Art In Uruguay May 2007—A monthly showcase of art about Uruguay or from an Uruguayan artist. This month both are true. Valerie Booth O. is our artist for May. VBO was born in Uruguay, left soon after and has returned after a half century elsewhere.

The first time I crossed the United States by car I thought I was in Uruguay while driving through Iowa. The terrain is “softly undulating,” as they teach in school here.

We're Not in Iowa Anymore

I was 11 and my Grandmother and I were climbing onto a DC3 for the flight from Carrasco Airport to Paysandu, halfway up the country and on the Uruguay River, which borders Argentina. The door was at the back end of the plane and we walked uphill to get to our seats. We were to visit friends of hers who owned ‘campo’, a farm, outside the town of Paysandu.

That was the first experience I can remember of the countryside of Uruguay, and I have been in love with it ever since. The ‘estancia’ was called “El Tala”. Estancia comes from the Latin ‘Stantia’ meaning ‘something standing.’ Today's farmhouses are called Estancias, in contrast to the nomadic and free-ranging Gaucho way of life.

They let me ride a mare called “Muneca” who was a pinto and she was mine for the week. I thought I was in heaven. At night I remember catching fireflies, outside the kitchen, with the cook’s son who was around my age.

After that first experience I have visited other estancias of friends and family and am always sad to leave. The beauty of the campo, the sounds, smells and living by the time of day, instead of the time of a clock, are what feels right to me.

Riding with the gauchos, doing their rounds, is part of the experience too. The gaucho is a breed apart. A colorful mixture of the Spaniard, Portuguese, Creole, pirate, sailor and Charrua turned horseback rider, the first gauchos skinned cattle to sell the hides. They were free and nomadic in the spirit of the native Charrua (who did not survive as a race because most would not submit to the Europeans). When the Spanish and Portuguese first got here this land was percieved as “a land with no value”. But in the 16th and 17th centuries, Uruguay became known for it’s lush grassland and cattle grazing spread like wildfire once the breeds had been imported from Europe. Uruguay became a ‘leather mine’, and the gaucho was born.
In the 1870s the ‘Estancias’ became big business. Cattle, and now sheep, were fenced in; the wool, leather and meat were transported on the railways the British had constructed. As a result, the need for herding over the open pastures was lost. The gaucho was domesticated. He may no longer be nomadic and free-ranging, but the authentic gaucho still exists . His best friends are his horse and dog. He carries a facon (dagger) slipped in his belt at the back and is feircely independent. And he gets a paycheck.

Nowadays Uruguay’s campo is not just about cattle and sheep. Soy beans are a major crop as is rice, corn and barley. Family owned vinyards are producing excellent wines. At a smaller scale, blueberries and olives. And of course the controversial planting of eucalyptus trees for making pulp. Progress takes its toll, but there is no denying that the countryside of Uruguay is very rich and not just in potential anymore.

By Valerie Booth O.

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