Teleton: The event of the season

Chile is not a philanthropic society. I witnessed one aspect of this directly when I began my efforts to put together a volunteer-based event listing and cultural portal with the aim of facilitating tourism in Valparaiso. Several months later, I am still moving forward only inches at a time. The main reason? Finding chilenos who will even consider volunteering. The concept of working for things other than money--for experience, for a greater good--is just not as common here as it is in the United States. People tend to be very excited about my project, right up until they find out that I'm not trying to turn a profit.

This is an understandable result of the very active class divide in Chile. Long amongst the top ten most inequal countries in the world, it's only within the last few years that the gap between rich and poor has improved to the point of making us the fourteenth worst country in the world for wealth distribution. The current minimum wage is 144 thousand pesos a month--less than $300. As you may recall if you've been reading this blog recently, this is a 10% increase from the previous rate that was achieved only through strikes by government workers. It wasn't until the papers stopped being pushed and the trash stopped being collected that this modest hike was able to pass.

It is stated statistically that 10% of the Chilean workforce works for minimum wage. In reality, many more work for even less. The minimum wage, after all, only includes those who are paid a salary. Many people in this country are paid on different schemes. For instance, many construction workers and the omnipresent housekeepers or nanas are paid per job or sometimes per diem. Both groups are horrifically underpaid, generally making 10 thousand pesos or less for a day of work. Garment workers are another hard-hit group, as they are paid per item produced and often face stiff quotas. This leads to a complete disregard for working hours limitations. The same problem causes agricultural workers to log 60 hours a week in the picking fields during harvest time, and 10 to 16 hour days in the packing plants. All of these groups of workers survive on a feast-or-famine income, and have almost no rights. Meanwhile, a group of under fifteen families control nearly all of the country's wealth.

There is a billboard between Valpo and Vina del Mar that is very telling. It reads, (rough translation): I study engineering, but I'm angry that we're not building a more equal Chile. So much is contained in that 'but.' The class gap in Chile goes back to the days where a scarce group of patrons (the ancestors of today's power families) ran large plantations, and the rest of the country worked on them. The resulting mindset places a stiff barrier between SES groups. People simply don't feel obliged to help those less fortunate, because that lack of resources is seen as the result of some inherant inadequacy on the part of the lower class. Wait, you study a prestigious career at a university.....but you want to do something about poor people?! Unthinkable!

It is all of this background that makes the yearly Teleton, and the accompanying national excitement, a truly bizarre event.

Teleton is an organization that provides physical therapy and other aid to disabled children throughout Chile. It is financed by a two day--you guessed it--annual telethon. This is nothing akin to the PBS telethons that I recall from childhood weekends. Teleton is a full fledged extravaganza, and it sweeps the country like a tidal wave.

The actual telethon is a sort of variety show, hosted by the irrepressible Don Francisco. This man holds an odd position in the Chilean pantheon. He is the visionary behind Sabado Gigante, the long running variety show that has dominated latin television since its inception in 1962. The show began in Chile, the native country of Don Francisco (whose actual name is Mario Kreutzberger). It was incredibly popular both here and throughout the Spanish speaking world, and in 1986 the big man took advantage of his success and decamped to Miami, Florida, where he has worked ever since with Univision. This desertion leads many chilenos to claim antipathy towards the demigod of daytime television, but in reality he is treated with the mixture of awe and reverential respect that is given to all chilenos who estabilsh themselves on an international level. He can be found gracing billboards across the country, endorsing any number of products, and of course, he returns every year for the Teleton.

Allie and I decided to do Teleton Chilean style, so we headed to our friend Carla's house to watch the first night with her and her friends. All across the country, friends and families were doing the same: sharing beer marked with the Teleton logo, we sat and watched the program. Nearby, on Muelle Baron, Valparaiso's Teleton party was underway under flashing lights and booming reggaeton. In the studio audience in Santiago, the camera scanned the crowd, revealing an obviously high society mix with President Bachelet in the front row.

