Asi es la vida Chilena

Calama

"Think of what you're trying to accomplish. Just think of what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language is the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer...and conquer it, you will!"
--Henry Higgins

Returning from Talta, via Antofagasta, I was struck ill. The change of climates from humid to dry, from hot to cold in a single afternoon, from interesting to utterly boring all took their inevitable toll on my immune system and I came down with a sinus infection that laid me out for almost a week. I am still producing an inordinate amount of mucus, but I'm near desert-stasis levels.

I went in the Monday after our Gringo reunion to my Liceo and it was clear fairly quickly that I would not be able to teach effectively, especially not the rather complex lesson on passive voice that I had prepared. Thus I managed to wrangle up some computer speakers which I hooked to my laptop and blasted the audio (the kids unfortunately couldn't see the screen) to the scene in My Fair Lady where Eliza finally makes a breakthrough and her, Henry, and Colonel Pickering all begin singing "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." All I wanted the kids to do was pick out first the name of the girl singing (Eliza) and, second, the words of the song. This proved a much more difficult task then I had anticipated, but it was worth it to hear one or two kids leave class singing the chorus in a falsetto like Audrey. When I switched groups, one kid had clearly talked to someone in the first group who had handed him the answers written down. Thus he confidently raised his hand when I asked what the girl's name was and proclaimed "Eleeza!" I mocked him mercilessly.

I was sent home before my next class that day, returned and did my full day Tuesday which nearly killed me, and then had the rest of the week off. I nearly went mad with boredom (the monotony frequently punctuated by some hacking or nose blowing) and by Friday I was well enough and determined enough to leave the house. I spent the afternoon shopping in the centro with my Mom where, in one of the markets, I saw an entire pig's head on display for purchase. I told Ximena that I wanted it for my birthday. I'm not sure she got the joke, we'll see come the 27th. That night, Ryan came over and we left the house to go meet up with one of the other volunteers in town, Mary, and her teacher friends from the Catholic school where she teaches. The dog, Mota, followed us out of the house and we were nearly to the centro when we realized she wasn't going to go home. We tried to shake her by hiding in a store, but the dog is so stupid that she almost seems smart and it became clear that we were going to have to walk her all the way back to the house. Thankfully, Carlos drove up in his truck and spotted us. We told him about the dog and we managed to trick her into climbing into the bed (after all three of us had to climb up in it first) and then he tied her in with a bungee cord and took her home for us.

Walking back home that night I was passing through a little park near my house when I innocently stumbled into a group of three young men fighting. I stopped, as I had no berth to pass them, and as I stood there one of the men pulled a pistol from his waistband and aimed it at the other two. This of course brought the fight to a close (thankfully without bloodshed, mine or otherwise) and the three scattered into the wind. Ximena was not at all surprised when I related this story the next morning.

The next night was my prima's (cousin) birthday and the family, along with Ryan, met up at my Aunt's house to eat tacos and torta (cake). I was of course wildly skeptical when the word tacos was first spoken, but this second round of Chilexican proved superior to the first experience. Still not tasting like the real thing, the tacos were simply grilled tortillas filled with chunks of meat, avocado, corn, and tomatoes. My mom stateside (the real one) had sent a few packets of Taco Bell sauce in a care package and I brought them along, which was a big hit. Ryan and I were also flabbergasted to be handed a jar of Great Value (the Wal-Mart brand) crunchy peanut butter that my Aunt had somehow located. The look of surprised delight on our faces was quite amusing to my family, who all took turns tasting the treat and more or less shrugging it off (except for my Aunt, she loved it). They kept complaining that it had too many calories while all the while slopping gobs of homemade mayonnaise on their "tacos." The following Monday, Ximena surprised me again by showing me that she had found two more jars of peanut butter and bought them for me to eat at home (also Wal-Mart brand, as the department store here, Lider, is of course owned by big blue).
If the appearance of peanut butter in Calama isn't evidence of a loving God, then I don't know what is.

Why

The first words I committed to this chronicle detailed a very brief, very general description of what I was doing and why. I promised to elaborate on the "why", and since I have had a considerable amount of down-time recently due to illness, I have decided to answer the question I am asked most often and thus to elaborate on exactly why I decided to become a volunteer, travel down to Chile, and teach English to Spanish speaking schoolchildren. Here goes...

When I decided to come to Chile, it was in an attempt to act on faith. For too long I had lived like so many self-titled Christians do in the United States; saying I believed one thing and then living the opposite. No real surprise there as historically hypocrisy has marked what we call the Church, the organized institution that is responsible for so many things that Christ himself would never be capable of. There are hoards of people in this world quick to point out this unfortunate fact: be it the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Catholic Church's recent harboring and mistreatment of pedophiles and child molesters.

