Marching band performance, po

Wednesday is May 21st, which is an important holiday dealing with a battle, Iquique, and, as one Chilean explained it to me, "cuando Arturo Prat murió, po." Because he was a really tough waeon. This is about all I've gathered about the specific reasons for the holiday.

There are however lots of interesting goings on related to May 21st that can be understood without even the least shred of Spanish. For instance, yesterday, all of the student marching bands from the city (perhaps region?) took to the streets for an entire day of parading. I am still kicking myself for not having had a camera with me. Imagine a ten year old trying to march, look serious, and play a harp twice the size of himself all at once. It was fabulous, and it just kept going. An all day affair. Most of the streets were blocked off. Plaza Anibal Pinto, which is the plaza closest to my house, was a madhouse. Since this blog has been photo-deficient for some time now, just for diversion's sake I'll throw in some pictures of the plaza on a normal day:

And here it is with some students putting on a dance performance:

So, that general scene, filled with an army of children with drums. I was pretty fascinated by the whole thing. It spread literally throughout the city, from the port down past the center of town. The chilean who was accompanying me did not seem to understand why I kept stopping to stare at the parades, as it's just what happens every year at this time, but for me it was absolutely surreal.

There is also a major naval parade that takes place on Wednesday itself. There is a good amount of animal rights grafiti around (of which I unfortunately have no pictures) pertaining to this holiday, because apparently all of the stray dogs are rounded up to prevent them from mussing up the parade. I have heard conflicting reports as to what happens to the dogs. Most people have told me that they kill them, some that they are spirited off to some other location and left there, and some that they simply "detain" them, so to speak, until after the parade. I'm somewhat skeptical of the canine cleansing theory. First of all, there are plenty of old grandpa dogs in my neighborhood. If all of the dogs were wiped out once a year, it would stand to reason that the only dogs in town would be quite young. Secondly, there are just so many of them that I cannot imagine that every stray dog I have met was born during the course of this year. Finally, though, based on what little I know of Chilean politics and allocation of funds, it seems a bit absurd to me that there could be some massive secret budget set aside for the euthanization of stray dogs. So, what happens to the dogs, in my super expert opinion? This I don't know. Ex-carcel? (see post from previous month RE: eerie former-prison-cum-empty-art-space).

Anyhow on Wednesday I will be sure to remember my camera so that I can provide you with pictures that are actually relevant to the topic I'm writing about. (what an idea!)

It's Friday night...do you know where your incoherent gringa is?

....why, right here at the computer, of course. It's a rather odd moment that deserves noting mainly because there is no one else here (which, as I've mentioned, is always a rare and strange happening).......except for a random person who I met about an hour ago at onces and may or may not be living here now.

I was not under the impression that she was living here. However, suddenly everyone had left except her, and now she's hanging out in one of the bedrooms. Odd? Odd. I'm sure that at some point during onces I was told both where everyone was going and whether or not this person is my new roomie. It was probably one of those times where I give up on understanding and just nod and mimic whatever facial expression the speaker is making. Smile for smile, grimace for grimace, eye roll for eye roll.....this works surprisingly well. I might start doing it in English as well.

So, me and my new buddy are just chilling. I potentially have plans tonight, but they are Spanish-speaking plans, so I'm not entirely sure if I'm hoping to get a call....or hoping to be able to get into my PJs and not spend the evening imitating people. Although from all the buzz, it seems that the entire crew of the George Washington navy ship is running around Viña, calling people "mamacita" and ordering tequilas. People watching, anyone? For once feeling like there's someone more clueless than me at the bar? Yes, please...

On Being Ill, Part 2

As an interesting follow-up to yesterday's post on chileno v. norteamericano concepts of health:

While laid up yesterday I sent out a document to my school's English department. Our students have no workbook, which of course makes language learning next to impossible when many of said students are highly unmotivated (ie. not about to go out and find their own ways of practicing). So I've taken to writing up exercises for each Unit and sharing them with the rest of the teachers. The most recent was the Midterm Review sheet. I wrote the instructions in hackneyed but passable Spanish, but then I was able to enlist another norteamericano teacher--who is fluent in Chilean Spanish, having lived here in Valpo while in school--to rewrite them for me. I sent them out yesterday with due credit to both parties involved.

