Happy Birthday, Puerto Natales!

Feliz Centenario, Puerto Natales! 

100 years of history as a town. Things move more slowly around here...te conserves bien. Progress and change may be at your doorstep are already transforming the town center into a Gore-Tex-happy tourismville, but something tells me that this town will always have a core of unpaved streets, wandering dogs, fishermen's boats in dry dock, and loose cows being chased by gauchos in boinas to keep your true essence. 

It appears, as my "Chilean cousin" Maria-Claudia says, that I came here in just the right year to be able to take part in the festivities. In the last month there was some activity every day. I've seen two concerts by Chilean bands, a beautiful presentation at my school showing aspects of Natalino history, dances, parties, banners, sales in all the stores, a huge fireworks display. Finally today (the actual anniversary of the founding of the town) there was a grand parade with all the schools in the whole region participating and important people watching from a platform in the brand new plaza. 

I jumped into the parade at the last minute, since people at school have rather been leaving me out of the communiication loop lately (probably due to the enormous effort of putting together the centennial...nothing like this has ever happened here in the past). As we were leaving the house, my Tía Maria-Ester admnshed me for my shabbiness. 

"You're not going to parade (yes, in Chileno "to parade" is a verb) like that. Tennis shoes and pants?! Don't you have a skirt or something?" 

I ran upstairs and grabbed one of the skirts I had already packed to send home (Remember? I am now trying to travel as lightly as possible.) 

"Chucha," the Chilean swear came to me faster than any in English, "It's all wrinkled." The iron is in the kitchen, where Juanito and Claudia are making lunch for everyone. Nothing for it. No time. Must take off my skirt and iron it in my tights on the kitchen table. 

"No mires, Juanito!" ("Don't look, Juanito!")

Twenty seconds later: "Coleen, te están llamando!" ("Coleen, they're calling you!")

"Momentito!" ("Just a moment!")

"Ja, ahora antes que te dejan!" ("Yeah, now before they leave you!")

I threw on my skirt and ran out the door. 

I did not realize that a parade was such a big deal and so formal in Chile, but it soon became apparent why it is so. Everyone must be dressed up and the students dressed the same, down to white gloves on their hands and exactly the same braid in the hair of all the girls. Everyone has to march Left, Left, Left, Right, Left. We have to keep our hands at our sides and look at the authorities to our right when we pass. Better not to smile too much, this is a serious undertaking. The students had been rehearsing for weeks. 

Despite this, our school's organized lines quickly devolved into the students' customary chaos. We waited nearly two hours in the street, freezing our asses off (well, mostly our hands). The students were climbing fences and breaking things, throwing things at each other and fighting. Normal, for us. I noticed that neither the school in front of us nor the one behind appeared to be having such problems. Two of the girls missed out completely on the parade because they left to talk to someone ahead of us. Left, Left, Left, Right, Left. 

At some point after we began marching, I realized that I felt mildly uncomfortable with the military feel of the whole thing. It felt like a relic of the period under Pinochet's junta, and to top off my sense of discomfort I realized that the entire armed force of the region, in full battle gear and clutching fully automatic weapons, was not only present but a central part of the march. 

It's not a subject that I have approached with anyone since coming to Chile, in part because I simply do not want to know if people I know and like are still supporters of his regime (and yes, there are people in Chile who still are). Pinochet only died in 2006, and thousands of supporters came to his funeral. They are currently in the process of exhuming Salvador Allende's remains to conduct a further autopsy. The wounds of "The Other September 11th" (the coup d'etat) are still here. 

As I watched the armed forces and the rapidly disintegrating order of the parade, I realized that the deeply ingrained difficulties with organization and execution of plans that I have experienced in many forms since I moved here ("Oh, you mean you wanted your visa in one month instead of three?" "What do you mean, you want a list of the rules of the school?" "Eh...when the plane leaves, it leaves...") may have actually worked in Chile's favor when push came to shove under an authoritarian government. If one cannot organize a parade or a meeting, it is very difficult for an ultra-organized junta to really take hold. 

