Roamin' towards Rome (See what I did there?)

Another summer, another season of summer youth camps behind me.  Work ended last week and I've been traveling since.  I spent last weekend in Bologna, then trained to Florence, and now I'm chilling at a farm/hostel set up outside of Perugia, not too far from Assisi.

After camps ended and I had to leave my host family's place on Saturday, I wandered around the suburbs of Milan, unsuccessfully searched for Internet cafes, and got a haircut.  Since I couldn't connect to the web, I had to sit on a park bench, covered in sweat and little hairs from my fresh cut, leafing through my LonelyPlanet guide trying to figure out which city I'd end up in that night.  Since I had plans to meet my Aussie friend Sarah in Florence on Monday, I decided to spend the weekend half way between the two towns, in Bologna.

I got to the train station late afternoon, got tickets, and made a mad dash towards the Internet cafe (€3 for 30 minutes?!) to book a hostel for a few hours from then.  I found a place that was cheap and HostelWorld recommended, but about 6 km from town.  So when I got in to Bologna, I wandered around looking for a night bus to take me to the middle of nowhere, where I'd either find a hostel or realize I paid €20 to sleep in a field.  At the bus stop I met a couple looking for the same hostel.  We got to talking and it turns out they were from Granada, so we talked about sweet ole Andalucia for a while.  On the bus ride I met several people who were about to start their year abroad at the University of Bologna.  They were chilling at our hostel while apartment hunting.  Several Americans, a few Poles from Wroclaw, and even a Chilena.  I spent the weekend drinking beers and jumping between conversations in different languages.  Just navigating between Spain Spanish and Chilean Spanish proved to be a challenge after several beers.

Then it was on to Florence.  Sarah and I stayed in an apartment we found through a site that is new to me, but highly recommended: airbnb.com  We paid next to nothing for a private room with bath, and I even got to wash my clothes in a fancy washing machine.  No hand washing in the sink for me!  Florence was as beautiful as anyone imagines it to be.  Sunsets overlooking the town from Piazza Michealangelo, Renaissance art and the Duomo, and gelatto.   What's not to love?  We ran into my friend Will, whom I met at work orientation in San Remo, and he and I decided to travel down to Rome together via Perugia.

That's where I am now.  Cold winds and clouds remind me summer is coming to a close.  Last night we went beer tasting: home made pork, home brewed beers, and home baked bread.  I'm loving Tuscany (though technically we're in Umbria, but Tuscany just has that picturesque ring to it).  Now we're off to Assisi for a few hours.  Hard to believe, but it'll be my third time there.  Globe-trotter baller status, what up?

-PM

Lunches and Dinners and Apperetivos, Oh My!

I've been in this small town, Proviglia or ...something, just outside of Brescia, for a couple days.  Our camp has been running very well.  We arrived an learned we'd have four high school-aged helpers. Between them, the camp directors, and us, we almost have as many adults as kids.  My group is between 9 and 14, and a solid bunch as usual.  Most speak English well enough to joke around with and such.  We're planning a sketch show, water balloon games, and other summer camp-y things.

My family here is amazing.  There are several brothers (and their respectives wives and families), a sister, and a nonna, whose house I'm staying in.  Nonna keeps me overfed, as I imagine Italian grandmothers have to by law.  Marco, one of her son's kid, comes to camp each morning dragging a lunch bag bigger than him, filled with food for the both of us.  Today my 'snack'  was an entire melon with a whole pack of prosciutto. And that was just after I finished my sandwiches.  So, I'm pretty much at the exact spot in life I've always wanted to be in: a place where stuffing my face is seen as the polite thing to do.

Weekend activities included: visiting a 10th century monastery, eating pasta, drinking white sparkling wine that this region -- Franciacorta -- is known for, eating some of the best pizza I've had in my life, drinking limoncello, and discussing today's problems with the mafia, and Deniro bashing skulls in as Capone in 'The Untouchable.'  Tonight my family tasted me with grappa, which I was told was a homemade liquor that was banned by the government because there's a good chance you're drinking pure ethonal when you have it.  But, I was assured this was good ish right here, so I partook.  The bottle was from 1999, and drinking something that had been bottled when Clinton was still in office had a certain nice touch to it.  Or maybe that touch was just the moonshine talking.

Fun story of the day: After hitchiking from my friend Fabrice's house in Avignon to Nice, I spent a few days bumming around the French Riviera amongst people much richer and fancier than myself.  After a few hours of walking around Montecarlo, I caught a train to Sanremo for orientation. Since I was a day early, I asked some English-speaking folks for directions to the tourist info office, where I was informed all affordable sleeping options were booked for the weekend.  Rather than paying over 100 euros for a room, I opted for reading 'The Kite Runner' on a bench until 1am and then sleeping in a plaza on turf (like putt-putt golf grass).  I figured if families with baby strollers were okay sitting by me at 2 in the morning, then it was a safe place and people generally agreed I wasn't too creepy to trust around kids.  My only company was a drunk man who, having finished gambling at the local casino, tried convincing me to catch a 5 am train to Milan with him. Next day I met my orientation leaders, only to learn that it was them that I had stopped for directions, and that I totally could have spent the night on their apt. floor.  Bummer.  But an experience, nonetheless.

Now it's late, I've used up the only access to Internet I'll have a good while, and so I'm off to panic about how I'll get through several hours of lesson plans with kids tomorrow.

-PM

Enjoying La Dolce Vita

I arrived in Italy last Saturday and just wrapped up one week of orientation for work.  We spent the week playing games, learning techniques for teaching grammar, and just figuring out how these summer camps run.  The staff is just amazing -- loud, funny, energetic... the typical camp councelor types.  There was about 50 of us new tutors and out of that group, the number of guys was... four.  How's that for la dolce vita?  So alongside the warm weather (oh so hot and stuffy!), gelatto, and oceanside scenery of beaches and palm trees, I've also been enjoying the company of about 45 wonderfully smart and beautiful ladies.

