I Am Addicted and Going Through Withdrawl

I’m addicted. There is no other way to explain it. I never fully realized it, but now, being here in Chile, I am reminded of it. You see, I am going crazy, and it isn’t for booze or drugs or sex. No, for me it’s baseball, a pure and simple love for baseball.

At first I thought, it’s gonna be OK. Life can still go on as normal. I was wrong. I am slowly going crazy. When I talk to my dad, I suck all the baseball info out of him I can. Whenever anyone else calls, I ask for info too. I have given up with my mother, a wonderful woman but one that couldn’t tell me the difference between short stop and middle relief.

And really, it seems the stars are aligned against me. Baseball is the sign of all signs that spring is upon us. It blossoms in the summer and closes shop in the winter. Here in Chile winter is upon us and I feel tricked. “But my God, my God” I cry out huddled in my sleeping bag, hugging a hot water bottle trying to stay warm in our un-insolated and unheated house “don’t you understand... it’s baseball season?

Sadly, God rotates around soccer season here, which, as far as I can tell, is a 365 day year a sport without what we call an off-season. And as for soccer, the last stab I took at playing I scored a total of -1 goals. Work on that for a minute. I have not returned to the pitch since.

And last of all, I am a Cubs fan. My father has never seen them win a world series. My grandfather died never knowing what it would be like. Anyone born after 1908 for that matter has never seen it happen. And OK, OK, I know, in true Cubbie fan fashion (even in spite of their pitiful bullpen) I am buying into the “this year is a different year stuff” that has tortured Cubs fans for generations. But can you imagine the horrible irony if they were to go to the World Series and win it, the first time in 99 years, and they did it for one of the two years I would be away from baseball?

And so for now, we get by how we can. I am reading a great book called Carrying Jackie’s Torch: The Player´s Who Integrated Baseball and America by Steve Jacobson. It is a story about the guys after Robinson, many whom we seldom here of but who were great ballplayers and even more so, incredibly noble men. Larry Doby, Curt Flood, Dusty Baker, etc... these are the names that will mark my experience with baseball in South America. And you know, the more I read about these men, their sacrifices, and their gifts, the more I realize, there ain’t a better way to miss baseball.

So from a hapless baseball fan, I wish you all a very happy baseball season... unless you are a White Sox or Cardinals fan. Sox fans, como se dice SWEEP in Español? (=

“It's designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains comes, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone.” A. Bartlett Giametti

The Dirty Hippie

It’s not that we are dirty hippies, it’s just that it hurts to shower.

I know, it sounds crazy, but consider our living situation.

It’s cold, and when I say it’s cold, yes, I am talking about life in 30 to 40 degree weather. Big deal, right? That’s what I once thought too. But consider this. We live in a house void of insulation, built like a dungeon so the minimum amount of sunlight possible enters, and without heat. And so, when it is 40 degrees outside, it is 40 degrees inside.

Central heating has been redefined as follows:
1. A tiny heating mechanism that sits in the corner of our living room called an estufita. If you stand directly in front of it, you are warm. Otherwise, it serves little purpose.

2. Guatero. Think of a hot water bottle wrapped in a cloth. Put steaming water in it, hug it like you’d hug your girlfriend, and pray you fall asleep before the warmth fades away. Unfortunately, these things apparently have been known to explode on people… I am praying to return with a body free of scalding, because I think the story that I fell asleep hugging a water bottle and that´s why I have these burns might not be too cool.

3. Sleeping bag. Sittin on the couch, or going to bed at night, also sleep in your sleeping bag, with another blanket or two on top as well as sweatpants, a hoodie (with the hood up covering your head of course).

4. Yelling obscenities while doing rapid movement. I’m convinced this one works the best.

5. Tea. Drinking it could be consolation enough, but some of the best moments of my day come from standing in front of the stove with my hands over the kettle, taking in the excess heat.

6. Laying on the couch with Jack. He might be dirty, but man is he warm!

7. Showers. And this my friends, is wear the pain comes in. First, we don’t even turn the cold water handle. Purely hot. And it feels like needles hitting your skin, especially your toes, as the steaming water makes contact with your body. And just as the pain wears away, and it starts to feel good, your shower is done. You turn the water off and step onto the cold tile, and instantly re-enter a cold world.

And so that brings me back to my opening. It’s not that we are dirty hippies. True, I change my clothes only every three or four days now (you trying getting naked in this weather) and true, I shower at about the same interval (ok, actually a little less). It’s not that we are earth children, it really is, that it is too friggin cold!

I know you understand me

Chile, like the United States, can be a racist country. Last week, my Catholic Chilean co-workers couldn’t shut up about how horrible Peruvians are. If you were to listen to many Chileans, Peruvians are the scum of the earth. Having a good friend who grew up in Peru, the constant barrage of racial slurs towards Peruvians has, over time, worn me down.

In March, a man came up to me in the downtown area and asked me, in broken English, if I was from the United States. After I replied yes, he handed me a flier and spat at me, “go home Yankee. You not wanted here.” The flier said the same thing (but with better English).

Weeks later I placed a simple food order when I was out with my friend Emily. I spoke clearly and correctly, and the woman turned to her co-worker and as if I were not there, and said “I can’t understand him. You talk to him.”

And if it is not that, it’s a postal worker pretending I can’t understand Spanish, a store owner pretending they can’t understand my simple questions. It’s being called gringo and hearing choppy English phrases shouted at you when you are out and about. Right now, a popular one in my neighborhood is “what up nigger.” Bienvenido a Chile, disfrute su tiempo.

You think you can escape some of the things you shunned in your life in the United States, and sometimes it takes traveling half way across the world to realize the more things change; the more they stay the same. I have received but a tiny taste of what so many of my own friends have experienced in their own lives in the United States. From the United States to Chile to Europe, there will also be racist people. I guess then, the real challenge is learning to address it, and try to change it. There are racist Chileans and non racist ones, just like racist U.S. citizens and non. I guess I just wanted to write this, to dispel that idea so popular in my own liberal circles in the United States, that racism and bigotry is somehow unique to the United States.


“If you don’t have the courage to speak up for human beings, you don’t have the right to speak up for God.” Luis Espinal, S.J.

The Multiplication of the Loaves

Catholics are not really known for being Biblical scholars but I am gonna go out on a ledge here and say most of you can follow me if I ask you to recall the story about Jesus going to a town called Bethsaida where a crowd of 5,000 follows him. He speaks with them, heals them, and at the end of the day, the Apostles come, asking Jesus to send them away so they might find food, as they are growing hungry. “Feed them” Jesus instructs. To which the Apostles reply, “but we have only 5 loaves of bread and two fish.” Remember it? Here’s a hint, it was the Gospel reading on Sunday, Luke chapter 9, verses 11-17.

The multiplication of the loaves, it is often referred to as. And like the falsehood that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, this important story of the Bible is so often misread, and misinterpreted.

If you read the passage yourself, you will come to see, like I was taught a couple years ago, that no where in the Gospel does it mention a multiplication of anything. It only says they sat and they shared what they had and left full. The Peasants of Solentiname note that “The miracle was to persuade the owners of the bread to share it, that it was absurd for them to keep it all while the people were going hungry.”

I was blessed to hear a wonderful homily yesterday to remind me about the powerful truth behind this Gospel message. I often wonder why I grew up, never having this truth revealed to me. Perhaps it was too much a temptation towards liberation theology for the mainstream Church, to emphasize not only charity, but solidarity. To share a penny if a penny is all you have.

The priest in my poor parish yesterday tried to imagine the story in our own context. Perhaps, he said, the people came together and pulled out their empanadas or what other little food they had, and together experienced the blessed and broken bread of Christ in ways we might struggle to imagine. It was a powerful idea to fill the Church hall with that day.

I just finished a book called Blood Brothers the other day. It deals with Iraqi veterans, amputated in the war, who come back to rebuild their lives. And it mentioned how everyday, one of the men had a tradition on his way to work to buy a coffee and sandwich for a homeless man he would see day after day. The symbolism is so powerful. It’s the idea that each of us has an obligation when our car stops under that underpass or we walk by the man in the shaggy clothes shaking a cup of change, to help. I came across this quote below while reading about Dorothy Day, an ordinary woman whose ordinary vision has created inspiration for millions of Catholics like myself. It gets to the true multiplication of the bread: us.

“Bread and truth, truth and bread, making the rounds. Today’s food would yield short of death (the death of the soul), to tomorrow’s hunger; the task would never end. But let tomorrow take care of itself; it was today’s hunger that must be met. Let us meet it. Let us multiply ourselves, in the youth, the workers, the poor, the street people, the excluded. All have the truth to offer; all can multiply bread, bake it, break it, pass it on.” Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

Jack Vs. The Cats

An epic battle has been trudging on for sometime now in 1309 Ictinos. At first, Roy and I felt it best to take a position of neutrality. If history is a lesson to any American, it’s that a position of neutrality only lasts us so long. And well, really, our ally needed help. Our ally was growing helpless, and quite literally hungry. At some point, who were we not to align ourselves with our three legged dog in the battle against the stray cats?

