Neolithic Imogen

It's ironic that the last month I have been constantly inspired to write and share some really beautiful experiences with my millions of readers (sam) and I have been without computer for almost a month and recently cellphone for a week. Stupid evil Mac charger broke, probably because i abuse it and bend it's wires to and fro. 

Of course now that I am settled comfortably to write, being hailed by chilean mama for lunch. I will compart (from compartir to share, I swear it's a word) that I helped some chilean artists with their mural, I filled in all the windows for them, and one day I will take a picture as proof. It felt really beautiful to leave a part of myself in valparaiso which I love so much, and with this inspiration next week I am going to join an organization in mosaic-ing a plaza. I realize this will be much more impressive when I take a photo. I have so far taken about 4 pictures, really impressive I realize. 

One more gem of wisdom. I went over the weekend to visit my old chilean family again in Olmue. My brother turned 7 on Saturday so I went for the day on Sunday to see the little chancho. Very weird experience because for me he is a huge part of my life. I have so many beautiful memories of him playing in my room, ripping the head of my koala, bouncing on the trampoline, trying to murder me with pillows, and just sitting in my lap loving me. Of course, he was only 3, then 4, and has absolutely no memory of me, and, since they moved shortly after i left, not even of the house we were together in. I was pretty saddened by this, but later in the evening at an asado together, he began to ask me about the time, and my mum Shakti and I told him stories of the two of us together. He also told me about his life and how he wanted to learn English and travel and then I taught him some english and we cuddled and he told me he loved me. I think that somewhere in his memory there was some sense of familiarity with me, or he is just an incredibly open 7 year to rebuild a relationship in a couple of hours. It made me think of when I leave here, Alfonso, my great-nephew, will never know that I held him a mere two hours after his birth, dealt with his crying at 7 in the morning, and held him for hours and played with his tiny fingers. 

I am realizing that as I try to leave my physical mark on the city, and strengthen emotional ties with some really wonderful chilean friends, seeing Teo again reminded me of the transient nature of my existence here. Basically I am not as important as I like to think!

Ok, mum has called multiple times, next post will recount more school disasters, bus catastrophies and my normal complaining self. 

Run for the hills

So, you lucky three readers (counting Mum and Dad), two posts in two days. This is simply to tell recount for you all the excitement that is a 6.5 grade earthquake.

I have received a lot of slack from my Chilean family for failing to feel the last two temblors in March. (Quick clarification, Chileans categorize earthquakes into two levels, grades 1-6 are temblors, i.e. tremors or trembles and only gringos get nervous about them, 6 and above are terremotos, but only 7 and above are really serious). Anyway, the first one I was on a micro (or in a club, still a little hazy on that one, it was 4:30 in the morning) and the second I was also on a micro (bus). Anyway, my family thinks I am an unobservant slug. They also told me not to wish to feel one because it would happen. Oops. So this one, I had just shut my little old eyes, when the world began to roar. No exaggeration, you can hear the ground groaning several seconds before anything moves. When my bed began shaking back and forth, I realized I should probably get up and before I could get to my door Chilean mama was there and we all huddles in the doorways (strongest places in the house) and clung to each other as the house battered about. For earthquakes above a grade 6 the lights are cut so we were also in the dark. It lasted two minutes which is super long earthquake time, and I did get pretty nervous by the end. It felt like any second the house could be ripped apart ( my house withstood the 8 grader in 2010 so it's fine mum), and then once the big one is done, smaller and smaller ones continue every couple of minutes as the earth settles back down and goes to sleep.