Today I received a concerned message from a very sweet Chilena teacher in the department. She is most certainly the mama bear for all of the extranjeros. She has put in an astonishing amount of extra time making sure we settled in well and is generally very sweet. Anyhow, she wrote that she was very happy that my co-author and I could team up for work, but maybe it would be better if we teamed up to go party? After all she sees me working all of the time, and the guy who was here last year (who also lived with my family) worked half the time and was sick the other half. So she is very concerned that I am working myself sick, and should let my hair down a bit.

The first reason that this is funny is that my hair is very much down, and I am surprised to find out that at work I'm seen as a little worker ant. It's true that I work a lot at school, however I do so in order to have no work to do on weekends and at night so that I can be irresponsible and hedonistic (family members: exxageration) (others: sort of). More on work perceptions of me in another post though, because I have more interesting stories about that.

The related reason why this is funny is once again the difference in perspective. As I wrote before, my immediate reaction to getting sick was, "I shouldn't have stayed out so late on Saturday." Paulina, meanwhile, reacts with, "that girl must not be partying nearly enough, poor thing."

This all ties in with something that amazes me about Chile. Nothing really gets going until around 1 or 2 in the morning. At 6am, the clubs are so full that you have no idea that it is, technically, not your night out anymore. When people say you should meet them early, they mean 11. This includes weekdays. And then, the next day, these same people get up 2 hours after getting home and go to work for 9 hours. Now, I'm pretty nocturnal, but I still get in my 5-8, one way or another.

I'm telling you the country does not sleep.

Maybe Bónicula is more culturally relevant than I presumed?

Anyhow, based on my week's experience of illness (I am feeling just about better now), I would guesstimate the Chilean recipe for health as follows:
1. As many socks as will fit in your shoes.
2. As many pairs of tights and long underwear as will fit in your pants.
3. As many sweaters and jackets as you own.
4. Absolutely no contact whatsoever with the floor.
5. No showers at any time when the temperature is not above 70F.
6. When in doubt, take a pill--any pill!
7. Party until 6am as often as possible, and don't work too hard.

On Being Ill

So. I am down with tonsillitis and have been for 2 days now. It's not a bit fun. For one thing this is supposed to be "midterm prep" week, which was technically supposed to be last week, so my unsuspecting students have now been pushed back 2 weeks and will have some unpleasant cramming towards the end of the semester. For another I have been in bed for 2 days straight, plus every break I had on Monday. Qué fomé. I have only 4 short stories left in English before I start having to read in French, and only 2 short French books left before I have to go to Spanish, in which I have only Bunnicula (yes, Bunnicula). And let me tell you I am having trouble with Bunnicula, deep literature that it is. It also troubles me that it has been translated as Bónicula, since "bunny" is not a Spanish word and so the whole point seems to be lost. I suppose the high-quality translators are not dispatched for children's books about monster rabbits. However, I digress, which as Bónicula has taught me can also be said as....me voy por las ramas.

The most interesting aspect of this bout of sickness has been the clashing of cultural medical views within the casa. In my opinion, I most likely got ill because I stayed out all night on Saturday drinking far too much and hanging out with half a million people. Low immune system + high exposure to germs = why did I do that, cough cough. However, from the perspective of my family, I am way off the mark. First of all, I do not wear adequate footwear while in the house. Socks alone do not cut it. If they are socks, they better be layered and fluffy. If not, slippers at all times. Because the second your foot touches cold floor, you are done for. Along those same lines, not wearing my sub-zero northface jacket that I brought from home on days when the temperature is below 60F is just asking for it. Finally, the wild oscillations in temperature from somewhat-chilly to not-so-chilly are enough to make any rookie sick. As I have been warned about all of these things for weeks on end, I should not be surprised that my careless behavior has landed me in bed.

We also disagree somewhat on treatment. I remember a couple of months ago some other norteamericanos were going on about how other cultures are so much more holistic, naturalistic, yada yada. I disagreed. Now we may be pill happy at home but I see no evidence of healing-women running around in Chile. At the moment, for instance, I am hanging out in bed, drinking lots of water and tea, and waiting for the virus to get lost. This sort of thing is generally not more than 4 or 5 days; I'm 3 days in. I'll survive. However, 2 days ago when I told my housemates about it, I was told to go down the street to get an injection right away. When I demured, I was offered some random antibiotics. I've been fighting off both options ever since and am somewhat concerned that the next time I fall asleep I might be dragged physically to a doctor. In Chile, from experience and from hearsay, they tend to go to the doctor for everything. So the fact that I have let this drag on for several days is something akin to insanity to them. The other interesting thing is that I am not allowed to take showers. Well that's a bit harsh. I am allowed to take showers at the peak of midday as long as I then get right back into eight layers of clothing. Otherwise there is a huge fuss because I am changing my temperature, which as you recall is what does you in.