It started out innocent enough. First it was cats on a tin roof, driving the dog nuts. So be it. Then, they started sleeping in his bed right outside our backdoor. This seemed to be pushing it, but again, not enough to cross us over. In March, we discovered traitors in our ranks. Unbeknownst to Roy and me, Natalie and Michelle, had, for lack of better terms, been coddling these young kittens, almost inviting the enemy directly into our house, most likely in the hopes of adopting one someday. Soon thereafter they began multiplying, and then the real battle began, the battle for food.

It wasn’t until April we realized just how dangerous these cute little kittens were. They began eating so much of Jack’s food we nearly doubled the monthly order. Jack appeared to be going beside himself. He was prone to random fits of spinning and yelping, hobbling and falling off the couch in a sprint like attempt to protect his domain. Roy and I watched this, and soon found ourselves, allies in this war.

We created squirt guns out of old water bottles and began charging out the back door, screaming with the force of ban gees while spraying water on anything that moved. Sorry Jack. Again and again the cats would approach the front lines, and every time they were met with a fierce repellant: screaming gringos with malfunctioning water bottles. Oh, and a three legged FIERCE dog.

Unfortunately the battle has been complicated as late. The other day I looked out my bedroom window and noticed two cats in Jack’s bed. Jack, a mere inches away, laying on the cold floor, merely looked up at them with a tranquility in his eyes no dog should ever have when faced with a cat. Roy relayed a story of Jack cornering one of the cats, and getting frightened when the cat hissed.


The battle wages on, but really it feels like a lost cause. The cats seem to be in it for the long haul. Just the other day they left us a warning: on the sunroof above our living room, the shadow of a dead bird sits as a subtle reminder of just what kind of vicious animals we are fighting against. The cats have come to play hardball, and my loveable but helpless three legged dog is losing the battle, and unfortunately, so are we. Roy wants to put a laxative in a decoy food bowl, I will let you know what happens.

Cardboard Cutouts... In Shades of Red, White, and Blue

It brought tears to my eyes the night I sat in silence reading the following...

“The night before the helicopter flight, Victor Langarica called home for the last time, certain that he would die the next day. ‘You better make it’ his mother told him. ‘Your kids are waiting here for you.’ She put his 6-year-old daughter, Devina, on the phone to talk with him. When he got back on the line with his mother, he was crying. ‘ I will remember you every second,’ he said.” Devina’s father died in Iraq the next day. Excerpt from “The True Cost of War” by Weston Kosova. Newsweek, Feb 5, 2007

“Never forget that your daddy loves you more than anything and that I will be home soon.” Major Michael Mundell wrote that letter to his young daughter. He died in Iraq on January 5, 2007. Quote is an excerpt from “Our Soldiers Stories: The War in the Words of the Dead” by Jon Meacham. Newsweek, April 7, 2007

Reading “Our Soldiers Stories: The War in the Words of the Dead” in the April 2nd issue of Newsweek, I read the words of Terri Clifton, who lost her son Marine Lance Cpl. Chad Clifton. “It’s become very important to me that these soldiers and Marines are viewed as individuals with lives, dreams, experiences and families. They aren’t cardboard cutouts in shades of red, white, and blue.”

Lance Cpl. Clifton was 19 when he lost his life to a mortar.

If I am to be honest with you then it is important to emphasize I am of the political left.

I do not want this to be political, insofar as that can be avoided. In many ways, it can’t. But I hope you can read this, you too can maybe think of the human cost of war. One thing I have noticed in Chile is the media, is, as some might say, more graphic, others might call it something else: more honest. While watching the international portion of the news, I have seen bloodied corpses dragged out of burning cars, babies dead in rubble, and soldiers, face down, never to rise again. This is the reality I see the war in Iraq from, through the eyes of Chileans who day by day endure the photos and video of lives lost in the most horrendous of ways, ways we, those who should must see it the most, don´t tolerate.

I looked through a list of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and began from the top of the list and worked my way through their ages:

21, 21, 21, 28, 20, 32, 26, 24, 21, 21, 25, 19.

I heard a story the other day about a depressed veteran who went seeking treatment from the Veterans Administration. “I’m depressed, I feel so suicidal” he noted. The clerk, without looking up, informed him they were unable to help. “Come back in a couple months.” This soldier, became another one of American’s fallen when he hung himself four days later. Senseless deaths, and it leaves me feeling anxious and empty inside as I write about them.

As a colective nation, we have never been asked to do anything since this war started, except to shop and shop a lot. And we have, as a nation, collectively done less than that, failing in essence, to see the humanity of the soldier, the humanity of the stranger outside our realm of reality, and the loved ones in our nation and Iraq that have so tragically been left behind.

Men, women, children... Iraqi and American, or that is to say, somebody´s son or daughter, wife or husband, mom or dad... real people, just like me, and just like you.

What´s a Kilo to you?

What’s a Kilo to you? Living in Chile my life has switched from Standard Measurements like miles, pounds, etc... and instead been replaced with the horribly confusing Metric system of kilometers, kilograms, etc... Sometimes, the math, no matter how you do it, is astounding.

The first time I realized it was with my dad in town. God bless the man for bringing everything but the Italian Sausage to make us some true Chicago Style Pizza. Unfortunately, despite my best attempts I could not quite convince him that as hard as it was to believe, Chile did not seem to carry Italian Sausage anywhere. We went from store to store to store until finally he seemed to resign to this reality, and finding the closest thing we could to replace it, he told me to order him a pound of Sausage. I knew somewhere in the conversion from pounds to kilos we had a 1 and 2.2 and I took my best guess. “2.2 kilos of sausage please.” When the man handed me 5 pounds of sausage, I had to embarrassingly realize my calculation was wrong, 1 pound does not equal 2.2 kilos, but rather 1 kilo equals 2.2 pounds.

Well, again I ask what’s a kilo to you? This past weekend, on a weekend trip to Pomaire with my housemates Roy and Caitlin, Roy introduced me to quite possibly the most beautiful eating experience I have had in Chile. As some people have noticed in the photos where it looks like a baggy sweatshirt with baggier jeans swallowed me, I have been losing weight. I’d like to say it’s a result of me working out more, but seeing as how I have not ran since March, I must accredit it to our largely vegetarian diet that our volunteer budget affords us. There is a running joke in the house whenever someone asks what’s for dinner to respond “I think a pasta, rice, or beans dish with some tomatoes and zucchini.”

And so, getting back to the story, this weekend introduced me to the pinnacle moment of my eating experience in Chile. In response to what’s a kilo to you, this is what I can tell you: it is a 2.2 pound empanada filled with chicken, beef, onion, and olives stuffed in some of the most delicious dough, and if that were not enough, it was followed by a bajativo (a downer) that made a cold winter day a little warmer with a tasty Apple kick to it. All that for only $3 US.



I came home that night completely full, and, according to Roy, with the biggest smile he’d seen me with since I arrived in Chile. The next night, it was back to lentils and veggies, but for one day, one glorious day, I ate like an empanada king!

Who Knew Free Help Was So Hard to Give Away?

(After the last entry, I thought a balance of finding meaning here might be good. Below is a journal entry from April 22nd, as I rolled into my 4th month of nothing to do for work. I had a job title- volunteer, but no job to do with the title.)

April 22nd, 2007

I am unemployed. And really, if I want to be honest, I have been in this state of unemployment since December. I mean, technically I have a job, in so far that I am a volunteer in a program called the Holy Cross Associates. Today celebrates 9 months of life as an Associate, and I am in no mood for celebration. Perhaps tomorrow will signify my first day of work, and that my friends, would be a reason to celebrate.

I never imagined free help in a supposedly poor country would be so hard to give away. I have tried, at times I really have. Imagine if you will, the humiliation that comes with the worthlessness that defines you when you must answer the most basic of questions, “what is it you do in Chile?” with an even more basic but all the real and honest answer: nothing.

I hope as you read this, the immediate instinct to offer reassuring words trying to speak volumes of the opposite can be quelled. Hear me, really hear me when I tell you of the worthlessness one feels when his days pass again and again without goals or hopes, and end void of successes or even failed attempts.

The program always advertised this experience as a presence with the people, a being rather than doing mentality that emphasized again and again I would not be down here to do a job a Chilean could not do. I wonder if a Chilean could get away without working the way I have the last few months. And so perhaps in the end it is my fault that I find myself in a program in which I often feel I do not fit. Anyone who reads this thinking about volunteering after college, I highly suggest figuring out if it is spiritual formation or service you want the emphasis on. It is something I would have been wise on discerning more carefully myself.