The people do not go to sleep. My heart was beating really rapidly and I was full of adrenaline. The kind one gets when a house does not fall on your head, and you also don't have to run to the hills which is the evacuation plan for when the sea comes rushing to my door. However, I also had two presentations and a paper for today, so I texted the people who might care about my existence and went to sleep. My family proceeded to call every one of there extensive family, friends, and a couple of neighbors came in to discuss the event. I instantly thought of the men trapped in the mines for 6 months (more?). It is not surprising to me that there was such a solidarity among the men in the mines, and such strength and support from the country. This is a country that is used to being ripped apart and put back together. People check in constantly with each other because there is always the possibility that someone didn't make it (two casualties this terremoto time from heart attacks). Although I wanted to sleep, I didn't mind the racket of the two radios and three tv's giving information about the other regions because I know that if I had family in other regions, especially near the sea, I would also want to know whether it was grade 6.5 o 4.5 o 2.4 in Coquimbo. I liked that my family gathered together and I didn't even mind hearing the story of the 2010 earthquake for the 84329438432 time ( I can give you exact coordinates of each of my family members during that time). Retelling the stories, recalling the family, shouting at the windows to the neighbors cements this country together in a way that can resist these bloody earthquakes.

Was going to end on a pensive note, but that's not typical. My family is delighted I have now felt a terremoto, and I received several rude messages from my friends asking if the slumbering whale had awaken. I prefer not to feel another one,  not as much for me, but while I stood in my sturdy squat house, I did imagine how I would feel in a tent, wood shack, or worst of all, boat. Brings a whole new horrible meaning to seasickness

Pictures finally - a rare mix

 La Campaña

 Maria (mi hermana) tocando el piano

 Playa del Viña con una vista de Valpo

 Otra Vez Parque del Campaña

 Hermanas

 La nueva casita de mi mama Shakti

La Leah

Return to my Valley and other things (?)

Clever title is failing me, not sure I have had one yet though, so if I hadn't written this sentence no one would remark on it. Too late now.

So I am now back in Viña after basically three weekends of traveling. First back to Pisco Elqui where I taught for three months three years ago, then to see my old host mum Shakti in her new house near Olmue, then this weekend back to la serena and Pisco Elqui again but with the giant group of gringas (those who know my traveling style know how much I love giant green tour buses)

So my weekend in Pisco Elqui was really beautiful. Except I was sick, surprise surprise. Apparently my body does not appreciate sitting in tinned air and bacteria for ten hours. Despite the sickness, I arrived in Elqui late on the friday night, and spent a beautiful saturday morning working in Luchito and Lucho's mum's Tienda de Artesanal. They sell the necklaces that Luchito makes, hippie clothes, other jewellery, propoleo (know idea what this is in English but whenever I am sick someone makes me take it and it tastes like dirt but miraculously cures me) honey, and pisco. The pisco they sell is special because it often is bottled with strawberries or walnuts or papaya and tastes even more like heaven. So I spend the morning there, and then afternoon swimming in the river with Lucho's brother and his girlfriend and child.  We drove down the road away from tourists and then walked down a dirt path to a hidden oasis of running water with the andes jutting up on all sides and sun glinting through the trees. Hard life innit.

Most of the rest of the trip was spent reading an incredibly dirty story by Chilean Antonio Skarmeta. Basically all about sex and communism and used so much Chilean slang that it actually took seven chileans discussing the various possible meanings to help me understand what on earth they were saying. Let me just say that I will never look at cauliflower and a horse's coat the same way again.

I was absolutely miserable on monday and furious that I had to return to the (AAAHHH CLASS< TO BE CONT>)

cont. the oceanside resort that is Viña and leave the soul and sun and stars of my valley. But that's life.

For update on School life. It's been a joke so far. Albeit, an annoying, time-consuming, thoroughly confusing joke (I have just figured out how to fotocopy, the only way to get some texts, and in order to get mine I had to help the old man organize the whole place). We had basically a week off for the Semana of Mechones, freshers week. During this week the freshman have to walk around barefoot and barely clothed covered in egg and flour asking for money from the people. When they get 5000 or so they can get their clothes back. Other fun hazing activities include dune surfing drunk (occasionally people break arms) and having to do water races in their clothes. Obviously important enough to require a week off of school. All of this means, that I have a class Danzas Folklore (yes, not kidding) that I have been to ONE time. Let me repeat, one time, in about 7 weeks of school. And yet, I don't think I am behind. All of this school up in the air-ness means that I still don't feel like I am at school. It is more a bothering gnat that won't go away rather than the intent of this trip.

