<p><strong>Published in the 'Buenos Aires Herald', 19 March 2008</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Do you ever wish that your city tour would take you behind the scenes, beyond the pages of your guide book? Do you dream of crowd-free tours that show you what YOU want to see, rather than what's on the guide's schedule? Would you enjoy the personalized service of professional native English-speaking guides, who have lived in the country for many years, know the city inside out, love it, and enjoy sharing it with visitors?</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Well, Liz and Richard Cowley of Real English Tours, a new company in Montevideo, Uruguay, offer you all this and more.</p> <p>We had dinner with Richard and Liz last night in their home in the centre of Montevideo, just a stone's throw from the River Plate. We agreed that there are a few simple answers to the question that so many friends in America and Europe ask us: Why Uruguay? Because Uruguay is quiet. Uruguay is stress-free. Uruguay doesn't have traffic jams. Uruguay is cheap. And Uruguay is beautiful.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>After many years working in Uruguay, Liz and Richard felt so at home that they decided to retire here. Seeing a gap in the market, they decided to set up their company, which offers &lsquo;tours with a difference'. And it's true. They are different. I know Montevideo well, and I have been on three of Liz's tours. I will happy join her for more. Every time I get inside the home of another Uruguayan historical hero, see a different museum, learn something new.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>No bored guides rambling on in poor English, spouting memorized facts. No busloads of tourists being told to get off the bus at what the guide thinks is a suitable photo stop.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>With Liz and Richard, you get what you want. On a historical tour, Liz will explore the old city with you, visiting buildings and museums hidden down narrow streets, and, through her anecdotes, will give you a real feel of what Montevideo was like in the colonial days. Richard is a historian, and his presentation and tour about the Battle of the River Plate and sunken German battleship, the Graf Spee, are unique.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>But Liz and Richard are experts in many fields: if you want to know about vintage cars, visit vineyards, or simply go shopping, they will be happy to arrange it, and will accompany you on a Real English Tour.</p> <p><br />Have a look at their website: http://www.realenglishtours.com/graf.html</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong>Published in 'The Oldie', March 2008</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Carrasco, a privileged suburb twelve miles east of Montevideo, is sandwiched between the Rio de la Plata to the south and Avenida d'Italia to the north. Leafy avenues lead to the river, where the broad Rambla welcomes joggers and walkers. Elegantly tracksuited ladies drive their BMWs to the Lawn Tennis Club, or discuss Botox treatments in their Pilates class at the Cottage Hotel.</p> <p><br /> But there are signs that this opulence is not all there is to life in Montevideo.</p> <p><br /> Guards do twelve-hour shifts in booths outside mansions, young men walk twelve dogs at a time, and the hurgadores - the rag and bone men - clop along with their horses and carts, stopping to rummage in the green plastic bins at street corners. There are stories of bag-snatching and break-ins.</p> <p><br /> Just north of Avenida d'Italia is the suburb of Carrasco Norte. Here, dirt roads lead to tumbledown shacks, water from this year's record rain stagnates with rubbish in ditches, and children steal whatever they can to pay for their p<em>asta base</em>, the local equivalent of crack cocaine.</p> <p><br /> Not far from the Lawn Tennis Club, but firmly separated by Avenida d'Italia, in an area of Carrasco Norte called La Cruz, some run-down buildings cluster around a courtyard. This is La Pascua, an NGO which welcomes children for after-school support, and offers secondary education to those who have missed out.</p> <p><br /> In a multipurpose room, a teacher tells a group of youngsters about Artigas, Uruguay's 19th century liberator and national hero. A tango class is being held in a classroom. Outside in the courtyard, some children kick a football around while others play ping-pong at a table shaped like a V, with a piece of cardboard slotted into the crack in the middle as a net.</p> <p><br /> As I walk in, they call &lsquo;<em>Hola, Profe</em>!' and run up to me. Kisses all round.</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;It's Paola, not <em>Profe</em>, remember?'</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;Okay, Teacher.'</p> <p><br /> A few teenagers follow me into an empty classroom.</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;<em>Profe</em>, I have an English exam tomorrow, and I need to know the Past Continuous and Present Perfect and Passive...'</p> <p><br /> This is Estela, overweight, brown teeth, orange hair, who can't say &lsquo;My name's Estela' in English.</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;Okay, let's start with something practical...'</p> <p><br /> Miriam pushes a stroller in. She's sixteen, beautiful, with a sad smile. She sits down, pulls up her jumper, and hoists three-month-old Manuela to her breast. Daniel, a punk-haired adolescent with so many piercings you can hardly see his face, picks Manuela's dummy off the floor and tosses it into the stroller.</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;<em>Profe</em>,' Miriam says, &lsquo;I have an oral exam tomorrow and I haven't studied. My boyfriend's mother died last week. AIDS. She got it on the street.'</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;You're okay, Miriam?' I ask.