Call Me Charlie

Issue 328: Reflections Of Three Months in Uruguay

You guys,

On George’s last day of surfing, when temperatures were in the high 40s and the water was ice cold and he wore two wetsuits, his board flipped over and he went underneath it. When he emerged, he stood crying and walked out of the ocean. Sam met him at the waters’ edge, and through tears George said, “They’re too big!”

“It’s okay bud,” Sam said, “you don’t have to go again.” At this point most of the kids in his class were playing in the sand, refusing to go in the water.

There was a pause and George sniffled, then he said, “I want to,” and he went out for one more cold surf.

~

After school one day on the playground, one of the teachers told me a story about Layla.

She’d been sitting with a group of boys at lunch every day, but for the past two days, one of the little boys who’d been traveling for two weeks was back, and with him at the table Layla was no longer invited to sit with them. She walked up to the table and asked the boys why they wouldn’t let her sit with them. They replied something like, “Well, Kenny’s back.”

The teacher watched as Layla articulated to them that they had all played together when Kenny wasn’t at school, so why couldn’t they all sit together now?

She didn’t go to the teacher, she didn’t avoid the boys, and she didn’t tell me or Sam what had been happening at school. When she felt left out by her friends she spoke to them directly, and when they didn’t have a great reason for leaving her out, she sat with a group of girls instead.

~

I went to cheer on Sam in the big padel tournament. It was a popular sport, sort of like pickleball. I hadn’t participated all cohort-long, but today a court opened up and someone asked if I wanted to play. No, no, I said, I can’t.

My neck pain was intense when I arrived in La Barra. Through a connection with one of the moms, I met a physiotherapist and later a cranial sacral therapist, both who helped me immensely over the course of three months. I was feeling much better than I had in a long time. So the second time I was asked to play, even though it felt risky, I stepped onto the court. It was my first time participating in a real physical activity in two years, and the adrenaline followed me for three hours.

The next day I spoke to my physiotherapist. I was feeling high from the previous day’s activity and I told him my new goal was not just to run three miles—as I’d told him the week before—it was to play padel weekly, six months from now, when we’d be spending three months in Spain. I was motivated to be an athlete again.

~

The last week of the cohort brings lots of feelings and reactions, and I notice some within my family.

George often named his feelings. On the last day of school he told his teacher, “I’m sad and happy.”

Why are you sad?

“To say goodbye.”

Why are you happy?

“Because we’re leaving.”

On our last night, before we embarked on our long travel back to the states, I was helping George out of his pajamas—because the last week is when both kids want me to dress and undress them and help them put on their shoes and lay with them until they fall asleep, just as they did in Syros—and he said, “Tomorrow is going to be fun and tired and hard.”

Layla, in two final group celebration/goodbye moments, clung to me and then became so overcome with tiredness that she fell asleep in my arms. Once home with just the four of us, she sprang back to life.

Sam oscillated between constant reflection of the cohort (So, what are your big takeaways? How are you feeling about the cohort? How are you feeling about Uruguay?) and constant planning for the next adventure, sending me screenshots of messages in Slack on the Japan channel and telling me, on our drive to the airport on our last day, “We need a plan for January ‘28.”

Honestly he does this all the time so maybe it’s not an end of cohort thing.

As for me, I pulled out my travel speaker, which hadn’t gotten too much use in three months, and blasted pop music in the house while I washed dishes and vacuumed.

~

I’m not that sad to leave Uruguay. La Barra did not speak to my soul in the way Syros did. I loved the Boundless team, and speaking broken Spanish with the locals at my favorite coffee shop, and our two estancia stays were my favorite family trips we’ve ever taken, but I hated all the driving, and how walking didn’t always feel safe on the dirt roads, and how if I didn’t speak Spanish or attempt to speak Spanish, sometimes it made me feel less welcome.

Something I hope for in each cohort is that Sam and I will meet a family that we’ll want to do life with. It hasn’t happened yet—that perfect alignment where the whole package of husband and wife and kids all sync up in perfect harmony. Does such a thing exist? When it doesn’t happen, I feel deflated by the 3-month experience even when there is so much else that makes me want to keep traveling the world with my family in this way.

~

I will miss the black dog who always stood in the middle of our street and wagged his tail when we passed him on the way to school, I will miss the kids’ teacher, Maya, who always had a mate in her hand and looked frazzled and happy at the end of the day, I will miss my Spanish teacher and speaking a different language. And oh, how I will miss the bidet.

—

Until next week,

Charlie