I'm not saying I'm bored of Santiago, but sort of. I just needed a change of scenery for a little bit. So I headed westward to the coast for a little get-away while I still have plenty of time and nothing important to do. I've wanted to visit Valparaíso, which is purportedly B-E-A-utiful (not so), and I thought I could check out Viña del Mar while I was in the area. I headed out early in the morning on a cushy tour bus for the hour-long drive to Viña. Viña is just north of Valparaíso, and there is a metro-tren (i.e. a train that sometime goes underground) that connects the two cities.
Of course I intended to spend a mindless day at the beach, but as we cruised along through throngs of ramshackle houses that populate the outskirts of Santiago, and even more in and around the coastal towns, my mind and affections were plunged into deep consideration of poverty and my responsibility (or lack thereof?) to ... people. The more I saw, the less I felt. And the less I felt, the easier it was to completely remove myself from their situations. This isn't my country, isn't my life, isn't my problem.
And that was depressing. Because... I came to Chile chasing a career path that will inevitably lead me toward people who aren't my problem. I came here wanting to get myself involved with education--of any sort--because education is KEY to having social and economic mobility (I think). And the people who need education the most-- people who don't have easy access to education--they haven't typically been my problem, or any part of my world.
The more devastating the situation looked, the more helpless I felt. And it didn't take more than a couple miles of rotting roofs on closet-sized houses to convince me that no attempt of mine would make any sort of progress in these...'situations.' The good thing about my convictions is that it is extremely easy for me to write them off in cases of hardship. Done. An hour later, walking along the beach, I felt completely free of my previous obligation to the uneducated poor, not to mention completely aimless.

I know this one is a bit of a doosy. But we're getting there, I promise. Here's a picture of Viña to keep you interested.



So, I sit for a couple hours on the beach, reading, thinking, minding my own damn business. And then I go. I'm parched. One of my favorite things about Chile is that there are these street vendors EVERYWHERE, always selling cold water and tasty frozen treats and things. Just before I pass out from dehydration, there is a man with his little bicycle cart selling just what I'm after. All I have to say is, "¿Agua fría?" And as he hands me that golden bottle, he is looking at me wide eyed and asks, "¿De dónde eres?" And that launched us into a lengthy conversation about population, inflation, why the dollar is so low, etc. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to practice my Spanish. And seeing as I'm in no hurry... why not?

When I told him (Jorge) that I was in Santiago for the year teaching, he said, "¡Qué bueno!" And asked me how I taught. I didn't know how to answer that question. How?... What?... It made more sense when he told me that he never had the chance to be educated. He starting working when he was a child, because everyone has to eat.
I tried to focus on what he was saying to be sure I was understanding correctly and not just hearing what I wanted to hear. Could it be that this conversation was really happening, right after I decided to abandon the cause? Really??
Jorge lamented that he never learned to write and never had the chance to pull himself out of poverty with education--such a simple tool. He told me all these things that I already know- things I've spent countless hours mulling over in my mind- that there is a mighty rift in our societies that aggravatingly separates the rich from the poor.
Because he can see from my expression that I am straining to understand his language, he fills in the gaps with hand motions. He repeats over and over that, because he is so old (35...not sooo old, where I come from) he can only bajarse - and he inches his hand, palm down, down down down. And I (me), I am young and educated and on my way - and he inches his other hand, palm up, up and up and up. And the division gets greater. When he says that he is nothing and I am rich, I try to deny it. But it only takes half a second to realize that he's right. No matter how strongly I believe, or want to believe, that all people ideally have the same inherent value, it doesn't play out that way. Jorge will spend the majority of his days on this boardwalk selling sticky popsicles into grubby fingers, and I will travel and have varied experiences. I cannot deny that education has given me mobility and that poverty has taken away this man's chance for the same.
And I suddenly realized that the majority of these street vendors and the men washing cars in parking lots and the ones 'directing traffic' in parking lots for whatever you will give them-- they are all trapped in this same system that has caught Jorge.
We talked for at least half an hour. Mostly, I just listened, not knowing what to say, or how to say it. I asked him if he thought it would even be worth the trouble for me to be a teacher in a context like his. Of course he said yes, emphatically. But there are so many factors that complicate the whole thing. It is altogether overwhelming, and I don't really know where I can get my foot in the door.
When I told him I would go back to the United States in a year because that is my home, he said that, afterwards, I could come back to teach in Chile. Who knows.
And so my relaxing day at the beach, never was. But the career path that I abandoned in the morning, I gladly took back in the afternoon. Not that I can solve the problem, but I can at least not ignore it.