Trapped!

Today is day three of oral quizzes. These are painful. Essentially I sit in a very small room for a very long time. I read the news for awhile. Eventually, a student decides that they probably ought to come for their quiz, since they were meant to perhaps half an hour earlier. Then I will have about 10 students waiting anxiously to come in. Someone sits across from me and looks at me with eyes similar to that of a person about to be hit by a car. I speak to them very, very slowly and ask boring questions. Sometimes things go well and they leave relieved. Sometimes I ask them what their favorite movie is and they tell me that they are good at soccer. Or they just say "soccer. yes." Or they say nothing and cover their face with their hands. It varies.

So. The students hate it. I hate it. Everyone is unhappy and sitting in a very small room.

It just so happens that today I had 8 hours of oral quizzes to give on a day that is normally my weekend, and of course it turned out stunningly sunny. One of those gorgeous "winter" days (if you're from New England, early fall). And I had to stay inside all day with unhappy people.

Further proof that the universe conspired against me:

Yes. All morning there was a marching band parade directly outside of my building. A parade! I felt like a little kid who has been forced to take a nap when all the other kids are outside playing.

But now I'm done and my goodness what a nice feeling that is.

What are you doing here?

Now. I like to make fun of things here. It ought to be noted, though, that I like to make fun of things no matter where I am. It's affectionate. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be scrambling around with potentially three jobs in an effort to secure a visa for next year.

As such, I have trouble understanding the number of people here who seem absolutely baffled by my presence. To begin with, Chilenos are usually confused by it, which in turn confuses me.

"What are you doing here?" they inevitably ask me, once we've spelled my name a few times and they've given up and started calling me Marilyn. I explain my various situations here, work and all.

They look at me as if I have not understood. "Yes," they say patiently, "but how did you end up here?" This one is a bit trickier. In fact, I made my decision to come to Chile in less than 3 days from initial impulse to visa application. However, there are many plausible explanations for how I ended up with that particular gun in my hand, all of which seem entirely possible to me. So I pick one out and throw it on the table.

Then I receive a lecture. This is a terrible country to learn Spanish in, they tell me. They tell me about all of the slang. They tell me how quickly they talk. They tell me about shortening words. This is all done in said 'terrible Spanish,' but it doesn't seem to make a difference that I am able to understand their lecture. They tell me to go to Peru, Cuba, Bolivia, Columbia, somewhere else where apparently the Spanish is easier to learn. Then, depending on the particular Chileno, they'll add in another theme. Some recent ones: Valparaiso is run down and dangerous; I should not be so far from my family; there is no sense of history here; and, my favorite, Chilenos as a whole are degrading into an anarchic mess of non-chivalrous pricks (this particular person has clearly not been to Boston, nor, for that matter, are they aware that I can't take chivalry).

I attempt a defense of myself, of Chile, of the right of women to get on an elevator last if they'd like. My conversation partner considers me, and then asks, "How long are you planning to stay here?"

"A few years. I don't know. Until I speak Spanish."

Shock. Concern. Disbelief. Then.....a spark of understanding. "Do you have a pololo (boyfriend)?" they ask.

No. No pololo.

At that point they simply stare at me as if I were absolutely out of my mind.

This is the cookie-cutter conversation. There are various personalizations in any given interaction, but every single Chileno who pursues this line of questioning hits on those essential points, and reacts as described. It is a truly out-there phenomenon. Why is it that this entire country seems to find it implausible that someone might choose to live here? Are they trying to get rid of me? Is this a wide-spread inferiority complex? I have no idea. You tell me.

However, even more bizarre to me is when this conversation occurs with a fellow ex-pat. This is less common, but happens more often than one might expect. And while Chilenos will conduct the interrogation with a sense of wonder and bafflement, other foreigners conduct it with bile. Have I noticed how disorganized they are here? Doesn't the difficulty of finding work bother me? Isn't Santiago intolerable? Isn't Valparaiso provincial? Am I aware that I have planted myself in a racist, disorderly, chauvinistic, crime-ridden country with absolutely not one bottle of decent hot sauce to be had?!?!

And then....a glimmer of possible understanding: "Do you have a pololo?"

No. No pololo.

Well, in that case, don't I find the dating scene intolerable?

