Trying to Make It in the Land of Mate
3/27/19
When you have pursued something for long enough, reaching it has a natural way of feeling anticlimactic — even disappointing. This may not have anything to do with the thing you were seeking, but rather the change in your existence necessitated by the end of your quest.
By my count, getting here to Montevideo from Virginia took five hundred and twenty-five transit hours: on buses, busetas, sprinters, combis, colectivos, taxis, moto-taxis, motor and ferry boats, tuk tuks, cars and trucks, both semis and the back of pickups. Across parts of thirteen countries. This Montevideo isn’t a bad place at all; in fact it’s one of the nicer cities I’ve found on my whole journey, but it was not worth all that effort in getting here. Don’t get me wrong: the journey was absolutely worth it, for the life-expanding experience of everything along the way. But all that is done. Here I am, having arrived in the place that happens to be my long-sought destination, and now I need to figure out how to actually live here.
On my second day waking up in this city, I changed hostels. I had known right away that I wasn’t going to last long at the Punto Berro, but after two nights I was desperate to get out of there. Tired of the dirty kitchen and bathrooms, the noise, the bad smells, sick of the clouds of mosquitoes in the dorm room at night, the depressing vibe, the grumpy owner. It was no place from which to settle in to the city — it had just been the cheapest hostel that didn’t look abjectly bad from online. I appreciated the vibe of the Senegalese folk always cooking big meals, but none of them really spoke Spanish or English, so our connection was going to be limited by language barriers. The three bright-eyed españoles with whom I’d spent my first night here sitting out on the terrace had left the next morning.
So this morning I packed up my things and forwent the included hostel breakfast in pursuit of more quickly and decisively moving on with my life. At the panaderia around the corner I bought some medialunas — literally, half moons, these very tasty and actually quite affordable little croissants — and ate them sitting on the curb next to all my bags. At the Plaza Independencia I asked some people which bus would get me to the Parque Rodo neighborhood; they agreed I should go to Calle San Jose and take the one twenty-one bus. Without much difficulty I managed this feat, and was on my sixth city bus ride in two days.
After paying the fare and getting my bags situated, I went up to the cobrador and asked about where exactly the bus was going, mentioning several landmarks. Like most of Latin America, there are two people working each bus, but rather than the standard barker hanging out the door, yelling the names of routes and taking fares, here in Montevideo it is much more dignified. There is a cobrador, a man or woman with a designated, separated seat about a third of the way back with an installed cash box.
This one was a white-haired older man who looked annoyed by my questions. He declined to engage with my inquiry, finally turned and grumpily asked “¿Quiere que le avise cuando bajarse?” — literally “do you want that I advise you when to get down?” in the usted form. It seemed a formal question but meant he understood what I was getting at. “Por favor,” I said, smiling, but he was already facing forward again. “Le avisará,” he said, and that was that, my interview was concluded. I was not at all clear that he knew where I was trying to go.
About ten minutes later, when the bus made the diagonal turn onto Avenida Brasil, he signaled me, and I hoisted up my bags and disembarked, finding myself in a clean and fancy district with tall trees overhead, walking in the direction the man had pointed.
When I reached the Parque Rodo after fifteen minutes, I realized that I’d taken the bus about ten blocks farther than I should have. All in all it was about a twenty-five minute walk, up and down hills, carrying sixty pounds. By the time I climbed the steps up to the reception of the Contraluz Art Hostel, I was weary.
At first look, this hostel was a balm for my weary traveler’s soul, quiet and well-kept with lots of natural light. A place where I could actually get some thinking done, cook a meal and not feel unclean about it. The second floor of the building, the hostel, is mostly one big room, with high ceilings up to skylights and windows looking out onto the courtyard below. As the name would imply, there is art everywhere, though it seems to function more as background decoration than featured element — the art looks like it has been up in its current form for awhile. The hostel rooms extend off this big open space, and there’s a small library/sitting room which I suspect might be an excellent place to write.
