A lot of fireworks. Loud, obnoxious fireworks, not the nice to look at kind (though there were a few of those, too).
Spent nochebuena with "Pico" Riñon, her family and a few of their friends. Was a great night, early morning. Found out that Pico's brother and I may be the only two people on earth that enjoyed the Vince Neil-less Motley Crüe album.
Pretty much the only non-food/festive photo I took.
Then there was food. I definitely haven't enjoyed enough Uruguayan food and wine.
First there were appetizers, which included my favorite dish of the night: lengua de vaca. That's right, cow tongue; marinated in vinegar, with celery, red pepper, garlic, and parsley. Amazing.
I also quite enjoyed the chicken pie:
Midnight rolled around, and everyone toasted, hugged, said "Feliz Navidad." It felt much more like a New Years event for me. But then came the main course: stuffed lamb, stuffed chicken, apple mash. And lots of desserts: sweet breads (full of dulce de leche, white and dark chocolates from Spain, and more with names I can't remember. Honestly, I was a little food drunk at that point; not to mention Argentine wine is quite wonderful.
I got home on December 25 (today) at 4:00AM. Slept until 9:00AM. I'm a little tired. Did walk the Rambla for a bit earlier though, and aside from some Santa hats and a few more closed stores than is normal for a Sunday, it seemed like any other day in Montevideo.
- Qué pasa, amigo?
- Je ne suis pas votre ami, mec.
So I've been fascinated the past few weeks with the saga of Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra. Not so much with the players, or the events that took place on the field that day, but with the comments I read that follow various articles, or are posted to Facebook pages.
For those of you who aren't sure what I'm talking about, Luis Suarez, an Uruguayan fútbol (soccer) player for Liverpool, was accused of using a racist slur towards Manchester United player, Patrice Evra, from France. Both players it seems have admitted to taking part in an exchange, with Suarez using either "negro" or "negrito," and Evra saying "sudaca." As far as I can tell, sudaca has its roots in Spain, and is generally considered a derogatory slur towards South Americans. In Uruguay, negro and negrito are commonly heard used as terms of endearment, often crossing racial boundaries. Suarez is citing this as his defense, saying this was not racism, but a cultural misunderstanding; he was hit with an 8-game ban and a £40,000 fine.
Whew...all caught up?
For me, a lot of what I read about this reminds me of something one would see in South Park, just imagine everyone on the football pitch:
The point is, it's all about context. I can confirm that negro/a and negrito/a are indeed used as terms of endearment quite often here. I'm never going to use them, since I would never feel culturally capable. I've also spoken with enough Uruguayans to know that most know better than to travel to another country and casually throw these words around.
What I've found somewhat surprising are responses I've been reading in support of Suarez. A large majority confirm that the terms are "not racist" in Uruguay. But many responses begin taking it to another level, directing comments to Patrice Evra. These are just two samples from Facebook:
"Patrice Evra es lamentable los complejos que sufres...Siendo REALISTAS, tu piel y raza es NEGRA, NO ERES blanco, asiático, latino... Asi que ACEPTALO Y SE FELIZ..." / "Patrice Evra, your complex is regretable...Realistically, your skin and race are BLACK, YOU ARE NOT white, asian, latino...So ACCEPT IT AND BE HAPPY..."
"si es NEGRO, que quieren? que le diga blackie? negro maricón jugá al futbol o volvé a la jungla!!!" / "he is BLACK, what do they want? that he says blackie? black fag play football or return to the jungle!!!"
These are not the sentiments of everyone, and the latter is extreme, but also not infrequent. There are those that are understanding of the penalty, but confused and concerned that Evra was also not hit with a ban for his derogatory slur.
Mostly it's made me hyper-aware of my own sensitivity to the terms. I've grown accustomed to hearing them used, but they're not casual terms that go unnoticed to me either. I've also not really taken a stand on any of this through this post. There are people I'd like to hear from over it first, and I imagine it will be a topic that will come up over the next few days.
Anyway, just something for everyone else to join me in thinking about...right, buddy?
When I say "11 de octubre" (October 11) in Spanish, I think it sounds a little menacing. Since in many countries the 12th of October celebrates the beginning of the processes of colonization of the Americas, the 11th of October represents the final day of cultural freedom for indigenous peoples, and those Africans who arrived here through the slave trade.
