Things I Find Puzzling About Uruguay

Posted on June 19, 2007
Filed Under Economy, Culture | 20 Comments

In a previous article I discussed the ten things I love about Montevideo. And, taking the lead from the Uruguayan blogger Gabo, I had thought it would be logical to follow with my list of ten things I hate about Uruguay. But there’s nothing I hate about Uruguay. Besides, I think it would be impolite of me to make such a list about a country I want to make my home. So I decided instead to write about things I find puzzling about Uruguay. By puzzling I mean I don’t clearly understand the cause or how other countries have managed to overcome these issues. I am sure there are must be good explanations for these things, so feel free to write in to share your insight.

Here are five things I find puzzling about Uruguay:

Tourism – Revenue from tourism and related services represents more that 30% of the Uruguayan economy. Given that fact, I would have expected the tourism industry to be efficient and service oriented, but it is not. Here are a few examples based on our recent four-week vacation in Uruguay: many restaurants don’t accept credit cards, anything other than local currency. Making reservations at hotels and cabañas through e-mail or on-line can take several days to yield a response. Most hotels require upfront payment in dollars, in cash. Tourism information booths are often closed or when open insufficiently staffed with under-trained attendants. Businesses often do not follow the hours of operation posted outside.

Cash – Cash is still king in Uruguay. Transactions involving large sums of money are often done in cash. For example, renting a home, buying a used car often requires cash and in many cases dollars. Most small businesses do not accept credit cards or checks.

Bureaucracy – The inefficiency of bureaucracy is pervasive and seems to be ingrained in the culture or mind set. The cost to society must be huge yet it lives on.

Computers and Internet Sites – Most small and medium sized businesses have little or no Internet presence. E-mail is still used little as a business tool. There are a large number of sites still using old-fashioned flash intros with click-here-to-enter type of design. Most government agencies and small businesses use computers only as an office tool, rather than as a tool to streamline operations and increase productivity.

College Education – A modern economy needs all kinds of skills that fall outside what is offered in the typical college degrees in Uruguay. It seems that by providing free higher education the government provides incentives for training in fields for which there is little or no internal job market and fuels emigration. As it is structured, the system appears very counterproductive.

I don’t know enough about the underlying economics and politics to put the pieces together. I recognize that many factors may be at play including: demographics, the impact of the 2002 recession, alternative markets, politics and/or corruption, government policies, etc. However, other countries in the region have or are overcoming similar challenges/obstacles.

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20 Responses to “Things I Find Puzzling About Uruguay”

urufish on June 19th, 2007 6:10 pm

Add car rentals to your first item. There are 2 kinds of rentals. International companies which charge unbelievable rates (which means they rent mostly to NA’s and Europeans) with unlimited mileage. You can put the rental on a credit card along with a usual USD$500 deposit on your credit card. Type 2 are the locals. Their rates are less than half of the others. But you pay the USD$500 deposit in cash, as well as the rental.

Whoever (I have never figured this out to this day) operates the credit card processing system in Uruguay operates as a monopoly without government supervision (or perhaps with lucrative government supervision?). The rates charges to vendors are supposed to be double what we see in the north. They vetting process is very difficult and expensive. In short, they want larger players with bigger margins who can pay bigger fees without whining.

We used to use cash for everything once upon a time. Now we use a letra de cambio (that’s what it sounds like to me). It’s a banker’s cheque. It’s not expensive. I used to ask for a ‘certified cheque’. Must have a different meaning than at home because it’s way more expensive.

Have nothing to add about bureaucracy. My limited experience hasn’t turned up anything different other than it can take 2 weeks or more to search title on a house.

I always thought Uruguayans had very cool websites a few years ago. Maybe they were ahead of the curve then and have slowed down now. Email isn’t common here as a business tool. I’ve forced everyone I deal with to use it. I prefer it to talking details. If you insist, they will. Maybe they see it as a cold way to do business.

You’re right on the college education. I think it stems from the value placed on professions as a thing of national pride. I think my grandparents would be a good analogy. They felt that all the grandchildren should be doctors, lawyers and dentists in that order. When my cousin graduated from law school, my grandfather looked at me (I had dropped out of school by then) and said that I was smarter than him and I should have been a doctor. Then he called me a bum. I think if you have the brains here and you don’t go through university, society labels you a bum.
Brazzie on June 20th, 2007 10:06 am

Education is a puzzling thing, because it is easy to take the position that more is always better. But that is not always the case.

In Uruguay there is a pressure to get a degree. Since it is free, why wouldn’t you? But the current system forces adolescents to make lifelong career decisions too early in life. The system is also inflexible, with few electives and does not allow for the student to choose a path he/she might excel in. Once you decided to become an Architect at, say, age 16, they make it hard for you to change your mind. In most cases, in order to change you have to start from scratch, so few people do it, even if they realize they made a mistake.