I came to Chile wanting nothing more than to work with the poor, to live amongst them and know them in such a way that this would create the cornerstone of a life of service, not just a two year formation. I came armed with nothing more than an open heart and hands inspired by nothing more than idealistic notions of what I could do, what I mistakenly assumed I would easily do.

And so, I am unemployed. It is humiliating, it is humbling, it is perhaps true solidarity in ways I never imagined and honestly never wanted.

Note: One week after this journal entry I walked into a local school and explained my situation. I am now working, co-teaching English classes to juniors and seniors, as well as working in campus ministry assisting in various aspects. It is still somewhat unfulfilling and I struggle with it, but now, at least, it is something. I might still be going under used, but at least I am no longer being unused. Other than that, I am still visiting the orphanage, and all I can say, is those kids will never know what they have meant to me in this time of difficulty.

Meet Paola

“In this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he’s out of place in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong… he is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. It is in these that he hides himself, for whom there is no room.” Thomas Merton

She’s a twelve year old girl with a smile, a sparkle in her eyes, and a thumb in her mouth. It’s the best way I can understand the quote from Thomas Merton. Everyday I visit this orphanage/foster home (hogar) she is the first one to jump out of her seat, run towards me, and leap into my arms. She gives me the customary Chilean kiss on the cheek, hugs me, and pulls back and looks into my eyes, penetrating all my defenses. I am helpless with this child, she has come to mean the world to me. If you ask me the thing I love the most about Chile, I could answer without hesitation and complete honesty, Paola. At times, it is the only thing I love about Chile.

You find God in humanity. When I work with Paola and the rest of the kids in the hogar, it’s like all the causes and ideals, all that used to motivate me through high school and college, they mean nothing. It sounds heretical, believe me I know, but before you kick me out of the justice league, just try to understand. In place of those causes and ideals, marches and protests and catchy slogans I now have names I can’t forget with memorable faces and unbelievable stories. It’s Paola, twelve years old, who jokingly tells me again and again with a smile and a wink “para ti, baby” (it’s for you baby) in her best Spanglish. It’s Gisella, who writes me little notes telling me how nice I am and how she likes when I visit them, perhaps never knowing how much I love her back, because who knows if she’s ever really been loved before and knows what worldly love feels like.

It’s hard to remind myself these loving children are victims of physical and sexual abuse and now deal with issues of abandonment. Causes and ideals, protests and marches, they are good and needed, but it isn’t until we live amongst what we are fighting for that we really understand: causes and ideals are nothing special in themselves without love and dedication to what lies behind the scenes. In college, I fought the good fight for human rights, but sometimes was able to forget just what I was fighting for.

I wonder as I write this is you can understand what it feels like to truly find God in humanity, to truly believe God isn’t looking down at you from the comfortable heavens but right through you, through the desperate eyes of an orphan.

I might not be able to change the world like I once thought, but yet, changes can be made, for Paola and others like her, one cause, that is to say, one person, at a time. Walking away from the house they live in, a ritual has begun. Paola insists on walking me out with the woman in charge. I say my goodbyes, which in Chilean terms means kisses on the cheek all around, words exchanged, more hugs and cheek kisses, and at last, a long walk, and a final goodbye to the woman in charge as I leave their compound. Then a few feet outside the gate of the house, I hear Paola’s little giggle, and then hear her voice shout,- Tio Pato (tio being anyone in charge, pato, being duck, but also the nickname for Patrick) But anway, “Tio Pato, para ti... BABY!” The neighbors in this quiet neighborhood must think I am crazy, as I turn around, take one last look at her smile, laugh, pray she understands the story my eyes try and communicate to her, and with more meaning then she may ever understand shout back, no, para ti… baby!

In Search of the Soda Gods

It was a pretty risky thing to do. I might be brash, but in the end I like to be as politically correct as possible. But all the indicators told me my best estimates would prove me correct. The group of people sitting there were of a darker complexion. Many Chileans, with their blonde hair, ghostly skin, and blue eyes, are anything but that Andean culture with darker skin and darker hair. They were sitting alongside the chapel, a common hang out for them I have been told many of times. And, a few Chileans walked by, dishing almost unnoticeable glances of disgust at them, and that all but firmed up what I already knew to be true.

“Are you Peruvian?” I asked the group. Their hurried conversation came to a stop; they starred at me blankly for a moment, and hesitantly answered, yes. I don’t blame them for eying me suspiciously, reluctantly admitting their nationality. They are often poor in Santiago, working to feed a family back home, and treated by Chileans, the same way so many Latin American immigrants are treated by “US Citizens” back in the United States.

I suppose when I smiled and said “thank God!” they lightened up a little. When I told them I was dying for a Pisco Sour, a real one, like the ones from Peru, I sealed the deal and we were laughing together. The Pisco Sour, a traditional drink of Chile and Peru, is fought over amongst the two cultures as to who claims the original ownership of it. It’s a good way to win a Chilean or Peruvian over, or permanently frost relationships with them, depending on how you structure your comments about the drink. But anyway…

After a little bit of small talk, I explained I had a Peruvian friend back in the United States that got me hooked on something they might be able to help with. They were all ears. I explained my absolute obsession with the Inca Kola, a yellow cola, the Cola of the Gods! At this everyone laughed and when one man said, “who would have ever guessed a gringo in Chile in search of the Cola of the Gods” they all roared. Eventually laughter subsided and directions were given. It was an import, and so it is pretty expensive by cola standards, but fortunately, I was talking to experts. A left turn here, a right turn over there, there will be a building that looks like a galleria, turn into it. Walk five floors up the circular corridor and look for the nondescript restaurant without a name. There will be a bunch of Peruvians eating away, and it is there, the cola of my dreams will be.

I felt like a detective acting on a hot lead and it made sound cheesy, but I felt the sweet joy of victory when I walked out of this hole in the wall restaurant, the Peruvians looking at me somewhat oddly but also giving me that acknowledging smile. One man as I left smiled particularly big, and I as I was turning the corner, he shouted “Oye, amigo!” I turned around to look at this man with his own bottle of Inca Cola raised up high. “Salud.”

It’s the little victories that make the biggest differences anymore. When I opened the bottle of cola that night I must have made my roommates a little uncomfortable. I felt like I was in that Herbal Essences commercial, because I just kept taking sip after sip of my soda, going “ohhh my God, yeah!” “Ohhhhhh.” “Jeez this is sweeeeet!” I even started to address it as though it was a person. “My God I have missed you!” I’d like to think after my roommates had a taste, they understood, but then again, no one else seemed to react like I did, so who knows. Either way, besame el culo Coca Cola, I got Inca Kola!

Earthquake in Chile

I didn´t even wake up to it. Little by little the house began to come alive with noise until at last I woke. Did you feel the earthquake everyone asked? I was half asleep and I guess in true LA fashion asked if everyone was OK and if anything broke. No, came the unanimous reply, everyone and everything was ok. It´s not a big deal then was my reply and I went right back to sleep.

So for those of you that know, there was an earthquake 800 miles south of Santiago. We felt the aftershocks but nothing big enough to create damage. When we got back to our house in Santiago (we were an hour north at the time) our voicemail was flooded with calls of concern and our email boxes as well.

So all is well for the Associates in Chile. No one was hurt, and some experienced their first earthquake like sensations for the first time!

Hope all is well with everyone else!

Responding to Human Tragedy

Your brain goes into a helpless overdrive. I remember the day when a man on the street in Bolivia identified me as an American, and told me "it´s a tragedy you know, another plane crashing into a building in New York." Immediately my heart begin beating rapidly, as I pressed the man and sadly he could offer no more information. Slipping into an Internet cafe, I was relieved (if there ever is such a way to be relieved) that it was not as I had imagined, a 747 jumbo and instead ended up being a small prop jet.

And again today, it came crashing back. I heard something briefly about the university killings in the United States last night while playing soccer. But as I pressed for specifics, none were made available.

This morning, as I was running around obtaining my VISA, getting finger printed, the woman doing my finger prints commented about the tragedy. A shame she said, 30 some people killed at this university. We spoke for a minute and I asked her if she knew where it happened. Without a hesitation, she told me: Los Angeles. She had seen the news and thought it was Los Angeles, Chile, but no she said, it turned out to be Los Angeles, USA.

I got panicky, frightened, hoping it could not be LMU. I asked her if she was sure, she replied yes, she was. I left the office in a zone and even trembling a little. Surely someone would have called me if it was LA. Wait, I received a call last night, but I missed it. What if, oh God no, what if was all I could think.

I can´t explain to you what it means to be away from a world that is still your own, living in a world yet to embrace you. You hear things about planes crashing, university shootings, and you run to the nearest Internet cafe, trying desperately to get more information.

