July, So Far

The past couple weeks have been really nice (except for the awful, disgusting smog, of course.) The big news is that my friend Daniel (who I knew from Berkeley) moved into my apartment. He volunteered at a community center through the organization I'm volunteering with and is now back in Santiago working for the organization. He's a really cool person and I'm really happy to have someone else to hang out with here since Vero is in Europe on vacation for the month.


The roomies: Carlota the Cat, me, Vero and Daniel

Two weekends ago, Vero and Daniel and I went to a great dinner party at Eduardo and Genaro's house. They invited a bunch of very interesting women they know: a deaf-rights activist; a woman who works with Eduardo in an empowerment program for underprivileged women in Santiago; and a woman who is working on an International Labor Organization project with seasonal farmworkers in Chile.

The next day, I went down to Paine to have Sunday lunch with Marcelo's family. He lives with his parents (who are actually his aunt and uncle) and his sister (who's actually his cousin) and her daughter and his grandmother. In the house next door, lives his other aunt and uncle and two cousins and their grandmother. His other sister and her family live nearby, so there are always a ton of people around. The families built the houses themselves and the houses are surrounded by orchards. Marcelo and his brother-in-law and his sister's boyfriend all work for his uncle's construction company. The houses are like cozy cabins -- they're built of wood and have these small Scandanavian wood-burning stoves that keep them warm. The kittens were curled up under the stoves -- I kid you not (it was adorable). His three little neices played outside and looked at princess pictures books, and the guys watched soccer with the grandmothers, and the aunts and sisters cooked a huge meal. They're a nice family and like to laugh and the women make fun of the men. We looked at lots of old pictures. It was really nice being there. It's so different from my life at home (and my life here.)

Last weekend, Daniel and I went to see a couple of very interesting films at the Cine Arte Alameda about the student protests in 2006. If you want to learn more about it, he did a write-up on his blog, so check it out: www.danielsaver.blogspot.com
And afterwards, we had wine and cheese with Vero and Eduardo and Genaro and kept her company as she packed for her trip.
The next night we went out with Marcelo and on Sunday Marcelo and I went to this huge feria, the Bio Bio, and walked around for several hours. They sell everything imaginable, from pirated videos, to electronics, to clothing, to furniture, etc.

This week, I finished my three kids classes, which was exciting. A semester is a long time actually, even though it's only three months. I'll miss my students a lot. The kids here are so sweet and really a lot of fun.

And this weekend was great. My friend James, who lived here in Santiago before, just got back from traveling in Peru and Bolivia, so he's staying with us for the week. He has a great sense of humor and always makes me laugh. Yesterday, all the boys were here for brunch (Daniel, James, Zack, Marcelo and Pancho.) Afterwards, we climbed up the Cerro Santa Lucia to check out the beautiful view after the rain. I think it's the most beautiful sight I've seen in the entire time I've lived in Santiago. From there, we headed over to Bellavista and hung out until it got dark at one of the bar/cafes on the street.

Anyways, life is good here as you can probably tell. Hard to believe how much time has gone by.


Brunch with the boys (Pancho, Zack, James)


Marcelo and James' GQ shot


Zack looking very angustiado (he misses his polola)


A wintery Cerro Santa Lucia


Looking out across the city to the mountains from the top of the Cerro Santa Lucia


Me and Marcelo (awww)


Santiago at its most beautiful (after the rain)


Daniel wolfs down a triple-decker sopapilla sandwich on the Pio Nono Bridge over the Rio Mapocho in Barrio Bellavista


Daniel's GQ shot

Happy Birthday, Comrade

Today is the centennial of the birth of Salvador Allende. I wonder what he would think of this country if he were alive today. The dictatorship is over and Chile is a liberal democracy, but the country lacks a social vision.

