8 months after moving to Uruguay, I sat in my room tonight and drank my first solo mate–prepared by a team effort between my roommate Oriana and me. She assured me that the there was no science to the preparation, but watching her deliberate movements as she shook and leveled the mate, adding cold and hot water to expand it, before actually adding the hot water to drink it, I realized there was a reason I had waited for her guidance. She lent me her thermos and watched me pour the first sip. She was, dare I say, proud and said the next time she would join me. I finished my mate and ate parrilla for dinner, and right as I was about to fall asleep for the night, I got the idea of making a breakfast that I loved as a child: rice + milk + cinnamon. I woke up to boil rice. As it was cooking I took the time to stretch and read Cornelius, a children’s fable given to me on the occasion of my 25th birthday by the one who loves my crocodile grin the most. I read it hanging upside-down, which is a most appropriate way to read a story about a crocodile “different from the rest,” who practiced headstands with the monkey down the riverbeach.

Today I went to the feria like I do every Saturday and Tuesday, to buy fruit and fish. There are many stalls to choose from, but I tend to go to the same vendors, even though they are located a bit further away than the rest. A creature of habit, I am. Today I was buying oranges (the kind with menos semillas) and an older woman passed me wearing a fabulous tweed dress with a handknit sweater underneath. I told her that I liked her dress. 20 minutes later I was sitting in her living room with a coffee and chocolate cake, looking at some goods she has knit. Turns out she is a fine knitter and works in pure wool. Collaborations are in order. 2 hours later I was with her family watching my first (ever) Rugby match. Old Boys against Old Christian. Those are not translations–those are the schools’ names. (The British were here once, no?) We were rooting for Old Boys, but Old Christian prevailed. I made friends with a 3 year old named Tommy, who knew how to say Hello. In the course of the second half, Tommy fell in love with a little girl with her face painted as a cat. He and I went to find her–me in front clutching his plastic alligator, him behind me repeating, “Como te llamas, gatocita linda” (What is your name, pretty little cat). We found her on the Old Christian side, waving their blue and white flag. She was probably 6 and missing her front teeth. Tommy lost his nerve and later, his plastic alligator.

My friend Rebbecca asked me what it felt like to be 25. I said in jest that it felt a lot like being 24. She pressed me, “Come on, Christina” (which sounds much more compelling when said in a Kentucky accent). She wanted me to mark the day. It was big she said, and not big like, of my gosh, you are so old, Christina, but more like, it was a day that deserved some actual reflection. And so, in front of 15 empty chopp glasses we talked: gray hairs, self-assurance, growth, all of it. Right there in the bar, in front of a team of commercial producers, who eventually sang me Feliz Cumpleaños & bought me a margarita.

It felt so nice to reflect. To know me is to know that reflection is integral to my person and how I view the world. I told her that though I was far from my family on this milestone birthday, being in Montevideo also represented to me what I love most about my life: my grit, my drive, my competence. I was sitting in that bar because life has made me a woman who gets done what she wants to accomplish, whose wellspring of self-worth stems from years of choosing hope over despair and self-reliance over abandonment of purpose. And sitting at this table full of Uruguayans, Americans, and even 2 friends from Brown, I realized that as self-made as I am, I have also been mended by love. Healed by it, to be frank. It is the balm that soothed what I could not do myself. and here, so many miles from where I was a year ago, was a table of people gathered to share food and celebrate the life that started 25 years ago in a mid-wive’s house in Las Vegas.

You have done well in rearing me, each of you in your way. Thank you for the part you’ve played in bringing me to this year.

P.S: To see what I look like at 25, and to hear that slight lisp you miss so much, here is me singing to my friend Becca: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN0X6J_3ybE and this is my birthday video from Thyra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFg1l-vKMs

The warm spring weather of last weekend has vanished as quickly as it came. I am back in my wool: cardigans, socks, hat, check. The cold woke me up this morning; that or my racing mind. It’s 7:16am and I am up earlier than expected, earlier than desired. I have been reading Banker to the Poor and am dreaming up a project that will involve artisans. I am dreaming so much these days: of schools, of homes, of travels, of books to be made. I have also rediscovered oatmeal and apples, homemade popcorn, and the need for hot soups on cold nights. Yoga backbends, sweeping dust from under my bed, and soccer matches. Wedesday Uruguay will play Ecuador in a World Cup qualifier. I will go and cheer them on in my blue and white, dear friends at my side, fried dough in hand.

For now, a bowl of oatmeal and a morning stretch will bring me into my Monday.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to class. Instead I slept and took antihistamines. And to respond to Nick’s initial question: no it’s not permanent. It was mosquito induced. Clearly, I’m getting a bed net for the summer.

It had been a great night: I discovered a bowling alley in MVD. My first roll of my cosmic pink 10-lb ball was a strike. We played two games and I won both. I then celebrated the 25th birthday of Teresa, my professor friend, on the top floor of her apartment building. And so it was 4:30am I came home to sleep. But as I walked down the narrow corridor that leads me from one gate, to another, to the steps of my house, I received a text message: “Hay un wedding fiesta going fuerte en el ballroom ahora. Podemos crash it con ropa formale. Lo tengo.” It was from Cory, my red-headed pilot friend who lives in the 5-star Sheraton nearby my house. He wanted us to go to a wedding, in the Sheraton, uninvited. I put on my red peacoat, pulled my hair back in a tight (dare I say, classy) ponytail, and walked 5 blocks to meet him, suited out in his pilot-inspired dress shirt and tie. Who was I to deny him the attempt? We entered the ballroom to a dwindling crowd of 20, dancing to the few last songs of the night: Journey was playing. We awkwardly took a spot on the floor. I noticed stares. Eventually we were approached: Where are you from? Seattle, said Cory. We were approached again. Again he said Seattle (I was saying nothing). Seconds after, someone grabbed our hands and started chanting COLORADOS, COLORADOS. “How funny,” I thought, “they think Seattle is in Colorado. But then again, maybe it’s because of Cory’s hair and my red coat.” Either way, we jumped up and down with the bride and groom, and the 20 other guests, chanting COLORADOS. The bride–in a dress so amazing, I wished I were in it–offered us a nightcap. We accepted. We drank it and chatted with a lawyer who kept referring to us, like everyone else, as Colorados. I finally asked why we were being called that. Was it like Yankee or something? “We aren’t calling you Colorados, we are calling you Colados. You know, like wedding crashers.” I died. Fortunately the bride assured us that she loved us coming, because she would have done it too. I assured Cory that a) other brides might not have been so kind and b) we should now be karmically prepared to have our own weddings crashed. I’ll +2 just to be sure.

