Sick and tired of being sick and tired
Posted by The Southron on June 13th, 2009Right now I have 44 unanswered emails in my Uruguay Living/Sociedad Southron mailbox. They remain unanswered neither because of sloth, nor lack of information. Rather, they remain in limbo because of my health problems, which included another hospital stay, and the fact that whenever my health recovers, even a little bit, I need to deal with business issues in my real job–the company that pays for all the Uruguay programs we support.
I am sorry for all of this, and as I am still under close medical care because of the infection in my leg, I am not willing to predict any quick answers to the aforementioned emails.
In lieu of my counsel, you may want to join our open forum at www.SociedadSouthron.net, where you can gain a lot of information and answers to many questions–often from people far more qualified and experienced than I.
When I can, I will respond to my pending emails, and also reappear at the twice monthly open meetings…
The American colonists were not represented in Parliament, hence, under the Common Law, Parliament had no right to tax them. As non-residents, WE ARE NOT REPRESENTED IN CONGRESS! Therefore, Congress does not have a right to tax us.
The first thing you must learn is that the lines dividing the lanes are purely ornamental, and that if you insist on trying to stay in the center of what you thought was a lane of traffic, you will be an obstacle to progress. If 5 little cars can travel alongside each other in 3 lanes, it would be selfish to try to claim a whole lane for yourself.
The second thing you must learn is to drive defensively, sort of like you would going through a war zone. Uruguayans have a congenital visual deficiency which prevents them from being able to see clearly in the mirrors on their cars, thus, they simply don’t use them. Consequently they will blithely dart in front of you with mere inches to spare and then be truly shocked if you tap your horn or glare at them.
Pedestrians are just a little worse than the drivers. I have a sneaking suspicion that pedestrian fatalities are Uruguay’s secret answer to population growth. One of my favorite pastimes is taking bets on which pedestrian is going to get run over in the striped pedestrian walkways along the Rambla. Most of them do not have a traffic light, and the pedestrians sort of meander across the walkway in ones and twos, totally oblivious to the speeding traffic which threatens to turn them into roadkill.
A solid green signal means you can go forward or turn right, but you cannot turn left, except on a one-way street, unless there is a green arrow signal. Otherwise, you have to continue on until you can find a left turn without a signal, hold up traffic waiting to make the turn, and then meander back towards your target. This is especially interesting when driving in Centro where most of the streets are one way; complicated by the fact that the one way streets alternate in directions, but only more or less: one street will go left, the next 3 will go right, than 2 will go left, etc.
Early this morning, Uruguay changed from Summer time (UYST) to standard time (UYT). Since it is fall here, we turned our clocks back 1 hour. At the same time we made that change, the US made its spring foward to daylight saving time. The total relative time shift was 2 hours, some Uruguay is now just 1 hour later than Eastern Time, instead of 3.
In March a group of professional British actors come to Montevideo to stage a new play on the Battle of the River Plate, seventy years after the event.
The State Religion of Uruguay is SUN WORSHIP. That’s right, good old fashioned (or should I say “ancient fashioned”) unabashed adoration of Sol Invictus, the unconquered Sun.
My nephew arrived for a week’s visit yesterday morning and brought with him my annual resupply of gigantic clothing from my favorite King Size Men’s Store; Omar the Tent Maker. His motto is “if it was big enough for Goliath, it ought to fit you too”. The only problems I have with them is that sometimes the tent canvas is a little rough for underwear or the stripes from the reused circus tents don’t get completely bleached out…All kidding aside, I was happy to get this year’s shipment because everything was two sizes smaller than last year, so I am making progress. I have thus far lost the equivalent in kilograms or about half an average Uruguayo–that means I have about 1 1/2 to go. 
This past Friday was Saint Nicholas Day for the Slavic Eastern Orthodox Churches (like mine), but this coming Thursday is Christmas for Catholics, Greek and other non-Slavic Eastern Orthodox, and (I presume, most protestants and other Christians). Since Uruguay is a very secular place, I am not really sure what the official celebration will be on December 25th–though I have noticed that even the most die-hard atheists here seem to “get religion” any time there is a holiday they can celebrate…
Every time I start to think that perhaps ANTEL isn’t so bad, they do something to remind me that they are the worst, stupidest, most difficult and least professional telecommunications company in the civilized world. They are worse than Ma Bell when it had a monopoly–incredibly, they are even worse than ICE, the state-owned telecom from hell in Costa Rica.