Whoa. Deep breath, fellow foreigners. I am confused by the Chilenos who manage to be simultaneously proud of their country and yet flabbergasted that I want to live here. I am even more confused, however, by ex-pats who are here voluntarily and yet seem to absolutely hate it. What on earth are they doing here if they don't like it? I can share in many of the gripes (in the sort of way that you tease your friends, however)--but in any event I deal with the little annoyances because I like it here. As mentioned, if I didn't, I would go home, or more likely somewhere else. It is one thing to be really and truly irritated with one's home country but live there nonetheless. I've been there. But why would you stay someplace when it drives you mad when at any time you choose you can get on a plane and say chau for the last time?

Furthermore, am I seriously the only gringa who has ever decided to stay in Chile for reasons other than pololodom? This simply cannot be true.

Anyhow. I like it here. I love this city. Why am I here? Well, to pull one out of the air, because this is a photolog of my "commute" yesterday:

Oh Micro, I bet you say that to all the girls

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while now. It relates to the absolutely bizarre habit that Chilean buses have of flirting with you.

At the moment I am busing about quite a bit, having acquired work with an institute based out of Viña. So. I head down my hill to the nearest bus stop, which is not actually a stop so much as an area where buses like to hang out without official authorization. I would say one out of every five buses heads to Viña. It is inevitably the fifth bus.

So I stand on the corner, squinting at each bus as it approaches, trying to read the five and a half million signs hanging in the windows and the windshield that give vague clues as to the route. Aduana. Limache. Cemeterio. Etc. The bus notices that it has caught my attention. It flashes its lights--hey there, little lady, I see you too. It slows down to a saunter and pulls up casually to the curb. The door slides open. At this point I have determined that this is not the bus I need, and so I am gazing pointedly off down the road.

The micro, though, knows all about the tricks that women play. I may be saying no, but surely I'm thinking yes. Who wouldn't want to go to Pedro Montt? It's a lovely avenue. The micro gives a little beep to let me know it's still interested despite my cold attitude. It pulls forward a couple inches, playing hard to get, but slides to a stop again when it realizes that manipulation isn't helping. A little more insistently now, it beeps its horn. I continue to ignore it--sorry, buddy, thought you were someone else. After lingering for a few minutes, the micro finally goes on its sad way, rejected.

This is not an every-once-in-a-while occurence. This is standard procedure. Various micros are constantly trying to convince me that I want to go to Concon, or Playa Ancha, or Aduana. This is odd, but when it becomes irritating is when you have actually boarded the bus of your choice. You settle into your seat, ready to be whisked off to the destinations promised by the colorful signs, but there will be no whisking. Why? Because your micro, unfaithful rake that it is, is going to have to stop and flirt several times per street.

The other night I was unfortunate enough to board what I am going to go ahead and call out as the Most Flirtatious Bus in Valparaíso, also known as the Worst Bus in Valparaíso. We stopped every other block to try to seduce some poor abuela. The method actually seemed to work, though, because by the time I got to my stop the bus was packed to such a capacity that I was concerned about the oxygen supply. Of course my half hour bus ride took close to an hour, but who's counting. Every time someone got on I wanted to shout and wave my arms: "Don't do it! You'll never get home! You will die on this bus before you make it out of the center!"

Also last week, I entered a bus that was so crowded that the bus driver instructed me to sit on the dashboard. Instructed, not asked. Otherwise, you see, I would have been standing in a position which would have prevented the door from opening to admit yet more passengers. So I wedged myself in in front of the ticket tray and kind of braced myself against the windshield and the plastic overhead. I was a bit concerned about the idea of a bus crash. More so, however, I was concerned that during one of the 500kph turns I would be thrown sideways into the steering wheel and actually cause a bus crash myself. Headline: Suicidal Gringa Takes Possession of City Bus.

All of this because the micros just cannot control themselves. Flirts.

Old Blue Eyes

Two nights ago I found myself sitting at the bar in a pseudo-Mexican place, solo. The reason: taco, beer and a shot of tequila for 1.5mil. I have started my second job this week, and I had been working for over 12 hours. The Chilean dinner meal is called "onces," and it generally consists of bread, tea, and maybe some cold cuts. I have been making a very concentrated effort to adjust to this. It's healthier, it's cultural, it's time spent with the host family, and so forth. But when I have had a long day, at the bottom of it all I am a norteamericana and I want dinner, dammit. Like a taco. And a beer and a shot of tequila. I'm telling you it was a long day.