School began today and my head is abuzz. Today marks the beginning of the second half of my scholarship year. What’s more, my feet are replanting after a vacation to the north–a vacation to see my nephew and host a trunk  show, to sunbathe and dream up the years to come. And here I am again: in Montevideo, in Econ Class, in project mode. There is much to be done in these months: Two Rotary (Matching) Grant applications, the GMAT’s, artisan exchanges, and whatever else comes to land on my plate. I also will turn 25 soon, here in my Montevideo. I think I will throw myself a party to celebrate. Join me if you can. Otherwise, let’s celebrate when I return to you next year.

Nick Moore recently came for a visit. On foot, on bike, on train, and by sea we explored. Hitchhiking happened. Twice. He is of the ever-curious breed, meandering down streets to get a better view of a door frame (a window, a chimney, a…) of a house he’d peep from two alleys away. He will not take the same route twice. He’d pack snacks for daytrips, always including pan y chocolate. He attended two Rotary meetings with me and is now as fully versed as he wishes in my life with Rotary here. The day before he left we visited a strew of used bookstores looking for books on textiles (for me) and architecture (for him). As we stood over a table of ofertas the owner of bookstore asked us if we would like a cafe, which caught me off-guard. We weren’t in a coffeeshop but I said yes, como no. He returned with two fresh cups of espresso on tiny saucers, to be taken with the sugar he laid out on the table next to a tiny wooden spoon. The table was covered in a green felted tablecloth, letting its yellow belly peek out of the holes in its worn out sides. Nick’s coffee got cold, as he remained with his book on Eladio Dieste. And so I sipped my shot, sweetened just a tad, next to the books on Haiti. My coffee wasn’t hot enough to melt the sugar I added to its last sip so I had to scrape it out of the bottom, just as Nick came. I scraped and he finished his espresso, and then we made a purchase. He flew away the next day, as did I.

This past week my dear friends (Becca, Elise, Thyra, NWM) and I took a trip to Bariloche, Argentina (to be read: Patagonia). We got to Buenos Aires by ferry, to Viedma by bus, and then trained it to Bariloche–in total, a 36 hour and 1,000 mile journey. Bariloche was part Switzerland, part tourist trap. Once you left the town however, there was heaven to be found. Snow capped mountains and turquoise waters, hikes all day and rides in the back of pickups when the hikes went too late (and the rain got way to heavy). We made dinners by night and navigated mountain streams by day. Becca and I hiked a trail in perfect snowy silence, only to hear that Che Guevara took the same route before going to Cuba. We froze over our feet and boasted in the greatness of wool socks. I packed light so I lacked “gear,” so I wore just my tights over tights. Perfect idea. We ended our week with a visit to ancient caves, owned by a nice man, with a grey dog, who wore his handkerchief in a sophisticated manner. He bought some 150 hectares 40 years ago, trying to get away from it all, only to discover his land was home to an ancient volcano and loads of indigenous drawings (not to mention the “mother forest” for the Cyprus trees of Patagonia). Now he drives tourists in a Mercedes bus to look at his treasures. He cares for his land thoughtfully and strategically, and despite the ill-behaved Brazilian children in neon one-piece snowsuits throwing icicles into the cave lake, I couldn’t have asked for a better final adventure. Until, that is, Nick and visited Le Corbusier’s Casa Curutchet outside of Buenos Aires and walked its ramps and halls as the rain poured down without another person in sight.

]]> http://cdesvaux.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/wet-shoes-make-a-day-long/feed/ http://cdesvaux.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/becoming-friends-vis-a-vi-domesticity/ http://cdesvaux.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/becoming-friends-vis-a-vi-domesticity/#comments Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:42:54 +0000 cdesvaux http://cdesvaux.wordpress.com/?p=68

July has been a month of change. My first semester is done. The translation project I had been working on for Rotaract Paso Molino is completed, and well, my roommate told me that she and her boyfriend are pregnant. She told me as we were passing the internet modem through the door which separates our bedrooms. She told me before she told the other roommates. I felt honored. I didn’t know what to say. “We will marry,” she said. “It is common here, to marry very young, it’s just, I don’t know if I will finish my degree.” She and I have become friends over the last few weeks, over various home repair projects. We somehow realized we both wanted internet and now share it. A few days for me, a few days for her. She studies architecture and soon will be a mother. We also rearranged the living room. Our next project: fix our oven which leaks an unhealthy amount of gas.

In a few days I leave for Patagonia. It’s winter vacation here and Nicholas is visiting. Cross-country skiing and chocolate shops await us in Bariloche, as well as a reunion with some of my best friends from Brown. Because it’s cold down in Patagonia, today I bought sheep-skin inserts for my shoes. I paid $1.80 for them and have a feeling they will be worth it.