The Contraluz is about a third more expensive than my previous hostel — which was already expensive by my standards — but what is it worth to not be miserable? I chose it for its decisively good reviews, and this area I’d passed by yesterday and liked the looks of. The Parque Rodo neighborhood goes from the park along La Rambla, the waterfront boulevard that runs the length of the city, back towards the peninsula of the Ciudad Vieja. The Rio de la Plata here is like a sea, sometimes with little waves, and a grey color rather than the brown of Buenos Aires. This area is much more appealing and relaxed than downtown: sycamore-lined residential streets all sloping down gradually towards the water, with the occasional café or bar; a couple universities. The location of my hostel is excellent. Two blocks up from La Rambla and about three blocks west from the Parque Rodo. Perhaps my experience arriving here would have been very different, had I just come here in the first place.
There is a small grocery store called Frigom a couple blocks away, and after settling in I went out and got some things. I must say that Uruguay, like Argentina, has fine cheeses. At the deli counter, looking over a grand flotilla of cheese wheels, I asked the woman about a couple of them, and she said “¿quisiera probarlas?” — would I like to try them? Yes. Yes I would. Ended up with a Semiduro, an aged cheese like a softer, sliceable parmesan, and a Maasdam, something like a gruyere. Came back and had a ham cheese cucumber tomato sandwich on a baguette, and felt better. Then I laid down on my bed and took a much-needed nap. Two bad nights of sleep and the effort required to get across town with my bags had exhausted my well of energies. I slept for most of the afternoon, and didn’t feel a bit guilty about it. Sometimes sleep is simply inevitable.
✦✦
Around five I went out for a leisurely walk along La Rambla. Every evening with good weather many hundreds, if not thousands, of people — it is a long boulevard — come out to sit along the promenade above the water, the majority of them to drink their yerba mate. This city is absolutely the Land of Mate, maybe even moreso than Argentina.
About every other person you see on the street here, be they business people or homeless, punk or grandma, has a thermos in the crook of their arm and a filled mate in hand. None of that “everyone sit and we’ll share mate” of Argentina. This is all day, drink on the go, riding on the bus, at the bank teller, the bank teller drinking mate too. Some people have these impressive toolbox things with the thermos in one section and the yerba and paraphernalia in the other. At this point, a brief description of the essential items and terms of mate drinking would seem to be necessary. From my outside vantage point they appear to be the same in Argentina and Uruguay.
Mate can refer to both the drink itself and to the vessel from which it is drunk, traditionally a calabasa gourd. Yerba in this case refers to the green leaves and stems of the Yerba Mate plant, a type of South American holly native to the forests adjacent to the Amazon. The mate is filled most of the way up with yerba, and hot water is poured over it from el termo. A Bombilla is the filtered straw, usually metal, that you drink from. Matero generally means of or having to do with mate; I have heard it used to describe the entire set of items, and also a person who is super into drinking it.
In Uruguay — where apparently they drink the most mate per capita in the world, double the Argentinos (!) — after the day of drinking mate, they then get together to drink more of it. At La Rambla, if possible. When they share mate, the manner is different from Argentina, where generally one communal mate is passed around. In many groups here, people appear to be drinking from their own personal mates, and actual gourds are a rarity. These vessels are stainless steel, ceramic or glass, usually with some kind of decorative cover to protect the hands and personalize the mate. This appears to be more of a modern, individualistic yerba mate culture.
It has become imperative that I get my own mate and bombilla. In Argentina, I didn’t really need my own matero. There was generally always someone offering to share. Here, I do, and acquiring my first matero is on my list. For now, I’m drinking mate cocido — another term, for yerba in a teabag — from my thermos.
I followed La Rambla as it curves south past Playa Ramirez, the beach mostly deserted on this fall evening, and into the Parque Rodo. There were well-kept paths under grand trees, curving around little lakes, people sitting on blankets drinking wine or mate, kids playing soccer. My third evening here, this city is starting to grow on me. I am trying to let go of not being hailed for my heroic efforts in getting here over land. When I’ve told anyone how I got here, and that I have come to live, the universal response has been a slightly baffled “¿Por qué?” It is clear to me that the people of Montevideo were unprepared for and unaccustomed to their city being chosen as a magical and mythical destination. But it is certainly charming, all those people out drinking their mate, sun setting over the Rio.
