27 kilos of bread and 40 pomegranates later...

We have left Ezuz.

Although it was an absolutely beautiful place, it was time to move on. My intestinal track needed some more vegetables in my life, and my legs haven't looked as bruised (from moving all the rocks for the stone terrace with a dolly) since I played rugby my freshman year of college. Although physically rewarding, the work was pretty difficult and required more work (~7-8 hours) than the typical Wwoofing amount (~4-6 hours).

So, off we go to a new place. We've been stationed in the parental kibbutz for a few days, but today we head off so as to start working tomorrow in Tzippori (the blue dot on the map).


View wwoof wwoof in a larger map

Tzippori is a hilarious counterpoint to Ezuz, in that is relatively lush, green, bourgeois, and we will be doing very different work. The family-owned organic olive orchards (see link here, in Hebrew only, but if you poke around you can find photos: http://rishlakish.com/ ) have a big grindstone press and do their own expelling and production of olive oil. Additionally, they have a small vegetable garden and a cafe they run on the weekends. They used straw bale mud building to refashion an old industrial chicken coop into the beautiful building that now houses the expeller and the cafe, and they sometimes have demonstrations or field trips for kids.

Work should be interesting and fun; I am interested in learning more about the production of olives and related products, and what this family thinks about what it means to be an Israeli (rather than Palestinian) producer. I am curious about how they actually bought the fields and property. The matriarch of the family is a Welsh woman-Israeli by marriage, and the couple has lived and farmed in many places including Venezuela.

Our last family (and the other volunteer that worked with us in Ezuz for a week) had very, how we say, "interesting" opinions about Arab and Palestinian work, Russians, Thai migrant workers, and the role of women in society. I'm encountering more and more stereotypes as I continue to be here, many of which make me pretty uncomfortable in their assumptions. I guess that means all the more fodder for thought and analysis.

There is a huge population of Thai migrant workers that form the core of the agricultural workers, positions that from my undrestanding were often filled by Palestinians prior to the 1st Intifada. It is accepted as given that the migrant workers are here, and yet there are no possibilities for citizenship given the stated aims of the Israeli state to propagate and settle a sort of ethno-racially/religiously homogeneous state. Likewise, the huge populations of migrant care-takers, often Filipina or Nepali, have a perpetual state of accepted-presence, rejected-settlement.

I'm super curious about the patterns and attitudes of migration here, both on a policy and a social level, especially for non-Jewish/non-Aliyah and non-Arab populations. It's pretty easy to assume what sort of treatment both of those populations generally receive, but the additional intricacies of the not-wanted and not-not-wanted peoples are such a grey area. My guess is that there must be a guestworker visa policy, but I haven't had a chance to research that or its terminology. At any rate, if anyone has any good resources or reading with regards to that, send it my way!

So, off we go to Tzippori to see what else we have in store.

However, as a final parting note, for your viewing pleasure here is a little video that Noam and I made of riding in the aforementioned "jalopy" (see last photo in the previous post) down to the terraces where we worked in Ezuz. Enjoy:

A non-sensical photo essay.

(Water tower at Noam's kibbutz,

one of our daily sights for my week there.)

(Spiky trees. My first encounter with the

dangerous ecology of Israel. Other encounter

have included: giant spider, lizards, mysterious

biting fish, houseflies that look harmless but

itch like crazy, a highly militarized state, centipedes,

scary-looking cockroaches, Noam's scorpion sighting, and

probably other things.)

(Noam in front of his old playground and
kindergarten.)


(Noam's sister's beautiful house in the North.)


(The first carob tree I ever met, and the first
fresh carob I ever ate, also at Tal's kibbutz)

(Walking around in Tal's kibbutz.)


(The 3 year-old twin nephews. Unbelievably
cute and precocious.)

(My first encounter with the Mediterranean

and a dog who decided to befriend me.)

(Cyclists taking over the road on Yom Kippur!

That road is a highway. See below...)

(On the highway!!)

(My second meal out. The spread is everything

left over from AFTER we ate. I was made to order

meat...unsuspecting that I would end up with

half a lamb on my plate..)

(Driving down to the Kinneret, only fresh water

lake in Israel, and right smack next to (in?) the occupied

Golan.)

(The delicious, gorgeous Kinneret toward sunset.)

(Ruins of a Syrian village in the Golan...very

recent "ruins"..)