And when at 25, you finally realize that there are thousands of other unemployed architects out there, it is hard to simply say: oh well, I guess I’ll just be a hotel manager instead. It leads to unmotivated and frustrated workers.
urufish on June 20th, 2007 11:14 am

I didn’t know that what you describe is the system in place today. My wife told me that exact same story. She decided to be an architect at 15 or 16 and believe it or not, she got into first year architecture and discovered the hard way, she didn’t have the math and ended up dropping out. With no way to go back, she went to Canada to get a job as an airline stewardess.

I thought they’d changed the system by now. that was over 30 years ago.
IBMike on June 20th, 2007 3:35 pm

Spot on Brazzie.

Tourism – Before I came to live here I emailed three hotels asking for rates and availability. I didn’t receive a single reply. FuBarrio made an interesting comment on his blog. In almost every tourist city around the world you’ll find horse-drawn carriages that give the tourists a ride through the old part of town for fifty bucks. In Uruguay the only horse-drawn anything you see are the garbage pickers.

Cash – Yep, cash is necessary. Every month I go to my bank to withdraw the rent money in US dollars then I go to the other side of the mall to deposit it in my landlord’s US dollar savings account. The only bill you can pay online (as far as I know) is Antel. For the rest of the bills you take a stack of paper with you to Abitab or the post office and pay them in cash.

Bureaucracy – Don’t get me going on this one!! I’ve written several entries on my blog about the bureaucracy of getting imported items through Uruguayan Customs. If the item you’re importing is under US$50 there’s one set of rules, if it’s over US$100 you need a customs agent to get it out for you. If it’s under US$100 and you want to go to the airport to release the item from customs yourself you can do it. When you get to the airport the first problem is finding the Customs building — no signs. Next, when you finally get to the right place there are no signs telling you where to start the process. Once you figure out that you start at the cashier’s window you then have to work your way through ten, yep ten, different steps before you can walk out of the building with your item. There are more than ten people involved with the transaction including two different cashiers in two different locations to pay two different taxes. The only good thing I can say about it is that you don’t have to take a number at any of the steps.

Computers and Internet Sites – It is becoming more common to see business with an Internet presence … but then again, I’m a technology geek and a lot of the business I deal with here are technology related in some way. I do notice an over abundance of animation. There was one Argentine site I stumbled across that had so many words blinking and scrolling across the page along with animated gifs. It was making me nauseous looking at the page.

College Education – This is the saddest one of all. They put so much pressure and importance on getting that diploma. Education here isn’t about expanding your mind or learning a trade. It’s all about the diploma. It’s funny that you mention architects since it seems like architecture is the number one profession chosen by Uruguayans. Of course, if they actually want to be an architect they must leave Uruguay.

Not only is the university system/process different but it is physically different as well. There are no university campuses. That alone increases expenses and reduces efficiency. And, as you noted, it segregates students who have chosen different majors. It is difficult to change once they’ve started working on a degree and they aren’t exposed to all of the variety of subjects and majors that are offered in a campus setting. I started out studying accounting in school — boring — then after my freshmen year switched to computers.

Change here is so slow. It seems like the people most likely to insist on and implement change are the ones who leave out of frustration or a desire to earn a living working in their chosen profession.
Brazzie on June 20th, 2007 4:38 pm

IBMike, thanks for the great comments.

Your description of the Trámites with the Aduana are sobering. When I get there, I will try to avoid ordering stuff from the US as much as possible.
urufish on June 20th, 2007 5:35 pm

I’ve had a good laugh at Mike’s experience with customs. My rule is if I need something sent to me here, it goes to a shipper in Toronto who puts it in a container that comes here 34 days later, never seen by customs.

The one time I made an exception to this rule, I used Fedex. The package got here, but was sent back to the US because, no kidding, Fedex said my address didn’t exist. I double checked the Fedex address online and it really was my correct address. I just left it in limbo.
Futurexpat on June 20th, 2007 9:26 pm

I suspect that another one of the reasons that so many businesses insist upon cash payments is the national sales tax. A credit card transaction leaves a paper trail, but a cash transaction can be kept off the books. The retailer pockets the tax rather than sending it on to the government.

One thing that puzzles me is that I’ve been told that payment by check is an unusual thing in UY. I think it’s ridiculous that people should be made to carry large quantities of cash through the city in order to pay a bill, when elsewhere in the world a check can be sent through the mail or filled out and presented in person with simple ID.
la vieja on June 21st, 2007 12:00 pm

Does all this fall under the category of having one’s cake and eating it too???

Bureaucrats and the accompanying red tape and obstacles are hardly unique to Uruguay. Admittedly Uy is behind the times a bit however in other arenas the “slow” and “behind the times” climate is precisely the reason many of us choose it.