And a cruel irony of it all is reading about human tragedy, and knowing, despite what you want to believe, your first instinct is relief. Relief the plane wasn´t bigger, relief it was someone else´s friends and family, someone else´s Alma Mata. I go through these emotions, I realize they are not right, and in a way, it gives me insight into how so many in an affluent country like mine can overlook the genocide in Sudan, the nameless child blown apart in Iraq. Not my family, no in my realm, not my problem. While still untolerable, it becomes easy to understand why this was the most searched news items on Google in 2006...


Google News - Top Searches in 2006
1. paris hilton
2. orlando bloom
3. cancer
4. podcasting
5. hurricane katrina
6. bankruptcy
7. martina hingis
8. autism
9. 2006 nfl draft
10. celebrity big brother 2006

My heart goes out to everyone involved in that shooting. I feel great sadness for the students, the family, the community around Virginia Tech, and even the young man who did it, as well as the Korean or Asian community who will now be targets of misdirected hate and confusion from Virginia to California.

People often ask why we do what we do, this social service. Sometimes the answers are hard to come by. If I did not realize it before, after my time here I realize I won´t change the world. My causes, my ideals, as great as they are, they will never be a chapter to be closed. Poverty will persist, senseless death pass by unnoticed.

But it´s moments like these it becomes clear why I do what I do, what hopefully all of us do in our own small ways: you do good acts when possible, to take a shot at balancing out the many evil or indifferent acts that arise again and again, from here to there. You bear witness to the pain knowing you can´t change it, but by acknowledging it, you do more than so many would ever dare. Yeah, we aren´t going to win, but I´d like to think all God asks of us is the desire to erase hate with love, to come together, different as we are, under that which unites us under one canopy: that which brings us anguish, and the dreams we still dream in spite of it all, in spite of the temptation to turn ideological and hateful.

Again, my heartfelt condolensces to the many victims around our world today.

"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together." Eugene Ionesco

Bring a Good Book!

Say what you will about the United States, but I can tell you this: what happened to me yesterday in Chile would never, ever, in a million years, have been tolerated in any American business worth the salt in the ground upon which they build on.

The more ironic thing was, it didn’t really piss me off. I could have gotten up and walked off at any point, called it a day, but in the name of research, i.e. this blog, I stayed, and stayed, until another roadblock came up.

I carry a book with me wherever I go in this country. Whether it is going out to meet a friend for a cup of coffee or going to an important business meeting, I can’t remember a time the words “let’s meet” from a Chilean hasn’t sent me running for my book. For you see, the power of the book is such that any tardiness becomes tolerable, to the point that sometimes when the person I am waiting for shows up, I get irritated. Five more minutes, I think to myself, you’re already 20 minutes late, and what would another 5 have hurt you so I could finish this chapter!

The really funny thing is that this organization has the professional appearance of an American non profit. Tidy offices and people scurrying in a hurry to do this project or that. Meetings have, been amusing. It usually results with me traveling an hour each way to have a 20 minute discussion, or the classic and most common occurrence, we have meetings to set up meetings. But this was the grand meeting I was assured, this is where we would be hitting the road, surveying these communities of squatters, void of electricity and running water. This was the hidden poverty that had eluded me for so long, that I was starting to doubt existed in Chile.

And for a while, I started to believe them. They even rearranged the meeting, moving it up from 10 AM to 9:30 AM, gently urging me that by 10 AM it would be too late to do all we needed to do, casi imposible (almost impossible).

Still, knowing Chileans, I showed up a casual 10 minutes late, and walking through the door at 9:40 AM, I wanted to pat myself on the back for learning to be tardy. This is Chilean culture streaming through my veins damn it!

At 9:40 AM, I was ushered to the waiting room and told as soon as one more member of the team got there, we would be leaving. At 10 AM, I sighed, grinned, and then opened up my book and read.

It was a damn good book, and before I knew it 10:40 AM passed into 11:40 AM. Every now and then, the director rushed into the room and told me “a little longer” or “any minute now” words I have learned are really code in the American language for “it could be hours” or “it may never happen.”

I probably should have gotten up and left, but in the name of cross cultural research that begged the question “how much longer can they possibly keep me waiting!?!” I stayed.

Unfortunately, at 12 PM, I had finished leafing through the remaining 150 pages I had in my book. I read some informational magazines around me, but quickly I was bored, and with my backup plan exhausted, my research came to an end. As I stood up to leave, the director came in and again assured me we were just waiting for one more man to get to the office. “A few minutes more” he pleaded with me. I looked at my watch; we were 30 minutes away from when the meeting was supposed to have ended that day! I laughed as politely as I could, and said I had to get moving along, I had a commitment more pressing: visiting the kids at the orphanage, and, unable to resist a subtle moment for irony, I explained, “I don’t think I have the heart to make them wait hours for me.”

Coming home from the orphanage that day, the busses took longer than usual, and the Chileans, found it difficult to form a line to wait. After four busses and the course of more than an hour had passed and time and time again middle aged businessmen and women had ruthlessly cut with pushes and shoves past this elderly man and me patiently waiting to board a bus, I reached the limit of what we might call my Chilean tolerance: I close lined a woman. Well, it’s not like I knocked her down, but as she tried to run by me, I stuck a firm arm out, catching her in the neck. I pointed to the bus as people were still getting down from it, and told her with a chilly voice to wait and get in line.

Riding home on another overcrowded bus full of pushing and shoving, I could have focused on the unnecessary hours I spent waiting, for the meeting, for the bus, but instead, my thoughts went something alone the lines of this:

1. Great book, glad I got to finish.
2. I got gifted at the Hogar, as usual, with whatever they had. Paola gave me a flower, kind of closed up, but really pretty. It bloomed into this...



May we all be so lucky in our day to day lives.

A Week in Pictures

I took my rarely used camera out this week and well, a picture really can tell 1,000 words, or so I hope... Enjoy!



While on the coast of Chile this week with my dad, I was reminded no matter how much I sometimes think my job stinks, someone has it much, much, worse...



Just another photo of a son and dad in front of some foutain, right? Wrong. A photo of me, inside the presidential palace in Santiago, the first location with any týpe of high ranking official I have dared to enter since my adventures in Bolivia. I was trembling going through security, no joke!



If I told you this crowd then fought to get into a narrow hallway and slowly inch their way down a 100+ yard tunnel, and that this is, by most accounts, normal for us now in Santiago, would you begin to see why there have been violent protests about public transpo here?




Despite no Spanish skills, dad was a big hit with the kids I work with at the hogar. They played a game that I translated for him, and the kids sung it in Spanish, he did it in English, it was great!



Valpo, a good place to come and just chill.




How can something so common, so ordinary, never cease to amaze? I guess in the end, it´s kind of like family, pretty common, but yet day in and day out, always so special...I watched this sunset on the Pacific, and you start to wonder, what if someone else I love back home was looking out at that mysterious body of water the same time I was. A world so big when we are so far apart, and yet, we can watch the same thing. Amazing.

Laundry... A DIRTY Process

I hated when I needed to do laundry my sophomore year in college. The apartment complex I lived in was divided into two open air quads. I lived on the third floor of the east quad, the only laundry facilities in this outdated building were on the second floor of the west quad. East quad third floor residents loathed laundry day, quietly and more often than not, not so quietly complaining on the treacherous trek with our laundry baskets filled to capacity. Never did I imagine I would look back on this nightmare of a system and think as I do today, what I would give to have those luxuries back.

Laundry is a complex thing here in Chile if only because it is so darn simple. While most of our neighbors use little and effective machines we Associates do it the old fashioned way. Step one, fill the outdoor sink up with warm water. Step two, sprinkle in detergent. Step three, locate the hand washboard. After that, life gets dirty.

The basic idea is you take whatever item of clothing you have, scrunch it up, and scrub and grind until the odor and whatever stains once existed are removed. After we scrub all the clothes in soapy water you have to drain the sink, refill it with clean water, and then “rinse” the clothes. After the rinsing is complete, we go into spin cycle mode. Given our technology we have been working with to this point I will put your mind at ease. Spin cycle is not, as the simple living image might suggest, spinning in circles really really fast with your clothing. Rather, we take the clothes three shirts or four pairs of boxers (with a pair of sox or two mixed in to push the envelope) over to a tiny contraption known as the spinner which, true to its name, spins the clothes so much so that a large amount of the water drains out of the side of the spinner. For some reason I get a kick out of seeing how much water can drain out of my clothes, the most entertaining is my fleece jacket and jeans, at the same time! After that, we pin the clothes up on the clothes line and wait until they dry.

I would have never guessed it but a machine is much more gentile than human hands ever could be and obviously much more effective. My jeans are slowly wearing away where I scrub the hardest. My socks are no longer snuggly soft and my shirts are stretching out and slowly changing colors. As for effectiveness, I have learned that human hands are prone to cheating, trying to wash less than needed. I have paid the price one too many times with clean shirts that smell dirty, because, well, they still are dirty, even though “I washed them!”

