Pictures

On a lighter note, I am starting a very preliminary photo album, for your viewing (procrastination) pleasure. See: photos.yahoo.com/rhodesia24. Let me know if it doesn't work.

Of a death foretold

The family has a really old abuelita (the mother of the tío) who has had Alzheimer’s for donkey’s years and is in a generally vegetative state, much like my own grandmother. Even though the abuelita “almost doesn’t exist,” the tíos are very religious about going to visit her every week, sometimes staying there until 5 in the morning.
Last night, onces was just me and the brothers and the newly arrived cousin, Jorge. When the brothers get antsy for onces and the tía isn’t home, a lot of the times they will prepare it themselves and we will eat alone. Last night was one of those nights. We covered the usual topics of what he had done all day (namely, attend overly boring classes) and what we were doing class (namely, nothing) and it was totally normal. There was also excessive mention of the abuela and her state of health, and I was really tempted to ask if she was in a bad way, but I a) didn’t want to seem to be meddling, b) seem overly stupid by asking an apparently redundant question, and c) completely botch the question. Then, at some point, the conversation turned away from topics I could relate too—as in talking about people I don’t know. Because Jorge has an unfamiliar accent and, like most Chileans, mumbles and swallows half his words, I was having trouble understanding him and I wasn’t really following the conversation between him and the brothers. I was happily shoveling away my onces, meanwhile the phone was ringing off the hook for the tía and one or the other brothers kept getting up to answer the phone. What little I was understanding of the conversation consisted of a discussion on how long a doctor would hold on to the body of a dead person. One of the brothers said it was 4-5 days, but Jorge was maintaining that it was 2-3 days if the person died of natural causes. It felt like something was up, but I couldn’t really figure out what was going on.
Then, someone madly rings and bangs at the front door and a brother bolts up, proclaiming that it is the tía, while the phone rings again. The tía rushes in, dumps a bag of bread on the counter, has a rushed conversation with the boys, in which I understand the following: abuelita, died, Jorge, have you told your parents, Carlos, let’s go, Hernan (the tío), Los Lagos (where he works), call the family, sister, aunt. She then tears Carlos away from his onces, leaving a half eaten bread and butter sandwich and a full mug of coffee and they run out of the house, followed shortly by Hugo, meanwhile Jorge rushes upstairs, grabs his cell phone, rushes out into the backyard, leaving me sitting alone at the table calmly downing bread and manjar. I had a pretty good idea that something was amiss, but I had no idea what was going on and I didn’t want to ask (who was I going to ask, the tea kettle?). I just blissfully drank my tea, which tastes more or less like lake water with milk and sugar, wondering if I should be alarmed. After a few minutes, Hugo and Jorge straggle back and, and as calmly and unemotionally as ever discuss how long it will take the tío to get home from Los Lagos if he gets the 7.45 bus. By this time I DEFINITELY had the intimation that some family crisis or other was brewing, but the boys were totally stoic and happily downing cups of Nescafe, black with 2 heaped teaspoons of sugar. I was just kind of minding my own business, absolutely feeling like the ignorant gringa who is totally unaware that anything is going on, twiddling my thumbs while the word is about to end.
Onces ended, once we had eaten and drunk enough, discussed the weather for the 10th time that night and I had twisted my napkin to bits. Now, normally, in times of death, you might expect some sort of remorse or sadness, or in the case of some other family emergency, you might expect there to be family members madly scrambling about, making phone calls and acting like all hell was breaking loose. Well, such was not the case, Jorge went back to listening to his music and copying someone’s work from the 2 weeks of class he missed, Hugo cranked up the Chrsitian rock on the 1st floor and went back to watching TV. Now, maybe they figured that the tía and Carlos had everything perfectly under control and that their scurrying around would just make things worse, but they certainly didn’t seem too alarmed.
I figured I had just majorly misinterpreted what I saw/heard and went to bed, after watching a solid of 3 hours of TV with Jorge, chatting away about normal, banal topics. The next morning, the tía was up at 7, stoking the stove for a hot shower, which I KNEW wasn’t for me and vacuuming the kitchen and tidying up; I ran into the tío downstairs (apparently he made it home in OK time). Still pretty confused and totally unaware, I settled down for a bowl of yoghurt before my intolerably early class and the tía came in and told me that the abuela had died last night. I just sat there. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have the vocabulary to say “I’m sorry,” or “you have my condolences.” When I was in middle school and Spanish books were broken into sections like “in the classroom,” or “in the train station, “ or on vacation,” where was the section on “at the funeral, “ or the one entitled “death of the matriarch”? I literally didn’t say anything, I just didn’t have the words, I just hope that I made some sufficiently sympathetic noise which bridged the language barrier. My tía told me that there wouldn’t be any lunch because there wouldn’t be time to cook and that they had to get ready because “people” would start arriving at 9.
“People.” I was picturing choirs of wailing family members and morose disheveled men dressed in old suits, dug out of ancient country cupboards. This, in addition to the idea of no lunch—the only half-way decent meal in this country—was not an attractive afternoon activity. I conned my way into eating lunch with Jay and his family, terrified to go home for fear that I would just be a nuisance, the blissfully unaware gringa who just gets in the way, petrified that I just wouldn’t know what to do (Ok, not petrified I wouldn’t know, I DIDN’T know) or act or react. I finally managed to get the courage to go home and see what kind of carnage a natural death in the family left at San Martín 597.
I’m home, there’s no one here. But I still don’t know: what do I do?

