rap it release it
let it all flow
the spasms of energy
exploding inside me
yearning for their breath
their blow
flower, maybe
more likely errode
stripping off my insides
trying to find
an anecdote
release or peace
a moment`s scream
or something sane and slow
I don`t know
like fire roling through me
a mind
it`s own
control, collect my thoughts
my self
Monday, June 25, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
i've deleted every word i've written in the past 20 minutes.
this week i was a failure and i was humbled by my lack of abilities, resources and patience. before the voices chime in with encouraging words...not a failure! I need to be a failure, want to be a failure. Right now. Contrary to popular belief in the united states, I can not do anything I want, can not achieve anything I dream. I have limits. I hit them. And I crack.
I retreat to what is comfortable and I realize how much I have managed to accomplish in my home country because of the resources I've been provided with there. A car, an education, a roof, the right clothing, the right vocabulary, the ability to network.
Stripped of my resources I see more of what I'm really capable of--or incapable of.
A lot of self-illusions are dashed and I realize what I owe to the wealth of my country, the generosity of my parents, my skills of manipulation.
I wish I could retreat into something beautiful, poetic, idealistic right now. But I think it's important for me--the eternal dreamer--to be practical and stark with myself in this moment. Why have I failed myself and others this week and how can I learn from those failures. How can I continue to grow into the person I want to be. How can I strip away the images and words I use to construct a life which may not match so well at the core as with the shiny surface?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or with half-baked dreams. I'm so very good at sleeping. What am I going to be when I'm awake?
(later disclaimer: if you really want to know, you can ask. But let´s just say it was a tough week work, life and otherwise...good reflections, but harsh--better now ;)
this week i was a failure and i was humbled by my lack of abilities, resources and patience. before the voices chime in with encouraging words...not a failure! I need to be a failure, want to be a failure. Right now. Contrary to popular belief in the united states, I can not do anything I want, can not achieve anything I dream. I have limits. I hit them. And I crack.
I retreat to what is comfortable and I realize how much I have managed to accomplish in my home country because of the resources I've been provided with there. A car, an education, a roof, the right clothing, the right vocabulary, the ability to network.
Stripped of my resources I see more of what I'm really capable of--or incapable of.
A lot of self-illusions are dashed and I realize what I owe to the wealth of my country, the generosity of my parents, my skills of manipulation.
I wish I could retreat into something beautiful, poetic, idealistic right now. But I think it's important for me--the eternal dreamer--to be practical and stark with myself in this moment. Why have I failed myself and others this week and how can I learn from those failures. How can I continue to grow into the person I want to be. How can I strip away the images and words I use to construct a life which may not match so well at the core as with the shiny surface?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or with half-baked dreams. I'm so very good at sleeping. What am I going to be when I'm awake?
(later disclaimer: if you really want to know, you can ask. But let´s just say it was a tough week work, life and otherwise...good reflections, but harsh--better now ;)
Monday, June 04, 2007
smoggy in santiago
this week.
This week for me started Sunday night at Maestra Vida with salsa dancing. First, the intermediate class at 9pm which I still struggle to keep up with, but only occasionally do I step on someone’s foot or fully bodyslam another couple—yes, I really am improving.
I’m also learning salsa commands in Spanish. Kind-of. Hence the occasional bodyslam.
Maestra Vida may be my favorite place in all of Chile…we go every Thursday night for live music and salsa and Sundays for the class and dancing til 4am. I’m working on making friends with Hugo the doorman who smokes Cuban cigars and with his cap and goatee, looks like he must belong to some sort of latin revolution. And then there’s Matias, the bartender, who is teaching me all about latin music and Chilean theater.
When I’m at Maestra Vida, I take a big, deep, breath, and smile.
It’s one of those one-of-a-kind places that only fits exactly where it is—big murals of people, laughing, dancing, colors, splashed on every wall. Small, rough wooden tables adorned with a single white candle in a rusted, wax-drenched holder. Colombian drums, churrango guitars, trumpets, more trumpets and people singing along.
Besides spending a lot of time here with my closest volunteer friends, I also have met nearly all of my latin friends there as well—Chilean and even a few Cubans.
Monday…started another week at the Aldea. Daily activities at the hogar include helping girls with their homework—usually English, helping out in our new computer lab, or just hanging out watching Chilean telenovelas (soap operas) or doing arts and crafts.
There’s little volunteer support or structure at my particular hogar (our organization staffs 14 hogars that all have very different structures) which has its perks and its drawbacks. It means I can do just about any project I want—like make pinatas! But than it also means that all of a sudden I find myself alone with a dozen girls, 2 candy-stuffed pinatas and large, swinging sticks. Those are the times I wonder if I’ve really thought things through…
Tuesday and Wednesday—both really good days. I taught my creative writing workshop Tuesday with 5 girls and we did some response writing with random words I chose from a book of Spanish short stories and then wrote stories together as I dictated to them various colors, feelings and places to guide the ideas of their stories. Then we read the stories out loud—lots of laughter—and discussed our next meeting, maybe a play? The girls are stoked about putting together a theater
Wednesday I took two girls to another hogar, the baby house, so that the girls from my hogar could help out there as volunteers with the babies and toddlers. They’ve been asking me about going for months new, so when I woke up that morning with fever chills and a cough that could wake the dead, I just put on 3 layers of every type of clothing I owned and convinced myself to visualize Havana.
Winter in Santiago is miserable. Add to the steep changes in temperature and the lack of heating, the cloud of perma-smog over the city and the fact that this is one of the 15 most polluted cities in the world. There are daily environmental alert levels to warn people against doing activities out-of-doors (such as anything involving breathing). This means that everyone is either on the verge of, in the midst of, or recovering from, bronchitis. Like I said, it hit me Wednesday…so I get to be in the recovering category—for now.
Still, I played with the babies and toddlers without too much worry. Without any heat in their house or sufficient clothing they are all mostly more sick than I am. And to give you an idea of what a house with tile floors and no heat feels like—I was wearing 2 shirts, a wool sweater, a down vest, a thick ski parka, a wool hat, wool scarf, tights, pants, thick socks and shoes, and still, I was shivering. Crazy. Somehow I think they more or less adapt.