Chile is a prosperous country, but the wealth gap is the largest in Latin America. You don't see the kind of poverty that you see in other parts of Latin America, and there are virtually no homeless people in Santiago, but that doesn't mean that life is easy for poor people here. Classism is omnipresent and polarizing. Education and literacy are compulsory and universal, but a good education is very expensive and it's nearly impossible to climb the social ladder to greater opportunities without it. Health care is universal and very good for a developing country, but it can also be expensive. Chile is at peace with its neighbors and the world. The labor movement is very weak, but worker safety protections are strong and women have the right to up to a year of paid maternity leave. On the other hand, women can't have abortions and contraceptives are very difficult to come by. The Catholic Church and Opus Dei have a great deal of power. Racism against Bolivian and Peruvian migrant workers and the Mapuche is commonplace. And there is a great deal of internalized, unconscious racism: Chileans tend to think of themselves as Europeans living in South America, rather than as descendents of both the Europeans and the Mapuches. Foreigners control most of the important resources, including water and the mines. Utilities and communications are outrageously expensive (and transportation is moderately expensive); the cost of living is high. Progress is impeded by the Pinochetista constitution and legislators, and Chile can feel stagnant. Twenty years of authoritarianism, disappearances and torture focused the Chilean left singularly on ending the dictatorship, but afterwards they were in complete disarray. Many key figures were co-opted by the government following the transition to democracy, leaving the left without strong leadership or organization. Only now are they beginning to rebuild.

And why? The simple fact of the matter is that Salvador Allende's democratic socialist revolution threatened the United States exactly because it was a democratic socialist revolution. It's easy to dismiss the horrific excesses of Stalinist Russia or Mao's Cultural Revolution. And though in no way comparable to Russia or China, Cuba loses credibility by failing to hold democratic elections and inhibiting freedom of speech. But what if the world could witness the rise of socialism in a democracy, without violence or repression, with full public participation? Wouldn't that be the greatest threat of all to neoliberal capitalism? Of course, Henry Kissinger, et al. thought so.


They sent money and supplies to help Pinochet bomb the presidential palace and seize control of the country. I walk by La Moneda (the presidential palace) every day when I go to work. It's since been rebuilt, of course. But it's incredible to think that on that September day in 1973 war planes flew overhead and destroyed the symbol of Chilean democracy. That was us. That was our government. We did it, just like we did with Mossadegh, the democratically elected socialist leader of Iran, in the 1950s (and look how that turned out). To you reading this, Chile may seem like just another third world country. But like every country in the world, it's full of real people whose lives are just as real as your life, whose families are just as real as your family, whose dreams and ideals and aspirations are just as real as yours. We all bear the responsibility for the actions of government. We are all responsible for Iraq, just as we were all responsible for Chile. When will we stop kidding ourselves that we are the "policemen" of the world, and wake up to the fact that we are undetakers.

Violeta Parra

Violeta Parra playing guitar and singing her poems in front of one of her yarn paintings

Lately, I've been enamored of the music of the late Chilean singer Violeta Parra. Her most well-known song is "Gracias a La Vida", which you can listen to here (the English translation is below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW3IgDs-NnA

Violeta Parra is one of Chile's most famous artists. In fact, she comes from a family of famous artists that span three generations and include the famous Chilean "anti-poet" Nicanor Parra. As a visual artist, she made yarn "paintings" that include folk art and modern themes. (There is a currently a retrospective of her work at the Centro Cultural Palacio de La Moneda.)

Her poetry and music also draw from Chilean folk art traditions -- she was one of the most well-known song-writers of the Chilean "Nueva Cancion" (New Song) movement in 1960s. Nueva Cancion in Chile was in many ways very similar to the folk music revival in the US in the 1960s. For example, the songs were incorporated into the left-wing social movements of the 1960s and 70s and the opposition to the dictatorship (for which reason many of the singers were tortured, killed or forced into exile.) And she helped popularize the Pena, community centers for artists and activists to meet, just like La Pena in Oakland, CA or the Women's Building in San Francisco. Tragically, she killed herself in 1967 over a broken heart.


