WuhOh!

Where have I gone?? I haven't been sooo busy. I haven't left the country...recently. And I haven't been run over, beat up, robbed of my computer, or fallen into a coma. I'm just realizing that original promise that I wouldn't keep up on a regular basis, because soy floja.

My life, café to café

Day to day, my life isn’t much different than it was 6 months ago in Seattle. I sleep late. I go to coffee shops. I take long walks. I take pictures of ugly things that I find incredibly beautiful, or oddly entertaining.

exhibit 1

exhibit 2

exhibit 3


I read. I think incessantly about the things I should/shouldn’t be doing. The one big difference is that, in Santiago, I can go all day uttering a maximal minimum of words, if you know what I mean. (Sorry, I have to make up in verbosity what I lack in personal interaction.) I’ve worked out that I won’t speak in Spanish if I go out with English-speaking friends. But I haven’t quite figured out a formula for striking up conversations with strangers, other than pretending to be lost and asking for directions. Okay, maybe it's not always pretend. In any case, a successful conversation is a bit of a crapshoot.
Today was a quiet day. (And that was alright.)

Parakeets on Holiday!:

And in addition to that, our situation becomes less sustainable every day. But what are you and I supposed to do, surrounded by an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases, soaring tensions between men who hold enormous amounts of power, rising inflation, falling stocks, insidiously persistent racism/classism/sexism/your favorite or most applicable form of hatred? What is there to do? The diplomats can’t save us. Our arsenals have served us equally as well.


In a tremendous funk today, I stumbled upon a charming literary café (i.e. a place where they sell coffee and have an incredible selection of books—some for sale, some for borrow) where I read an article called, “¿Cuánto vale una idea?” in a periodical called El Periodista. The article more or less proposed that there are a few creative people in our midst who have brilliant outside-the-box ideas, who might possibly be able to help us out of our downward-spiraling predicaments. But these people, the creative sorts, tend to be unconcerned with money and are satisfied just to create and experience creation. They aren’t the executive types, the world-leader types, or the two-plus-two-is-four types. And, consequently, they don’t merit much praise in our forward-thinking Western society.

But, in reality, where has our linear thinking brought us? Okay, there’s a lot to be said for the orderliness of institutions. But is it really the end-all be-all? …Mmmmmm, not sure. Not sure about that one.


On a similar, but different, note: I was giving an oral examination (with more of a linguistic than dental persuation) to a teenage student the other day. The question I proposed was this-- “Technology has changed a lot in the past 50 years. 50 years from now, what do you think technology will look like?” And her answer was—“I don’t think the world will exist in 50 years. I think we will destroy ourselves by then.”

Qué lata.

It’s got to be bad when the ones who are supposed to be ambitious have already surrendered to defeat.


As a disclaimer-- I’m not proposing a solution to the problems at hand here. Just a solution to the lack of acceptable solutions.

Trabajadores en Fiesta

Wandering around downtown yesterday to the chanting of workers on strike (not unusual) I was compelled to follow my ears to see who was complaining this time. Santander, one of Chile’s major financial institutions—en huelga. ¡Qué sorpresa! The workers on strike were having a grand ole party outside the bank. Lots of dancing. Lots of confetti. Lots of loudspeaker.

I casually mentioned to some students the other day that it seems there’s always something to go on strike about in Santiago. I know this has largely to do with the fact that I work very close to the capitol building, La Moneda. But my students seemed surprised (disappointed?) to hear that this was the impression I got of Santiago. (…It’s not an impression; it’s an observation.)

I dared to ask, and my students wholeheartedly confirmed that the situation of ‘unrest’ exists because Chile has a weak woman president. Before drawing conclusions about these chauvinistic Latin Americans, I heard their arguments about the weakness of Michelle Bachelet(President)’s character. She (reportedly) gives in to every request/demand. The problem really lies in the strength of her character and not in the sex of her character. And it wasn’t surprising to hear these remarks. I’m not sure I’ve heard anything good about Michelle Bachelet from anyone in Chile.


What I can’t wait for is the day President Bachelet goes on strike. That’ll be a really good time, I bet. Hopefully they’ll stage it during the changing of the guard. The officers will feign their routines—and then suddenly break into a choir of rage against delinquent students and feisty bank tellers. Michelle Bachelet will make rounds throughout downtown in her coach-and-four screaming at all the imbeciles who don’t appreciate her like they should. … And then we’ll all be even and life can go on civilly.