I discovered, or really truly came to understand, the complete disconnect between the Church in the United States (and really the Western World) and the fundamental teachings of Christ, teachings that are so basic that it is mind-blowing that people could screw them up. Love God and love people. There are entire books written about these two simple concepts and how the "American" lifestyle of individuality, security, and self-gratification is completely opposed them--thus I do not feel the need to delve past my own experience.

I was working a job I enjoyed, making decent money, and basically just moving through life without a terrible amount of regard for anybody else. Sure, I loved my friends and family and cared about them and their well being, but the Good Book states very clearly that everybody does that (Matthew 5:47). It became very clear to me very quickly that I, first, was relying only on myself and giving nominal gratitude to the Big Guy for it. "Thanks God that I'm making good money, have a savings and some insurance, and if anything happens to me I can take care of it myself." Jesus and his disciples walked around with nothing, and yet never wanted for anything. They relied solely on God to get them housing, food, everything. When Christ said not to worry about tomorrow, he didn't say "but go ahead and be sure you've got a five year plan too, just in case." That was my first realization, and one that led me to believe it was time to quit my job and actually trust God to make things happen. I had taken the job solely for security, and that no longer seemed to me a God-centered motive. I didn't know at first what I would be doing instead of working IT for a University, only that I needed to change things up.

The actual decision to come teach in Chile grew out of a desire to use whatever skills I'd been blessed with (which aren't many) to better people's lives, and to try and reach people in love and in service. At first that meant hanging around Atlanta for a while helping to feed the homeless and disenfranchised, because I had the money to give. Before long though, it became clear that God had a grander scheme in mind.
To be entirely truthful, and so that it doesn't seem like I'm trying to make a saint out of myself (I mean, come on, most of you know me) and to make things clear, this journey to a decision was not a purely spiritual one, and as pure as I'd like to think my motives were, one huge element other than my faith played a part.

Basically, I fell in love with a girl. There is an entire, rather sad (in every sense of the word) saga that surrounds that statement, but I will refer only to the pertinent elements. She was the first to mention Chile, in a more or less off-hand fashion, and that is how the idea first entered my head. I had considered teaching English abroad previously, as a possible lifestyle change that would lend itself more to service then to security, but never had I even thought about South America. It made sense though, since I had a strong desire to improve my Spanish to at least a medium level of fluency.

Through a series of events that involved a minor betrayal by someone who had been a close friend, and the realization that my love for ella was turning into a rather unrequited-esque scenario, it became clear that the time to leave had arrived. In a moment of heartbroken delirium, I applied to Ingles Abre Puertas on the very last day the application was due for the longest time period available: eight months. As for her, I figured if it was meant to be, then eight months wouldn't change that. When I got to Chile I was told of a poem that states,
"La distancia sabes, es como el viento. Apaga el fuego pequeño, pero enciende aquellos grandes."
I then got down on my knees and asked God to make things clear for me. If he wanted me in Chile, then he would make a way, because at the time it seemed a stretch.

He did made a way. The manner in which everything came together to get me down to Santiago in April was nothing short of divine. The major earthquake happened and threatened to make the whole endeavor a moot point. At the time, my boss even said to me, "Maybe that quake is God's way of saying not to go there." My answer was, "Or maybe it's God's way of checking to see if I'm serious." That next week I got the email saying the program was happening and if I still wanted to come down, I was welcome, but they would understand if I had changed my mind. I told them I was coming, quake or no. Many other smaller things came together, and still continue to. I have hypothyroidism and as such have to take levothyroxin, a prescription drug, every morning. I only had about a two month supply when I left the States and I was simply trusting on God to get me more, along with everything else. The day I took my last pill, the very day, a package came in the mail from my mom with enough meds to last me the rest of my time here. She had apparently managed to convince my doctor to load me up, and God got them to me the very day I needed them.

I've learned an incredible amount about my heart while I've been down here, and what it truly means to trust God for everything, and to have to minimize yourself and focus on others on a daily basis. So much about teaching kids is about sacrificing yourself, and as a volunteer, that's a huge task. Yet, it is a worthy one, and one I think Christ smiles on. So much about living in a culture where you don't speak the language is about humility. It's hard to makes things all about you when you can't even speak half the time, which is exactly the experience I needed. I needed to be shut up (as is probably clear from my writings, I have a propensity for talking about myself.) So much about living with strangers is about learning to love and to be loved on a very basic, very human level where sharing and giving are everyday requirements.

