Diecisiete or Gringo Reunion Tres

There was something slightly more interesting to the left.

"When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not."   
--Mark Twain


In a move that at first seems more centralized in a romanticized view of the past then it does in practicality, Ryan has been filling pages of a journal en su puño y letra (handwriting) since we arrived in Chile.  I in turn have been keeping this chronicle, electronic and intangible as it is, but in many ways I feel he has the better idea.  Over a month has now passed since the Fiestas Patrias, and that time has forced many of my yet-unwritten experiences out of my memory.  A handwritten journal, with passages scribbled on a daily basis, would have served to at the very least preserve a hearty portion of details now lost from my internal library.  Thus, now as I write, the stories are more compact, bordering on summary.  Caveat in place, I shall reach back to tell of....


...The morning of the 17th of September, the beginning of the long weekend of festivities celebrating Chile's Independence, I was in the house of Alex Olsen's host family.  That day, Heather and Vanessa were coming into to town and we would all celebrate Peter's birthday.  However, Alex told me he wanted to wait around La Serena that afternoon to have lunch with his family before we headed over to Coquimbo.  I agreed and thus we were in the kitchen around eleven o'clock, awaiting his family, when a strange woman who was not a member of the family walked into the kitchen.  She put down a box of groceries and greeted us, taking me for a Chilean off the bat and engaging me in conversation that was far too fast and peppered with chilenismos to understand.  At one point, she asked Alex and I if would wanted something, I gathered, and (as I commonly do when asked questions in Spanish that I don't immediately understand) I said "Sí." She proceeded to produce two bottles of a Chilenan beverage known as "Lemon Stones" which is basically an ill-advised mix of lemonade and beer.  As she handed a bottle to each of us, she said, "No tiene mucho alchohol.  Es muy sauve."  Mind you, it was not yet noon.


Around that time, Alex's host-mom returned from the store and helped the other woman prepare empanadas.  I learned, somehow and at some point, that the Lemon Stones woman was the mother of the boyfriend of one of the Alex's five host-sisters.  That sister, named Daraya, along with the boyfriend, named Filipe, and the two eldest sisters, Salimy and Dánisa respectively, were awaiting us at their house for an asado.  With the empanadas finished, and the two younger sisters (the aforementioned Nadya and Isis) ready to go, we loaded up in the family car and headed around the block to the other house.  Filipe and his younger brother Fransico were grilling up an awesome array of meet when we entered into the massive patio where there was a long table already set.  Alex's host-mom handed us fresh empanadas to snack on, and someone started the cueca music playing.  I was then ushered around and shown the house while being introduced to all of the other family members and friends present.  There was even a rabbit running around somewhere, I was told, but no one could find him at the time.


Before eating, there was extensive cueca dancing.  As the females outnumbered the males present 3 to 1, I was forced to do my best to pretend to stomp ants angrily while spinning a handkerchief above my head.  I was unaware that my day would include much dancing, so I was inappropriately shod in flip-flops.  This, however, did not stop Felipe's mother (The Lemon Stones woman) from insisting, nay, demanding that I learn every step and execute them with vigor.  Finally, after Alex and I had thoroughly shamed the national dance of Chile, we were granted a reprieve and allowed to feast.  We sat long chatting and eating, and at one point Dánisa lept from the table and ran over to the bushes that ringed the patio.  She bent over and rummaged around for a second before coming up again with a giant rabbit dangling from her hand by the scruff while the girls cheered and clapped.  As the afternoon wore on, dessert was produced just in time for the other gringos to make an appearance.  Vanessa and Heather had arrived and Ryan and Peter had brought them over to meet everyone.  Photos were then taken, and cueca dancing resumed.

We were all welcomed to stay and continue to cueca and gorge, but Peter's birthday called to be celebrated, and there was cake and coffee to be had at his host-home.  Thus, we left one celebratory eating experience to go on to another.  The silly hats worn the day before for Stacey's birthday reappeared and were put on heads as cake was eaten and birthday songs were once again sung (only this time much better, as Vanessa is a skilled vocalist in her own right.)  Stacey came over to meet us during the celebration and informed us that Maggie, the other remaining Sixth-monther in La Serena (who had joined us in San Pedro in June) wanted to hang out, and would be waiting for us in the plaza back in Serena.  That meant hopping back onto the micro that joins the two sisters cities and making our way back into the center of the much prettier of the two.  We found Maggie easily enough, and our group now swollen to 8 gringos in total, made our way down to the beach next to La Serena's famous lighthouse, the Faro.  The lighthouse is still functional, and as a special Fiestas Patrias bonus was flashing red, white, and blue lights out to sea all night.

