So...

Have you ever seen the movie Closer?  There's a moment in the film where Jude Law spots Natalie Portman from across the street, and they smile at each other, and there's music playing "can't talk my eyes off of you", and it's romantic and lovely, and he walks towards her, and she walks towards him, and then she gets hit by a car?

That's how I feel every time I see a cute boy on the metro.  He looks adorable there, standing with one hand on his backpack, the other one holding a bar for balance with his eyes concentrating on the passing platforms.  He wears jeans and the kind of blue pullover sweater to which I am highly susceptible, and I think in my mind, I love you Chile for sending me cuties, and I plan the makeshift convo in my mind, and I'm positively joyous until the metro lurches to a stop.  The stop causes the boy to lurch forward and my heart drops and I send a curse to Chile because there IT is.

The Mullet.  My enemy.  The instant turn-off.  The reason why sometimes I dream about carrying around scissors and snipping away every single one until all Chileans are Mullet-less. And rattail-less.  And dreaded mullet/rattail-less. 

The thing is that you never know where the mullet will turn up.  In the U.S. you can pretty much be assured that a mullet will be accompanied by some combo of gel, a grungy t-shirt, a bandana, a small town where they don't know any better, an 80's fetish, leather/metal necklaces, a leather jacket or acid washed jeans.  Here, they can attach to anyone's head.  A preppy guy with a striped sweater and khakis?  Watch out for the mullet.  A hippie with a brightly colored pants, a cozy, loud poncho and a beard?  Watch out for the mullet.  

Stupid mullets.

Apparently they are called chocos or chocopandas here.  Apparently ice cream truck vendors used to have them and then everyone thought it would be cool to look like ice cream truck vendors.  And apparently Chilean girls like them? My friend who has a small one tells me that his girlfriend likes to twirl the long part of his hair around her fingers...

...

loss for words.

To the North

So firstly, Happy 200th Birthday Chile!  Though this weekend wasn't really when you declared your Independence but rather when a group of your aristocrats first thought about being independent, you are quite a fun country anyways and thus deserve a cake.  Especially since you allow your countrymen to party for a long weekend.

The National Dress for boys and girls

(the boy is dressed like a Huaso, the girl's dress is Huasa China style)

While I had seen a month and a half's worth of preparation in Santiago for the Bicentennial, I did not get to enjoy the fruits of labor.  On Thursday afternoon, Lauren, Danielle S, Mark, Alice and I set off for La Serena, a coastal town to the north of Chile.  I enjoyed the majority of the bus ride to Serena because the scenery was beautiful.  For a great deal of the ride, the mountains set a backdrop of springy green.  As we passed the trees blooming pink, the clusters of cacti and the hills of exposed rock, the different aspects in front of the mountains accesorized the terrain morphing it from sweet and joyful to serious and pensive.  It amused me to see such personality in the land.

In our entire stay, we did not see much of La Serena.  The next morning, on our first day, we took a colectivo to Vicuña to the east of La Serena.  Vicuña is centered in the valley, a beautiful ever green, ever clear, ever temperate place that is irrigated from glacier water.  All along the road there were fields of grape plants and advertisements for papayas.  The town itself is tiny and quiet.  The plaza is little and sweet and every time we saw it, little children would be zipping around in kid-sized automatic cars.  That first day, we toured the CAPEL pisco distillery. 

The second day, we walked to the beach of La Serena and rode horses along the shore.  As I was rocking back and forth on my horse by the water, it occurred to me that most people would be tranquil.  However, due to my inexperience with horses, I regarded the activity with nervous interest.  Throughout the ride, I kept singing snippets of songs to calm myself (and in my mind, the horse) down.  Danielle, who rides horses more frequently than me, kept assuring me that the horse was beaten down and tranquil.  However, when I was on top of a horse and having trouble nudging it in the direction I wanted (my convo with the horse was the follows, "okay horsey, let's follow the others and go up the hill" *I move the rein, the horse's head moves, I let go and the horse continues in the original direction, "okay horsey, I know it's hard to walk up a slope, we can stay here if you want, horse, sir") , it's hard to reassure yourself that the horse is not out to get you.  But I made it through the ride without any damage.  Then, we were going to go to Pisco Elqui to ride more horses, but we ended up taking a horrible bus ride to Vicuña instead.  I was forced to endure The Descent 2, a terrible horror movie.  I hate horror movies.


But thankfully, the trip turned out well.  We went to the Mirador de La Virgen which is a wonderful viewpoint from a hill.  

At night we got to go to the Mamalluca observatory and I got to see planets and stars.  I also got to have this lovely close up of the moon.

The last day, we went walking around La Serena.  We girls hit an open fruit/vegetable market and a really cool park/military base while Mark went to church in the Plaza de Armas.  

Then, we all set off to Coquimbo where we ate a delicious seafood lunch and then went for a very chilly ride on a Catamaran boat to see sea lions.  Coquimbo was a really placid place with a lot of sea life and sea food.  There were about 25 pelicans that flew around the dock.  I was really interested in the pelicans because I usually do not encounter them.  Unfortunately, they also scare me with their size and their flying.  

Once on the boat, we got to see a couple of islands full of sea lions.  The first thing you notice though, is not the cuteness of the sea lions but rather the stench.  I learned some life knowledge that day: Sea lions bark, bite each other and are really quite smelly.

Overall, the La Serena trip was really quiet and perfect for helping me through the next two weeks of school. 

When I really talk about Chile...

