Yesterday was Dia de las Glorais Navales, a national holiday commemorating an 1879 naval battle. There were small parades and celebrations in all the towns across Chile. On Friday, the students here had their own Navy Day parade, which consisted of literally walking the distance of one city block. When I got to school in the morning, I quickly learned that parades here require formal wear. Like prom or wedding-type formal. And of course no one told me this ahead of time, and then everyone was surprised to see me wearing a sweater and sneakers to work like I do every single day. As though when I heard the words "school parade" I was supposed to just assume that meant wearing my finest suit that I did not bring to Chile.
In true Chile fashion, the entire morning was ass-backwards. First off, I arrived about 15 late due to cops not being able to direct traffic around an accident on the one road leading to Castro. When I arrived, I realized that I was, in fact, still early since everything here runs on Chilean time, meaning about 30 minutes late. My teacher, for example, was not phased by the fact that he showed up an hour late without any explanation. Then, the teachers just sat around for about half an hour while the kids just kinda chilled, until we all left for the parade.
Every school in town seemed to be at the parade. We wasted about an hour collecting kids' backpacks to put in a van (since I guess there's a strict no backpack rule for parades), just standing around on the sidewalk while others lined up, and finally lining our own kids up. And then came the actual marching. We literally walked straight down the street for about ten minutes or less. We walked past one intersection, alongside the plaza, and then disbanded. After this, I joined a few teachers for drinks down by the harbor. First we walked over to street vendors selling salmon. Two bucks for a bowl of the freshest salmon I've ever had. Then we walked over with our bowls of seafood to a local tavern where we went through a couple bottles of wine. After dropping our bowls and silverware off with the seafood lady, we all went home. It was definitely different to see a street vendor not using disposable styrofoam cups. Along the same lines, last week when we had a barbecue at school for Students' Day, all the kids brought plates and forks with them that they took back home to wash after school. Students also reuse disposable cups when they hold fundraisers. Though the lack of disposable plates and cups seems inconvenient and really weird, the fact is that it's a hell of a lot better than creating the amount of garbage we collect in the US. Just picture the amount of trash we have to take out after having like ten friends over for beer and pizza. Imagine how much smaller that heap would be if we had just washed the plates and cups.
On Thursday I picked up my check (we get paid a whopping $160/mo.) and worked with kids on our English Show. The English Show is like a school talent show, where every grade will present skits, songs, or plays in English. Planning this with the younger kids, who's English is limited, has been challenging. And the teacher I work with in those grades has done nothing to make it easier. Though the show is July 1st and the fifth graders aren't at all ready, she told me last week she "wasn't sure she liked their idea," which is to do a skit based on Open Season. Not sure? The show is in a month. How about you help me type up a skit and get the kids rehearsing, rather than sit around and roll around new ideas in your head? So on Thursday, rather than helping me plot out a script with the class, she just sat at her desk grading papers, while I lost half the class' attention as they congregated around her desk and combed her hair or played with her laptop. What can you expect from someone who became a teacher only after she failed the exam to become a cop?
When I came back to school in the afternoon, after cashing my check at the bank that's only open until 2pm, I was greeted by an empty classroom. Apparently the seniors had scheduled a discussion on cultural identity and death for all of the junior high and high school. I'm not sure if I was just in the dark because I'm a gringo and not really a teacher, or if all the teachers had no clue and were just okay with this. The fact is that people don't ever give you more than a few days notice on anything. As though parade dress-codes, early dismissals, and school-wide pep rallies weren't things that I may want to know about, or know about more than five minutes in advance. It's amazing how an entire country is perfectly okay never know what's going to happen more than five days in advance. The discussion, from what I understood, was pretty interesting. Also interesting: the room we were in offered a view of a rainbow seemingly touching down right on the water outside. Pretty surreal. After school one of the moms, a gringo from NY who's lived here for years, offered me a ride into town. And since she was delivering baked goods to a customer for her home baking business, I got a free loaf of chocolate banana bread, too. Pretty awesome. Weekend has consisted of me watching movies (also just started watching Firefly) and bumming around. Bulls game in a few hours, hopefully the internet connection doesn't give out like last time.
-Pablo
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
A Whole Lotta Nothin'
This has been by far one of the best weekends I've had in Chile. All day Friday and Saturday I've sat on my ass and alternated between eating, napping, and watching movies online. Since I live on the outskirts of town whenever I go out for the evening on weekends, I end up crashing on somebody's couch or spare bed. The next day is always a late start, with people sleeping off hangovers and insisting I join them for lunch before I head back home. On the one hand, this kind of generosity and inviting attitude are super nice and not exactly how new coworkers you barely know would treat you back in the States. But on the other hand, four of five weekends straight of not sleeping in your own bed or traveling on buses does get tiring. So I've really enjoyed just chillin at home. I've caught up with The Office and watched all three Mariachi-trilogy Robert Rodriguez films. Since I'm using a Spanish-language site to view the movies, I've only had the option of turning on subtitles in Spanish. This means I've been watching all three movies without subtitles and thus practicing my Spanish for all the Spanish-only scenes (or in the case of El Mariachi, the entire movie). So I guess there's that to put in this week's productivity column. I also watched The Social Network, and I was very happy to see a Ben Mezrich book get a proper movie adaptation, after the very bad and pretty racist film version of 21. Anyway, I figured I'd use this blog post to talk a bit about Chile in general, since most folks back home still probably don't have much of a clue as to how I'm living down here.
