Uruguay: Conversations with Savages (cont.)
 
“Considering how they live, they are so up-beat,” One of the Canadians, gushed.  Well, yes, I supposed that was theoretically true, but there was a queasiness in my gut. Considering they live in neighborhoods overrun by trash, drugs and crime.  Considering they can’t get well paying jobs, can’t get good educations and can’t get good health care. Considering that, unless they get caught dealing drugs, robbing or killing they usually can’t even get the rest of their society to admit that they exist.   Yes, they are “up-beat”.   But in situations like these, how many options do you really have? Existentialism and ennui are the privileges of people who don’t need to worry about their children getting enough to eat.

“They aren’t caught up with materialism,” Insisted one of the English girls, emphasizing the last word like an epithet.  “I have friends and family in London with great jobs, posh flats, nice cars, everything.  But they’re not happy.  They’re lives are still missing something.”

Hector, an unfailing friendly and positive person, once showed me around the neighborhood where he grew up.  It’s a mix of small yet sturdy ranch houses and hastily constructed, decidedly less sturdy shanties located a stone’s throw from the wealthiest neighborhoods in Montevideo but separated by imaginary lines that will cut you into pieces should you try to cross them.  Depending on how the wind blows, the entire area is filled with the spicy, vaguely sweet odor of putrefying cow carcasses wafting from a large meat processing plant.  As we walked, we talked about his life.  Among his many skills, he is a classically trained guitarist and has studied music theory.  I asked him why he had stopped.

“Because I…well…” To this day, this is the only time I have ever seen him look embarrassed. “Because I had to start working—we needed the money.”

That’s how it is.

I guess even Savages need money.  Music theory…that caught me off guard.  I couldn’t imagine there being much mindless grinning involved.

Back at dinner in the company of more worldly young people, conversation drifted to which beaches in Brazil were the best for travelers, especially in the state of “Receef” as one of the girls insisted on calling it.  My mind was on other things.  Disillusion mixed with a strong dose of guilt had begun to set in, and a dark thought occurred to me:

What if Virgina, or Rafael, or Hector, or Sebastian were each born with lots of money, but without legs? Would wealthy foreigners still smile at them as if they were little children and say: “Oh, look at you!  Even though you’re disabled, you’re still so up-beat.”?  Would people still want to be close to their semi-divine, Legless Alegría?  These were not easy, or comfortable questions for anyone, especially me.  I decided not to mention them.

When the food came, everyone had their own plate, which is rare in Uruguay.  To generalize a bit, Uruguayans are an intensely social people who like to share food as a matter of custom.  Many cherish the tradition of taking a hunk of meat straight off the barbecue and cutting it into bite-sized pieces or passing around a big bottle of beer and drinking it communally.  Personally, it drives me nuts.

One day I mentioned this to Sebastian, a man who will literally offer you a bite of anything he is eating— including sandwiches, ice cream cones, and tiny pieces of gum that he will break into two or three even tinier pieces. 
“I never share food,” I said.

“Why not?” he looked at me like something was growing out of my head.

“I don’t know; it's just not something I like to do….” I was about to go on to explain how my older brother and father had always tortured me by taking food off my plate in the interest of “tasting” something when he stopped me with four words.

“You’ve never gone hungry.”

“…”

That’s the way it is.

“How many countries have you been to?” asked someone at the table in a way that reminded me of excited boy scouts discussing merit badges.  I had to stop and make a mental list, and even then forgot a couple.  Everyone at the table had lists bigger than mine.  If we combined our frequent flyer miles, we could have flown to Mars.

Can’t say the same for my company earlier that day.  Savages don’t travel.  They love their homes and their communities, which is to say nothing for their deep, sometimes spiritual connection to the land.  Or so the stories go.

“I would leave tomorrow and travel the world if I had the chance,” Rafael told me once. 
“Yea, I love Uruguay, but who wouldn’t want to see other places?” 

He had lived in the United States for two years with an uncle, but despite intelligence, work ethic and education, was unable to stay legally.  Many times when Savages go to countries in the first world, they lose their “Noble” status and turn into plain old wetbacks, beaners or Sudacas, as the Spanish like to call them.  Uruguay doesn’t have many exchange courses, or scholarships, or volunteer organizations like the ones that send young, bright-eyed first world college graduates to South America.  Opportunities for travel tend to run just one direction.  Backpacking trails lead many people into Latin America, but very rarely lead Latin Americans out.

That’s the way it is.

For them, at least.  As for me and the rest of the young people who sat at that table eating dinner: we’ll always have our own plates, locks on our doors, and enough money to allow us to study, or travel, or be most anything we put our minds to. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that when we are confronted with poverty, sometimes we see what we want to see despite, or perhaps because of all our good intentions.

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