(Hiking in the Golan, past aforementioned ruins

and the multitude of fenced areas that have

landmines left over from the war when Israel

annexed the Golan.)

(The icy cold waterfall we hiked to

and swam in.)

(Moon rising in the Golan.)

(Our terraces in Ezuz where we work! These are the

kinds of terraces we are working to make. Incredibly

hard work, but rewarding also: building stone walls in the

desert (only rains 2-6 times a year)

in a flood valley to irrigate the newly planted orchards,

based on ancient Nebatean methods of irrigation.

(Our goat and donkey and chicken family!)

(Our restored train cabin home,

and some of the daily fresh bread

we eat...every day.)

(A view from my favorite place to sit outside

our cabin, under the palm frond porch and on

the giant swing bench.)

(Homemade goat cheese from the family's goats,

and fresh promegrantes picked from their tree.

Best snacks.)

(A view looking down toward the flood valley.

The valley is about a 12 minute walk from our cabin.

We usually ride on a bulldozer there.)

(Our favorite goat, Hamudah, which means cutie.

She has the biggest underbite you'll ever see...)

(My impression of Hamudah..)

(Noam's impression of Hamudah...whose is better?)

(Happily milking Sita.)

(The family's cabin and all of their preserves.)

(Blues, the family dog, is father to a

litter of 8 adorable puppies next door.)

(Tal and her family visiting us and camels

that live about one 1km down the road from us

in the Han, an outdoor tourist camp attraction site.)

(Jalopy, definition of.

Also file under...believe it or not: this car actually

works.

And can be seen flying down a super rock path

to the flood valley. With several kids riding the top

like a rollercoaster. Except, you don't normally see

the rusty steel frame of a rollercoaster moving as you

hold on to the "door handle" to avoid falling out the "door".

I can now say I have ridden in a jalopy.)

Ezuz.

We are here in our 15-family village, and it's pretty remote but beautiful - about an hour drive from the nearest city (1.5+ hours on bus). Our family's residences are comprised of about 7 (?) different train cabooses that have been derailed and transformed into living and working spaces scattered throughout a plot of land. Also on that plot of land are lots of fruit trees (peach, pomegranate, olive, fig), porches, a covering over most of the area that offers shade made out of nets and thatched with palm fronds, a small stall area for the chickens, goats and donkeys, a trellis for grape and other vines, a toolshed, a small garden with mostly tomatoes, compost, a small herb garden, a tire swing, lots of kid-sized bikes, a wagon, a bulldozer (that we ride down to the terraced orchards), two cars, a playhouse, and an area for hay. Woof.

About a 12 minute walk away down the hill and into the desert is the dry riverbed where Avi (farm patriarch) is building his massive terraced orchards according to the methods used by ancient Nabatians (spelling?), which basically consists of orchards (beautiful beautiful orchards) on large expanses of land in the riverbed with elaborate stone walls filled with mud and straw mixture and covered in concrete. The idea is that the stone walls (there are about 3 fields right now, we're working on building the fourth) help hold the water when there is flood water from the 2-6 rainfalls a year, so that the water can actually seep into the soil and hydrate it rather than just keep rushing down the riverbed. It's all trial and error but it looks pretty impressive. Again, pictures will be coming when there is adequate time! Our work is to help care for the animals (not very hard...feeding and milking (goats only) twice a day), but principally to help build the orchards with Avi during the day. We've only done a day or two of work with him so far, but it's pretty strenuous.

The family is two boys and two girls ranging in age from 6 to 13, mother (Tamar), father (Avi), 4 goats and a billy goat (more on them later), about 7 chickens and 2 roosters, 2 small donkeys, 2 cats, and a dog. Most of the family (human members, donkeys, and Blues - the dog) are all on a trek in the desert right now, leaving Noam and I in charge of the animals, a few side projects, and keeping everything under control while they're gone.

Again, so many challenges! In so many ways. But yet again, it's so beautiful - and I appreciate how much time I have to think and learn. Pictures will be much more illustrative than words for a lot of this, I think. But to sum up the past 5 days....milking goats is pretty great.

Arrived.

I safely arrived a week ago, and I can definitively now say that I have experienced jetlag, although I have since recovered. The time difference is 7 hours from East Coast time, however, we just had a very early daylight savings time so it is now only 6 hours difference until November.