In my room at home I have a gas space heater which is a life-saver in the hours before bed or especially right after a shower. But going into other parts of the house or, for example, using the toilet, can be brutal—like that feeling you get if someone puts ice down your back.
We don’t have hot water on demand. To take a shower we light a furnace to supply the hot water—but luckily our house actually can count on hot water from our furnace…more than you can say about a lot of houses, from what I’ve heard. Never do you use hot water to wash hands or dishes.
Every Chilean home has a plug-in hot water warmer for tea and coffee, both of which you drink numerous times a day and is lovingly referred to as, ‘tecito’ or ‘cafecito’. Either Nescafe instant or Tea Supreme—green or black. Today I splurged and put fresh lemon in my tea.
It is never quiet here. If you don’t hear the traffic from the nearest street, then you certainly hear the chorus of neighborhood dogs. Our home contributes three dogs to that chorus at the moment, but that could grow if my house mom gets a little tipsy again and brings home another street dog. The latest one—Perla—is so not accustomed to life behind a gate that she wails like a banshee all night long—just outside my window.
I share a room with my Floridian roommate, Jess, and our aforementioned space heater—an R2D2-looking thing that we both adore. She’s here just one more week and then maybe another volunteer will move in to take her space—I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I have a map of southern South America hanging on my wall that’s about the size of, well, about the size of the entire wall. I also have an Ansel Adams calendar, various postcards, pictures of friends and family, another calendar of cats and a couple of artistic photos taken by girls at my hogar and displayed at a photo exposition in a local academy of photography here in Santiago (another volunteer organized the exposition to display the girls’ work—really, really amazing). I also usually have clothing slung across my closet door to air out the smell of smoke from going dancing. Although between Maestra Vida, the air contamination and my Chilean mother burning incense, I wonder if I ever really stop smelling like smoke…?
The food is consistent—lots of bread or variations on bread, like fried dough. Street vendors sell empanadas (fried meat or cheese pies) or sopaipillas (fried dough with mustard and salsas). Quick food from a restaurant is some variation of a sandwich with slices of beef, avocado, tomato and mayo. They love mayo. Love mayo. You can also find a kiosk about every 7 feet or so selling every kind of candy, cookie, potato chip, or sugary soda-ish thing. Sweet popcorn is also a very big deal.
Their public transportation system, although lauded by NPR, is a mess. They brought in all sorts of consultants from Bogota, Colombia to try and iron things out, but still ‘Transantiago’ is the topic of daily newspaper rantings and the victim of every communist protest. The trains are always overcrowded, bus service is intermittent and they have no monthly pass, which means public transport gets expensive, fast. You’re only other option for transportation is the municipality buses, which can actually be a lot of fun…If you ever hop on one during rush hour (if they agree to stop for you) you’ll undoubtedly spend at least the beginning of the ride with your backside hanging out the door, until enough people can get off and you can push in and some other guy can have his backside hanging out the door. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it up to the front of the bus by the engine and get to warm your hands on the dashboard.
So after all of this—who wants to come visit??! After reading through some of it, it sounds like I might hate it here…But no, the opposite actually. Maybe because when a place is so quirky it just settles into you and you can’t imagine life being quiet and smooth and ‘normal’ like it is at home. I do wish I had heat—I’ll admit that.
Anyway. Just wanted to give an idea of what I do here and how I do it rather than the random things I think about. I’ll be putting some pictures up as well to give a visual of the photo expo and more of the girls at the Aldea…maybe even Maestra Vida
This week for me started Sunday night at Maestra Vida with salsa dancing. First, the intermediate class at 9pm which I still struggle to keep up with, but only occasionally do I step on someone’s foot or fully bodyslam another couple—yes, I really am improving.
I’m also learning salsa commands in Spanish. Kind-of. Hence the occasional bodyslam.
Maestra Vida may be my favorite place in all of Chile…we go every Thursday night for live music and salsa and Sundays for the class and dancing til 4am. I’m working on making friends with Hugo the doorman who smokes Cuban cigars and with his cap and goatee, looks like he must belong to some sort of latin revolution. And then there’s Matias, the bartender, who is teaching me all about latin music and Chilean theater.
When I’m at Maestra Vida, I take a big, deep, breath, and smile.
It’s one of those one-of-a-kind places that only fits exactly where it is—big murals of people, laughing, dancing, colors, splashed on every wall. Small, rough wooden tables adorned with a single white candle in a rusted, wax-drenched holder. Colombian drums, churrango guitars, trumpets, more trumpets and people singing along.
Besides spending a lot of time here with my closest volunteer friends, I also have met nearly all of my latin friends there as well—Chilean and even a few Cubans.
Monday…started another week at the Aldea. Daily activities at the hogar include helping girls with their homework—usually English, helping out in our new computer lab, or just hanging out watching Chilean telenovelas (soap operas) or doing arts and crafts.
There’s little volunteer support or structure at my particular hogar (our organization staffs 14 hogars that all have very different structures) which has its perks and its drawbacks. It means I can do just about any project I want—like make pinatas! But than it also means that all of a sudden I find myself alone with a dozen girls, 2 candy-stuffed pinatas and large, swinging sticks. Those are the times I wonder if I’ve really thought things through…
Tuesday and Wednesday—both really good days. I taught my creative writing workshop Tuesday with 5 girls and we did some response writing with random words I chose from a book of Spanish short stories and then wrote stories together as I dictated to them various colors, feelings and places to guide the ideas of their stories. Then we read the stories out loud—lots of laughter—and discussed our next meeting, maybe a play? The girls are stoked about putting together a theater
Wednesday I took two girls to another hogar, the baby house, so that the girls from my hogar could help out there as volunteers with the babies and toddlers. They’ve been asking me about going for months new, so when I woke up that morning with fever chills and a cough that could wake the dead, I just put on 3 layers of every type of clothing I owned and convinced myself to visualize Havana.
