Scatterbrain, or Recovering from the Bordertown

This week has been about recovering from the trip to Rivera, and I'm having a difficult time doing so. I've even been writing the year as 2012.

We left around midnight last Thursday (Oct. 10), and arrived at the stadium Atilio Paiva Olivera sometime between 6:30 and 7:00AM. There wasn't a lot of sleep on the bus, and I was surprised at how rowdy the trip was since the conference started during the 9:00 hour. But schedules, or lack of maintaining them, is one of those things I will consistently struggle with here.

That being said, the three days at the conference were a challenge: lack of sleep and a lot of intense concentration during presentations that were in spanish, portuguese, or a mix of the two (portuñol). Thursday night featured a parade that included a military band, candombe from Mundo Afro, and an Umbanda group.

Mostly though, each day in Rivera was full of panels presenting topics related to issues regarding racism and discrimination against African-descended minorities in South America. The attendance for Friday evenings final panel was particularly interesting, as the audience was suddenly very small. It seems Luis Suarez had the power that night as the Uruguayan fútbol star destroyed Chile in a World Cup qualifying match. Appropriate planning took place here though since that nights panel closed with Brazilians and a Paraguayan.

The ride home was even more raucous than the trip there, with more alcohol and louder music. Mentally I was toast for that ride home. The landscape between Rivera and Montevideo though was breathtaking, with a lot of open space, gauchos, and ñandu.

Ñandu

My greatest disappointment in the trip is there wasn't a lot of room for sightseeing (I didn't take the two photos closest to this paragraph). And after three months of LOUD NOISES in Montevideo, I'd love to experience a more tranquilo Uruguay. By the time we made it back to Montevideo Saturday night/Sunday morning, I was exhausted, feeling almost as if I had the flu.

Sunday didn't offer much rest however, since I had to prepare for a Fulbright presentation on Monday, which had to be delivered in Spanish. I'm accustomed to giving presentations, and overall feel quite comfortable doing so, but was some kind of nervous for this one. It's been a long time since I've had the serious shakes due to nerves, but Monday morning they were on full display. In the end, all went well, but since, my brain's been all over the place.

Tuesday night I did take in a percussion ensemble concert by Perceum, and life felt a little more normal. It was also nice hearing a program of percussion music with which I was completely unfamiliar, though it also reminded me how little I'm actually playing here, and how much I miss that type of musical interaction.

As an aside...before I learned of candombe, I wanted to go to Iceland. Who am I kidding, I still do. Watching the Uruguayan countryside pass on the ride home from Rivera reminded me of the geographical openness I've seen in photos and videos of Iceland. For much of the trip I tried to slow my brain with the music of Björk, Ólafur Arnalds, Amiina, Steindór Anderson, and Sigur Rós. If you ever want to make even the most mundane trip feel epic, play Sigur Rós, especially the ( ) album. Then Tuesday night, NPR's All Songs Considered featured a new track from Jónsi, and my wanderlust for open spaces continues. Do yourself a favor and listen to this new track from Cameron Crowe's upcoming movie We Bought a Zoo. And if you don't know the musical names I've just mentioned, go find them, and add American Nico Muhly to the list. And that's all.