The show cycles through various types of presentations. First, a dramatic story about someone whose life has been changed by Teleton, told with all the requisite tearful interviews, violin music, and upbeat visions of life today. A coworker of mine at Duoc was the first story to be featured, and later we also met a small girl in a near-vegetative state and a young man with severely limited use of his arms. In between these segments, Don Francisco and other celebrities put on comedy sketches that I generally failed to follow. Then the screen would cut to a city's Teleton party, where a local host would interview community group leaders about the donations they would raised. Many of these people would launch into a long speech, leading everyone in the living room and many of those on TV to shout "Cuanto! Cuanto!" until the number was divulged. The directors of several large chain stores appeared on the show as well, making the somewhat half-decent promise to donate large sums of money--if a certain number of sales were made the following day.

The next day, the morning news devoted 16 pages to Teleton recap so that all of it could be relived.

In the end, the 2008 Teleton--the 30th event of its kind--raised an incredible 16,589,850,127 pesos. At current exchange rates, that's 24,641,989 US dollars. This is a program that does wonderful rehabilitation work, and it is hope-inspiring to see it receiving such an outpouring of support.

Nonetheless, I found myself looking at the whole thing with somewhat skeptical eyes. "We have incredible solidarity as a nation," one Chilean told me. I'm inclined to disagree. Two days of charity a year is simply not enough in a country with an economic situation like Chile's.

"Teleton has fundamentally changed our society," another told me. I do believe this, and I also hope that in time it can produce even more change. Teleton, with its campy extravaganza, evening dresses, and giant parties, introduced the concept of charity to Chile in a way that had not been done before. I hope that perhaps this phenomenon can spread, so that some day in Chile helping the unfortunate will be a social responsibility, not a weekend of festivities.

Minimalism is an art

When I came to Chile, last February, this is what I brought:

I was pretty happy about my packing. I take pride in traveling light. I'm quite capable of living with very little; in New Zealand I spent 6 months driving around the country with 2 pairs of pants, one shirt of each degree (long sleeved, short sleeved, etc), two pairs of long johns, a scarf, a hat, hiking gear, a sleeping bag, a continually interchanged book and some food.

That was a trip of constant movement, however. When you're in one place, it's pretty astonishing the ways that things creep in against your best intentions. Fact of the matter is, I'm a bit of a packrat underneath my minimalist intentions. It's a terrible crush of ideals: I believe in possessing little, but I refuse to waste perfectly good wrapping paper or twist ties or potentially-art-project-usable bus ticket stubs.

I discovered the depth of the situation this past week when my roommate and I switched bedrooms. Our apartment has one decent room and one amazing room, so we've decided on a 2 month rotation for the master bedroom. Now it's my turn, so I packed up my things and moved across the living room. To my astonishment, this is what I discovered:

I have got a lot of stuff.

Over the last few days, I've been organizing myself. Bits of paper flutter down from a stack of documents, asking me, "What would you do if you won the lottery?" and "What would you do if you could have any job you wanted?" "Tell your partner about your family!" an index card instructs me. "Dear Caroline," my handwriting floats across a page, "I've now been in Chile four months...."

I shuffle through a mountain of student worksheets, Spanish-language newspapers I never read, brochures that people stuffed into my hands as I walked down the street, flyers for events that looked interesting but then were forgotten about. Archaeological evidence that I have been living a life here. Debris from the daily back and forth that sometimes slips from the mind next to the enormous decisions that seem to litter the decade of one's twenties.

Holding on to these things is a way of grabbing at time. Renouncing belongings, throwing away brochures, accepting that the letter will never be sent, is accepting the passing of moments. In the end, I seem to be a time-grabber.

Nonetheless, Buddhist principles aside, I went out and bought myself a lovely particle board desk and bookshelf, complete with very small desk chair, and a full length mirror. I'm living here, it's time to accept that I need to make arrangements. So now I am happily writing to you from my newly established, thing-entrenched life. And I didn't throw away the wrapping paper.

Dancing in the Streets

Walking between one outdoor dance performance and another, the crowd began to realize that it was being directed. As we pushed onto the stairs of Paseo Yugoslavia, a man directed us to split into pairs. As we slowly advanced in our new formation, another gave us further directions. I linked arms with my friend and she closed her eyes while I guided her, as we had been told. As we bumbled half blindly, literally, up the stairs, members of the German dance troupe splashed couples as they emerged with water from the fountain.