I will write more on this subject, and probably demonstrate my obnoxious liberal arts privilege, but the joke that is La Catolica, did decide to give me really interesting homework (I walked 15 block and took photos of gas stations, car shops, and other signs of globalization) so I now have to go slap together a powerpoint. (Dear Father, the powerpoint presentations here are actually more tedious than watching paint dry, the Chileans use the powerpoint tactic of as much information as possible on the slides, and then you read off of them, or even just point to the words.) I then have to write one page on my opinion of the 2nd amendment. Obviously this vast quantity of work is going to require an all-nighter. So off I trot.


Oh I have pictures!

Oh I can't figure out how to add them. Another time...

Gringa Problemas

I have been in Chile a month. And I have made some really incredible discoveries. For instance. 

1. I have learnt that just because you are at the bus stop, doesn't mean a micro (bus) is going to stop. You can very well wait twenty minutes at a bus stop watching bus after bus go by, and the driver may even whistle or shout some seductive thing, still doesn't mean he will stop. 

2. Never ever hurry to class. It will only make you sweaty and no matter how late you arrive, some one will always be later. Probably the Professor. On the same note, I have missed my 8 o'clock class 3 out of the 5 times, in other places this would be a problem. However, here, the professor has also missed it 3 out of 5 times. The one time I made it and the professor didn't, I realized that Chilean students go anyway, incredibly even when the know that it is cancelled (this is a sixth sense, gringos never know these things), sit in the weird triangular shaped class and watch movies on cuevana. 

3. Never worry about where the micro is taking you. This is not because you might not be horrifyingly lost (you probably will) it is just that it's not worth the increased blood pressure. For instance yesterday on a bus back from the Elqui Valley, my bus took this great detour from the highway and for twenty minutes winded through dirt roads among shacks built elaborately from random bits of corrugated iron held together with spit and a prayer. Generally I can see the sea and know, worse comes to worse, I can head that way. Here I was in the middle of the mountains with nothing recognizable in sight. It made me feel how I used to going into New York on a Thursday. That point where all the signs point left to New York and the bus takes a left into the suburbs of New Jersey, always exactly when it is getting dark, and you surrender yourself to dying in Jersey, probably having your head cut off by your seat partner. That is the feeling these chilean micros give you. Constantly. So, it's best just to sit back, look at the ceiling, and think about the fact that you have lived a full and complete life. 

I have also not learnt, and am realizing I probably never will, the following:

How to pay for things. This seems like it should be a simple handover of bills for items. False. I went to buy lotion in the cvs equivalent. The lotion is all behind the counters, so first you have to ask a sales assistant to show you the lotions, then you choose. Seems simple enough, but when you make your choice and hand her the money, she looks at you pityingly, and writes you a receipt. With this receipt you go stand in a long line of people, all with receipts, waiting to pay at a register. Once you pay, you get another receipt and you get to go to a third counter and pick up your lotion. Three times the amount of employees necessary and, like everything in Chile, slightly different in each store. 

EVEN FOOD CARTS WITH ONE PERSON MANNING THEM HAVE THIS SYSTEM. You first pay at the register, they give you a receipt, you walk around the side, give them back the receipt they just gave you and they make your food. Ludicrous all of it. 

This was a bit of a rant, and now I am tired and want to watch cuevana and nap. However, I spent the weekend in my lovely beautiful Pisco Elqui, and have surfed (without breaking anything) since I last wrote, so I will try and be a bit more consistant. 

Business in Front, Party in the Back

There is a blog written by a girl in Santiago, I love Chile, which has a list called "Sh*t Gringas Don't Say
 This inspired the title of this post, and the subject matter. On her list, along with 'I wish I ate more carbohydrates" (I had a meal yesterday of corn, potatoes, pasta and bread), and "I love how my boyfriend lives with his mother and wears a fannypack", is "Rat-tails on Men are just plain Sexy, business in front, party in the back." Although you will hear gringas say a lot of stupid things, this will never be one of them.

