Pennies and Pesos

So, I definitely brought back pieces of Uruguay with me... intentionally and non-intentionally.

1. I have still not exchanged my pesos (argentinian and uruguayan) for dollars. I, also, keep rediscovering two half pesos that live in my wallet and pretend to be nickels. It makes me smile every time I see them though. Edit: I, also, discovered ten brazilian reals in my shorts the other day. When I add up all this money, I'm sure I'll be surprised in how much mulah I have in foreign currency. If I wait long enough, I can add some won to it.

2. Buenos Aires Safety Measurement: I feel like I am invincible just about anywhere in the States now because I survived Buenos Aires. I have a really bad sense of invincibility now. Really bad. For example, I stood under a lone streetlight waiting for the bus at 11pm on a sketchy street corner a week ago and thought nothing of it. Before I would have just stayed at my friends house and had her take me home the next day. Yeaaaah.

3. Preserving my uruguayan accent is so hard without other people speaking it back to me. In fact, I'm in a Spanish Linguistics class and people actually laugh when we go over the voseo and the sheismo that are widely used in Uruguay. So, it becomes an issue of self-consciousness and just naturally losing the accent since I'm no longer exposed to it. Its frustrating and now has me wanting to retire in Argentina instead of Mexico. Sorry, Mexico.

4. A guy briefly presented Uruguay (specifically Montevideo) a few weeks ago at the Spanish club where I work. It had been a few years since he'd been there. So, I schooled him :P. Nah, I just helped him out a little. It made me realize that while I don't think of Uruguay on a daily basis anymore, I still remember it very well.

5. Food items that I became familiar with in Uruguay and later found here in the States: Knorr soups, Cadbury chocolate bars, and Bimbo brand bread. To the best of my knowledge none of these brands are uruguayan although Knorr might be. And, I saw a brand of yerba (for maté) that was sold in Uruguay, but I can't remember the brand for the life of me. I don't know why this food thing matters to me, but I think its cool to find stuff in a foreign place that is sold at home too and vice versa. I think its partially why I loved m&ms, Hershey's Cookie and Cream bar, and snickers so much while I was in Uruguay although in the US I don't really eat them outside of Halloween.

6. This is off topic, but I'm 90% sure I'm going to South Korea when I graduate. I'll probably start a blog about it during the summer and I'll put a link in this blog in case anyone wants to hear more of my ramblings, but about a different part of the world. I don't know Korean at all except that I can say "hi", "kimchi", "thank you", "tiger" and "ski". At least the first three will actually be useful. Also, I'll be going for work *gasp* and not school so it will be very different from my study abroad experience. I'm excited.

On to the Next One

I finally feel like I've almost fully left Uruguay behind. Two months ago yesterday (Feb. 21) is when I left Uruguayan soil for home and already I'm losing my accent and re-adjusted my diet to fast food burgers. However, I can't stop saying "Well, in Uruguay..." or "When I was in Uruguay..." at least 5 times a day. I annoy myself sometimes, but then again it was my life the past year, so its hard to just pretend it didn't happen.

Thankfully, I gave my presentation on Uruguay last Wednesday which both made me feel closer to Uruguay and farther away at the same time. For 45 mins I got to tell a room full of people all about my experiences and what my life was like in another freakin' country. It was nerve-wrecking, but it was so great to blabber on and on about all the things that I, personally, thought were awesome about Uruguay and remember all the things I left behind.

I'm glad I did it not only because it was an opportunity to force people listen to me talk about Uruguay this and Uruguay that, but it also worked as a great way to say goodbye to Uruguay. I know I left the country two months ago, but it has still been with me everywhere I go. And, I miss it terribly of course, but I need to move on to the other adventures life has to offer.

As for this blog, I don't want to say this is the last post because I'm sure I'll discover other Uruguay related things to write about, but as for my experience there and reading about how Uruguay has touched my life this is probably the last one. I'll still check it every now and then for new comments and such and maybe post every know and then, but I'm moving on to a new blog to post about my more recent experiences. I'm not sure if I'm willing to share it with you guys since I'm still working on it, but I will consider it.

Alright, I'm one more paragraph from getting misty-eyed so chau!

Christmas Cheer in Punta Carretas

This is delayed, but the same day I left a group surprised the Christmas shoppers in Punta Carretas Shopping with a song. Its pretty sweet.