Butt pinchers, escaped prisoners and silver linings

So I signed up for a class to learn ‘cueca,’ the Chilean national dance. The woman told me it was on Friday night at 8 and I was really psyched to go and meet some Chileans and stumble over my words trying to make myself understood. On the way to the U, the micro gets passed by a couple of slow moving but nonetheless siren blaring fire trucks and I don’t think about it too much. I show up at the DAE, the building where the class is supposed to be held and all doors are locked and not a light to be seen. Obviously, I didn’t get the memo. I wander around a little, thinking that since it is 8 already, I might be early. I wander back over to the DAE and run into a pair of women who inform me that there was a class at 6.30 but that they suspended the 7.30 class (Maddy has a confused look on her face at this point). Typical Chileans. I thank them, turn to leave when they tell me that some prisoners escaped from the local jail and that I must get myself into a micro quick and then pressure me into sharing a cab with them. Being the miserly college student that I am, I decline, not wanting to spend potentially 5 times as much as I would on a micro ride. Not really believing the women and thinking that they must be silly old bats, despite the fact that I can hear a number of sirens going off, I brush off the idea of escapees and wait by the micro stop. After a solid 25 minute wait without a single micro showing up and the number of students around me slowly declining I decide that now would be a good time to cross over the river into town to get a micro home before they stop running at 9. On my way out, sure enough, they have closed off the poplar-lined (laurel-lined, possibly?) avenue leading to the U and are turning micros away. Continuing on my way into town, I am passed by a few more emergency vehicles and eventually get home. I asked my “brother” if he knew anything about it, but he said he didn’t.
Later, Matt informs me that there was indeed a fire at the jail and that a number of prisoners escaped, making national headlines. Silly me, I guess that is what sirens are for, to alert people.