This past 11 de Octubre, I attended a parade held on the main avenue, 18 de Julio, here in Montevideo. The event was organized by Mundo Afro, and was open to anyone who wanted to participate. One mass ensemble of drummers and dancers; a show of the drum's resistance to the processes of colonization, and at the same time, it's power to bring people together. The slogan sent out on Mundo Afro flyers read:
NO MÁS RACISMO
LOS TAMBORES LLAMAN POR EQUIDAD
NO MORE RACISM
THE DRUMS CALL FOR EQUALITY
Meanwhile, on Isla de Flores, just a few blocks on away from where the mass cuerda was being organized, another event was taking place. A mini-llamadas, representing the same cause. Even back on that day, I felt the two events serving the same purpose, yet set in opposition of one another was strange, revealing the polarizing effect politics bring to a cause. In either case, what could have been an amazing display of unity, only revealed fractures within a community and culture.
From October 1, 2011. Not to be confused with the Llamadas which took place for the Día del Patrimonio on October 23.
Eight groups, representing the toques del patrimonio, or "rhythms of heritage." Two groups each representing Cuareim (Barrio Sur) and Gaboto (Cordón), and four representing Ansina (Palermo). These videos show each comparsa in its entirety, including flag carriers, dancers, and drummers. Here they are in parade order:
Remember that first chivito I had back in August (see photo)? Well, since then I've only visited two other restaurants. I had another chivito at one, and there was another morning we didn't have water, I needed coffee, so I hit up the Burger King and went for the café con leche and two medialunas combo. I find it expensive here, especially since I'm up to my neck in debts to pay back in the States. I'm also still hoping to buy a drum, though I can't say I have high hopes it will happen.
My problem with restaurants is for the price of one meal, I can make at least 5-6 more at home. Mostly I eat a lot of rice, kind of my tribute to Chris McCandless; a noticeable tribute as I'm becoming more and more familiar with the outline of my ribcage.
Chris McCandless in the wild.
I think the bus is larger than my apartment.
But back to food: I add to the mix lots of dried beans, pasta, fruit/veggies, and tuna. I'm pretty sure the tuna I buy is kind of like the Spam of tuna. I've embraced budget recipes, and at this point just make it up as I go along. But I miss carne. No going vegetarian for me, no way. And Uruguay, like Argentina, is known for its meats...
Anyway, for the price of one chivito, I bought enough to make 2 burgers, milanesa (breaded veal), and spaghetti with meatballs. I'm hoping this will all last me until the end of the month, and it should with the assistance of my freezer. But I just finished a hamburger, and had to share the photo. It's a Jamie Oliver recipe, and one that should be tried by anyone that craves a good burger. I honestly think having gone almost 2 months without a meal like this, I'm a little food high...
This is as close to a holiday blog as I'm going to get.
Lots of writing this last week. Enough so that I believe a rough, but complete, draft of the doctoral essay is realistic by March. My sense of time is a little off here with no semester schedules to follow, and no real awareness of the upcoming "winter" holidays. With candombe dictating my schedule, the next important date I have marked is the 6th of January, the Epiphany, or for Afro-Uruguayans, the day of Kings.
The llamadas that take place on this day are cited by most sources as the most significant, honoring the customs of the original African Naciones in Montevideo. I've already seen three events called Llamadas since arriving; two more than I had expected at this point. They all felt planned; tied to a political and national agenda. I have imagined that January 6 will be different, more spontaneous; not just another practice run for the comparsas before prize money is involved at carnival.
I've tried to ask if the true llamada still exists, as they're described by Rubén (I believe Rada) in Mónica Olaza's Ayer y hoy (2009: 50-51):
"...someone takes to the street, me with my drum at the corner of my house, and I play repique and you answer me with yours, and we get closer, and then another joins, and as we go we're adding [players]; that is a llamada."
This sentiment is echoed in the same book through an interview with Fernando "Lobo" Nuñez (54):
"...what I play, and what we play known as llamadas, takes a cuerda of drums. And I'm able to call to someone in that moment and those over there know that it's me. They know it's Barrio Sur that's playing; that is a llamada."
Both Rada and Nuñez make a clear distinction between this spontaneous, communicative form of playing as distinctive from the parades associated with carnival; events knowns as Llamadas.
When I ask about the spontaneous llamadas, I'm told they do exist. I get the feeling I may not see them, though I'm still hoping something of that sentiment remains on the 6th of January. If YouTube videos from previous years, and the following words from Rubén Rada are any indication, I'm not expecting something completely different: "the true expression of the tambores, that of January 6, the day of Saint Baltasar and Saint Benito...the black saints...is being lost" (Olaza, 51).
Being from South Carolina, I commonly associate the term heritage with the debates over flying the Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds. For those who support its continued flight, the argument usually sounds something like this:
"I just want to support my southern heritage; it's not about slavery."
But no matter the argument, slavery is a part of the Confederate heritage. That flag cannot be seperated from its association with a system that was supported by enslaving other human beings later deemed inferior due to the color of their skin.