The country is divided into 15 numbered regions, going from north to south (with a few regions numerically out of place because they broke off and formed new regions). In the north (the first 3 or 4 regions) you have the Atacama desert, the world's driest desert, with a whole lot of sun and heat. Way in the south (regions XI and XII) you have Patagonia, enormous glaciers, lots of snow, and you're as close to Antarctica as you can get in the world from any of the continents. In the middle of the country (around region V) you have the capital of Santiago and the big port city of Valparaiso. The weather in these parts is still very warm year-round, with mild winters that Chicagoans would consider to be summer weather. I'm living in Region X, Los Lagos (the Lakes region). About 12 hours by bus south of Santiago, we are far enough south that winters here get cold and rainy. However, we're still far enough north that we don't get snow, and the summer months are very hot from what I understand. The entire area is very green, with lots of lakes (obviously), huge forests, and even a couple volcanoes near the city of Puerto Montt.
However, for about three or four months straight the tenth region gets hit with non-stop rain. The climate here is similar to Seattle's, in that even in the summer months you'll get rainy days/weeks. And since central heating is entirely non-existent in southern Chile, people teach class in their jackets, sleep under five or six layers of blankets, and keep the wood-burning stoves on all day. As for the rain, they tell me last year a teacher moved from Santiago to Castro to work at my school, and suffered from depression due to the lack of sunshine over the winter. So basically, I'm bracing myself for lots of movie-watching and pisco-drinking for all of June and July. Still, folks tell me that the weather on other parts of the island of Chiloe, as well as in the Lagos region on mainland, seems to be worse, with stronger winds and more powerful storms.
This island itself is actually much larger than what anyone would think of when they hear the world "island." It's about 120 miles long and 40 miles wide, so it's not like I take a row boat from the mainland to some shanty town on a desolate island. To get to the island, cars and coach buses board a large ferry that takes about half and hour (in clear weather) to cross the river. From the northern tip of Chiloe, it takes about 20 minutes to get to the bus station in the center of Ancud--one of the three big cities on the island (even though this "big" city has no traffic lights). Then, its just under 2 hours to Castro. The entire island is covered with green forests and large rolling hills. The place is inexplicably odd: the large penguin colonies are in the north, the flamingos are in the south (yup, flamingos), and they say that the winds from the south (Antarctica) bring warmer weather.
People here have found a really cool balance between rural and urban living. Once you go beyond the houses immediately surrounding the town square (this entire area is pretty small), you start seeing people with horses or chickens on their property. Now, the properties are still pretty small -- about the same size lot a small house in Norridge has, or smaller -- and they're by no means farms or anything, its just that some people might build a small chicken coup in the yard, or a stable for a horse or bull if they have a slightly larger property. And these houses are just a few minutes drive away from city center, in what we'd either consider the immediate suburbs or still the city itself. As a result, you have an area with large paved roads, plenty of shops and big grocery stores, and people living in close proximity (rather than on the large multi-acre farms you see in the American Midwest), but the people live life at a slower pace, with plenty of fresh air and homemade goods (breads, jams, cheeses, and wool for knitting just about everything).
My house, for example, is just off the one major road that connects Castro to the rest of the island. About ten minutes outside of the city, you turn off the main street and follow a dirt road up hill to a small suburb (more like a village) with plenty of homes, a few tiny stores, and a church that has one mass per month. My host family has just the house on their property, with a small shed in back for storing firewood. But some of our neighbors have chickens, cats, and plenty of dogs roaming around outside their homes. It reminds me of the rural villages in Poland that I've seen, even though its only a few minutes away from the island's capital city. And since my host parents have plenty of friends who live on real rural farms, we get plenty of the homemade goods mentioned earlier, and of course they also make their own mayonnaise and jams and such here in the kitchen. I'll post more on Chilean culture, politics, etc over the next few months.
