Sara Morris in Montevideo

ACU junior Sara Morris kept a blog chronicling her Study Abroad experiences in Montevideo, Uruguay. Here are some excerpts:

January 17, 2009

An interesting note about Uruguayan culture: they love their mate (MAH-tay). It's this weird tea-like drink that they have special cups and straws for. It's very bitter unless you add sugar. It looks really strange when you drink it, because you just fill the cup with this grass-like stuff, then pour hot water in and stick in your straw. Rather than having a hole on each end like most straws, these have a hole at the top where you put your mouth and then a lot of much smaller holes around the sides at the bottom, which act as a filter so you only get liquid and not herbs.

People drink this stuff everywhere. They carry the cups around with them and sip wherever you go. It's a comfort drink for Uruguayans. And it's so special, it apparently can't be categorized. We saw a sign today that said "No food, no drink, and no mate" which I thought was pretty funny. 

January 19, 2009

Today was the first day of classes. 

I love advanced convo, even though it's going to be so hard. Our teacher is this adorable woman who has taught Spanish to a lot of people, including U.S. embassy personnel here in Montevideo. She's legit. Even though this was only the first day of class, she pushed us right in, speaking only in Spanish for an hour and a half, talking a mile a minute and asking individual people questions. We were expected to keep up a conversation with her, and when we made mistakes or didn't understand a word or phrase that she said, she would write it on the board and explain the correct word and the instances where it would be used.

It's the most interesting way I've ever learned Spanish. It's so practical. It's not memorizing a list of vocabulary words for a written quiz, it's learning to communicate with people in this language that we have to use on a daily basis here in Uruguay to get by. And the teacher is just hilarious. She exaggerates her sounds in Spanish to make them easier to understand and makes wild hand motions to illustrate what she's talking about, so we can all follow her (or at least try). 

January 27, 2009

One of the ways that Uruguayans show hospitality and love is through the asado – essentially, a barbecue, although it has a lot of other cultural connotations. Last night, we had an asado with some people from the church on the roof of our building (which is way cool, by the way). It was a great moment of sharing food – basically just meat, lots of meat – and time together. We stood up on the roof in the gorgeous overcast late afternoon, chatting and taking pictures and generally enjoying the breeze while the men worked their magic with flames in the big brick barbecue-stove-thing, and pretty soon the most amazing-smelling smoke was drifting over everybody.

We went inside to eat at this one really long table, with salad and bread and drinks already laid out, and then the Uruguayan guys (Diego, Matthias, Martin, y Emmanuel) served us the main courses. There were ribs, slabs of beef, sausage and chicken stuffed with peppers and green olives. We all had a great time chowing down, sharing what we couldn't fit in our full stomachs, and then eating even more when they brought out the dulce de leche ice cream.

South Americans don't just eat and run, so we sat around and fellowshipped for a long time before we started filtering up to the roof again for our time of evening worship. The night breeze had a little bit of a chill to it because thunderstorms are rolling in right now, so a few of us huddled up for warmth and just sort of spontaneously burst into worship songs, under the stars and the fast-moving orange clouds.

February 1, 2009

I have never seen waves like these. They’re a little bit ominious, actually, because you can wade out into the water up to your thighs, and as you see a big wave rolling toward the beach, the water sucks away from you, feeling like sandpaper because its dragging silt past your calves, and the water level drops down to your ankles, and then suddenly you’re smashed with the force of the breaking wave, driven backward in a spray of foam. It was incredible. If I could relive that afternoon every day for the rest of my stay in South America, I would be thoroughly happy.

March 2, 2009

Our group traveled together to Rocha, a province of Uruguay east of Montevideo, along the coast. We stayed in a beachfront hotel, Hotel Palma de Mallorca, in La Paloma, a small city in that area. It was pretty, all white with open spaces everywhere and gauzy curtains blowing in the breeze. It had a pool, although I can’t imagine why, when you can just walk out the back door and step onto the soft sand of the beach, the waves lapping up on shore twenty feet from where the hotel property ends.

We had a really incredible impromptu worship service on the beach the first night we were there. It was amazing…a group of us went outside at 11:30 or so to look at the stars, and we were so in awe that we just stood together and sang praises to God while the waves kept time in the background. :) A beautiful night.

March 7, 2009

This week has been a very intense one for me and eight other students because Bio, our Brazilian teacher for the Missions in Latin America class arrived on Sunday and taught class Monday through Sunday, all day long. We had to get 3 credit hours worth of class in in one week, and I also had two Intermediate Spanish classes at la Universidad Catolica, Travel as Narrative, and Latin America and the Arts. It's been insane, but totally worth it. Bio's class has been an amazing learning experience, that culminated today in a hands-on approach to missions – going out in pairs and just talking to the homeless people that populate the streets.