Chilean women are beautiful with perfect hair that waterfalls over their shoulders and make me, with hair that is now permanently wild and frizzy (as if it was well-behaved before) very jealous. They also somehow wear their waist length hair down in all weather, and as I sweat up the very steep hill to class every day in my thirty minute commute, I curse the girls who are wearing sweaters, jeans, a blanket of hair and seemed unperturbed by the 70/80 degree weather and the incline. Apparently there is a saying about Valpo/Viña women that they have the best legs because they are used to climbing these bloody hills with mounds of groceries for their husbands. Well, my always beefy calves are certainly growing.

But I digress, the girls are great. The men are nice (once you get past the constant whistling, beeping and professions of love) but aesthetically deceiving. As I walk down the street I may see an attractive man, but I know that once he pasts I will go from tranquil appreciation to horror as whatever atrocious hairstyle he has shown wipes clean any happy memory of his face. There is the basic Chilean style, two inch or so hair that is longer in the back, basically a baby mullet. This is the most attractive. Then we have simple rattail with hair on the head. This also, is comparatively sexy. It starts to go downhill when instead of a rattail, there are between one and three dreadlocks sticking out of the back of the head with the rest reasonably short. The nightmares begin when the head is shaved. Because it is seldom entirely shaved. There is the pony tail sticking out from one section of the head like a handle. There is the round lump of hair the size of an egg (possibly so the head has some padding when it lies down?) and there is the one dreadlock sticking out of the middle of the head which is truly awful. I am going to eventually take pictures, but I did do some internet research. As you can see the man to the right has the pony/mullet/shaved look which is obviously very desirable.

Enough about hair, I have been holding on to those feelings for a while. I have to go do homework, something that has very inconveniently followed me across the equator, and since I have the intellectual capacity of a five year old in Spanish it takes a while. I would love to teach some of the piropos (pick-up lines/cat-calls) I have encountered in the streets but it will have to wait.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. Chucha

So a week and a half in and I am happy as a bee, except today is the first day of school, so the lazy beach days and bar evenings are now going to turn into class stress and night exhaustion. First, the chilean system for extranjeros registering for class is absolute lunacy. We all go into a big room at an unseasonable time in the morning (especially since one of the girls turned 21 the night before) and have to register for 15 courses, out of which we will take 5 or so. They do this because Chilean professors have an amusing habit of canceling a class a month in, or changing it's time, place etc so there is a perfect possibility I could go for a month and then not be able to take it anymore. I would probably have a sense of humor failure. So in this big room, we have to go around to each department's table and then a student monitor from each department has to shuffle through a stack of papers and write down our names on the piece of paper that corresponds to each class. Then our chilean student assigned to us, goes round to each table and reshuffles through each stack to check we are actually in the class. Absolute madness and takes three hours. It's also not as if I am in a primitive society. I was on the bus the other day and there was a family of three children between maybe 5 and 9 years old and EACH of the children had smartphones (and as you all know, it took me forever to figure out how to make a call on mine). I think it just amuses the Chileans to make Americans sit hungover in a stifling hot room early on a friday morning. 

My family here is wonderful, I live with a grandmother (adela), her daughter (roseanne), roseanne's two sons and the pregnant girlfriend of one of the sons, a friend of the family, and there are always at least three other people in the house. I also, really embarrassingly, found out yesterday at the baby shower for the girlfriend, this boy who has been in and out of the house constantly and i assumed was just another friend/cousin/uncle/etc, is actually another son of roseanne's. oops. 

The family says my spanish is better than most of the students they have had in the past, but apparently my program used to have low spanish requirements and was full of sorority girls, and now it has high requirements and is full of bilingual lib arts/ivy league students and me. Off now for my 30 minute walk to class, I will never again complain about going to OlinRice. Also, Rosey, the libraries here close at 6 in the afternoon. and the coffee is instant and tastes like mierda. I can't decide whether this will make me super productive in the mornings and afternoons, or mean I never do anything. Probably the latter since it takes me an hour to read ten pages in spanish. 

ciao gorditas

oh one last thing, we were warned about how politically incorrect the chileans are, oh god I have an example almost too appalling to post on this, it's about drinking like an african. However, on the plus side, I am well on my way to having a gay chilean bestfriend, which is surprising in this ubermacho society but delightful