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Published: June 16th 2017
Barbara and Ellie
Barbara and Jack from Maryland have become wonderful friends as we're sharing this adventure.
Ellie is a secretary at the school. She's a Brit who fell in love with Uruguay and just stayed.Geo: -34.8939, -56.1568
It started in the barrios bordering the Rio de la Plata-- wild, raucous, mean and sexual. Verbiage from the prisons mixed with passion from the ships ran riot in the streets of Buenos Aires and the river cities of Uruguay.
Full of sadness and pathos—a tango is a a song of longing for the old country, longing for sweethearts, longing for love. Terribly tragic, the music sings of lost everything like a bad country western ballad.
This tango, this erotic dance of passion and prostitution was born here in 1878 with sailors from Cuba and gauchos from Argentina and Uruguay. Not for ladies—this was a mean, sexual play of power between rough men and women not invited to tea parties.
Fathers forbid their daughters from learning the dance, but daughters being as they are, learned it in secret from their brothers when papa was asleep. The dance evolved, as dances do, until 1940 when Carlos Gardel—the most famous tango singer of all time, put his stamp on this raucous tradition.
The dance was taken to Europe—to Paris where it was refined for more popular consumption and when it returned to its birthplace it was respectable. No longer a wail of prostitutes and
My Mother's a Show
Andrea says her mother's a show and she's right. The woman is a riot. Here she's with Andrea's 3 yr old son Mateo. Getting to know people like her and Andrea are reason enough to learn this language. their men, it was welcomed into the finest homes.
It's still a sad lament, still sensual and erotic, but no longer a sexual dance. Andrea says when she dances the tango she is in love for 3 minutes. Then bing, bang, it's done and she returns to her boyfriend and her partner to his wife.
We go Wednesday night to celebrate Andrea's birthday at a local restaurant. There will be much music and dancing with all her students and friends and I'll try to get some pictures.
I'm not wearing my dress, she says, but yes, there will be the Tango Shoes. The shoes are important she says. They're very sexy, the shoes.
I can hardly wait!
Later...Later...Later
What a Night! Now THAT's the way to have a birthday party. Andrea and 100 of her closest friends met at a restaurant nearby to celebrate her 40th cumpleanos (birthday). The food was outstanding, but the fun was the people. Uruguayans really know how to have a good time. They laughed and danced and ate and drank and were going strong with new people arriving even as we left sometime after midnight.
We were eating dinner at 11:00 at night. Us! Can you believe it? Our friends
came with us and we're all in the same boat—used to being in bed by 9:00. There were 9 or 10 of us from school and it made it such a pleasurable evening to be able to share it with them, knowing they were in this country to get to know the people just like we were.
Andrea flitted around between dancing and making sure everyone had someone to talk with and none of us was left alone or sad—it was something just to watch her. Her mother was there too helping to take care of Andrea's three year old son Mateo so mom could flit.
Her mom is as fun as she is—Andrea says, "My mom is a show," and yes, she's right. Her mom is a show.
We just couldn't get over how much we loved last night, talking with people in our new Spanish and being able to communicate a little—sharing the lives of these lively people. So many of them made it a point to come and visit with us that we didn't feel like outsiders at all.
The thought that we have become like many of the young travelers traveling in order to share and learn is so
Andrea and Mateo
This kid stays up later than most adults in US. much different than vacationing to look at sights.
We have found such a great group to study with, and most important to be friends with, that we all want to do this in every country we visit. What an outstanding way to get to know the country, the culture, the very people you come to see.
I know I'm going on and on, and Kari –you know how worried I was before we left. You're probably all sick of me by now, but …oh well. That's just how it is.
It can turn out very bad depending on your host family and your classes, but this is a superb combination and we just are having a ball. Classes are something else though—a little too slow for me and a little too fast for Bob—I'm trying to help him and asking for more work from the administrators for me. We'll see how that goes.
Waking up this morning was easier than I thought it'd be after such a late night, so maybe we're getting into this new schedule. It still is quite odd not to be eating dinner at 5 or 6 though—that's hard, but we're trying to adjust so we don't miss
a thing. Should be acclimated by the time we're on our own in Argentina in February.
Hasta Luego…that's see ya later for non-speakers.
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