Uruguayan Ambassador’s visit

By Cara Drysdale-Burford, Year 10 student

On Tuesday 23 August, the Year 10 Spanish class was visited by the Uruguayan Ambassador to Australia, Señora Dianela Pi.

Señora Pi taught us about Uruguay's traditions, landmarks, foods and history. Many of us realised, through this, that Australia is very similar to Uruguay.

During the conversation, we found it fascinating learning about the history of Uruguay, especially learning about the First Nations people (the Charrúa people) and the movement of people to the country. Uruguay also has many interesting and similar foods and cooking techniques to Australia; for example, both countries are big on barbeque cooking (asado).

Uruguayans enjoy drinking yerba mate, a hot tea-like drink out of gourds. We also learnt about the celebration of Gnocchi Day, which is also very intriguing. Everyone across the country eats gnocchi (ñoquis) for dinner on the 29th day of each month. They place money under their plate of ñoquis for good luck. Although the origins of this is unknown, people still continue to follow this tradition.