soy celeste!

Uruguay has just beaten Costa Rica in an intense game here in Montevideo, officially qualifying them for the 2010 world cup. As people set off fireworks in the street and the mob in the living room causes a rucus, I have escaped to my room to take advantage of the fact that it is empty. With summer approaching and the tourism season picking up in Montevideo, it is less and less often that my 6 person dorm room is disocupied at any given time...

In the last month I have become an all around odd job here at the hostel. Though I am still teaching yoga (which is becoming more and more popular and fun), it is hardly my main job anymore. I now wear the hats of entrepreneur, marketer, bartender, activities coordinator, translator, office organizer, accountant, and countless others. While this makes it sound like the hostel was a complete disaster before my arrival, that is not the case- it just needed a bit of fine tuning. The owners, both Uruguayan, both first time business owners, and ages 25 and 26, are doing a supurb job considering the hostel only opened 5 months ago! However they just don't have the time, outsiders perspective, or, for better or for worse, the deep seated trainings of a capitalist culture available. Thus I have filled this hole and devised several new and, if I do say so myself, rather crafty ways for them to stop breaking even and start getting ahead.

It is an increasingly creative project for me. I have never, for example, created a bar from scratch. Or tried to purchase and price bicycles for rental purposes. Nor have I ever bartended or created a cost/profit balance spreadsheat for a small business before. My mother, who has faught a lifelong and very uphill battle to teach me how to organize myself, would be beyond proud at the number of small organizational feats I have accomplished in the past few weeks... creating to do lists for them and setting up folders and task management tools. Ironically I don't think that, even in the height of my college career, I was ever as organized myself... Somehow it seems infinately easier to organize someone else's life than my own...

[Me in tending my new bar...]

Aside from all of my projects I am managing to find plenty of time to enjoy the beach, head out to surf with Juan, sketch in the backyard, try new inventions in the kitchen, and take siestas most afternoons. I am also really enjoying meeting the wide variety of travelers who appear from all over the world to stay and play a few days. I have learned an impressive amount about geography, linguistics, history, and food culture from my fellow travelers as well (did anyone else know that Welsh is a language?!). I suppose, even when you are traveling with very little movement as I am, every day is still a culural experience...

Well people, I am going to go mix and mingle again. Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

Besos-

cate

Past Blogs

Aloha-
Just a quick little blog how to post... If you would like to review
previous posts from last month (like, say, if you haven't been by
lately and missed my end of October posts) than you can do that by
going to the menu on the left hand side of the page. You will find a
list of months from July (when I wrote my first post) until November.
Simply click on the month and all the entries for that month will pop
up!
Cheers
-cate

mas!

WOW! Three posts in one day! No puede ser [it can't be]! Click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want... same with any other picture posted in the blog;)

Juan, Gabi, Antonela, and me. Living room of the hostel during Anto's visit last weekend!

Me and the Gabster... and the famous mate...

A night on the town starts at the front door

Photo shoot! Killing time as the girls wait for their ferry to leave back to Buenos Aires.

A National Addiction

Since I have refered to it more than once in past blog postings, I feel that I must dedicate a brief blog posting to the national addiction of Uruguayans, yerba mate (pronounced mah-te with emphasis on the first sylable). Mate is a plant that grows in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. Once fully grown, the entire plant (stems, leaves and all) is harvested and tossed into a grinder where it is chopped into tiny little pieces and comes out looking much like loose-leaf black tea. Mate is enjoyed in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, and southern Brazil, but not in the form that we are used to seeing in the hip coffee shops in the USA... no, you will never see a Uruguayan drinking a cup of mate with a tinly little teabag as a pick-me-up during coffee break. Instead, having a mate is a shared process with very particular customs.

The yerba mate is poured into a gourd (think hollowed out, dried mini squash) and a long metal straw with a filter on the end is inserted into the mass of leaves. Hot water is then added by the cebador [a word without translation because it specifically refers to the sever of the mate] and the gourd is passed to the drinker who finishes all the water in the gourd and returns it to the cebador. This process is repeaded numerous times as the gourd makes its way around the circle of mate drinkers. It can continue for hours, with the cebador ocassionally changing out the yerba when it looses its flavor, or making more hot water when it runs out.

Uruguayans are known by other mate drinking countries as being the most obsessed with mate. You see them drinking mate in literally every context imaginable- from the super market shoppers, to the gas station attendent, to the joggers on the board walk, nobody is out of mate context. Unlike in Argentina, where mate is more of a tradition shared at home in the early evening, in Uruguay everywhere is a place for drinking mate, and every time of day is mate time. The signature gourd, straw, and thermous appear as extensions of their limbs. There are specific and beautifully crafted leather carrying cases that conveniently hold the thermous, gourd, and yerba container. At any given craft fair a quarter of the tables are devoted to artisinal mate gourds, thermouses and bags. I have even seen people drinking mate while driving (stick shift too!) and, if you can believe it, while riding a bike.

If you're interested in learning more about it you can check out the Wikipedia artcile here. I know many of you have seen me drinking mate, and maybe even tried it before! But for those of you who haven't, I hope this has been an informative post. Thanks for reading!

Bienvenidos a la casa

Here are some photos from around the hostel! Punto Berro, home sweet home!

More to come!

Gabi and Juan, co-owners of the hostel, cleaning up in the hostel kitchen.

Juan kisses Gomez, our resident pussy cat!

Juan, Gabi, and Marlena, the three staff members of the hostel, posing for an impromptu photo shoot in the back yard.

View into the living room and entry way of the hostel. The kitchen is the open door on the right, the back yard is behind me, and the living room is the green room right in front of me.

The backyard of the hostel. Gabi relaxes while Seba plays guitar and we drink mate.

The view from my room. What a nice balcony!

Elena, the Italian girl that also lives in the hostel, chats with Seba while drinking mate in the front porch of the hostel.