Tomorrow it's off to some small town whose name I can't remember, not too far from Milan.  On Monday I start work.  I will be working with only one other tutor, a blonde Aussie named Sarah.  We have only 21 kids total in the camp, so it'll be quite different from the English camps of 200 I did in Santiago de Chile.  After the coming week, I'll have at least one more week of work, and then after that either more camp work or a quick trip to Rome and a return flight to Warsaw.  From there I'll be flying to NYC.  Haven't looked at flights yet, but I do know I have to be in New York by Sept. 29th for an HiA conference.  Hopefully that conference can lead to some job opportunities in Chicago, or at least in the US. And if not, it's still a great excuse to visit old friends, as well as some of the wonderful people I just met this summer in DC and Amsterdam for my HiA fellowship.

Now I'm off to enjoy my last night out in Sanremo with this great group of ladies (and token gentlemen). 

-Paolo

HiA in NYC

I officially have a homecoming date: October 1st, 2012.  I just signed up for a conference in New York on Sept 29th hosted by Humanity in Action (the same group I worked with all June in Amsterdam and Sarajevo).  I'm really hoping this leads to something like a part-time job or even an internship.  Now I just have to book the major trans-Atlantic flight from Poland to NYC or Newark -- which is closer to where I will be staying with the lovely Mike, who's currently getting his MFA from Rutgers. Thanks Mike!

After my parents left Paris for Warsaw I took the TVG train (high-speed rail that can reach up to 200 mph) to Avignon, to meet up with a friend I met hitchhiking the Carretera Austral in Chile.  Since yesterday happened to be a federal holiday, Fabrice took me cycling around southern France to some of the near by villages.  In 95 degree weather (35° C) we covered about 20 miles through grape vines, dirt roads, and medieval villages.  According to our gps, we hit highs of about 110° F (45°C) and speeds of about 35mph. After cold showers and naps we went wine tasting like distinguished folk.  I swirled reds and rosés around in my mouth and pretended I knew what I was doing.  And I had a good time pretending.

Today we bought a bunch of smelly cheeses and enjoyed our red wines.  After my hand picked soundtrack of Jay-Z and Kanye West moved Fabrice (Edith Piaf was yesterday, of course) we watched 8 Mile, which is shockingly 10 years old by now.

Tomorrow morning I will be on the highway trying to hitch a ride east towards the Italian border, as I start orientation in Sanremo Sunday.

-Paul

I Got My Parents in Paris, and They're Going Gorillas

Actually, they've been quite calm. But still, we're all here in Paris.  My folks planned this trip a year ago and since you could say I'm currently between things (just finished HiA fellowship in Amsterdam, I'm still a week away from my orientation in Italy to teach English at summer camps), I tagged along.  On their pocketbooks :)  We booked a relatively inexpensive hotel (perhaps the price reflects the lack of Internet and surplus of hookers) and have done the standard touristy things: climb the Eiffel Tour, check out Notre Dame, visit graves of famous dead people at Pere Lachase, etc. 

Also, I've had several crepes -- banana with Nutella.  Much better here than in Hel.  Though you really can't go wrong with such a recipe.  Looking back at the few days I spent in Paris with my friend Pete back in 2009, I'm just now seeing how much we missed back then.  World famous landmarks, popular dining spots, and various historic sites we just had no clue existed.  But, then again, for being so clueless we also did a surprisingly great job of actually checking out much of that stuff, too.  So this time around I've been able to re-visit some places with a new appreciation and without any unrealistic expectations of some romantic, exotic city.  And what I've found is that this is actually a pretty romantic, awesome city.

This time with my Lonely Planet guide in hand, I have been able to enjoy the background info on Hemingway's and Joyce's favorite coffee shops, see where Louis XVI was beheaded, and simply walk around town and know when I'm standing in front of Notre Dame, and when I'm in front of some other cool looking church that actually isn't Notre Dame at all, but just  a local Parisian church.

Now my folks are packing and getting ready to fly to Poland tomorrow, and I've just secured plans for southern France, Avignon via train.  There I'll be staying with my friend Fab for a few nights.  We met hitchhiking on the Carretera Austral in Patagonia, at what I consider to be the geographical and definitive end of the world map.  This type around, I'm hoping for a little more civilization.  Although sometimes, the less people, the better.

Sunday I start my orientation in Sanremo, a small town on the Italian riviera.  It's yet another location to add to my list of "Places far too fancy, exotic, or expensive for me to visit...that I've somehow visited (by accident)."  It's a good list.  It's my list, it's full of stories, and it seems to be growing at a good rate.

Hopefully some pictures of my summer thus far (Amsterdam, Sarajevo, Polska, Paris) to come soon.  One day I'll sit down and figure out how much of all this traveling is due to good planning, how much due to hard work, how much due to my family's financial support (a good amount, but looking at our bank accounts certainly not that big of a contribution), and how much of it all is due to plain ole' dumb luck and circumstance.  Something tells me most will fall in the last category.

-Paul (but with, like, the French pronunciation and stuff)

Naleśniki for dinner AND dessert?!

I spent the month of July crashing on my dad's couch in Warsaw. Or, at least, I would have were there an extra couch to crash on.  Since he lives in a tiny bachelor pad with only one couch/kind-of, almost-fold-out bed type thing, I spent most of the month sleeping on the floor.  Still, it's nice not having to pay rent. :)  I caught up with uncles, aunts, and cousins, trying to keep track of all the new editions to the family between various weddings and births that have occured since I was last in Europe.