And yet, like doing the dishes, I have sickly started to take a minor amount of enjoyment out of this archaic chore. Don’t get me wrong, the moment I see a washing machine I am hitting that thing up, if nothing more than for the sake of my poor clothes. But in the past, doing laundry was a chore because of the 10 minutes it took to take the clothes to the machines and back. Worst of all, God forbid, was the time I had to pass in the comforts of my apartment as the machine did its work. Now, laundry takes a large investment of laborious time, sometimes a couple hours. But it is a couple hours of good old fashioned elbow grease intermixed with some moments of silent solitude to reflect. Like the dishes, it requires much time and little thought, giving way to moments of silence, solitude, and if done right, solid reflection and clean clothes! Done wrong, well, let’s not talk about it…

Home Sweet Home?

I loved working as a resident advisor but at times it became too much. The stresses of school and extracurricular activities, in general the day to day crisis that life could be had a way of piling up at my doorstep such that the nights I was on duty, I dreaded the four or five hours of open door policy where someone might drop by for a visit. The majority of the time the visitors were residents I enjoyed (oddly enough the troublemakers never would stop by) but there were those times where I just wanted peace and quiet. A home becomes a man’s sanctuary, his private hideaway from his public responsibilities, and for the last two years of my life, my home was my job, my private life more and more public. Graduating signaled the end of this life, a return to normality where my home could be where the introvert in me recharged to be the extrovert everyone else expected me to be.

“Alo” (think hello with an accent) ruptures the silence. We have no doorbell, and so this greeting serves as an announcement that someone is paying our house a visit. It usually comes as I am sitting on my couch journaling, writing a letter to a friend, or having a good conversation with one of my housemates. But it’s a rupture that happens day in and day out, and more often than not, when you are not ready for it.

I thought it was hard as an RA having a wide open door to my peers for 10 hours a week, but here, it’s a whole other ballgame. Our house is an open forum to anyone who wants to drop by to say hello, hunt out English lessons, or just sit in awkward silence for hours at a time as some people do. They come as early as 9 AM and as late as 11 PM, and have no days which they deem as days off. And unlike my college peers, they speak a language I am still struggling to grasp, a language that after a long day or during stressful times my brain is not always the best equipped to handle.

Sometimes, you just want silence. You just want your house to really be home sweet home. And yet, it is impossible here. My moments of true solitude and peace are when I hop on the metro, travel to some distant part of the city, and lay down in the grass of some foreign park. The people hustle and bustle all around me, but it’s like when I am there, I am no one. I am not an associate trying to live up to the expectations of my neighbors, the stories of my predecessors from years and years before. I am just another person enjoying the park, and the peaceful easiness that accompanies nothingness permeates my soul.

But as quickly as I find the peace, it disappears the moment I step back into the associate world. I no longer run just to run, I run to run away, a reality I am not proud of, but a reality that is nonetheless present. When the winter months come, and the rain barrels out of the sky, I wonder where I will find my space, my moment to be who I am at the core so I can be whom everyone else expects me to be, who wrong or right, I desperately want to be able to be.

I have no solutions, no turn around Disney ending for this one. It is hard to be present to others when I struggle to find the space to be present to myself. But in the end, I guess the reality of volunteering is that the romance of it all is harder to find than we’d like to admit. At times, it’s downright hard. I don’t know what to do about this one, I have a desire to be more present to our house visitors but often fail to turn desire into action. Sink or swim, if only life were that black or white how easy this would be.

NEW ADDRESS

Nothing substantial to write just wanted to let everyone know I have a new mailing address. Please send mail now to the following address and delete the old address you had...

Asociados de Santa Cruz
Attn: Patrick Furlong
Casilla 8
Correo 59
Santiago, Chile

Have a blessed day! (=

On the Run... Again

Authors note: This is from a journal entry a couple months ago. Also, big congrats to all the members of the MAGIS Marathon Team for completing the LA Marathon March 4th, 2007!

ON THE RUN AGAIN

I felt like a little kid the night before Christmas. I kept turning over in bed to look in the dark at the various items on my desk. I would take a quick peak, size up the gifts I was leaving for myself to wake up to the next morning, and roll back over smiling.

Every runner can understand me when I say it had been too long. It had been a good couple of months without a run, and my body was crying out to me, infuriated and deflated at the betrayal. It was like I had forgotten what it was to wake up in the morning and just run... To lace up the shoes, anxiously cut short pre-run stretching and then take off with the music pumping through the ears and go wherever the legs will take me and until they won’t take me anymore. As a sport I was never good at it, but as a hobby, a passion, it has become the way I deal with the world that sometimes crushes too pressingly on my willingness to push back. Running is my response, my way to handle life outside of my running sneakers.

And so the disappointment was almost too much to handle as I rose two hours too late, a restless night of little sleep getting the best of me. Walking to the living room I passed the running gear I set aside the night, resigned to leave it cast aside one more night.

It’s the time you pass in between miles 19 and 24 that intrigue me the most in the marathon. You have passed the limit a body can adequately train for and yet you are still too far away from the finish to find the adrenaline needed to push you through. And so the battle of your physical needs clash with the mental aspirations that got you to the start line so many hours before. You get through it not with adrenaline or with the imminent taste of success, but something entirely indescribably different. As I lay there on the couch that day content to let another day pass by with my nose in the book, it was that feeling that crept into my veins.

I did hit the streets of Santiago that day and discovered every nook and cranny I had passed so often in speeding busses. I ran over highways, under bridges through poor neighborhoods and rich, it was through these city streets and tree lined parks that I allowed my feet to conduct a minitour of Santiago.

It was nothing phenomenal. No personal records were made, no “you can’t believe it” incredible stories about 17 miles without proper training or hydration. Only a 10 mile jog that was nothing but a gesture to a neglected runner’s soul. It wasn’t until the ritual of taking off the shoes and socks, drinking a big glass of water, hitting the shower, and returning to the couch to do what I was hours before content to only do that I realized just how much I truly missed it, the rush of it all, and God willing, it will take a while longer to forget how much it means. If nothing else, it will take at least until April 1st, when I participate in my first international marathon!

Transantiago... The tires are a burnin´

I heard the sirens and faintly smelt the tires. Walking home from work that day I might as well have seen a sign that might read “better late than never, welcome to the neighborhood!” Months had passed without a sign of the prophesy, but I flashed back to the words of warning that this was how the neighborhood dealt with most and all issues considered controversial.
Being new here I still can not fully explain it, but apparently there is an infatuation with burning tires to protest anything and well, from the looks of it now, everything deemed unlikable by the younger generation in this part of town. They are the children of parents who protested and resisted aggressively under the Pinochet dictatorship, and void of a dictator, they fill the streets looking for their right of passage into civil disobedience. While it is true there is evident shortage of police patrolling the neighborhood, I am hardly an advocate of creating bonfires of tires to attract funny looking men in riot gear whose faces from what I see on the news have anything but expressions on their face to say they find the situation funny. Though not an advocate, I must say, the anger at least this time was justified.
The last few days I too have fallen a victim to the infamous Transantiago, otherwise known as the city solution to make over public transit. Readers who have never been hamstrung on public transpo might not be able to appreciate the pains of having “an extreme transit makeover” but imagine it for a moment if you can. All the bus routes you had known for years are now gone and in their place is a new system with not only smaller busses, but less busses that run SHORTER distances, much shorter distances. Say one bus used to take you to work in 30 to 40 minutes you most likely find yourself taking three transfers and if you make it there in under 90 minutes, it was a good day. If you got a seat on the bus and weren’t left with your rear parts dangerously hanging outside the door of an overcapacity day, it was a really good day.
And so the images of the last week have been frustrating. Crowded bus after bus refusing to stop at overcrowded bus stops where people run, push, and fight their way onto any bus crazy enough to stop. A once efficient subway system now also overcrowded and equally impossible and if that were not enough, some genius in Transantiago decided to make my neighborhood, one known for its “activists” the only neighborhood to be even further hampered because they didn’t manage to get enough drivers for all the busses they wanted in the neighborhood. Bringing us back to burning tires and funny costumes on frighteningly serious men. While the protests have lessened, the nightly news still has some image and more often then not, it is somewhere in my zone of town.
The failures are frighteningly enough but when you take into consideration that February is vacations months and come March there will be a whopping increase of passengers, in most estimates, by 15%. Six out of ten people in Santiago use public transpo according to the statistics in the newspaper. If things keep going the way they have been, the statistic might as well be rewritten to remark that six out of ten people are screwed when summer begins and school and work resumes.