On my way back, after perusing restaurant menus in the nearby blocks — too expensive, carísimo, all of them — I made another trip over to Frigom, and returned to the hostel bearing foodstuffs. There were a lot more people now than there had been all day, many of them cooking, and I got the sense that a lot of them were staying here long-term. It made sense: this felt like a place you could settle into. I prepped things and waited for half a stove to open up, then cooked gnocchi in a cream sauce with chorizo, red pepper, zucchini and onion. Probably better than anything I would have gotten at a restaurant.
My goal for the day had been to recuperate and get myself into a better head space. I had definitely started to go negative, which is not ever a good thing, but especially not when trying to navigate and learn a new city. With the day winding down, writing in the mostly quiet library, which is indeed a good place to write, I feel relatively successful in my goals. The desire to just get the hell out of town has mostly faded away.
Yesterday I had two entrevistas for teaching jobs that I managed to line up before arriving. This was no small feat, as almost every school had said to just contact them when I got here. I suppose a fair number of international people write emails looking for jobs and then don’t actually show up. The first interview was at a well-regarded English language school in a fancy neighborhood. It was a disorienting interview. I sat down in a cramped and cluttered back office with two women who were kind but stressed and disorganized, not clear about exactly what they could offer me. One woman would say something was possible, and the other would contradict her.
The guaranteed thing was a job at Zona America, this free-trade business zone to the east of the city. I would teach businesspeople from eight thirty to ten thirty in the morning, then for another two hours starting at twelve thirty. Considering the bus commute of an hour each way, and two hours between the classes, this would be an eight hour day that started very early, for which I would be paid for four hours. It wouldn’t be enough to live on in this expensive city, but would take up most of my time. Today I emailed them to respectfully decline the position, but asked that they let me know if anything else came up.
My second interview was with a business language institute, a chain with branches in many other countries. The building was modern with a corporate but comfortable feeling, a studious and businesslike atmosphere, a place where people come to get things done. I sat down with a man about my age from the Ukraine and a woman in her fifties who was born here but grew up in Brooklyn, and we had a nice relaxed conversation. I’d actually interviewed with this guy on Skype from Arequipa six weeks ago, about a remote teaching position.
Uruguay has this federally subsidized English program called Plan Ceibal, where native speakers teach high school classes around the country, remotely from Montevideo via this online video system. I would have been teaching something like twenty discrete classes a week, each with thirty teenagers, from a studio. The job paid well, but sounded hellish to me, and I didn’t take it. A couple weeks back he contacted me again and asked if I was still coming to Montevideo, as another position had come available.
The job we discussed, teaching conversational English at corporations, is not my dream job, but the commuting would at least be in-town and the teaching in-person. They seemed relatively organized and friendly, and there should be enough work to live on. Leaving the interview I felt confident they would offer me the job. They said they were going to contact me that evening, but thirty six hours later, I’m still waiting. Tomorrow morning, I’ll send them a follow up.
The gravity of my situation became clear to me just now when I checked my bank account online for the first time since I left Arequipa. I haven’t wanted to know how bad it was. My balance, all that’s left of my arrival fund, is two hundred and sixteen dollars, plus the two hundred and ten I have in cash. In two weeks I will be completely out of money. So it is very clear: I will not be going somewhere else. I’ve got to make it here in Montevideo. No more eating out at restaurants — I had a seven dollar torta pascualina and a two dollar tea at a café yesterday. This torta I like a lot. It is akin to a spinach quiche but with a top and bottom crust, ricotta, and hard boiled eggs baked-in, rather than the egg filling. Delicious but not within my budget. I’ve got to buckle down and get working as soon as I can.
✦✦
4/1/19
A new cuaderno. The fourth of this journey. I always have this strange hesitance with a pristine new notebook to sully it with writing. So perhaps that is part of the reason why I haven’t written a word on paper in five days. Seven days waking up in this city by the Rio de la Plata, and my status has not changed much. I’ve become a fixture of sorts at Contraluz Art Hostel, one of the odd birds taking up a perch here for a while, either claiming to be passing through on their way to somewhere else or who have stopped moving altogether. The next step would be to take one of the rooms downstairs around the courtyard when they periodically open up, and start living here month to month.