So what's this got to do with candombe? Since arriving in Uruguay, the term I've heard cited most frequently regarding candombe rhythms is patrimonio. Patrimonio = heritage.
There's a hierarchy of patrimonial tradition and representation in candombe culture, that seems to change based on the occasion. These three recur with the most frequency:
Uruguayan: it was created here, and belongs to all Uruguayans regardless of race, class, or region.
Afro-Uruguayan: created by and cultivated by enslaved Africans and their descendants, primarily associated with the neighborhoods Barrio Sur and Palermo.
conventillo: rhythmic styles cultivated and developed in housing projects known as Mediomundo (Sur), Ansina (Palermo), and Gaboto (Cordón). Often these are associated with Afro-Uruguayan history and culture.
With each sub-identifier comes exclusion, quite often built on the fear of outside appropriation/influence.
Just one week removed from the National Day of Candombe, Afro-Uruguayan Culture, and Racial Equality, it's easy to see why candombe is employed for nationalistic purposes. Attend any parade of the Llamadas, and on the surface the appearance is exactly "racial harmony through candombe, an African-based cultural form developed in Uruguay." But there are arguments that beyond the limits of Montevideo, candombe is more of a national novelty. In his book Musicas populares del Uruguay (2007), Coriún Aharonián proclaims that "the tamboril is almost exclusively Montevidean," acknowledging that it exists in other locations, but sufficient evidence doesn't exist to call it an Uruguayan phenomenon (90). My only experience with candombe outside of Montevideo was in Rivera, where I was told they play and have their own style, but it's different. The performance I heard there was led by Mundo Afro drummers from Montevideo, so it's difficult to comment more here at this time.
The Afro-Uruguayan label manifests in several ways. Most obvious is the prefix acknowledges the African roots of candombe, which is a fact without argument. Beyond that, it gets complicated. At the conference I attended in early October, ethnomusicologist Olga Picún proposed dropping the prefix, which generally was not met with enthusiasm by the largely Uruguayan audience. Gustavo Goldman, a musician and ethnomusicologist from Montevideo, responded that he liked the label, that it "assigns ownership." But it's difficult to paint a black and white picture of candombe (pardon the pun). The following are examples "assigning ownership" which appear in print; not necessarily negative, but demonstrate complications:
"It is not necessary to be a physically black Montevidean, only culturally black. The fundamental logic of the llamada is incompatible with an individual formed in the Western European white culture." (Aharonián, Músicas populares, 106).
"The interpretive action of expert
drummers conveys an ethnicized and racialized meaning to the whole performance:
they are Black Old men who play, independently of the racialized social
identity of the drummers, white, brown, or black in everyday life." (Ferreira, 2007).
Aharonián cites drummer Fernando
"Lobo" Nuñez, from an interview conducted by Uruguayan popular musician Jaime Roos ("Le sacaron la
fiesta," Jaque, Montevideo,
8-III-1985):
"...the white 'can come to play with the sabor of a black, but I don't know if they can have the same joy, and communicate that joy as can a black." (Músicas populares, 106).
Further complications arise as conventillo culture is added to the mix. The forced removal of families from these buildings was "experienced by Afro-Uruguayans as a direct assault on their families, culture, history, and traditions" (Andrews, Blackness in the White Nation, 143). Yet not all of the residents sharing in the Afro-Uruguayan culture, history, and traditions of these buildings were Afro-Uruguayan. Mediomundo translates to "half the world," so named because it was home to a highly integrated immigrant population. And there are several references to the Ansina area being called "Particular," due to the large number of Italian immigrants living there (Ferreira, Los tambores del candombe, 1997: 77). Martha Gularte references this paradox in her poem "Cuareim y Ansina:"
"Fueron manos malvados que derrumbaron mi alero, olvidaron que en
Cuareim, blancos y negros crecieron."
"They were evil hands that tore down my roof, they forgot that in
In the previous post I mentioned displacement and community. These are principles of candombe. Displaced Africans created candombe, creating a sense of community in the most adverse conditions. They overcame their differences through the reconstruction of African musical forms. In the late 1800s/early 1900s, European immigrants livingin conventillos found that "one way to be, or to become, Uruguayan was to take part...in an African based cultural form." (Andrews, Blackness in the White Nation, 62). This was/is the beauty of candombe...it wants to unite. It's the politics of carnival, the fear of change, that perhaps keep it from doing so.
My imagination tells me that the old candombe, those llamadas, transcended spoken language; perhaps even facilitated understanding.
If anyone thinks I'm being negative, let me say that I can't wait to come back to Montevideo, and experience candombe without a paper to write. To try and connect all of this to the flag issue that I opened with...well, I know people that I love, who support that flag and would like to see it continue flying above the South Carolina statehouse. Even though I don't agree with them, I know they would do anything for me. They're not bad people, only a product of a culture; a culture I rebelled against with the help of music. I feel the same way about some of the people I've met here who might say that whites can't play or understand candombe. I'm optimistic that discrimination is not the objective, it's just human.
