Pan American Dreams

It is Wednesday, and I have been in Montevideo, Uruguay since Saturday. I return to Bs As tonight. If I had known how delightful and interesting this country was going to be, I would have visited sooner.

Only a three hour ferry ride across the Atlantic estuary of the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires, Montevideo is in many ways a step back in time, and it is wonderful because of this. Buenos Aires seems absolutely intense by comparison. The phrase one hears over and over when Montevideo is mentioned in conversation is "muy tranquilo", and it is true. Seemingly everyone, even bicyclists, carries a thermos of maté throughout the day, and the unhurried pace is incredibly appealing. Here, one has time to think, and conversations tend to reflect that thoughtfulness in unexpected ways.

I was so exhausted from the hectic pace I had been keeping in Buenos Aires that when I arrived in Montevideo on the good ship Juan Patricio Saturday, I slept half the first day and part of the second. This respite in a city with a noticeably relaxed pace has been just what the doctor ordered. I am staying in a comfy three star fleabag hotel in a room overlooking Plaza Independencia in the Ciudad Viejo (old city). Amusingly, the hotel clerks couldn't find my reservation and gave my room key to another guest the first day. The entire staff is so friendly, and I'm already so mellowed out, it hardly matters. As compensation, the hotel is in a great area for walking, with the ocean visible down every little side street.

I came here to meet with Diego (aka, Parker), one of a pair of young filmmakers I had noticed months ago when I read an article about their production company, Manden Yerba Producciones. They had a short, low budget film titled Nico and Parker that did well on the festival circuit a few years ago, and they started Manden Yerba to promote indy filmmakers in Uruguay, where they get no love and even less funding. Parker was still in Montevideo. His partner was working on a project in Cannes!

But Parker and I would not meet until today, so I have had several days to explore the city, and by extension, learn a bit about the nation itself.

Uruguay has a very left leaning government, a recent development after the public rejected an attempt by the previous conservative government to privatize everything in sight. The old regime was a proxy for the U.S. style IMF/World Bank model of "economic liberalization," and Uruguayans had seen enough of that in Argentina, and indeed, in their own country! The new government has cracked down on the corruption that had become endemic under the old regime, making a concerted and so far credible effort to restore confidence in the national government.

This entire nation has only about 3.5 million people, with more than a third of those in Montevideo! Uruguay is also one of the smallest nations in South America geographically. The agricultural sector is the main engine of the economy, and Uruguayan farmers are behind in terms of mechanization, advanced industrial style food processing, etc. So the new government is turning this into an advantage by mounting an effort to market Uruguayan agricultural exports as premium organic products. Which is pretty much the case. An enormous amount of the planting, harvesting and processing is still done by hand, and the use of GM seeds and such that is so far advanced in Argentina still has not penetrated much here.

Yesterday, for example, in the Plaza Independencia in front of my hotel, there was a festival taking place, complete with an exhibit tent, folkloric dancers and drummers, free vino and giant kettles of potato soup being served in individual cups by about a dozen folks in white culinary uniforms. The purpose of this festive affair was to promote Uruguayan potatoes (las papas), many of which are legacy varieties. There are dozens of different kinds of legacy potatoes versus only the two or three varieties you consistently see in most grocery stores. Las papas also have a deep history. There are stories in the local newspapers of a heated cross border cultural skirmish between Peru and Chile, both of which claim to be the birthplace of the American potato 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.

The large color signs and banners promoting the festival refer to las papas as Uruguay's "buried treasure" (tesoro enterrado). The media are out in force, with lots of TV interviews being filmed and a big crowd on hand, perhaps as much for the free vino and entertainment as for las papas. But it is of great interest to me because of our La Comida Aborigen show! I found the exhibit tent fascinating.

The exchange rate here is $18.75 Uruguayan pesos per dollar, and this is after the dollar took another major hit on global currency markets the other day. It used to be something like $21 or $22 UR pesos per greenback!!!

This would make Punta del Este - the "Riviera" of South America - a real bargain. Punta del Este is about 75 miles from Montevideo. The wealthy from Argentina and Brazil vacation there in summer, many owning second or third homes in the area. Real estate values are sky high in Punta del Este! All of this in innocent little Uruguay, whose banking laws made it the Switzerland of South America until a wave of money laundering scandals and the impact of the Argentine economic collapse in 2001-'02 drove the nation into the arms of the IMF again, resulting in new transparency laws and increased regulation.

There is a small but noteworthy African American population here, about 5% of the national total. While there are quite a few black owned small businesses in the predominantly African American area of Montevideo, there is also a growing assertiveness in speaking out against discrimination and under-representation in politics, higher education and the professions. Uruguay is the seat of South America's first and largest Candombe movement. Candombe is a driving, drum based form of African music and dance that has represented both a form of protest and a threat to the ruling order since the days of slavery. It is very much alive in Uruguay today.