’t even imagined in the days this building was first built. When these buildings were built people were heating with fireplaces, lighting with candles. Horses and carriages were the rage.
It is a simple job, this installation of a new electrical service box.These guys have tools ,wear hard hats, and act like construction guys anywhere in the world.
Working construction for decades, it is hard for me to watch other people work without wanting to lend a hand.
Retirement is difficult if you are used to doing things.
It is mentioned in guide books that there is petty crime in Montevideo.
The young woman in a next door boutique, who speaks English and tells me about Montevideo when I have my expresso, is standing and talking to motorcycle cops as I come out my apartment door onto the street. There are three cops and two motorcycles and one of the officers is sitting on concrete steps leading into the boutique, writing his report.
I go around the corner and enter the back door of the shop, order a coffee in the cafe part of the business. When my friend comes back inside she tells me her whole story, from beginning to end.
“We had a shoplifter,” she begins, “the same one who did it before. We called the police and they took her away. She was putting things in her dress.”
“How do you say the past tense of steal,” she asks me?
“The past tense is stolen, someone has stolen our stuff,” I reply.
Petty crime sticks with us. This petty thief will spend a few nights in jail but won’t learn any lesson except not to get caught.
if there wasn’t crime these cops would be out of work.
The best thief is the one that steals from someone else.
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