</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;Yes, I'm fine, and my boyfriend too. We had the test. But <em>Profe</em>, I have to invent a phone conversation for my exam.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>About buying something. Business English. I have to pass. I owe it to Manuela.'</p> <p><br /> The Spanish is clipped and slangy, but I get the gist.</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;Right, everyone, let's help Miriam. Miriam, imagine what you might need to buy. In bulk.'</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;Pa&ntilde;ales. Nappies.'</p> <p><br /> &lsquo;Fine. Estela, you're the receptionist. How about we start like this: "Happy Nappies, Estela speaking, can I help you?"'</p> <p><br /> We all work for an hour. Estela makes no progress with her complicated tenses, but she is an excellent Happy Nappies receptionist.</p> <p><br /> For that hour at least, no-one is smoking, drinking, or taking <em>pasta base.</em></p> <p><br /> And miraculously, Miriam passes her exam.</p> <p><br /> It's the little things that give you joy. Not many expats get to see this half of Uruguay. Here in Carrasco Norte, I feel privileged.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong><br />Published in 'The Oldie', Summer Special 2009</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>"Today is the 63rd anniversary of the Liberation of Rome," my father says. He has a great memory for dates. Most days mark a historical event for him. It's early June and I'm spending a few days with my parents.</p> <p><br />"Let's celebrate," says my mother. "I'll show you Rome."</p> <p><br />Does Rome feel like home? Not really. When I was growing up in East Africa, Italy was a magical, faraway place we visited every few years.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>My father is openly ashamed of being Italian. "The English are so polite," he says, "and civically educated. They stand in queues, their buses run on time, you can always find a seat...but Italy? Noise, traffic, indiscipline, inefficiency, corruption, lack of respect..."</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>But today, as we board the bus, nothing gives substance to my father's shame. It's nine on a quiet Sunday morning, and there are plenty of free seats. "Just luck," says my father.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Our bus takes us to Piazza Barberini, where Bernini's Triton kneels on a scallop, raising a conch to his lips: from it a jet of water spurts. We are bound for another Bernini masterpiece.</p> <p><br />We enter Piazza Venezia, dominated by the gaudy structure the Romans call "The Wedding Cake", and alight at Largo Argentina. My father, a doctor well into his eighties, works at a nearby hospital four days a week.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>We board a tram, and our journey ends across the Tiber in Trastevere. My sprightly seventy-eight-year-old mother guides us through deserted streets to the church of San Francesco a Ripa in Piazza San Francesco d'Assisi.</p> <p><br />This church houses Bernini's statue of the sixteenth-century Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, renowned for her religious ecstasies. The first impression one gets is that she is in full orgasm, but the artist's biographers claim she is "not in ecstasy, but in the act of death". Her head is thrown back, her mouth open, and her hand clasps her breast.</p> <p><br />We amble down the cobbled Via San Michele to the Basilica of Santa Cecilia to see a sculpture of the martyred Cecilia by the Renaissance sculptor Stefano Maderno. Another shocking image: a woman lies on her side, her head turned to the ground, a deep gash across her neck. Cecilia's death was by decapitation.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>"We lived near here," my father says, as we stroll into the Jewish quarter. He is a quiet man, and rarely speaks about the war years. But today he opens up. "We were lucky in some ways. Pap&aacute; used to get cheap nails and razor blades from the hardware store where he worked, and three times a week, my brother and I cycled twenty miles into the countryside, our bikes laden. We exchanged them for flour, pasta and beans. So the family managed to survive pretty well. But it was tough. I was exhausted all the time, and had to study too." As medical students, he and his brother, the eldest of seven siblings, were not called up for military service.</p> <p><br />"I clearly remember the sixteenth of October 1943," he continues. "I was nineteen. We heard that the Germans were rounding up Jews." Our surname is one shared by many Jews in Rome. "We hid in the cupola of Santa Maria in Campitelli for two weeks." He pauses.</p> <p><br />"When the Allies arrived, we were overjoyed. We befriended two British soldiers, a sergeant from Lancashire and a sapper from Kent. We'd studied English at school, but we had trouble understanding their strong accents. We kept in touch for many years after the war. Such gentlemen."</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>We head homewards. Our bus takes us to Termini station, where we have to catch a tube. A scene unfolds on the platform opposite: a drunk is ranting. "I am an extracomunitario - I am not a European citizen. You Europeans..." he gradually becomes more vociferous. A guard moves in and the drunk settles down. Two policemen appear. They stand calmly in front of the drunk. No one speaks.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Our tube arrives. I reflect on our morning. Maybe it was fortuitous that the streets today were clean, there was little traffic, and the police were efficient. But also, the sun was shining - it usually does in Rome - and the warm air was filled with the heady scent of jasmine and oleander. And most importantly, I spent time with my parents, sharing their glorious city. My father may not be proud to be Italian but today I am proud on his behalf.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>