Then, of course, there is the desert. The vast empty wilderness that has forced my thoughts constantly back onto the Almighty and where I stand in His kingdom. I needed to feel insignificant and completely without control, because that is the truth.

Gringo-in' to Taltal

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
--C.S. Lewis

There is plenty of reason to assume a person who leaves a good job, good friends, and a happy life at home to go thousands of miles away into a foreign country to live with strangers and teach (especially if, like me, you aren't a teacher) might be a bit on the crazy side. There were certainly times prior to arriving to Chile that I stopped in my tracks and said aloud "what have I gone and done?" Thankfully though, the very day I arrived in Santiago, I was greeted by a host of other people who, if I was crazy, were just as mad, or even more so. Then we split and went our separate ways all over the country and there was a new sadness (though Facebook, Skype, and email have gone a long way to alleviating that feeling).

The 21st of May in Chile is a national holiday (for the battle of Iquique I mentioned in the last post) and as such we volunteers had a blessed long weekend and a group of us decided it was time for a mini-reunion. Through a series of circumstances that I cannot fully explain, and if I could I'm sure they wouldn't prove of interest, it was decided that a mass of us in the North and Central areas of the country would converge on the tiny seaside hamlet of Taltal, where Mike the surfer along with Vanessa (who is a very talented singer) are stationed. Ryan and I agreed to travel south from Calama, via Antofagasta, to be a part of Gringo Fest 2010. Heather Tang, whose blog I mentioned, would be traveling a ridiculous 15 hours north by bus to join as well. The other characters in this seeming farce were Peter, who is the native of Slovakia I would have mentioned a while back, along with Alex, who pretty much lives with Peter in Coquimbo where they teach, and finally Matt, our lone (and quite tall) volunteer in Antofagasta City. Most everyone was in Taltal by Friday afternoon, but Ryan and I were not able to arrive until around seven o'clock due to the bus situation from Calama and a minor planning snafu. Thus he and I spent a very interesting evening with some of my family at my aunt's house (my aunt is a big fan of rum, or ron as they say here.)

On the bus ride to Taltal, Ryan and I had to change buses in Antofagasta. We de-bused to grub (overpriced bus station cafeteria food) and resupply on snacks. When we got on our next bus, Ryan sat down next to me with a Coke Zero and a bag of Pizza Doritos in hand. He looked up at the TV which was about to play a dubbed version of Hitch and mused,
"I've got a coke, doritos, and a movie. I feel like I'm at a middle school birthday party."

Thus, by Friday evening, eight gringo volunteers had assembled at Mike's house where Ryan and I partook of the copious amounts of meat left over from that afternoon's asado, which we had sadly missed. Mike's host dad, Alejandro, had cooked enough for a small army and drank enough for a small navy so by the time Ryan and I met him he was the jolliest, most welcoming, most meat-giving Chilean you could imagine. He immediately pointed out that Ryan and I didn't look like gringos. When asked what he thought we looked like he pointed at me and said, "Pakistani!" He himself is very dark and in the family portrait that hangs on the living room wall he is sporting a beard and long hair which he pointed to and said, "Osama bin Laden!" He also thought Matt looked like Clark Kent and that Alex was Peter Parker.

Taltal is a wonderful seaside hamlet that looks as though the ocean vomited it forth at the foot of the mountains to give the desert a little color. The nearby beaches have good waves, and that weekend, in honor of the holiday, there was a body board competition. Saturday afternoon, Alejandro drove a few of us up there to take a look. A few people on a grand stand, a few in the water. When a break was coming someone on shore would honk a car horn. The entire scene was a tranquil reminder that the smallest excuse to seek diversion can become a milestone event in a town of 10, 000 people. Later that afternoon, Vanessa led us on a hike up into the hills southwest of town where we got great views of the sunset. Along the way we spotted sea lions prowling in the surf (so far I've seen lobos in coastal place I've been.) We hiked back in the dark, and on the way we passed a small pet shop that a few of us entered. They had a small selection of fish and rodents which caused Ryan to reminisce, saying "I had a hamster once. His name was Marley and he looked like a cow." Peter, upon hearing this forcefully inquired,
"How can hamster look like cow!?"

The people of the town were extremely friendly, and none more so then the host families of Mike and Venessa. We were fed, housed, and constantly entertained with the utmost hospitality. Everyone we met was happy to see us (except for a few local roustabouts wandering around the plaza.) At one point, we were walking to meet Vanessa and Peter for the hike, and as we went we tossed around a tennis ball Mike had brought. We stopped at the house I, Ryan, and Alex were staying at to change shoes and while there a man from next store who had seen us throwing the ball came out holding an iron pipe. He hoisted it above his head like a baseball bat and pantomimed a swing. Before long, an impromptu game of stick ball had developed. The man kept walking away and returning with bigger objects to use as a bat and we all took turns pitching and hitting.