Blackness in a White Nation

I had someone comment that they wanted to know what I felt like being black in Uruguay so I thought I would address it. I haven't spoken about it before because this didn't seem to be the right audience for it, but now that someone has asked I have no problem doing it. I already talked a little bit about it in my post titled Afro-Uruguayans, but I'll expound a little.

Uruguay is one of the most homogenous populations in South America, if not the most homogeneous, where the population is majority caucasian. Naturally I stuck out like a sore thumb and my afro wasn't helping matters either. To be honest though, I live in Nowhere, North Carolina where there isn't a well represented population of African Americans either so its not like it shocked me. Although, I would say that in comparison Uruguay has less blacks than here in Nowhere, NC.

Fortunately, I was never hassled or talked down to or anything because of my skin color, which is always great, but I did notice that people treated me a little different sometimes. I feel like people would look at me longer and in a way that made sure I wasn't trying something sometimes. I even had a few kids point me out to their parents which I just thought was cute. Some subtle things happened, of course, where people would jerk their kids away from me or like the example I gave in the other post a guy in McDonalds saw me and pushed his wife to his other side away from me, put his arm around her, and would keep looking at me every few seconds. It was pretty rude, but, hey, what could I do?

Just like in the US there is still some ignorance from people who have never come into contact with people of color, but you just have to learn to take it in stride, especially when you're in other countries. In situations like that I would just try to not give them any reason to think of me as a sketchy character by taking my hands out of my pockets, not looking at them, and just being polite. I would say that 98% of the time though I was treated just like any other person/ foreigner and even like a regular Latin American from the times people thought I was from Brazil or somewhere else.

I would definitely say to not let your skin color keep you from going though. I never met a mean Uruguayan (do they even exist?) and they treat you like a regular person. Just be prepared to stick out a little.

By the way, I plan to research this topic of Afro-Uruguayans because it has really drawn my interest since I can't seem to find more information on it through Google search. I was looking up an Afro-Latin American textbook for a class I'm taking with a similar name and found a book titled Blackness in a White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay by George Reid Andrews that I plan on starting with. You know, in case you're interested as well.

America!

Whew, that was the longest plane ride ever... Haha not. So, let's finish this thing up shall we?

I was actually so ready to get back home to AMERICA that last day, ya'll. (Yes, my southern accent is back). That was the longest line ever when I was in line for American Airlines to check in. I swear. The ride in was pretty smooth. In Miami the Homeland Security officer even said "Welcome back" to me. I felt special. Also, I went through numerous security check points and didn't have to go through the new TSA scanner once. Awesome! Though I did notice it took longer to get through security than before in Miami-- and we got there at 5am.

I remember talking to my dad for the first time in months on my American cell phone on the tram in the airport. I was smiling like an idiot and despite it being 5am my dad was wide awake to talk to me. Aww. And, my family was awesome and on time for my arrival. My brother ran up to me and almost knocked me over in the airport and they gave me welcome back balloons. I, also, went home and had welcome back party things all over my room. Its almost 2 months later and they are still up there. What can I say, they make me happy.

I did go through a stage of reverse culture shock where I kept constantly comparing things to how they were in Uruguay and just being confused about the time and where I was as in orientating myself that home is now a tangible and not just a place in the general America direction. I'm still adjusting slightly. That whole thing where they say you come back a different person and not everyone wants to hear about your awesome adventures abroad was totally true. Its kind of frustrating realizing I am no longer friends with a lot of people anymore (I guess we weren't such great friends anyways) and have a whole year of my life where I wasn't here to see things happen and change. But then I start talking to someone about my year in Uruguay and it puts things back into perspective.

I do horribly miss speaking Spanish though. I'm talking real Spanish and only in Spanish. People are just so scared to speak Spanish and its really hard to get people to speak to me in only Spanish and not Spanglish. I've noticed that only the people who studied abroad even feel comfortable enough to do so. Its weird. So, I'm definitely trying to speak Spanish as much as I can by volunteering and working in environments where its necessary to do so.

But I'm actually doing a presentation on my experience in Uruguay next week (Feb. 16th) where I will be speaking in Spanish so I'm uber excited about that.

I don't know I'm just so greatly to be back. Being abroad was awesome, but I'm glad to be back. God bless America :D