Passing Empty Busses

I should not have waited so long. I had just gotten done visiting a friend who lived in one of the wealthier parts of Santiago and so there I was, parked on a lonely street corner, waiting, hoping really, for any bus that would get me within some proximity of my house.
At last at 1:45 AM, after an hour and a half of stupidly but hopelessly waiting, I let reality sink in. I hailed a cab, fearful of what the final cost would be but aware I had run out of options. After getting in I gave the instructions to get to my house and then sat content, amused to play the game I have become rather accustomed to down here in South America. I speak, the driver looks me up and down in the mirror a few times, and then finally the question comes out. “Where you from?” he asks. “The United States” went the rehearsed reply. Part one out of the way, and now on to part two.
The driver glances down at his watch, his eyes get large with curiosity, and again, a bit of hesitation until question two comes out. “Why are you going to Peñalolén (the neighborhood I live in), especially at this hour?” “I live there” came the reply. More silence. A nervous chuckle. Glances again. “You do not understand” he tells me and then repeats the question, this time very slowly and pronouncing every syllable. I smile, and repeat my answer, “because I live there.” “no, no, no” he says, even slower this time. “You live in this neighborhood, Vetacuña.” At this point I just smiled and laughed, “so I am told my friend” I say, and this time it is my turn to chuckle. “But I do live in Peñalolén. Let me explain.” It took a few minutes to assure him I did indeed live where I said I live, but at last he seemed content to believe it, and in true Chilean fashion, we spent the majority of the ride thereafter with him bragging about his country, and me listening attentively, interjecting with a word or two here and there.
But something happened that night I was not prepared for. As we drove through the streets we passed a number of busses running empty. Being the underpaid volunteer I am, I was not above studying each bus, hoping that maybe I would see a line that passes my house and we would get far enough ahead where I could order the taxi to the corner, pay, hop out, and catch a bus and save large amounts of money. But that is not the way this story ends.
At some point I became intrigued enough to question the taxi driver about the whole mess. I asked what time the busses ran till and he smiled his signature smile and gave me the first dose of reality, “until whenever each bus driver wants” he said. “Funny” I said more to myself than to him, “I have not seen any that pass anywhere near my house.” And for the third time I got that glance in the mirror but for the first time I felt it deserved, as though there was truly something I was missing. He went on to explain that correct or not, bus conductors won’t pass through my neighborhood late. If I wanted to take a bus home, it was best I find myself on one before 10 PM, or I might as well get used to taxi service.
I made it home safe and sound that night but not without passing bus after empty aimlessly navigating, empty, through wealthy streets. To this day, the shortcomings of public transportation to serve those in the greater public who truly need it, baffles me. My imagination can’t let go of the painful irony of those empty busses passing through wealthy neighborhoods while the people most in need of those busses after a long night of work are left with little if any affordable options. Another not so subtle reminder of how the poor of Santiago are kept hidden in the shadows of the cities increasing wealth and for me personally, a good reminder, via the power of the purse, to get my butt on a bus early if I have any hope of surviving on my stipend!

A tour of the house

I am working on another blog but for now you can check out a mini tour of my house. Photos of the place are available here and hopefully next week a new blog will be up.

Silence can be so deafening

Sometime silence can be deafening. I can´t explain to you the sound grass makes as you carelessly fall back on it and I don´t think I will ever be able to repeat for you the many other sounds I took in that day. There were birds chirping, children laughing, wind rustling leaves, English, Spanish, a whole slew of things, and yet, it was the silence of her smile that captivated me. I had just pretended to have been tackled by this seven year old ball of energy and laying in the grass looking up at the most curious and confident of eyes looking back at me, I wondered how she did it, to smile in spite of the cards life had handed her.

There is the temptation to romanticize this story and there is the fear that my words won´t do justice to the testimony it has the potential to be. I saw life in a child many of us would rush to take pity on. A child with deformed hands and missing fingers. A child who has lived everyday of her life before that day and will live everyday of her life after that day never having the opportunity to overlook the subtle cast aside sounds of nature like the movement of grass or animals. She can not read, she can not speak with her mouth or her hands, and living in the campo, I can´t honestly tell you if she ever will be fully educated to communicate with sign language. And yet, she has the most brilliant set of eyes that speak the volumes she has been shortchanged in life.

For the last few days of the sumer camp we worked in I watched a little seven year old girl without fear or abandon aproach anyone, be it a four year old child, camp counselor, or stranger in the museum and begin to comunicate. It usually started with a smile and then pointing and gesturing and finally the discomfort of the other would wash away with her signature smile and laugh.



I heard the voice of God in the silence of a deaf girls smile and I wonder if you can too. Just as you start to wonder what´s it all about, why are we where we are, I truly would like to believe that God is speaking, giving us the answer, but often it is in the most subtle or overlooked places or people. It´s liberation theology taken out of the ivory tower and placed in front of our eyes, if only we choose not to avert our eyes. We might not admit it outloud but we never expect God´s voice to be a seven year old deaf girl.

A lot of people ask what it is I do down here and to tell you the truth, the answers they´d like, the answers I´d sometimes like are hard to come by. How I´d love a two word answer like English Teacher or Social Worker or even Traveling Hippie to make it easy for us all. But being a Holy Cross Associate means my life is more simple than complicated and for that, it is hard to explain to people living in a complex world.

As I started to get angry at the lot this little girl was cast she tackled me in the grass and laughed, and for the first time in a few weeks, I didn´t just laugh (because God knows I laugh a lot) I laughed like a child laughs, a small distinction I almost forgot existed up until that moment.

I don´t want to downplay her struggles because they have been many and will continue to be unfair, but for just a moment our vulnerability and failure meant nothing as they shrunk in the light of laughter and love. Again you ask me what is it I do down there in Chile. Teach.. yeah… social ministry… sure. Volunteer… duh. But I´d like to think that something like being present to the moments God whispers in your ear by saying nothing at all sounds a hell of a lot better than stamping a job title on what it is I do.

When you stop and think about it, we all have job titles that fill in the blanks on the documents and emails and casual conversations, but if we do it right, regardless of the title or the place, our jobs bring so much more than a mundane title. I have lived my life these last few years under the principle of the Magis, a thirst for the more in all that we do and I found that Magis is achievable in all that we do, if only we are willing to patiently seek it out and when we find it, live in it. Truly, unabashedly, live in it.

A.M.D.G.



SMILE!

Not for the easily offended

I so desperately wanted to believe it was because I was a modern day Saint Francis of Asissi. I mean there we were, the gringo parade, walking down the lonely campo roads of Pocuro with, at one count, 9 dogs following us. Perhaps the image would have been as majestic as I would like to picture it if it weren’t for the fact that Roy and I were busily attempting to chase the dogs away, as they fearlessly pursued the one female dog who took a liking to us- and was getting humped by every four legged creature in sight and come to think of, out of sight..

Apparently Chileans think neutering is a form of cruelty to animals but yet having hundreds or thousands of dogs aimlessly wandering the streets homeless is not. I am yet to figure it out but I can attest that in the heat of the summer, the heat of the poor female dog walking alongside us was even worse. Perhaps you have a vivid imagination and to that I say, first get your head out of the gutter, and then picture the humor of the three Americans sitting at the bus stop while just inches from their feet, every male dog in Pocuro was attempting to hump what must have been the only female dog in the area. Adding to the humor is that, several feet away at safe distances, every local was laughing at the gringo boys who had sunk their heads into their hands, only hoping we would not have to endure the humiliation for too long.

And you’d think going to bed that night it couldn’t have gotten any worse. Daniela, the street dog mentioned earlier follows the Associates wherever they go, and so I tried to get to sleep the night before in spite of the sound of Memo, the Pocuro Associates dog, growling and humping, unsuccessful (wide and to the left I sadly witnessed enough to be able to attest to) for hours and hours throughout the night. And at 5 AM, as I quietly moved to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, I was shocked when climbing over the side of the bed I heard a loud crack and then felt the wood railing at my feet collapse, sending me and the other wood railing that my hand was holding onto crashing into the window head first, and finally ending the long decent down as I collapsed on the wood paneled floor in a heap of tired, what the BEEP just happened to me confusion. Adding insult to injury, the last piece of wood came crashing down, smashing my foot and then tipping back in the dark to smack me in the face.

I laid there quietly in shock for a few seconds until finally mustering the words “I’m OK” to come out of my mouth. When Roy turned on the lights, a pile of what used to be the support of the bed was scattered around me, and Ryan, who was sleeping on the bottom bunk was sitting calmly holding the bed up over his head, his face, not so calmly begging the question ¨what the hell just happened?!?¨

We left the bed in shambles that night (the story about me and Roy fixin it as the photo below proves is for another day), Memo failed over and over, and over again at sinking the put if you will, and another ordinary day came and went in my South American life. Perhaps more shocking is the deal I extend to all of you: you pay for the plane ticket, I will provide entertainment like this free of charge!

