Dona E. Bowens

Now that the book is done, I’m giving myself permission to let the bitching and moaning begin. Let’s start with the book, shall we? Think what you want about the behemoth that is Amazon squeezing out the little guys. For an independent author like me, it’s a godsend. Amazon lets me cut out the middlemen of agents and publishers in order to get my scribblings directly to the people. Sure they take a healthy cut of the sales price but wouldn’t a traditional publisher do the same? Anyway, my point is that there is very little Amazon delivery service in Uruguay. To get proofs of my own goddamn book, I had to send the proofs to a shipping company intermediary. The intermediary will in turn deal with the customs bureaucracy of Uruguay and hopefully, fingers crossed, get the goddamn proofs to me sometime next week. So far I’ve paid nearly 100 bucks for this service. Why so complicated, Uruguay?

I feel like I was brought to Uruguay to be bored enough to finally get the book done, and now that I have, I sit in the liminal space waiting on the universe to open the door for my exit. I don’t know how it will happen, but I trust in the magic that has brought me this far. While I wait, I teach a few classes with Uruguayan students and I’ve decided that, since I’m giving myself permission to bitch and moan, I might as well confess that I don’t like these people very much. Well, let me be more specific, I don’t like two of my Uruguayan students. I once had 5 students. Two dropped off. The only cool one is a grandma who’s a world traveler. That leaves the two 27-year-old “boys” who I have for conversation class. Never in my life have I met such openly transphobic individuals and I find it shocking. Shocking because Uruguay presents itself to the world as a place of acceptance and chill. Not these boys.

Now you know that, for me to have been an English teacher for 20 years, the only way to survive is to joke in class and make the lessons fun for myself. I encourage joking in class. For these fools, their idea of joking goes something like this:

Dona: Kevin, ask Richard to tell you about something he saw on the news recently.

Kevin: Ok. Richard, did you see on the news recently that you’re TRANS?

Richard: No. But that “woman” you picked up at the club might be TRANS!

😒

This is their idea of hilarious. I have this job through an agency so I didn’t put belt to ass the first 300 times they came with the trans jokes. If they’d been my private students, I would have cut them off a long time ago. However, I got fed up last week and finally said, “It’s getting old. The trans jokes? Enough. Every class it’s the same unoriginal jokes.”

Know what they told me after a brief discussion? Richard told me that I “didn’t understand Uruguay.”

Apparently he’s correct. I don’t understand Uruguay. If coming to understand Uruguay means turning a blind eye to transphobia, then count me all the way out.

I dread every class with these ass hats and it’s a battle everyday not to quit.

I could keep bitching and moaning about the bland (or salty), overpriced and low-quality food but you’ve heard it all before. When I landed in Barcelona a month ago and took a bite of fideu at Rosa’s birthday party, I was reminded of what food is supposed to taste like. It was nearly orgasmic. Since returning from Barcelona my palate has changed and can only abide chicken I cook myself and frozen veggies. I suppose, in its way, Uruguay has forced me into a healthier diet. Even the pizza is bizarre…let me stop.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Mostly I’m in good spirits while waiting for the escape portal to open. And when it does, I’m outta here faster than shit through a goose.