Friday night we had been introduced to some local friends of Mike and Vanessa who invited us to a birthday party for another Taltalian on Saturday night. The friends, Pato and Camilu, were as friendly as you can imagine and seemed genuinely excited that a mob of Gringos had invaded their home town. Ryan, Matt, and I had yet to purchase return fare to Antofagasta for Sunday, and prior to leaving for the party we discovered that there were only two buses out the next morning; one at 5:30 and one at 9:00. Knowing that Chilean parties start late and go on until the break of dawn (literally) we decided to take a nap, go to the party, and just leave on the first bus.

The party proved itself to be a truly Chilean experience with all eight of us Gringos, six of whom were strangers in town, being invited into what was essentially and intimate birthday gathering. The party went as parties go, with lots of food, drink, and eventually dancing. Sometime around the ungodly hour of five o'clock in the morning the Gringo portion of the party, along with Pato and Camilu (and some other Taltalians whose names I cannot recall) decided to go to the disco. I opted out, but was drug along anyway because of Vanessa pleading a very convincing case that I would be leaving in a few hours and this was the last time all of us had together.

We had visited the disco on Friday and there had been maybe five people inside, but on Saturday it was packed to the walls. I immediately lost everybody and ended up chatting with someone I think was one of Mike's students. He spoke halfway decent English and he more-or-less would not leave me alone. At one point, shortly before they closed the place down, I tried to get out the front door to breath some fresh air (by this time the level of cigarette smoke in the place was at LA smog proportions). As I approached the exit I found myself caught up in a seething mass of humanity. It was like being in a vortex of Chilean youths, sucking me towards the center of the maelstrom where there was apparently a fight occurring. I was utterly confused and about to be trampled when suddenly someone grabbed my hand and pulled me backwards and into freedom. I turned to see Camilu, who had somehow divined my predicament with her Chilean extrasensory perception (CESP) and come to my rescue. The fight was soon broken up and we were able to esca--I mean, leave.

Everyone returned to the party house, but as I was not in any mood for dancing or drinking or eating tuna sandwiches (I hear this happened, I didn't witness the sandwiches myself) I, along with Alex, made our way back to Mike's house. On the road back, we were waylaid by a contingent of teenage girls who had, I'm sure, been laying in ambush for the first Gringo males that would come by. I was already familiar with this sort of compromising attention due to my experiences teaching high school, but never the less we were convinced to come hang out on the beach and talk about inane subjects in English as the girls tried in vain to convince us that they were actually in college in Antofagasta and just home for the weekend. The clock was ticking, and I had a bus to catch, so I pretty much, quite literally, ran away. Alex tarried, no doubt to noblely hold the line while I retreated.

Suffice to say, we did not make the 5:30 bus. We all ended up reconvening at Mike's house to eat some bread, drink some water, and then bid our farewells. By nine, Ryan, Matt and I were passed out on a northbound bus. That night, after having enjoyed the day with Matt, lunching with his family, visiting the mall, etc., we were sitting in the bus station waiting to go home when Ryan summed everything up with,

"Well, it's back to Calama, where I'm a nobody."

Comes in Waves

"Grant me freedom to enjoy this night
And I'll return to you at break of light
For the wanting comes in waves."
--The Decemberists

There is a strange feeling of dispossession that washes over me from time to time, and often leaves me perched as though on a rock surrounded by the coming tide. It is not what could be called home sickness, because I have no physical home that I miss, only people. I have only ever been away from my country before on travel, always with the intention of returning to Georgia, to Atlanta.
However, this time is very different, because I don't know if I ever will be "home" in Atlanta again. I'm starting to doubt it. Yet, there is a disconnect that my brain has yet to fully process between how my life was, and what it is now. How there is no other home but where I am now; no other room, no other possessions. Calama is my home now, and my soul does not seem content to accept that reality (can you blame it?) If I leave, when I leave, it is always to her dusty calles that I shall return, for months more yet. And then, what comes after? Ah, to even think of after Chile leaves me feeling so strange that I try never to entertain such thoughts. I might not even live that long. "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" I believe, as it is written, that the Lord God has a plan for me, one that I seek and attempt to be obedient too, and what's more, to desire. Hence my presence in this sprawling desert hamlet. However, when I am honest, I realize my heart seems to want something else and I'm having trouble with reconciliation.