Education is the single most important factor in maintaining a civilized society. Certainly a broader choice and more flexibility would be a great benefit here. Uruguay and Uruguayans have always been resistant to change. Bemoaning an educated populace???? Would we prefer more prisons as in the US? What we need is redirection and additional career options. Rehabilitation and mobility devices, universal accesibility, recreational therapies, elderly services, technology for individuals, communications etc etc. With little information about career availability a young teen making a choice gravitates towards something familiar which may not be a good fit.

Tourism is one area which could be enhanced with a bit of updating in the other areas mentioned. If there were better access and services it would be a bigger draw for the boomer generation which has the resources to travel.

As for it being a cash society, believe it or not there has been some significant forward movement. In the not so distant past bills had to be paid at the issuing company. Paying these was a large portion of one’s day. With cambios and Abitab locations accepting most payments we have moved at least one step forward. Another mile or two…

All in all, every place has its unique quirks and puzzlements. Taken as a whole, Uruguay is our choice.
Brazzie on June 21st, 2007 12:59 pm

La Vieja, thank you for your comments. We also have chosen Uruguay because it is how it is.

However I do disagree with your position on education. It is not so much a matter of bemoaning the fact that Uruguay has an educated population. But rather, the fact that it spends so much of its limited budget on free higher education for all and on narrowly defined degrees that are not needed or useful. I personally think the current education policy produces hordes of frustrated young graduates and is a great contributor to the emigration problem. In my view, training and employing an excellent hotel manager makes much more sense (and is cheaper) than churning out ten unemployable architects.

I also think that if more of the budget currently going to higher education were allocated to basic education and vocational schools, the country would be better served.

For the record, I went through a similar system in Brazil that paid for my college education, my masters and post-graduate studies abroad. I never paid a dime from my pocket. When I tried to get a job in Brazil in my area (Mechanical Engineering), it was impossible. I was way too specialized. After all that incredibly hard effort, I was not willing to throw it all away and start something new from scratch. So, with the tail between my legs, I emigrated.
la vieja on June 21st, 2007 5:09 pm

I certainly agree that the education available should be more appropriate to the needs and thus the job market. There is a tremendous need for skills that can be learned both in trade school settings and in universities. The problem as I see it is that Uruguayans rarely, if ever, think ‘outside the box’ and there is little encouragement to do so. Thus a young adult with no exposure to what is available in the work world makes a choice which he or she must then use for his livelihood forever. Bad idea.
In essence, we are in agreement. I was merely pointing out that no place is perfect.
I’ll take the imperfections, work on some that I can impact, and likely gripe about others like everyone else. All in all, I think Uruguay is a good choice!
Global Voices Online » Uruguay: Puzzling Things on June 25th, 2007 8:21 pm

[…] Dreaming lists “Things I Find Puzzling About Uruguay,” in which he does not mean to be impolite, but rather finds difficult to understand. Share […]
Shirley on June 26th, 2007 12:02 am

IBMike said: “There are no university campuses…. it segregates students who have chosen different majors.” Great insight! Entrepreneurial ventures in the US are very often started by partners who met in college, where they had the opportunity to work together and were literally surrounded by a wealth of diverse ideas from a mix of fields, both academic and practical. It had not quite dawned on me that this type of environment is lacking here.

I’m continuing to grope toward understanding the factors that are hindering entrepreneurial development (and hence job creation) here. It’s certainly not due to any lack of intelligence or education or motivation. I think you’ve put your finger on one contributing factor.

More food for thought is here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
Graham is talking specifically about high-tech startups, but some of the ideas are applicable to small business ventures in general.
Lisa on July 2nd, 2007 4:56 pm

It seems others have read more into Brazzie’s words than I can find there. I don’t see him “bemoaning an educated populace” nor is he claiming that other places are better than Uruguay. He clearly stated his desire to understand more about the things that puzzle him. I’ve read this entire blog, including the “about me” and FAQ and my impression about Brazzie is that he is enamored of Montevideo and Uruguayans and has great optimism for Uruguay’s future… and he is trying his best to be informed, think about the details necessary to adapt to living there (and trying to encourage others to do so too!). Unlike other expat blogs, he does not take a tone of criticism …and he encourages learning the language rather than expecting locals to speak English.
Lisa on July 2nd, 2007 6:47 pm

I have been curious/puzzled, too. Uruguay is a windy place. I wonder whether Uruguay has considered investing in wind energy. Has anyone noticed or come across articles about it?
Brazzie on July 4th, 2007 4:00 pm

Hi Lisa, this article mentions that Uruguay has tried to develop wind power generation, but so far without much success.

http://www.globe-net.ca/market_reports/index.cfm?ID_Report=680
Cristobal on July 11th, 2007 8:41 pm

Hi! I´m reading this discussion because an e-pal living in the UK, who wants to move to a Latin American country asked me to give him my opinion on this.