Winter in Santiago is miserable. Add to the steep changes in temperature and the lack of heating, the cloud of perma-smog over the city and the fact that this is one of the 15 most polluted cities in the world. There are daily environmental alert levels to warn people against doing activities out-of-doors (such as anything involving breathing). This means that everyone is either on the verge of, in the midst of, or recovering from, bronchitis. Like I said, it hit me Wednesday…so I get to be in the recovering category—for now.
Still, I played with the babies and toddlers without too much worry. Without any heat in their house or sufficient clothing they are all mostly more sick than I am. And to give you an idea of what a house with tile floors and no heat feels like—I was wearing 2 shirts, a wool sweater, a down vest, a thick ski parka, a wool hat, wool scarf, tights, pants, thick socks and shoes, and still, I was shivering. Crazy. Somehow I think they more or less adapt.
In my room at home I have a gas space heater which is a life-saver in the hours before bed or especially right after a shower. But going into other parts of the house or, for example, using the toilet, can be brutal—like that feeling you get if someone puts ice down your back.
We don’t have hot water on demand. To take a shower we light a furnace to supply the hot water—but luckily our house actually can count on hot water from our furnace…more than you can say about a lot of houses, from what I’ve heard. Never do you use hot water to wash hands or dishes.
Every Chilean home has a plug-in hot water warmer for tea and coffee, both of which you drink numerous times a day and is lovingly referred to as, ‘tecito’ or ‘cafecito’. Either Nescafe instant or Tea Supreme—green or black. Today I splurged and put fresh lemon in my tea.
It is never quiet here. If you don’t hear the traffic from the nearest street, then you certainly hear the chorus of neighborhood dogs. Our home contributes three dogs to that chorus at the moment, but that could grow if my house mom gets a little tipsy again and brings home another street dog. The latest one—Perla—is so not accustomed to life behind a gate that she wails like a banshee all night long—just outside my window.
I share a room with my Floridian roommate, Jess, and our aforementioned space heater—an R2D2-looking thing that we both adore. She’s here just one more week and then maybe another volunteer will move in to take her space—I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I have a map of southern South America hanging on my wall that’s about the size of, well, about the size of the entire wall. I also have an Ansel Adams calendar, various postcards, pictures of friends and family, another calendar of cats and a couple of artistic photos taken by girls at my hogar and displayed at a photo exposition in a local academy of photography here in Santiago (another volunteer organized the exposition to display the girls’ work—really, really amazing). I also usually have clothing slung across my closet door to air out the smell of smoke from going dancing. Although between Maestra Vida, the air contamination and my Chilean mother burning incense, I wonder if I ever really stop smelling like smoke…?
The food is consistent—lots of bread or variations on bread, like fried dough. Street vendors sell empanadas (fried meat or cheese pies) or sopaipillas (fried dough with mustard and salsas). Quick food from a restaurant is some variation of a sandwich with slices of beef, avocado, tomato and mayo. They love mayo. Love mayo. You can also find a kiosk about every 7 feet or so selling every kind of candy, cookie, potato chip, or sugary soda-ish thing. Sweet popcorn is also a very big deal.
Their public transportation system, although lauded by NPR, is a mess. They brought in all sorts of consultants from Bogota, Colombia to try and iron things out, but still ‘Transantiago’ is the topic of daily newspaper rantings and the victim of every communist protest. The trains are always overcrowded, bus service is intermittent and they have no monthly pass, which means public transport gets expensive, fast. You’re only other option for transportation is the municipality buses, which can actually be a lot of fun…If you ever hop on one during rush hour (if they agree to stop for you) you’ll undoubtedly spend at least the beginning of the ride with your backside hanging out the door, until enough people can get off and you can push in and some other guy can have his backside hanging out the door. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it up to the front of the bus by the engine and get to warm your hands on the dashboard.
So after all of this—who wants to come visit??! After reading through some of it, it sounds like I might hate it here…But no, the opposite actually. Maybe because when a place is so quirky it just settles into you and you can’t imagine life being quiet and smooth and ‘normal’ like it is at home. I do wish I had heat—I’ll admit that.
Anyway. Just wanted to give an idea of what I do here and how I do it rather than the random things I think about. I’ll be putting some pictures up as well to give a visual of the photo expo and more of the girls at the Aldea…maybe even Maestra Vida
105 am
April 17, 2007
It’s getting colder in Santiago. Sunny, seventy-degree days quickly turn into wool sweater weather as the sun dips down behind the Cordillera. I find myself sleeping in fleece pants, wool socks and sweater every night.
I wrapped myself up in a slow and quiet weekend these last few days—equal parts fighting South American flu germs and losing time in a good book. The book: Gringo Trail. The story: three off-beat Brits travel through South America in search of self-awareness, social injustice and really good drug trips. I wasn’t expecting anything more from it than a bit of entertainment and maybe some travel advice. But instead it turned into one of those books you can’t stop reading—the one you’re glad you have when you incidentally have insomnia one night and then get up and read til 4am with your camping headlamp so as not to disturb your Floridian roommate. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about.
So my Saturday was shot. I escaped from the house at 5:30pm or so with a bad case of cabin fever and with nothing better to do, rode the metro into the center to try and find someone to hang out with. I wandered into Plaza Italia at dusk—just as the sun was setting fire to a thousand cracked clouds. I sat down on a park bench in the midst of a river of busy pedestrians and watched the most amazing sunset I’ve seen yet in South America. Having my ipod with me and Sufjan Stevens in my ear didn’t hurt either.
It’s good to have familiarity here—Sufjan Stevens or a good pirated American movie... As much as I sometimes wish I could, I am not one who can lose myself in another culture. I cannot have a foreign boyfriend, (even if only for the sake of learning more Spanish, as some do…) prefer foreign foods, or dream of setting up camp in a small foreign pueblo. It’s all just too foreign. I know—I see it. The smirks on some of your faces…aren’t I always diving into cross-cultural activities and going to Lebanese cooking classes and salsa lessons and dreaming of all the countries I want to visit. Guilty. But somehow I like all the foreign stuff so much more in my own country—where it’s different and exotic. Rather than being away where I am different and exotic (yet no one seems to be interested one way or another in us foreigners).
