José Mujica: A Tragic Struggle To The Top of The Presidential Mountain
When you have a lot of solitude, any living thing becomes a companion.
- Jose Mujica
My interest in Uruguay, and its history, has stretched back at least three decades.
It all started in 1986 when I first saw the Uruguayan international footballer, Enzo Francescoli, perform at that year’s World Cup in Mexico. The Uruguayan team, unfortunately, was knocked out in the last sixteen against their South American rivals, Argentina, captained by the mercurial Diego Maradona. Francescoli, South American player of the year in ’84, didn’t play as some had been anticipating. Much of it, I suspect, was because of the way he was marked, or practically hacked to death, by rival defenders.
After that my fascination with Uruguayan football and the country grew. It was compounded, ten years later, while I was working at a YMCA in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I had the pleasure there to meet my first Uruguayan in the flesh, Juan, whose last name I can’t recall.
Juan was on a gap year from his studies of history at the Universidad de la República (the University of the Republic) in Montevideo, the country’s most prestigious university. It was he who gave me my first real education of…
