News

I haven't been writing on the blog recently because I have been taking care of my Godmother. She had some heart problems two weeks ago and I have been trying to be there helping her in her store everyday. If I wasn't with her I was with Andi, spending some needed time with him. My Godmother, Ana Maria a.k.a. Aia, as I've been calling her since I could speak, runs a small store with her son. Until Aia had to go to the hospital, it was mostly her running the store from 7 a.m. til 10 p.m. She got really sick because she is of course not in the right age to be working these crazy hours. So I volunteered to help her out as much as I could. The positive things of her sickness: her son learned how to manage the store without her and Aia can take longer brakes now. The positive thing I am learning from this, is how to cook without salt. Anyone who knows my eating habits, knows that I am a salt fanatic. Yes, I have been caught salting my food before even tasting it! Now I am learning that you can take spices to replace salt, but there are some dishes you might as well not even make... (like noodle salad for example). Yesterday I went to the store and spent 150 pesos/ 6 Euros/ 8 Dollars on groceries to make soup. Yesterday I made my first ever salt free soup.

Ingredients: Onion, Carrots, Celery, Baby onion and parsley.
I let it boiling for about two hours and took out the ingredients.

I thought it needed salt of course, but Aia seemed to be pretty impressed. I can't imagine a life without soup! Especially my favorite soups like pumpkin soup and zucchini soup!! Now the winter is coming, so we will get to eat that yummy stuff.

On Tuesday I went to a public psychiatric hospital in Montevideo. I went and spoke to the psychologist about having an internship there. He was totally nice and said he doesn't have a problem with it. In Uruguay the resources for rehabilitating patients are really slim. Think of a shabby room in a shabby hospital with some thrown together furniture and Art Brut paintings on the wall and all over the place, and you will have an idea of what this place looks like. The chairs are plastic chairs and the materials available have been either donated or found on the street.

Most of the patients in the hospital which I am going to spend time with have problems with drugs or alcohol. They all receive electroshocks everyday it seems. I am quite surprised they have any memory at all. :p

Well I am not allowed to say too much, but I will tell you this: in any hospital or in any public center around the world, you have to learn to work with what you have. This is going to be my biggest lesson here in Uruguay... and I don't just mean things, I mean rooms and people and colleagues and everything included.
Good fight and good night.

Bread of Sugar

Finally Andi and I get to do some traveling around Uruguay.
We have been hanging out with my mom, Sofia and Gustavo for the last couple of days and it has been really fun! Once I finally got over criticizing Mom about everything I don't agree with... it seems we are able to have a much better time. I think I am growing up! I see things I don't agree with and think... "well she is an Adult... she knows what she is doing" instead of "ahh! Mom you are driving me crazy!".
The past couple of days have been exciting. On Wednesday evening we left pretty late to Punta del Este, the fanciest place to go to the beach in Uruguay. Sofia, Andi and I stayed in a hostel. We took the bus from Tres Cruces to Punta del Este, a two hour trip. After dropping off our stuff at the hostel we dashed for the giant fingers coming out of the beach to have a photo shoot. I love Sofia's tripod! It is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I think it's great that my little photographer has one.
I climbed the pinkie finger as did Andi. Sofia and Andi climbed the thumb as well.

The next day, we woke up and went to the beach nice and early. It was so much fun. The water was a great temperature. The sun was shining. We had a fabulous time. Sofia took pictures of us in the water. I will have to post some at some point. Around 12:30 Gustavo came with his car. We walked around Punta del Este a bit and then went to Minas, which was about a 2 hour ride. In Minas we went to the town center and then to the "Parque Salus" which is where the fountain of the puma is.
According to legend, the puma used to sit by that fountain until some people spotted him. The puma seemed to be guarding the fountain. Eventually the puma realized that the people would guard the fountain for him and he left and never came back. Supposedly people saw the ghost of the puma around the park. The Salus water we drink here in Uruguay comes from Minas. The fountain of the puma was totally dry when saw it... pretty sad actually... but kinda funny, too.

Anyway that night we checked into a hostel in Piriapolis. We went to have dinner with mom at a pizzeria that night because she took the bus to Piriapolis. The next day we traveled around Piriapolis. We went to pan de azucar, sugarbread, and saw a lot of Uruguayan animals. The carpinchos were really cute! In the evening we went up to a mountain with the chair lift. It didn't look like the safest system, the chair lift... but we survived! We had dinner in a fish restaurant and the next day we went back to Montevideo.
It was nice to spend some time with this part of the family. It is a truly rare dynamic: Maria, Gustavo, Andi, Ana and Sofia. Gustavo made us all crack up pretty often. Especially Sofia and I enjoyed spending time with him :)