Birthday cake and silly hats.

Before too long, the cold winds coming off the ocean made sitting on the beach in the dark a rather uncomfortable experience, and Peter declared it was his final birthday wish to visit the Pampilla, the great Fiestas Patrias celebration in Coquimbo that had inspired our reunion in the first place.  Once more, we boarded a micro in Serena bound for the hills outside Coquimbo.  Alex elected to remain behind as he was planning to leave with his family in the morning for their summer house in Valle del Elqui (I would, incidently, end up going with them.) On the mirco, which was virtually empty save for us, we passed the time singing any and every English language song we all knew the words (a decidedly limited selection) to include a mighty, patriotic rendition of our own national anthem.  Under regular circumstances, such behaviour could be taken as obnoxious but...well, nevermind.  It was obnoxious.

La Pampilla ended up being nothing more than a giant fair pitched on a dusty field.  It had all the trappings of any sort of carnvial you may have visited elsewhere; there were rides, countless food stalls, hordes of drunks, and lots of people selling everything from kites to kitchen knifes (3 for a luca.)  Given the already shady reputation of La Pampilla, the knives and slingshots available for sale were particularly unsettling, as if to say, "don't worry about bringing your own weapons to drunkenly assault tourists with, we will provide them for you!"  There were also numerous fondas, where are essentially big party tents complete with eating, drinking, and dancing.  In one such fonda, we ran into Daraya and Felipe and a group of their friends.  Daraya was excited to see us, telling me that Alex never hangs out with them and is always so serious.  She had thought all gringos must be that way.  She was, admittedly, well tipsy off her terremoto (literally earthquake) which is a concoction of pineapple ice cream and white wine that people either love or hate.  Our conversing was interrupted by a commotion involving a young flaite outside the tents trying to pick a fight with a slingshot.  To my surprise and minor amusement, before anything could transpire bouncers appeared from nowhere and ran the punk off.

Before the night (pardon, early morning) would end, far more absurd events would transpire, but said happenings deserve their own chapter, as I fear this one has grown quite long.  

El Camino del Desierto

Inspired by actual events...which, coincidently, are recounted below.

The weekend after the first round of debates in Antofagasta, Matt Wilson (our only 8-Monther in Antofa) came back to Calama with Ryan and me.  We had previously talked about of the three of us walking out into the desert, spending the night under the stars, and then coming back to civilization the next day.  Ryan had somewhere along the line suggested that we follow the river out of the city so as not to risk getting lost, and then when we were good and gone, cut a little ways up into the nothing.  Thus, come Saturday afternoon the three of us had convened at my house where we had a final meal courtesy of Ximena, packed our things (some food, water, over-wear, and a sleeping bag apiece) donned hats, put on sunscreen, and headed out por el Rio Loa.

We made the river at a bridge crossing near my neighborhood where, as we were descending, we encountered one of the young teachers from Ryan's first school.  The two of them chatted for a minute and then we had her take our picture, joking all the while that she might be the last person to see the three of us alive.  Then, once we bid her farewell, we trekked along the trickling stream that is the mighty Rio Loa.  If there is any beauty to be found in the wastes, it is found on the banks of Chile's longest river.  We passed waterfall-filled gorges, expansive marshlands, and many swirling pools of crystal water that was still freezing despite its long journey down from Los Andes.  At one point, once we were clear of the city proper and close to being nowhere, our path was obstructed by a ramshackle farm from whence came wafting on the wind the threating call of many dogs.  To avoid meeting any quadrupeds, we left the riverside and clambered up to the top of the ravine that was beginning to form.  Before long, we were traversing the edge of a fairly deep canyon at the bottom of which wound the tiny ribbon of the Loa.

