October highlights

Wow, I can’t believe how quickly October has slipped away from me. Here’s a re-cap of the happenings down south.

--The miners were rescued. Just in case that little bit of news happened to escape your notice. I don’t know whether the Chileans were more happy and proud about the actual rescue or about the fact that Chile was for a brief moment the focus of the international media. It was pretty great to be here and watch the rescue. All normal television programming was suspended on the national channels and for the two days of the rescue effort it was the only news shown. Truthfully, I felt that the media coverage of the event was excessive and sensationalist, invading the privacy of the miners and their families and I have talked with several Chileans who felt that Piñera, the president, has exploited the event for political motives, especially with his tour of Europe. I even heard someone say that they thought it had all been a hoax construed by Piñera to boost his popularity. Ah, conspiracy theorists.

However, it is undeniable that the entire saga of the miners produced an incredible sense of solidarity in the Chilean people. It is also undeniable that the moment when the first miner emerged from the capsule and hugged his wife and son was beautiful and very touching. Amazingly, I did NOT cry, but his son more than covered for me in that department. (As my Chilean mother would say, Chiquitiiiiiiito, que liiiiindo.) The next day my host mom, along with probably millions of other Chileans, played the Lotto and put down the number 33. It was not a winning number.

The rescue capsule is making a celebrity tour around Chile

--I finally was able to do some hiking here. A group of us took advantage of the holiday for Día de la Raza, Columbus Day, and hiked La Campana, which is a nearby national park. It was a hideously ugly day when we left Valparaíso and despite my optimistic assertions that “it will get better, this dense fog/cloudbank will definitely burn off,” I had little hope. But amazingly it did! Or rather, we hiked high enough to be above the clouds and found the sun. There were clouds all around the base of the mountain and other peaks poking up like islands in the cloud-sea. We didn’t have enough time to hike all the way to the summit but we got to a point a few kilometers below the summit where Charles Darwin once hiked. There is a plaque commemorating “Carlos Darwin’s” time in that spot. We ate lunch there (fresh bread, turkey, and lots of avocado—muy chileno) and old Carlos D and I shared a moment.

Darwin's plaque: "We spent the day at the summit and never has time seemed to pass more quickly; Chile extends at our feet like an immense panorama limited by the Andes and the Pacific Ocean" Carlos Darwin Aug. 17, 1834

--I turned 21. Not such a big deal in a country where the drinking age is 18 but I had a wonderful day celebrating with my family and friends here. Here are some pictures that my dad took of the barbecue we had at our house with my family and the gringos.

Just some gringos enjoying anticuchos

Mordiscon

mi papá chileno

--I now have less than two months left here which is astonishing. At the beginning when I had no schoolwork 5 months seemed like all the time in the world but now it doesn’t seem to be nearly enough. The next two months will be very busy with lots of work squeezed in between spending time with my family and traveling. A large part of my work for my internship has been organizing a Regional Conference on Environmental Education, which is finally happening next week on November 4. There will be speakers presenting on a range of topics about biodiversity and education and various organizations and schools presenting projects and initiatives that promote environmental education. We’re in the crunch-time now to finish all the planning but I think it will be a success.

Even after being here for three months I still have moments where I think “I’m LIVING in CHILE.” It happens at random times, sometimes when I’m riding the micro, sometimes when I spend an entire day not noticing the fact that I’m speaking in Spanish the whole time, sometimes when I wake up in the morning and walk out onto the back balcony of my house and look over the houses of Playa Ancha, over the Pacific Ocean and across to the beaches, sand dunes, and curvy road of the coast, with the blue-gray mountains of the Cordillera de la Costa beyond. The day after my birthday I spent the afternoon at the beach in Viña with my siblings and some friends and as we walked back through the city to buy ice cream I inexplicably had another one of the moments. There was nothing particularly notable about what we were doing, just walking along and talking and thinking about what flavor ice cream we would get but I thought “you know, that is really pretty cool, I’m living in Chile and I’m loving it.”

As far as the Spanish goes, I’ve recently started feeling much more comfortable with my speaking and I can actually notice an improvement now. This, unfortunately, is kind of screwing with my brain, which is now a jumble of Spanish and English. Some words will only come to me in Spanish, others only form themselves as a hazy English concept that I can’t find the actual word for. Once when I got really excited about something while talking in Spanish I said “ME TOO!” without realizing I was speaking English until my friend started laughing at me. My dreams, when I remember them, are still stubbornly in English. But when I count in my head, the numbers now come out in Spanish first. I’ve realized that true fluency is a huge task and probably something I’ll spend most of my life working on. Even the other student who lives with my family, who is Romanian but has lived in Chile since he was 10, makes mistakes and often makes up words in Spanish, causing great hilarity in my family. Sometimes it has been hard for me to recognize an improvement in my Spanish but when I actually think back to my first days here in Chile and the number of times I was completely adrift in the rushing, tumbling torrent of Spanish spoken by the Chileans around me, I can see that there has been a big improvement. I can now absent-mindedly eavesdrop on conversations around me, just like the true daughter of my mom that I am. It’s a great feeling of accomplishment.