I get up early this morning, ready to head out to an “early” 8.30 crew “practice” (read, me sitting in a single on a dock, moving the oars through the water while the trainer holds on to the stern deck). Dressed in appropriately tight clothing, I waltz out of the yard, lock up the gate and distractedly put my keys away in my bag and immediately hear the sound of a bike really close behind me, it sounds too near for safey, but I figure that the bike should move out of the way, I am not THAT inconspicuous in a bright yellow jacket and a red schoolbag. I soon feel a hand take a nice firm hold of my bottom, and my first thought was “hey, now who could that be?” expecting to turn around to find a cheeky friend. Under normal circumstances (and by normal I mean in my regular role as Bowdoin College student), I might expect a few friends to grab my butt. Like Tavel or, um...or, ok maybe just Tavel. But, as my bike bound assailant moved into the distance and I did not recognize the greasy haired, dark skinned schoolboy, I realized that I don’t know anyone well enough here to expect butt pinches and the Middlebury boys certainly wouldn’t treat me so crassly. It seems that rather than the friendly love tap I was hoping for, I actually experienced some of the sexual harassment I was told to expect here. (I feel you Erin Dukeshire, believe me).
In my ongoing quests to remain clean and also not develop hypothermia, I have discovered some silver linings. You know when you wake up and you are all warm and after showering and getting dressed, you are still pretty warm because of that stuff we call “insulation” and “central heating,” and then you go outside and get assaulted by the cruelly cold air. Well, I have found that I don’t have that problem. When I get up, I have the benefit of knowing exactly how cold it is because there are only a few degrees difference between the temperature of my room and the temperature of the outside air. It is like having your very own weatherman in you room! Except not, because it is just you, sitting on your bed shivering, wishing you could crawl back into bed rather than go to class.
The other silver lining I found is that if you take a cold shower in a cold bathroom, when you get out of the shower, there is no temperature difference (Thanks, Maddy, for explaining the blatantly obvious). No, but seriously, when you get out of a warm shower, you inevitably feel cold because the air is colder and you might shiver a little and get goosebumps until you get to your nice warm room and get some clothes on. Last night, I discovered that when you take a cold shower and step into a cold room, you actually feel warm, and not only that, but you feel warm for a long time afterwards and can even prance around your cold bedroom stark naked because you can’t feel anything! (Sorry, no prancing actually took place, I just like the word prance.) Ok, maybe not a sterling silver lining, maybe not even German silver, but it made my cold shower experience a little sweeter.

Voting in Venezuela

What little international news we get here showed LONG lines of people waiting outside polls yesterday in Venezuela waiting to vote on the referendum to keep or kick president Chavez. Some people waited in line all day and long into the cold winter night to have a say in the election. Let's all take a page out of their book and be as enthusisatic about voting this November in the US presidential election. Ok, that's my two cents.

First week of classes

Ok, so, my first weblog, let’s see how this goes.

I am halfway through my first week of classes (yay). Now, in theory, you would think that would mean that I had already met some professors, had gotten a few syllabi and started buying all the appropriate school materials, and maybe thought about buying some books to get started on the reading. Well, yes, for those of us residing in the US, that is what it would mean: lining up outside the textbook annex to find all the books you want are sold out, running up large sums of money on our student charge accounts buying books you might read a few pages from, etc. But apparently here in Chile, that is not the case. Tonight, I hope to have my first and last class of the week. Don’t get me wrong, Chile has not eroded my studious diligence, I tried to go to class, but the university seems to be against me. One of my professors is at a conference and isn’t showing up for class until next week. Another class doesn’t start until the 23rd. Another class was basically a meeting to decide when to meet. And my fourth and last class, tonight, is optional on days when we go over theory, but mandatory when we have discussions. Apparently half the kids are still on vacation. I guess no one really takes class very seriously here, not even the professors.
I have to admit, I feel a little let down. I was excited to finally have class and have something to do with my time. As much as I like sleeping until 10 everyday, knitting for hours on end, snuggling under my blankets with bed bugs for warmth, watching bad Spanish television and wandering around in the cold, sunless Centro, it can get a little dull after a while. Now, if I had friends, all this free time would be a blessing and I would be ever grateful, but seeing as I have no friends and there really isn’t a whole lot to do in Valdivia when it is cold and dull out (or even when it is sunny out for that matter), I am confined to the aforementioned activities. I used to pray that my professors at Bowdoin would let me off easy the first day and not make us take notes and just discuss the syllabus, but now that it is happening here (to the max!), I am about ready to tear my hair out. My family thinks it is funny that I am annoyed that I don’t have class; their response: This is Chile! Oh, right, I forgot, the land of bureaucracy and nonchalance!

Oh, so I thought that I lived in the city of Valdivia, but no, I live in the "Illustrious Municipality of Valdivia." I'd like to see who can beat that.