This past week has been chock full of a whirlwind of meeting family and travel et al. I've done much sleeping, asking lots of questions, experiencing culture shock, and feeling confused. I've never really had to deal with being in a place where I don't know the language (all my previous travel having taken place in Latin America where most people speak Spanish and the United States where everyone speaks English), so this has been a fascinating (yet frustrating at times) experience for me. There is a lot of inner turmoil (in my head) about what it means to be here, and what Israel is, but I also am cognizant of allowing myself to experience whatever comes my way. It has been incredibly challenging but also incredibly incredibly beautiful thus far.

A brief rundown of the past few days:

last Thursday = lots of sweating, meeting a neat Spanish Red Cross worker on the plane, arrival in the evening, feeling tired, settling in to the room that Noam's family got for us across the kibbutz, delicious delicious hummus and pita.

Friday = meeting the grandparents, seeing some parts of the kibbutz, going to Caesaria (ruins) by the sea, getting treated to a delicious seafood meal.

Saturday = walking around, realizing I can see the West Bank from the kibbutz and talking about it, driving north with Noam's parents to his sister's house and meeting her family (husband, twin 3-year old sons and 5-year old daughter), eating fresh carob from a beautiful carob tree, talking about life and values, struggling with language with the Hebrew-only kids, and feeling shocked for a lack of a better word.

Sunday = Lots more talking, sleeping, first experience with the Mediterranean Sea and then a rushed drive back to get home before dark (and rock-throwing zealous Jews) because it was the start of Yom Kippur.

Monday = Yom Kippur, so everything (and I mean everything) was closed down. Went for a bike ride down the middle of the highway toward the beach and walked around near a cotton field then felt excited about watching television only to remember that pretty much all tv and radio stations were not running.

Tuesday = Driving north to the Kinneret (only fresh water lake in Israel, also on the border with the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, also where Jesus walked on water etc), being treated to a ridiculous lunch at a tasty Arab restaurant along the way, seeing the out of place tropical agriculture (bananas...mangos...things that require tons of water that is a scarce commodity in the area), and setting up camp along the banks across from Tiberias.

Wednesday = My first experience with seeing the diversity of Israeli hitchikers, driving into the Golan, seeing remnants of Syrian villages right next to an Israeli base, seeing lots of areas still closed off because of landmines, going on a hike to two beautiful waterfalls, getting a little sick from so much sun, laughing at my first Bithright group sighting, coming back to the kibbutz and lots of conversations about the IDF.

I'll try my best to update later with more details and a few photographs (I've taken a gazillion thus far), but we're in a bit of a rush to catch the train south so we can then catch a ride (or the bus) with our farmer to Ezuz (the red letter A on that map). Ezuz is really tiny agricultural village near the border with Egypt where we'll be working with goats and terraced orchards at least for the next week, hopefully for much longer depending on how it goes.


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New prepping

I think I have officially moved into the next, comfortably dorky phase of my life where all future decisions are predicated by the creation of a new list and/or spreadsheet.

In other words, I have entered packing mode! My flight to Tel Aviv-Yafo leaves in 11 days, and I am mildly frantically trying to pack in all that I can into the next 9 days before I leave Providence. Of course, there are about some 600 odd papers, lists, spreadsheets and other things floating around the internet and my various homes.

But, for those (is there anyone really?) following these things, I will depart from this here coast on Sept 23rd for Israel. The plan is to be there until December 20th, when we head to Spain. We return to Israel on March 21st, and back to Boston on April 24th. And from there on out, as the Guatemalans say, saaaaaaaber.

I will periodically update this blog again as I live, love, and learn. Comments, thoughts, and virtual hugs are always appreciated!

Last 24 hours in Chile.

Oh snap!

I went and bought wine this morning to carry home with me, then I laughed at myself because I don't know how I am going to fit three bottles of wine and a bottle of pisco in my tiny backpack, when I barely had room for all my stuff when I arrived. We'll see how that goes.

Anyways, so, Chile, al final I am going to miss you muchísimo, and yes, I am glad that I came. I know this is the way it always goes (and hence why I decided to stay in Guatemala for longer), but now that I am leaving I'm sad because I have finally found my rhythm socially. I met some neat artsy kids that are fun to hang out with, I'm not scared of riding my bike anymore, I have Chilean friends that live close by, I've grown quite fond of Chilean cultural idiosyncracies, and I find myself incorporating the ridiculous but loved Chilean slang in all parts of my speech as if it were nothing. So now I'm leaving.