As we left the last vestiges of Calama behind, the sun had begun to set and we decided at that point to walk out into the desert proper, north of the river.  We passed strange things out there, from piles of ancient garbage (volleyballs, mattresses, dolls) to the semi-devoured corpse of a dog that had no business at all being out that far.  At one point, just as the light was fading, we came across a giant pile of wood.  At some point in the past, someone had dragged an entire tree out into the middle of nowhere, chopped it up, and left it for us to find.  Clearly a provision of providence, we accepted God's most irregular and unexpected gift by loading our arms full of all that we could carry before pressing onward.  Thus burdened, and now in the dark, we soon ended up returning closer to the lip of the canyon with an idea of returning to the riverbed.  However, since there was no moon and we couldn't find a reasonable slope upon which to descend, we just dropped down on the edge of the canyon in the best, clearest spot we could find.  The wind had begun to pick up by that time, and with the sun now gone the cold was creeping up on us.  Thankfully, we were surrounded by rocks which we built up into a rather nice wall.  Once our shield was erected, we were able to use a few candles we had brought along to get a fire started with the providential wood.  As the night progressed, and because there was no moon, the stars came out in such inexplicable brilliance that we could clearly see the cloud-like luminescence of the Milky Way.  Despite our distance from everything, down in the river valley and off in the distance could still be heard the devil barks of desert hounds; reminding us that in Chile, dogs are inescapable.

Chileans who discover our wall will no doubt assume it was built by aliens.

When dawn broke, we packed our sleeping bags and walked back to the city, leaving behind our wall as a reminder to the desert that we had once been there.

Redemption

"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone."
--Audrey Hepburn

After the primer ronda of debates in Antofagasta, in which my team resulted in fifth place, my co-teacher Oscar ensured that each day leading up to the segunda ronda would be spent in preparation. This meant that neither the kids, nor I, attended regular classes.  Instead, we spent Monday through Thursday morning formulating arguments, turning them into speeches, and drilling them into memory.  Rodrigo returned and promised that he had learned his lesson from the first round and proceeded to prove his renewed dedication by practicing his speeches with the group.  The topic of round two was "Chile should maintain its open door policy on immigration," which led to incredibly racist discussions by my group.  On Monday, I spent most of the day convincing the kids that they must argue about immigration for all nationalities, and not specifically Peruvians.  They, in turn, spent all day trying to convince me of how awful Peruvians are and why I should, like them, personally hate the entire population of Perú.  By Tuesday, they had been able to come up with coherent speeches that were only partially xenophobic.

For the second round, we kept Paulina and Rodrigo as our opening and closing speakers respectively, with each of them preparing both sides of the argument.  We then had Jorge and Hristo prepare for the opposition and Mena and Ivan prepare for the proposition. Daniza again helped by doing fantastic research as well as preparing speeches.  She valiantly combed through the mess of incoherent jargon that is the existing Chilean immigration policy pulling out the vital points on which we would form our assault (principally on the opposition side.)  I found them immigration statistics that, surprisingly, the Chilean government has posted online in impressive detail.
By Thursday, we were once again prepared as well as we could be, to include Rodrigo who had, as he promised, spent the week memorizing his speeches and reciting them to the group for critique and analysis.  We all walked to the bus station and once more took the three hour ride through the desert to the coast.  Once in Antofagasta, I put us on the only micro that didn't go directly by the hostel and we ended up having to walk a few blocks.  However, we arrived just in time to eat the depressing fare that was given to us as "supper."  After eating, we took a short walk down to the shore where Oscar and I drilled the kids and made last minute pronunciation adjustments.

In the first round, we had competed in the afternoon and had had ample time to observe the other teams and further practice.  The second round was different.  We were positioned in the morning session, and as the draw went, we were competing in the second bracket.  Thankfully, however, the Tocopilla team that had finished first in the primer ronda went in the first bracket and, as fortune would have it, bombed.  All the sass and charisma they had displayed in the first round was gone and the poor girls clearly struggled the entire time to recall their speeches.  On the flip side, Lorna's motley crew improved dramatically.  Oscar and I laughed as her kids recited their speeches (clearly and admittedly written by Lorna herself) in which they unknowingly, albeit passively, insulted their own country's food, culture, and ignorant bureaucracy.  Then it was Team Lucho's turn to take the stage.