At the top we followed our choreographers and joined hands to form a chain. We circled in around the large tree at the center of the small plaza overlooking the port. In front of me was a boy of about three. We circled in, tightening around the layers of people in front of us as more links in the chain emerged from the stairway and coiled around us. I stretched my friend's arm in order to stay just behind the little boy, providing the other half of the support that his mother's hand gave him from in front. We circle-danced over the uneven bricks and the little boy, in the way that small children have of trusting anyone significantly larger than them, allowed me to use our locked hands as a means to lift him over gaps and slants.

A crowd watched from the sides, skeptically, but walking in the circle I could see the sense of the dance. The warmth of sharing movement with strangers. We broke apart slowly and looked up to find the troupe arranged in the tree.

We stood around them as they dropped pieces of paper inscribed with heartfelt messages in broken Spanish, about dreams and clean water. Balloons drifted down and a man played the accordion. After we had all received a few of the small paper airplanes and paper balls, we began to drift away, chattering. The dancers climbed uncertainly down from the tree.

So ended the VII Festival Internacional Danzalborde de Valparaiso, a yearly October event in the city. It had been a week-long event featuring dance troupes from several different countries. Like the final circle around the tree, it was an event that was heartfelt, experimental, occasionally hokey and at times a flop. As things tend to go, here, there was the occasional lapse in the audio equipment, the fact that the locations of the dances were nearly impossible to find out, and a touch of over-earnestness. The awkward moments, though, never overshadowed the wonderful feeling of living in a place that would organize such a thing: a week of contemporary dance spread out through the streets of the city.

Work and the scarcity of information caused me to miss out on all but the final weekend of the festival. That Saturday afternoon, I joined a friend in an attempt to track down the performance that she had finally found a listing for. We wandered around Cerro Bellavista, until finally we discovered a crowd hanging around a stage-like section of the Museo de Cielo Abierto.

A Columbian dance troupe began with a duet. The man and woman, in black street clothes, mixed the occasional classic dance form with angular, disjointed movements. The music was sometimes harmonic, sometimes little more than ambient noise. These contrasts worked extremely well in some segments of the dance; in others I couldn't help but see hints of the infamous Robot dance. The dancers played out various conflicts and reconciliations that can occur in a relationship. At times the woman would collapse, the man urging her up with a series of pushes from his feet. Sometimes he would fall and she would catch him.

The following dance, from the same troupe, showed the same strengths and weaknesses as the first. A group of people crawled, wiggled, and occasionally spun in arabesques across the space. A woman dropped her bright pink pants and hobbled forwards and backwards before pulling them up halfway and rushing forward to the stairs.

After the performance, the dancers left and the crowd dispersed. A small girl took the stage and mimicked the wide, dramatic jerks and thrusts of the dance she had just seen.

That night, the same friend and I went to an indoor performance by a Mexican group. The listing labelled the style as "Minimal Movement." Given that it was in Spanish, I translated it in my mind as "Minimalist Movement." I should have trusted my first reading.

The hall, the auditorium of a local university, was in fact a converted old church. My friend and I found a spot up in the back corner of a crowded set of wooden bleachers. In front of us, underneath the saints looking down from stained glass windows, a woman sat in a chair. She was surrounded by glowing orange globes, strung together like Christmas tree lights. Three antique lamps sat next to the chair. As the crowd settled in, a strange series of sounds began to play and the dancer moved her hand slowly towards her face in a dramatic gesture. The shadow cast by the spotlight hitting her hand made the appearance of a small black tulip opening on her chest. We waited.

A few minutes later, she moved her head slowly to the side and extended her arm. We waited.

She traced her foot across the ground. She opened her mouth, closed her mouth. The music was the sound of dripping water, echoing tones, and wind, intercut with a sudden scream or the sound of a train. I began to consider the fact that bleachers have no side exits.