Spending part of my summer in Warsaw has been an awesome experience.  The city has changed tremendously since my mom and I made our way to the C-H-I.  Even in a faltering world economy, Poland has somehow managed to keep okay (part of that probably has to due with the fact that they aren't on the Euro, and thus don't have to put up with all that Greek bankruptcy nonsense).  And since joining the EU in 2004, Poland has not only sent a work force abroad to various counties, some more happy to receive these "Polish plumbers" than others, but it has also seen quite a bit of foreigners immigrating.  Over the course of my bar hopping around Warsaw (and I certainly bar-hopped quite a bit), I heard Spanish, English, Korean, Ukrainian, and all sorts of other languages I wouldn't expect to hear in Poland.

Though I missed the frenzy of the 2012 Euro Cup in Warsaw, I still saw an energetic night life in Warsaw.  "Beach" bars have opened along the Wisła River (meaning a few bags of sand strewn around a some beach chairs set out), gay clubs have opened up in the city center, and whether you're in the touristy Old Town (Stare Miasto), on the ritzy Michigan Ave.-like boulevard (Nowy Świat), or sipping brews in some local knaipa off the beaten path, you're bound to find a young, (somewhat) international crowd enjoying dark beers and loud conversation.

My last week in Poland I spent in Hel.  By which I mean, I went camping for a few days with my cousins and their friends on the Hel peninsula on the northern coast of Poland.  Hundreds of camping trailers, tents, wind surfers, and families with crying children.  The weather was a bity rainy but we still got some sun.  We enjoyed the ice cold Baltic water for about 2 minutes, and for the rest of the time we chilled on the beach, watched folks wind surf, and ate delicious seafood.  My favorite meal, however, was when we went to a naleśniekarnia -- a place that sells lots of different types of naleśniki, Polish crêpes.  Dinner was some kind of  chicken with veggies all wrapped in a thick crêpe.  And for dinner... why more naleśniki of course. This type stuffed with bananas and Nutella.  Awesome.

Pluses: I've found places that offer shots of vodka and other liquors (but, really, why bother when you've got Wyborowa vodka?) for as cheap as 3 or 4 złote (about US $1).  And not watered down candy drinks, but just straight shots of liquor.  One place in particular is open 24/7 and offers vodka for a euro and plates of traditional Polish appetizers (pickled herring, cooked potatoes, etc) for like 3 euros (12 złote).  If that isn't heaven, I don't know what is.

Warsaw is, by Polish standards, a large city.  So even though that means you can't walk from/to all the bars in one night (like you could in Kraków), it means you also have plenty of different neighborhoods to visit, so you don't get tired of the same old spots.  And whereas Kraków is so touristy you could barely even hear and Polish being spoken in the main square (thanks to cheap flights from/to the UK via Ryan Air and the likes), Warsaw retains its Polish character while still offering a good-sized international flavor.  I met Spaniards that have lived and worked in Warsaw so long that their Polish is about as good as mine.

Beers are almost always served as .50 sizes (half a liter, or just a tad bit more than a pint).  Anything less is just plain nonsense to Poles, I guess.

Transport -- though the Metro layout currently offers a whopping ONE line to travel on, the city is currently trying to double that number to two within the next few years.  What's nice is that trams (trolleys) and buses connect just about every corner of the city, and for cheap.

Currensy -- the złoty is about a 3 to 1 exchange rate for the US dollar ($1 buys you 3 złote) and 4 to 1 for the euro.  Thus, stuff is cheap.  It's not exactly going to be one-third of what it would be in the states (things like brand-names clothes and electronics actually cost quite a bit more than in the US), but overall it is quite easy on the pocketbook.  A dinner of pork chops, potatoes, salad, and a soft drink will run you about $6. 

Minuses:  First off is that it can be quite difficult to find ice-cold drinks.  Most restaraunts offer room-temp waters, sodas almost never include ice, and this is sadly extended to beers as well.  The lady at the shop may say "tak" when you ask if her beers are cold, but what she means is "I want to sell these beers, good sir."  So then you drink warm beers.  Or, if the pizza place you go to informs you that their fridge went out the other night and thus everything is warm, you do as my cousins did and simply ask for ice in your beer.  Why that place still had ice after a night of a broken fridge is still beyond me.

Red tape.  It took my entire month in Poland for me to get my ID card.  Even though I was born in Poland, to Polish parents, and had an original birth certificate, I had to jump through hoops to prove my citizenship.  The lady at one office told me, "Sir, we can't prove that the Piotr Marcinkowski on your birth certificate is the same Piotr Marcinkowski standing with you today. And we can't be sure that the Paweł Marcinkowski on that form is the same Paweł Marcinkowski in front of me now."  Sure...  I can only imagine the amount of work it takes to become a US citizen (I've heard my fair share of horror stories of people just applying for visas to visit the States for a week or two), but hey, those are hoops I don't have to jump through myself.  Fortunately, my folks put up with that nonsense years ago :)

Although there is a lot of stuff in and about Poland I could say that isn't related to the prices or temperatures of their alcohols, I'm going to just leave all that for another day.  Take my word for it though, the foods great, the vodka's strong, and the women are beautiful.

-Paweł

Bikes, Brewskis, and Human Rights

Due to high demand (like maybe two friends asked at some point if I'm still bloggin), I've resurrected the OC blog.  Last I left off, I was about to trek around Torres del Paine National Park in southern Patagonia.  Between December and March I hitch hiked, couch surfed, worked, bought a guitar,  partied on warm beaches and rainy islands, and even manged to hike to the top of a volcano drunk from the night before.  In short, I had a blast enjoying the summer months in Chile.  But, it's always 'on to the next.'  So now I'm hanging out in Europe enjoying possibly the coldest and rainiest summer I've had in a long while.

I participated in a summer conference on human rights with a group called Humanity in Action.  HiA flew me out to DC in late May, where I caught up with old college friends and professors, and wandered around the campus of my alma mater (our hotel was next door to GW).  The US fellows got to participate in a 3 day conference that included panels with various DC shakers and movers working in the field of human rights. We met with some folks at the State Department, got a brief tour of the Pentagon, and chatted with folks at the Council on Foreign Relations (where I ran into my house mentor from my senior year dorm).  After a weekend of playing catch-up with old friends, and a few intense days in DC kicking off the program, it was off to Amsterdam. 