I paired up with Zanessa, a gorgeous woman of God with a heart for people, especially the poor. Although the class had been given a list of questions to ask the homeless people we encountered, she and I set out with the intention of just talking to them. As soon as we left the Casa, we started to pray that God would put the right people in our path. We went only a few blocks before we found Pablo, a young man sitting against a wall outside a store, begging. He talked to us first, asking us for coins, but when we told him we had none and offered him the Brazilian caramel candies we had in our pockets instead, a conversation opened up. He's had the same candy when he was a little boy, he said, except in a different wrapper. He welcomed us to sit with him and talk.

We talked about everything, from what foods we liked most in Uruguay to the job situation in the nation's economy. Pablo told us that he had worked as a metal-worker until recently, but that the economy was such that there were just not enough job opportunities for everyone to be able to work. It was Zanessa that brought up God, easing into it by noting that Pablo's name was a common name in her favorite book: the Bible.

"Oh, no me gusta mucho," Pablo had said, shaking his head. He doesn't believe in God, and doesn't care much for church, either. The people there are nice, and they won't kick you out if you want to go sit at the back of a church and get out of the elements, but they can't help you, not really. It was strange to me that he seemed to have so much hope for the future, because he had no hope in God at all. When we asked him what he did believe in, he said he believed in himself. He said that was all he could depend on. When we told him how much we were learning here in Montevideo, he said that he tried to learn something new every day, so that someday he would know enough to get off the streets.

April 10, 2009

It's a beautiful Good Friday, and we've just returned from the Brazil trip, the last hoorah for Latin America Study Abroad-ers. We piled into the bus yesterday at about 11:30 a.m. to start the drive back, and we got in at about 9 this morning. Not the most pleasant of things, a 22-hour bus drive, but I still prefer it to flying.

The week was a non-stop action kind of thing, as we hopped borders back and forth between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay every day. We had five big activities for the week.

The first was a trip to the Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls. We stayed in Foz do Iguaçu, the entirely tourism-based town through which you get to the Brazilian National Park and visit the falls. Because of the way boundary lines are drawn between the countries, Brazil controls only something like 30% of the falls, but what they control is still awe-inspiring and beautiful. What you get on the Brazilian side is a panoramic view of the great cataratas. After a morning of lovely picture opportunities (I left my camera in my hotel room the first day! Ack! But my roommates and I woke up fifteen minutes after we were supposed to meet to leave for the falls, so I was more concerned about clothes), a group of us piled into a boat that sped up the river, up into the falls, and got us all completely, totally, thoroughly soaked as it drove straight under one of the waterfalls.

Also as part of that day, we went to the Parque do Aves (The Bird Park, which I had a difficult time enjoying, still soaking wet as I was), where we walked through rain forest enclosures with all the most beautiful kinds of birds that Brazil had to offer. The toucans were especially easy to get close to – they wouldn't fly away, even if you came up and petted them, although they would most assuredly bite you if you tried.

The next morning, we crossed back in Argentina to visit their side of the falls, which I much preferred. They had walkways that took you right onto the waterfalls, so the water was rushing past you and the spray was coming up in your face (bad if you want to take pictures, fabulous if you want the waterfall experience). I actually did get some pictures taken that day, but I'm thoroughly disappointed in them. Iguaçu Falls is not something you can really capture within a viewfinder. I've never seen anything so beautiful or powerful in my life. Eleanor Roosevelt, when she visited these falls, exclaimed only, "Poor Niagara!"

The third day began with a visit to Itaipu Dam, the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, which was created through a joint effort between Brazil and Paraguay. The dam, built on the Paraná River that divides the two countries, supplies 75% of Paraguay’s power and 25% of Brazil's. 

We then traveled into Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, the knock-off capital of the Americas, where they sell everything from pirated DVDs to AK-47s to infants. I didn't really enjoy it all that much, because I’m not in the market for a case of not-quite-legit iPhones or Puma attire. It was mostly just hot, and we wandered through street markets getting embarrassingly cheap American stuff shoved in our faces by pushy vendors for three hours before the group met up and headed back to Brazil again. In future travels, I will probably not be returning to Paraguay.

That night, though, was my favorite part of the trip. We hopped back over to the Argentina side of the falls for a delicious dinner at another nice buffet, and then we got on this little train that goes through the park, and it dropped us off in the middle of the forest for a moonlight hike back to la Garganta del Diablo, the walkway that went right up to the top of the falls. Everything was bleached to black and white by the moonlight, and moths floated like dust motes in the mist rising from the base of the falls. ¡Qué bonita! I'm sorry, but I took no pictures. This never would have transferred; it's something you have to experience.

The next day was pretty much just a free day, and I slept in and then hung out watching movies in the hotel. What a great rest for mind and body! I needed it. :)