-Pablo
The country is divided into 15 numbered regions, going from north to south (with a few regions numerically out of place because they broke off and formed new regions). In the north (the first 3 or 4 regions) you have the Atacama desert, the world's driest desert, with a whole lot of sun and heat. Way in the south (regions XI and XII) you have Patagonia, enormous glaciers, lots of snow, and you're as close to Antarctica as you can get in the world from any of the continents. In the middle of the country (around region V) you have the capital of Santiago and the big port city of Valparaiso. The weather in these parts is still very warm year-round, with mild winters that Chicagoans would consider to be summer weather. I'm living in Region X, Los Lagos (the Lakes region). About 12 hours by bus south of Santiago, we are far enough south that winters here get cold and rainy. However, we're still far enough north that we don't get snow, and the summer months are very hot from what I understand. The entire area is very green, with lots of lakes (obviously), huge forests, and even a couple volcanoes near the city of Puerto Montt.
However, for about three or four months straight the tenth region gets hit with non-stop rain. The climate here is similar to Seattle's, in that even in the summer months you'll get rainy days/weeks. And since central heating is entirely non-existent in southern Chile, people teach class in their jackets, sleep under five or six layers of blankets, and keep the wood-burning stoves on all day. As for the rain, they tell me last year a teacher moved from Santiago to Castro to work at my school, and suffered from depression due to the lack of sunshine over the winter. So basically, I'm bracing myself for lots of movie-watching and pisco-drinking for all of June and July. Still, folks tell me that the weather on other parts of the island of Chiloe, as well as in the Lagos region on mainland, seems to be worse, with stronger winds and more powerful storms.
This island itself is actually much larger than what anyone would think of when they hear the world "island." It's about 120 miles long and 40 miles wide, so it's not like I take a row boat from the mainland to some shanty town on a desolate island. To get to the island, cars and coach buses board a large ferry that takes about half and hour (in clear weather) to cross the river. From the northern tip of Chiloe, it takes about 20 minutes to get to the bus station in the center of Ancud--one of the three big cities on the island (even though this "big" city has no traffic lights). Then, its just under 2 hours to Castro. The entire island is covered with green forests and large rolling hills. The place is inexplicably odd: the large penguin colonies are in the north, the flamingos are in the south (yup, flamingos), and they say that the winds from the south (Antarctica) bring warmer weather.
People here have found a really cool balance between rural and urban living. Once you go beyond the houses immediately surrounding the town square (this entire area is pretty small), you start seeing people with horses or chickens on their property. Now, the properties are still pretty small -- about the same size lot a small house in Norridge has, or smaller -- and they're by no means farms or anything, its just that some people might build a small chicken coup in the yard, or a stable for a horse or bull if they have a slightly larger property. And these houses are just a few minutes drive away from city center, in what we'd either consider the immediate suburbs or still the city itself. As a result, you have an area with large paved roads, plenty of shops and big grocery stores, and people living in close proximity (rather than on the large multi-acre farms you see in the American Midwest), but the people live life at a slower pace, with plenty of fresh air and homemade goods (breads, jams, cheeses, and wool for knitting just about everything).
My house, for example, is just off the one major road that connects Castro to the rest of the island. About ten minutes outside of the city, you turn off the main street and follow a dirt road up hill to a small suburb (more like a village) with plenty of homes, a few tiny stores, and a church that has one mass per month. My host family has just the house on their property, with a small shed in back for storing firewood. But some of our neighbors have chickens, cats, and plenty of dogs roaming around outside their homes. It reminds me of the rural villages in Poland that I've seen, even though its only a few minutes away from the island's capital city. And since my host parents have plenty of friends who live on real rural farms, we get plenty of the homemade goods mentioned earlier, and of course they also make their own mayonnaise and jams and such here in the kitchen. I'll post more on Chilean culture, politics, etc over the next few months.
-Pablo
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Poo Cocktails and Homophobia
Today we celebrated dia del alumno, Students' Day, by having breakfast in class, watching the teachers put on a show, watching a movie, and having a cookout (asado). Jackass 3D was the movie of choice for the sophomores and the few 7th graders that watched it with us. The movie itself was hilarious, and screw you to all my friends that refused to go see it in 3D in theaters with me. However, it certainly made for some odd moments like when a dildo flew through the air and hit a man in the face in slow motion, as a seventh grader behind me asked, "What's that?" Or when we watched a man super glue his ass to another man's hairy back. Or when we watched Steve-O get propelled into the air in a full port-a-potty (the "poo cocktail supreme," which I would have loved to see in full 3D). Okay, so there were a lot of awkward scenes.
The most surreal moment, however, was when I watched a naked, obese man have a pig eat an apple out of his ass (there really is no non-crude way to write that sentence). I was astonished at how similar the pig, and the naked fat man kneeling in the mud on all fours were (again, the grown man willingly having an apple eaten out of his ass). I sat there thinking, "This is America." I was originally going to make some disclaimer about how Jackass in no way represented Americans. But after thinking over my own high school years, the shenanigans of my kids at summer camp, and how dirty, stupid, glutenous, and anti-intellectual our society is...there is no way I can say Jackass isn't American. Nay, it's more American than Microsoft, or Levi's, or American Airlines, or any number of businesses/products that get outsourced to Asia or South America. Though I'll take Johnny Knoxville over Sarah Palin as the face of our country any day.