As I sat at National Airport listening to two friends argue about the practicality of modern nation-states and international borders (the coming month would be filled with these over-my-head type conversations) a voice over the PA announced our flight to Paris was canceled.  No explanation, no reasoning, no advice to stay put and wait for the next flight.  Just...I had a flight to Europe, now I don't.   Simple as that.  So we spent a while running between several terminals and baggage claim, and finally all got seats on Air Canada, Paris via Toronto.  After arriving in Paris, I grabbed a bite to eat with one of the fellows and boarded my train to Amsterdam.  I'll explain what I was doing in Europe, in the first place.

The HiA summer program consists of month-long programs running simultaneously in five European cities -- Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, and Warsaw.  Each city has a different layout, but each program has fellows from the US, the home country, and a few others (Ukrain, Turkey, or Bosnia) meeting with various speakers such as local politicians, journalists, Holocaust survivors, activists, refugees, etc.  I was assigned to Amsterdam, where we looked at present-day human rights violations through the lens of the Holocaust.  We had meetings at the Anne Frank House (where she hid during the war), traveled to The Hague to visit the criminal tribunal that prosecutes war criminals from the Bosnian war, visited local TV stations, and met with many cool ass people.

Most of us got bikes from our host families to use for the month. I lived in a newly built area about 30 minutes from city center by bike.  Every day the commute included rides over really long, inclined bridges and almost always lots of rain.  Our group consisted of about 20 fellows from Bosnia, Turkey, the Netherlands, and the US (though the American group was super diverse, with only 2 of the 8 of us actually born in the US).  Needless to say, it was a real chill group full of super smart folks with common interests.  After listening to speakers for 8 hours a day, the convos over beers at local pubs each afternoon were quite lively and thought-provoking.  After an amazing month with the Dutch, we were flown to Sarajevo for an annual conference, and as a way to wrap up the summer programs.

The conference focused on post-war rebuilding and reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  I got to catch up with US fellows I met in DC and swap stories about our experiences in different cities, meet HiA fellows from past years, and network with lots of different people in the human rights field (which have already led to some connections in Warsaw).  Sarajevo is an amazing city!  While the country still has plenty of issues to work through, at local and national levels, there is plenty of natural beauty and good vibes across Bosnia.  Sarajevo reminded me of Krakow: fairly small, lots of old interesting architecture, and a vivid night life with crowded small bars packed in various nooks and crannies of the city.  Due to a long lay-over in Serbia on the way to Sarajevo, we also got to see Belgrade for a few hours.  Belgrade, to me, was similar to Warsaw: a sprawling city, lots of worn-down communist-era apartment blocks, but with a beautiful old-town area with castles and a scenic view of the Danube cutting through the city.  Thanks to the Slavic, former USSR connection, I just spent my time in Bosnia trying to communicate with locals in Polish, and succeeding about half the time.

After a month of intense HiA activity, full of soul searching and pondering my next professional moves, it was time to unwind a little with family in Poland.  I arrived in Warsaw July 1st, in time to watch the Euro Cup finals.  I've spent the last 3 weeks catching up with relatives and friends, and just getting to know the city.  Though I've been here several times before (last time was when I studied abroad in 2009), I feel like I'm experiencing Poland in a different way this time around.  Thanks to HiA (the Warsaw program had to run in July due to the Euro 2012 happening in June), traveling in South America, and other resources, I know have a good amount of friends here in Warsaw.  So I don't just have to bounce from one aunt's house to some cousin's house, etc.  I've been surprised by the amount of English I've heard around town when I go out to the pubs at night.  Poland is finally beginning to feel like a part of western Europe now, rather than just the remnants of the Soviet Union.  Between the Euro 2012 and a people from other parts of the EU migrating here for work and vacation, Poland feels much closer to its EU neighbors culturally.  Then again, I'm sure part of it is my own perspective, which has changed quite a bit between 21 and 25 years old.

Hopefully I'll get some pictures and entertaining stories up on this blog in the next few weeks.  I just wanted to get all caught up with what I've been up to since May.  Now it's back to downloading hip hop mixtapes, trying to peacefully coexist with my father, and waiting for The Dark Knight Rises to come out in Poland...

-Paweł Escobarski

Camping at the End of the World

By tomorrow I will have gotten about 12 hours of sleep over 4 days, so I'm going to make this quick and hit the hay.  Last week I finished my work at the school in Castro. I got some sweet parting gifts, met my host family's relatives from Argentina, and then I took off on an 18 hour bus ride to Santiago for our Closing Ceremony.

Here's an album of my last days at school.  We made squash pie for Thanksgiving.

Leaving the island after 8 months of "work":

I spent all week with good friends that I met a.) when I flew into Chile in March and haven't seen since, b.) when I worked the winter camp session in Santiago in July, many of whom I haven't seen since, or c.) when I arrived in Castro who lived near my region, whom I saw on the regular.  So all in all, lots of booze, music, completos (hot dogs), and partying.  A crazy week filled with laughs, sun burns, and cook outs.

Check out the album here.

On Friday at 11pm I flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas, which is so far south it may as well not exist on the map.  I'm so far south in Chile that I got to see the sun rise over the ocean and set over the Andes, which if you'll look at a map, you'll notice is pretty damn hard to do in a country placed between the Andes to the east and the Pacific to the west.  I'm far, far away is what I'm saying.  I convinced a friend to fly down with me and I met up with her today.  My flight got in at 4 am, I saw the sun rise over the Magellen Straight, and I took a cab to a hostal.  I slept for a bit, then met up with my friend and started planning our trip.  In a few hours she was convinced to trek across Torres del Paine for 3 days with me, rather than doing just a day trip.