Anyhow, I sat at the bar so as not to be accosted by any overzealous potential "friends." While I was eating, I was making notes about two of my new classes. The man sitting next to me kept glancing over. I can pull a pretty good ice queen when I want to. And I wanted to. So no conversation was exchanged for quite some time. Finally, though, he leaned over and completely surprised me.

He absolutely had to know the underlying meaning of the lyrics to Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

I have written here before about my host "father's" prediliction for this particular song (translated into Spanish, on repeat mode, at full volume, outside my door). I've never really gotten much out of Sinatra, but this man, like my host "father," found something completely unique and profound in this song. Not being an English speaker, however, he wasn't sure whether his interpretation of the lyrics was correct.

Now, the thing is, I have no idea. I have heard this song a million times, certainly, but I've never paid much attention to it. I know he sings, "I did it my way." That's about the extent of it.

The man at the bar, though (who I should add was not drunk in my estimation) was absolutely starry eyed. "Is it," he asked me, "that he can die at any moment because he has done what he needed in life?"

So, I pulled out my English major skills, ie. the art of bullshit. I confirmed the man's interpretation and added a bit of spin on it based off of the one sentence that I knew. ("Yes, true, because he never compromised his own idea of what was right no matter what other people told him....")

I have no idea what the song is really about. Maybe that's right, maybe it's completely not. But, my thought is, why on earth take away this man's interpretation which he has such an emotional attachment?

Anyhow, it's a story without a climax. But there it is.

Definitive proof that I fall into the "nerd" category, and other developments

Although I am now possessed of two jobs--one of which is forcing me to teach three units of information in four class periods--I still find time to get my kicks. Some of my kicks are of the teacherly variety. For instance, my Final Exam Review uses people that I actually know for a section that asks students to write sentences about "personal profiles." So, if you are within my social circle, there just may be 80+ Chileans writing out.....oh, say......"Phil is an airline employee. He is 25 years old. He speaks German, English, and French." Just to pull something out of the air, you know.

Surprise! That's not the proof that I'm a nerd. It gets better (wait for it).

So, yesterday I went for a walk with a pair of New Friends (I'm moving up in the world). It was a beautiful day so we wended our way down through Cerro Concepcion, and then down Avenida Brasil. Now, Avenida Brasil is where I work, so it is my "commute," if you can call a 15 minute walk a commute. Nonetheless it is a very nice walk. The center of the avenue is a wide green area, with statues and monuments all along the length. If you are from Boston, picture the section of Comm Ave in the Back Bay. If you are not, picture an avenue with a wide green area at the center with statues and monuments all along the length. Yes.

Anyhow we always ignore the things we see most often, or often do. So I was very happy to discover these previously unnoticed fish mosaics on a bench on the Avenida:







It being Sunday, we decided (post-fish mosaic) to head to the antique/flea market. This is a fabulous, wonderful, endlessly entertaining weekly market where you can buy no end of bizarre items. New Friend Allie and I had a thorough look-through and found, amongst other interesting items, teapots with feet, printing press letters, giant travelling trunks, a nice little desk, decorative spoons, and an antique sewing machine with a light built in. Allie acquired a very cool and--I maintain--practical cast bronze candle holder in the shape of a small Asian lantern.

The item on the left, I am very pleased to say, is for catching the milk when you milk your cow:

Typical spread:

Anyhow, I discovered a treasure. Or actually I think Allie discovered the treasure, but I took the treasure, so that's what counts. Here is the proof that our post title refers to. I am now the proud owner of somebody else's antique stamp collection.

And I mean Proud Owner. I have it in my bag right now, just in case anyone might come up to me and inquire as to whether I might have a Cuban stamp from the 1800s. "Why yes!" I will tell them, enthusiastically. "Would you like to see it? I also have some lovely diamond shaped stamps from early 20th century Costa Rica!" And they will go away satisfied and impressed.

Really, though, this book is just. so. cool. The majority of the stamps are from the first two thirds of the 20th century--obviously a time of massive change and bizarre occurences. So looking through this book is just amazing to me. It's a physical history of imperialism, dictatorships, and war, all evidenced in these tiny pieces of paper that merit so little of our attention. And so I present to you a selection from my crazy book of colonies and conflict.

So, yes. I have officially embraced what is widely acknowledged as the Most Boring Hobby Possible. Whatever. I am in love with my stamp book.

Moving on up....

Just like to call everyone's attention to the fact that I have changed my headline from "non-spanish speaker" to "incredibly limited spanish speaker."

That's right, world, I'm making a declaration: I speak Spanish very, very badly, but I speak Spanish, dammit!