It helps to get out of town.

Friday May 14th I finally did leave Calama for the first time in two weeks to visit the coastal city up north of Iquique. Once a part of Peru, Iquique was essentially stolen by Chile during their war with Bolivia and her ally Peru in a conflict known as La Guerra del Pacifico. In fact, the entire north of Chile was once Peruvian or Bolivian territory, including my new hometown. On the 21st of May the nation of Chile will celebrate this fact on the anniversary of the Combate Naval de Iquique where a wooden Chilean corvette was crushed by a Peruvian ironclad. The battle was a complete loss for Chile at the time (they lost a ship along with 135 men. Peru lost one man. One.) However, the admiral of the Chilean ship, Arturo Prat, died so "gallantly"that his story rallied the youth of Chile to the fight, ultimately leading to Chilean victory. A movie was recently made about the event and it is the most expensive Chilean film production to date. It opens next week. Here is the trailer:



Iquique is full of history, but more importantly it is filled with beautiful beaches where surfers flock year round to enjoy the consistent swells. The beaches were what Ryan and I were most interested in as we headed five hours by bus to spend the weekend in a beach-side hostel with Mike, the surfer from New York. He was already in town when we arrived, having come up from his post in Taltal to buy a surf board and break it in. Thus the three of us had a small reunion in the lovely humidity (I was soaked in seconds, so unused to the moisture in the air as I have become.) We ate seafood and enjoyed the beach. Mike surfed. We all made new friends as the hostel was full of other surfers and, for some reason, at least six unassociated Dutchmen. One girl, Puck, spent the weekend hanging out with us as she was traveling alone and would be leaving on the same bus for Calama as Ryan and I on Sunday, bound as she was for San Pedro (por supuesto.)

It was cloudy most of the day on Saturday, which was a disappointment that kept me from entering the beautiful, crystal blue water. However, the sunset was so spectacular, and the weather so balmy that I really couldn't complain at the end of the day. Also, in a bit of divine providence, we missed a pair of days in Calama that saw freezing rain and power outages due to 100km winds. It ended up being a most fortuitous decision to go to the beach.


Sunday saw Mike gone early in the morning as he had a ten hour ride back south to Taltal. Thus, Ryan, Puck and I walked to the celebrated Mall to poke around and have some chow. Like every major store in Chile modeled after a North American counterpart, the mall was utterly redundant; its two floors populated by no less then ten different shoe stores.

By Sunday I was happy to be back in Calama, with my new family. They make this endeavor worthwhile, and actually have me looking forward to coming "home" whenever I am away. It has almost been two months now, and the States is feeling farther and farther away. So many people worried that when I left I wouldn't be coming back. I now have a sense why.

Food Chain

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue."
--G.K. Chesterton

One of the requirements, nay, duties of every volunteer in the Inglés Abre Puertas program is to help coach an English language debate team. The program, when founded, did a wonderful job of creating and organizing a country-wide competition that sees the best teams from schools in every region battling it out for the top honor in Santiago each year. Coaching the debate team at Liceo Lucho is by far one of my favorite aspects of my job. If anyone reading this has met me and spent more then two hours in a confined space with me, you are probably well aware of my predisposition to argument. For better or worse (usually worse) I have the ability to engage in debate with the utmost of ease, and no small part enjoyment. To my chagrin, my high school did not offer me an outlet for such talents, and as such I am more then delighted to live vicariously through my fumbling pupils here in Chile.

Part of each meeting (or sometimes the entire meeting) is of course devoted to helping the kids on the team enunciate, pronounce words correctly, and just generally get a better grasp on the language they are being called on in which to argue. These kids are on the team voluntarily, which means they already speak decent English and wish to improve, which is worlds apart from the classroom setting of obligation and, inevitably, apathy.
However, the really interesting part of the endeavor is the actual debating; working on their reasoning and ability to improvise and adapt. To this end, we often give the kids a topic to think over for the week, such as "this house believes that television is damaging to child development", and then when we meet we split the group into pros and cons and let them duke it out as best they can according to the established protocol. The last meeting was particularly awesome because I gave them the topic of "should animals be afforded the same rights as humans?" This topic was brilliant for two reasons: one, Chile is covered in stray dogs and thus violence against animals is a relevant topic, and two, because if this weren't already a real issue in the States it would immediately be dismissed as absurd. Thus I was eagerly looking forward to what these 2nd world children would come up with (excuse me, "developing world").