We rented all our gear and got a bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales (check these places out on a map, yo).  Beautiful scenery on the ride, and like I said, we are actually east of the Andes and south of Argentina, so the sun setting over the 'cordillera' (mountain range) was beautiful.  After some cheap Chilean wine and repacking all our stuff, we're ready to take off at 7:30 tomorrow for three or four days of trekking in what they say is one of South America's most beautiful parks, Torres del Paine.

Random thoughts: We're so close to the south pole in local summer time that nights are super short.  Sun sets after 10pm and begins to rise around 4:30am.  People in the south are incredibly nice.  We rented all our gear from my hostel owner.  We got 2 backpacks, 2 sleeping bags, 2 foam mats, a tent, utensils, and a gas stove all on our word that we'll come back. No down payment, no IDs.  All he has is my e-mail.  It's so great to be around people so trusting and willing to help clueless gringos.  But after a friend got his backpack stolen in Santiago, I'm still attempting to keep an eye out. For real though, southern folk are good people.

I'm sun burned, exhausted, excited, and still in awe of just how many kind-hearted and genuinely nice people I have met through this program.  That would only sound super tacky if you didn't know these folks; I've definitely made a lot of new, really great friends.

Over the next few weeks I'll be traveling up north through Argentina and Chile, exploring Patagonia.  I have a small backpack with a wool hat, Pablo Neruda poetry in Spanish, a journal, an extra pair of underwear, and a  Swiss Army knife.  And I'm taking on the southernmost part of the globe I have ever seen.  It's wonderful.

Now here's a video of my 7th graders answering questions from their pen pals in Seattle, WA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoCOS8Zkrk

Chao pescao,

Paul

Typical Grub

Chilean cuisine has a reputation for being rather bland; spicy and hot dishes are definitely not the norm here, and most things rely heavily on salt.  Yet the best part of living in Chiloe has definitely been the food.  Due to the cold, wet climate people tend to stay indoors and eat year-round.  As opposed to the dry desert climate of the north, where meals are light and have more fruits, food in the south is greasy and heavy.  Cuts of pork and beef with lots of fat are staples at every asado (cookout), "healthy" salads are usually just lettuce doused in oil and salt, and potato-based foods are the cornerstone of southern Chilean cooking.  After all, if something is super typical of Chiloe island, you say it is "as Chilote as potatoes" and just this past weekend I went to Maullin (back on the mainland) where they celebrated their annual potato festival (Festival de la Papa).  (Check out the pictures of my dancing the cueca at the Festival!)

Julio dancing at the Festival de la Papa.

I was in Maullin this past weekend to visit my friend Julio, who is the co-regional coordinator for my program.  I visited his family once before (I wrote about it here) and they were nice enough to invite me back.  When I arrived, the small kitchen was packed with women preparing the curanto.  Curanto is probably the most well-known dish of Chilote cuisine.  It is a mix of shellfish (super popular in Chile since the whole country runs along the Pacific), meat, milcaos, and chapaleles.  Milcaos, one of my favorite foods here, are greasy pancake-like things you get by mixing shredded raw potatoes with cooked ones, along with some pig lard.  Chapaleles are Chilean dumplings are made by mixing shredded boiled potatoes with flour.

The unique thing about curanto is how it's prepared.  Each ingredient is placed separately in a big pot and each layer is separated by a pile of leaves.  In Julio's house, his mom covered the pot lid with a couple of big rocks, turning the pot into a pressure cooker.  More traditionally, curanto is prepared in a big hole in the ground.  It's just like in a pot, only everything is placed on rocks that are first heated up over a fire.

Milcao mix and sausages

Uncooked chapaleles laying on top of leaves.

Toast and Tea is Not Dinner

Although the food here is awesomely fatty and delicious, and folks in many households enjoy overdoing it, there are still some less-than-awesome things about Chilean cooking.  If you're a fan of spicy foods, you'll be disappointed.  But more importantly is how the Chileans eat.  They don't do breakfast-lunch-dinner the same as us back in the States.  Breakfast is usually small and quick before work, like in the US, but lunches are always pretty big and hot.  Everybody here seems to bring something to microwave: pasta, chicken, empanadas, etc.  Lunch is comparable to our dinners, just a bit smaller.  Sadly, dinner simply doesn't exist. Instead, folks eat once (pronounced own-say) around 6 or 7pm.  Once is always tea with lots of bread, and could include homemade jams, butter, tubed spam-like meat paste, and/or something with eggs (our house is big on scrambled eggs and onions).  It usually is delicious, especially since in the south homemade mayo and marmalade are popular, but tiny compared to a US dinner.  I'll have a couple cups of tea and like 3 pieces of bread at a time when I'm usually eating half of the Wendy's dollar menu.  However, being hungry a majority of the time at least helps balance out the lack of physical activity (due to rainy, cold weather I'm always in bed at home) and the fatty-ness of everything here.

-PM

Festival de la papa photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.928058406404.2435457.5321418&type=1&l=9847078de9

La Isla

La Grande Isla de Chiloé

Chiloé Island is pretty big:  it measures about 120 miles long by 40 miles wide, with the two largest cities (Ancud on the northern end and Castro in the center) both having populations of about 30,000.  Still, life is about as quiet and rural as you might imagine when you picture an archipelago of islands on the southern Pacific coast of South America.  For example, the city center of Castro is one of the few places on the island you’ll find traffic lights.  Chiloé is known for:

-Historic wooden churches built by Jesuits that are UNESCO Heritage sites (the one in the neighborhood of Nercon where I work was built in the 1860s)

Nercon

Chonchi, Chiloe

Castro

  -Palafito stilt homes that sit along the water

The "Trauco"

 

-Old mythology that includes sex-driven trolls, mermaids, and witches

Fresh ceviche

 -Delicious seafood.  One of my favorite things here is ceviche, raw salmon that is sanitized by being soaked in lemon juice overnight.  Down at the port, for about 2 bucks you can get a bowl of ceviche mixed with onions, cilantro, and aji pepper.