Learning American Pop Culture While Abroad

You look like Robbie Williams the girl told me. At first I took offense at the little girls words. It was a long day and Chileans are blunt, and so being told I was going bald and then I was fat, and now this, it just seemed like too much. I figured Robbie Williams was some affectionate Chilean slang for the famous actor Robin Williams, and I mean, come on, I am only 23 years old for God’s sake, find someone else to compare me to. But then I was quickly informed that the Robbie Williams I was being compared to is not in fact the stellar actor but a current pop singer from Britain. I still can not name a song he sings, but at least I rest a little easier knowing that I am being compared to a British Sex Idol and not an incredibly funny but old and alcoholic comedian.

In Bolivia, I kept getting questions about this thing called High School Musical. Grant it the preliminary questions took place in Bolivia at a time when I understood even less Spanish then I do now. And so when the kids would start singing, I just assumed that perhaps there was a trend amongst high schools to add musicals to their theatrical rotation. While I still do not know what exactly it is, I have sense discovered that High School Musical is a hit movie, about what I have yet to discover. Daily high school drama I assume, and instead of just like, talking about it, they like, well you know, they like sing about it I try and say in my best high school slang if you, like, will. For a while, I thought it could not get worse. But then…

I just figured Grey’s Anatomy was a medical term. I mean I always heard it in the context of conversations about medicine, and who have I ever been to correctly identify medical terminology. I have had asthma for over 12 years and I still can’t tell you the names of my medications without looking at the inhalers. And so it was again when people explained that Grey’s Anatomy is not medical jargon but in fact a hit television show, apparently number 1 in the nation according to Natalie, and Grey is not the color gray misspelled but instead a character in the show. By now, you are either incredibly shocked at my ignorance or discovering your own pop culture ignorance, and so it comes down to the final pop culture point of reference that I was told by a friend, everyone knew about.

And this last one did not come from a Chilean but from a desperate moment of boredom in the Santiago House when I pulled out an old issue of People Magazine because sadly, I had nothing better to read at the time. Before you judge, I would like to point out famed Medical Doctor Paul Farmer is a regular reader of People, calling it the JPS- Journal of Popular Science. But back to the point, imagine my surprise first of all at the four page spread following Brangelina. For those who are as far out of pop culture as me, that little creative word is the blending of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s names. But more shocking to me, was that underneath my nose the two of them had shacked up (ok, this I knew) and in the process, had a baby together. Not just adopted a child, because this I knew about, but Angelina actually gave birth to one of her own!

Ironic in many ways that I learn more about “cultural” events in my own country while I am living here, but perhaps not too crazy. I have given up listening to popular radio as an educational tool to aid me in my Spanish since more often then not, the songs on Chilean radio are not from hit Latino Artists, but American hits and American has been hits. But never tell a Chilean that Guns N’ Roses and A-ha (think the song Take On Me) are not popular. And With the Starbucks and McDonald’s, infiltration of American movies and duplication of American reality TV, Chile has, in many aspects, really proven to me just how successful globalization, particularly at the hands of the American economy has been and will continue to be, both for better and worse. But now I am educated in the Journal of Popular Science, and as my favorite Chilean-English expression would say, that is SUPER Bien!

Comparing Poverty: A Trivial Task

I live in Chile. I live in a rich country. It has been hard to admit that. I mean, yeah, technically Chile is no United States, but compared to my experience in Bolivia, Chileans might as well be the Spanish word for “lots of money.” Name a major United States corporation and they are probably here and doing business in Santiago. I take a metro subway system to many of my work sites and have witnessed a commercialized Christmas come and go.

At times it has been a struggle to find myself a volunteer in a fairly wealthy country. You try not to do it, but invariably you start to question the work, your place in the scheme of things, and how you ended up trying to be a soldier of justice in a rich country, when so many countries with a higher measure of poverty might well have needed your time and efforts.

And yet, I am beginning to realize that service in Chile is maybe not that far out of place. Because like LA I am seeing the sad reality of development and growth… with great richness and exuberate wealth comes benefits indeed, but more important and less focused upon, a widening gap between those who have and those who don’t.

The experience is not only something to be looked upon and commented upon, but now, it has a direct impact on my life as well, a valuable lesson in real solidarity, a word I used so much before hand and am just now beginning to get a tiny dose of… Living a lifestyle of simple living in a country that offers so many of the commercialized benefits of the United States becomes a bigger challenge then I ever expected. It is one thing to make $60 in a country where a good Argentenian steak costs $3.50 (Bolivia), quite another to make the same amount but have the same steak cost $25 (Chile). Simple living has been a much greater challenge in Chile because everything costs so much more!

In the end, what I am really learning from my experience is that poverty manifests itself in many ways and often times a measure of a countries Gross Domestic Product or whatever general wealth measuring standard we are tempted to use in the classroom is not a fair evaluation of what poverty is. No matter how hard you try, I do not think you can find a standard of measurement that will tell me the 15 year old mothers, and there are a lot of them, that walk around my neighborhood are not victims of poverty just because the structure they call a house is a better construction then what they would find in a neighboring Latin American country.

I work in Santiago, Chile. I work with a people who suffered under the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet. I work with a people who have watched massive development sweep through their country, development praised by politicians and economists alike, development that developed now what seems nothing more than the grand ability to hide the real poverty of Chile. Hidden above the state of the art subway system, behind the growth, the NY Times raving review and the beautiful town center.

Or perhaps, behind the baby strollers pushed by babies themselves this is where we quietly search for God. Rich thriving city or not, poverty is poverty, and it is here I find my calling to work.

“To take an ‘option for the poor’ does not mean to direct oneself toward one part of the whole in order to ignore the rest, but rather to direct oneself toward the whole from the standpoint of one part.” –Jon Sobrino, S.J.

Jack: The Life and Times of a Three Legged Dog

Jack, my dog has three legs. Cute as hell, but in a “three legged I smile as I hobble” kind of way. I have only known him for a couple weeks, and yet I feel an allegiance to this dog. It is amazing what adrenaline does to the human body, all the way from the analytical mind to the feelings in your heart. Running into my yard screaming for my dog, the brain shut off and the heart kicked it up a gear.

Roy, my roommate and fellow community member told me about a time where he was walking Jack when another dog tried to attack Jack. Not knowing what to do, Roy scooped down and picked Jack up and then held him over his head. I laughed and laughed at this story for the first couple weeks, partly because the image it would illicit but also because I couldn’t help but think, how stupid on Roy’s part. Adrenaline switches the brain off, and turns the heart on, something I didn’t understand until a few nights back.

And so back to the story, I came running outside to the cacophony of three dogs barking in my front yard. Only one belonged in that yard, but sure enough two others had somehow gotten in. And there was old Jack hobbling and growling with the might of the 12 pound, 10 year old three legged beast that he was. God bless the dog, I mean he has provided volunteer Associates for many years love and support and he has many strengths, but I was not ready to find out if one of them was fighting a dog three times his size, add to that a leg up on Jack. And so sizing up the situation I did the only thing that made sense: a complete betrayal of the brain and a tribute to the place this dog already occupies in my heart: I yelled and shouted whatever words came to me in Spanish and at the same time placed myself between this street dog and my dog, and assuring I can never make fun of Roy again, picked him up above my head, safe from the reaches of any dog that wished to take away his third leg while walking away shouting strongly at the dog and bringing Jack into our house.

And so it goes, I love my dog. The next night I sat outside with him, picking ticks out of his skin, a process that is disgusting and unnerving, but necessary to keep old Jack healthy. If you have never had a dog, you’d think everything I have said is crazy. But then you wouldn’t know what it feels like to have an old dog beaten by age and bad luck hobble up to you and jump onto the couch to cuddle while you are reading a book or watching a movie.

When I talk to Jack, I always tell him to just give me two more years because with all the knocks this life provides, I can’t afford to lose the one thing that I think will always make me smile in this community: a three legged dog that hasn’t lost his own will to smile (he really smiles, I wish you could see it). Jack’s smile makes me smile, his silly goofball moments like when he tries to get off the couch and slips on the wood paneling and then gets back up smiling and craving attention makes me laugh. It’s those little heartwarming moments that give you the love of heart and stupidity of mind to pick a dog out of the middle of a dog fight and do the only thing that comes to mind: hold him high above your head, far out of reach of any danger.

I hate chocolate... There, I said it.

I doubt anyone will be surprised when I say without hesitation that beans, tomatoes, guacamole, and yes, as hard as it is to believe, CHOCOLATE are four foods I despise and would not mind if I never had to see again. The only exceptions to these ever tight rules of anti nasty food is that I can tolerate a snickers bar oddly love white chocolate and I like tomato sauce with my Italian food, but too much is just a bummer. Ok, and yeah, spicy sauces too, but only because the spice outweighs the tomato, ya know?