So the moral of the story is that disorganization is a secret ally against authoritarian rule. Nice. I waved to the authorities in their safe little box high above the crowd as I passed, and knew that tomorrow I have to face the students again...and all the problems that manifest themselves in the micro-culture of our school. And for the moment, I was proud that we were the most disorganized group of all. 

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Chile

Lighten Your Load--Can I Live With Half?

As a child, I used to cry over every lost possession as if it were a dear friend. Balloons that flew away into the clouds. Rocks that disappeared from my pockets. Books and pictures and clothes and shoes and notebooks. Being  very sentimental child when it came to just abput everything, I placed value on them to the point of anthropomophism and clung to them tightly...fearing that if I let go I would lose friends, not things.

Since leaving the house to go to university, I began accumulating more. Furniture for apartments. A bed. A desk. Pots and pans. Tables. A television. Shelves. Dishes. Silverware. Towels. Christmas decorations. With the help of my parents I often provided the nessecities for the places that I lived, dragging a bigger and bigger pile with me each time I moved (eight times in four years...or roughly once a semester). 

After I began to travel more ambitiously, I realized how much of a huge waste of effort this instinct to collect and save and stash away is. Never again, I swore to myself after my journey home from Italy, when I had far too much crap to fit into my suitcases and had to throw things away at five AM in the Bologna airport's check in line. Not to mention that I realized that this same hoarding instinct can land you on A&E after twenty years, claiming sanity amidst the fifty piles of unused Charmin toilet paper blocking your living room. "I'm a collector, I swear! Don't take my Charmin! i know them all by name!"

I got rid of a ton of stuff when I got home from studying abroad. I took boxes and bags to good will. But the true test came when I decided to move to South America for six months. My packing criteria:
Six months' worth of versitile, warm, layerable clothing of various levels of formality. I needed to be able to dress up for work and special events or dress down for clamboring through mud in the campo. Waterproof layers a plus. I managed to cram it all into a backpack and a suitcase. Most other stuff like contacts and toiletries fit into a purse.

Since actually arriving in South America, my clothing situation has held up nicely...even through the strain of being washed weekly in the shower with shampoo (Yes, I've been doing this for about two months...and yes, my clothes are going to be pretty gross by the end of this). I still find myself wishing I had less, even though I recycle the same outfits over and over each week and despite the holes in basically every piece of clothing I own here. I've started to chafe under the weight of all the things in my room, knowing I will have to carry them on my back in about a month. To chafe under its un-necessity. 

But I am about to find relief. This week, my parents are coming to visit (REJOICE)! They have offered to unburden me of some of my things and lighten the load. I have halved my clothing and objects. Don't believe me? Here are the pictures to prove it. 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100270152264593.2723997.10231884&l=433a89021b

The rest of the things that will not go with my parents I will donate, give away, or ditch. I want to see what I really need to get along. Something tells me that it is even less than my already significantly reduced collection. Already I feel lighter. Cleaner. Freer. 

When I return to the States, I plan on further reducing my burden of things and giving away most of my possessions. Anything that I truly need I will keep, but any time I receive or buy something new the new rule will be that I must then choose something else to give away to keep the balance of simplicity in my life and to afford my fellow beings the chance to simply live (à la Mahatma Ghandi). Of course, I am not even close to a Ghandi. Not yet. But this is a good first step to living without the burden of things taking the place of the truly important people, experiences, and feelings that life ought to be made up of in their place.

"Generosity is what keeps the things I own from owning me." Eugene Cho, founder of the One Day's Wages movement (for more information, http://www.onedayswages.org/).

The Next Challenge

I am seeking ideas for what I should do and where after my time in Chile must inevitably end. As those of you reading this blog regularly might (or might not) have noticed, this experience is teaching me to adapt and change and grow...preparing me for the next challenge. I hope to go somewhere else in the world, within the US or internationally and volunteer my time and self for education, empowerment of women and children, public health, or some other task that has not yet revealed itself to me.

Any suggestions/advice/recommendations would be extremely appreciated. I am seriously open to just about anywhere in the world...but seriously. I sound like one of the many students I advised in my old job at the International Office of my university, the ones who made it super hard to advise. But it is true.

See the "Comment" button below? Please use it. Please. Or write me at Cmonroe161@yahoo.com.

Thanks!

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.