English, gym, and math teachers and I getting down on ceviche.

Castro

  -super rainy weather year-round that lead to cold, difficult winters but beautiful green scenery in the summer months

 

Fiestas Patrias

La Dieciochera

September 18th (el dieciocho, or simply the 18th) is the Chilean equivalent of July 4th in the US.  It's considered independence day, though technically it marks the anniversary of the first meeting of a Chilean government (junta) that met to enforce the Spanish king's reign over the country, rather than to fight against.  Point is: there is still lots of grilled meat and alcohol.  I bused up from the island to Osorno (about 4 1/2 hours) where several other gringos are living.  The hostel we stayed at was quite interesting--hot water was only available for a short block of time in the morning and at night; I slept in every morning and we didn't get back until late every night, so I just skipped on the personal hygiene thing.  We were also woken up at 7 in the morning with a knocking at our door to be offered tea and piss-poor powered coffee.  Overall, it was still a clean and decent place for $14/night.  The fiestas patrias, or patriotic holidays, looked something like this...

Festive streets of Osorno.

Comida

The town was fully decked out in red, white, and blue: flags hung up and down every block, each house had a flag either planted in the yard or hung out a window, and streamers/decorations covered the streets.  We spent most of our time wandering around a big fair that was a Chilean mix of southern county fairs and the carnivals that pop up at local Catholic churches in the fall (though there was no deep fried Coke or obnoxious roller coasters).  We pigged out on milcaos (fried batter with bits of pig lard; exactly like Polish placki), anticuchos (skewers of pork, beef, onions, and even hot dog weiners), and of course empanadas filled with meat, onions, eggs, and black olives.  My favorite food of the night, however, was a mixture of shredded beef and sausage stuffed into a fresh roll.

Kelly with the beef/sausage sandwich. Almost like a Chilean Portillo's.

Chowin' down on a sopaipilla con queso

We washed the food down with Chilean red wines, chicha (sweet fermented apple wine), mote con huesillo (cooked dry peaches and stewed corn), and even a cheap Russian beer that tasted decent enough.

Rodeo

In addition to feasting on the awesome, greasy cuisine, we also cheered on participants at the cueca dance competition and huasos at the rodeo.  The cueca is the national dance in which the man (the huaso) flirts with and pursues the coy female partner (the huasa or china).  Both dress in traditional folk attire and wave white handkerchiefs in the air.  For more on the cueca, check out the dance section below.  The Chilean rodeo is quite different from what we have in the US.  Here, the cowboys (huasos) ride in pairs and chase a calf around the arena, trying to pin him up against one of several mats on the walls.  Depending on how the calf is pinned by the horses, the huaso duo gets a certain number of points; pinning the cow's backside against the wall is worth more than pinning it by the neck.  The huasos wear traditional garb and each pair of riders has a few minutes in the ring, before a new calf is brought out for the next pair.  Interestingly all the riders chill in the center of the arena while the other huasos take their turns, and since this is an all-day event the cattle seem to be in pretty rough shape by the end of the day.  Here's what one of the calves looks like getting pinned:

Tenderizing my dinner.

We wrapped up the weekend by watching a waiter race in the town's main plaza.  Waiters and waitresses jogged/walked quickly one or two laps around the plaza with a tray of wine and several glasses.  First to make it past the finish line without dropping anything won.  It was great to experience (and taste!) this quintessential Chilean holiday.  Also, just in time for the holidays spring has arrived and I'm actually starting to remember what warm weather feels like.

Fiesta de Chilenidad

I'm still not sure if Chilean Nationality Day is its own thing, or if my teachers were simply referring to the fiestas patrias, but either way our school had a day of traditional folk dances last Friday.  The students dressed up in attire ranging from tradition cowboy hats and spurs to Pacific Islander grass skirts and Mapuche colorful dresses.  Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, is a Chilean island way out west near Polynesia.  The seniors that performed a Rapa Nui dance illustrated plenty of Hawaiian hula influence.  The Mapuche are the largest surviving indigenous tribe living in the central region of Chile, thus the fifth graders dancing to Mapuche music reminded me of the various Native American dances of North America.

The little kids teamed up with our gym teacher Jorge to perform an awesome Chilote (meaning from Chiloe Island) dance.  Dressed in typical thick Chilote wool hats and warm clothing, the boys and girls danced in two circles, one wrapped around the other, moving in opposite directions.  One boy had a broom, and when he tapped on the ground with the handle, the boys' outer circle moved inside, and the girls' circle became the outer circle.  Then the boy would throw the broom down, and everyone ran for a partner. The last boy standing alone picked up the broom and continued.

The junior high students danced the cueca.  The cueca is the national dance, and each region of the country (the north, central, and southern zone) has its own variation of it.  The dance consists of a couple recreating the mating ritual of a rooster and a hen.  The huaso (a Chilean cowboy) wears a straw hat, a poncho thrown over an Andalusian waist jacket, tall boots, and huge spurs.  He pursues his female partner throughout the song, following her around the dance floor, but never actually touching her.  The huaso's sweetheart, the china, has varying attire depending on the region, but usually wears a big, bright colored dress.  They both wave around their white handkerchief to flirt with and impress the other.

Typical huaso, our school vice-director Christian.

Two extra videos.  The first dance makes me think of a funny mixture of Chilean folk culture, Polish goral highlander dancing, and a black frat/sorority step show.  The second dance features a sophomore doing something that seems like ballet-infused folk dancing.

For the full photo album from the 18th celebrations and the student dances, check out my facebook album here.

Feel free to leave love in the comments.