The visual effect was striking, but after twenty and then thirty minutes passed, I arrived at the critical opinion that perhaps the "voyeurism" mentioned in the description referred to a sort of mirror effect. As I watched the performer squirm around, miming in extreme slow motion the effects of inner turmoil, I began to feel supremely uncomfortable. Trapped. I switched on my art theory and concluded that perhaps this was intended: the audience sharing the stress of the character being danced.

After forty minutes, I was sure that I would much rather be writing an analysis of this piece than experiencing it.

After fifty minutes, I was considering if perhaps the intended effect was to cause someone in the audience to break down and yell for it to stop, as a sort of peak to the anxiety of the dance.

After an hour, I had decided that no analytical approach to this piece could give me back the time I'd lost sitting uncomfortably wedged between college students, on a piece of wood, watching a woman sit in a chair.

Finally, finally, she stood up. In strange, jerky movements, she made her way to a side door and lurched out of the room. The door remained open for several minutes, shooting a plank of white light into the space dominated by dark and glowing orange. Then suddenly, it slammed loudly shut. The visual effect was beautiful.

I didn't really care. I was scarily close to a temper tantrum when the dancer and the other members of her group--who had been working the sounds and the lights--came out to answer questions.

They explained that interaction with the audience was an essential part of the show and asked for input. Students raised their hands with detailed questions about composition and form. The group proudly explained that other than several key points which were choreographed, the rest was entirely improvisation on the part of all three. While looking carefully over the work for 'key points,' I could settle only on a moment when the sounds stopped and the woman kicked the lights, scattering a pile of forks with a metallic sound that was refreshing in the sense that it was the only sudden thing to happen within an hour and a quarter's time. The man who improvised the sound for the piece exclaimed several times over how he hadn't known that the dancer would leave through the door; she modestly explained how it just came to her. More questions were asked. The group discussed the time a cat had entered the performance space in Buenos Aires and thus became part of the performance. They explained how each piece is different, depending on the location in which it will be performed. The dancer elaborated by detailing how in each new city they go to find costumes and props, and these new pieces contribute to the choreography as well. I mentally threw a quick curse at the vendors of antique lamps, black bell skirts, and victorian-style white blouses, wherever in Valparaiso they may be.

When we were released, my friend and I walked at a near-running pace away from the building, laughing and exclaiming. She thought perhaps there had been a helicopter involved in the idea at some point; I wondered about nightmares. We decided that all of that not-moving made us want to walk widely and swingingly back to her place.

The next day I met her and another friend for another performance and was very concerned to find out that it would be the same group once again. Upon determining that we could not possibly be trapped in the pedestrian road on which the stage was set, we all decided to stay and see what happened. Thankfully, the woman is far more interesting when she moves.

This time the inspirational pieces were a large plastic tablecloth set with a birthday cake and six place settings with plates and empty bottles. The costume was a flouncing purple satin dress, a bright red bike helmet worn backwards, black stockings striped with yellow, large boots, and a yellow fly swatter. The character that arose from all of this seemed to be some kind of combination between a martian and a small child.

The man who had been working the lights the night previously was involved this time, scurrying around in a plastic apron. He beckoned members from the audience out from the sides of the street to take the places around the tablecloth.

At the end, he carried her, kicking and screaming, cake demolished on her boots, out of a side door wrapped in duct tape. I was glad not to be forced into artistic appreciation, and felt much warmer towards the group as I followed the file of people up the stairs towards the circle around the tree.

Lights Out

Sitting at the table with the last light of the afternoon keeping the room glowing, I didn't realize that the power on the cerro had gone out until I finally rose in the graying space and flicked the switch.

I walked down the hill to pick up the pizza I had ordered. Customers sat around candles of various sizes. For some reason, people speak more quietly in the dark, surrounded by candles. I collected my pizza and completed the transaction half under my breath. Parting from my friend at the street corner, I half ran up the steps that run along the side of the ruined stretch of Templeman, where the road has been replaced by rubble and stray bushes. The light was fading and I was thinking of my cavernous apartment and unlocatable flashlight.

I stumbled through the entry way and into the blank space of my apartment. In the dining room, the windows were still letting in a faint hint of light. I rummaged through drawers: tea lights, I know that I saw tea lights. I found them, on my knees in the invisible kitchen, and brought them back to the table. I dropped five of them into the rounded shot glasses that came with the apartment, and they made that satisfying sound: something soft and light cased in cheap metal hitting glass. The sound makes me think of my parents' dinner parties when I was a child, and of Christmas and Thanksgiving at their house.