We had once again drawn the opposition, and as such the same speakers alighted upon the stage (Paulina, Jorge, Hristo, and Rodrigo in that order.)  The proposition was a weak Antofagasta school with a volunteer I had not really met yet, but who I knew was originally from Russia (by way of Canada.) Both Oscar and I had encouraged the group to use the microphone this time, but Paulina was in the zone and forgot to grab one.  Thus she walked right up to the edge of the stage, front and center, and dove headfirst into her passionate plea for Chile to change it's policy.  She was even better than she had been in round one, nailing the high points and setting the stage for the rest of the team to shine again.  Jorge followed and also forgot the mic, but he spoke with strength and charisma as he had before.  He strutted the stage, directed his assault at the enemy, and implored the judges.  Most impressively however, was how he managed to imperceptibly recover when he forgot a large chunk in the middle of this speech.  Instead of standing open mouthed trying to recall the information, he simply improvised a few lines and jumped ahead to what he could remember.  No one even noticed.  Hristo followed hard and fast, and he too upped his game.  He was pitch perfect, and had the entire auditorium laughing along with his exaggerated and smarmy delivery.  Though it really didn't matter, the other team was completely demoralized by the time Hristo returned to his seat.

We were once again given ten minutes to confer with our final speaker, and this time I could tell that Rodrigo was holding it together.  He was still nervous, but he planned to use the podium which (in light of the circumstances) Oscar and I both agreed was a good idea.  When it was his turn to speak, I watched on with my stomach in knots.  Because he was behind the podium, he had a mic and his fake British accent boomed out across the room as he opened with his joke.  As the laughter of the crowd (those who got the joke at least) subsided, Rodrigo went on to prove himself.  He powered through his speech with perfect timing and pronunciation, making it seem as though we was simply, and effortlessly having a discussion with the crowd.  The night before, he had come to me and very maturely apologized for his previous behaviour, and promised me he had learned the lesson that public humiliation had taught him.  That day, as he finished his speech and applause swept the room, it was clear that his words had been heartfelt and truthful and that he had indeed redeemed himself in everyday.  Our team finished with the highest score that morning.  With the scores from both rounds added together, we were a solid third over all.  After seeing Rodrigo perform at the fullness of his capabilities, I knew that we belonged in first--and would have been there otherwise.  No other team had exhibited the charisma and heart that Lucho had shown.  The other teams that made the cut had simply repeated memorized speeches.  Lucho had debated.

In the end, we only had to make the top eight teams to qualify to compete in the final.  The other seven included Ryan's school, which finished sixth, along with the other schools that had 8 Month volunteers (coincidence?).  The final takes place on the 5th of November (Guy Faulks Day).

Don't Hate, Debate

Team Lucho

 "He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense."
--Joseph Conrad 

A few weeks after the adventures that transpired during Las Fiestas Patrias, which I admittedly have not yet chronicled in their entirety, preparation began at my school for the English language debates that were to be held in Antofagasta.  I had been prepping a team since my arrival, but things began in earnest after the Fiestas since the first round of the tournament was to be held Friday, the first of October and none of my team were particularly ready. The group of seven students had been hand selected by myself and given the opportunity to work outside of their regular classes, but it was only after a chewing out by Oscar, the English teacher officially in responsible for the team, on the Monday prior to round 1 that the kids got motivated.

Allow me to explain the situation.  The English language debates were begun when the Programa Inglés Abre Puertas (PIAP) was initiated some seven odd years ago.  Each year teams would compete on a regional level, with the best teams eventually advancing to a one-on-one showdown in Santiago.  The prize was a expenses paid trip to Easter Island.  That was in the past.  This year, ever since Piñera was elected the new president of the Republic, education programs have been being scaled back--to include PIAP.  Thus, in the year 2010, there is no nationwide debate competition.  However, Región Dos (Antofagasta) is its own little fiefdom that is run, for better or worse, by the mining corporations; the largest of the private corps being Minera Escondida.  As part of their deal with the Chilean government, Escondida has to contribute a significant amount of its considerable profits to "community development." This is done through the Fundación Minera Escondida which this year absorbed the PIAP in Antofagasta.  This means the Fundación pays the volunteers, organizes all the PIAP events, and generally gets things done in a way only private organizations can--including keeping the debate competition going.  Therefore, this year all of the high schools in Región Dos were invited to register teams to compete in a three round tournament held in Antofagasta city.  Nineteen schools registered teams (which could include up to six students, even though only four debate at a time) and were given two topics upon which to prepare their arguments.  The topics are as follows:

Chile should implement the humane killing of street dogs.
&
Chile should maintain its open door policy on immigration.