-Pablo

Album link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100102933841604.2457086.5321418&l=af47fedb0e&type=1

Half Way Through

Last week I wrapped up three weeks of winter vacation and came back to Castro for my second semester of work.  Winter break was awesome: I fled the cold, rainy south for the warm, sunny north, I got to play the role of "camp counselor" once again, and I spent 10 days with my mom. 

For my first week in Santiago I worked with about 30 other EOD program volunteers at an English Winter Camp for the Ministry of Education.  Almost all volunteers were from the US and Canada, along with a few Chilean college students studying to be English teachers, including the two girls who ran our camp (the camp monitors).  We worked Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm with about 220 high school students, whose English ranged from essentially non-existent to amazing.  The camp was hosted at a local university (one of the few that haven't shut down due to student protests) and everyday we played various games inside the classrooms and out in the courtyard.  The theme of the camp was "Say NO to Bullying," which was rather redundant because students using their vacation time to practice English aren't usually the anti-intellectual bullies in the first place.  But, whatever.  It was a good time. 

All week the kids created skits, posters, songs, and group chants.  At the end of the week we had a massive talent show.  Living with my host family -- where every child, uncle, and grandmother can paint, sing, play instruments, and knit entire wardrobes -- and working with students in Castro and Santiago has essentially proven to me that, without a doubt, Chilenos are absurdly talented.  The skits these kids put on with one day of planning, if that, were just awesome; they danced, acted, dressed up in ridiculous costumes, etc.  So we as counselors had to work hard to top all that.  The male counselors dressed up in black tights/t-shirts and performed as back-up dancers for one of our camp monitors, who played the role of Ms. Beyonce Knowles singing "Single Ladies."  Then the female counselors came out in hoodies and sagging jeans and danced to Soulja Boy.  The whole thing ended with the entire camp moshing out to the very hardcore song of "Soul Sister" by Train.  Overall, a drastic change from my summers at PNA in Yorkville, but equally fun.  I was just happy to have the opportunity to do the whole camp thing again during my first summer away from PNA in 11 years.

Check out my camp pictures here.

After camp ended I had about 5 free days before my mom flew in from Chicago, so I traveled down south to Valdivia with my friend Derek from Toronto.  Valdivia is about 11 hours by bus from Santiago, so at that point I wasn't too far from my home in Castro.  The city is a small, beautiful town with a huge German immigrant population.  It hosts an annual Oktoberfest, they have several popular German pubs/diners, and the well-known Kunstmann brewery is there, too.  Though Kunstmann was just founded about 20 years ago, it's probably the beer they make in Chile due to its German influence.  The brewery was super touristy and pricey, but still a fun experience.  Derek and I split a 3 liter "tower" of the golden Bock variety of Kunstmann. Again, touristy and expensive (about 8 or 9 bucks for 1.5 liters per person) but having the tall tower with a tap to pour your beer from was fun.  Additionally, being down south for 3 days confirmed that avoiding the cold and rainy south during July was a good idea.  Also, we got to see sea lions (lobos de mar, which translates to wolves of the sea) up close and personal at the fish market down at the port.  They just hung around all afternoon eating fish heads and guts that were thrown into the river.

Check the album out here.

When my mom flew in we bused 6 hours north from Santiago to a small city on the Pacific coast called La Serena.  My host mom's sister, Carmen, has a place up there for tourists.  She bought two train carts from a railroad company back in the day and has converted them into small guest houses.  The train cart comes equipped with a small kitchen, full bathroom, "master" bedroom, a smaller room with a bunk bed, and even a TV.  Carmen and her boyfriend Gustavo, who is German-Chilean and related to the Kunstmanns, were super nice to us, and after several days of being in Chile, the 3 semesters of Spanish my mom took years ago started to come back to her.  Late nights in Carmen's house, after several bottles of wine, we would have drawn out conversations on tuition costs, quality of life in the US vs Chile, etc. in three or four languages, though mostly we stuck to Spanglish.  My mom also got to meet my host mom at the 5 year-old host sister when they were all in Santiago.  Overall, she has peace of mind about my being here and traveling after the program.  She worries less, and I hear less about her worrying.  Win-win.

Check out the pics here.


That's all for now.  I'm hoping to write a bit more about the school protests next post.

-Paul

English camp album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.979617761044.2448854.5321418&l=448c3807b4&type=1

Valdivia album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.979655116184.2448861.5321418&l=36f772e342&type=1

Mom's visit album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.980083218264.2449007.5321418&l=2637c2c813&type=1

Winter Vacay and English Show

The semester ended today, and I leave tomorrow on an overnight bus to Santiago.  I'm working at an English winter camp for a week there, as part of the program I'm doing, and then I'll have 2 weeks free.  My mom flies in for 10 of those days, and we'll probably head up north to La Serena.  It's a city about 6 hours north of Santiago, and I'm hoping the weather is more agreeable on the beach there, though it'll still be chilly seeing as how we're in the dead of winter.  Today all the students brought in food and we just relaxed, watching movies, playing videos games, and eating everything from tacos and pork chops to junk food and homemade brownies.  Also, I tried snapping a rugby ball like a football and accidentally pegged a third grader in the face, giving him one hell of a bloody nose.  Overall, the day seemed like the appropriate way to end a very crazy semester.

Last night we finally put on our English Show.  Technically it was only half the show, since the teacher of the younger grades backed out last minute and claimed that the 3 months we had to work on it weren't enough to get her students prepared.  It actually turned out better this way because we had a 90 minute show, rather than having parents sit through 3 hours or more of their kids speaking what is essentially gibberish to them.  Mauro the English teacher and I also did our best to present everything bilingually to not keep the parents in the dark the whole night.  Overall, the show was an amazing success.  Just fantastic.