The house was quiet and empty, my roommate sleeping in his room. My third roommate called to say that she would not come home from her boyfriend's. Lighting my candles and arranging my book, I thought back to another night without electricity. It was in a February, in Morocco, in a small apartment whose walls held no ceiling save in the small cubbies that were bedrooms. After brushing my teeth under stars of an unknown continent, I walked on bare feet across the cold kitchen floor into the tiny room with walls of stone. The bed was a shelf knocked into the wall. As I rubbed my feet under not enough blankets and spoke softly with good company, I remember the three stubs of candles that were stuck onto the deep rock sill of the tiny window at the foot of the bed. The wind picked up, but the crashing sound of waves was loudest outside the little wooden shutter behind the flames. I fell asleep that night, and the nights after, listening through these sounds for my breath and for the other breath beside me, the both of us breathing air so far away from anything previously known.

Tonight I arranged my candles in a semicircle around my chair and lone place setting. I poured some wine, took a bite of food, and opened my book. I've only just begun it, but I am far enough along to know that I am reading of a man whose past still grips him with its mysteries and pain. I know that I will read this book and feel an echo. There is something of this in the life of any person far from home without intentions of permanacy. Our lives here are a flicker; they began recently enough to be recalled in every detail; it is sure that they will end sometime soon in an airport, under flourescent light. The most intimate of friends made here can know only this short burst of time. When we mirror each other, we can see only the present tinted by the stories we tell over coffee, over tea, over wine and beer, staring out windows and tracing the rims of cups with our fingers. We tell each other that we lived before, will live later, but we exist only in the present and these other times are only stories.

I am thinking of these things in the dark, with the lights of the other, unaffected cerros of Valparaiso shining against the negative space surrounding my building. In the quiet, alone, I think of the company that is missed, and the history that cannot follow me here. In this unexpected, unadulterated space of the blackout, the shapes of that history fill the room and although it shakes me, I welcome them.

I call no one because I welcome them. Then the door to the side swings open and my sleepy roommate brings out flashlights from his camping supplies. I strap a light to my head just as my tea lights are reaching the end of their short lives. This is when I feel sad. The thin thread has snapped that had connected these temporary candles and this solitary darkness to those other misshappen candles casting dancing shadows against a stone wall, not so very long ago. But this is how we live, now, in this flare within my history. It won't be long before I sit with other candles and my heart pulls for the lonely nights in Valparaiso. So I laugh at myself, spill out my words, and return to my book and my work.

A funny thing happened on the way to my blog post...

So, apologies from the bad blogger. My personal life has been a bit of a headache lately, and as such my reflections on Chile have been on hold while I try to get things sorted. As this is not a personal life blog, most of what I've been dwelling on of late has not been suitable material.

I'll be back on this week, so check back in today or tomorrow for a real, honest, post about Chile.

In the meantime, please take the time to check out this post on Kyle's blog. She has committed to paying a young man's tuition to DuocUC, a technical university. This is of particular relevance to me because I am, at the moment, a volunteer teacher at that same institution (in another location, of course). It is an extremely respected institution for the level of training it provides (something akin to a technical associate's degree in the US). It is also, however, expensive. This has been one of the major quandaries for me over the course of this year. My students are wonderful people who are given a great opportunity to better their circumstances--but for a price. It is difficult for me to resolve the contradiction inherent in being a volunteer at an institution which is only available to people who can afford the high tuition.

As such, I'm happy to pass on the information that Kyle, who is a photographer, is giving all proceeds from her print sales this month to her friend's tuition. You can read the details of this on her site. She is a skilled photographer. If any of you would like a nice picture of the country at the end of the world, now's your chance to buy one and simultaneously contribute to someone's well-being.