Thanks to life which has given me so much,
It gave me two eyes that when I open them,
I can distinguish perfectly black from white,
And in the high heaven its starry background,
And in the multitudes the man I love.


Thanks to life which has given me so much,
It's given me sound and the alphabet,
And with it the words that I think and declare,
Mother, friend, brother, and burning light,
The route of the soul of the one that I love.


Thanks to life which has given me so much,
It's given me sound that in all its magnitude,
Records night and day, crickets and canaries,
Hammers, turbines, dogs' barks, storms,
And the tender voice of the one that I love.


Thanks to life which has given me so much,
It's given me the steps of my tired feet,
With them I walked though cities and puddles,
Beaches and deserts, mountains and plains,
And your house, your street, and your patio.


Thanks to life which has given me so much,
It's given me laughter, it's given me tears,
Thereby I distinguish good fortune from ruin,
The two materials that make up my song,
And your song, as well, which is my own song,
And the song of everyone that is my own song.

Paine

This weekend, a big group of us took the train down to Pancho's house in Paine. Pancho is one of Marcelo's best friends. He studied film in Valparaiso and has been making short films and working on feature length films. He showed us a beautiful short film ("Someone Else's Party" is the title in English) that he made last year that he's been showing at festivals.

Paine is about an hour south of Santiago and it's in the countryside. It's the point where the Andes intersects with the coastal mountain range and it's very beautiful. We had a big asado (Chilean-style barbeque) on Saturday and went on a hike the next day. It was very cold but the air was clean, so it was a nice break from Santiago.

Zack came with his girlfriend Alejandra (who is a Mexican study abroad student) and her friend Angelica who was visiting from Buenos Aires and her French roommate Cecil who is doing an internship here and Zack's Swiss roommate Anousha who is traveling. Marcelo brought his friends Marcelo, Diego and Tati, and Pancho's family was there of course. It was one of those international gatherings that I've gotten used to here where everyone's trying to speak a little Spanish and a little English and a little French.

Being away from the city reminded me of how much I still hope to see in Chile before I leave.

Pancho


Pancho's dog


Grove (and Marcelo)


A beautiful tree (and me)




A view from the coastal mountain range across Paine, looking towards the Andes




Farmland covered in fog with the Andes in the background


The whole shebang

life, etc.

Well I've been quite busy these past few weeks. I began a new 10 hour a week intensive English course, which is keeping me very busy, and I'm beginning a new conversation course next week for Chilean Fulbright scholars. I'm very happy to have the opportunity to teach. I can feel my teaching skills improving and every week I feel more confident in my abilities. And I have great students, so I enjoy the work.

Santiago is, to put it charitably, a less than charming city in the winter. The smog is horrible. The city is a victim of "thermic inversion": it's always a smog pocket because it's a major city surrounded by mountains, but in the winter, when the temperatures drop below zero, this prevents warm air from rising and carrying the particulate matter in the air out of the city, so it stays trapped. Last week was the first "pre-emergencia" of the year. In the United States, a smog emergency is when the particulate matter in the air reaches 50-60 parts per million (very few places in the United States have levels this high, but one such place is California's Central Valley). However, in Chile, a smog emergency is anything over 500 ppm. Last week, we were in the 460s and it was pretty awful (it's not much better this week, though the rain and evaporation cleared some of it out.) The city is brown and gray and a block or two in the distance looks hazy. You cough and rub your eyes and your snot turns black and some people get headaches and lots of children end up in the hospital.

But at least it's freezing cold. (That, of course, was in homage to the perfect joke at the beginning of Annie Hall: "Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of them says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions.")

At night, I sleep with long underwear and wool socks and sweat pants and undershirt and long-sleeve shirt and sweatshirt and polar fleece and wool cap, under four wool blankets and three comforters and getting out of bed can be agony. Yes, I know, I'm just a spoiled Californian. But this spoiled Californian cannot understand why people decide to put up with this kind of weather (at least without indoor heating)!