Well, on to Buenos Aires tomorrow, that is, and then Mexico City.

Unwittingly benefiting from...

$3000 pesos = approx $6-$7 (depending on exchange rate)

$3000 pesos (today) =
6 eggs
6 clementines
3 potatoes
3 plums
2 artichokes
2 oranges
2 onions
2 hot peppers
1 small pkg of mushrooms
1 smallish bag of spinach
1 apple

$3000 pesos = The awkward guy at the little produce shop thinks I am attractive so my produce purchases all of a sudden become insanely cheap. Economically, it's nice. Ethically, I feel a little sleazy, even though I am not the one ringing it all up.

30 to go.

So, a month from now I will have left Chile, although I will still be a long ways and time away from home. ETA to Boston: July 17th at night.

The only strong feeling I have at this point is a lot of remorse, but I am going to try and change that. I really wanted to get involved in Santiago, and instead I have been somewhat of an awkward hermit. But, more on that later!

In the meantime, I am just trying to get through the next two weeks, which is to say, two weeks from now I will be happily drinking an artesanal beer and appreciating how great it is to have finished finals. And at the very least get through to June 20th, when my internship fiasco will finally end.

Random observation: although Quínoa is from the Andes/this region of the world, it is much cheaper in the states than here. Odd, right? Also, it's really hard to find non-organic quínoa, which is kind of cool, pretty expensive, but still odd.

Dear Santiaguinos

Dear Santiaguinos,

Your baffling walking patterns and skillfull obstruction of walkways continues to pester me, but, never fear, you have found new ways to challenge and dumbfound me: umbrellas. I have almost lost an eye or both approximately seven times in the past month. I understand that everyone has a distinctive walking pace and pattern, but at times my attempts to navigate the sidewalks here merit outright laughter.

Hey guys, I heard walking five people deep on a narrow sidewalk at the pace of a two-year old about to fall over, is a great idea! Or, dodging back and forth across the sidewalk when approaching from the opposite direction as someone. But, the lovely umbrellas: a lethal combination of dangerous eye-level sharp spokes + the already non-existent space to pass a slow walker diminished in size by the tripled diameter of the other pedestrian (umbrella width).

But, there is a bright side: When it rains it means the next morning will be clear and slightly breathable. Because, normally the air is full of smog and absolutely disgusting like this:






I have been having severe mental lapses, and I hope that I can attribute it to...smog? Not the lack of sleep, not the pisco and ron consumption, not the me-not-being-cut-out-for-bilingual-thought because my brain can't process it all (i.e. I sound like an idiot no matter in which language I am speaking). I have now officially had my first days where I have walked outside and felt sick/some sort of burning feeling from the air. Delicious!

But, I do love this country. Really do. And to continue that thought: Santiaguinos, for all of the crap I may give you, please keep walking. My lungs might collapse if you drive instead.

Love,
Lindsey

(ps, photos yanked from this person's blog. They are from 2006, but don't worry, it's still the same now: http://snailtrails.blogspot.com/2006/07/look-what-were-breathing.html)

The weather: Floods, Volcanoes, Rain, Temperature etc

First of all, in case you haven't heard, Chile is in the southern hemisphere, which means while all of my loved ones are basking in the glory of spring and sun, I am experiencing the smog-um (autumn) here in Santiago, which is a fun mix of smog, rain, more smog, ickyness, and 40-50 degree temperatures without indoor heating. Those tempeartures are colder than you think and unfortunately are not tempered by beautiful, bright 65 - 70 degree daytimes like it was in Guatemala.

So I sit here in my concrete building staring out our slider windows at the dreary grayness that is fall and winter. The upside is that all this rain is slowly taking care of the severe drought problems that were plaguing the area throughout this summer and fall. The downside is that all the rain kind of brings down my outside world-relation motivation. Oh, that and it floods a lot because the city's infrastructure to deal with rain, for lack of a better word, blows. The other day I went to class after a solid day and a half of intermittent light rains, only to find an area formally known as "street corner" had been converted into a veritable seaway with its very own new shoreline and specific tide schedule linked not to the moon but rather the passing traffic in the middle of the road trying to avoid said water body.