I haven’t made it that far, though I have considered it, and could be saving a fair bit of money if I just booked a room longer-term. There are several stumbling blocks, though. The main one is that no rooms are available. I am also still holding on to the idea that momentarily I’ll start working and rent a real room that’s not at a hostel; and I don’t technically have enough money for what a room here would cost for a month. Many of us odd birds are in between things, waiting for something, trying to figure out what to do.
When I arrived here, a guy named Jaime preceded me in the dorm. Through his thick accent I understand about half the words, a rough outline of what he’s trying to express. He is a fútbol coach by trade and recently moved here from Spain to take a position at a first division club in the city. But there’s some problem, something went wrong with his papers or work permit and he has been waiting for a resolution. His state of limbo has left him in a strange and gloomy state. All day he sits on his bed with the lights off, the windowshades drawn, brooding and looking at his laptop. This vigil is interspersed with complaining to people on the phone.
For most of my time here I’ve been in some kind of strange emotional state that’s hard to really wrap my logical brain around. This strong brew of feelings of disappointment, resistance, rejection, and confusion about what I really want. The setup that I gave this city, being at the tail end of many years of intention and almost two of international journey, was unfair. It had been my mantra of some kind of better life: Uruguay, Uruguay, from when I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name properly. For the record, the letter “u” in spanish is not pronounced “yu” the way it is in english. It’s simply “u”. So it starts out with “ur” which sounds almost like “oar” except it’s “uar”. Ur-a-gwy. The incantation following was always Montevideo, as if it was some happy harbor at the end of the world.
Where the President drives an old VW beetle and grows chrysanthemums on his farm. Where it is much more liberal than anywhere in Latin America. Abortion is legal here. Marijuana. Gay marriage has been legal since 2013. Ninety-six percent renewable energy. Good governance. Low corruption. A good standard of living. Ranked above the United States in indexes of democracy. Every single person I’d met from this country before I got here had been a decent and friendly human.
Now that I write it out, I suppose it makes sense that I had high expectations. I knew all along, rationally at least, that this was just a place, just a city, but I think it was inevitable that it turned into some kind of a promised land for me. Una Tierra Prometida. Arriving in Arequipa I had no expectations; I hadn’t been telling people for years “I’m going to Arequipa.” So when I showed up and people were just going about their normal lives, it didn’t have much of an effect on me. But here, with all my unexamined vague hopes and dreams for a life in Uruguay, it comes almost as an insult that there was no welcoming party, no one notices I’m here, that nothing magical has happened.
I think my initial reactions were much more about me than anything else: my expectations, my lifestyle the past two years of being on the move, always having many more places ahead of me. All of that has come to a head. I am at the end of the road, almost out of money, in a big city where not one person was awaiting my arrival, just going about their normal, more or less relaxed, mate-drinking, thermos-toting lives. In some ways I was — and am — still holding some slight resentment towards Montevideo for not being my dream city, for not caring about my efforts to get here. Absurd. This is my problem, not theirs.
Sorting out these feelings, along with the stress of looking for and not finding work, my impending monetary disaster and the high cost of living have dominated my internal life. Sometime last week I abandoned most unnecessary expenditures. Stopped considering going out to eat or even buying a sandwich from a café. Stopped looking for reasons to go out at night, because going out at night leads to spending money. No taxis; only taking a bus if I was late for something.
I settled into some kind of a rhythm and routine, and started to relax a little bit. Part of it was decompressing from the road, and catching up on sleep. Somewhere there in my last ten days or so of travel, from Cafayate on, I got into a state of sleep deprivation, travel fatigue, this warrior mentality of “get through it” as I came to four consecutive big cities. Tucumán, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Montevideo. My first few days here, in the chaotic and dirty environment of Punto Berro in the more urban Ciudad Vieja, just furthered this state of being. Survival.
At first, I didn’t feel right here, either, though this was a massive improvement on my previous lodgings. While it was comfortable in a general sense right away, the details were problematic. Beyond the perennially bummed-out guy in the dorm room, there was Lucia, this strange little woman who cleans the hostel each day. She decided for some reason she didn’t like me, and was nitpicking and criticizing everything I did, to me and to the management of the hostel. Where I put a washed plate. Where I kept my bags in the dorm. That I had too many bags. That I spent too much time in the library. That I didn’t open the door to the balcony back up after closing it as she had asked. And twenty other grave sins. It was maddening.
