Should I Stay or Should I Go

April 1^st, 2020

4:45 P.M. Montevideo, Uruguay

 I don’t really know what’s happening. Contrary to the title of this post, I’m not contemplating on whether or not I should leave Uruguay, although our program did give us the option to go home if we wanted. I feel safer here, and it’s my home now, so it would be really hard to leave. But I have been listening to The Clash a lot, which shows you just how uncertain these times have become.

I’m in a strange position, because while there are not many cases of COVID-19 in Uruguay compared to the United States (around 300 was the most recent count), I still feel the sheer panic from my family and friends back home.

Before Uruguay canceled most schools and large group activities, my mom called, telling me,

“Go to the grocery store and stock up before it hits you down there.”

So while early-on some of my friends and co-workers were joking about getting the virus, I was already feeling the anxiety of what would happen if it got bad here. Thankfully, I think the country has taken great precautions to prevent the spread, but the numbers continue to climb.

The busses are vacant, the beach has only the birds for company, and every other person has on a face mask and gloves. Only grocery stores and pharmacies are open (oh, and obviously the bakeries), and some of them only allow orders to be taken from the window out front, not allowing customers to wander into the stores.   

As an extrovert, this has been really tough. I can’t go outside, I can’t practice my Spanish aside from the small interactions I have with the cashier at the grocery store, and I can’t hug people, which is definitely one of my favorite activities in the world.

A few weeks ago the two German volunteers in my house came home with somber faces saying they were being sent home. Miriam (pictured below) was the last to leave and flew out on Monday. They were going to leave eventually when their program was over in August/September, but it just feels like we were cheated. I know we should be thankful that we’re all safe and we have people looking out for our best interests, but I also think we should be allowed to grieve a little. I’m sad that now when I walk down the stairs all I see is a dark room, where we once spent hours watching movies or playing Boggle in 4 different languages. And what’s even more infuriating is that I can’t do anything about it. Absolutely nothing.  

All of my work has been moved online, so we’ll have video calls through Zoom, like the one pictured below. (Which at least allows me to see Matí, the most adorable 3-year-old in the entire world.) They say that we’ll hopefully be able to continue work after Easter weekend, but who knows? Even if we are allowed to return to “normal”, what does that look like? Will Uruguayans continue their staple, cultural greeting with a kiss on the cheek? Do we douse ourselves with hand sanitizer every time we make the slightest contact with another person?

I worry especially about my Uruguayan “grandparents”, Ruth and Diego, both in their 80s. Not only them, but both of Diego’s sisters as well, Stella and Maggie. I am usually at their house at least once or twice a week, but I haven’t been able to see them in a few weeks, and honestly probably won’t be able to for a little while. Even though we can still call one another on the phone (and Ruth teases me about giving away her cat since I’m not there to play with it), it’s not the same as being together in person.

Just when I feel like I was hitting my stride, this virus knocks it out of whack again. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the beach. It’s practically deserted, but I actually like it a little better when it’s not swarmed with people. I’ve even found and declared one of the rocks “my spot”, sharing it with the little crabs that crawl up and down it, of course. It’s really the only thing that feels calming at this point.

I suppose to feel loss we have to have something worth losing, and I think all of us are losing things in our own way, even if we aren’t being directly affected by the virus. But I’m here to remind you that it’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling. And after spending many wasted hours on the internet during this quarantine, I stumbled across a quote written by Bianca Sparacino that I particularly enjoyed, so now I hope to share that with you.

“Please, whatever you do—just leap towards tenderness. Leap towards connection. We are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to us. But caring is not synonymous with crazy. Expressing to someone how special they are to you will make you vulnerable. There is no denying that. However, that is nothing to be ashamed of. There is something breathtakingly beautiful in the moments of smaller magic that occur when you strip down and are honest with those who are important to you, when you choose to slam your heart into those who ignite something within it, when you express. So, express. Express, express, express. Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how, you love. There is courage in that.”

In Paradise and Lost

February 4^th, 2020

12:54 A.M. Montevideo, Uruguay

(To begin, if you understand why the title is so clever, give yourself a gold star.)

