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.