Deep down and always I am a northwest girl. And I think maybe I always will be.
Overall I think Chileans are crazy. Well, let me rephrase—I think people from Santiago are crazy. The north and the south of Chile are dominated by indigenous descendants and seem to have a pace and way of life that is much more connected with the Earth. Santiago is crowded, polluted and up to its eyeballs in conspicuous consumerism. Foreign companies dominate here and Santiaguinos have been well-trained to respond to consumeristic ques. It’s sad to see the obvious signs of American business practice at work here—and the full swing of Chilean participation.
My book, Gringo Trail, gave me a lot of insight on some of these issues. Not for Chile since the crazy Brit travelers in the book never made it this far South, but for Latin America in general—the history and social reality of the continent. The divide between the ‘latinos’ who are eager to model European social culture, and the ‘indigenas’ who support the latino, European and American way of life by working the mines, the factories, the timber outfits and the tour operations. Living the legacy of post-colonial subsistence as slaves to whatever industry will bring in a few pesos.
It’s fascinating, the themes this book points out…How the indigenous peoples of the Americas consistently have a culture of animistic, nature-worshiping religious practice. These cultures survived for hundreds or thousands of years with complex societies that centered on awareness and respect of self, the Earth, and the Other (spiritual). They maintained complex manners of agriculture which guaranteed crop rotation and diverse diets while sustaining a deep spiritual connection with the place they lived, through animals and nature.
European societies and their colonialist descendents, on the other hand, developed farming methods that overused and exhausted the soil, favored mass crops rather than diversification, practiced Christian and Judaic religions which elevated people and God above the Earth and nature, and generally exploited conquered peoples and raw resources. All of this leading to philosophies of commodification and industrialization and a disconnect from structures of respect and balance.
Obviously it’s easier for Europeans (or Euro descendents, for that matter) to poke holes in the shortcomings of our own society without equal ability to do so to that of indigenous culture. But if only to see, by comparison, the ways in which our culture may be imbalanced or impoverished, it is worth a good look at how we’ve evolved.
South America is an incredible research lab.
Drugs, politics, religion, spirituality, nature, conquest, globalization, social classes, nepotism, racism, resource exploitation…It seems as if there are thousands of open stories flowing here—raw and eager. Redundant in their echo of ‘the eternal human condition’, yet no less captivating as a means to understand how these problems change, yet stay exactly the same.
I’m getting the chance to do a lot of reading here. Always by nature I’m caught up in history and politics…religion, sociology, philosophy. Being here makes these stories and these situations so much more significant. Dictatorships and disappearances. Gold mines dug out beneath peoples’ feet. Socialist presidents refusing petroleum access. Communist protests and police bribes. If these things happen where I’m from then I’m definitely a bit dense and very unaware. Yet here it’s business as usual…
Walking by the Chilean counterpart of Walmart everyday, this place seems both eerily familiar and uncomfortably foreign all at the same time.
It’s getting colder in Santiago. Sunny, seventy-degree days quickly turn into wool sweater weather as the sun dips down behind the Cordillera. I find myself sleeping in fleece pants, wool socks and sweater every night.
I wrapped myself up in a slow and quiet weekend these last few days—equal parts fighting South American flu germs and losing time in a good book. The book: Gringo Trail. The story: three off-beat Brits travel through South America in search of self-awareness, social injustice and really good drug trips. I wasn’t expecting anything more from it than a bit of entertainment and maybe some travel advice. But instead it turned into one of those books you can’t stop reading—the one you’re glad you have when you incidentally have insomnia one night and then get up and read til 4am with your camping headlamp so as not to disturb your Floridian roommate. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about.
So my Saturday was shot. I escaped from the house at 5:30pm or so with a bad case of cabin fever and with nothing better to do, rode the metro into the center to try and find someone to hang out with. I wandered into Plaza Italia at dusk—just as the sun was setting fire to a thousand cracked clouds. I sat down on a park bench in the midst of a river of busy pedestrians and watched the most amazing sunset I’ve seen yet in South America. Having my ipod with me and Sufjan Stevens in my ear didn’t hurt either.
It’s good to have familiarity here—Sufjan Stevens or a good pirated American movie... As much as I sometimes wish I could, I am not one who can lose myself in another culture. I cannot have a foreign boyfriend, (even if only for the sake of learning more Spanish, as some do…) prefer foreign foods, or dream of setting up camp in a small foreign pueblo. It’s all just too foreign. I know—I see it. The smirks on some of your faces…aren’t I always diving into cross-cultural activities and going to Lebanese cooking classes and salsa lessons and dreaming of all the countries I want to visit. Guilty. But somehow I like all the foreign stuff so much more in my own country—where it’s different and exotic. Rather than being away where I am different and exotic (yet no one seems to be interested one way or another in us foreigners).
Deep down and always I am a northwest girl. And I think maybe I always will be.
Overall I think Chileans are crazy. Well, let me rephrase—I think people from Santiago are crazy. The north and the south of Chile are dominated by indigenous descendants and seem to have a pace and way of life that is much more connected with the Earth. Santiago is crowded, polluted and up to its eyeballs in conspicuous consumerism. Foreign companies dominate here and Santiaguinos have been well-trained to respond to consumeristic ques. It’s sad to see the obvious signs of American business practice at work here—and the full swing of Chilean participation.
My book, Gringo Trail, gave me a lot of insight on some of these issues. Not for Chile since the crazy Brit travelers in the book never made it this far South, but for Latin America in general—the history and social reality of the continent. The divide between the ‘latinos’ who are eager to model European social culture, and the ‘indigenas’ who support the latino, European and American way of life by working the mines, the factories, the timber outfits and the tour operations. Living the legacy of post-colonial subsistence as slaves to whatever industry will bring in a few pesos.