The first topic to be debated upon was the street dogs topic.  I had a blast helping my kids come up with their arguments, because I personally hate every single dog in this country and would love to execute each and every one, by hand if necessary.  My team consists of seven students, one of whom simply helps research and prepare because she can't actually participate in the debates themselves.  The team is: my host sister Mena, a junior named Paulina, three sophomore boys named Jorge, Ivan, and Hristo; and two seniors named Danitza and Rodrigo.  Rodrigo is nearly fluent in English, and my teacher assumed he was a lock and thus placed him in the crucial fourth speaker position.  I had my doubts, especially when he refused to practice with the group.  When, on Wednesday before the first round, I called on him to deliver his speech before the team, he flat out refused.  He assumed an extremely arrogant manner that prompted Jorge to call out to him, "quit being a diva!"  The rest of the team prepared exceptionally, and we were all pretty confident when we boarded the bus for Antofagasta that Thursday afternoon.

It's hard to be gangster in a cardigan.

The tournament was split into two parts, with ten teams competing in the morning and nine teams competing in the afternoon.  If you can math things, you will see a slight discrepancy which led to one team in the afternoon having to compete two times.  That team, called North College, ended up being our opponents when we finally went at the very end of the competition.  They had the option to choose a side since they were debating twice, and they chose the proposition side, leaving our team (Lucho) to argue that "Chile should not begin the human killing of street dogs."  While the team had practiced all morning, I had gone in to watch the first half of matches.  First up had been Lorna's (the Brit volunteer, if you'll recall) school and a school from Tocopilla.  Lorna had told me ahead of time that her team was not ready, largely due to the English teacher at her school quitting a week before leaving her the sole person in charge of the team.  The match did go poorly for her team, and she was quite upset, but it was not in anyway her fault.  The Tocopilla team (which ended up gaining the most points in round one) was on fire.  They were a sassy quartet of young females who spoke fluently and strutted about the stage, dripping with presence.  I took notes, and returned around lunch to impart the intelligence I had gathered on team Lucho.  Thus, by the time we entered the auditorium that afternoon, my team was pumped and armed.  My team was fighting for Calama pride, and to prove that as a public school they were just as good, nay, better then the semi-privates that competed against us.
Ryan and his school were in our group, and they fared well but not as good as we had expected, given their reputation for excellence.

My team finally took the stage at the very end of the competition.  Oscar, their teacher, told them not to use the mic, which was a poor idea but it did free them up to utilize the entire stage.  Paulina opened us with an impassioned introductory that encouraged Jorge to come out guns blazing as our second speaker.  He spoke almost perfectly, without a hint of the stutter he usually has in regular speech, and his charisma level was off the charts.  As I had instructed, he addressed the enemy and asked rhetorical questions to them, which he then answered while facing the judges.  In short, he nailed it.  Then Hristo came out and raised the energy level a notch higher, feeding off Jorge's success.  He didn't speak as well, but he improvised wonderfully and had the audience laughing along with his performance.  Then came the ten minute break in which the teacher and volunteer are allowed to come up and help prepare the summary speaker for the final engagement.  I could tell right away that Rodrigo was going to fail us.  It was written all over his face.  The team gave him the notes they had taken while listening to the proposition, and I offered him a few notes.  I then sat down and watched the proverbial train wreck take place as Rodrigo drew a complete blank when he stood up in front of the crowd.  He babbled for about a minute, referring to his notes, then casting them aside, now picking them back up to finish his time by reading off his note cards from behind the podium.  The team was crushed.  Victory had been ripped right out of their hands by the pride of their "best" speaker.  Rodrigo further dishonored himself by breaking into tears as we left the competition.  I was not at all surprised, and likewise I had very little sympathy.  He later admitted that his pride had caused his fall, and that he was extremely shamed for having let down the rest of the team after they had succeeded with such flair and vigor.  We ended up in the fifth place slot out of nineteen due to Rodrigo's low numbers, but we at least managed to beat out Ryan's school by a fraction of a point.

The next round is a few days away, and my teacher insisted that Rodrigo remain the closing speaker.  Whether or not he will redeem himself remains to be seen, but for the sake of the others I hope his public humiliation had a positive effect on his attitude. Como siempre,  Vamos a ver.