Recently I’ve been feeling restless. It’s not anyone’s doing, (okay, maybe it’s my doing), but I’ve been struggling with my real purpose. I know that when you move to a different country, everyone expects you to have the time of your life, post the cool pictures of all the incredible sights, and talk about how you’re never coming back because who knew life could be this good?!

Part of that’s true.

 I’m already looking at schools in the U.K. for after my time here, and I am having the time of my life and seeing incredible views. But nothing is sunshine and rainbows all the time. I’ve been experiencing this lately, especially since it’s summer vacation. I’ve never seen a country so shut down after New Years. If I were home in the United States, school or work starts up again shortly after January 1^st, and the new year hits you before you’re ready for it. In Uruguay, most of the shops shut down (or have minimal hours), few people go outside between 11am-4pm (due to the heat), and the people that aren’t in their houses have left the country to go on vacation. (Even my doctor told me she couldn’t see me because she was on holiday in Brazil.)

I’m not used to this. If I’m not busy, then I’m not being productive, and if I’m not being productive then I’m more stressed than if I were busy with hardly enough time to eat and sleep. I don’t want to go so far as to say that most jobs get the month of January off for summer vacation, but for the vast amount of people that do, I am a part of that group. Of course I could do some traveling, and I did do a week trip with some friends to another small city with a beach, but at some point, money runs out and smaller responsibilities keep me in Montevideo.

It’s moments like these when I tell myself staying up all night watching The Lord of the Rings is a perfectly acceptable use of my time because the only thing I have to do the following day is make breakfast and go to coffee with a friend. (Side-note: I found a fabulous coffee shop in a country taken over by yerba! HALLELUJAH.) Some of you might be reading this thinking, “Oh, give me a BREAK. Nothing to do but breakfast in bed and taking 3 hours to walk along the beach? SUCH a tough life.”

I think I would have thought the same thing if I were in the midst of studying for an upcoming exam or had finished a really tough work week. But now that I’m in it, I really miss that slight drama of not quite being sure if I’ll have enough time to finish everything. On some level, it’s completely unhealthy that I need so much stress to feel satisfied. (Don’t worry, I’m trying to work on that…emphasis on “trying”!) But recently I finished The Good Place on Netflix, (a series I highly recommend and am about to spoil for you, so if you want to watch it, stop reading this paragraph and pick up at the next one). The series tells the story of Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell) and her attempts to dodge any or all attention after accidently being sent to the “Good Place” when she should have been sent to the “Bad Place” after death. Eventually she finds other friends with similar problems, and through 4 seasons of intense excitement and suspense, they make it to the actual Good Place, only to find that the people there are tired of everything being perfect all the time. As Jason puts it after Michael asks him why his lifelong dream got boring so quickly, “Monkeys in go-karts was fun for a while. Then I was like, ‘You know what would be cool? Hippos in go-karts!’…I did like 50 combos and then I just kinda wanted to hang out with you guys again.”  

I must say, I’ve never had the dream to ride go-karts with monkeys or hippos (maybe dogs?), but I’m coming to the realization that I never really thought about my life once I got to Uruguay. Did I know ahead of time that I would change as a person? Did I know I would be really challenged?  Did I know that there would be days I would cry simply because I was tired?

Of course. I knew all of those things.

I think the frustrating part about growing is actually having to go through the difficult or frustrating moments to get to the better moments. Lately I just “want to hang out” with some people again; I want to do meaningful work again. Beaches and coffee dates are fun, but if there’s no end goal, even paradise can become boring. I think being present means enjoying the phase of life you’re at without worrying about the past or the future, but it also means using that present moment to help make it better for others that might not think it’s so great. I really hope that within these next couple months, I can help other people feel that paradise moment that they might be seeking, and if not forever, at least for a little while.

Christmas, Is That You?

December 26^th, 2019

8:34 P.M. Montevideo, Uruguay

Merry Christmas from the southern hemisphere!

This holiday season was definitely unusual, but it was a good unusual; a new experience to say the least.

You don’t even have to be a close friend of mine to know that I absolutely love cold weather. Spend five minutes with me during spring (not even summer) and I will be complaining about how hot it is. Well, what a shock to my system to leave the United States during summer and come to Uruguay when summer was just beginning, resulting in a very sunny holiday season.