"Today, I will go to Limache."

This is what I said Tuesday morning at 8am.

What is Limache? Well, that was the question. The metro goes to Limache (direcion Puerto o direcion Limache, those are your options, there is only one line and it leads to Limache). Every day I see dozens of buses going to Limache. What is Limache?

On Monday I had insomnia. Around 5:30am I decided to pour a glass of red wine in the thought that it might put me out. I had a bit of it and then fell asleep. I woke up around 7:00 and realized that the lights were still on and my glass of wine was more than half full. Being half asleep I solved this problem as follows: 1. Put out light. 2. Chug remainder of wine. 3. Go back to sleep.

The fact that I was most likely a bit drunk when I woke up an hour later probably contributed to my grand desire to see Limache. So I got out of bed, found that I was conveniently still half dressed (I'm always organized in small ways like that), combed my hair, brushed my teeth, got my jacket and hit the road. This being Chile, the metro was shut and no one knew why. So I jumped on a bus, handed over my 700 pesos, and went to Limache.

It took a bit over an hour. Limache turns out to be a town to the northeast of Valpo, close to the coastal cordillera. It was very beautiful there--I am still not sure if I saw a lake or just a valley full of fog, but all in all the views were a nice change from crowded Valpo.

When I got off of the bus, however, I had a realization. Limache at 9am, like all of Chile at 9am, is a ghost town. Nothing really opens here until mid-morning. So I was kind of at a loss once I actually arrived. My plan had been to sit down with a coffee and read, but that was not going to work out for me. I wandered around a bit in the streets which were empty and full of closed stores. I went into a bakery and bought a piece of bread. I went to a minimarket and got a breakfast Pepsi (mmmm) because I couldn't find a coffee shop. Then I just got on another bus and headed back to Valpo.

The day was absolutely beautiful. The sun was out, the temperature had to be in the high 70s, and there was a really lovely warm breeze. So I got off the bus in Vina and walked back along the coastal walkway. This is something that absolutely everyone should do, probably once a week. I have not felt so slap happy in love with life in ages. I put some ambient music on my headphones. I jumped up and down off of benches, leaned over railings, danced a little bit, spun a little bit......think "opening scene of Sound of Music" meets "crazy woman in the street."

Here are some views of the city that I love, I love, I love, I love:

My Valparaiso. My beautiful, beautiful city. It is a wonderful thing to be able to look at a place and just feel your chest fill up.

Here is a poor lobo marino who can't figure out how the other guys got up there:

He was circling around at the base for a good ten minutes. He'd circle back, dive, get up speed, jump....and belly flop. Personally I'm with him: how did they get up there?

This is a shrine by the train tracks about halfway back to Valpo. For a woman named Margarita. A shrine like this makes you stop. You can't help it: did she jump? If she did, why? What Anna Karenina is this? Or did she fall?

There was a similarly fascinating shrine on the beach in Horcon. It was large, a driftwood sculpture with rocks and offerings and plaques. It was for a 23 year old woman and a 4 year old child, I believe. I didn't have my camera. With both, it catches you so suddenly. A beautiful day walking by the water and then in the middle of the bright sun this little monument to unexpected death. Shrines are not put up for the naturally fallen, after all. When you see a shrine you know that something out of the ordinary has happened, relatives were called and shocked, police came. Generally you can guess: shrines by the roadside, for instance, are sad, they catch your notice, but you have an idea of the situation. But this woman with the train; the young mother and her daughter....? .....her niece? Who was it? Did the child fall into the sea, did the girl die trying to save her? Did they go in together for fun and get pulled under by a rip? You can almost imagine them walking along holding hands on the hot sunny sand and a giant, animate wave reaching out over the beach and pulling them in....

But, you cannot spend your whole day contemplating shrines. It's a guilty feeling, walking away, going back to being happy like a little kid and laughing when the wind puts sand into your eyes. But you do. I do.

Here is a piece of grafitti which I assume is by the same artist who did the piece at the top of this blog:

Finally, at the end of it all, I bought a coffee and look what my change had to say:

Well what do you know. My money says good things are on the way (love and work, to be specific). I'm not quite sure how to interpret that symbolism so I'll just let it be and say, "Well thank you, Sir Luca, I certainly hope so."

Love and Literature in Chile

Those words are synonyms, right?

