Presents Chivipizza

After publishing yesterday afternoon the note on who I believe is the first president of a nation who is truly a surfer In the history of humanity, the Uruguayan Luis Lacalle Pou, I tried a trick on the air, to get an interview with him.

I sent a WhatsApp message to the number that a friend had given me. I had high hopes but few certainties. There are 8.500 journalists asking to speak to him, people want to see him, hug him and kiss him. He has family, friends, international and national responsibilities, a cabinet of ministers to be defined, among a million other things.

What chance did I, the owner of a small surf spot, have in all this? None.

None?

It was about 10 at night and after going to the living room to joke with my oldest son about one thing, do silly things with the youngest and talk to my wife about something else, I went back to my desk, looked at my cell phone and had a missed WhatsApp call and another phone call, and in my messaging inbox a message said: “I called you,” from the president-elect’s number that I hadn’t yet saved.

I looked and hesitated several times… “Is this Lacalle Pou or is someone messing with me?” I asked myself. And in fact, I answered with a very undiplomatic: “Are you kidding?”…

But I was a little more innocently incisive and decided to dial the number. Not bad, right? He called me and texted me, and I simply answered.

When I answered the phone, there was no protocol involved. He immediately told me: “Here we were discussing whether DUKE is a Uruguayan media outlet or not, because some people tell me that it is not from Uruguay,” said the person who clearly sounded like the president-elect.

I actually asked myself if he actually knew DUKE, it seemed like he did. I explained that he did, and I showed my support, DUKE, which is read throughout the Spanish-speaking world, was born, created and is made in Uruguay with a Uruguayan at the helm.

And in the middle of a normal Thursday night with family, I spoke with the president-elect.

I asked him what he was doing talking to me and he explained that he found time to go to a barbecue with his surfer friends. He justified himself by saying that he is a normal person and calls normal people without beating around the bush.

He was proud of the fact that he finally had some good surfing photos published in a surfing media (something that always strokes the surfer ego). I praised the right he was taking, good barrel, well placed, and I spoke to him in a surfer tone: “You caught a good one that day.” He said yes, “it was in Las Flores.”

For Las Flores, which is always a nicer wave, to get like this, there must have been a swell coming in. “I thought it was Punta Mango,” I said, and he corrected me that no, it was Las Flores.

He then said that the photo on the left was in Popoyo, Nicaragua, on a day that looks perfect. According to what I have been told, the Central American country is one of the destinations he travels to most to surf.

The conversation turned into a back and forth between surfing friends, as if I were talking to Sapo, Carle, Lilo, Capi, Felipe… Etc. About the waves from the other day, about what we missed, about tubes, about blows, about swells, etc.

A surfer, in every sense of the word.

I got the impression that he is fisurado (a Uruguayan term for saying that he really wants to go surfing), that he is worried that people will criticize him if he goes into the water as president, and that made me sad (he had said this in an interview with a radio program).

A person is better off after going into the water, and if the leader of a country is going to be better off with salt water on his body, the entire nation will be better off too. Renowned businessman Yvon Chouinard says in his book: “Let my people go surfing,” I say: “Let my president go surfing.”

Finally I looked for my target, who gave me a note, a one-on-one: “I imagine you don’t have a second to talk about surfing with a small environment like mine,” he said yes but extended the horizon far into the future. And then I got pretentious and insisted that it would be good if it was now, when his choice was on the table.

He asked me for a second to look at his agenda on his phone. I waited patiently, expectantly and confidently, and he said: “On Monday at six, I'm meeting with the president and then I'll see you. See you at the headquarters.”

I was perplexed, although that is not enough to describe my state. I laughed, already a little nervous, as if thinking that he is crazy, he is going to receive me on the same day that he has such an important meeting, the one that begins the transition from one command to the other.

And then I started thinking that the only explanation for all this is that the president-elect must really like talking about surfing, too much, and he has the right to do so.