It’s fascinating, the themes this book points out…How the indigenous peoples of the Americas consistently have a culture of animistic, nature-worshiping religious practice. These cultures survived for hundreds or thousands of years with complex societies that centered on awareness and respect of self, the Earth, and the Other (spiritual). They maintained complex manners of agriculture which guaranteed crop rotation and diverse diets while sustaining a deep spiritual connection with the place they lived, through animals and nature.
European societies and their colonialist descendents, on the other hand, developed farming methods that overused and exhausted the soil, favored mass crops rather than diversification, practiced Christian and Judaic religions which elevated people and God above the Earth and nature, and generally exploited conquered peoples and raw resources. All of this leading to philosophies of commodification and industrialization and a disconnect from structures of respect and balance.
Obviously it’s easier for Europeans (or Euro descendents, for that matter) to poke holes in the shortcomings of our own society without equal ability to do so to that of indigenous culture. But if only to see, by comparison, the ways in which our culture may be imbalanced or impoverished, it is worth a good look at how we’ve evolved.
South America is an incredible research lab.
Drugs, politics, religion, spirituality, nature, conquest, globalization, social classes, nepotism, racism, resource exploitation…It seems as if there are thousands of open stories flowing here—raw and eager. Redundant in their echo of ‘the eternal human condition’, yet no less captivating as a means to understand how these problems change, yet stay exactly the same.
I’m getting the chance to do a lot of reading here. Always by nature I’m caught up in history and politics…religion, sociology, philosophy. Being here makes these stories and these situations so much more significant. Dictatorships and disappearances. Gold mines dug out beneath peoples’ feet. Socialist presidents refusing petroleum access. Communist protests and police bribes. If these things happen where I’m from then I’m definitely a bit dense and very unaware. Yet here it’s business as usual…
Walking by the Chilean counterpart of Walmart everyday, this place seems both eerily familiar and uncomfortably foreign all at the same time.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Aldea Maria Reina
So this is the Aldea--the hogar I work in every day...Fotos of a few of the girls and their tía (house mom).
Francisca, who is full of attitude in a really cute way--has a huge crush on Luke, the director of our organization and is constantly giving me notes to pass along to him. (she´s one of my favorites...;)
Tía Estela, who is one of the 4 main tías in the Aldea. There are four hogares, or houses, in the Aldea, each with a morning and an evening tía. (As well there are psychologists, a doctor and other administrators, all of whom are called tías--I am also. it´s basically a sign of respect). This woman is crazy and always entertaining--we get along really well, and she only scares me sometimes ;)
Me with Jocelyn and Francisca again...
Another volunteer, tío Benjamin with Natalia (Nati).
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Jornada
Jornada--retreat--in Cajon del Maipu, about 2 hours outside Santiago. Every 3 months we take a retreat outside the city to regroup and reflect about our experiences so far and the work we´re doing.
This place was incredible...it was an old estate passed down through the generations and then abandoned when the owner was exiled to Spain for his political views against Salvador Allende. Eventually, his daughter was able to return from exile as an adult and reclaim the property and transform it into a retreat center with spanish tiles, fruit trees, grape vines and a swimming pool.
Friends and the dog
Our dog Bobby--who can´t be bothered to stand while he eats. In spanish we call him ´flojo´. more or less, lazy. He jumps between being an insane, energetic adolescent and then a lifeless mop of hair snoozing in the corner of our yard.
Girlfriends from VE! From left to right: Jess, my roommate, Liz and Anna. These are 3 of my closest friends here. These pics were taken during and after a visit to the local hospital San Salvador after Jess stepped into a ridiculously large hole in the sidewalk, fractured her shin and carved a hole in her leg nearly down to the bone. The public hospital after 3 hours decided only to wipe it with antiseptic and give her a shot for the pain. Needless to say, it got infected...
Mi vida en Chile
Some fotos from around the city of Santiago...
The Carabineros van--a green and white staple of Santiago streets. Always present at any political disturbance or flea market selling pirated DVDs.
A colonial building on the Plaza de Armas. Apparently most latin cities were built around a central ´Plaza de Armas´ a legacy of Spanish colonialism. Ours in Santiago is filled with artists painting images of the chilean coastline, tourists gawking upwards at the beautiful buildings and gray-haired men playing chess in the gazebo. Once in awhile there will be a free public concert or a parade wandering through...
A man and his llama meandering through downtown...No, ha, kidding. This is from Pichilemu on the coast. But, it is not at all uncommon to see horse and cart--as an actual means of transportation and hauling equipment--on even the busiest streets of the center. Still throws me to see it.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Comunistas!
Dios Mio. What a day! I love latin America.
Sunday night: salsa dancing til 4am. Last night: live cuban band and dancing til 3am. Today: Communist protests and tear gas in the streets...
There are plenty of things I miss about home, but the good ol USA cannot beat this place for action...there is always something boiling under the surface around here.
Today was the Dia de los Trabajadores--translation: Labor Day. In the States, as far as I know, this means nothing more than picnics, waterslides and Kool-aid. But here in Chile, that means an occasion to make any and all political statements about your discontent with the status quo--the education system, public health, public transportation...everything´s fair game.
So I went with a friend into the center to watch the demonstrations..no problem, right? I`ve been to `demonstrations` in Seattle. No way. It started out peacefully enough--lots of shouting and speeches and big red communist flags...But then the Caribineros came out. Carabineros are basically the police force, but often act as riot control around here...When young discontents get all riled up and start throwing rocks at windows and buses and breaking down riot barriers, out come the big green tanks with the water cannons and the tear gas.
A group of us had amassed in the center around the stage to listen to speeches and a local protest band called Inti-Illimani. This band is a popular Chilean folk band that was exiled during the dictatorship for singing about controversial issues like free speech and workers` rights. Now back in Santiago under a socialist president, they`re allowed to play--obviously--but their words still have a very incendiary effect. So I`m standing there, red flags waving all around me, hands stuffed with flyers and radical newspapers and thousands of Chileans jumping up and down in sync, fists raised, yelling along with the words of the songs. And then chaos--something stirs somewhere up the street and we see the caribinero tanks rolling down the street spraying water at the crowds to disperse them. The tanks keep getting closer and closer, twenty-something men throwing rocks and paintballs, occasionally getting caught by a troop of shielded police and pulled into a tank..wondering what will happen to them once inside...? Water spraying all around us, people running one direction then the next, not sure which way to get away from the police while other groups are figuring out how to get closer. And to the men in green, all pedestrians are the same--anyone grouping together is a potencial threat...