I am an Uruguayan living in Uruguay and a History teacher too. I work in public education and found the items you stated in the blog very interesting. In fact, because it is an external view of foreigners that have lived in or have been to Uruguay. I would like to add something.

Uruguay, as you know, is not a rich country and the poverty is increasing every day. That is not to justify the things that do not work properly here, but they may explain or complicate the discussion a bit.

Why? Of course getting a diploma is seen here as a “distinction”: “My son the doctor” as in the famous play by an Uruguayan writer. It is considered a great goal, because in the decades of 1920 and 1950, with an economy growing, and the possibility of social mobility, the working class felt the prize for their sacrifice was that their children could become a “diplomated” worker. So this “dream come true” became an illusion for every Uruguayan; and when the crisis started (in the 70 and continued to the present) people wanted to return to better times. That is rooted in the fact we are a conservative society, more than other Latin American countries.

Everyday many students go to school (I work with them), but unfortunately many of them won´t go to a University, because of their social origin (not well fed, not high level of knowledge, no expectancies about the future), and those who can go to the University, need to travel to Montevideo, the capital city, get a job, work and study at the same time.

Regarding titles and degrees, we are just 3 million inhabitants. So the market is too small, and of course there aren’t enough places to work as an architect, vet, doctor, lawyer, etc; and degrees from other institutes aren’t seen as prestigious as being a student from a University.

While those tourist guide, administration, computing technicals, etc courses are very good, society insists on thinking it is better to become an unemployed Universitarian. I think it is harder to change a Uruguayan´s mind than to change poverty or the world´s relationship!

Well this are my words to you. Excuse me for my English!
Brazzie on July 11th, 2007 9:05 pm

Thanks Cristobal for your analysis. It is no doubt a complex issue that is intricately tied to the society as a whole and its perceptions of what is right for one’s children.
Lisa on July 11th, 2007 9:24 pm

Hi Cristobal!
First, I tell you that you do not need ask pardon for your English. It is quite good and your comments very interesting.

Second… I ask you to write in with the title (in Spanish) of the play and the author you mention.

Third… I agree with your comments about economics and poverty being at the root of the problem…

Do you know of any non-governmental-organizations (ONG) that may be working to fight poverty. When I move to Uruguay, I would like to volunteer and there may be other readers interested.

Best - Lisa
Cristobal on July 12th, 2007 8:57 am

Hi Lisa, thanks for considering my English good, (but when I posted the comment I found two mistakes!).

Well the author is Florencio Sánchez, who wrote this play in the beginning of the 20th century. It is about a young man who studied to be a doctor. The name is “M´hijo el dotor”, the titles seems to be incorrectly written but it is the way many people used to speak, so they pronounce “doto” in spite of “doCtor”, and “m´hijo” in spite of “mi hijo”.

There are many ONGs working, and from the government, when the left wing party took the power in 2005, they created the Ministry of Social development, with the social plans to fight against poverty.

Today for example, I was reading that many people over 30 years old could learn how to write their own names or read the bus’ advices with a special plan. If you want more information, you can access the Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, MIDES, www.mides.gub.uy
gaberoo on July 17th, 2007 8:02 am

I could think of another Florencio Sanchez title more fitting to today’s times in Uruguay: Barranca Abajo.

I’ve had many an argument over education in Uruguay with fellow students going over some of what’s been mentioned above.
I agree with La Vieja regarding education being a type of “pressure valve” for society (instead of being idle and restive, many are busy studying to complete what are, for the most part, long careers).

A bloated government bureaucracy is another of society’s pressure valves (keeps unemployment lower than it would be were the bureaucratic apparatus much smaller). The flip side to both of the above is that neither are very efficient nor are they very effective in their purported goals: turning out professionals of the highest caliber and making government streamlined as well as cost effective.

The training in many fields is hampered by very high student loads and insufficient funds to optimally train such high numbers. When you have a professional school (law, medicine, architecture, economics, engineering, etc) originally designed to train 100 enrollees per year now (well, this overabundance of students has been going on for several decades) routinely accepting classes as large as 1,000 per year, the quality of the training is bound to suffer (and it has).

In the end you wind up with educated, unemployed people who now, if anything, have higher expectations/aspirations and which will, inevitably, find emigration as their only viable option. And this “brain drain” costs the country not only in the potential talent that leaves, but also in the money spent training these professionals.

It’s been said before, and I’ve heard it mentioned in discussions among friends, that schooling in Uruguay is very “theoretical” and not very in tune with today’s demands.

Aren’t decades of a declining standard of living enough to dissuade the typical Uruguayan conservative mindset from their “usual way” of doing things?

Things I Find Puzzling About Uruguay

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