The kids spend yesterday morning rehearsing and, little did I know at the time, rewriting/adding lots of scenes.  We had an early dismissal, and when I showed up back at school in the afternoon the kids were there with amazing costumes and props.  They had built fake trees, brought in camping tents, and did amazing things with make up.  We had students turn themselves into platypuses, girls becomes guys, and one girl dressed up as Jigsaw from the Saw movies.  They all spoke loud and clear, they were able to ad-lib if they fumbled a line, and they did an unbelievable job delivering their jokes.  Some of the students did such a great job with the timing and delivery of their jokes that they were funnier than most of the variety show skits I remember from Ridgewood, and these kids are working with a foreign language.  It was just amazing and completely justified/reinforced my decision to stay for next semester.  All the stress, hair-pulling, and cussing under my breath was completely worth it (vale la pena as they say) when I saw these kids put on five separate skits that genuinely had me laughing out loud. 

7th grade did Phineas and Ferb (apparently a very popular American cartoon I did not know about until recently).  In 2 classes they worked on their own to completely create and write out an original "episode" of the show.  8th grade did a Friday the 13th skit involving camping teens and Jason.  The sophomores did their own interpretation of 10 Things I Hate About You.  The juniors made a very odd and hilarious skit involving the guy from Scream, Jigsaw from Saw, and a woman who was popular in the Chilean news for killing her own children.  It may not sound very comical, but I assure you it rocked.  And the seniors did a skit where the Spice Girls faced off against the Jonas Brothers, resulting in them all doing a number from High School Musical.  I have absolutely no idea why a group of 17 year old chose this as a theme (I assure you that the boys did not do it ironically; they seem to genuinely like these Jonas guys), but it turned out awesome.  They choreographed awesome dances and learned the lyrics and just generally did a fantastic job.

Check out pics from the English Show here.

Enough gushing about my students.  Now to pack and focus on getting to Santiago...

-Paul

Random Observations

Various things I've noticed about life down here:

Quiltros: It's illegal in Chile to kill dogs, and as a result the street across the entire country are overrun with stray dogs, or quiltros as they're known here.  It's not uncommon for important soccer games to be interrupted by strays jumping on the field.  This means every Chilean city has roves of random dogs: some laying half-dead idly on the sidewalk, others barking like assholes as you walk past, and others constantly jumping into traffic on the roads.  You may expect to come across lots of dog crap, and you'd be right, but what you may not think about is the fleas.  The fucking fleas.  Pretty much everybody in the country seems to have fleas at home, whether they own a dog or not, due to the uncontrollable number of street dogs.  At any given point, I have about 15 bites itching on my body.

Onces: People don't eat dinner in Chile.  Breakfast and lunch are similar to the States--a quickly toasted bun with jam or a piece of fruit in the morning, and some kind of pasta, stew, or meat with potatoes or rice to be microwaved at 1 for lunch.  But there is not main course at 6 or so after work.  Families sit down anywhere between 6:30 and 9 for once (own-say) which consists of tea and bread.  I'm lucky enough to be living with an amazing family, and thus everything including the meals seems to be above-average.  Our onces usually will also include some boiled hot dogs or eggs with onions to accompany the tea and bread.  We also will normally have like two or three home-made marmalades for the bread.  Friday, for example, was quite interesting.  We had an awesomely delicious lunch at around 2 and then at 8 we had rolls with a new type of cheese my host mom bought from some dude: a brick of Philadelphia cream cheese with a hole cut out in the center.  Inside the hole: soy sauce.  Yup, rolls with philly cream cheese and soy sauce for "dinner."  As a result, almost all volunteers eat a whole lot less here than at home, but since all the foods are super-duper greasy and fatty (this coming from a guy who's rolled a hot dog up inside a slice of pizza) people can still gain weight while volunteering here.  It's very weird.

The (little bit too) laid-back atmosphere at school:  Classes never start on time.  Ever.  Teachers sit around chatting or getting their things together about five minutes after class is scheduled to start.  Even if they do get into the room by the correct time, or close to it, neither the students nor the teacher are capable of simply diving into the lesson.  Just last week in 6th grade, though they could have been reviewing for mid-term exams or rehearsing for the English Show, the teacher took an hour and fifteen minutes to slowly explain what would be on the exams, and then write down about ten example sentences on the board.  We could have saved the thirty minutes it took them to copy the problems by simply handing out pre-written worksheets.  But that would have required lesson planning on the teacher's half, which is simply unimaginable down here.

Disciplining your own kids (or there lack of): Judging by my own experiences with my host family, and what other volunteers have told me about their own families, parents here seem to rarely ever discipline their own kids.  The five year old girl here constantly throws hissy fits, hollers at the top of her lungs at (or from underneath) the dinner table, ignores me when I say hello, and yells "dejame!!!" (Spanish for "leave me alone," but in the limited vocabulary of a five y/o that basically translates as "fuck off") at anybody ranging from me to her own father.  Whereas back home a good ole fashioned ass-whooping would have set her straight months ago, here the folks just carry on eating like nothing is happening.  I have no idea of this is how they dealt with their other kids, but if it is I'd be very surprised, seeing as how Ignacia and Camila (the 15 and 21 year olds) are actually good people and very well-mannered.  Other gringos have told me similar stories about host brothers and sisters ranging from adolescent girls moaning and bitching to men in their 30s still living at home and having mommy literally wake up at 6 am when they come home from the bars to rub their back until they fall asleep.  Yes, that's an actual story one of my friends told me.

There are plenty of other random quirky cultural differences I'll get into as I remember them.  Contrary to the cynical tone this post may have, I'm having an absolute ball down here and am very excited about next semester.  I've adjusted to the dogs, smaller dinners, slow-moving (lazy?) attitudes at school and the rude five-year-old, but the fleas bites are pissing me off now more than ever.  Bright side: the first three days of July have been absolutely beautiful, though I've just stayed in and watched movies all weekend.  However, now I'm sure the Chilote gods are cuing the heavy rain clouds.  We had hail here last week, as I understand Chicago did too.  Lightning, however, is rare here.  Unlike downtown Chicago.

-Paul