So then the tear gas! In every direction tanks are rolling through the streets spraying gas. An indian woman with two young children is selling lemons for 5 times their normal price because smelling them helps alleviate the choking. I`m wondering how ironic it is that these people are fighting for the rights of workers and a new social system, and here are the `people` that communism serves--the workers, the marginalized, this indian woman who is bringing her tiny children into the midst of tear gas and whatnot because today they can make a bit of extra money...But maybe that`s not ironic at all. I don`t know.
Eventually we tried to make it back to the metro and got caught in a group that was being pursued by a few tanks...had to run, fast, far enough away that we weren´t close enough to the main group to be a threat. Dispersed.
Finally made it back to the metro and out of the center. Spent the rest of the day reading the commie propaganda and discussing the education system with Chilean friends. Wow.
I feel like living abroad is like an onion...you keep peeling back new layers. But with this onion every new layer is of a different color and pattern. For now, I´m loving seeing it all.
Sunday night: salsa dancing til 4am. Last night: live cuban band and dancing til 3am. Today: Communist protests and tear gas in the streets...
There are plenty of things I miss about home, but the good ol USA cannot beat this place for action...there is always something boiling under the surface around here.
Today was the Dia de los Trabajadores--translation: Labor Day. In the States, as far as I know, this means nothing more than picnics, waterslides and Kool-aid. But here in Chile, that means an occasion to make any and all political statements about your discontent with the status quo--the education system, public health, public transportation...everything´s fair game.
So I went with a friend into the center to watch the demonstrations..no problem, right? I`ve been to `demonstrations` in Seattle. No way. It started out peacefully enough--lots of shouting and speeches and big red communist flags...But then the Caribineros came out. Carabineros are basically the police force, but often act as riot control around here...When young discontents get all riled up and start throwing rocks at windows and buses and breaking down riot barriers, out come the big green tanks with the water cannons and the tear gas.
A group of us had amassed in the center around the stage to listen to speeches and a local protest band called Inti-Illimani. This band is a popular Chilean folk band that was exiled during the dictatorship for singing about controversial issues like free speech and workers` rights. Now back in Santiago under a socialist president, they`re allowed to play--obviously--but their words still have a very incendiary effect. So I`m standing there, red flags waving all around me, hands stuffed with flyers and radical newspapers and thousands of Chileans jumping up and down in sync, fists raised, yelling along with the words of the songs. And then chaos--something stirs somewhere up the street and we see the caribinero tanks rolling down the street spraying water at the crowds to disperse them. The tanks keep getting closer and closer, twenty-something men throwing rocks and paintballs, occasionally getting caught by a troop of shielded police and pulled into a tank..wondering what will happen to them once inside...? Water spraying all around us, people running one direction then the next, not sure which way to get away from the police while other groups are figuring out how to get closer. And to the men in green, all pedestrians are the same--anyone grouping together is a potencial threat...
So then the tear gas! In every direction tanks are rolling through the streets spraying gas. An indian woman with two young children is selling lemons for 5 times their normal price because smelling them helps alleviate the choking. I`m wondering how ironic it is that these people are fighting for the rights of workers and a new social system, and here are the `people` that communism serves--the workers, the marginalized, this indian woman who is bringing her tiny children into the midst of tear gas and whatnot because today they can make a bit of extra money...But maybe that`s not ironic at all. I don`t know.
Eventually we tried to make it back to the metro and got caught in a group that was being pursued by a few tanks...had to run, fast, far enough away that we weren´t close enough to the main group to be a threat. Dispersed.
Finally made it back to the metro and out of the center. Spent the rest of the day reading the commie propaganda and discussing the education system with Chilean friends. Wow.
I feel like living abroad is like an onion...you keep peeling back new layers. But with this onion every new layer is of a different color and pattern. For now, I´m loving seeing it all.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Pics from Valparaiso
The funeral train and other vistas from Valparaiso today...
Below are the girls from my hogar--Valentina, Yanina, Herna and Claudia. In the middle is Christi--the volunteer who organized the trip and ran the photo workshop.
Up for a scavenger hunt? Try and find the two places in these pics where Valpo pays homage to NY City...so funny to see that name in this corner of the world ;)
Viaje a Valpo
What a day! I`m exhausted...Up by 6am, (in bed at my usual 3am last night...ayyy) at the Aldea to get the girls by 7:30ish and then on a bus to Valparaiso by 9:30. Valparaiso is on the coast of Chile--it`s largest port city and the way that Chile gets all that fruit and wine out all over the world. Seeing as Chile is no larger than 100 miles wide at any point of its length, it doesn`t take long to reach the coast--an hour and a half, max.
So we pull into the bus station and start wandering through the busy, lively Saturday market streets. Bam! 5 minutes into the day we have some guy run by and grab a camera from one of the girls--right off her neck--and keep on running...so fast I didn`t realize what had happened until he was well out of sight. One camera down--on a photography field trip no less. But everyone took it in stride and we kept going...
Spent about 6 hours or so wandering around the city with 3 gringa volunteers, one Chilean tìa and 4 girls from the Aldea who have been participating in this photo workshop for the past 2 months. This was the big finale--a trip out to the coast for one last photo session.