Life for the book-obsessed is rough in Chile. Books here are unbelievably expensive, when bought new, in Spanish. They are semi-reasonable to mildy outrageious when bought used, in Spanish. They are hard to find and extremely expensive when bought used in English or French.

Now, I try to read in Spanish. However, given my rather hysterically emotional connection to literature, I have to say that it drives me absolutely mad to read a book and know that I'm not getting anything out of it except for the very surface of the meaning. So I have a couple of books in Spanish, but they go more into the "work" category than into the "personal pursuits" category. Next up is French, which I can read with a decent level of subtlety. For a really satisfactory reading experience, however, I'm still stuck on English, for obvious reasons (ie. I speak it pretty well).

There is a store at the bottom of my hill that sells books in English, French, and Spanish. They are used, and not unreasonably priced for Chile. But the selection is of course somewhat limited.

At times this is very frusturating. I had a similar experience in New Zealand, where I would load up on used books whenever I got the chance and then slowly and strategically comb through the disaster of hostel book exchanges, changing out a book every time I found something else worth reading. A limited book supply, plus a picky reader, involves a lot of effort.

However, there are interesting benefits. Being picky, but being very much left to fate in terms of my options, the last year has finally pushed me out of my center circle of literary interest (being Modernism and contemporary feminists, más o menos). As such, I have finally come to read all sorts of things that had been on the list for ages. For instance, within the last month, I have read the bizarre list of: Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf," Carol Shields' "The Stone Diaries," Carlos Fuentes' "Aura," Jorge Luis Borges' "Labyrinths," Robert Louis Stevensen's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Mario Vargas Llosa's "Feast of the Goat," Albert Camus's "La Chute" and "Caligula," Dandwidge Endicat's "Krik? Krak!," D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers," Jose Donoso's "The Obscene Bird of Night," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night," and.....Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants." (NY Times No. 1 Bestseller!)

¡Lista excéntrica!

A Riddle

People in Chile often go in for trends that are incredibly distinct and defined....far more so than the hipsters and punks and hippies of my home (or perhaps its just that there are so many categories here). At some point I will discuss pokemonos.

However. Comments on my man-rant post got me thinking about a certain group, the pelolais girls. Literally, "straight hair." The look and the definition go along with a certain high maintenance, moneyed, manicured style. The reason for the name is that, since wavy and curly hair tends to be more common here, the pelolais girls have to put in the effort of straightening their hair in order to get the right look. So their hair shows the amount of time they spend on their looks and hence is an appropriate signifier for the entire pelolais ethos.

Ok. Now, my hair is straight. Friends will sometimes tease me by calling me pelolais. I have also had people yell (or hiss) ¡pelolais! at me in the street (but no more rants this week). So here is my riddle:

Since my hair is already straight, doesn't the fact that I go about with it hanging down straight mean that I cannot be part of the "straight hair" group? In order to be pelolais, I would have to put a lot more effort into my appearance. And so, I ask, if a straight haired girl wants to join the straight hair trend......does she need to curl her hair?

Four months behind the language barrier: Performance Review

So. On February 6th it was snowing in Boston. My mother, in-demand business traveler that she is, took a cab with me to the airport. We got a coffee. Oddly enough the exact same scene had happened one year earlier, on February 6th 2007, when we got a coffee at the same restaurant (remodelled in the interim), before I got on a plane to New Zealand. Strange symmetry. In any event, on February 6th 2008, I am waiting for a plane to take me to Miami, where I would spend the night before taking a super-convenient combination of three flights (San Jose, Lima, Santiago) on my way to Chile. A hastily made decision, a quick series of preperations, and off I go. I speak no Spanish. I have never been to South America. I do not know how to teach English. Needless to say I am not entirely sure that I am not crazy, and not entirely sure that I don't want to just follow my mother to Atlanta or Idaho or West Point or wherever the hell else she's off to. But I get on the plane because changing my whole life around seems to have become some sort of habit.

So, it is now June 6th, which puts me exactly four months in to my new Chilean life. Time for a check-in.

Spanish: I am rather pleased with my progress. I am now able to speak somewhat competently when addressed individually, in the present tense, by someone with a vast amount of patience. Occasionally I use the past tense correctly. Sometimes I even use the future tense. I use "po" for emphasis (oddly enough, in English at times). I am not getting near "waeon" yet, given that, in my understanding, it is capable of being a noun, a verb, an adjective and even an adverb. In group settings I have gotten to the point where I can think of something to contribute to the conversation.....five minutes after everyone else has moved on to another topic. In short: yes, I suck at Spanish, but what do you want from me?