Earlier in the day our teachers put on a show for the students. Two female teachers performed a skit which involved colorful wigs, lip-synching, and a story of two women singing about heartache. Another professor wrote an original funny story about the students which I couldn't understand, but it had some funny voices and got a lot of laughs. Sadly, the majority of the show consisted of four professors pretending to be contestants on "Yo Soy" ("I Am"), a Chilean show where contestants do their best celebrity imitations. All four guys took turns imitating various Latino gay performers from the 80s and 90s (Ricky Martin was the only one I recognized). Now, I have absolutely nothing against making an ass of yourself in public for comedy's sake, nor would I often pass on the opportunity to look fabulous imitating Ricky Martin. But the fact is that this was basically a show of person after person coming out and mocking gay performers.
There's a fine line between laughing with someone and laughing at them. The best similarity I can think of would be "Chappelle's Show." The skits offered brilliant social commentary on race in America, but when white kids started to laugh along with Dave Chappelle for the wrong reasons, things got messy. Under different circumstances I would have jumped at the opportunity to put on a wig and stiffly wiggle my hips in front of the school. For example, later in the show the same teachers acted as male back-up dancers for another female teacher who impersonated some old Chilean diva. The guys still had very effeminate dance moves, but the whole thing was one elaborate, fun dance routine. The "Yo Soy" skits, on the other hand, had a frat party atmosphere to them. They told us that society here is overtly macho, with women still expected to fulfill all domestic duties and such. And though I've heard stories from past volunteers -- her host brother who was in his early 30s refused to make himself dinner for a week when the parents were out of town, and bitched and moaned that the female American paying the family rent money wouldn't go out of her way to make him food or clean his dishes -- I haven't seen anything like that up until now. Fact is that in every home I've visited the father helps cook and clean up at every meal, and this past Sunday the men completely waited on their wives hand and foot.
Sadly, I saw a very different side of the culture today as all four teachers made sure to mockingly flirt with the male contest judge and basically make their character look stupid. It's hard to really tell the difference between making yourself look dumb for the sake of having a good time, and trying to make the character you're portraying look dumb (as in, "Man Ricky Martin sure was a maricon."), and perhaps I'm wrong to judge too harsh. But I can safely say that watching your entire school crack up at the idea of homosexuality is not going to make it any easier for gay students to feel comfortable in their own skin. Of course, it's not like American society doesn't have the exact same problems. But it's definitely nice to know that a full blown show mocking gay singers like this would not be okay in the majority of American schools, and that plenty of US celebrities and politicians get together to work on pro-gay rights issues and PSAs to young students. But at the same time, we still have schools barring students from their own proms for being gay, so...there's that.
Essentially, I think that this is an example of identical issues and problems facing two separate cultures. But whereas here it is still quite public and open, in the US we often take the official policy of "This isn't P.C. and it's not tolerated or accepted here, thus we're on moral high ground" while shoving our skeletons back into the closet. The series of student suicides on college and high school campuses proves that all too well. I guess I don't have too much to say at the moment on this incredibly broad, complex issue. But I figured this was a story worth sharing. Hopefully in the near future I'll write a little more about Chilean daily life in general and the new Aysen hydro-power project that was just approved and will shortly be tearing apart all of southern Chile. Unfortunately, our country's find common ground on bullshit yet again.
-Pablo
The most surreal moment, however, was when I watched a naked, obese man have a pig eat an apple out of his ass (there really is no non-crude way to write that sentence). I was astonished at how similar the pig, and the naked fat man kneeling in the mud on all fours were (again, the grown man willingly having an apple eaten out of his ass). I sat there thinking, "This is America." I was originally going to make some disclaimer about how Jackass in no way represented Americans. But after thinking over my own high school years, the shenanigans of my kids at summer camp, and how dirty, stupid, glutenous, and anti-intellectual our society is...there is no way I can say Jackass isn't American. Nay, it's more American than Microsoft, or Levi's, or American Airlines, or any number of businesses/products that get outsourced to Asia or South America. Though I'll take Johnny Knoxville over Sarah Palin as the face of our country any day.
Earlier in the day our teachers put on a show for the students. Two female teachers performed a skit which involved colorful wigs, lip-synching, and a story of two women singing about heartache. Another professor wrote an original funny story about the students which I couldn't understand, but it had some funny voices and got a lot of laughs. Sadly, the majority of the show consisted of four professors pretending to be contestants on "Yo Soy" ("I Am"), a Chilean show where contestants do their best celebrity imitations. All four guys took turns imitating various Latino gay performers from the 80s and 90s (Ricky Martin was the only one I recognized). Now, I have absolutely nothing against making an ass of yourself in public for comedy's sake, nor would I often pass on the opportunity to look fabulous imitating Ricky Martin. But the fact is that this was basically a show of person after person coming out and mocking gay performers.