Other than the robbing incident, everything went really well...Climbed up the hills between multi-colored houses and took in the views. Good weather, lots of public art and murals to check out, as well as the requisite communist graffiti splashed on most walls. We even caught the last moments of a funeral in some random white church tucked up into the hills..It must have been a young man who died--his lover was carried out of the church wailing and completely distraught, difficultly coerced into a car (away from the coffin) and the whole car train set off. The last car in the line had a hand-made flower mural wishing the deceased ¨Adios Amigo¨...5 minutes passing brought quiet to the street again and shrouded any sign that anything eventful had happened there in months, much less minutes.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
mis amigas y yo
soy francisca y estas soy fotos para la tia briana de nuestro paseo por primera ves al museo interactivo mirador
Monday, April 02, 2007
Daily Details
I currently live in a Latin city of 6 million people--Santiago de Chile. During the Pinochet regime, which was more or less a military dictatorship, American economists were invited to Chile to help overhaul the economic system...Thus, the free market system was born in Chile.
This means that Chile now has the strongest economy of any latin country as well as a huge amount of foreign investment--which means that I regularly shop in and pass by places which look like the Chilean equivalent of Walmart or 24 hour Fitness--they´re ubiquitous and impossible to avoid. I actually believe these places are probably owned by walmart and 24 hour fitness, by the way. I try and buy as much as I can from the small markets and kiosks tucked into peoples garages-within a 1 block radius of my house, there are at least four kiosks selling coffee, tea, cheese, empanadas, eggs, candy, soup, etc. I visit the fruit stand around the corner at least once a day for an avocado, tomato, grapes and an apple. The produce here is amazing and abundant. They ship tons of it up the states--I think all of you in Seattle probably see plenty of Chilean grapes and avo´s and whatnot. But Chile still consumes plenty as well. I eat at least one avocado a day--on eggs, toast, quinoa, tortillas...by itself with a spoon. It´s that good.
I live in La Florida--a suburb of the Santiago center. I´m 5 minutes walk from the metro and 10 minutes to 2 major malls--yes, I also think this is a little funny/ridiculous--but like I said, the free market system reigns here. I live with a Chilean woman named Angelica and her 13 year old daughter, Melanie. Melanie plays more computer video games than any teenager I know and is possibly the quirkiest kid i´ve met. She likes to dance in the middle of the living room with her pants pulled up to her chest and her butt right in front of the TV. I think she likes having us around. I also live with another volunteer named Jess, from the states--Florida. She´s my roommate and constant partner in travels and daily Santiago discoveries and she´s wonderful. Teaches me about lots of Florida oddities and something called free diving. She and I went to the beach together last weekend and watched people surf and ate seafood. Today we went to the private clinic because she stepped in a hole in the sidewalk last Friday and cut her leg almost to the bone (apparently along with fresh produce, random holes in the sidewalk are also abundant). We went to the public hospital that night but in 3 hours all they managed to do was wipe it with alcohol and give her a shot in her backside for the pain. Even in free market foreign countries, do not use the public hospitals--other than maybe for a really crazy experience.
We have 2 dogs--Bobby and Scooby. Scooby is old and allowed to go wander the neighborhood and smell other dogs and bark at things. Bobby is young and dumb and not allowed out of the gate. But bobby is damn cute--some sort of golden retriver mix maybe? He constantly tries to get out when we are trying to get in--except for when it is hot in the afternoons and he can´t be bothered to do anything. I once attempted to take him for a walk around the neighborhood. No-go. We made it half way down the block, he pulled me through the park in 7 different directions and then sniffed around in a shady corner where he flopped down for a nice nap. I´ve since abandoned all walk efforts.
The weather is still beautiful..more or less the South American Fall. I haven´t seen any changing colors though. We´ve had 2 days of rain and I´ve heard that once this kicks in for the winter, it´s like a monsoon but cold. I´m not excited...
I´m avoiding talking about my job and the hogar because I don´t know where to start or how to really describe it. It is a really hard place to fit in. There are 75 girls who live in the home I volunteer in and some of them smile and hug me and have real conversations, and others cuss at me and tell me I´m ugly and stupid. Part of initiation, i think. It´s a challenge, but I am so glad for it. Every day is pushing me to learn their language so I can actually communicate my thoughts and intentions, as well as refining my motivations in being here and building relationships with them. I´ve realized that 6 months will slip past me and these girls will wave me along as they welcome a new volunteer--but that the brevity of our relationship does not necessarily undermine it´s sincerity or importance.
Every volunteer that comes along contributes something--their spirit, their vision--into what seems to become this flow of growth. I am now about to start orienting the girls at the Aldea (my home) on their new computer lab--4 computers gifted by a north american foundation, complete with internet and various programs like office and photoshop. This is only possible because some volunteers before me had a vision and wrote a grant. And now I am the volunteer responsible for continuing this vision and developing into it elements of my own. The next volunteers will carry it on with their own unique mark.
I´m putting together a creative writing workshop for 4 girls, initially, which will incorporate use of the computer lab so that we can make and keep blogs--yes just like this one. If anyone has advice on creative writing exercises--PLEASE pass them along! This will hopefully give me the chance to learn more about writing, poetry and literature myself, along with the girls, and then learn more about each of them through their writing. I am really, really excited about this--and sincerely hoping it works! Anything is possible--or impossible--at the Aldea.
I´ve had a few really difficult days--girls who took paint supplies and painted on floors, walls, windows, etc...then ran from me when I suggested we clean it up. That was a toughie--definitely a day which ended with a stiff margarita ;) So now I´m learning how to use my time there with the girls who are receptive and continue trying to build relationships slowly with the ones who aren´t. It´s a strange and scary process. Chilean spanish is slang-laden and difficult to understand, so much of the time I feel like a deaf, dumb, mute. I wish so much I could converse fluently with the girls..but with time. By the way, the demographic there is mostly 13 to 18 year old girls--so a difficult time of life for girls with stable family situations, much less for these girls with little or no stability whatsoever.
A few other details before I sign off...I´ve been studying a lot of Chilean history and political and environmental issues...realizing with more clarity the direction I think my life will head once I´ve returned home. I´m on a committee here for ´volunteer formation´ which means that I plan our volunteer orientation activities, educational events and discussions and retreats. I get the chance to bring in speakers and reading materials to educate the volunteers on anything from the adoption process to the effects of abuse to the current economic situation of Chile. I´m loving this chance to read and research info about latin america and Chile and am focusing mostly on environmental info...Not particularly accurate for the work I´m doing, but it does tie in to the grand scheme.