French: A ghost in the back of my head. I can still read, but seem incapable of speaking coherently. It still manages to trip me up, however, as I run around telling people to "remplacer" things or look at the "deuxieme" item in their books. And every once in awhile I go from being yo to je and that just throws everything off.

Other skills: Last night I learned how to make a little paper collared shirt out of the top of a Lucky Strikes box (photo documentation to be provided at the next chance to upload pics).

Oh yeah, and I know how to teach now.

Jobs: Two, thank you very much. I am very excited to be taking on extra hours with another language school, which will hopefully give my life a bit more order. At the moment, I work all day on Mondays and Wednesdays, for two hours only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and not at all on Fridays. On occasion I forget that I have a job. So hopefully the new hours and new types of classes will bring me back into Grown-Up-Land.

Friends in the metro region: Let's peg it at 3, with a swing rate of 2 in either direction.

Phone: Possessed. It changes its ring tone frequently (unaided), resulting in missed calls. One friend is currently unable to send me messages (they never come through), but can call me. Another cannot call me (error message), and can send messages, but they arrive a long time after being sent. My theory: my phone either wants me to spend all of my money on Entel Tickets as I become forced to call everyone, or--and this is more probable--it is the sinister force behind my stunted social development.

Living in someone else's house: A riot, an amazing experience, a headache. I am immensely grateful to my living situation; I am positive I would not speak Spanish if I were not living with the family. However, I am still not entirely adjusted to the level of scrutiny that my life receives. I am given more unsolicited advice/criticism in a day in Chile than in a year in....wherever else I might be living at the time. I have been told that I can continue renting my room after December, but I have a feeling that by that time I'm going to be ready to be an adult again.

Valparaíso: Amo, amo, amo. I have never loved living in a city the way that I love Valparaíso (except Paris, but who doesn't). My life is frequently a headache but I just look around and I am so happy to be here in this place. This is a new experience for me and it is very welcome.

Future plans: Slowly taking shape. I think that I am ready to say that I want to live in Chile for a while. Things are a struggle. I can't communicate. I have a very limited social life and very little going on in my free time. The truth of it is, though, that four months ago I threw in my lot with Chile. 24 is not a comfortable age for anyone, I think. I may not be fully satisfied with my life in Valparaíso but the meat of it is that I have more here than I do anywhere else. I've moved around too much to have a life waiting for me anywhere; my life is where I am and I have started building a new one in Chile. For once I am starting to see that I cannot keep building up and tearing down existences every six months. So, at the moment, I am going to call Valparaíso my new home.

But....well...talk to me in six months.

The Chilenos

Well, I am having one of those days, and so it is that I am going to share some cultural observations regarding Chilean men.

I have blond hair and my skin does not produce enough melatonin to protect me from the sun. I don't know, perhaps I'm meant to blend into an arctic landscape so that I won't be eaten by polar bears. Bizzarely, I was born this way, and, it's been rumored, so are many, many other people.

In Chile I am an Attractive Freak of Nature (hereafter referred to as AFN).

This presents some difficulties. This is a culture where a large percentage of men seem to devote a good third of their waking hours to harassing any woman who comes within range. This is not limited to AFNs. I have heard absolutely bizarre stories from Chilenas. One girl told a story at dinner one night: she was standing on the street talking to a friend, and a guy came by on a bicycle, reached up her skirt and grabbed her crotch, and then kept going. Everyone at the dinner table gave a big hearty "oh, boys will be boys!" laugh. Including the girl in question. I personally would have thrown a rock at the bicyclist.

So, it is by no means to be assumed that I and my other melatonin-deprived brethren are the only women being treated oddly. If you watch some Chilean men in the street, it is absolutely fascinating. They seem to be duty-bound (a secret brotherhood, perhaps?) to make some sort of comment or noise at every woman who passes them. This is time consuming, as I've mentioned. There are a lot of pedestrians in this city. As such I have seen men standing in the street devoted solely to the task of whistling at people. I might be missing the point, but, que fome! I would be bored to tears. Why don't these men take the energy they put into yelling at women who ignore them, and use it to actually go converse with some women? They might get better results out of that approach (just a thought). I am willing to bet that not once has any instance of catcalling resulted in a woman turning around and propositioning the catcaller (unless of course she is being paid, but that is another matter).