On Tuesday, when we met at lunch, we split the kids into pro and con, five against five, and then let them form a thesis and supporting points. We then sat them across from each other and let them fire away. Of course the pro side argued first that animals have feelings and can think, and thus are deserving of humane treatment and thus crimes against them should be punishable as the similar crimes against humans; standard bleeding-heart modernist basura. I couldn't help but smile in anticipation of the counter-argument, and the niños didn't disappoint.

The opening thesis of the opposing team was thus: animals can't really think, they only act on instincts. I put a hand over my mouth to cover my creeping smile. They followed this up with,
"What about the animals we eat? Should butchers be arrested for murder?"
I was now stifling giggles.
The teams went back and forth over categorizing animals, whether instinct and thought co-exist, ect. Then came the hammer; the closing arguments.
The pro side offered a very eloquent, very logical closer that involved a nice anecdote about how a mother elephant can pick out her child in a crowed simply by it's pleading.
Ok, good.
Then the closer for the con team stood up. He glanced at his notes, cleared his throat, and then said,

"We have to kill them before they kill us!"

I exploded into uncontrollable laughter. I was seriously in tears.
I had to give the victory to the pro side simply because of the strength of their English and delivery, but in my heart the con team had won by a mile.

Madres and Manchurians

Monday morning, the 10th of May, I walked onto the campus of my school to find all of the teachers clustered in a mob outside of the main office building desperately waiting to get to the time clock. An alarm was blaring somewhere in the rear of the complex, and the students were roaming around fomenting an air of chaos. I was experiencing my first strike.

There are three things that Chile is full of: Bread, dogs, and strikes. At my school, the auxiliary support staff (asistentes de educación) such as cleaning people, secretaries, etc. decided not to show up to work to protest not having received benefits they were promised two years ago (so said the fliers they taped up everywhere at least.) This meant that no one was present to unlock the doors, ring the bell, coral the teachers, and just generally help to manufacture a (albeit false) sense of order. Needless to say, the day did not go very well, but by Tuesday morning everyone was back. I am not sure if they got what they wanted, or simply realized that no work means no pay which means no mas pan--a fate worse then death in Chile.

The weekend was much better, as I was able to spend some quality time with the new family to include a very interesting Día de Mama celebration. We woke up relatively early on Sunday morning and after our pan and té we all got dressed for misa (mass) at the main cathedral located in the plaza in el centro. I put on my suit and a tie to mark the occasion (and because I'd just more or less been looking for an excuse to do some stylin' and profilin'--as the Nature Boy Rick Flair used to say. Is he still alive? Shouldn't be. Anyway, I digress...)

In the plaza, on the way to the church, we passed at least twenty different vendors selling roses and another half dozen selling "gifts" (read junk) for Día de Mama. Thankfully my host-mom is a no-nonsense kind of woman who would have happily accepted a rose had I paid with six pints of blood to buy one, but is of the disposition that would rather see them on bushes as opposed to rotting in a vase in the kitchen. Inside the cathedral was quaintly beautiful. Though ornate, as is the want of Catholicism, it was not overwrought--aside for the copper gilding all over the exterior to include a solid copper cross atop the steeple. Misa was appropriately long and filled with sadly misguided prayers to the "mother of mothers", Maria. I want to believe that that at least a handful of the people involved in the catholic church here (and elsewhere) actually believe the teaching of Christ and are committed to something more then blinding following traditions so old nobody knows how or why they came about (because there certainly isn't anything in the Bible about dressing up in robes, chanting, and swinging incense around), but that is between their hearts and God.

We left the church, which was packed, and hot-footed it a few blocks further into town where we were to rendezvous with my host-aunt, cousin, brothers, etc at a Chinese restaurant. I had thought that when, earlier in the week, my family had said my host-mom didn't cook on Mother's Day, and instead we would eat Chinese that they were joking. They weren't.

Eating Chinese can, in and of itself, be a precarious endeavor--but in South America it's dang near foolishness. However, I was put at ease to actually see Chinese immigrants working the front and back, and I was soon fully entertained by their heavily accented and limited Spanish. The food was not the worst Chinese I've ever had (anywhere) but it certainly finds itself on my ever growing list of Disappointing Chilean Attempts at Foreign Cuisine right under Gringo breakfast and tacos. I haven't ventured to try the pizza yet.

