It's finished!

Last year reconstruction began on the citadel gate, a monument that represents what use to be a large defense system that protected the city of Montevideo. I was able to catch a glimpse of it just before they covered it up with a cloth and doomed it to Montevideo's infamously slow reconstruction process.

However, yesterday I went to lunch with one of my very good Uruguayan friends in the old city and to my surprise, after more than a year of reconstruction, you can finally see this precious monument!

Candombe!

Carnival has begun in Uruguay! It was officially kicked off last Sunday with a grandiose parade of women in tiny, revealing outfits and men decked from head to toe in creative hats and suits of many colors. It was 5 1/2 hours of singing, dancing and of course familiar rhythms from the drums.

People practice year-round for the festivities and competitions of Carnival that occur before Ash Wednesday and carry through the Catholic Lent season. After the kick-off parade on Sunday, February 1st, stages were erected around the city in various neighborhoods and now each night you can buy tickets to go see one of the many competing Murgas, Parodistas, Revistas or Humoristas. In the next blog entry I do I´ll try to explain a little about each of those traditional groups but for now I'd like to dedicate the rest of the blog to another important tradition of Carnival here in Uruguay that also happens to be my favorite, "las llamadas" (translated, "the calls").

"Las llamadas" is a massive parade during Carnival in which different "Comparsas" compete through dance and drums to win. The comparsas are made up of individuals from different neighborhoods and states within the country. The rhythm they play is called "Candombe" and is a musical tradition that evolved among the African slaves brought to Uruguay. The rhythm played on the tambores ( drums) was their way of communicating with each other and defying the colonialists.

Although it is an Afro-Uruguayan tradition whith costumes and characters that reflect origins of the slave trade, many of the participants are not of Afro descent. In my photos you'll see some of these costumes and different characters, there is the the Mama Vieja (Grandmother), Gramillero (Old Doctor), and Escobero (Wizard). You will also see the dancers who dance in their infamously small costumes...
For more history check out this website:

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1145/48/

Learning how to budget

I thought that I was pretty good at keeping a budget, but after six years of living on my own I still have much to learn. Last year I wasn't too worried about my income, I thankfully had a scholarship that provided enough money to live without having to penny pinch.

This year however, life in Uruguay is a bit different. I am acutely aware of every peso I spend and I think it will help me kick some gum chewing, chocolate eating habits of mine. For example, a liter of milk costs 17 pesos while a small, innocent chocolate bar costs me a whopping 16 pesos! What's more, the gum I absolutely love costs 25 pesos--I can buy a liter of milk and enough bread for the week with 25 pesos! I am almost sure no one has said that lessons in life are easy...