So the "Poder Ejecutivo" Tabaré Vázquez ordered the Army "Comandante en Jefe" Guido Manini Ríos to be arrested with intensity for 30 days because he made a comment criticizing the nominally ruling Fat Forehead coalition's changes to military pensions. Because "How dare the Army Commander" criticize the government run by the a shitshow of lefty rebels whose terrorism triggered a period of protective dictatorship in the 1970's during which many current Uruguayo politicians were arrested for the usually commie terrorist crimes like armed robbery.1 Ok, so on the surface the driving narrative appears to be commies ruthlessly enforcing restrictions on political speech because "our democracy" and fear of "muh dictatorship" lingering around.
But while the Uruguayos are not a happy people, a lot of them remember the not quite so bad times of the 90's and the 00's. Uruguay is an expensive country full of poor people. Wages are incredibly flat across professions for the Uruguayos who are employed. Gainfully employed people engage in habits like hoarding plastic grocery bags. Sure a good number of Uruguayos mine dumpsters to find items of value to flip while in Venezuela people are mining dumpsters for potential dinner. Meanwhile the value of the Peso Uruguayo is slipping, but it isn't outright cratering like the Peso Argentino. The Chinese buy increasing amounts of Uruguay's agricultural output while farmers make less. Grocery prices aren't that far out of line with North American standards. Unlike the Argentards, the Uruguayos tend to be aware they are poor and they usually resign themselves to that. Their attitude to the fact that they are getting poorer seems more complicated than the simple resignation to their poverty in general, but it is hard for me to suss out a general sentiment.
In this environment the Fat Forehead coalition keeps on pushing unpopular things as is the way of the eternal pantsuit. In this Uruguay where the fact free plastic grocery bags included with grocery purchase has spawned numerous cultural norms around bags and their uses, a ban on stores giving the bags away is about to come into effect. I have not met anyone in this country who wants this ban, and and the reaction it induces seems to be viscerally negative. Yet Frente Amplio is trumpeting this incredibly unpopular measure. Now Uruguayos are very good at bottling up and hiding their anger till they snap, so it is very possible they think they did something popular. Similarly the Frente Amplio sitting at the Intendencia of Montevideo gender neutered the Queen of Carnaval in a very unpopular move.
Meanwhile the opposition National Party2 is pushing something they call "Vivir sin Miedo" which is a plan to let the police do night raids and give the Army a law enforment role.3 I am disappointed they aren't pushing to go back to the "no rules" attitude towards guns they had until 2002, but this is a culture of low expectations outside of football and even then they over-moderate their enthusiasm.
In this environment the Comandante en Jefe Guido is trying to quietly return from his current mission in Mexico to quietly serve his 30 days while the opposition parties are stoked on rallying at Carrasco International Airport. Rallying that Guido is trying to discourage with an indeterminate amount of sincerity.4 While it is too early to predict Frente Amplio beated at the ballot box, Military Coup, Bolivarian Revolition, or "Make Uruguay Great-ish Again" happening there's enough here for local politics to get interesting. I have doubts5 that there's enough capacity for action in the population here for anything too dramatic, but there is a non-zero chance6 this country gets interesting.
- Eventually during the 1980's they did their own sort of "Truth and Reconcilliation" deal where they became an "Our Democracy" state again either pardoning or immunizing everybody depending on which side they were on. The commie rebels got involved in Politics, took over in the 00's, and now they have gone full circle and become "The Man" keeping everybody down. [↩]
- Formerly known as the White Party though the papers occasionally still refer to them as the Blancos. [↩]
- The Navy already does Coast Guard style water and shoreline law enforcement while the Airforce does airport security. [↩]
- Uruguayos aren't the easiest people to read. [↩]
- This is still some distance for meeting the Qntra bar. [↩]
- In which case this piece will surely be linked from Qntra. [↩]
Notes For Republican Pioneers Roughly 9-ish Months In
September 21st, 2018Adjusting to urban life has probably been a bigger adjustment for me than language and Latino/Italian culture.1 Since I've become aware of the fitness thing again I've been doing the whole body bodyweight thing alternating days. The nice side effect of forgetting about fitness, is that when paid attention to again it doesn't take much time to see some progress. My eyes are making if over the pullup bar. But it helps that this activity has a concrete purpose in adapting to Urbanity, to that point I would rate its importance up there with additional solo drilling of vocabulary and grammar before departure.
