Montevideo Skyline
Rachel Sweningson | Major: English Education | Semester: January Intersession 2024
My friends and I have a running joke that I’m too communicative for my own good. Put me in a room, and I gravitate to the person who needs to talk about their day. Catch me on a long car ride, and we’ll probably end up reflecting on your childhood at least once. To some extent, this trait is probably a large reason why I ended up studying education and English. Genuine communication is inherent to me. It is an extension of how I navigate the world. However, when I entered my January intersession program in Uruguay and Argentina, the verbal piece of that skill was greatly reduced, and I had to reorient how I navigate the world, recognizing the ways communication diverged and converged with my own practices. While this experience unmoored me in some ways, I appreciated how it allowed me to step back and observe, and it let me experience displacement in a way that will help me better understand my students as a future teacher.
During this program, I elected to take an anthropological history course that explored how nationhood can transcend a country’s borders. Nations are defined by many factors, and in the case of Uruguay and Argentina, we learned how their shared history around the region of Rio de la Plata (the River of Silver) encapsulates a smaller, shared culture between both countries. As an American, this idea reminded me of how indigenous nations within the United States exist both within and beyond traditional borders, not allowing their nationhood to be confined to the acreage an alien governmental body authorized to them.
These ideas of nationhood also reminded me of how victors author our histories. I was excited to learn about Uruguay and Argentina from their citizens’ perspectives, but as the course unfolded, it became clear that these nations’ histories are traditionally taught through a Europeanized lens and for our instructors, a large part of their work is untying those dominant, biased narratives from the truth. It was a valuable exercise in understanding how, even across different continents and language barriers, humanity shares the same patterns and narratives across the globe.
By taking an anthropological history course, my experience with Rio de la Plata’s culture intertwined with my studies. In many instances, our instructors would provide an academic understanding for the region’s traditional food, customs or music, and then my classmates and I would get to experience those aspects ourselves. Perhaps my most memorable experiences centered around the country’s tango culture and their traditional drink: mate.
Tango is a traditional dance that was born among the working class in ports along the Rio de la Plata, which gives both Uruguay and Argentina equal claim to its origin. In the modern day, tango remains a cultural touchstone for both nations, and it has a distinctive set of social customs among its social dancing community. Leads and follows, traditionally men and women, will sit separate from one another, and when the music breaks between rounds, the dancers will agree to dance through eye contact alone. As a ballroom dancer, it was amazing to see how the original form of tango is danced by experts and how their customs differ from Americans, where communication is normally verbal and more direct. Similarly, I enjoyed being able to share the same dance despite our language barrier, demonstrating how communication can be shared without words.
Just as tango represents Rio de la Plata through dance, mate represents the region through food. Mate is a tea-like drink made by soaking yerba mate leaves in hot water, and instead of straining the leaves from the cup, their straws are designed to strain the leaves while drinking. Before COVID-19, it was traditional to share a cup of mate between groups as an act of community, and even after the pandemic, mate continues to connect its citizens through its ubiquity in society.
Looking back on my time in Uruguay and Argentina, I am happy with the way everything unfolded. There was a wonderful balance between providing support and independence from our USAC program directors, and even in the moments where I was unfamiliar with the language or culture, I found opportunities to challenge myself and learn from the experience. In my life, I am privileged enough to remain in a bubble of familiarity if I chose it, but as a future teacher, many of my students will not have that same privilege. Whether they are undergoing drastic life changes or just feeling adolescence more acutely than others, young people are often in a state of displacement. USAC’s Winter Montevideo program provided the opportunity to reacquaint myself with that displacement, and I am glad for it.