This morning, I completed errands with my host mother Olga.  On our errand route was a stop to our local grocery store, Santa Isabel.  In order to reach the store from our apartment, we have to cross the Alameda, a gigantic road which is one of the arteries of the city of Santiago.  It is also called Avenida Liberador O'Higgins and is comparable to Broad Street in Philadelphia. To have an idea of how big the street is, the most popular line of the metro (Linea 1) runs along the Alameda for one half of the city and runs along Avenida Providencia for the other half.

In the middle of the Alameda, there are a number of tiny plazas where people can sit on benches or skateboard or roller blade.  As Olga and I crossed the Alameda today, we walked to loud music pumping throughout the street.  The sound came from a newly set up stage in one of the plazas.  Along the back of the stage, a banner read "Dia de los despidos".  Apparently, today and tomorrow, a "paro" will be organized as a form of solidarity for the people who have been fired from the public sector of the government.  A couple people this morning were already walking with gigantic pickets and t-shirts that read "Piñiera lies".

I don't know much about Chilean politics; it is a subject I am continually learning about.  However, according what I've read and heard, President Piñiera thought that many public programs wasted more government resources than they used for the public good.  So, Piñiera believed that some programs established by the previous administrations were redundant and not beneficial to Chilean society.  Thus to save costs and increase efficiency, he has cut/is cutting some departments in the government.  Unfortunately, due to all the firing, there is a public backlash by the people who are no longer employed and by those who supported the cut programs.  This "paro" is not the only demonstration against the firings.  There was a huelga/march last week.

After passing the setup for the "paro", Olga and I passed by several heavily reinforced police/military cars and some policemen.  The Chilean police are called "carabineros".  They are the military, the police, the park rangers, and the secret/special police all rolled into one.  They may have distinctions in task and uniform, but to me, they are all carabineros.  Since I live in Santiago Centro and about 5 blocks away from La Moneda which is the Chilean version of the White house, I see carabineros all the time. They are helping direct traffic.  They are guarding La Moneda.  They are the rangers on Cerro San Cristobal.  They are giving me instructions...

It seems like for every march or strike in Chile, a bunch of carabineros will be ready to break up the situation.  I know the same is true for the U.S. because even at American parades, there are police cars.  But at this paro and at a student strike at La Chile I came across a few weeks ago, the carabineros don't employ normal police cars.  They use huge military cars with tiny windows that are able to fit lots of prisoners and that look incredibly scary.  It also reminds me that the carabineros during Pinochet were involved in torture and human rights violations. 

I never know whether I should feel super safe with all of them around or super intimidated with all these armed people.  Since the police don't seem to be separated into the military, local police, state police, FBI, CIA etc. like the police in the USA, I don't know which one of these guys would rescue my kitten for me and which one would throw tear gas at me. 

When I told my host mom that those cars ("Cucas" is the slang) are intimidating, she told me that they are have to be reinforced in case the strikers throw fire or stones at the cars.  Consequently, I asked her if she felt intimidated by the vehicles.  She just shrugged and replied that Chileans are used to it and that Cucas are normal for marches.  However Olga lived through Pinochet, and her husband is a retired carabinero so she may be special.

This is the 5th political event I've encountered in my stay in Santiago.  The 1st was a student strike at La Chile, the 2nd was a march for public education, the 3rd was a demonstration supporting the Mapuche hunger strike*(!! Really important! Research this; read about this!!!) and the 4th was a strike for the freshly fired government workers.  Overall, I feel like Chileans are quite active about how they feel towards a situation and usually express their feelings in strikes and marches.  People tend to exhibit a greater solidarity with each other here.  For example, when the miners in Copiapo were trapped underground, everyone in Chile talked about them and sympathized with them.  And after the 17th day when the miners were reached and found to be alive, the rush of relief and joy was palpable.

On the other hand, for however much solidarity exists among people of the same group, there are also very distinct differences between groups.  I feel like a different kind of political tension exists.

Though I am ordered by my CIEE program, for my own good, not to participate in politics here, I still feel the issues staining the periphery of my experience abroad.  As isolated as I am--I don't have a TV, I haven't picked up a newspaper in weeks, I don't discuss governmental action--the current issues and politics still seep in.  While the knowledge maybe disturbing at times, I am thankful for the bit of seepage I receive because part of exploring a nation is knowing how the people want to live now and for the future and without politics, I would never understand.

*I am shocked at the scarcity of information and news regarding the Mapuche hunger strike.  I didn't find a single thing on CNN español.  The media blackout on this issue is appalling.

Shlumping

In brief moments when I am feeling philosophical or just feeling strange, I compare myself to a Labrador retriever.  I, like the Labrador, can be friendly, but am more friendly when I am bribed with food.  Also, like the Labrador, I can be spurred to athleticism with a bit of motivation.  But also, like the Labrador, I am prone to indolence and gluttony.  And this week, I feel like a lazy Labrador.

(this adorable creature belongs to the my friends, the Jovinelly's)

Part of the reason, this week was so meh was because I actually had an exam and work due.  I've fallen into the belief that abroad= no work.  That is a lie.


In fact, this coming Tuesday I have another exam, this time in Quechua.

What is Quechua?  Quechua is a pre-Incan language originating in Marcavalle near Cuzco, Peru.  It dates back to 1000 bc and currently has 17 million speakers throughout South America.


I thought it would be cool to learn an original language of South America.  However, as I'm switching between Spanish and Quechua in class, I think of how stupid it is to try to learn a new language in a language you haven't quite mastered yet.  I get these wtf is going on moments in class, for example when all the Chileans are singing along to "Ojos Azules" and the only ones not singing are the foreign students.  Or the foreign students mouth the lyrics as to not appear to be completely clueless.  But the truth is that we are.