The family has, however, been extremely sweet to me, and after accepting that I intend to be stubborn about the injection/antibiotics issue, the mother has started mixing me a very helpful lemon juice and honey drink. It is interesting though. Medical believes are one of those things that are simply immovable, because every culture thinks that they are referring to high scientific fact. The idea that no one is entirely sure about these things, particularly not English majors or retired elementary school teachers (in my present case) doesn't matter. We will not budge. It was the same in France--every morning, whatever the weather, I would be forced to crush my then short-and-styled hair into a hat. To do otherwise was near suicide. So in France, it's hats. Chile, socks. The US? We have our own myths and superstitions. But I can't tell you what they are because I believe them wholeheartedly. I would guess that one would be orange juice, because since taking sick I have been in a near panic over the fact that juice as I know it does not exist in Chilean supermarkets. Who knows what other bizarre ideas I have, though.

I could ask if it weren't for the unfortunate fact that having a head-and-throat illness has made me incapable of communicating in Spanish.

Back to bed, then!

Tear gas = no biggie

As mentioned in yesterday's post, Chilean protests often come with a bit more drama than seems necessary. So today, I was walking to work, when my phone rang.

Elisa asked, "Where are you?"

"I'm on Prat, walking to work," I answered. "Where are you?"

"I'm at work. I just got tear gassed, and they just set off another one--people are all running into the building--so if you get onto Avenida Brasil and see people covering their mouths.....just turn around!"

Interesting. This is not the sort of phone call I normally receive. So, I proceeded on my merry way with a bit more precaution. As I got near my building, I saw several carabineros. One had his helmet off, so I continued on while keeping an eye on him. If that helmet went back on, I would make a break for the building. Luckily, all was calm and I made it to work with my sinuses unmolested. Only 8 students showed up for my class, but I decided to teach anyway, as that's twice the turnout I had for anything yesterday. When they came, I asked if any of them had been gassed.

Oh, yeah, a couple had. "Miss, can I go brush my teeth and wash my face off?" Um, yes. Yes you can. We might have been talking about whether or not they had been caught in the rain for the level of concern they were expressing. I can tell you there would have been a bit more hysterics if I had showed up any earlier. None of the students knew why the gas had been set off--there hadn't been a protest or any noise that they heard. This did not seem strange to them.

Later I got Elisa's story. She was walking and saw a few people with cloth over their mouths but didn't think much of it. Then all of a sudden she walked right into the gas. It had been set off before, so she didn't see it, all of a sudden her eyes and nose were burning and she had to sit down on a stoop and cover her face until it stopped. She was not pleased. Then, as she approached the building, another one went off. She ran with all of the students to our building, got inside and gave me the much appreciated warning call. According to her, a few students were holding hands in the street in some sort of gesture, but no one was being rowdy. The second gas bomb seemed completely random from her perspective.

For those of you who are reading from a distance, this probably all sounds terribly dramatic and frightening. It's rather not. This is no major civil unrest, there are no mobs with pitchforks. There are just a lot of students and a lot of police, and all of them seem to be a bit overvigilant in their roles. So I'm about to walk home, and I can hear what sounds like a protest going on. I'm not concerned for my safety, but I can tell you it feels a bit strange to be thinking along the lines of, "Oh, darn. Well, I just hope I don't get tear gassed, for pete's sake."

If I do, though, you can bet I will make a huge deal of it and award myself no end of small comforts to recover from my great ordeal, while my students will just wash their faces and get on with it.

The day the micros died...

All of Chile has been in a bit of a tangle over the micros, or city buses, during the last few weeks. I am a bit unclear on the situation in Santiago, short of the fact that there have been major student protests. This is always rather interesting in Chile. Just as at home, protests generally follow a certain formula. However, here in Chile, no matter what the issue may be, the formula usually includes protesters throwing themselves against cops dressed in full riot gear, people being tossed into massive paddy wagons, tear gas, fire hoses..... It never ceases to amaze me that I will turn on the news and see some horrific-seeming scene of someone being tackled by armed guards, or I will look out my classroom window and see carabineros jumping out of a van with torso-length bulletproof shields on their arms....and then I'll ask my host family and they'll say, "Oh, I don't know, some protest." A friend in Santiago told me she got the same reaction when she asked a friend why they smelled tear gas: "Oh, some demostration." Although I've come to realize that in general it's not really to be taken too seriously, it's just part of the show. It just wouldn't be a heartfelt protest without some rocks being thrown! And the police just wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't come dressed for armageddon! In some ways it reminds me of soccer players over-dramatizing their injuries to get a foul.

