Proud and quiet

 

Did you know Uruguayans have the best carnival, the best meat, the best beaches, the best parties, the best football team, and a high level of education?

 

Uruguayans sing me praises of the wonderful country they have, for the most part, never left. This pride irritates me, sometimes approaches xenophobia, and hurts my French sensibility, not being used to patriotic rushes.

 

Uruguay (three times smaller than France) is trapped in between the immensity of Brazil, Argentina and the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Rodriguo, 28 years old, explains to me that living conditions have been getting better for the last ten years. For example when he was a child, there were few cars in the streets of Montevideo but mainly cart. Now, with an average salary, a Uruguayan can buy himself a car.

 

Uruguay is as modern as Argentina. Thanks to the economic growth, the country now has a better GDP than its neighbor. Uruguay doesn’t feature anymore on the list of tax havens of the OECD; the bank secrecy is more flexible since 2011 and the country still attracts the foreign investments.

 

They call it the « Switzerland of South America » for its prosperity, tranquility, temperate climate, and mild temperament.

 

I feel safe in la la land!

 

Christine, a Swiss who has been living for a long time in a big Uruguayan farm tells me not to go on appearances; there are a lot of stories of theft, from the purse snatching in the street to the stealing cows in the middle of the night.

 

The atmosphere seems more relaxed than in Brazil or in Buenos Aires.

People are not suspicious and gladly stop to pick me up. Several times, my drivers spontaneously offer me their hospitality. So for two weeks, I rarely slept in the youth hostel. For this welcome, Uruguayans can be proud!

 

« Aqui no pasa nada », repeat several drivers (here, nothing happens). Indeed, on 3.5 million residents, 2 million live in the capital so in the rest of the country, it is quiet, very quiet and “there is no fire on the lake”

On the coast, the cities are barren, the streets full of nice ghosts. The buildings are waiting for the Argentinean tourists who will soon come to get tan on the long beaches. We are in November, it’s only 25°C and the high season starts on Christmas.

As for the countryside, it strangely looks like those we have in France: big stretches of fields as far as the eyes can see and green hills where cows graze but without the French villages: here one can easily drive 100 km before reaching a town.

 

I see there, much like in the rest of the country, Uruguayans walking around with their cup of mate in one hand and their thermos in the other hand. This tea can be drunk alone but traditionally there is a “ceremony of sharing mate”. The” thermos master” pours a little bit of hot water in a cup filled with mate leaves. He gives it to his neighbor who drinks the mate in three or four sips with a metallic straw. Then the “thermos master” fills it up again and gives it to another neighbor.

 

Driving a nice 4X4, an old car or a truck, they offer some to the hitch-hikers they just picked up two minutes ago.

 

- What about GERMS ?

 

Yes, this had been my first reaction –really French, I confess – that still makes me smile.

I forget, now, this weird concept of germs. Since I first put my feet on the South American continent, I remembered you share everything.