So that´s the general picture of my life down here...there´s more words, pictures, songs I want to share, and they´ll come. til then, all my love and prayers.
This means that Chile now has the strongest economy of any latin country as well as a huge amount of foreign investment--which means that I regularly shop in and pass by places which look like the Chilean equivalent of Walmart or 24 hour Fitness--they´re ubiquitous and impossible to avoid. I actually believe these places are probably owned by walmart and 24 hour fitness, by the way. I try and buy as much as I can from the small markets and kiosks tucked into peoples garages-within a 1 block radius of my house, there are at least four kiosks selling coffee, tea, cheese, empanadas, eggs, candy, soup, etc. I visit the fruit stand around the corner at least once a day for an avocado, tomato, grapes and an apple. The produce here is amazing and abundant. They ship tons of it up the states--I think all of you in Seattle probably see plenty of Chilean grapes and avo´s and whatnot. But Chile still consumes plenty as well. I eat at least one avocado a day--on eggs, toast, quinoa, tortillas...by itself with a spoon. It´s that good.
I live in La Florida--a suburb of the Santiago center. I´m 5 minutes walk from the metro and 10 minutes to 2 major malls--yes, I also think this is a little funny/ridiculous--but like I said, the free market system reigns here. I live with a Chilean woman named Angelica and her 13 year old daughter, Melanie. Melanie plays more computer video games than any teenager I know and is possibly the quirkiest kid i´ve met. She likes to dance in the middle of the living room with her pants pulled up to her chest and her butt right in front of the TV. I think she likes having us around. I also live with another volunteer named Jess, from the states--Florida. She´s my roommate and constant partner in travels and daily Santiago discoveries and she´s wonderful. Teaches me about lots of Florida oddities and something called free diving. She and I went to the beach together last weekend and watched people surf and ate seafood. Today we went to the private clinic because she stepped in a hole in the sidewalk last Friday and cut her leg almost to the bone (apparently along with fresh produce, random holes in the sidewalk are also abundant). We went to the public hospital that night but in 3 hours all they managed to do was wipe it with alcohol and give her a shot in her backside for the pain. Even in free market foreign countries, do not use the public hospitals--other than maybe for a really crazy experience.
We have 2 dogs--Bobby and Scooby. Scooby is old and allowed to go wander the neighborhood and smell other dogs and bark at things. Bobby is young and dumb and not allowed out of the gate. But bobby is damn cute--some sort of golden retriver mix maybe? He constantly tries to get out when we are trying to get in--except for when it is hot in the afternoons and he can´t be bothered to do anything. I once attempted to take him for a walk around the neighborhood. No-go. We made it half way down the block, he pulled me through the park in 7 different directions and then sniffed around in a shady corner where he flopped down for a nice nap. I´ve since abandoned all walk efforts.
The weather is still beautiful..more or less the South American Fall. I haven´t seen any changing colors though. We´ve had 2 days of rain and I´ve heard that once this kicks in for the winter, it´s like a monsoon but cold. I´m not excited...
I´m avoiding talking about my job and the hogar because I don´t know where to start or how to really describe it. It is a really hard place to fit in. There are 75 girls who live in the home I volunteer in and some of them smile and hug me and have real conversations, and others cuss at me and tell me I´m ugly and stupid. Part of initiation, i think. It´s a challenge, but I am so glad for it. Every day is pushing me to learn their language so I can actually communicate my thoughts and intentions, as well as refining my motivations in being here and building relationships with them. I´ve realized that 6 months will slip past me and these girls will wave me along as they welcome a new volunteer--but that the brevity of our relationship does not necessarily undermine it´s sincerity or importance.
Every volunteer that comes along contributes something--their spirit, their vision--into what seems to become this flow of growth. I am now about to start orienting the girls at the Aldea (my home) on their new computer lab--4 computers gifted by a north american foundation, complete with internet and various programs like office and photoshop. This is only possible because some volunteers before me had a vision and wrote a grant. And now I am the volunteer responsible for continuing this vision and developing into it elements of my own. The next volunteers will carry it on with their own unique mark.
I´m putting together a creative writing workshop for 4 girls, initially, which will incorporate use of the computer lab so that we can make and keep blogs--yes just like this one. If anyone has advice on creative writing exercises--PLEASE pass them along! This will hopefully give me the chance to learn more about writing, poetry and literature myself, along with the girls, and then learn more about each of them through their writing. I am really, really excited about this--and sincerely hoping it works! Anything is possible--or impossible--at the Aldea.
I´ve had a few really difficult days--girls who took paint supplies and painted on floors, walls, windows, etc...then ran from me when I suggested we clean it up. That was a toughie--definitely a day which ended with a stiff margarita ;) So now I´m learning how to use my time there with the girls who are receptive and continue trying to build relationships slowly with the ones who aren´t. It´s a strange and scary process. Chilean spanish is slang-laden and difficult to understand, so much of the time I feel like a deaf, dumb, mute. I wish so much I could converse fluently with the girls..but with time. By the way, the demographic there is mostly 13 to 18 year old girls--so a difficult time of life for girls with stable family situations, much less for these girls with little or no stability whatsoever.
A few other details before I sign off...I´ve been studying a lot of Chilean history and political and environmental issues...realizing with more clarity the direction I think my life will head once I´ve returned home. I´m on a committee here for ´volunteer formation´ which means that I plan our volunteer orientation activities, educational events and discussions and retreats. I get the chance to bring in speakers and reading materials to educate the volunteers on anything from the adoption process to the effects of abuse to the current economic situation of Chile. I´m loving this chance to read and research info about latin america and Chile and am focusing mostly on environmental info...Not particularly accurate for the work I´m doing, but it does tie in to the grand scheme.
So that´s the general picture of my life down here...there´s more words, pictures, songs I want to share, and they´ll come. til then, all my love and prayers.
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