The sun drops dramatically.
In America, kids would be throwing a football. Here, the big dream is to play professional soccer and let your papa sit in a bar with a cerveza and cheer as you make a goal that wins an important game. It is a Sunday and there is, at the moment, on television, a game with the National team of Uruguay playing an opponent from Columbia. Mortal enemies on the playing field, the hollers from the bar became more pronounced as a goal is threatened or a player is cut down to size with a totally illegal trip, block, or kick.
These two little kids are playing catch and kick.
One kicks the ball to the other and the receiver steps into his return kick and sends the soccer ball screaming back to his friend. Tourists have long ago gone back to their ships and are now enroute to other ports on their itinerary. The sun is disappearing and these two boys will be going inside soon to have dinner, maybe do homework – their sisters having already diligently finished their assignments.
The soccer ball takes off the instep of one of the boy’s foot like a rocket. It is an old beat up ball with threads coming undone from caroming over these rough paving blocks. It is dirty and knocked out of shape. You can hear it cry when it is kicked. Still, it is good practice for these two future players on the Uruguay National team who will one day be lining up for a foul kick and remember what they practiced when they were so little.
Whether it is a soccer ball or a football, the dreams of little boys are not different.
Competition is important, team play is important, winning is important, friends are important.
There isn’t anything new about pizza.You find it all around the world. What is refreshing about this pizza is that it is made outdoors, you watch the guys prepare it, the ingredients are natural, the taste is great, the price is a bargain.
“What would you like,” my personal chef asks?
I spot a toaster oven with a miniature tomato and cheese pizza on its top cooling. On a linen tablecloth, on the folding table in front of me, are bowls with fresh cut ingredients. There are chili’s, peppers, tomatoes, ham, onions. lettuce, cheese, and other typical choices.
“What are you making, ” I ask?
“We are making you a special pizza,” the young man dressed in black says, “you pick your toppings.”
“How much?”
“60 pesos.”
That is about three U.S. dollars which sounds pricey but yesterday a pollo sandwich with bacon cost six dollars U.S. at McDonald’s with no fries and no bebida.
Elias, the brains behind this operation, scoops his starter pizza off the toaster top with a spatula and puts it on a piece of wax paper on the tablecloth in front of me, then loads on the toppings I tell him I want. It looks like a salad by the time I am through and he finishes by slicing the pizza into fours for me.
This pizza stands up to my taste test.
I get lunch plus entertainment for three dollars.
Small cheap surprises are some of the best.
It is Sunday. Taking the turista bus a second time, our first stop is the Tristan Street flea market. It is set up on a narrow street, tree lined, packed with vendors and customers on a sunny day in November.
As shoppers and browsers move through the flea market they scoop up books, tools, food, pets, cosmetics, clothes, spices, vegetables and fruits, meats and cheeses. There are Arabs selling nuts and dates and olives. There are Uruguayans selling produce and still other vendors talking, sitting in chairs,standing and moving in for the kill only when a sale seems imminent.
This market has purses, clothes, a table stacked with bras, tools and books, tourist stuff, laundry soap and toilet paper. It has antiques, homemade arts and crafts, women selling crocheted caps, original art, and even a table of hourglasses. At that table a young boy shows great interest in the ancient timepieces, a prescient knowledge that time moves from the top of the glass to the bottom and when sand isn’t left in the top your time is up.
Where time goes when it is used up would have been a warm up exercise for Albert Einstein.
I keep my hands in my pockets because I don’t want to buy and don’t want to carry purchases the rest of the day.
The Tristan Street market is a good weekend stocking stuffer but there are bigger gifts I still want to open on this tourist ride.
There is much more to see in Montevideo this Sunday than fleas.
It is mentioned in guide books that there is petty crime in Montevideo.
The young woman in a next door boutique, who speaks English and tells me about Montevideo when I have my expresso, is standing and talking to motorcycle cops as I come out my apartment door onto the street. There are three cops and two motorcycles and one of the officers is sitting on concrete steps leading into the boutique, writing his report.
I go around the corner and enter the back door of the shop, order a coffee in the cafe part of the business. When my friend comes back inside she tells me her whole story, from beginning to end.
“We had a shoplifter,” she begins, “the same one who did it before. We called the police and they took her away. She was putting things in her dress.”
“How do you say the past tense of steal,” she asks me?
“The past tense is stolen, someone has stolen our stuff,” I reply.
Petty crime sticks with us. This petty thief will spend a few nights in jail but won’t learn any lesson except not to get caught.
if there wasn’t crime these cops would be out of work.
The best thief is the one that steals from someone else.
When you travel you don’t take much with you. You have clothes, personal items, electronics, a book or two, some travel guides, a Passport and umbrella, and hope.
You hope you end up in safe, clean lodgings. You hope you see and do enough to justify the expense of the trip. You hope you don’t get sick. You hope you enjoy your time on the road in a different country where you don’t speak the language and move like a turtle trying to figure out when to safely stick out your head.
The studio apartment at Piedras 271, Apartment 104, Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo, Uruguay is feeling like home.
In a new place, I try unfamiliar appliances, find the linens, get hot water, operate latches, locks and switches. Then i move outdoors and learn the new neighborhood. There are sandwiches in the frig. I have extra bottled water. The candle on the dining room table hasn’t been lit, but will. The bed behind the couch is a new room addition, added for my stay. Street noises are tolerable but people talk as they walk below, and, in the middle of the night, cats fight. Buses, a block and a half away, can take me anywhere in Montevideo I wish to go.
My apartment and I don’t have a long term commitment but we are getting along well thus far, like a new couple not upset by sleepwalking, dirty dishes in the sink, toilet seats left up.
Home starts to become home when you start to call it so.
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