There's a fine line between laughing with someone and laughing at them. The best similarity I can think of would be "Chappelle's Show." The skits offered brilliant social commentary on race in America, but when white kids started to laugh along with Dave Chappelle for the wrong reasons, things got messy. Under different circumstances I would have jumped at the opportunity to put on a wig and stiffly wiggle my hips in front of the school. For example, later in the show the same teachers acted as male back-up dancers for another female teacher who impersonated some old Chilean diva. The guys still had very effeminate dance moves, but the whole thing was one elaborate, fun dance routine. The "Yo Soy" skits, on the other hand, had a frat party atmosphere to them. They told us that society here is overtly macho, with women still expected to fulfill all domestic duties and such. And though I've heard stories from past volunteers -- her host brother who was in his early 30s refused to make himself dinner for a week when the parents were out of town, and bitched and moaned that the female American paying the family rent money wouldn't go out of her way to make him food or clean his dishes -- I haven't seen anything like that up until now. Fact is that in every home I've visited the father helps cook and clean up at every meal, and this past Sunday the men completely waited on their wives hand and foot.
Sadly, I saw a very different side of the culture today as all four teachers made sure to mockingly flirt with the male contest judge and basically make their character look stupid. It's hard to really tell the difference between making yourself look dumb for the sake of having a good time, and trying to make the character you're portraying look dumb (as in, "Man Ricky Martin sure was a maricon."), and perhaps I'm wrong to judge too harsh. But I can safely say that watching your entire school crack up at the idea of homosexuality is not going to make it any easier for gay students to feel comfortable in their own skin. Of course, it's not like American society doesn't have the exact same problems. But it's definitely nice to know that a full blown show mocking gay singers like this would not be okay in the majority of American schools, and that plenty of US celebrities and politicians get together to work on pro-gay rights issues and PSAs to young students. But at the same time, we still have schools barring students from their own proms for being gay, so...there's that.
Essentially, I think that this is an example of identical issues and problems facing two separate cultures. But whereas here it is still quite public and open, in the US we often take the official policy of "This isn't P.C. and it's not tolerated or accepted here, thus we're on moral high ground" while shoving our skeletons back into the closet. The series of student suicides on college and high school campuses proves that all too well. I guess I don't have too much to say at the moment on this incredibly broad, complex issue. But I figured this was a story worth sharing. Hopefully in the near future I'll write a little more about Chilean daily life in general and the new Aysen hydro-power project that was just approved and will shortly be tearing apart all of southern Chile. Unfortunately, our country's find common ground on bullshit yet again.
-Pablo
Gringo Gathering
This past Friday I travelled to the city of Puerto Montt again, marking the second time I've left Chiloe Island since I've come here. The English Opens Doors program had a regional meeting for all the Americans (and one Canadian) working in the Los Lagos region. After lunch, a meeting where we discussed living and working conditions, and a few beers afterwards, we decided to go out to the touristy town of Puerto Varas for the night. Two weeks ago I met Julio, the new co-regional coordinator for our region, and he told me I could stay with him whenever in Puerto Montt. So that's exactly what I did this weekend. We went to his uncle's place after the meeting, to change and eat before going out to Puerto Varas. While standing outside his house, Julio asked if I spoke any other languages. Literally as the two of us were talking about how I was raised speaking Polish, his neighbor comes outside and Julio tells me he's Polish. Now, there were plenty of Germans and Poles that immigrated to Chile and Argentina around WWII, so I figured this guy was like second generation Polish. However, it turns out he moved to Puerto Montt about 7 years ago after leaving Poland about 15 years ago and travelling around Germany and Italy for a few years. He's from Wroclaw and we chatted briefly in Polish. Hopefully next time I come through I can join him for drinks (obviously vodka).
Later we went out to Puerto Varas where we met some chill Californians traveling to Chile on vacation. It was definitely nice to be in a group of a dozen Americans or so, bullshitting about Bin Laden's death, the NBA playoffs, the NFL lockout, etc. However, I was also reminded how freaking expensive bars in touristy towns can be, and how much I hate being in a large loud obnoxious group of gringos abroad. Mostly because it reminds me I'm a loud, obnoxious gringo. Great night overall though, and afterward we headed back to Julio's house. I was dead tired by 3 and looking forward to sleeping. However, his two cousins and their five friends had other plans. We stayed up for another two or three hours drinking liter bottles of cheap beer. The kids, all in their late teens/early 20s, kept asking me what the hell I was doing in Puerto Montt, insisting on cooking traditional dishes for me in the future, and reminding me that their home was mine. Saturday we took the bus to Julio's parents' home, which is conveniently located between Puerto Montt and Castro, only minutes away from the shore where the ferry crosses to the island.