After our Chinese feast most of the family went to my host aunt's house where we continued to chat, nap, and then have onces (tecito) for nearly three hours and well into the night. I ended up having a ridiculous discussion with my host mom and her sister about everything from women's rights (still a very fresh concept in machista Chile) to discussing your problems so that they don't build up inside drive you to an early grave. They asked me, point blank at one point, why I didn't discuss my issues (such as missing home, relationships, etc.) with the family every night at onces. I explained that in my world, and in my Anglo-Irish family, men didn't talk about their feelings. They simply bottled them up, choked them down, and went on living as though nothing was wrong. I was duly chastised for following such a path of behavior and I was eventually pried wide-open. The only that saved me from complete vivisection was the language barrier that allowed me to play dumb.

Gringo Perspective

There are, as I write, nearly forty eight volunteers spread throughout Chile from my "class"of eight month volunteers (one month down, woo!) which is in addition to a number of year long volunteers who were already in action when we all arrived. The program (Programa Ingles Abre Puertas) took those fifty some-odd folks and sprinkled them all over the length and breadth of the country, and more are on their way in June.

I am in the Grande Norte, the region of Antofagasta, which is not quite at the top of the country; that would Arica. Please refer to the following helpful graphic (click to enlarge, as always):

As it stands currently, I am highest up (so to speak) in the country, the voice crying out in the wilderness of the Atacama desert. However, things are completely different in the bottom of the country where it is below freezing and snowing, or int the rainy middle section for that matter. Thankfully, some other intrepid volunteers are keeping blogs themselves and I figured I would clue you in on the tapestry of perspective that is being woven on the internet concerning Chile and it's education system.

Starting at the top there is of course myself, your humble narrator. Moving south we have fellow Antofagasta region volunteer, New York Surfer Mike Conway. He is in the coastal desert hamlet of Taltal.
Mike's Blog.

In the middle, the Valparaiso region, we find Heather Tang who prior to coming to Chile had experience teaching in Japan for over a year. She updates regularly and has plenty of good stuff in her archive.
Heather's Blog.

In El Sur, in the rainy forest lands of Los Rios, we have what will be the husband and wife team of Jason and Kori. Right now it is just Jason, but he keeps a fabulous blog filled with photos and videos he records himself.
Jason's Blog.

Unfortunately I don't know of anyone blogging in the Patagonia Norte region, even though there are volunteers there. However, to compensate, there are two blogs covering the Patagonia Sur: Marie's and Greg's. Greg is in Puento Arenas, which is the southernmost city in Chile, and one of the farthest south in the world. Almost the bottom you might say.
Marie's Blog
Greg's Blog

I'm sure there are probably a few others keeping an online record of their experiences, but these at least give you an opportunity to begin to expand you understanding of Chile via the perspective of a bunch of Gringos trying to be teachers in the schools from the North to the very far South.

For future reference, I have added links to these blogs in the sidebar to the right of the page.

Picture Post: La Feria

Every Sunday, the main road near my house magically becomes a farmer's market.

Not pictured: the overwhelming stench.

Dog food. Por que no?

Mena is really excited about the juevos.

One Month Down

Ah yes, seems like so long ago...look at the beard.

Today, the 3rd of May in the Year of Our Lord 2010 marks the one month anniversary of my arrival in Chile.

Since touching down in Santiago that cool April morning, nearly everything in my life became new:
I made forty-some-odd new friends over a week of teacher orientation.
I have become an English as a Foreign Language teacher.
I am now the member of a new, Chilean family complete with brothers, sisters, cousins, two nephews (one born, one yet unborn.)
I now speak in Spanish as my primary daily language.
I attend, out of necessity, a Catholic church.
I eat raw onions.
I am no longer surprised by milk you don't refrigerate.
I now habitually throw away my toilet paper in bins.
I write almost a third of the time I am awake (the rest is spent studying Spanish and talking around the dinner table.)
I have ridden over twenty miles in a day on a bike through the world's driest desert.
I have ceased to be woken up at night by dogs barking.
I trimmed my ridiculous beard.

A month is a long time, and I have seven more to go before I return home. A month is a long time and I already miss so much about home:
Family
Friends
My stupid gatito O'Malley
Peanut Butter
Movies in English
Chick Fil A
*Taco Bell
Not having to wear shoes at all times
Daily workouts

Seven months from now, who knows what else will be different? God has played some very interesting hands since I left, throwing me into the desert for starters. I have already learned a lot, and I expect to learn even more about this world, my heart, and what God truly means when he asks us to be obedient and really on him for our every need. So far, so good. I have yet to go without in any serious aspect, and I fully trust that such will continue to be the case.

Now, let's see if I make it through May.

