The Geography of Emotions: Montevideo, Uruguay.

A Dutch travel writer came to Sri Lanka at a moment of personal crisis. He capitalized on his grief to write a bestseller that depicted the tropical island as a demonic place.  The work was artful but distorted by both internal angst and Eurocentrism.

I thought about this as I sat down to write this essay on Uruguay. My husband David and I spent a month in Montevideo in March/April 2026. On the day we arrived, we got devastating news from David’s brother. During our 30 days in Montevideo, we grieved the loss of our youngest nephew and worried about his parents, brothers, and all the loved ones he left behind.

Walking along the shoreline of the South Atlantic Sea, David checked in on his brother. Dave has decades of professional experience working with people in times of crisis. But he was without words to comfort someone he loved so much. He listened, we walked, we cried. We passed children playing with waves and building sand castles. Our broken hearts could not appreciate their joy.

We bought flowers for ourselves to brighten our mood, and we were careful to get plenty of sun, but the sadness that does exist in the Uruguayan capital loomed out of proportion. The city’s beauty was harder for us to see. 

At another moment, I would be celebrating Montevideo’s wide, stable sidewalks. Now I was acutely aware of the people sleeping on them.  Uruguay is the richest nation in Latin America. There were noticeably fewer people working in the informal economy than in Peru, Colombia, or southern Chile. There were no children on the beach selling trinkets. But humans were monitoring every trash bin. In Istanbul, cats frightened me when I put my hand in a bin. In Montevideo, humans startled me, climbing out of a garbage container as we passed by. In the process of these searches for something to eat, wear, or use, trash would fall out of the bin and float down the street, picked up by Montevideo’s ubiquitous wind.

Uruguay is a safer place for tourists than Lima or Medellin. But the fact that people are not targeting foreigners or stealing phones does not mean that there was peace, equity, or happiness there. The country has the highest suicide rate in Latin America. It is hard to know if that also reflects a more honest accounting than Peru, which reports the lowest rate:12 times lower. All I can say is that it was apparent to us that times were hard, emotionally and financially, for many.

Unlike Colombia and Peru, Uruguay is a majority European country. This is not from a lack of an Indigenous population, but the thoroughness of genocidal policies toward the Charrúa and Guarani people in the 1830s and onward. In other words, the Europeans massacred inhabitants and stole their land with impunity. White people embraced a myth of Indigenous extinction in Uruguay for decades, until DNA testing added biological proof to bolster communities re-engaging with their Indigenous roots. The trans-Atlantic slave trade extended into Uruguay in the 18th century. (We just missed the end of Carnival, a month-long celebration of African resistance and freedom, celebrated in February.) Eleven percent of the population is Afro-Uruguayan today.

Uruguay is a small country shadowed by its giant neighbors. Argentina and Brazil both controlled the territory at one time. It seemed to me that Uruguay was less likely to reify these conflicts than most places, emphasizing current cooperation between neighbors and encouraging cross-pollination. Maybe that is reflected in kinder immigration policies and rhetoric, and an embrace of multicultural borrowing? Unlike Greece and Turkey, which do not like to hear each other’s idiom, or Latvia, which has bans on the Russian language, Uruguayans are eager to learn Brazilian Portuguese.

Another example of multi-cultural borrowing is the Museo Historico del Arte, which celebrates facsimiles of great art from around the world. Nothing is stolen here, just copied: the greatest works from Egypt, Iran, Italy, Denmark, et al.

Other things I appreciated in  Montevideo:

• The government is progressive. The country had a military dictatorship for twelve years, from 1973 to 1985, and there is a prevailing sentiment that overcoming it was a great collective achievement. Unlike many nations in Latin America that are swinging to the right, there is a broad commitment not to go backward. Since 1985, the government has been generally left-wing. Progressive values and priorities are visible in the embrace of LGBTQ populations, the separation of church and state, the protection of public spaces along the water, and even free public bathrooms staffed by city employees. It is not a police state. Tourists are not protected at the expense of the population.  We saw protests of the right and left variety, only lightly monitored.
• The eclectic street statues and memorials, and free, small museums make Montevideo a pleasure to wander in. Where else, outside of Asia, will you find two major statues in two major parks that honor Confucius, one alone, the other towering over the city with Lao Tzu? How many cities have a statue marking the Armenian genocide, with a clear unequivical never-again-for-anyone message? How many have a park celebrating sexual diversity? Where, outside of Central America, will you find a monument to the Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario, not far from one honoring Winston Churchill?

We came to Uruguay from Chile and were delighted on our first day to find Salvador Allende, the Socialist elected in 1973 and overthrown by the CIA,  honored with a little park and a statue. We also found an entire corner devoted to solidarity with Palestinians—an installation that occupies 30 feet and has been there since February 2006 —and a tiny free museum celebrating the recent immigrant experience, with an emphasis on the stories of LGBTQ people who fled to Uruguay from less welcoming places.

• Montevideo was a fantastic place to be on March 8, International Women’s Day. The manifestation was massive, and the energy electric with purple-clad women and femmes of every generation. They came in groups and held banners representing labor, anti-imperialist, and feminist organizations, and with friends, or on their own, holding personal signs with messages that spoke truth to patriarchy and corporate power. The emblem of the march was a woman’s face with a purple bandana in the shape of Latin America: a message of continental solidarity at a moment of heightened US invasions and interventions. We could not believe the size of the march. It seemed to stretch for miles.
• We got to be social in Montevideo three times. We met up with a friend from South Minneapolis attending a language school. Pasha and David have uncannily parallel career histories, begining with college time in Latin America in the same study-abroad program. It was great to hear about how Pasha’s block organized against Operation Metro Surge, collecting mutual aid for eight families targeted by ICE, who could not leave their homes.  We also had lunch with a former student of mine, one of a handful of people with whom I became friends after a course ended. Laura teaches math at an American school in the city. It was great to see her thriving. Finally, we connected with strangers-no-more, Kathi and Tim, people who are also retired full-time travelers. Finding these two, and a community of people living as we do, online, was a high point in a low month.

Finally, I enjoyed how Uruguayans lovingly carry and caress a thermos and a gourd cup, sometimes in a little case, throughout the day, wherever they go. I wondered if Uruguayan doctors tend to a unique type of brachial carpal tunnel. I saw people with protest signs, groceries, briefcases, lovers, and children in tow, also holding a carafe, mug, and metal spoon/straw to enhance their lives with a fresh sip of yerba mate.