I digress. I don't know the specifics of the Santiago situation, as I said, but in Valparaíso the disagreement is over a student-fare hike from 130 to 210 pesos. The buses here are independently operated, something which I would like to write more about later. It's something to get used to. In many ways, they feel like giant taxi cabs--stuffed animals hanging from the rearview, stickers and photos all over the dashboard. What's more, because they're private, they are far more laissez-faire than the buses I am used to. To begin with, you flag them down. This is something I have had to adjust to. At first it felt exceptionally rude to be stopping a vehicle with 20 other passengers just because I felt like getting on. Same goes for getting off. There are stops, of course, but in general you can just jump off anytime they slow down. Most interesting of all, though, you can usually bargain with the driver if you have a special request. In Concón several weeks ago, several friends and I essentially chartered a micro to take us to the street we were staying on, although it wasn't on the normal route. The bus was empty, there were seven of us, why not? Since the micros operate like small businesses, each fare is important. Which is why the drivers are so insistent on the fare raise for students. They are also asking for government subsidies, which are provided to the transportation system in Santiago. Their argument is that the machines are so expensive to maintain that the current fare system is not sustainable.

For their part, the students clearly do not want their fare to be raised. On their side, the perspective is that students of lower income will be penalized by the price hike. They are also claiming that the government is not supporting the education system adequately. So, here in Valpo, the students have been on strike for 3 weeks. Not my students...that you would have heard about. But at the U Catolica the strike is at 3.5 weeks now, unless something has changed in the last few days.

So, up until this point, I generally followed the situation. The prices were set to be raised, and so the students went on strike. This makes sense.

Today, though, the micros also went on strike, because the drivers are angry at not being included in negotiations. It was meant to be a 50% strike, but in reality the micros are not running. I've seen only 3 or 4.

So, as I understand it, the price of the student fare has not gone up, has not gone down, and has not been definitely decided in any way.....and yet both sides of the argument are now on strike. No students, no micros. I'm a bit baffled. How on earth does one resolve a situation in which everyone goes on strike whether they are winning or losing the argument?

Anyhow, this is, as always, from behind the language barrier. I am not getting any of the detail of the situation, and my students seem to be generally disinterested in the matter so I haven't been able to get a clear answer from anyone.

So what does all this mean for my life? Eight out of eighteen students this morning, four out of eighteen this afternoon. I am willing to bet that half of those that didn't show up don't even have to take a micro to school, but hey, if I were a student I'd take the excuse too.

And we were singing....bye, bye miss american pie....

The fickle nature of TurBus, and other stories

This weekend I went to La Serena. I will post on this soon, but the wireless connection is down at work and I'd prefer to wait until I can add pictures (from my own computer, of course). So for now I'll just share an anecdote, or two.

The first spins off of my last post, in parts. La Serena is about 7.5 hours away from Valpo by bus. Elisa and I went by TurBus, the company that I've used most often while in Chile. In general they've been quite good. They turn off the lights at night, they don't play music, the reading lights work, they usually give you a little sandwich or something on the long trips, and the semi-cama (half-bed, a.k.a. normal reclining bus seat with a little foot rest) is somewhat possible to sleep in. For some reason, one of the jobs of the auxillary driver is to shut and open your curtains for you at pre-determined times, which I find annoying, but if you protest he'll leave you be.

On the way there, all was as it should be. But on the way back, there were some issues. It was a very early bus, leaving at 6:15am. So after getting on board and eating some fruit, I went to sleep for 3 hours or so. When I woke up, it was to the sounds of.....a blasting music video medley! As noted in my previous posting, tastes here tend towards the nostalgic, so I was treated to hits from such artists as the Spice Girls, Coolio, Ace of Base, and Natalie Imbruglia. However, being a medley, only about 15 seconds of each song were played. I don't think I've touched on the popularity of the medley here, but it is kind of an issue. Imagine those little commercials they play on radio stations where you hear bits of songs you like before heading into a full length version of some other random song. Or the equivalent with music videos. Teasers, in their most common usage, designed to keep you listening or watching with the hope that they will eventually play the whole song that they have now gotten stuck in your head. Well, apparently someone afflicted with ADHD had the opposite reaction to those teasers one day. Instead of thinking, how annoying, I wish I could hear that song, he or she thought, "This is great! Why don't they do this all of the time? Why bother spending 2 and a half minutes listening to a musical progression when you can just hardline the catchy refrain and move on?"

