back in the south

Hi friends, family, and visitors. Right now I'm writing from Colonia del Sacramento, a small, colonial town opposite Buenos Aires. I'm here for the day visiting a fellow Fulbright recipient. I'll post soon with more information and some photos of my time here.

Actually, the reason I came down here from Salto this weekend was to apply for a Brazilian visa in Montevideo. In order to travel to Brazil, US citizens need a passport, passport photos, a purchased airline ticket that proves they will be leaving Brazil, financial proof that they can afford the trip and won't be stranded in Brazil, and about $150. Bringing along all those things, I visited the Brazilian consulate in Montevideo last Friday, and within 30 minutes my application was approved. They wanted to give me a visa for only the two weeks of July break, but, with a little begging, I convinced them to give me a visa valid for the maximum amount of time, 180 days.

I have already purchased a flight to Rio de Janeiro on July 2nd, and I plan to also visit Salvador in the northeast before leaving Brazil on July 17th.

Although my visa was approved, I still had to leave my passport at the consulate. Since the office doesn't open again until tomorrow, I have been allowed a few days to enjoy Montevideo, and to make this side-trip to Colonia. It's been a great, laid back weekend, filled with tango music, beautiful sunsets, morcilla, molleja, and chorizo, and street manifestations. I'll post an update with pictures soon.

I have a lot to share with you all. I've decided to start making my posts shorter in an effort to make it easier for me to update and avoid procrastination. Over the next week or so I'm planning to write updates on my visit to Mercedes, a small town here that is severely flooded; on emigration in Uruguay, an interesting topic that I have discussed with some of my students at the university (Liz, Holly, and I will be giving a presentation on immigration in the US later this week, and, in the meantime, we've been leading discussions on emigration in Uruguay); on my trip to Montevideo and Colonia this weekend; and on my decision to change the focus of my research project here. Actually, I'll go ahead and write about that now...

As I read more papers and information related to my original research project--the incorporation of the Tupamaros into Uruguay´s political system--I soon discovered that my exact thesis had already been covered extensively not once, but twice. Mr. Charles Guy Gillespie wrote a wonderfully intelligent 300-page book on the topic that was published by the Cambridge University Press, and just yesterday I discovered (and bought) a book written by an Uruguayan author on exactly the same topic.

At the same time that I was discovering my research topic was more exhausted than 'Fergalicious,' I noticed an interesting phenomenon here related to the isolation and discrimination against gays in Uruguay. In a country that is proudly secular and separated from the Church, I found this especially interesting and troubling. I also found that Mr. Charles Guy Gillespie hadn't written a 300-page book on the topic. More importantly though, I heard from several Uruguayans who strongly encouraged me to pursue the topic, emphasizing that they--and Uruguay in general--had been silent concerning discrimination against gays in the country for too long.

I'm not entirely abandoning my old topic, though. I have some incredible interviews lined up with former Tupamaros that I still plan to take advantage of. Plus, the two topics are not mutually exclusive. The Tupamaros, who, historically, emphasized the protection of individual human rights, are now in power in Uruguay. In spite of their rhetoric, though, many people feel that the party is failing severely on their various promises, including their commitment to individual human rights. I plan to study this theme by specifically looking at the experience and treatment of homosexuals in Uruguay.

If you have any good sources (websites, books, articles, friends who wrote theses) on the topic, please send them my way!

I think that's all for now. I´m going to be updating again soon, with photos, upon my return to Salto. Good night!