Bureacracy, A Prospective Divorce, Cats, A Stroll, Cultural Rumination, A Crowded Bus, Bureacracy

One of my Tues/Thurs classes ended last week, so I had a lot of free time today. After class (or, I should say— after succumbing to bureacratic impositions by hurriedly running from downtown to Providencia, collecting papers, dropping off papers, jumping through a flaming hoop to the gratifying sound of applause from sidewalk observers, speed walking to class, and calmly recollecting papers after class) I lunched with some friends. … As a side note, these friends are a couple. However, I agreed to marry one of them in the interest of dual citizenship. When we divorce, I’m quite excited about taking the cat. In any case, it was a pleasure to see the little gatito today. I’m on the verge of illegally smuggling in a cat to my apartment. It wouldn’t hurt anybody.

Where was I…? Right. So after lunch, having ample time to do anything—or nothing—I took a long walk home. The weather isn’t SO bad. I wasn’t cold or anything. I still couldn’t see the mountains through the smog, but, that’s to be expected during the winter. As I walked, I realized that being in Chile gradually feels more and more natural. I suppose it’s just getting used to understanding their crazy modismos (i.e. things that they say in Chile and NO WHERE else) and getting comfortable with not understanding every word—as well as admitting, from time to time, that no entendí. When you parse it down, living in Santiago is just living in a big city. The only element of “developing nation” that I encounter daily is when I pass people selling bandaids for a living on the stairs of the metro. Other than that, Santiago is very well-dressed and proudly progressive.

However. Today, near the end of my walk, a bus passed me, full of people. And by “full”, I mean the doors wouldn’t shut and people were hanging out, hanging on to whatever or whoever was nearby. … I can’t picture this happening in Seattle. We’re just a bit too orderly to permit it.

On one hand—when a bus reaches its capacity and has riders hanging out the doors, safety alerts start ringing in my ears. On the other hand—no one fell out. If it gets the job done—perhaps there’s no problem?

It left me wondering if “development” is more bureacracy and less efficiency. But then again, real efficiency would probably result in everyone having a proper seat on the bus. I don’t know. It was just an observation.

And where are the groundhogs?

I’m proposing a toast to deliquent summers and forgotten 4th of July barbeques, to shorts and bathing suits (even though I hate them), and to concerts and cinema in the park. I didn’t think I particularly liked hot weather. I’ve never missed California’s sunshine since I left it (… 5?!?) five years ago. But now, in the absence of a season I swear to hate — I miss it! If I could at least have the security of a faithful groundhog’s prediction, I could bear this contaminated gray mass of perpetual cold with some amount of grace. But—is it ever going to end? I don’t know. Mr Groundhog? What say you?

Seeing Red

There’s a website similar to craigslist.org in Chile called vivastreet.cl. I’ve been keeping a watchful eye there for a used camera. And yesterday I finally reached the breaking point. I made the phone call and met the man. After examining the camera and walking all over downtown with Cesar in search of the right battery (because I’m a gringa, not an idiot, and I needed to see that it worked before I bought it), I walked home with a very heavy camera in tow. Do you (faithful blog readers) remember when I said that I would take any camera? That it could be from the year 1956 and barely work, and I’d be happy? Well—The “barely work” part, I’m sure of. [I am a bit worried that I will ‘finish’ the roll, only to discover that the advancer doesn’t advance the film. Or that the aperture on one of the lenses doesn’t adjust. – In which case, Goodbye 70mil.] But the “1956” part is also quite possible. Trying to figure out how to work this Zenit, this new style of non-Canon, I turned the camera over and discovered: “Made in the USSR.”

Which made me curious. Why is it in English? Was it made to be imported? Certainly not. … There’s no sign of Russian on the camera at all. Hm. AND, the man I bought it from told me that he bought it just 8 years ago. 8 or 9, that’s all. I thought he looked a bit Russian.

I just attempted to create a 5-year plan—something to guide me along a known, if not steady, course. Aside from being deterred by the non-motivational image of the hammer and sickle, I know my luck with these things, these "plans": They just don't work for me. What does work for me is ... let's call it, "forward thinking". Hypotheses sans commitments. My several minutes of forward thinking resulted in a possible outline for the next 20 to 40 years of my life. I didn't want to get carried away, so I left retirement entirely out of the picture.
If all goes as forwardly thought, I should be in Seattle next year for a quick rest before drifting abroad once again for training as a literacy specialist. Field work (in the Caribbean? in South America? Central America? in the Midwest?) would naturally follow. And then back to Seattle to do Masters work at the UW, concluding with more field work/research and, possibly, a 2-year PeaceCorp assignment in some undisturbed corner of the earth. After that, I could realistically consider doctoral work—which would of course include several more years of field work and research. And theeennnnnn, maybe, just maybe, I could begin thinking about getting a “real” job, “settling down”, living in one place for a while—that sort of thing. Whew. Time flies.