And so last week as another HUGE piece of chocolate cake was placed before me, I didn’t know if I had the will to do it again. I am all about courtesy and the such, but I’d been crunching on tomatoes and smiling like they were good, mashing beans in my mouth and pretending the ¨full on texture¨ ¨dull on flavor¨ crap was tasty, and had eaten enough ¨it looks like green puke¨ guacamole until all I saw was green and feared how much green I might be seeing if I woke up with an upset stomach that night. I smile and hide the fear when people offer chocolate... ice cream, cake, chocolate bars and the like, but this time, the limits were being tested.

I guess part of that is a lie. It is not like someone is forcing me to eat this stuff (I guess I could be rude or as Roy suggested, say I am allergic) but many times, given our food budget, I find myself in such a desperate state of hunger (I use these words carefully friends) that I feel excited to eat anything, even if it is tomatoes, chocolate, guac, or beans. It is amazing what a tiny salary, limited food, and of that limited food, limited options can get a man to do. My housemates have sat in amazement and watched me do it, probably not really believing I hate these foods given the ferociousness with which I attack the plate.

To save you the suspense I ate the cake, the pure chocolate cake with not a drop of water by and found that God might not answer the first prayer (please don’t let that woman bring cake out here!) or the second prayer (at least make her give the bigger piece to Natalie) but the third time was the charm(Please God, let there be at least one breath mint in my pocket after I finish this). Chocolate still tastes bad and while God has a sense of humor, she at least answers a prayer somewhere along the way.

And you know, slowly but surely, I am kind of getting used to it. I have tried to casually munch on chocolate flavored snacks with some success (i.e. huge glass of milk in the other hand at all times). I can eat black beans if the ratio is like 1 black bean to 30 grains of rice. Guac, well, spray a little hot sauce on the puke like substance and suddenly eating food that appears to be regurgitated ain´t half bad. And tomatoes, again, nothing a bit, or a lot, of salt, pepper, and other ingredients can’t hide from my taste buds.

In other news, just to show I am not a total sell out, eureka struck while we were camping on Christmas day. Emily, my fellow Jesuit trained friend in my community was snacking on marshmallows with peanut butter which gave me the solution chocolate haters who love camping have been searching for probably for ages: a tasty s’more, without the chocolate. And so friends, may I reveal the grand recipe only here on my blog, with a bit of a disclaimer first… I did an extensive google search with several spellings of the word s’more and while a couple people cleverly included recipes that include the marshmallow, crackers, peanut butter and chocolate, I have yet to find anyone that says screw the chocolate and just make what I will simply label as the ¨My Peanut Butter is Better Than Your Chocolate S’more¨:

2 Graham Crackers
1 or both crackers slapped in peanut butter
AND…
1 Marshmallow (toasted to your preference)

So when the weather warms up or over the fireplace in your homes, try it out, and find the bliss you’ve been denied of, if you hate chocolate. And if you like Chocolate, well, keep your mouth shut the world is on your side! When was the last time you ever went to a birthday like party and the cake did not have some form of chocolate in it or accompanying it? Exactly! (=

Chileans: They speak so fast, even when they think they are speaking slow

She opened up her mouth to speak and I swear it sounded something like “ahahejaha JA JA JA hgdah… cachai?” I nervously looked around to gage the response of the others in the group, and as they laughed and gave what appeared to be a detailed response, I resigned to pretending to understanding her as well. Apparently my bluff did not work so well.

“Daniela, there are gringos in the group, say it slower.” A bitter defeat but at least one that opened the door to the mother victory of victories, saying I understood and meaning it. Unfortunately, as Daniela smiled and audibly apologized that she forgot, the words out of her mouth, call it the SLOWED DOWN FOR THE GRINGO version were equally alarming… “ahahejaha JA JA JA hgdah… cachai?”Cachai is Chilean for you know? Needless to say, I don’t know!

And so the rest of my day became an art in theater, a failure in language. I smiled and laughed, studied cues from others around me and responded with the least amount of words possible. In Bolivia I got to a point where my Spanish was not perfect, but I could get by pretty good. Chile is a different world, different game, the mantra always went. I believed it, but I never knew it would be so dramatic.

They drop the s off the end of all their words so the sentence “the women (plural) have two bottles of beer but no more wine, but I suppose that’s life right?” sounds something like “la mujere tienen do ma bottela de cerveza y no ma vino pero supongo que e la vida cachai?” My Spanish speaking friends if you will, humor me and repeat that out loud, but repeat it as though it is on fast forward… Bienvanido a mi vida, welcome to my life!

There are words here that are common but not used in other Latin American countries and words that are used in every other Latin American country that just don’t really make it down to Chile.

And worst of all, they speak like that guy at the end of a radio commercial that rapidly in a fast forward like motion declares that “prices and participation may vary, etc…” and that speed, for Chileans is normal. I never knew the human mouth had the ability to express language in the speed Chileans do. Last Thursday the smile was unmistakable as Daniela spoke, it was that reassuring look that said don’t worry, we’ll slow down until you’re up to speed. She couldn’t see the look of fear clouded behind my Oscar nominated smile, the realization that will haunt my next few months in Chile” even when they think they are speaking slow, it’s just so damn fast!” Three months in the Bolivian jungles never prepared me for the communication Chilean jungle. And yet, after a few months of this life you get to that point where you learn that life isn’t always about being the one to know it all, sometimes you just got to smile and laugh at yourself, a habit as regular as sleeping in my life. Cachai?

Speaking in Public: In Spanish

I do not get nervous when I am preparing to speak to a crowd of people. I am a freak of nature I suppose: I hate chocolate, find great joy in running, and relish the opportunity to speak in front of 10´s or thousands of people.

I remember leaving the United States and sitting in that Miami airport with two thoughts preoccupying my mind. I think when we are going through a shocking transition our brain has a beautiful and uncanny ability to not focus on what might be too much for us and instead allow us to preoccupy ourselves with rather trivial matters. For me that day, holding a bottle of Odwala juice in my hand and a speech by Greg Boyle in the other, I feared two things: I won´t taste orange juice this good for two years and perhaps more frightening yet, I will never be able to speak in public like I did back at LMU, back in Albuquerque.

We all have talents and sometimes they are obvious. The really good athlete finds little room to hide on the court or field and the intelligent student is reinforced every 9 to 18 weeks with a piece of paper that can speak volumes with one vowel: A+. I was one of those kids that went through high school generally OK at everything but great at nothing and it was not until college that I realized what my talent was: public speaking. I have given several speeches over the years from crowds of 10 to 2,000, and almost every time is without a script and oddly enough, without a fear.

But coming to South America, I was not prepared for many of the realities that would greet me but I was sadly, ready for one: It would take months, years, or maybe I would never reach a point where I could speak with the same clarity I spoke with in English. Hindered by grammar and a lack of vocabulary, how could I ever move a crowd like I had in the past? I just discovered my talent, and now I thought I was sidelining it for two years and feared even more if I would ever be able to recover it…

And so sitting in the conference room at the language institute looking at this crowd of eyes looking back at me I felt like laughing and crying as for the first time in months, that old feeling crept back into my body. Here I was facing a group of Spanish speakers, about to tell them what my service journey means to me. It would be a short speech, all of about five minutes, but as my mouth opened to give my first speech in a foreign language, my heart skipped a beat with an ever joyous and unbelievable clarity: I am ready.

I still do not speak Spanish correctly. I get the verb tenses wrong (for God´s sake there are 14!), am short on my vocab by about 40,000 words (according to mi MINI dictionary), and mix basic sentence structures up because I am translating from English to Spanish rather than just speaking. When I spoke to this group though, I did not speak from a mind that was busy trying to translate words from one language to another: I spoke from my heart, incorrect verb tenses, simple words and all. I spoke with a belief that became a desire to reach these people despite the many barriers that stood between us. Words from the heart coupled with a genuine and sincere conviction in what it is you want to say and I am convinced you can still reach people, still move them to feel what you are feeling.

In a volunteer life more often than not defined by the humbling recognition of our inabilities, I had my five minutes to shine, my five minutes that taught me what might be the most valuable Spanish lesson I will receive here in Bolivia: if you want to communicate with people, search less in the textbook, and more in your heart where language has the ability to become universal. I'm listening to Kite by U2 at this moment and can´t help but scream out the lyrics with Bono ¨I'm a man, not a child! Whose to say where the wind will take you, whose to say what it is will break you, I don´t know where the wind will blow!¨

I made a connection a few nights ago, I gave my first ¨discurso¨ in Spanish, and throwing humility out the window, it felt frickin great! And if that weren´t enough, the juice is even better out here, and a hell of a lot cheaper! (=

Please remember to shop smart this Christmas and read the blog about Christmas about 2 or 3 entries back now.