Today is an absolutely gorgeous, sunny spring day so we’re headed off to the beach. Ah, the joys of being in the southern hemisphere right now. I hope you northerners aren’t too chilly and that you have a very Happy Halloween!!

My life is a 7

Well, only two months after the start of classes, school has finally started here. And by that I mean I had to write my first essay. Actually, the very first real school-related work I had to do was for my papermaking class, of all things. It was also my first experience with the Chilean grading system, which is based on a 1-7 scale. I mean, that makes sense right? Who doesn’t consider a 7 to be the highest one can hope to achieve? 10? Who needs a 10? I’m going to start using the system in my daily life—“on a scale of 1 to 7, how excited are you for the weekend?” “On a scale of 1 to 7, how hungry are you?” “On a scale of 1 to 7, how scary was the movie?” Chileans are clever and innovative and it’s clearly the wave of the future.

In other news, last weekend I experienced the crunchy side of Chile. Crunchy meaning hippy-granola type, unrelated to food in any way. It was the Mil Tambores (1000 Drums) festival here in Valparaíso, which is a big cultural, environmental, music and all-around hippy fest. 

The crowd on Cerro Alegre

Apparently in past years it has taken place in the flat downtown “plan” part of the city but this year it was moved to the cerros, in an apparent attempt to lessen the inconvenience to storeowners and innocent passersby. I went with some friends to the festival during the day on Friday and it was lots of fun. There were lots and lots of people, mostly young people but also families and older people. There was a big parade of all the drum and dance groups and more dreadlocks than I’ve seen in a long time. 

Cute kid, gnarly dreads

Painting your body for Mother Earth was encouraged

In many ways it reminded me of Seattle, although such festivals in Seattle usually do not involve policemen carrying rifles or people burning things in the street at night. Happily I avoided this part of the festival and spent the night watching a movie with my host siblings instead. 

The festival wasn't just a bunch of crazy kids drinking and smoking and vandalizing things though. As I said, it's a musical, cultural and environmental event and this year it also had a decidedly political side. For over 80 days, 34 Mapuche prisoners have been on a hunger strike protesting their imprisonment under the anti-terrorist law and demanding a fair trial in a civil court (under the anti-terrorist law they are tried in a military court). 

the Mapuche flag

The Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in Chile and the relationship between the Chilean government and the Mapuche has been contentious for basically all of Chilean history. At best they have been ignored, at worst, they have been murdered, abused and denied their ancestral lands. The Mapuche today are engaged in a struggle to recover land taken from them by the Chilean government. The actions are often violent, including setting fire to crops and farm equipment. The anti-terrorist law, a Pinochet-era relic, is used exclusively against the Mapuche and carries harsh sentences, including life in prison. 

The hunger strike has brought the issue to national attention (although somewhat overshadowed by the news of the miners) and there have been demonstrations throughout Chile. Several congressmen have even joined the strike. However, it keeps dragging on, the prisoners keep losing weight and the possibility of one or more of the prisoners dying before the strike is resolved is beginning to seem like a very real, and very tragic, possibility. For this reason, Mil Tambores included a focus on Mapuche music, culture, and political rights. As a group of Mapuche danced in the street, the surrounding crowd shouted "Libertad, libertad para la comunidad Mapuche" ("freedom, freedom for the Mapuche community"). I am hoping for a swift (if over 80 days can be called swift) resolution to the current issue and then a long and careful consideration of Mapuche political and cultural rights. It is undoubtedly a complicated issue but simply ending the hunger strike is only the first necessary step to improving the situation. 

One weekend, two continents

Last week, the marvels of modern air travel allowed me to attend two celebrations of life on two continents. On Tuesday night I left Chile and a mere 12 hours and two flights later I landed in Chicago to spend the next four days with my family and attend Popeye’s memorial service. 

I had a minor attack of culture shock while waiting for my train at the Ogilvie Transportation Center (everything was so big, so clean and expensive-looking, and just generally very American) but soon began to relax and look forward to a few days of English-speaking and, more importantly, time with family. Being suddenly surrounded by English for the first time in a month and a half was certainly odd but the strangest thing for me was actually something much more inconsequential: going to the bathroom. In Chile, you don’t flush toilet paper, you throw it in the trash. Every time I went to the bathroom I had to stop my impulse to throw the toilet paper in the trash and remind myself that in the U.S., toilet paper actually goes in the toilet.

My time in Chicago was wonderful, a very special time spent with family remembering and honoring Popeye. One of my favorite parts was the chance to look through all the mementos of Popeye’s past. Pictures of him as a young boy and pictures of my grandparents looking irrepressibly young and beautiful as they fell in love, got married, and had kids. Letters from my great-grandfather to his son, tickets to Yale-Harvard football games from the 1930s, passports with dozens of entry and exit stamps and visas in all different languages. It was a chance to see my grandparents as I never knew them and to see what an incredible, long, and full life they lived.