Useful to the solo urban pioneer is the 15 to 25 liter2 daypack.3 A lot of sites, reddits, and members of the travel fandom will instead advocate building a luggage strategy around a 35-45 liter "carry on travel backpack" as the center of everything. While this may be fine for recreationally or even in some cases productively hopping from hostel to hostel every few days, a pioneer builds things and building requires tools. On most international flights you get to bring a carry on suitcase and a separate "personal item" piece of luggage into the cabin. This maximizes your space from transporting valuables, fragiles, and their padding. As a young republican pioneer who will be building stuff, you are probably transporting some tools and materials that are going into checked bags. Having checked bags is fine, and the only way you are going to have an all important claw hammer from the moment you leave your destination airport for your new life.
Your daypack should be able to comfortably transport your essential work tools, a change of clothes, and an additional load for the greater value of 10kg or 10% of your bodyweight for arbitrary distances covered on foot. Is this how you are actually going to load your daypack everyday? No, not unless you keep arbitrary ballast in your pack habitually. Like solid leather boots that you might not wear everywhere and forever after you get the lay of the land, it a useful excess of capability. Loot drops are rarely weightless no matter what the games tell you.4
Securing your daypack given its contents is an extremely high priority. It does not go unatttended unless secured. If you are in a hostel it and NOT your carry on or drug stash5 goes in your locker. Alternately it can sleep with you in your bed.
James Lafond offers considerations for securing the backpack while it is being worn. In my own surveys of pedestrian latino lands they absolute highest risk situation for having a backpack stolen is when you are a short local woman disembarking from a bus.
If you are a mid 20s woman under 5 feet tall who insists on fashionable looking backpacks and your daily commute from the inner slums to outer slums involves one transfer between bus lines, you can count on losing your backpack to groups of young male adults at your transfer point at least annually. If you are an adult male sleeping on the street with your backpack under your head or in a teddy bear position, it might never be stolen. No factors I have observed affect likelyhood of bag theft as highly as being a short woman who takes the bus.6
The only strong predictor of attempted bag theft for males I have seen is visible intoxication, and this affects locals and tourists alike.7 The incidents I have heard of suggest a less than 30% success rate against drunks,8 while stoners tend to more specifically "lose their wallet" after getting comfortable with new strangers than have their whole backpack forcefully taken. The most successful thieves tend to grab and run while hanging around bus stops.
Now what makes a good daypack? Wide, padded shoulder straps and a good fit for your body. During his visit to Montevideo asciilifeform was a substantial fan of using a chest clip or strap to enforce an optimally load distribution position for the shoulder straps. In the following months I've beome a convert. On the other hand I still suspect a load bearing padded hip belt is overkill for this role. If you have time before your departure go to REI or something and try out some packs. Try them with weight until you find one that works for you.
The other major consideration is protection from the elements. Cheap rainproof backpack covers can be found just about anywhere, but here in Montevideo where partly cloudy skies can occasionally drop driving rain the 30-ish seconds it takes to deploy the cover can lead to substantial anxiety drying out your laptop because the fucking bag had a seperate leaky zipper covering a dedicated laptop compartment. A laptop sleeve built into the main compartment is the less anxiety inducing design, especially when paired with an application of scotchguard. Scotchguard should be applied after soaking the daypack and any other textile luggage with a liberal application of a repellent insecticide labeled for bedbug control. Other travelers can be filthy.
Getting and playing with a pull up bar9 has noticably improved10 my comfort when rucking around with my own rucksack. Before I got the pullup bar doing rows with a knotted blanket secured in the bathroom door similarly lead to noticable improvements in posture and comfort. Long walks with a bunch of optimally distributed weight in the pack loaded into the pack helps with conditioning for your new life while burning a noticably higher volume of calories than simply walking, which in turn makes the pull up bar friendlier, and so on.
One other nice feature is a convenient pocket for the camera and sunglasses. A solid point and shoot camera that works well in a variety of situations is a godsend. The republic enjoys pictures,11 get in the habit of taking them often before your new location becomes boring and normal.
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