On the other hand, the time is flying by. I'll only by here for about 7 more weeks, and I've already lived here for 4.5 months, which is hard to believe. I'm certainly glad I made the decision to come. All in all, it's been a very valuable experience. My Spanish has improved immensely and I've made some great friends. Moving to a foreign country by myself and all of the challenges it has entailed has made me feel capable of handling whatever life throws my way. And I feel much calmer than I did in the United States. I've tried to really soak in the philosophy of doing what makes you happy in life rather than focusing on goals and achievement, as we are taught to do in the US. And I've finally learned to enjoy doing nothing, at least every once in awhile.

I'm including some photos and videos below of friends. I hope they make you smile.


Lauren, cooking in her kitchen


Marcelo and Vero demonstrating the "flaite dance" at a dinner party at Lauren's house


Lauren and Marcelo "flamenco dancing" in my living room before karaoke night


Marcelo, patron saint of dish washing


A none-goofy picture of Marcelo (upon request)


Silly Katy


My friend Daniel (from Berkeley) and Vero at my burrito dinner party


Cool concert nearby


Vero at a concert nearby


Lauren at a concert nearby

After the Rain

Last week, during a break in the rain, I climbed up the Cerro Santa Lucia (Santa Lucia Hill) by my house to take pictures. The rain cleared the smog out of the sky and we had a gorgeous view of the Andes, which are already half covered in snow. And it's going to get colder. . .


Entrance to Cerro Santa Lucia


Gabriel Mistral mural at the Cerro Santa Lucia


Neptune Fountain at the Cerro Santa Lucia


Looking east to the Cordillera (the Andes)


Looking northeast to the Cerro San Cristobal and the Cordillera


Garden at the Cerro

It’s now definitively winter in Santiago. It’s been damp and a bit rainy the past few days, but this morning it was unseasonably warm and humid, until the afternoon when ominous dark gray storm clouds gathered over the city and began to let loose. There has been flooding in some of the tributaries of the River Mapocho and they’ve had to cut the water in parts of the city, so we’re storing it in pots and pans just in case. This sort of weather is not typical of Santiago (nor was the day it snowed last year), but neither is 100-degree weather in San Francisco in mid-May (which, I must say, I prefer).

Winter here does not feel at all the same as winter at home. At home in California, we rush from heated home to heated school or office or store and back: the weather is an interruption. Here, indoor heating is rare and expensive and so the cold is something that you learn to live with all the time (and it’s only just beginning.) We wear wool socks and long underwear and at night dread getting out from under the many layers of wool blankets and comforters of the bed for any reason.

At home in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter’s dreariness is mitigated by holidays, good food, parties, family and friends. But in Chile, there are no important winter holidays. In fact, all of the holidays are taken out of their metaphorical (or metaphysical) context in the Catholic countries of the Southern Hemisphere: Easter, the paradigmatic spring holiday of new life and regeneration, is celebrated in the fall, while Christmas, a metaphor for finding light in a time of darkness, is celebrated in the middle of the summer at the beach.

Winter without cozy heated homes and the holidays to look forward to makes me feel as if I’m living in some sort of Dickens novel. The feeling was heightened the other day when I was at the hogar: nothing like a group of ten little kids sitting around a dining room table at an orphanage praying before dinner to make you feel like you’re living in 19th century England.

And then on Tuesday night, I rushed through the rain from school to meet my friend Lauren and her sister Brooke, who is visiting from New York, at the Teatro Municipal, a gorgeous neoclassical concert hall, where we saw Puccini’s La Boheme. The theatre was the perfect setting for the opera: we watched the Italian maestro’s classic tragedy centered upon a group of young Parisian bohemian artists from what were truly the cheap seats just below the painted ceiling, before going back to my chilly apartment for a cup of tea.

Ah, what would life be without an overactive imagination and the ability to see myself as the protagonist of any number of well-worn narratives?



The Bundy sisters