The last few months of the year are usually my favorite for a few reasons:

1.     Cold weather resumes and insects go back to hell where they belong. (I’ve had quite the “experience” with cockroaches here.)

2.     School usually begins, and I absolutely love school.

3.     There’s at least 1 holiday in each month. (October has Halloween, November has my birthday and Thanksgiving, and December has Christmas and New Years.) It really is the best time of the year!

This year I was in a position where almost none of these things happened, or at least they happened in ways unfamiliar to me.

I’ve learned that cockroaches are a regular occurrence in summer, and I’ve been told to “relax” many times, to which I respond, “Yes, but I don’t think you understand just HOW terrified I am of any bug, let alone a large, crunchy, indestructible, flying satanic creature sent from the depths of hell. (Have I made my point?)

Cockroaches aside, I didn’t start school this year, and Halloween, comparatively, isn’t much of a thing here, as it’s only become popular in the last few years due to the influence of Halloween movies from the United States.

Even though Halloween was a bust, I had one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had in my whole life. Everyone here made it so unbelievably special, and I am so grateful for the community that cares so much about me. I attempted to cook a nice vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner for my friends here, but if you’re not watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Annual Dog Show afterwards, followed by every Thanksgiving episode of Friends, is it even Thanksgiving?

Needless to say, I walked into the grocery store the first week of December and saw that they had put up Christmas decorations and were starting to sell fake Christmas trees. My first thought was, “Isn’t it a little early for Christmas?”, not realizing that it was, in fact, not early in the slightest.

While the United States probably goes a little overboard for Christmas, I actually found myself missing the hustle and bustle of the season, not to mention the snow! Plus, I never got to watch my favorite Christmas movie of all time, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Very important.

It didn’t really feel like Christmas until I went to a Christmas concert at the Central Methodist Church of Montevideo where I got to listen to wonderful music sung by the Gay Men’s Choir of Montevideo.

Live Noche de Paz

 (If you have Facebook, here’s a link to “Noche de Paz” [which is Silent Night, but strangely was sung in German?], and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE.)

Leading up to the big day, which in Uruguay is the 24^th, not the 25^th, I spent my days at the beach, just a few blocks from my house.

For Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve, Ivette (a fellow GMF) and I were invited to the home of Pablo and Adriana, the most wonderful and caring people, whom I like to think of as my Uruguayan parents. We spent the evening with a lovely dinner, played board games, and at midnight we went outside to watch the fireworks.

I really like this tradition. We just stayed outside for a little bit watching the sky, giving out hugs, and wishing one another, “Feliz Navidad!” After, we came inside to open presents and listen to music, and by the time we ended it was very early in the morning! 

When I woke up on the 25^th (after quite the late night), I facetimed my family as they continued our tradition at home opening presents on Christmas morning. Even though I’m thousands of miles away, it actually didn’t feel that different. I felt like I was there with them. Christmas music was playing in the background, my dad was attempting to save the wrapping paper so he could use it for next year like he does every year, and my mom was temporarily getting up every 10 minutes to check the Christmas dinner she probably spent days preparing for. (Also, let it be known a Christmas miracle occurred, and Tobi, our dog, recognized me through the phone. Yes, I think I was more excited than him.)

The afternoon was spent at Ruth and Diego’s house with tea and cake. Their house has become a bit of a refuge for me during these past few months. Diego is from Uruguay and Ruth is from England, so both of them are fluent in English and Spanish. Not to mention that Ruth is an incredible cook/baker! Whenever I walk in the door, I yell, “I’m home!” and then Ruth usually puts me to work grating the carrots, a job she’s convinced I’ll get tired of by the time I leave. 

Every year they also have a choir come to sing at their house for Christmas.

And she has a new kitten!

In the evening, I went to the house of my German friends where we cooked dinner, listened to music, and talked for the rest of the evening! 

(And apparently we were having a lot of fun because I only got this photo of my friend Kari and I waiting for the bus in the rain!)

Even though it was a strange holiday season, and it didn’t really feel as “Christmas-y” as it normally does, I am so incredibly blessed to be in this beautiful country and be surrounded by people that love me like family.