Even worse, the really big rain storms found karate-kicking the central parts of Chile recently happened to coincide with the surprise re-activation of the once very-unactive (think to the tune of some-odd 2000 years of inactivity) volcano, Chaitén, in a region about 750 miles south of Santiago. The surrounding areas were forcefully evacuated as frequent earthquakes, toxic gases erupted from the volcano, and tons upon tons of spewed ash that clogged every single waterway made the situation impossibly dangerous for virtually anything living aside from cockroaches. The government is still trying to figure out exactly what to do about the upheaval of an entire town population and some surrounding areas, post-complete destruction.

And that's my weather update for Chile. Sweet. (Sort of not really at all).

Happy International Worker's Day

Who knew that in other countries, people ACTUALLY respect and honor those labor causes?!

Everything was actually closed today. People for real got the day off and rested.

Also, it was perhaps one of the most beautiful days in weather history I have ever experienced.

Da' club.

Up to this current juncture, I had only ever considered the following elements as interrelated within a family wedding context:

-Lindsey
-dancing
-middle-aged men
-80's and 90's music played not ironically
-getting hip-checked by 40+ year old women

Ha. Well, fear not, my experience at "Da' club" (not actually named as such) changed that all. One fateful Saturday night, four young women, including myself, unwittingly payed an over priced cover (even after trying to bargain it down) to get into a bar-discoteque located very close to my house. Turns out that club is the middle-aged dance scene hotspot. Uh, sweet? It was rather humorous, especially when one of the four of us got whisked away to dance which left the defense formation a little weak. So, on to middle-age slow dancing for all it was. It might have actually been "Stairway to Heaven", come to think of it. Anyways, fun: In that awkward 7th grade dance but with unattractive older men sort of way. Oh, and you know, in Spanish with blaring 80's hits in the background making all conversation virtually unintelligible.

So, that unto itself makes me laugh, but it also speaks to the general question mark that punctuates my daily life here: What the hell is everyone's obssession with 80's and mid 90's US-British music? (File that under things that were unsuspected prior to arrival in Chile) I wish I could say I were joking, but I'm not. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Morrissey or The Cure from time to time, but the complete barage of 80's music in nearly every club, bar, or house party, results in a rather bewildered, slightly-amused, but increasingly-less-amused Lindsey in Chile. But mostly bewildered.

Lisps: still idiotic in the naming.

So apparently the word for lisp in Spanish is ceceo and the verb is cecear.

Those words using English pronunciation are said "say-SAY-o" and "say-say-AR", which, much like the English equivalent, lisp, is quite difficult for someone to say with said speech defect. Oh, language, why don't you ever learn?

On the subject of pronunciation and language confusion, a subject on which I could expound at length referencing only my own personal mishaps, (and likely material for a forthcoming entry), my favorite little blunders of late on the part of my Chilean friends are the following two: One friend consistently confuses the words "nipple" and "nibble". You can imagine what a request for a nibble ends up coming out as...! And, several people end up saying "bitch" instead of "beach", which results in entertaining sentences that sound ridiculous out of context like "yeah man, it was a great bitch."

Those two pale in comparison to my numerous daily blunders, but nonetheless you've got to take the little giggly pleasures out of life and savor them, no?

Would you like a bag with your bag?

Just a quick note: much as in Guatemala, where everything was in a plastic bag...in Chile, everything is still in a plastic bag. And by that I mean (best items seem from both locations): yogurt, milk, mayonnaise, coca cola poured from a bottle, fresh orange juice, olives from a jar, fried empanadas hot enough to melt said plastic bag (and that do so), tomato paste, jello, purified water, ice cream, one pound bags of flour, coconut juice, and so on.

Anyways, aside from sometimes puzzling packaging choices, there is the - let me stick that in a bag for you connundrum: You're at the check out counter with the following: a loaf of bread, margarine, a bottle of wine, some slices of cheese, a can of tuna fish, and a couple avocados. Didn't you know that every item on that list, except the margarine and can of tuna fish together, deserves its own plastic bag? Or at the produce store: two onions, a red pepper, two apples, an eggplant, and some grapes. Also clearly another opportune moment to give every single item its own bag, right? It drives me crazy.

So, I bring my reusable beat up shopping bag around and try to minimize the amount of bags used. Reactions? Complete and utter confusion. And better yet, people bag the margarine, the loaf of bread, the cheese, etc separately, and then stick it into my reusable bag. Thanks guys, that really helped.

So, that brings me to this (a comic called made by this woman, Kelly Vivanco. It's called "Patches" and I love it):


http://hingos.com/patches/index.php?pt=080327



It pretty much sums up the past year and a half of my life.

Also in Chile: Perfect Paltas

(Knock on wood) Every single palta* that has set foot in my mouth has been perfect. I actually mean perfect when I say it - luscious green ambiguously firm and soft wonderfulness. I don't know what this country does to make their avocados perfect, but I am in love.

Unfortunately I have a propensity to get little green bits of heaven smeared/stained all over my clothing because I am a complete slob. But that's a small price to pay for eating a piece of heaven.

Things like wine, large quantities of red meat, empanadas**, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh grapes, lots of bread, avocados, mayonnaise, and pisco*** are pretty much the consumption standards here. Sort of yummy, sort of unhealthy. And that's where I'm at.





*Chilean Spanish lesson for the day: whereas everywhere else avocados are called aguacates, in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Perú they are paltas. This caused minor confusion upon my arrival to Chile.

**Empanadas are exactly what you think they are. Pastries filled with yumminess. The classic filling, pino, is apprently the standby Chilean filling for pretty much any consumible you can imagine. Aside from ground beef and salt, it's like.... Hey let's throw in a hardboiled egg, lots of onions, an olive or two, a few raisins, and some zesty ají pepper!

***Pisco is a distilled liquor (apparently in the brandy family, who knew?) made from grapes and produced in Perú and Chile. The "most" popular drink, aside from what is essentially a rum and coke but pisco-ized, is a pisco sour which is exactly what it sounds like. Pisco, lemon juice, egg white, some sort of syrup, and something called bitter are blended together to make the drink. It's kind of great but also kind of sickeningly lemon sweet.

Hark the herald bike lanes sing..

Glory to my newfound wings.

In other words, I finally have a bicycle (hooray!). Said bicycle is a very old very beat up carnation pink Oxford women's bicycle. It also has a bell which I am not ballsy enough to use at people. Anyways, to cut to the chase, I am a much happier camper now that I have this bike, because it enables me to get to the "faraway" campus where I have some of my classes.

To get to the campus one must take a bus, which, depending on the traffic, can be anywhere between 22 and 35 minutes, give or take. Walking to the bus stop takes another 10 minutes both getting to and from the bus for a stop, and waiting for the bus is also an adventure, because it means another 5-30 minute wait. It also costs money. In contrast, I get on my bicycle at my door, and I arrive to the building where I am going for class without fail in 25-35 minutes tops. And there are bike lanes for most of my ride (only about 12 blocks or so without). Yay. Also at this campus, Juan Gomez Millas, they have bike racks indoors for one of the departments, and at the entry to the campus there is a manned bike rack where they have a guard and you register your bike when you leave it there. Awesome.

Hooray for bicycles (but not hooray for malfunctioning bike locks).

Thank you, Municipalidad de Providencia.

In my confusingly shaped and colored apartment complex area, there is a goodly sized cement plaza area with a sort of raised up semi circle where the jovenes like to skate, the little kids like to run around chasing ambiguously domesticated stray dogs, and old folk like to sit and chill at night. The semi circle and plaza extension is also the site of a weekly Wednesday night concert series, put on by the municipal government of Providencia, the comuna where I live.

They set up a big stage with professional lights and audio and then they add some chairs out front, and voilá! Insta-culture! When I lived in the big apartment building a little ways away I could hear the music on Wednesday nights, and see a general area where sometimes there were flashing lights, but I didn't really know what it was. Several weeks ago all I could think was "Who the hell is blaring Sting so loudly at 9pm?" Well, lo and behold, it is the municipality trying to entertain its residents.

Today they had a band playing jazz but with an interesting twist. And by that I mean the Darth Vader star wars theme but with lots of spaced out improvisation squeezed in. Other sonic appearances were "Somewhere over the rainbow" and "My Favorite Things". But, to make a long story short, it was a great event. People come out of their big apartment buildings to sit and hang out, little kids run around chasing each other, couples sit holding hands, people bike or walk over from other nearby areas; in short, people are brought together, and I smile.

Moving (forward)...

Last night I moved apartments, finally. I moved from a 23 story building, where I lived on the 19th floor, to a 10 story building, where I live on the second floor. I used to live with two Chilean women, a French girl, and a Chilean man. I got along well with the French girl and the Chilean man, but the two women, who were the owners/people's whose names were on the least/furnished the apartment, and I didn't communicate well. They were also, in my opinion, slightly crazy.

All these odd things that I chocked up to cultural differences with them turned out to be, in the end, pretty much eccentricities of their character. We didn't mesh well and the whole feeling of the apartment was more like I was renting a space in a hostel where I was allowed access to a couch and table and kitchen etc. Everyone had to buy their own individual toilet paper and we were supposed to bring it in and out of the bathroom with us and store it in our rooms. They bought 3 cheap pots/pans particularly for the other 3 of us (French, Chilean, and I) to use and said we couldn't use any of the other pans. They wanted the bathroom to be cleaned every day or every other day (cleaned as in swept, mopped, tub scrubbed with and only with an awful acid that takes off veneers from things - Muriatic acid - and apparently is linked to pretty serious respiratory problems from its frequent use here as a cleaning agent, toilet scrubbed, sink bleached). I was not allowed to have anyone stay over night. Ever. Even if they were to stay in my room with me. The internet would get shut off whenever they went to bed at night. And some other stuff.

But anyways, my new roommates, however, two Chilean guys about the same age as me, are fantastic. I am so much happier than I was in my old apartment, even if I don't have the gorgeous view I had before. The layout is nicer (it's a duplex), the kitchen is way better, the two guys are wonderful, I live near trees and grass and flowers, and I don't have to take an elevator to get to my apartment. It is a world's worth of difference. So here's to change and moving forward.

On the unfortunate side note, I am about 80% sure that the Chilean girls stole my Ipod while I stepped out briefly to go to the ATM. Either that or I am a complete idiot and managed to lose the Ipod while packing all of my belongings last night. But I think it is the former rather than the latter, because none of my stuff was left behind in the old apartment, and it just wasn't with me when I got to the new one. Uff.

Hacia el Sur: i.e. Gringo Train on a Bus

This past weekend my program had it's big "fieldtrip", which is part of the required distribution of funds that the mothership organization, IES, mandates. After being left in the dark despite many inquiries, the day before leaving we learned we were actually going not ambigously "South" but rather to Puerto Montt, the island of Chiloe (second largest island in South America), Frutillar, Puerto Varas, and some other places. Joy of all joys. We got on an airplane went South and then consequently spent most of our 4 days on a bus. And when I say on a bus, I really mean it.

1 marco polo bus
+ 23 gringos of aged 19 to 22
+ 1 tour driver named Claudio
+ 2 middle aged women who direct the IES program
+ too many locations spread out
+ squeezed into 4 short days

= Get on bus, get off bus, take pictures of a vista or some inane tourist site whose cultural significance hasn't been explained to us, get on bus, get shuffled to a bad restaurant, get on bus. Repeat.

And then we stayed in the middle of nowhere, i.e. Frutillar (which basically means Strawberryville...or something akin to that). In Frutillar there was one bar, Frutibar, which closed for the season after our second night in town. Ha. On Saturday we got to play in a national park for a bit, which was a welcome change. But, unfortunately, we still got carted around on the bus. A lot.

In short, it was a gringo-bus bonding experience. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it was what it was. Photos of Chile forthcoming, probably on Facebook because Blogger is really slow with uploading photos.

"But don't you think Latinamerican men are more...tropical?"

...The guard in the Metro station asked me last night as I was waiting for a friend (who didn't show up). In fact, no, I do not think that. I think that the climate here is more "tropical" than where I am from, and that here people give kisses on the cheeks and hugs to greet friends and strangers alike, but no, I do not think that my fellow male North Americans are cold, unfriendly, or on the whole unattractive.

Perhaps I need to make myself a little sign to carry around that says something akin to Newsflash: I did not come to live in Latin America for "hot Latin nights".





[[Although the exchange ended in me getting hit on, we did manage to maintain an interesting conversation about the recession of the U.S. economy (Don't you think it's caused by everyone having to pay for the effects of Hurricane Katrina plus the war on Iraq?), love at first sight (The first time I was kissed by a girl I fell in love.), and the quality of Chilean education (You're lucky to have choices. Go to the private university).]]