Dieciséis

City, thy name is Serenity.

 "Tis healthy to be sick sometimes."
--Henry David Thoreau

I awoke Thursday morning, the 16th of September in La Serena and remembered that it was my Father's birthday.  It wouldn't be until later that evening that I would be in Coquimbo and have the chance to use the internet to call him (even though I only ended up being able to leave a voice mail) and long before then a few interesting developments would take place.  I had slept little, for when Alex and I returned to his house the night before we discovered his two youngest host sisters, Nadia and Isis, sitting around the kitchen table with a group of friends talking and drinking wine.  I took the opportunity to meet the two of the five sisters present and in doing so betrayed myself as a gringo.  Immediately, one of the people at the table began speaking to me in English.  He was very excited, and would not leave me alone.  He kept thanking me for speaking English to him, even though I was doing my best to ignore him and speak in Spanish with Alex's sisters (who are 17 and 20 respectively) because Isis spoke no English.  Nadia clearly understood a good deal, but was not able to converse.  As such, I found it very rude and annoying for that stranger to keep badgering me into English.  I write stranger for we found out the next morning that the girls didn't even know who he was.

The next morning, Alex and I were up before the girls when his host-mom, who I had met the night before, came into the kitchen and chatted with us for a while.  The day then progressed with us leaving for Coquimbo to meet back up with Peter and Ryan for our planned trip a little ways farther south to visit the town of Tongoy.  We all squeezed onto a little shuttle bus that took us down the coast amidst the company of school children who apparently bus to Coquimbo to find better education opportunities then the tiny fishing village they call home can afford them.  This is interesting, given the fact that there are two schools in Tongoy,  both of which are staffed with volunteers.  One of the volunteers, Ryan Ahern or "Otro Ryan", I hadn't seen since Santiago, and thus I was looking forward to surprising him with my presence.  We found him asleep in the the house he shares with the other Tongoy volunteer, named Matt, he having spent the early afternoon at a school-sponsored asado.  He was indeed surprised to see us, and once roused, took us to a good seafood restaurant located on one of Tongoy's two sweeping beaches.  We enjoyed our food, but Ryan (Morrison) likely took ill from it, as we would discover later that evening.   After eating, Otro Ryan and Matt took us on a tour of the town and beaches, which didn't last long given the tiny nature of the locality.  However, despite the small size, I really fell in love with the place, especially after Otro Ryan told us how he spent most afternoons sea kayaking with his kids.  We watched the sun set just beyond the natural harbour and then caught the last bus back to Coquimbo with Matt and Otro Ryan planning to meet us there later since they had a friend with a car who could drive them.

Tongoy Sunset

We made it back to Peter's house and I used Google talk to phone my parents (because Google talk allows you to call the States for free.)  It was past their bedtime, I reckon, because I got the voicemail and was obliged to leave a message with Ryan, Peter, and Alex all singing "Happy Birthday" in English and then Spanish in the background.  Around that time, Ryan began to complain about not feeling well, but we told him to quite whining and suck it up because Stacey was coming over soon and we had her birthday to celebrate.  The other guys had, earlier that day, bought a bunch of stupid party favors to include a clown/princess type hat that Stacey was to be required to wear the entire night (this, as you might imagine, did not transpire.)  It was a nice gesture however, and right as Stacey got to the house and we began singing "Happy Birthday" again, Ryan chimed in with a chorus of vomiting.   Somebody said "hospital", and before you knew it Ryan was being carted off by Peter and his host parents to have an IV hooked up to him and....well, that's it.  The experience undoubtedly lessened the enjoyment of the remainder of his Fiestas Patrias, but thankfully he recovered quickly and nothing more serious then a prolonged bout of vomiting beset him.  The lasting result of Ryan's poisoning was to give every Chilean we would encounter over the next two weeks something to talk about other than the weather. 

The next day would be Peter's birthday and the official beginning of the Fiestas wherein there would be mucho asado, my visit to the Pampilla, all followed by a trip out to the country for an amazing time with Alex's family.  These things, and many more, are yet to be elaborated upon.  However, as time has moved quicker then my ability to chronicle the aforementioned events, the next few chapters may not come in order.  Vamos a ver.