18: Go Chile

So, the 18th has come and gone. The 18th is really not just the 18th, it is as many days as possible surrounding the 18th, the 19th, and anything in between that and the weekend. It commemorates various aspects of Chile's independence and general identity. We got relatively gipped this year as the 18th fell on a Thursday, so the party didn't start until Wednesday at noon. This may be a blessing in disguise, however, because if Fiestas Patrias had lasted any longer it may very well have killed me.

In some respects, I had a failed visitor's Fiestas Patrias: I didn't hang out with anyone's grandparents. I didn't see the rodeos in Olmue (despite best laid plans). I didn't even go to the ramadas, aka fondas, aka fairs that are the traditional celebration spot.

On the other hand, I had a pretty Chilean-style Fiestas Patrias: I hung around with people I liked, and I ate and drank a lot, and there were often Chilean flags around, and good times were had by all. All in all, rather satisfying. Along with camping (see below), I also participated in and watched some cueca dancing:





The cueca is Chile's national dance and it is meant to represent the courting dance between a hen and a rooster. It kind of intimidates me, as such. I'm not a great hen. The rooster is meant to stare you down, waving his scarf (or plastic bag, as the case may be), while you hide behind your scarf-or-bag and dance coyly back and forth. Truth be told, I don't like being stared down, so instead of doing flirtacious half-circles I pretty much just duck back and forth to get out of the line of fire. Anyway I did give it a shot several times, but the photo evidence lies in the cameras of others.

I attended multiple asados, where many people were shocked and astonished that I am not eating meat. At one point someone said that they had thought that I would at least have a chorripan (sausage in bread), as it's really not large at all. The lovely Kacy and Yasha provided me with fish at their asado, but otherwise I was just careful to eat before or after.

In general, I had a nice weekend, with a lot of relaxing mixed in with a lot of dissipation, plus a bit of wilderness wandering, and tried my best to represent (as did everyone else). Go Chile.

La Campana

So, I did in fact go hiking on Saturday, to Cerro La Campana (excuse my anglophone keyboard). The weather looked threatening, but luckily there was no rain. Having not been outside the city in ages, the trip was a very welcome change from my slowly emerging routine.

It should be noted that a car is not necessary for this trip. It's actually quite simple by public transit, although, of course, longer than your own transport would take. However, for those of us without the option, you can still be on the trail within 2 hours. To get there, take the metro to the last stop, Limache (a pleasant excursion in and of itself). At the station, go outside and wait for a #1 bus. Double check that it is going all the way to the park. Assuming it is, hop on, and the last stop before it turns around is the park. Walk up the trail, where you pay a small entrance fee (a couple luca, I don't recall exactly because in Chile, the invited party pays for nothing---something which is rather uncomfortable for a gringa, but rather nice once I started ignoring it and just enjoyed the free ride). And you're off.

My co-hiker, who was a student of mine this past semester, wanted to walk up the dirt road used for cars. I vetoed this on the grounds that walking on a road is not a hike. So we took the trail proper. It was a good work-out--a steady incline of a not-negligible grade. Due to this, I was obliged to strike a deal that we would take the road down.

Unfortunately, the ranger was not allowing hikers to go to the summit due to the possibility of rain and fog. The views from the top are apparently very nice. I will be heading back on a nicer day to see for myself. Nonetheless, despite the clouds and the fact that we had to stop about two thirds of the way up, the views were calming and beautiful.

The coastal cordillera:

Atmospheric, eh?

I may have missed out on the summit, but I did get to do quite a bit of "flora and fauna contemplation." I couldn't practice Spanish with these friends, but I appreciated their company. They, in turn, enjoyed the idea that they might get some of my peanuts (they were not successful).

The walk down on the road was much less intense, as well as being much longer, but was more condusive to conversation. I finally learned the details of about a million things which have been confusing me, such as the exact controversy over the public education system, and the business structure of the city's micros (buses). Information which I shall share when I am not tired and looking forward to turning off my computer.

The fog closed in, and we walked down into it; by the end I was essentially walking through a cloud. It was incredibly peaceful, after the detail-crammed landscape of Valparaiso, to spend some time in a white-out. And when I got off of the train back in the city, I loved the complications even more.

Overall, a very successful day. I have, in fact, been very well occupied lately, and have quite a few things to write about. So keep checking in for more of la vida Valparaiso.