And so the extended medley was born, or so I imagine it. And now it is not uncommon to spend 45 minutes at a club without hearing one song in its entirety, or even moeity. I cannot say if this is a Chilean invention or not, but it is new to me. Apparently, the same logic has been applied to music videos, and TurBus thought, what a nice way to wake up in the morning. Frenetic music clips at full volume.

And then they fed me a cookie for breakfast.

The rest of the trip was given over to an exceptionally obnoxious sounding comedian performing, again, at full volume. It was perhaps the first time in this country where I've thought to myself, "thank god I can't understand what this guy is saying."

Now, I've heard plenty of stories that top this. One person reported passing a 24 hour bus ride under the glow (and sounds) of a back-to-back Steven Segal marathon. So I'm certainly not claiming to have endured much. However, after yesterday, I'm going to have to conclude that there's just no predicting or preventing it. It certainly doesn't depend on the company. Call it the Chilean bus lottery (paired with the traditional bus lottery, which is who-will-be-sharing-my-armrest-and-oxygen-supply-for-eight-hours-today).

The second story involves an irritating ex-pat. This is exciting, because as you may have noticed, this blog is almost entirely devoid of characters. That is a pretty fair reflection of my life. When your language skills stop at the practical, it is rare to have any interactions that warrant writing down.

In any event, I took a tour of the Capel pisco distillery in Vicuña. Elisa and I were there, as well as three American study abroad students (who are taking a full university course load in Spanish), and assorted other gringos. One woman approached me and the other four girls and asked where we were from. We went through that spiel, and then she wasted no time in telling us that while she and her husband are from Arizona, they now live in Santiago, where they have two apartments in two of the ritziest neighborhoods. She made a big show of trying to figure out how to explain this to us, given the intense difficulties of translating "comuna" and stating that the rich folk live next to the cordillera ("oh, the mountains, I mean, the Andes"). Now, I may be a Chile newbie, but this woman managed to irritate me within the first three minutes, which is not easy to do. I only spent a month in Santiago, but I'm pretty sure that even the most clueless traveler could figure out the basic vocab in that time.

In general, I have issues with passive-agressive bragging. It is one thing to forget a word in English. It is quite another to put a great deal of effort into making it clear that you speak Spanish so well that you simply cannot remember how to communicate in English! I would much rather have had her say: "We've been living in Santiago for x amount of time, and I've become fluent in Spanish, which I'm rather proud of." That's fair. Directness, please. I will happily congratulate you on your accomplishments if you acknowledge them, but there is nothing more annoying than someone who is obviously trying to elicit a specific reaction from you....while being condescending.

Anyway, so then she turns to the students and asked them at a tortoise's pace how their Spanish is coming. She was speaking at a rate that I would find overly slow, and meanwhile these girls are taking courses in engineering in a foreign language. Then, the guide begins talking, and Ms. International turns to me and says, "Let's see if you can understand!"

Oh my. If you know me, you know my teeth were grinding. And so I tensely told her that I understand quite a lot, and given that I am self-taught and only 3 months along, I'm perfectly happy with that, thankyouverymuch.

But, this is not the point of the story--the rant, that is. The point, of course, is my glorious victory!

After the initial talk, we started off on our tour. Ms. International comes running over to some of the other gringos squealing, "Translation, please! I know! Don't worry, I'll explain what she said." So she went over the basics and then, erroneously, told them they could not take photographs inside. They were confused, and said they thought the guide had said the opposite. Oh, no no, the woman assured them, no photographs.

And so, walking alongside, I was able to lean over and say with a smile, "actually, she said there were absolutely no restrictions on photos as long as you stay with the group."

No better cure for passive-agressive bragging than passive-agressive one-upmanship, says I.

In any event, there is actually a larger reason I wanted to tell this story. Everywhere that I have travelled, I've encountered this problem: there is a certain type of person who simply cannot rest until he or she has proven that they are The Best Global Citizen In The Country And/Or World. Depending on who this person is and what their situation is, the form of the bravado can vary, but it is a very common problem. The fact of the matter is, everyone's experience in a foreign country is different. We all travel or live abroad for different reasons. It's apples and oranges.

If living globally is very important to you, as it is to me, it can be hard to resist getting into these little boxing matches about travel philosophy. So, ok, I was only half successful in this case....I took a jab and ran away. But, well, she started it!