There I spent Saturday and Sunday morning eating, riding a horse, eating, sightseeing, and eating some more. Homemade bread, honey, marmalade, cheese and eggs from the farm. His house is in a rural area marked with dirt roads, small, cozy homes, and lots of livestock. His brother let me ride one of his horses, and I rode it over to a neighbor's house where we bought a giant wheel of cheese, from a giant shack in back of her house full of them. Julio's family has a small store attached to their house that they run as their main source of income. It's a very quiet, slow-moving, and calm lifestyle around those parts, as it is on most of Chiloe Island as well. I've found that even at my home, right outside the capital city of Castro, life is still much less hectic. That may be because our "big city" of Castro is the only city on the island with traffic lights, and our "suburb" of Llau-Llao has dirt roads and farms with bulls and chickens. But I'll get more into general observation about Chilean life in the next post. Point is that the weekend was great, and the bus ride back to Castro was amazing because it was the first time I made the trip in daytime with clear, sunny weather. Thus, I really got to see the whole island in a new light. Again, general descriptions of the place will be in the next post.
Yesterday, Tuesday, I spent the day getting my temporary residence visa and applying for my temporary state ID. Lots of lines, pointless questions (when registering my visa with the police so they're aware of my presence here, why does anybody need to know if I finished college or not?), bureaucratic red tape, and other garbage. Basically, like the DMV only more Chilean. For instance, to apply for my Chilean id card not only did I have to register my new visa with the police (which makes sense, I guess), but I also had to get fingerprinted -- all. ten. fingers.-- and make a photocopy of every page in my passport that had a visa stamp. Why in the hell would the Chilean government have to have on record the fact that I was in London for a weekend two years ago? Once all said was said and done, it still wasn't quite done. I have to wait three freakin weeks for the card to be ready to pick up. Now, I don't need the ID right away and I'm not trying to say yesterday was a shit day. The fact is that everyday while living here is a day that I'm living abroad, eating delicious things and traveling, and I also got to take the day off work (work which is also awesome and not really work). I just don't comprehend how renewing my license in the States took all of 45 minutes, and this takes three weeks. I realize I'm not a citizen here, but when the DMV shows you off, you probably need to rethink your game plan a little bit. Either way, the day also led to lunch with the two co-regional coordinators for the EOD program. Julio I've mentioned above. Rocio is equally nice and amazing, and has been dating for several years a former program participant from New Hampshire, so hopefully I'll have someone to watch the NBA finals with next time I'm in Puerto Montt. Though I've met Mike and we've gone out together both of my times in Puerto Montt, both times we've made plans for the following night to watch his Celtics play, and both times it hasn't worked out. Who knows, maybe next time I'm in P.M. the Bulls will be playing in the Finals, though I ain't holding my breath.
-PM
Later we went out to Puerto Varas where we met some chill Californians traveling to Chile on vacation. It was definitely nice to be in a group of a dozen Americans or so, bullshitting about Bin Laden's death, the NBA playoffs, the NFL lockout, etc. However, I was also reminded how freaking expensive bars in touristy towns can be, and how much I hate being in a large loud obnoxious group of gringos abroad. Mostly because it reminds me I'm a loud, obnoxious gringo. Great night overall though, and afterward we headed back to Julio's house. I was dead tired by 3 and looking forward to sleeping. However, his two cousins and their five friends had other plans. We stayed up for another two or three hours drinking liter bottles of cheap beer. The kids, all in their late teens/early 20s, kept asking me what the hell I was doing in Puerto Montt, insisting on cooking traditional dishes for me in the future, and reminding me that their home was mine. Saturday we took the bus to Julio's parents' home, which is conveniently located between Puerto Montt and Castro, only minutes away from the shore where the ferry crosses to the island.
There I spent Saturday and Sunday morning eating, riding a horse, eating, sightseeing, and eating some more. Homemade bread, honey, marmalade, cheese and eggs from the farm. His house is in a rural area marked with dirt roads, small, cozy homes, and lots of livestock. His brother let me ride one of his horses, and I rode it over to a neighbor's house where we bought a giant wheel of cheese, from a giant shack in back of her house full of them. Julio's family has a small store attached to their house that they run as their main source of income. It's a very quiet, slow-moving, and calm lifestyle around those parts, as it is on most of Chiloe Island as well. I've found that even at my home, right outside the capital city of Castro, life is still much less hectic. That may be because our "big city" of Castro is the only city on the island with traffic lights, and our "suburb" of Llau-Llao has dirt roads and farms with bulls and chickens. But I'll get more into general observation about Chilean life in the next post. Point is that the weekend was great, and the bus ride back to Castro was amazing because it was the first time I made the trip in daytime with clear, sunny weather. Thus, I really got to see the whole island in a new light. Again, general descriptions of the place will be in the next post.