After the initial two nights I had booked were up, on Friday morning I decided to check out, to keep moving in search of something better. It was a way of continuing to travel while staying in one place. If I couldn’t leave town I could at least change hostels. Packed up my bags and said some muted goodbyes, then walked eight blocks away from the rio, up towards the centro to the Compay Hostel. Patri, the Spanish ski instructor girl I met on my first night here, had recommended it as a fun and mellow place, and it was also cheaper than the Contraluz.
When I got there, at the reception they told me after some delay that the bed I had reserved online was in reality already booked, as were all the beds at that price, and that my reservation wasn’t valid. The cheapest bed — in an eight person dorm — was twenty dollars a night, four more than I was paying. This is simply not in my thirty dollar a day budget, whose source is rapidly diminishing. It feels like watching water spiral down a drain, that last part where there starts to be gaps in the water, and you’re looking at a combination of swirling water and nothing. That was my net holdings. I had booked a twelve dollar bed; to show up to find that it was twenty was just demoralizing. I don’t know if it was a legitimate error, but I am very sensitive to this kind of thing after having had a listed price raised so many times after people see that I’m a gringo.
I explained my situation to the young man and woman at the reception, trying to differentiate myself from your typical tourist. How I had moved here, was looking for a job and running out of money; but probably in their minds I just became the cheap gringo. I told them my experience: I’d already checked out of my other hostel, gave up my room, and booked a bed at their place, only to find out the price had almost doubled. Tried my last question, asked them if there was anything they could do — ¿hay algo puedan hacer? — but they were unsympathetic. They seemed to know they were kinda screwing me over, but didn’t care. This feeling was confirmed by their refusal to even let me use the wifi to find another place. The young woman said “no podemos,” — we can’t — and gave me a weird fake smile.
Defeated, I walked back out into the Montevideo morning with all my bags, and sat on a stoop a couple doors down smoking cigarettes, weighing my options, feeling sorry for myself. Because it seemed like the simplest thing, I walked back to Contraluz within sight of el rio, not knowing if my bed was still available. At least it was downhill. In the office I found Anna the gerente and told her about my situation with Lucia the cleaning lady, how she’d been hounding and harassing me. That I was very far from home, and how could I feel at home with someone who doesn’t like me watching everything I did? Anna was sympathetic and frustrated, apologized. Apparently this was not the first time Lucia had acted like this. “Tiene problemas y no es su lugar ser la jefa. Voy a hablar con ella.”
My bed was still available. I felt welcome, by the real jefa, and checked back in to my same room. Brought all the bags back in and got them situated. Jamie the would-be fútbol coach hadn’t even moved, still sitting there on his bottom bunk, poring into his phone. This moment I believe was a turning point. I needed to just stop, cease my compulsive movements, start to accept where I was. Slow down on some interior level, sleep in the same place, do things that feed my spirit. Try to quiet my internal voice and listen to what this place had to say.
I went out to buy a baguette and a few other things at Frigom, came back and made a good sandwich. Ham and cheese and cucumber with a good salty aged ham and a good tangy aged cheese and cool crisp cucumber, and it was good. When halfway through your day you’re right back where you started, and all your efforts thus far have accomplished nothing, it is often helpful to make a good sandwich, if you can.
Then I went out to take what I hope to be a ceremonial and auspicious action that might help me find the rhythm of this place. Walked up thirty minutes to 18 de Julio, the main east-west avenue of the city, to a feria — street market — where I’d heard a cheap matero could be purchased. Drinking yerba mate, especially sitting along La Rambla at sunset, appears to be the essential act of life here. I’d come all this way to live for awhile, and it was time to act like a local. If I wanted to find success in this Land of Mate, I needed to get serious about it, prioritize my mate drinking and perhaps the Gods of Uruguay will smile upon me.
I was misinformed — this feria was all clothes and souvenirs, no materos at all to be seen. Up the street I found a jewelry and souvenir shop with mates on display in the window, but they were asking twenty dollars for fancy ones with leather and embossed stainless steel. Not my style. Back on the street I asked a guy at a newspaper stand where I could a matero barato, and he pointed me a little further on where a hunched old man and a woman in a wheelchair were slowly packing up items from a table, closing up shop. On closer inspection they were all materos and bombillas, some fancy, some simple. “Estoy buscando mi primer matero,” I said, as if this was important. It was important. For someone who’d been drinking mate for almost twenty years already, this was a big step — “y no tengo mucho dinero.”