*One Friday night, Mena had her friends over to chat and hang out. She made "tacos" for them to eat. I became irrationally excited when I heard what was going on. You'd think I would have learned from the "gringo breakfast" incident in Santiago not to do that. You see, these "tacos" had familiar components: chicken, "Mexican" tortillas, and "taco" sauce. Of course, neither the tortillas nor the taco sauce were made in Mexico. Oh no, they were made in Santiago and tasted exactly like a bunch of Chileans who have only seen tacos in American movies might make if you gave them similar ingredients and a lot of leeway. Mena took the chicken and cooked it together with bags of mixed frozen veggies like you find in your grocers freezer section (corn, green beans, green peas, and carrots). No cheese. No sour cream. No taco seasoning. No lettuce.
I ate them, sure, but I cried with every bite wishing to all Heaven that what was in my mouth would magically assume the flavor of an 89 cent taco supreme from the Bell.

Moving and Meat

"I want to know, have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?"
--CCR

Friends and family were gathered around the table Saturday to celebrate the Día del Trabajador with a traditional barbecue, known in Chile as an asado. The chatter was lively as food and drink were consumed, and laughter marked the scene. Suddenly, Carlos stood and put a finger to his lips. The table fell into a bemused silence. Carlos then lifted one hand to his ear and with the other pointed at the ceiling.
"Escucha." He whispered.
Then, in the quiet, we could here it. Rain. Rain drumming softly on the corrugated tin roof.
Immediately everyone sprung from their seats, chairs screeching backwards across the tile floor as a mass rush to the front porch took place.
There we stood in awe in the soft, nearly imperceptible, but utterly unmistakable miracle of desert rain.

May 1st is Labor Day in Chile, and is an official holiday where employers cannot require their employees to work. This year, 2010, the holiday fell on a Saturday. I awoke that morning to use the bathroom and was asked, on my way back to bed, if I was ready to go help Carlos (the oldest son) cambio a casa, or move. It was in that hazy moment I realized that when I had offered the previous night to help Carlos move, he had accepted (he speaks very quickly). I had thought he wasn't moving until the end of the month. Thus I scrambled to dress just as the doorbell rang and Carlos came in wearing jeans, a ball cap, and a T-Shirt with the sleeves cut off. He proudly pointed to the shirt which was for the 1992 World Series. "Toronto Bluejays!" he said, smiling. If I haven't mentioned it before, Carlos is the definitive sports nut, and he especially loves North American sports--even more specifically Baseball (or Baisbol).

He and his family were only moving two streets over but the cambio a casa became an all day affair with a three hour break in the middle for the asado. I was actually quite relieved to finally have some physical labour to attend to; man work, so to speak. Carlos works out of his home for a company that sells replacement parts for the heavy machinery used at the mine, thus the first part of my "Day of the Worker" was spent helping lift and move insanely heavy iron/steel parts used on tractors, excavators, and the like. We had finished moving the parts around three o'clock with an obligatory hot dog break in the middle (it was me, Carlos, and a fellow around my age named Sebastian.) It turns out Sebastian is the boyfriend of my host mom's niece, who along with her mother and few other extended family were waiting for us at the house. Ryan was there too, my family having fallen in love with him (no doubt because he is a gringo who can actually speak their tongue with confidence.)

Now some words on the asado. There is nothing more endearing to me then a culture who prizes coming together to cook meat over an open flame in massive quantities. That is the asado. A grill upon which chicken, meat, and chorizo sausage are barbecued, then brought to the table to join a smorgasbord of other Chilean delights (corn, salads, rice, potatoes, etc.) We ate and ate, and I discovered the delightful joy of the choripan, which is simply a french baguette type of bread stuffed with a chorizo sausage and covered with mayonnaise and (for the adventurous) hot pepper sauce known as ají. Then, halfway through the meal, we were treated to a very brief, but very entertaining desert shower. It was still sunny, and within an hour all traces of rain clouds had dissipated, but for almost five minutes there was water falling from the sky. I know my fellow volunteers down in El Sur will not be impressed, since it apparently is constantly raining there. However, in the Atacama, the driest place on earth, the rain was a spectacular event.

The following Sunday I spent recuperating both from all the refreshing labour as well as all of the eating. I once again visited the street market that appears out of nowhere in my neighborhood known as the Fería and this time took pictures, which will follow hard on this post. Carlos and his family have been over at the house often the past few days as they don't yet have internet or TV. I made the mistake of lifting Emilo (Carlos' five year old son) and hefting him into the air. Now every time I see him he is trying to goad me into launching him skyward by pretending to be a charging torro. At lunch Monday, he apparently ate too much and summarily vomited onto the kitchen floor. Carlos shook his head as he worked on his laptop and muttered,
"Chancho"
Which is of course Spanish for hog.