Yesterday, Tuesday, I spent the day getting my temporary residence visa and applying for my temporary state ID. Lots of lines, pointless questions (when registering my visa with the police so they're aware of my presence here, why does anybody need to know if I finished college or not?), bureaucratic red tape, and other garbage. Basically, like the DMV only more Chilean. For instance, to apply for my Chilean id card not only did I have to register my new visa with the police (which makes sense, I guess), but I also had to get fingerprinted -- all. ten. fingers.-- and make a photocopy of every page in my passport that had a visa stamp. Why in the hell would the Chilean government have to have on record the fact that I was in London for a weekend two years ago? Once all said was said and done, it still wasn't quite done. I have to wait three freakin weeks for the card to be ready to pick up. Now, I don't need the ID right away and I'm not trying to say yesterday was a shit day. The fact is that everyday while living here is a day that I'm living abroad, eating delicious things and traveling, and I also got to take the day off work (work which is also awesome and not really work). I just don't comprehend how renewing my license in the States took all of 45 minutes, and this takes three weeks. I realize I'm not a citizen here, but when the DMV shows you off, you probably need to rethink your game plan a little bit. Either way, the day also led to lunch with the two co-regional coordinators for the EOD program. Julio I've mentioned above. Rocio is equally nice and amazing, and has been dating for several years a former program participant from New Hampshire, so hopefully I'll have someone to watch the NBA finals with next time I'm in Puerto Montt. Though I've met Mike and we've gone out together both of my times in Puerto Montt, both times we've made plans for the following night to watch his Celtics play, and both times it hasn't worked out. Who knows, maybe next time I'm in P.M. the Bulls will be playing in the Finals, though I ain't holding my breath.
-PM
Monday, May 2, 2011
"Come On Get Happy"
Today after school my host sister asked me if I was happy that they killed Osama. I told her that, in all honesty, I had no idea. If the question was about feeling relief, or finding some kind of closure, perhaps the answer would be a little more concrete. But she chose to use the one word I've been struggling with all day: happy.
Since the news broke late last night of Bin Laden's death, I've been sifting through my Facebook newsfeed, looking at various video clips, Internet memes, American newspaper op-eds, and friends' statuses. As friends on FB share articles, pictures, and personal opinions, I find myself on the outside looking in. I can't just step outside of my apartment and start chanting and celebrating in front of the White House like I did after the presidential election. I can't just turn on CNN and let it play in the background for the next several days. And I can't just go and down some beers with close friends while bullshitting about politics. So, I sit quietly at my computer and try to figure out how I feel about all this.
Unlike Hussein or Hitler, Bin Laden spent the last decade hiding underground, not leading any national parties or movements. His death won't bring about the end of al Qaeda or anti-American sentiment. Still, the impact this has on the psyche and operations of terrorist networks like al Qaeda should not be understated. If the five minutes of sports I've watched in my life have taught me anything, its that momentum and morale can play enormous roles in life. In practical terms, this is just the death of one individual, which comes about after a decade of warfare in at least two countries, terrorist bombings on several continents, trillions of dollars borrowed and spent on the military, anti-American sentiment growing during the Bush years, etc etc etc. But what last night proved to me is that there are definitely two sides to this story.
I don't know if I truly believe blood spilled (be it American troops or Iraqi civilians) can ever be justified, but at least last night reaffirms that for every Wikileaks-type story I hear of incompetence in the American government or military, there's somebody out there doing their job correctly. For years I've felt we weren't pulling out of the Middle East simply to save face. It seemed as though the government felt sacrificing US troops to stay locked in a stalemate was a better PR option than packing up and going home empty-handed. But then something like this happens and I think, "Hey, maybe it's more than sheer arrogance and pride that have kept us in the Middle East." Are we about to "win" a war in which there are neither defined borders or a clearly visible enemy? I'm going to guess no. Were the last ten years of warfare worth it if our main objective was to kill this one bearded dude? Again, not so much. But last night's raid had been in the planning stages since August. That means during mid-term elections, Christmas dinners, fiscal emergencies, Super Bowl parties, Donald Trump roasts, through it all people were working with good intel to successfully carry this out. Makes me wonder how many other rather unimportant things filled the 24 hour news cycle over the years because people were working hard to make sure we didn't have any major terrorist attacks to report on.