The woman kept packing things, and the man pursed his lips and didn’t say much. He considered his goods and picked me out a simple unadorned calabasa gourd, polished a bit on the outside, mottled like tortoiseshell. Because its stem end wasn’t level, it came with a black metal wire stand. A stainless steel bombilla with a very simple ornamentation near the top. Simple. Two hundred and fifty pesos he wanted. Sold; I didn’t even attempt to negotiate. It was about seven dollars, which is nothing in this country, and very kind of him.
He asked if I was from Los Estados Unidos, probably could tell from my accent in spanish. He told me in a thick Uruguayan accent that I come from a great country. A place where great things are possible. Where people can do great things, change the world. Many people criticize your country, but they are jealous. They say it is a racist place, but it is also the country where black people can be very famous.
I was taken aback: I don’t think I’d heard anything half this positive about my home country in the years I’d been in Latin America. Despite any and all criticisms I have for my own country, it was good to hear a positive reaction from the world. “Gracias,” I said, and bowed my head a little bit, humbled and honored at his kindness, tried my most gracias usted: “Es muy amable, señor.” He was almost offended, insisted “¡Lo creo!” — I believe it — and went back to packing up his things. “Entonces, gracias,” I said, and I had a matero. I walked back down the hill to the Contraluz.
It was time to start curing my mate, which was a dark dry-porous green inside, but should be a hard black. It’s possible to just start drinking from it immediately, but I wanted to do it the right way, give respect to the ceremony. At the reception desk, I asked Irina, a local artist from here who lives downstairs, for advice on how to cure a mate. She had never done it, and sent a text to her father, who called back in a few minutes, and she put him on speaker phone.
In a deep gravelly voice this older Uruguayo gentleman explained the process in halting tones that I could understand clearly. First I was to drink some yerba mate — from a different mate — then put the used leaves in my new mate, with a little bit of hot water. Let that rest for twenty-four hours, rinse with hot water and scrape out any loose material with a spoon. I’d need to repeat this at least three times. There is another way: you can fill it with an alcohol de alta graduación, and light it on fire — enciéndalo — but he recommended the first method. It all seemed so poetic. I thanked this man I’d very likely never meet, and thanked his daughter. She seemed pleased to help me and excited for my first mate.
In order to cure my mate, I needed to drink some. I hadn’t realized, but there were several house materos in the kitchen, which Irina showed me. My mate wouldn’t be ready for three days, but the road had been made clear for me to do as the Uruguayos do. I started heating up water. It was late afternoon now, and there was nothing to do but go down to La Rambla. I put my borrowed matero, thermos and a bag with yerba — still drinking from this bag of Verdeflor flavored with mint and pennyroyal that I’d bought in Córdoba — in my backpack and walked down the hill .
I found a spot looking over the gray-brown water amidst all the other people doing the same. Filled up the mate, and then poured a few slugs of hot water. Since Dani from Buenos Aires started sharing her mate with me in the afternoons at La Pacha in the hills of Colombia, I have been served mate every so often in this traditional manner, but of all the mate I’d drank in eighteen years, I’d never prepared it the real way myself.
The gourd is filled about three quarters of the way up solid with yerba, and the first sips are very strong, bitter to the point of being astringent, the water bitingly hot. I realized that I’d always had this after the person who’d prepared the mate drank the first portion. It punches you in the mouth a little bit. Remniscent of a Turkish coffee, a full bitterness, even with the mint.
After a few fill-ups with water, the mate started to smooth out some, and there I was, by the water, watching people walk by, rollerskate by, everywhere I looked were people drinking mate, a way higher percentage than I’d ever seen, even in Argentina. At first it felt a little lonely to not have anyone to share the mate with, but I noticed there were lots of other solo mate drinkers out there too, looking out at the water, talking on their phones, reading a book, headphones on, feeling the vibe. All of the sudden when you are sitting and drinking mate on La Rambla at the edge of the Rio de la Plata, Montevideo makes all kinds of sense.