That brings me to a video of Maya Angelou. I have to give credit here to a Danielle Brown, a fellow Fulbrighter, whose blog is amazing. She posted a video of Maya Angelou talking about the power of words, and of course, with YouTube, once you watch one thing, you're going to watch something else. For me it was more Maya Angelou, and it really resonates (ignore the audio delay, it's worth listening):
View while running of Ciudad
Vieja from the Rambla
A few weeks ago I started running again, and the last two outings were amazing. It's different for me here, because I don't take the Ipod out. Instead I'm accompanied by the sound of the Rio de la Plata as I move along the Rambla from Ciudad Vieja, where I live, to Playa Ramirez. This allows my mind to wander, and my paper writing is improving.
I find that I am increasingly concerned with two themes here: cultural displacement and community. Obviously I analyze their meaning to candombe, but also in my own life and current situation. Post on this coming soon...
Today during the run I was intensely mulling over how I got here; not to Uruguay and studying candombe, but pursuing ethnomusicological research? It's Bob Becker's fault, and it happened in April 2001 at Clemson University (yuck!). Was excited to find this video (not from 2001):
I was blown away by that Nexus performance. I wish I'd brought an mbira to Uruguay, it would have been worth the customs/security hassle.
Found this video the other day. Andy Cox is an art professor at Limestone College and one of the coolest men I've ever met. The first mbira I held in my hands were some that he made, and the front room of his house is a magical collection of homemade instruments and art, and quite often the two are the same.
Last night I saw two documentaries. The first had some serious audio issues, and I struggled to follow; the second, was amazing. The title was Tambores de agua: un encuentro ancestral. This literally means "water drums," and the film examined this tradition among several communities in Venezuela and its African heritage. This is a clip of the Baka women in Cameroon:
Yesterday I watched 27 comparsas file past my spot at on calle Carlos Quijano, at the intersection where Carlos Gardel becomes Isla de Flores. Because I went alone, I didn't worry with taking a camera, and it was much easier to focus when the event wasn't filtered through a tiny digital screen. I left before the final 14 groups because I was beginning to lose a sense of the rhythm; my ears were drained.
In the previous post I said things had changed, and that remains true. I needed yesterday; those Llamadas. Even if it was just a reminder of why I fell in love with candombe.
"The order came down on 1 December 1978: the Medio Mundo conventillo, built in 1885 and in 1975 declared a National Historical Monument, had been condemned and was to be evacuated immediately. Municipal trucks came four days later, on 5 December, to remove the 170 residents..." (Andrews, Blackness in the White Nation, 2010: 141).
December 3, 1978: marks the final time the drums would sound at the Medio Mundo conventillo...
"Los vecinos,
espontáneamente, para ahogar su frustración y su rabia, salieron a la calle con
sus tamboriles y, sin mediear palabra, sus manos comenzaron a golpear la lonja
con toda la fuerza de su deseperacion."
"In an effort to suppress their frustration and rage, the residents took to the street with their drums, and without words, their hands began to strike the heads with all the force of their desperation"(Chirimini/Varese, Los candombes de reyes:Las llamadas, 2009:143).
December 3, 2006: marks the first Día Nacional de Candombe, la Cultura Afrouruguaya, y la Equidad Racial...
"Nuestra
iniciativa busca contribuir a superar esa situación, promoviendo el
reconocimiento, la valoración y difusión del aporte afrouruguayo a la
construcción del país y a su cultura, destacando el candombe como su máxima
expresión."
"Our iniciative seeks to overcome that situation, promoting the recognition, values, and difusion of Afro-Uruguayan support in the construction of the country and its culture, highlighting candombe as its greatest expression" (Ortuño, Día nacional de candombe, 2007: 9).
Tomorrow brings with it the 6th Annual Día Nacional de Candombe. I've thought a great deal about that moment in 1978, as well as the farewell "party" that took place at the Ansina housing projects in early January 1980. Nothing in my life has prepared me to understand what those communities experienced, and I can't imagine how it must have felt to hear the drums and dance on those nights...
I'm not sure how I feel about a National Day of Candombe at this point. A lot's changed since my first night following Sinfonia de Ansina in barrio Palermo in August. After the Prueba de Admisión para Las Llamadas, the politics of the carnival machine have diminished the impact. I believe candombe could be a vehicle for equality, but the local prejudices are perhaps too great to overcome. At the national level, on paper, the concept is appealing, but once you scratch the surface...well, the conflicts exist on virtually every level.
.jpg)
