19.6. - the flag oath

Today is national holiday in Uruguay, it is a day when Artigas (national hero) was born, gradnparents' day and moreover, the day when Uruguayans promise faithfulness or loyalty to their flag. I was invited to see the ceremony in liceo. There are all first-year students and some other people who haven't made this promise before. They started the ceremony with bringing Uruguayans flags. Uruguay has three officical flags which are always brought in official ceremonies. The one with the sun is the flag of Uruguay, then there is the flag of Artigas and the flag of thirty three Orientals (Artigas and Orientals are national heroes who helped to liberate the country and gain independence). So at the beginning of the ceremony the flags are brought by students and the anthem is sung. Afterwards there was a speech to commerate Artigas and the importance of this promise to the state and flag. The director had a speech about the importance of this step in life of everybody - it means to be loyal to Uruguayan state, to live a dignified life, to defend the country, its laws and constitution if needed and mainly try to be better and better person every day.  And finally group 'I promise'.

Honestly, I was surprised. Last week they mentioned this ceremony in a very obvious way. However, I looked at them perplexed. They explained me what it was, but when I asked 'why?', they looked perplexed. It is a promise which everybody must do, because you get a paper which proves that you made the oath. Afterwards, they ask for the paper when you want to enter university, at work, in some offices,... It is so obvious as to be a football fun in Uruguay, nobody asks why. 

My Uruguyan family

In Colonia I live with Emma who is an old nice lady, she was a pre-scolar teacher and is retired. We live together in one appartment and she has become my Uruguayan abuela (grandma). She is 'divina' to use a Spanish word which fits to her description. She is very active, smart and very helpful. Many times we sit together in our living room, she watches TV (our favourite programme is 'soñando por cantar' which is a competition for non-professional singers who have the chance to appear singing on TV and become a star) and I try to learn some Spanish. I always ask her how to say this and that or what it means. However, many times I feel desperate because I learned 'castellano' (Spanish Spanish), but here the language is 'rioplatense'. So I adapted to different pronunciation, different grammar and fight with different vocabulary. The difference is especially in every days expressions and words. Luckily, Emma is one of these persons who don't mind repeating and repeating, explaining and explaining.   

Emma is comnig in her car.

Here she is. We are going for a trip.

We are going for a regular Sunday 'walk'. That you understand Uruguayans have their roots in Spain, Italy and Portugal. So they are used to move by cars and motos. In general in my subjective point of view walking is not very popular here. If somebody asks you to 'dar una vuelta', it is something like to go somewhere and it means to drive a car.




In Uruguay generally people spend lot of time with their family and get together quite often. So we had a one-month visit of tío Nelson (the one in the middle) from Brasil with whom we walked around the city to do some sport.  Laura who is Emma's daughter who comes almost every day to our house. And Iara, Emma's grandaughter with her boyfriend on the left and Silvana (Emma's cousin daughter in the middle). If you are lost a bit, it is OK, because it happens to me quite often. Here everybody knows everybody or at least some relatives of somebody, so when they start introducing people or explain me who is who, I many times get lost, because my Czech short-term memory ends with grandparents.
 Here is a photo of the family when we celebrated my birthday.

My Uruguayan family

Czech food - bramboraky.

Czech and Uruguayan cakes

And the important part - opening the battle. Women here are sometimes more skilful ten men, or at least more experience in opening bottles :)