So I read articles, watch videos of drunk GW students waving flags at Lafayette Park, and write my blog, trying to figure out how I feel about all this. Last night I was pleasantly surprised, maybe a little shocked simply because I didn't think this would ever happen. I felt more like a Red Sox or Blackhawks fan seeing his team win the elusive championship for the first time in a lifetime. Then this morning I was damn pissed I couldn't be in NYC or DC to scream, chant, cry, and rant. Then I started to second-guess how morally correct it is to enjoy and contribute to the humor and sense of pride/victory that are all directed at the death of one man. Then I realized it would be insane not to celebrate the end of somebody who embodied so much hate and caused so much death. Then I realized that, really, I'm just giddy at the thought that Osama finally got his shit capped. All "America, fuck yeah!" about it.
Though now I'm just hoping this is the beginning of an eventual end to a very long chapter, that this will help ease tensions at home and make people feel more comfortable steering public funds away from the military budget and towards social programs like health care, education, feeding our poor and hungry. And though I very much doubt this will come to pass, I still see it being more feasible with Obama in office. But for now, living on the island of Chiloe, I don't have too many options other than to sit at my computer and quietly try to figure out an answer to Nacha's question. Am I happy they killed Osama?
Two articles I came across that stood out. With two very different points of view.
"The Ability to Kill Osama Does Not Make America Great." Stop celebrating and focus. Completely agree.
"Osama Bin Gotten" Go on and celebrate. ...Also agree.
-PM
Since the news broke late last night of Bin Laden's death, I've been sifting through my Facebook newsfeed, looking at various video clips, Internet memes, American newspaper op-eds, and friends' statuses. As friends on FB share articles, pictures, and personal opinions, I find myself on the outside looking in. I can't just step outside of my apartment and start chanting and celebrating in front of the White House like I did after the presidential election. I can't just turn on CNN and let it play in the background for the next several days. And I can't just go and down some beers with close friends while bullshitting about politics. So, I sit quietly at my computer and try to figure out how I feel about all this.
Unlike Hussein or Hitler, Bin Laden spent the last decade hiding underground, not leading any national parties or movements. His death won't bring about the end of al Qaeda or anti-American sentiment. Still, the impact this has on the psyche and operations of terrorist networks like al Qaeda should not be understated. If the five minutes of sports I've watched in my life have taught me anything, its that momentum and morale can play enormous roles in life. In practical terms, this is just the death of one individual, which comes about after a decade of warfare in at least two countries, terrorist bombings on several continents, trillions of dollars borrowed and spent on the military, anti-American sentiment growing during the Bush years, etc etc etc. But what last night proved to me is that there are definitely two sides to this story.
I don't know if I truly believe blood spilled (be it American troops or Iraqi civilians) can ever be justified, but at least last night reaffirms that for every Wikileaks-type story I hear of incompetence in the American government or military, there's somebody out there doing their job correctly. For years I've felt we weren't pulling out of the Middle East simply to save face. It seemed as though the government felt sacrificing US troops to stay locked in a stalemate was a better PR option than packing up and going home empty-handed. But then something like this happens and I think, "Hey, maybe it's more than sheer arrogance and pride that have kept us in the Middle East." Are we about to "win" a war in which there are neither defined borders or a clearly visible enemy? I'm going to guess no. Were the last ten years of warfare worth it if our main objective was to kill this one bearded dude? Again, not so much. But last night's raid had been in the planning stages since August. That means during mid-term elections, Christmas dinners, fiscal emergencies, Super Bowl parties, Donald Trump roasts, through it all people were working with good intel to successfully carry this out. Makes me wonder how many other rather unimportant things filled the 24 hour news cycle over the years because people were working hard to make sure we didn't have any major terrorist attacks to report on.
So I read articles, watch videos of drunk GW students waving flags at Lafayette Park, and write my blog, trying to figure out how I feel about all this. Last night I was pleasantly surprised, maybe a little shocked simply because I didn't think this would ever happen. I felt more like a Red Sox or Blackhawks fan seeing his team win the elusive championship for the first time in a lifetime. Then this morning I was damn pissed I couldn't be in NYC or DC to scream, chant, cry, and rant. Then I started to second-guess how morally correct it is to enjoy and contribute to the humor and sense of pride/victory that are all directed at the death of one man. Then I realized it would be insane not to celebrate the end of somebody who embodied so much hate and caused so much death. Then I realized that, really, I'm just giddy at the thought that Osama finally got his shit capped. All "America, fuck yeah!" about it.
Though now I'm just hoping this is the beginning of an eventual end to a very long chapter, that this will help ease tensions at home and make people feel more comfortable steering public funds away from the military budget and towards social programs like health care, education, feeding our poor and hungry. And though I very much doubt this will come to pass, I still see it being more feasible with Obama in office. But for now, living on the island of Chiloe, I don't have too many options other than to sit at my computer and quietly try to figure out an answer to Nacha's question. Am I happy they killed Osama?
Two articles I came across that stood out. With two very different points of view.
"The Ability to Kill Osama Does Not Make America Great." Stop celebrating and focus. Completely agree.
"Osama Bin Gotten" Go on and celebrate. ...Also agree.
-PM
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