The G4s, Popeye's great-grandchildren, singing Edelweiss

I flew back to Chile to celebrate an even longer life than Popeye’s…Chile’s 200^th birthday. While I arrived the morning after the actual Independence Day, Chileans know how to throw a party and the celebrations continued for the next two days. On my flight from Atlanta to Santiago, the captain said “I understand it’s the 200^th year of Chile as a nation…so Happy Birthday!” and all the Chileans on the plane began cheering and clapping. A rowdy group of teenagers in front of me started the rousing cheer of “CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE….VIVA CHILE!” and nearly everyone on the plane joined in. That same energy and pride was evident everywhere over the next two days.

Good morning, Andes

I did my best to pack as much Chilean-ness into my two days of the bicentennial. I ate a lot, spent a lot of time with my family and friends, and even attempted to dance the cueca, the national dance, with no knowledge of the steps. I went to an asado (barbecue) with my family at an aunt’s house where we ate choripan (delicious sausage in a mini-baguette-like bread) and grilled chicken and steak. And because Chileans are crazy for mayonnaise there was plenty of that as well but this was actually homemade mayonnaise that I watched my uncle make so it was a vast improvement over your standard mayo. That night I went to the ramada near my house. A ramada is basically like a state fair in the U.S. but much more debaucherous and with fewer animals (actually no animals except for the street dogs that wander everywhere). Over the past two weeks, makeshift wooden stalls covered with fabric and eucalyptus branches had sprung up on the soccer fields at the University of Playa Ancha. Everyday when I would take the micro downtown to class I would see the progress until finally the entire area was ready and waiting for the crowds to arrive.

And boy, did the crowds arrive. On Sunday, which, mind you, was the fourth day of the bicentennial celebrations, the ramada was absolutely packed. We wandered around and took in all that it had to offer. There were fondas, informal restaurants and bars whose main offerings were empanadas, anticuchos (Chilean shish kabobs—heavy on the meat, light on the veggies…aka no vegetables in sight), and chicha, a sweet drink made from fermented grapes that somehow isn’t wine. There were lots of booths for carnival games, most of which are nearly impossible to win. There were also two ferris wheels and several other twirly-type carnival rides brought in by the company “Felizlandía.” A very happy land, indeed.

Piña Hawaiana, ice cream in half a pineapple--genius

Taka taka! (foosball)

The next morning (alright, actually around noon) when I woke up, I watched an air show and boat parade from my deck with my family. It was a beautiful day and honestly I much preferred just soaking in the sun and the stunning view of the sea and the beach and the mountains to actually watching the show. And later, in case I hadn’t gotten enough of the ramada the night before, I went to the one in Viña del Mar with my parents and my sister. That night I fell asleep, happy and full of empanadas, listening to the sounds of probably 30 different cumbia songs from all the different bars at the ramada that merged into one pulsing beat, as the Chileans squeezed every last ounce out of the bicentennial celebration before returning to work, school, and the beginning of the next 200 years of Independence the next day. 

Valparaíso in color

Valparaíso is a city full of color. The most striking thing is the houses...all painted wonderful bright colors. My host dad told me that September is the traditional month to paint your house in Chile. I guess as sort of a preparation for the 18th and the patriotic celebrations. Our neighbors are painting their house but my dad told me he is thinking of waiting until to October to paint. Such a rebel. I don't have a picture of my own house but it is a lovely, sunflowery yellow. At some point I'll get a picture of it.

I spent the last week and a half looking for ways to show the colors of Valparaíso. Here's what I saw.

Pasamos agosto

Happy September!! There’s a phrase here, “pasamos agosto,” which means, “we passed (or made it through) August. Since August is winter here, it’s a month when a lot of elderly people pass away so the idea is, if you make it through August you will live another year. On the first of September, I heard several people saying this. The president even said it on the news. To me, it means that I’ve been here for over a month and, having made it through one month, I know I’ll make it the rest of the way.

September at home was always one of my favorite months (close behind October, my absolute favorite month). September means crisp, sometimes foggy, mornings and sunny, warm afternoons. It is the start of school, the start of good apple season, the start of my mom’s soup-for-dinner-season. In my elementary school years, September meant walking out of my house in the morning and being startled by spiderwebs across the path on my way to the bus and it meant walking home in the afternoon through the first leaves that fell on Ellingsen.

Here, September is the beginning of spring. So far, it means sunny days and cold nights. It is the mes de la patria because Chile declared independence on September 18, 1810. And this year, for you math whizzes out there, is the bicentennial of Chilean independence, so it’s an especially important year. Chilean flags are popping up everywhere. They line the soccer field near my house; people are selling them in the streets, flying flag-themed kites, and last week the 6 year old son of my boss at my internship was wearing a flag as a cape and zooming around the office like Superman.

Yesterday I went to a beach in Reñaca with two friends to enjoy the sunny day. It was beautiful, not yet filled with summer crowds, and we walked barefoot in the sand and ate ice cream by the water’s edge, feeling the spray of the ocean. As we watched the sunset over the water, we saw two seals bodysurfing in the breaking waves near the beach. They jumped and dove and splashed all around as the sky turned pink and orange and the sun disappeared. Not a bad way to end the day.

Here's hoping your September is off to a great start, wherever you are.  

The beach in Reñaca

Little boy with a Chilean flag kite

Frolicking seals

More frolicking