This is life in general. As an AFN, the attention level is absolutely out of this world. I have confirmation that blondes get it worse: while I was walking with Only Friend Elisa, herself very attractive and clearly foreign, but brunette, she remarked that the creepiness level is far higher whenever she is walking with me. Also, I myself have noticed that it seems to go up on an exponential basis dependent on how many other blonde women I am walking with.

Sweet.

Reasons why this is not flattering:
1. My hair is not an achievement I can really take claim for. Oddly enough, I just sit back and it appears on its own.
2. I already feel like a foreigner at all times due to the fact that my Spanish is so basic. I really don't need to be reminded 14 times on the way to work.
3. If you are a student and I am carrying a teacher folder, you really ought not be whistling.
4. If you are a teacher and I am carrying a teacher folder, you really ought not be whistling.
5. I am going to go out on a limb and say that two inches from my face is well within my personal space bubble.

So. If you by chance are an AFN in Chile, you will be treated to such wonders as: cars stopping and reversing so that people can say crude things to you; young (young) boys coming up with incredibly colorful language, the creative little things; old (old) men cornering you with a shopping cart at the grocery store in order to give you their phone number; various people asking you to provide more detail regarding your eye and hair color (I am puzzled by this--what more information could I possibly have? I am on the inside of the face. I have very little contact with it).

One other oddity of all of this yelling and whistling. There are a number of sounds here that are completely new to me. One is that all Chilean (and Argentinian, at least as far as Mendoza goes) men seem to be trained in the exceptional art of making kissy noises at high decibal levels. I'm talking kissy noises that can be heard over four buses and a barking dog, from a moving car. Try making a kissy noise (if you are not in public of course--in that case I don't advise it). It is a very quiet noise. It is absolutely beyond me how these people are able to elevate it to the level of a shout. Really. This must be some sort of ancient secret passed down through the generations because I've never quite heard anything like it. And unfortunately I have the knee jerk urge to punch everyone who makes a kissy noise at me. Haven't done it yet, proud to say.

Also: hissing is complimentary here. Hissing. It makes me jump every time. I have also had people make cat noises at me, sing songs (Christina Aguilera "Beautiful," probably memorized for just such purposes), and make sort of odd shouting sounds that never in my life would I have imagined to be meant as complimentary (pre-Chile...now I know better).

Now, this is not isolated. I know this. I lived in France, which certainly rivals Chile in terms of the "you left your house, you obviously want feedback on your appearance" man-to-woman relationship. And to the men of both countries I say heartily: what on earth makes you think that I want your opinion? "Thank god that old man on the corner hissed at me, I was afraid that he might not be into me." Anyhow, in France I thought I would go mad. But in France I was Normal Looking. Now I am a Freak.

The Bearded Lady got paid, where's my check?

My weekend: a photo essay

To begin I offer you a picture that is semi-irrelevant other than being something that I witnessed this weekend and loved:



I don't know. The rain, the flowers, the buses coming and going. It got me a bit.

Returning, though, to my subject. This weekend I was far more out and about than has come to be my habit. I have suddenly started meeting people in Chile, which is good news. The bad news is that after several months of quiet I am not quite accustomed to having an actual social calendar. At the moment I am in desperate need of an apartment that belongs to me and has no one else in it. Maybe in January. Ah well. Never being alone gets normal after awhile, but I find that it has the odd effect of making me lonelier. That and it also occasionally causes me to come out with bursts of irritation that have nothing to do with the particular person or moment. Word to the wise.

In any event, this is a tangent. This weekend I was all about company, as shall be reenacted by these little fellows that I noticed in the dining room the other day:

ParTAY. Much to the delight of my host family, particularly the father. He is constantly asking me if I am going to parties and this weekend he was particularly pleased with me. He was a bit let down that I did not go dancing, however. I manage though. As the following evidence shows, I completely ruined my sleep schedule:

One should never be witness to the flower clock telling you such a time. It is just not the place to be. The place to be is either: A. Asleep in bed or B. At a party or a club. I will go ahead and call myself foolish for being out in the cold at a clock made out of flowers at a time on Friday morning which ought to be "waking up to be a responsible adult time."

Much of the same intervened. I did speak a lot of Spanish, so that is a good thing. I also was fed delicious food by New Friends/Business Network Allie and Julie, as well as experiencing a Hot Toddy for the first time. On Sunday morning Valpo had lost its head to the fog:



And this morning I was back at it, explaining to my students the dangers of the world: