My favorite poem by Pablo Neruda is called "Adioses" (Goodbyes). I read it on the floor of my room in my parents' basement last February...almost an incantation breathing life into Chile for me. It has played a very important role in my camino here, including giving the name of my blog, being read by a friend who felt like a missing puzzle piece to my soul on the roof of a hostel in Santiago, being the only thing left in my hand when my purse was stolen by an armed robber...keeping me sane through all the changes and the crushing sense of futility. I encourage you to read it here http://d0rkalici0u5.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/adioses-by-pablo-neruda/
I am trying to memorize it tonight, because today was my last day of classes at Escuela 5. Imagine the scene:
After trying very hard to sit through an hour and a half of awards, recognitions, monotonous speeches, and a completely superfluous ten-minute saxophone solo the students of Escuela 5 were slowly devolving into chaos. It was far too much to ask of them to remain quiet and seated for that long. I was trying to amuse myself by taking pictures and eating Altoids. It wasn't working.
Out of nowhere, they announced that they would be recognizing a special person who worked so hard with them all semester and loved the children very much. I suddenly wished I had been paying attention or at least looking like I was.
The announcer said something like, "the incomprable Tia Coleen!" and I walked up to the middle of the gym, silently fearing for just a second that the students will boo me. I was focusing on not tripping, and I didn't hear the cheer until it was so loud that I couldn't even hear the director telling me to take the certificate that he was handing me.
Standing ovation. Certificate of merit from the director. Even the parents standing and cheering. I felt like I was in a movie. I tried to look at all the students, but instead I just started crying.
I walked over to the integration teacher, Tía Christine, who I feel is one of the few who truly is called to teaching in that school. She hugged me. My students, all of them, mugged me, pushing and shoving to be able to hug me. I worried we would all fall down and crush each other like soccer fans storming the field.
With help from the inspector, we restored order and they said goodbye, one by one. A mixture of each level, so much that I could hardly remember who was who and which was which. So many kisses and hugs and "Tía, I will miss you," and "Tía, I love you."
"Tía don't leave...please don't leave..."
Everything, the whole semester, the whole struggle, the tears, the swearing, the wanting to give up, the money I and some members of my family gave for supplies (thank you so much, Aunt Barbara), all the drama of a small town...it all was worth it.
The reality that these kids face every day is so much harder than I ever did, and I broke under the weight of the emotions in the school and the constant struggle just to get through the day. I am an adult. The students taught me how to act like one. They are children, and they have to grow up struggling harder than I did for these four months for all their childhood and adolesence.
I cannot change the circumstances of their lives. I cannot give them all money for school and help them to work. I cannot force their parents know how important school is. I cannot throttle a mother who dared hit her child, my student, at the school today and then leave her alone to cry (even though I really, really wanted to). I cannot fight the systemic and cultural problems that are holding Chile back.
I didn't come here to teach English, when I step back and look at it. Let's get real...my students still can't answer "How are you?" after four months of daily repetition. I came to experience Chile and to try to be a positive influence in the lives of these kids. I traveled 6,000 miles to them to show that there is another way...that just because their parents never finished school doesn't mean they shouldn't, that they are valuable and capable and that someone cares about them. And will always care. Even after they threw spitballs and erasers at me every day for four months.
I can only hope that someday a couple of them will remember me and think of how much I put up with to be with them. That maybe, just maybe a few of them will mature and realize that I was demanding because I refused to accept anything but their best effort.
And that I loved them unconditionally. Maybe even especially the tough ones.
I wanted to leave my students with an example of how to say goodbye. One last chance to lead them by example. So I chose a song that expresses a lot of how I feel about leaving my students ("For Good" from Wicked) and hand-wrote the words in English and Spanish. I paid for photocopies for each one. And I made cards for every course. I played the song, we talked about what it meant, and then I read them the card.
I thought it would be easy, but I surprised myself. I choked up the most with the little ones...the first graders are too young to truly understand that I am leaving, but their eyes glowed with love and innocence (it sounds so cheesy, but it really happened). The second graders refused to let me leave the recess hall. The third graders, the class that made me want to keep teaching more than any other...they made me a huge envelope of letters and put their pocket money together to buy me a stuffed penguin and a Magallanes flag.
I didn't even teach the fourth graders, but they swarmed to the classroom and hugged me and cried. The fifth graders listened to me and asked when I was coming back. The sixth graders smiled and didn't cry. The seventh graders rolled their eyes at my admonishment to make good choices, but behaved better than I had ever seen. And the eighth graders begged me to come back for their graduation in December.
As I stepped through the door of the school, holding it open for some parents and students, everything felt normal. I walked out to the street and saw a few students playing soccer, with no coats despite the cold and smiled, thinking of myself at that age. I looked at the mountains, capped with snow and shining in the afternoon sun.
A breeze came up from nowhere, as the wind in Patagonia always does. I breathed it in deeply, and something echoed in my heart like a raindrop creating ripples on a puddle's surface. The weight lifted. The silence spoke to me.
You did it. You did what you came here to do. And you did it so well.
I didn't look back. Really, I couldn't...the more pressing needs to watch out for stray ankle-biting poodles, speeding POS cars on the avenue, and boot-swollowing mud puddles pressed me back to Chilean reality. The Goodbye Spell complete, I walked home.
Showing posts with label Patagonia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patagonia. Show all posts
07 July 2011
07 June 2011
When Plan D Fails, Lift the Truck With Your Bare Hands
It feels as though I have been on vacation since Wednesday of last week! My parents came to visit me in Chile and took the opportunity to spoil me and my friends a bunch. I realized how different life has been for us here than it can be at home, and we got to visit places I had never been on my volunteer's budget (Mesita Grande for pizza in Natales, DA Hotel in Arenas, even fancy bars and sushi!). It felt great to have a little break before the homestretch, and at the same time it made me appreciate both ways of traveling and living more.
Allow me to explain. In my normal life in Chile, everyone talks about how fruit is expensive. A kilo of apples normally costs less than 500 pesos (less than one US dollar...also the legal minimum wage here is 34.000 pesos a day) but the accuracy of the claim is not the important thing here. What is important is that people avoid expenses out of necessity and custom, naturally seek simplicity in life, and just generally have less than people in the US and other places I have lived.
Given that I am already living with only the things I can carry on my back, I fit right in. My hand-washing of clothes in the shower and a general tendency to choose economical and practical over fancy have gotten me used to a different standard of living since being here. And for that I am extremely grateful, especially because many experiences here would not be possible if I was too picky (read: prissy) about my hostels and food and recycled clothes with holes in them. I actually startled myself in the hotel room by walking past my reflection in the full mirror. I hadn't noticed, but in the nearly four months since arriving in South America I had not seen my full reflection since my hostels, school, and home here do not have large mirrors. The one in my room is about 12x14 inches and held on my what appears to be old chewing gum...
The contrast between lifestyles was further highlighted by something very simple: our hotel's breakfast. Milk of four kinds, including chocolate. Cereals (three to choose from). Oatmeal. Real live toast. Yogurt. Fruit. Pastries. Eggs. The look on my face when I saw it must have been one of rapture, and I almost felt shy approaching it. After living simply for several months, the prospect of four choices of milk was daunting. I eventually chose chocolate.
Make no mistake about it...Chilean Patagonia offers adventure. Especially in winter. Especially in Torres del Paine. Especially with your parents. Because they had come so far to see me and in some ways to bear witness to the reality of my time here, I wanted to bring my parents on the pilgrimage to the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. We rented a disel truck and took off toward the park to make a 300-km loop from Natales around the park.
It was certainly changed from the previous three times I went. Everything was ringed in frost, and the bright colors of fall were faded into white, gray, and a surprising purple of branches devoid of leaves. The truck performed amazingly, and I loved pulling it around the dirt roads leading to the entrance of the park. Everything was blanketed in thick fog, blocking most of the views but making it possible for the Cuernos del Paine to sneak up on you and jump out of it at random, impression-making moments.
At the midpoint of our loop, the farthest away from Natales we could be...I begin to feel the truck pull to the right a bit. I figure it was the road. We stop at the top of a hill and get out of the car.
"It smells weird," says my mom. I pass it off, thinking that we might be making the brakes hot or something. We walk to the mirador over the lake. The view is shrouded in fog. Damn.
On the walk back to the car, my mom gasps. "Our tire is flat!"
Of course it is. Chilean Patagonia has taught me even more than Italy did to let go of my little plans because they simply are. Not. Happening. Here, I am constantly searching for Plan B, Plan C, or Plan D...because having options is absolutely necessary. Plan B on Saturday was to poke around the truck for tools, a spare, and the manual. No manual. Plan C, poke around under the truck with tools, fails and leaves us covered in mud. The spare is stuck tight under the back of the truck with a chain. My dad is covered in mud.
Plan D: Walk down to the hotel and ask to use the phone. As I approach, I notice that the sign outside says, "Cerrado." Double damn. Plan E: Look around for someone to help. That guy over there with the wheelbarrow looks...friendly enough. I ask, with extreme politeness, if he can help us. Not exactly the friendliest dude in this part of Chile (granted, I have high standards from being spoiled by the friendliness and kindness of the people here). Please, man. Just come have a look at it. All in my best attempt at perfect Magallanes Spanish. Interpreting in the moment, from my dad to the man helping and vice versa.
We arrive at the truck, and he immediately takes the tire down with a quick twist of the wrist and a trick we would have never known (you mean that long stick cranks the tire down? What?). We happily take out the jack and go to raise the car.
It doesn't fit. Triple damn. Right. Plan F: grab the wheel-well and lift the freaking truck with our bare hands so the jack can fit underneath. "Still too low," says our new friend, and I translate. Plan G: Lift harder. Fuerza fuerza fuerza fuerza!
Tenuously, the truck stays. I fight off an image of it falling on our feet. We take off the broken wheel and try to put the new one on. Too low. We all hold our breath as we raise the truck an inch and a half more. I fight off another image of the truck slipping and the bolts flying off, hitting us in the shins...but the truck stays and the wheel is finally attached.
As we are saying goodbye I ask our new friend his name, wanting to know the name of another helper in Chile like the one who saved my purse from an armed robber in Santiago (in case you missed it, try this epicly long post: http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/03/left-with-nothing-but-neruda.html). Roman. Thank you.
After yet another brush with chaos in Chile, the weather cleared and the most beautiful sunset I have yet seen in Chile appeared over the Blue Massif. I literally ran about a quarter of a mile (envisioning myself as an agile guanaco in order to not twist both ankles) to take a few fleeting pictures, in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. And then we descended again into the fog, chaos catching up with us again and forcing a slow limp back to town. We were rewarded with the most stars I have ever seen in my life...with almost no light interference.
More circumstantial changes that mimic the coming and going of the weather here. If you don't like it, wait five minutes. The chaos will shift again and you will be humbled by your smallness in the face of Patagonia. But you will also find that you can change some of it, and occasionally outsmart the chaos for just long enough to move to the next challenge.
Allow me to explain. In my normal life in Chile, everyone talks about how fruit is expensive. A kilo of apples normally costs less than 500 pesos (less than one US dollar...also the legal minimum wage here is 34.000 pesos a day) but the accuracy of the claim is not the important thing here. What is important is that people avoid expenses out of necessity and custom, naturally seek simplicity in life, and just generally have less than people in the US and other places I have lived.
Given that I am already living with only the things I can carry on my back, I fit right in. My hand-washing of clothes in the shower and a general tendency to choose economical and practical over fancy have gotten me used to a different standard of living since being here. And for that I am extremely grateful, especially because many experiences here would not be possible if I was too picky (read: prissy) about my hostels and food and recycled clothes with holes in them. I actually startled myself in the hotel room by walking past my reflection in the full mirror. I hadn't noticed, but in the nearly four months since arriving in South America I had not seen my full reflection since my hostels, school, and home here do not have large mirrors. The one in my room is about 12x14 inches and held on my what appears to be old chewing gum...
The contrast between lifestyles was further highlighted by something very simple: our hotel's breakfast. Milk of four kinds, including chocolate. Cereals (three to choose from). Oatmeal. Real live toast. Yogurt. Fruit. Pastries. Eggs. The look on my face when I saw it must have been one of rapture, and I almost felt shy approaching it. After living simply for several months, the prospect of four choices of milk was daunting. I eventually chose chocolate.
Make no mistake about it...Chilean Patagonia offers adventure. Especially in winter. Especially in Torres del Paine. Especially with your parents. Because they had come so far to see me and in some ways to bear witness to the reality of my time here, I wanted to bring my parents on the pilgrimage to the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. We rented a disel truck and took off toward the park to make a 300-km loop from Natales around the park.
It was certainly changed from the previous three times I went. Everything was ringed in frost, and the bright colors of fall were faded into white, gray, and a surprising purple of branches devoid of leaves. The truck performed amazingly, and I loved pulling it around the dirt roads leading to the entrance of the park. Everything was blanketed in thick fog, blocking most of the views but making it possible for the Cuernos del Paine to sneak up on you and jump out of it at random, impression-making moments.
At the midpoint of our loop, the farthest away from Natales we could be...I begin to feel the truck pull to the right a bit. I figure it was the road. We stop at the top of a hill and get out of the car.
"It smells weird," says my mom. I pass it off, thinking that we might be making the brakes hot or something. We walk to the mirador over the lake. The view is shrouded in fog. Damn.
On the walk back to the car, my mom gasps. "Our tire is flat!"
Of course it is. Chilean Patagonia has taught me even more than Italy did to let go of my little plans because they simply are. Not. Happening. Here, I am constantly searching for Plan B, Plan C, or Plan D...because having options is absolutely necessary. Plan B on Saturday was to poke around the truck for tools, a spare, and the manual. No manual. Plan C, poke around under the truck with tools, fails and leaves us covered in mud. The spare is stuck tight under the back of the truck with a chain. My dad is covered in mud.
Plan D: Walk down to the hotel and ask to use the phone. As I approach, I notice that the sign outside says, "Cerrado." Double damn. Plan E: Look around for someone to help. That guy over there with the wheelbarrow looks...friendly enough. I ask, with extreme politeness, if he can help us. Not exactly the friendliest dude in this part of Chile (granted, I have high standards from being spoiled by the friendliness and kindness of the people here). Please, man. Just come have a look at it. All in my best attempt at perfect Magallanes Spanish. Interpreting in the moment, from my dad to the man helping and vice versa.
We arrive at the truck, and he immediately takes the tire down with a quick twist of the wrist and a trick we would have never known (you mean that long stick cranks the tire down? What?). We happily take out the jack and go to raise the car.
It doesn't fit. Triple damn. Right. Plan F: grab the wheel-well and lift the freaking truck with our bare hands so the jack can fit underneath. "Still too low," says our new friend, and I translate. Plan G: Lift harder. Fuerza fuerza fuerza fuerza!
Tenuously, the truck stays. I fight off an image of it falling on our feet. We take off the broken wheel and try to put the new one on. Too low. We all hold our breath as we raise the truck an inch and a half more. I fight off another image of the truck slipping and the bolts flying off, hitting us in the shins...but the truck stays and the wheel is finally attached.
As we are saying goodbye I ask our new friend his name, wanting to know the name of another helper in Chile like the one who saved my purse from an armed robber in Santiago (in case you missed it, try this epicly long post: http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/03/left-with-nothing-but-neruda.html). Roman. Thank you.
After yet another brush with chaos in Chile, the weather cleared and the most beautiful sunset I have yet seen in Chile appeared over the Blue Massif. I literally ran about a quarter of a mile (envisioning myself as an agile guanaco in order to not twist both ankles) to take a few fleeting pictures, in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. And then we descended again into the fog, chaos catching up with us again and forcing a slow limp back to town. We were rewarded with the most stars I have ever seen in my life...with almost no light interference.
More circumstantial changes that mimic the coming and going of the weather here. If you don't like it, wait five minutes. The chaos will shift again and you will be humbled by your smallness in the face of Patagonia. But you will also find that you can change some of it, and occasionally outsmart the chaos for just long enough to move to the next challenge.
27 May 2011
How to Earn a Free Knitting Lesson in Natales
One of the things that first made an impression on me in thhis region was the generousity and friendliness of the people. On my first bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, unable to speak Spanish and confused by how long the ride was, the woman next to me shared her book and peanuts. She was super-welcoming and kind to what must've looked like a mildly terrified foreigner. Great first impression, Patagonia.
Every week someone continues the warmth and friendliness. Oh, you don't have food? Here, sweetie...eat half my sandwich. Oh, let's talk on the bus the whole three hours. Want some coffee? Here, sweetie...I'll give you a special price. Oh, you don't know how to knit? Come over to my house on Sunday and I will give you lessons and lunch. After talking to you for five minutes, I see you are a good person. Meet me here with my four sisters and they will teach you how to make a hat.
This week I needed it desparately...because I needed to be reminded that I am welcome here. That people are usually inherently nice and stress or circumstance warps them. The tingle of meeting good people and connecting with them makes it all tolerable, if not fantastic. and I am learning to let go and be extremely generous like all the Magallanicos...I plan on giving away most of my possessions to my students and community when I have to leave, and when I get home. Stuff is only stuff...People are what are important.
Every week someone continues the warmth and friendliness. Oh, you don't have food? Here, sweetie...eat half my sandwich. Oh, let's talk on the bus the whole three hours. Want some coffee? Here, sweetie...I'll give you a special price. Oh, you don't know how to knit? Come over to my house on Sunday and I will give you lessons and lunch. After talking to you for five minutes, I see you are a good person. Meet me here with my four sisters and they will teach you how to make a hat.
This week I needed it desparately...because I needed to be reminded that I am welcome here. That people are usually inherently nice and stress or circumstance warps them. The tingle of meeting good people and connecting with them makes it all tolerable, if not fantastic. and I am learning to let go and be extremely generous like all the Magallanicos...I plan on giving away most of my possessions to my students and community when I have to leave, and when I get home. Stuff is only stuff...People are what are important.
The Bus Station in Villa Renovald
I lean against the door, taking a moment to say goodbye to this house in the middle of nowhere in Patagonia. Unless you really knew it is there, you would never stop in the tiny town of Villa Renovald. It is not on Google maps. For all intents and purposes it looks like a collection of cabins on the prarire (15...yes, I counted). They just got street lights. This. Week. Welcome to 2011 in the campo, folks.
The light is a crystalized blue, characteristic of winter months in so many parts of the world. Snow fell on the road and the houses earlier, blanketing everything in the faintest layer of contrasting white against the black edges of trees bent by the wind. The difference of a few degrees inside the house, generated from a few hours of lighting every available burner on the stove, is escaping. It pushes past me and ripples the air around the door as if it were a sauna and not merely barely above I-can-see-my-breath level.
Click. I pull the door shut and turn to walk away. Silence envelopes the road and the town. The only thing moving is a puppy, some kind of shepherd mix with one brown eye and one blue as the light creeping around us. He is wagging his tail ferociously and playing with my heels in the snow. I realize that he has probably never been indoors.
I glance up Route 9 in both directions, following with my eyes to where it darts between the rises of the Patagonian steppe. I can barely hear the noise of a car or two churning along the road between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales. I can't tell how far away they are, because the hills and stillness seem to warp distances and play with sounds. I figure they are far away enough. I step onto the road.
The bus stop is a well-maintained little property, whitewashed with a blue tin roof. A plastic garbage can, bolted down to withstand the winds, sits by its side. It even has a door. But it is already occupied by a grandmotherly woman (wrapped from head to foot in woolen scarfs of clashing colors) and her two relatives, who are all smoking. I don't feel like sharing the space with the fumes and trying to concentrate on thick wazco Chilean Spanish, even if it means I will be a bit colder. I prefer the fresh air and silence.
I plant myself on the side of the road and look to my left, from whence the three o'clock Bus Sur will arrive. It is 4:45...or so says my signal-less phone, which always runs five minutes fast. Pointless in Chile. Even my favorite television program runs at least fifteen to thirty minutes late every night, depending on unseen factors (like how long the talking heads feel like they should talk about the latest match, which may drag on half an hour until they are satisfied).
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiuuuuuu. A truck with two unsecured fifty-gallon barrels of gasoline in the back of it passes on the slushy road, on its way from the Argentine border to sell illegally in Punta Arenas. I think to myself as I have a million times in Chile, "Oh yeah, that looks safe..." and return to pacing in the snowy gravel.
There are yet flowers clinging to the stalks in the snow, crusted in white. Their purple shines, magnified by the blue winter light. I think about how it is Spring back home, and how many flowers there must be. Spring and its wafting scent of blooming life, washing over me on my bike at night in Ferrara, Italy whem I was studyng there. The promise of longer days and warmer weather.
2011 is The Year Without a Spring for me, because I went from winter to fall to winter coming here, and I will yet go through fall and winter again when I have to leave.
Shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiuuuuuu. Sshhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiuuuuu. Two more cars pass, carrying sleeping passangers and stressed-out drivers over the icy roads. It is 5:00. The lady at the bus company said they would get to Renovald around this time. The cold is starting to lick through my two coats and two shirts. The baselayer is still putting up a valient effort. Hell yeah, baselayer. Best invention ever.
The images of all the places I have been able to travel so far on this trip materialize out of the bluish gray light, seeming to shine in the snow and cloudy sky. Torres del Paine. Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia. Natales. Puerto Bulnes. The Straight of Magellan. That big hill over there, that we spent the day climbing yesterday. All the toughness of the teaching and the daily stuggles, did it pay for those places?
I pace in the gravel. The snow is starting to stick to my boots. The temperature is steadily dropping, and the little black puppy from earlier is on a doorstep whimpering to be let in.
I think of my students. They are so young, and yet so many seem to have their behavior already pulling them in one direction or another. The little problems, the big ones, and the little stories each one is writing with each day in school must seem to them of extreme importance. I remember that keeping my blog, telling my stories...that seems of extreme importance to me. We all have our stories to write.
Shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiuuuuuoooooooooooo. Damnit. Was that my bus that just passed me here on the side of the road? I squint to read the receeding back of it. Buses Ferdnandez. Thank Pachamama. I don't have to crawl back into the cabin through a window to spend the night. Or sleep in the little white bus "station."
All the people I have met, all the experience that I have gained, all the laughing and crying and struggling and succeeding...out here on the plains it all seems dwarfed by my sheer smallness. I am so small. Everything is bigger than me. The Chilean educational system. The Anglophone world. The mountains. The ocean. The massive distance between myself and home. The three o'clock Bus Sur, which is now a good fifteen minutes late. Which is to say, not late at all...in Chile.
A group of cows over my left should begin to moo desperately. The puppy whimpers louder, and suddenly the air is full of noise. It sounds so loud. So full. Not at all the empty desolation I originally thought this part of the world possessed. And it is getting darker. No lights appear in the distant trees.
A momentary thrill of uncertainty washes over me and produces a chill from foot to head. What is the bus never comes? What if it got stuck in snow or slid off the road or the driver just looked outside and said, "Nah, it looks too cold out there. Let's drink a coffee and smoke instead."
I try as I do each day to let go and abide in the uncertainty that Chile demands one accept. As always, I begin coming up with back-up plans to soothe myself. I will flag down another bus. I will walk to the hotel 3kms away and pay for a room. I will knock down the door of the cabin and eat pasta with no sauce for dinner and pile all of the blankets available onto the bed.
Shhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuu. Nope, not the bus, either. My legs are frozen, and even the valiant efforts of my baselayer cannot withstand the 45 minutes in the cold. I start to dance. The snow that was on the gravel is all brown and overturned from my pacing.
Two distant lights appear on Route 9, and the dull roar of a large engine rolls across the miles to my ears. I get excited, then remind myself as always to lower my expectations. It may not be my bus. I my have to resort of Plan B or Plan C. The cows moo more desperately. Someone finally caves and opens the door for the whimpering puppy. Ah, so he has gone inside. Or maybe this is the first time.
Shhhhiiiiiiiiii...It's my bus. They stop right in front of me, momentarily blocking Renovald from view. I put my backpack underneath and climb the stairs. They don't wait for me to get my seat before gunning it out of town, throwing me down the aisle. By the time I apologize to the three people I run into and sit down to shoot a glance over my shoulder, Villa Renovald has disappeared behind the curve of the road.
The light is a crystalized blue, characteristic of winter months in so many parts of the world. Snow fell on the road and the houses earlier, blanketing everything in the faintest layer of contrasting white against the black edges of trees bent by the wind. The difference of a few degrees inside the house, generated from a few hours of lighting every available burner on the stove, is escaping. It pushes past me and ripples the air around the door as if it were a sauna and not merely barely above I-can-see-my-breath level.
Click. I pull the door shut and turn to walk away. Silence envelopes the road and the town. The only thing moving is a puppy, some kind of shepherd mix with one brown eye and one blue as the light creeping around us. He is wagging his tail ferociously and playing with my heels in the snow. I realize that he has probably never been indoors.
I glance up Route 9 in both directions, following with my eyes to where it darts between the rises of the Patagonian steppe. I can barely hear the noise of a car or two churning along the road between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales. I can't tell how far away they are, because the hills and stillness seem to warp distances and play with sounds. I figure they are far away enough. I step onto the road.
The bus stop is a well-maintained little property, whitewashed with a blue tin roof. A plastic garbage can, bolted down to withstand the winds, sits by its side. It even has a door. But it is already occupied by a grandmotherly woman (wrapped from head to foot in woolen scarfs of clashing colors) and her two relatives, who are all smoking. I don't feel like sharing the space with the fumes and trying to concentrate on thick wazco Chilean Spanish, even if it means I will be a bit colder. I prefer the fresh air and silence.
I plant myself on the side of the road and look to my left, from whence the three o'clock Bus Sur will arrive. It is 4:45...or so says my signal-less phone, which always runs five minutes fast. Pointless in Chile. Even my favorite television program runs at least fifteen to thirty minutes late every night, depending on unseen factors (like how long the talking heads feel like they should talk about the latest match, which may drag on half an hour until they are satisfied).
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiuuuuuu. A truck with two unsecured fifty-gallon barrels of gasoline in the back of it passes on the slushy road, on its way from the Argentine border to sell illegally in Punta Arenas. I think to myself as I have a million times in Chile, "Oh yeah, that looks safe..." and return to pacing in the snowy gravel.
There are yet flowers clinging to the stalks in the snow, crusted in white. Their purple shines, magnified by the blue winter light. I think about how it is Spring back home, and how many flowers there must be. Spring and its wafting scent of blooming life, washing over me on my bike at night in Ferrara, Italy whem I was studyng there. The promise of longer days and warmer weather.
2011 is The Year Without a Spring for me, because I went from winter to fall to winter coming here, and I will yet go through fall and winter again when I have to leave.
Shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiuuuuuu. Sshhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiuuuuu. Two more cars pass, carrying sleeping passangers and stressed-out drivers over the icy roads. It is 5:00. The lady at the bus company said they would get to Renovald around this time. The cold is starting to lick through my two coats and two shirts. The baselayer is still putting up a valient effort. Hell yeah, baselayer. Best invention ever.
The images of all the places I have been able to travel so far on this trip materialize out of the bluish gray light, seeming to shine in the snow and cloudy sky. Torres del Paine. Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia. Natales. Puerto Bulnes. The Straight of Magellan. That big hill over there, that we spent the day climbing yesterday. All the toughness of the teaching and the daily stuggles, did it pay for those places?
I pace in the gravel. The snow is starting to stick to my boots. The temperature is steadily dropping, and the little black puppy from earlier is on a doorstep whimpering to be let in.
I think of my students. They are so young, and yet so many seem to have their behavior already pulling them in one direction or another. The little problems, the big ones, and the little stories each one is writing with each day in school must seem to them of extreme importance. I remember that keeping my blog, telling my stories...that seems of extreme importance to me. We all have our stories to write.
Shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiuuuuuoooooooooooo. Damnit. Was that my bus that just passed me here on the side of the road? I squint to read the receeding back of it. Buses Ferdnandez. Thank Pachamama. I don't have to crawl back into the cabin through a window to spend the night. Or sleep in the little white bus "station."
All the people I have met, all the experience that I have gained, all the laughing and crying and struggling and succeeding...out here on the plains it all seems dwarfed by my sheer smallness. I am so small. Everything is bigger than me. The Chilean educational system. The Anglophone world. The mountains. The ocean. The massive distance between myself and home. The three o'clock Bus Sur, which is now a good fifteen minutes late. Which is to say, not late at all...in Chile.
A group of cows over my left should begin to moo desperately. The puppy whimpers louder, and suddenly the air is full of noise. It sounds so loud. So full. Not at all the empty desolation I originally thought this part of the world possessed. And it is getting darker. No lights appear in the distant trees.
A momentary thrill of uncertainty washes over me and produces a chill from foot to head. What is the bus never comes? What if it got stuck in snow or slid off the road or the driver just looked outside and said, "Nah, it looks too cold out there. Let's drink a coffee and smoke instead."
I try as I do each day to let go and abide in the uncertainty that Chile demands one accept. As always, I begin coming up with back-up plans to soothe myself. I will flag down another bus. I will walk to the hotel 3kms away and pay for a room. I will knock down the door of the cabin and eat pasta with no sauce for dinner and pile all of the blankets available onto the bed.
Shhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuu. Nope, not the bus, either. My legs are frozen, and even the valiant efforts of my baselayer cannot withstand the 45 minutes in the cold. I start to dance. The snow that was on the gravel is all brown and overturned from my pacing.
Two distant lights appear on Route 9, and the dull roar of a large engine rolls across the miles to my ears. I get excited, then remind myself as always to lower my expectations. It may not be my bus. I my have to resort of Plan B or Plan C. The cows moo more desperately. Someone finally caves and opens the door for the whimpering puppy. Ah, so he has gone inside. Or maybe this is the first time.
Shhhhiiiiiiiiii...It's my bus. They stop right in front of me, momentarily blocking Renovald from view. I put my backpack underneath and climb the stairs. They don't wait for me to get my seat before gunning it out of town, throwing me down the aisle. By the time I apologize to the three people I run into and sit down to shoot a glance over my shoulder, Villa Renovald has disappeared behind the curve of the road.
03 May 2011
Backpedal!!
Wait wait wait wait wait wait a just a second. I think my blog has gotten a little bit complain-y and appears to be leaking frustration like an old car leaks break fluid. Because I received so many concerned responses to it, I want to make sure that everyone out there knows that I am not in some God-forsaken barren landscape, teaching English to completely unwilling students and suffering through a mounatin of dishes as high as the ceiling each night.
Yes, there are hard times. There always are. I cannot grow without suffering through some tough situations and being forced to learn how to rely on myself. Pain is the the water that makes us grow up and blossom. Frustration is thhe MiracleGrow.
There are so many wonderful things about Chile and about what I am doing here that it would be impossible to recount them all. Just the same, I am going to try to enlighten you about some of them.
-There is plentiful bread with butter and marmelade almost every day. Homemade marmelade. Sometimes homemade bread. So delicious I often eat five pieces a day.
-Chileans are joyful people and laugh easily. Even in my fourth language, in which I nearly completely lack tact and subtlety, I can make jokes and make people crack up. It's contagious. And it makes it really difficult to take myself so goddamned seriously in classes (for the better).
-Seeing my students' eyes light up when they know the answer to a question makes my day. Even when they don't quite say it right, or sometimes especially when they don't. The other day I was teaching the alphabet to my third graders and we got to the letter "P."
I asked, "How do we pronounce this letter?"
In unison, at the tops of their lungs, "Poooooooooooooooo!!!"
I had to put the card down because I was laughing so hard! Then I said, "No, the other one! Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"
-I am learning to be extremely resourceful, flexible, and innovative since I lack materials and am trying to teach without any previous knowledge.
-My Spanish is beginning to kick ass. But seriously. And sometimes I even have a tiny Chilean accent!
-Despite at first glance appearing empty, this part of Patagonia is actually quite full of things to do and see. My desire to spend time outside in the nature has never been greater, and I felt that it will continue for sure in the coming years. I feel lucky to be here every time I look at the mountains.
So you see? It's not all bad at all. It's great.
Yes, there are hard times. There always are. I cannot grow without suffering through some tough situations and being forced to learn how to rely on myself. Pain is the the water that makes us grow up and blossom. Frustration is thhe MiracleGrow.
There are so many wonderful things about Chile and about what I am doing here that it would be impossible to recount them all. Just the same, I am going to try to enlighten you about some of them.
-There is plentiful bread with butter and marmelade almost every day. Homemade marmelade. Sometimes homemade bread. So delicious I often eat five pieces a day.
-Chileans are joyful people and laugh easily. Even in my fourth language, in which I nearly completely lack tact and subtlety, I can make jokes and make people crack up. It's contagious. And it makes it really difficult to take myself so goddamned seriously in classes (for the better).
-Seeing my students' eyes light up when they know the answer to a question makes my day. Even when they don't quite say it right, or sometimes especially when they don't. The other day I was teaching the alphabet to my third graders and we got to the letter "P."
I asked, "How do we pronounce this letter?"
In unison, at the tops of their lungs, "Poooooooooooooooo!!!"
I had to put the card down because I was laughing so hard! Then I said, "No, the other one! Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"
-I am learning to be extremely resourceful, flexible, and innovative since I lack materials and am trying to teach without any previous knowledge.
-My Spanish is beginning to kick ass. But seriously. And sometimes I even have a tiny Chilean accent!
-Despite at first glance appearing empty, this part of Patagonia is actually quite full of things to do and see. My desire to spend time outside in the nature has never been greater, and I felt that it will continue for sure in the coming years. I feel lucky to be here every time I look at the mountains.
So you see? It's not all bad at all. It's great.
01 April 2011
Harden by Softening
Walking to school this morning, I realized that the mud in the unpaved street of Puerto Natales is the exact same color as my coffee. Or rather that my coffee is the same color as the mud in the streets. Delicious, delicious mud coffee.
Every day in Puerto Natales, I walk down to the shore and along the waterfront. Every day is different, with a constantly changing view and shifting clouds above. One second there is strong sunlight...the next the wind picks up and blasts against my jacket. In the last few days, the mountains around town have pulled up their blankets of snow for the winter. The mountains are snow-capped now, and I am just waiting for a clear day to allow me a glimpse of them in their full splendor.
It is starting to be cold, but I am happy. This weather makes me feel at home, and it feels good to live in a place that toughens a person while softening them. What do I mean by that?
The weather, certain aspects of school, some experiences with people in town, and the landscape here in Patagonia are slowly polishing and scrubbing me until I am stronger. At the same time, most people are so friendly, my students are the sweetest, and the warmth of wood fires serve to soft my heart and warm it up. Stronger and weaker...toughen and softer simultaneously.
Every day in Puerto Natales, I walk down to the shore and along the waterfront. Every day is different, with a constantly changing view and shifting clouds above. One second there is strong sunlight...the next the wind picks up and blasts against my jacket. In the last few days, the mountains around town have pulled up their blankets of snow for the winter. The mountains are snow-capped now, and I am just waiting for a clear day to allow me a glimpse of them in their full splendor.
It is starting to be cold, but I am happy. This weather makes me feel at home, and it feels good to live in a place that toughens a person while softening them. What do I mean by that?
The weather, certain aspects of school, some experiences with people in town, and the landscape here in Patagonia are slowly polishing and scrubbing me until I am stronger. At the same time, most people are so friendly, my students are the sweetest, and the warmth of wood fires serve to soft my heart and warm it up. Stronger and weaker...toughen and softer simultaneously.
27 March 2011
A Real Rodeo in Italifrencastellingles
The taxis came and we were on our way. As usual, I tried to put my seatbelt on and found ere was nowhere to connect it. Little prayer to St. Michael for protection as we flew across the campo just outside of town.
The rodeo was already underway. I felt like we had walked back in time to when the only thing that happened all year was a rodeo and out of the sometimes-Gringo-infested (sorry, all you other Gringos in Natales for tourism...I just get sick of us sometimes, too) centro to the real Patagonia. No one who is not from here would even know that the rodeo was happening.
Everyone wore the traditional dress of gauchos, with bloomer-like pants, bainos (Patagonian knitted caps), large wool scarves, and decorative embroidery. It felt very different from the rodeos I've been to at the National Western Stock Show...more...real.
In the pen, the men who were riding the bucking broncos were constantly in movement. Setting up the next ride. Gathering the horses from the last one. Running back and foreth to get their cells phones and drink a little beer in the saddle.
The competitors sometimes got thrown before their turn even began. They were very resilient and got right back up onto the horse, who usually had a scarf over its eyes to calm it and another rider pushing it into position. And then they were off! Running and bucking, throwing dirt onto the peoople watching. We were separated fromm e hooves of the horses by a flimsy barbed wire fence that seemed to barely resist the Patagonian wind...much less the weight of a full-grown horse.
After about an hour, I realized that the music a man was playing with a guitar and singing (the same verses over and over and over and over and...) was singing the commentary! Someone would fall and he would sing, "Que lastima, compañero..." or someone would do well and he would vamp the guitar riff while another man demanded un fuerte applauso for the champion. It was a song that told a long and winding story, and he wove what was happening on the field into the song as well.
I was the tallest, blondest person around...as usual.
At one point we were waiting for the finals to begin and MaryCler, our "hermana" was showing us how to dance one of the national dances of Argentina. Many Argentinans had come to the rodeo because Natales is the biggest city for several hours, and they were dancing.
We watched from afar and copied, and out of the blue two of the women ran over and began dancing with us! They were in traditional dress, with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths sideways, dancing with the two Gringas and making everyone laugh. It was so much fun. The most fun ever.
Eventually the wind became too much to take, and we caved in to hire taxis back to town. As we flew along (seatbelt on this time! Victory!) I realized that the singing commentary of the rodeo was on the taxi radio. Our new friends from Santiago (friends of our host family who came down for the week) invited Dominique and I to dinner out at a parilla in town. We ate amazing grilled meats in mass quantities and tried a Calafate Sour (Calafate is the name of both a berry and a city in Argentina. This was brandy made with the berry mixed with sweet and sour mix).
We talked so much and about so many different things (family, marriage, children, politics, behavior, etc etc etc) in castellano that my brain got extremely tired and confused between the languages I speak. At some point, the brain stops caring whether one is speaking one language or another and it all just becomes language mush. I couldn't speak English when I tried to switch back to it to translate something on our walk home. Italifrencastellingles came out of my mouth. Nobody could understand me, not even myself.
Life in Puerto Natales is pretty sweet. And the song of the commentary at the rodeo will probably continue its circular tracing in my dreams.
The rodeo was already underway. I felt like we had walked back in time to when the only thing that happened all year was a rodeo and out of the sometimes-Gringo-infested (sorry, all you other Gringos in Natales for tourism...I just get sick of us sometimes, too) centro to the real Patagonia. No one who is not from here would even know that the rodeo was happening.
Everyone wore the traditional dress of gauchos, with bloomer-like pants, bainos (Patagonian knitted caps), large wool scarves, and decorative embroidery. It felt very different from the rodeos I've been to at the National Western Stock Show...more...real.
In the pen, the men who were riding the bucking broncos were constantly in movement. Setting up the next ride. Gathering the horses from the last one. Running back and foreth to get their cells phones and drink a little beer in the saddle.
The competitors sometimes got thrown before their turn even began. They were very resilient and got right back up onto the horse, who usually had a scarf over its eyes to calm it and another rider pushing it into position. And then they were off! Running and bucking, throwing dirt onto the peoople watching. We were separated fromm e hooves of the horses by a flimsy barbed wire fence that seemed to barely resist the Patagonian wind...much less the weight of a full-grown horse.
After about an hour, I realized that the music a man was playing with a guitar and singing (the same verses over and over and over and over and...) was singing the commentary! Someone would fall and he would sing, "Que lastima, compañero..." or someone would do well and he would vamp the guitar riff while another man demanded un fuerte applauso for the champion. It was a song that told a long and winding story, and he wove what was happening on the field into the song as well.
I was the tallest, blondest person around...as usual.
At one point we were waiting for the finals to begin and MaryCler, our "hermana" was showing us how to dance one of the national dances of Argentina. Many Argentinans had come to the rodeo because Natales is the biggest city for several hours, and they were dancing.
We watched from afar and copied, and out of the blue two of the women ran over and began dancing with us! They were in traditional dress, with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths sideways, dancing with the two Gringas and making everyone laugh. It was so much fun. The most fun ever.
Eventually the wind became too much to take, and we caved in to hire taxis back to town. As we flew along (seatbelt on this time! Victory!) I realized that the singing commentary of the rodeo was on the taxi radio. Our new friends from Santiago (friends of our host family who came down for the week) invited Dominique and I to dinner out at a parilla in town. We ate amazing grilled meats in mass quantities and tried a Calafate Sour (Calafate is the name of both a berry and a city in Argentina. This was brandy made with the berry mixed with sweet and sour mix).
We talked so much and about so many different things (family, marriage, children, politics, behavior, etc etc etc) in castellano that my brain got extremely tired and confused between the languages I speak. At some point, the brain stops caring whether one is speaking one language or another and it all just becomes language mush. I couldn't speak English when I tried to switch back to it to translate something on our walk home. Italifrencastellingles came out of my mouth. Nobody could understand me, not even myself.
Life in Puerto Natales is pretty sweet. And the song of the commentary at the rodeo will probably continue its circular tracing in my dreams.
26 March 2011
Time or Lack Thereof
In Chile, time is different. I often feel more than a little lost in the constant flow, which seems simultaneously to lope past slower than a Milodon (ancient giant sloth/mascot of Puerto Natales) and to suddenly sneak up behnd me and pounce. Things may happen that very second ("Hey, want to go on a drive in the city? Ok, we're leaving!") or they may never happen at all. Al tiro o nunca, ¿quien sabe?
Instead of a clock, I feel as though I am marking time with meals. Desayuno, almuerzo, once, cena, repeat. And with coffee and tea. Each passing phase of the day is punctuated with a tecito or cafecito, each new phase opens with the caffeine they contain. And then on top of that I drink mate to keep up with my students. I will return to the States with a massive caffeine addiction.
Small things seem so big here. My goal today? Go buy some fruit at the supermarket and take a walk on the waterfront. And find my laundry. That's it. Those were my goals last Saturday, too. Small steps to big changes, I suppose. The quiet life in Patagonia is rubbing off on me. Before I left, I thought I wanted to live in a big city for a while, just to experience it. Now I see just how deeply my Western roots go and how much I love country life.
Puerto Natales is beginning to feel like home.
Edit: So remember how I was saying the other day that I was feeling culture shock? I must be acclimating a little bit at least, because I just walked into the kitchen where my "brother" Nelson is literally going at a side of extremely recently living beef with a dull hack saw and my first thought was "Where are the spoons again?" and not "WT-flying-F IS HE DOING?!"
Baby steps.
Instead of a clock, I feel as though I am marking time with meals. Desayuno, almuerzo, once, cena, repeat. And with coffee and tea. Each passing phase of the day is punctuated with a tecito or cafecito, each new phase opens with the caffeine they contain. And then on top of that I drink mate to keep up with my students. I will return to the States with a massive caffeine addiction.
Small things seem so big here. My goal today? Go buy some fruit at the supermarket and take a walk on the waterfront. And find my laundry. That's it. Those were my goals last Saturday, too. Small steps to big changes, I suppose. The quiet life in Patagonia is rubbing off on me. Before I left, I thought I wanted to live in a big city for a while, just to experience it. Now I see just how deeply my Western roots go and how much I love country life.
Puerto Natales is beginning to feel like home.
Edit: So remember how I was saying the other day that I was feeling culture shock? I must be acclimating a little bit at least, because I just walked into the kitchen where my "brother" Nelson is literally going at a side of extremely recently living beef with a dull hack saw and my first thought was "Where are the spoons again?" and not "WT-flying-F IS HE DOING?!"
Baby steps.
23 March 2011
Adrift in the Sea of Contradictions
Getting settled in a new home always brings a little bit of friction between one's customs and those of the new place. I love Puerto Natales and Chile in general, but certain things seem slightly strange to me. Almost contradictory, at least from my point of view and my cultural background.
Economic, social, cultural, and behavioral contradictions appear to abound in the small amount of Chilean culture I have experienced so far. They even work their way into construction projects (I magine the conversation among the guys building my bathroom went something like this...we put the light on without painting the ceiling...hmm...well, let's not take the light off and instead just paint around it so there is a circle of ot painted plywood...perfecto!) and the ways that teachers and students interact.
I find that here in Natales the contradictions run a little deeper, probably because of the transient style of tourism that the town usually attracts and how small of a town it is. Part of the town is very clean, very moodern, and has a ton of coffee shops, outfitters, and restaurants. Once you walk past our house, the town begins to dissolve into fewer paved streets, fewer stores, and much more raw Chilean-isms. Time is flexible, hours at school are too...as are many things about how one interacts with others and how one is expected to behave. And then suddenly a rigid social rule rears its head, and the hapless Gringa has no idea she is in the wrong until she asks.
Like my clothes. My host mom had said that I should bring my clothes downstairs when I needed to wash them. They were put out on the line, and they hung there for days. I figured that I just didn't know how laundry is supposed to work here and left them out there. They got soaked about five times in wind and rain. Still I waited. I noticed that Nelson (one of the men who lives here) had picked up his clothes, pressed and folded, from the kitchen. Maybe someone will get them and press them for me?
Two days later, my clothes had disappeared from the line but were nowhere to be found. Great, I thought.Someone decided to steal my only work pants. I asked my host mom about it, and her response was along the lines of, "Well, you have to get them of course. And iron. We don't have the time to do it." And then back to chopping carrots in silence.
It is fine that I have to do my own laundry (in fact I really prefer it) but a heads up would have been nice. And the fact that Nelson doesn't do his threw me off completely, since it didn't register that they do his for him because he is a man. As I am a woman, I am expected to already know how to do laundry perfectly and to expect that I will have to do it all without being told. How could a woman have been raised without that expectation?
People expect that everyone has the same background they do here, and they judge those who come from other backgrounds as ill-educated or slow or rude sometimes. Obviously I am not trying to be in any way (in fact I feel like I am doing everything in my power not to step on anyone's toes and to observe and adjust my behavior immediately) but some unspoken rules are impossible for me to know. And there are a ton of them.
For example, I don't know the rules of the school. I also don't know the bell schedule. No one has told me either of these critical pieces of information, and the administrators and other teachers look at me like I am stupid when I ask them. Solution? Made my own rules. Probably there is some overlap, but still. When I asked for a written copy of the rules of the school, the administrator interrupted my halting Spanish and said, "The students know them, the students know them." And then back to her computer in silence.
Bell schedule will just take another week to learn, and I am fixing it by setting an alarm on my ipod to ring when classes need to change (sonce the bells are manually controlled and not very reliable anyway). How could I have been raised without knowing all the school rules and schedule by heart?
My students also seem to think I must just be slow. They don't seem to understand that we are in English class and that we need to complete the activities in English, so they just complete the activities in Spanish and ask each other why I am so dumb that I don't speak Spanish. How could anyone have been raised without speaking Spanish?
It is really hard to feel like an outsider who no one wants to help or educate about customs. Honestly though, this is probably nothing compared to how hard it is for people who try to move to the US from abroad. I feel as though we volunteers are paying for the massive karma debt that my own culture has put out into the world by experiencing it the other way around.
And maybe all the things that seem to be contradictions are simply juxtapositions that I am not used to. Maybe my definition of contradiction needs to evolve. And maybe i'm over-reacting because this is actual culture shock instead of the "I'm at home!" feeling Italy immediately gave me.
Funnily, the judgments people make about Gringos are starting to rub off on me. In Natales it is always possible to escape to a Gringo reality for a moment in one of the many coffee shops, but yesterday when I went to El Living (which was amazing, by the way! Real, actual coffee? I haven't had you for a month!) I was slightly annoyed by a group of Gringos who walked in and made a ton of noise and were talking loudly about how great of surfers they were. I was sitting here thinking, "Stupid Gringos..."
So I am guilty of it, too.
I am certain it is a combination of these and other, hidden factors. And I am still certain that I am meant to be here. Just going to take an adjustment. Or five.
Economic, social, cultural, and behavioral contradictions appear to abound in the small amount of Chilean culture I have experienced so far. They even work their way into construction projects (I magine the conversation among the guys building my bathroom went something like this...we put the light on without painting the ceiling...hmm...well, let's not take the light off and instead just paint around it so there is a circle of ot painted plywood...perfecto!) and the ways that teachers and students interact.
I find that here in Natales the contradictions run a little deeper, probably because of the transient style of tourism that the town usually attracts and how small of a town it is. Part of the town is very clean, very moodern, and has a ton of coffee shops, outfitters, and restaurants. Once you walk past our house, the town begins to dissolve into fewer paved streets, fewer stores, and much more raw Chilean-isms. Time is flexible, hours at school are too...as are many things about how one interacts with others and how one is expected to behave. And then suddenly a rigid social rule rears its head, and the hapless Gringa has no idea she is in the wrong until she asks.
Like my clothes. My host mom had said that I should bring my clothes downstairs when I needed to wash them. They were put out on the line, and they hung there for days. I figured that I just didn't know how laundry is supposed to work here and left them out there. They got soaked about five times in wind and rain. Still I waited. I noticed that Nelson (one of the men who lives here) had picked up his clothes, pressed and folded, from the kitchen. Maybe someone will get them and press them for me?
Two days later, my clothes had disappeared from the line but were nowhere to be found. Great, I thought.Someone decided to steal my only work pants. I asked my host mom about it, and her response was along the lines of, "Well, you have to get them of course. And iron. We don't have the time to do it." And then back to chopping carrots in silence.
It is fine that I have to do my own laundry (in fact I really prefer it) but a heads up would have been nice. And the fact that Nelson doesn't do his threw me off completely, since it didn't register that they do his for him because he is a man. As I am a woman, I am expected to already know how to do laundry perfectly and to expect that I will have to do it all without being told. How could a woman have been raised without that expectation?
People expect that everyone has the same background they do here, and they judge those who come from other backgrounds as ill-educated or slow or rude sometimes. Obviously I am not trying to be in any way (in fact I feel like I am doing everything in my power not to step on anyone's toes and to observe and adjust my behavior immediately) but some unspoken rules are impossible for me to know. And there are a ton of them.
For example, I don't know the rules of the school. I also don't know the bell schedule. No one has told me either of these critical pieces of information, and the administrators and other teachers look at me like I am stupid when I ask them. Solution? Made my own rules. Probably there is some overlap, but still. When I asked for a written copy of the rules of the school, the administrator interrupted my halting Spanish and said, "The students know them, the students know them." And then back to her computer in silence.
Bell schedule will just take another week to learn, and I am fixing it by setting an alarm on my ipod to ring when classes need to change (sonce the bells are manually controlled and not very reliable anyway). How could I have been raised without knowing all the school rules and schedule by heart?
My students also seem to think I must just be slow. They don't seem to understand that we are in English class and that we need to complete the activities in English, so they just complete the activities in Spanish and ask each other why I am so dumb that I don't speak Spanish. How could anyone have been raised without speaking Spanish?
It is really hard to feel like an outsider who no one wants to help or educate about customs. Honestly though, this is probably nothing compared to how hard it is for people who try to move to the US from abroad. I feel as though we volunteers are paying for the massive karma debt that my own culture has put out into the world by experiencing it the other way around.
And maybe all the things that seem to be contradictions are simply juxtapositions that I am not used to. Maybe my definition of contradiction needs to evolve. And maybe i'm over-reacting because this is actual culture shock instead of the "I'm at home!" feeling Italy immediately gave me.
Funnily, the judgments people make about Gringos are starting to rub off on me. In Natales it is always possible to escape to a Gringo reality for a moment in one of the many coffee shops, but yesterday when I went to El Living (which was amazing, by the way! Real, actual coffee? I haven't had you for a month!) I was slightly annoyed by a group of Gringos who walked in and made a ton of noise and were talking loudly about how great of surfers they were. I was sitting here thinking, "Stupid Gringos..."
So I am guilty of it, too.
I am certain it is a combination of these and other, hidden factors. And I am still certain that I am meant to be here. Just going to take an adjustment. Or five.
21 March 2011
An Attempt at Describing the Undescribable
Torres del Paine was a life-changer. A game-changer. A soul-changer. The pictures by no means do it any justice because the feeling of the place was the most important. i want to try to capture it in verse, since nothing else seems sufficient.
Awakened by rain and wind
Lashing my window
Drawing stripes on the roof
Patagonia draws first blood
I am not afraid of wind nor rain
My boots are sturdy
My body, too
Gore-tex is my best friend
And long underwear?
The greatest invention known to humankind
Bring it, Patagonia
A natural cathedral
Gouged by melting glaciers
Ringed by twisted ancient trees
An aboreadom temple to perservence
And toughness
Even lichins display their ripe colors
Competing for dominance over the arching rainbow
Dancing in the clouds
A pilgrimage on bumpy roads
The nausea barely staved off
By crunchy donuts and nescafe
Each new microclimate
Microcosm
Brings a new variety of cold
Or wind
Or sun
Or rain
We change our clothes
We change our faces
The light begins to crystallize
In rainbows
Dancing in clouds around sharp points
Blue granite and blue ice
Sharper than immense knives
11:30 AM, 19 March 2011: I pass as Chilena for the first time.
A woolen cap pulled over my obviously not Chilean hair
The massif is hidden
Microcosms pass
Plains
Forest
Desert
A gray lake filled from Glacier Gray
The sediment of ten thousand years of grating on the mountain
Drifts
Reflecting the nublado sky
Our time is not here
Nor is our space
The mountains live in another
Geological and cosmic time are massive
Drawfing us puny
Brief
Humans
Humans are 50,000 years old
Maybe more
These mountains deal in eons, not in days
Winds race down the cliffs and glaciers
To try to knock us off our feet
Carrying spray
Green and heavy with it's ancient load
Into our eyes
Constant, instant change
The sun might flash
A momentary glare
The clouds might move
And obscure or reveal
Nothing is forever in Patagonia.
A lunch
Seems strange
I could live on the view
For at least a day
And never move from a single spot
Letting Torres del Paine change around me
Our puny stomachs filled, the pilgrimage continues.
Shangri-la
Not even hidden
Appears in the mist
Beckoning
To an impossible climb
Thousands of feet in the making
We could never make it
The wind would peel us off the face
And smash us against the jagged rocks
First one out
Last one back
Not enough time to spend here in the park
Visto? Visto?
No
I have seen nearly nothing
Of the magic of this place
And still rainbows follow us everywhere
Wide and wild
Life-changing
Windburned, hungry
Vacillating between too cold and too hot
We pass through more microcosms
And leave the landscape massif
To drift through plains and horses and forests
To a wild sunset over the blue/white mountains
As if heaven were only an arm's length away
But in my soul I feel the stillness of Paine
And to it I will always flee
A secret well of joy
And peace
And comfort in the unearthly beauty
Of that Tierra
Awakened by rain and wind
Lashing my window
Drawing stripes on the roof
Patagonia draws first blood
I am not afraid of wind nor rain
My boots are sturdy
My body, too
Gore-tex is my best friend
And long underwear?
The greatest invention known to humankind
Bring it, Patagonia
A natural cathedral
Gouged by melting glaciers
Ringed by twisted ancient trees
An aboreadom temple to perservence
And toughness
Even lichins display their ripe colors
Competing for dominance over the arching rainbow
Dancing in the clouds
A pilgrimage on bumpy roads
The nausea barely staved off
By crunchy donuts and nescafe
Each new microclimate
Microcosm
Brings a new variety of cold
Or wind
Or sun
Or rain
We change our clothes
We change our faces
The light begins to crystallize
In rainbows
Dancing in clouds around sharp points
Blue granite and blue ice
Sharper than immense knives
11:30 AM, 19 March 2011: I pass as Chilena for the first time.
A woolen cap pulled over my obviously not Chilean hair
The massif is hidden
Microcosms pass
Plains
Forest
Desert
A gray lake filled from Glacier Gray
The sediment of ten thousand years of grating on the mountain
Drifts
Reflecting the nublado sky
Our time is not here
Nor is our space
The mountains live in another
Geological and cosmic time are massive
Drawfing us puny
Brief
Humans
Humans are 50,000 years old
Maybe more
These mountains deal in eons, not in days
Winds race down the cliffs and glaciers
To try to knock us off our feet
Carrying spray
Green and heavy with it's ancient load
Into our eyes
Constant, instant change
The sun might flash
A momentary glare
The clouds might move
And obscure or reveal
Nothing is forever in Patagonia.
A lunch
Seems strange
I could live on the view
For at least a day
And never move from a single spot
Letting Torres del Paine change around me
Our puny stomachs filled, the pilgrimage continues.
Shangri-la
Not even hidden
Appears in the mist
Beckoning
To an impossible climb
Thousands of feet in the making
We could never make it
The wind would peel us off the face
And smash us against the jagged rocks
First one out
Last one back
Not enough time to spend here in the park
Visto? Visto?
No
I have seen nearly nothing
Of the magic of this place
And still rainbows follow us everywhere
Wide and wild
Life-changing
Windburned, hungry
Vacillating between too cold and too hot
We pass through more microcosms
And leave the landscape massif
To drift through plains and horses and forests
To a wild sunset over the blue/white mountains
As if heaven were only an arm's length away
But in my soul I feel the stillness of Paine
And to it I will always flee
A secret well of joy
And peace
And comfort in the unearthly beauty
Of that Tierra
13 March 2011
Flamingos and a Lone Ostrich
The next leg of the journey began today, in the twilight setting of all goodbyes (Neruda is working his way into my very breath it seems). Without much support from our program, the Magallaners made it to the airport and onto our plane, which seemed to be a recomissioned German 737 in service since the 80s.
The countryside and Santiago fell away, from densely populated to drought-stressed farms...intensely green cow pastures to mountains devoid of all traces of human life. Fnally the mountains fell away to reveal a barren, scrubby landscape and choppy inlets where whitecaps danced. I instantly noticed the difference in peoople's dress when we got on the plane. The light cotton see-through flowery things purchased from street vendors in Santiago were replaced by big boots, Gore-Tex jackets, and simple earth tones.
Sky Airlines' pilots do not mess around with landing. They come in line, tell the flight attendants to be seated and basically then it's a "everybody hold on, we're coming in" moment. *insert dive bomb sound here*
Landing in Punta Arenas was even more interesting because the pilots made a 90 degree turn in heavy winds just before landing. I was staring at the choppy fjord outside the window and wondering if our wing would skim it, and we literally straightened out about a second before we touched down. It probably looked like one of the landings on that show about Alaskan bush pilots, but with a 737.
The three hour bus ride from the airport to Puerto Natales was a long journey through emptiness. Thank goodness I'm from the Western United States, because otherwise the vastness of the sky and the plains would have been a lot to take in. They still were, but the landscape reminds me of New Mexico or Nevada with random lakes and stretches of sea. Flamingoes sometimes form pink knots in the shallow waters.
What I noticed immediately about Patagonia is the pervasive quiet. I was originally going to say silence, but that isn't exactly accurate...there is the wind and the rain and the occasional barking of dogs. But the quiet commands my attention. People were talking on the bus and I nearly asked them, "Don't you hear the immense quiet? shhhhhhhh!"
That quiet and isolation was summed up in a lone ostrich I saw outside the bus in a field. Everywhere, despite the lack of people to look at, there are traces of human interaction with the landscape. Mostly a fence here or a dirt road branching off our seemingly infinite two-lane highway, but occasionally a shrine to a saint or a tiny town smaller than Fairplay, Colorado.
Though I haven't had much chance to walk around it yet, Puerto Natales appears to be a cute town at the foot of the Torres del Paine. Yes, the picture that is the backdrop for this blog is also the backdrop for my new hometown. Even though I told them to put me anywhere they had an open position in all of Chile, they put me in this town that is just right for me. Destiny has a funny way of working.
Tomorrow I meet my cohorts at school and maybe some of my students! I am very ready and excited to begin.
The countryside and Santiago fell away, from densely populated to drought-stressed farms...intensely green cow pastures to mountains devoid of all traces of human life. Fnally the mountains fell away to reveal a barren, scrubby landscape and choppy inlets where whitecaps danced. I instantly noticed the difference in peoople's dress when we got on the plane. The light cotton see-through flowery things purchased from street vendors in Santiago were replaced by big boots, Gore-Tex jackets, and simple earth tones.
Sky Airlines' pilots do not mess around with landing. They come in line, tell the flight attendants to be seated and basically then it's a "everybody hold on, we're coming in" moment. *insert dive bomb sound here*
Landing in Punta Arenas was even more interesting because the pilots made a 90 degree turn in heavy winds just before landing. I was staring at the choppy fjord outside the window and wondering if our wing would skim it, and we literally straightened out about a second before we touched down. It probably looked like one of the landings on that show about Alaskan bush pilots, but with a 737.
The three hour bus ride from the airport to Puerto Natales was a long journey through emptiness. Thank goodness I'm from the Western United States, because otherwise the vastness of the sky and the plains would have been a lot to take in. They still were, but the landscape reminds me of New Mexico or Nevada with random lakes and stretches of sea. Flamingoes sometimes form pink knots in the shallow waters.
What I noticed immediately about Patagonia is the pervasive quiet. I was originally going to say silence, but that isn't exactly accurate...there is the wind and the rain and the occasional barking of dogs. But the quiet commands my attention. People were talking on the bus and I nearly asked them, "Don't you hear the immense quiet? shhhhhhhh!"
That quiet and isolation was summed up in a lone ostrich I saw outside the bus in a field. Everywhere, despite the lack of people to look at, there are traces of human interaction with the landscape. Mostly a fence here or a dirt road branching off our seemingly infinite two-lane highway, but occasionally a shrine to a saint or a tiny town smaller than Fairplay, Colorado.
Though I haven't had much chance to walk around it yet, Puerto Natales appears to be a cute town at the foot of the Torres del Paine. Yes, the picture that is the backdrop for this blog is also the backdrop for my new hometown. Even though I told them to put me anywhere they had an open position in all of Chile, they put me in this town that is just right for me. Destiny has a funny way of working.
Tomorrow I meet my cohorts at school and maybe some of my students! I am very ready and excited to begin.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)