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.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
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! (=
Asociados de Santa Cruz
Attn: Patrick Furlong
Casilla 8
Correo 59
Santiago, Chile
Have a blessed day! (=
Monday, March 05, 2007
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!
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!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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!
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!
Friday, February 16, 2007
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.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
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.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
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! (=
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! (=
Monday, December 18, 2006
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?
“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?
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, November 27, 2006
It Was Never About the Money
It´s the feeling of being violated that really eats away at you. I was frantically searching pants and jacket pockets already searched hoping for a result I knew was impossible. My next step was to process whether or not I could run down a moving bus already a couple hundred yards away. No, impossible. DAMN! About the same time I became resigned to my fate I imagine that someone on that bus was leafing through the wallet they had so smoothly robbed me of, and smiling at their discovery of a Credit Card and US $50 (a goldmine by Bolivian standards).
And yet, the money, even though it is close to a month´s salary, was not what was on my mind. Make no mistake I felt pain and anger, but if there is anything positive to take from the experience, it´s that $50 and a Bank Card were the least of my concerns. Instead my mind drifted to the photos of family and friends I had kept with me throughout the years. I thought of the Magis Man card I had treasured for years, a card I read when I struggled with my reasons for being here, going through all of this, and it angered me to know it was gone. I thought of the quotes I had scribbled down over the years on scrap paper and napkins, some for inspiration, others to never forget a funny moment with a dear friend. I even thought about my old university ID and State of New Mexico Driver´s License, momentos of a life lived in that seemingly foreign land: The United States of America. All that, momentos of my identity were gone, and with it, something else was speeding away with a bus, something I so desperately hoped to never lose.
There is the inclination immediately after being violated to lash out at the world. I try and be honest with these reflections so I must confess that it took a few minutes to remind myself that this did not happen because I was in Bolivia, it could happen anywhere, and if anything, it happened because I was foolish and not secure enough with my belongings. But still, in Bolivia or LA, there is a profound hurt inside not only about the sentimental items lost, but indeed about a sentimental consciousness that deep down wants to believe in the good of humanity.
In the end, it is not about the money or the credit card or even the photos and quotes. The financial items are easy enough to replace, perhaps a statement of how extremely lucky I am even in my most unlucky of moments thus far. The pictures too while never being the same again can be replaced by new photos of old friends, perhaps a greater gift than keeping the old ones around. And the quotes too while gone forever will eventually be replaced, full circle by other moments of inspiration, other joyous moments I won´t soon want to forget.
Buddha has a quote that says we can´t travel the path until we become the path itself. I am sure he had a different meaning in mind than what I have in mind, but in an attempt to take a lesson from every experience, every moment, I must say thankfully a part of me is able to give thanks for this robbery. She (the gut works in such a way that I am almost positive I know who it was) robbed me of a wallet and she robbed me of a my trust, but she reminded me that it is the very pain and darkness in this world we stumble through that enlivens us with the desire to do what little we can to fill it with joy and light.
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Aldous Huxley
In other news, I am rebuilding my collection of sentimentality, any cool photos, quotes, or good memories (quotes and memories prefered on scrap paper or napkins please!) between us can be sent to the following:
Asociados de Santa Cruz
Attn: Patrick Furlong
Casilla 238
Correo 11
Santiago, Chile
(=
And now more than ever, please remember to shop responsibly this Christmas.
And yet, the money, even though it is close to a month´s salary, was not what was on my mind. Make no mistake I felt pain and anger, but if there is anything positive to take from the experience, it´s that $50 and a Bank Card were the least of my concerns. Instead my mind drifted to the photos of family and friends I had kept with me throughout the years. I thought of the Magis Man card I had treasured for years, a card I read when I struggled with my reasons for being here, going through all of this, and it angered me to know it was gone. I thought of the quotes I had scribbled down over the years on scrap paper and napkins, some for inspiration, others to never forget a funny moment with a dear friend. I even thought about my old university ID and State of New Mexico Driver´s License, momentos of a life lived in that seemingly foreign land: The United States of America. All that, momentos of my identity were gone, and with it, something else was speeding away with a bus, something I so desperately hoped to never lose.
There is the inclination immediately after being violated to lash out at the world. I try and be honest with these reflections so I must confess that it took a few minutes to remind myself that this did not happen because I was in Bolivia, it could happen anywhere, and if anything, it happened because I was foolish and not secure enough with my belongings. But still, in Bolivia or LA, there is a profound hurt inside not only about the sentimental items lost, but indeed about a sentimental consciousness that deep down wants to believe in the good of humanity.
In the end, it is not about the money or the credit card or even the photos and quotes. The financial items are easy enough to replace, perhaps a statement of how extremely lucky I am even in my most unlucky of moments thus far. The pictures too while never being the same again can be replaced by new photos of old friends, perhaps a greater gift than keeping the old ones around. And the quotes too while gone forever will eventually be replaced, full circle by other moments of inspiration, other joyous moments I won´t soon want to forget.
Buddha has a quote that says we can´t travel the path until we become the path itself. I am sure he had a different meaning in mind than what I have in mind, but in an attempt to take a lesson from every experience, every moment, I must say thankfully a part of me is able to give thanks for this robbery. She (the gut works in such a way that I am almost positive I know who it was) robbed me of a wallet and she robbed me of a my trust, but she reminded me that it is the very pain and darkness in this world we stumble through that enlivens us with the desire to do what little we can to fill it with joy and light.
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Aldous Huxley
In other news, I am rebuilding my collection of sentimentality, any cool photos, quotes, or good memories (quotes and memories prefered on scrap paper or napkins please!) between us can be sent to the following:
Asociados de Santa Cruz
Attn: Patrick Furlong
Casilla 238
Correo 11
Santiago, Chile
(=
And now more than ever, please remember to shop responsibly this Christmas.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
My Christmas Challenge to You: Shop To Make a Difference
The poverty eats away at you. It was suppossed to motivate me to do the more, but day by day you find yourself asking what can I really do? Bring it home, take it back to your country, where people really can make the difference they always tell me. But how I ask? How? In the end, who will listen.
I am coming to you with a Thanksgiving/Christmas plea: do the smallest of things this holiday season and make a difference. At your big meals, buy Fairtrade coffee and shop with local markets (if you can find them anymore) but even do something greater: shop for Christmas gifts and for the first time ever, shop with the confidence that the gifts you give bring happiness to those who receive them, but also genuinely make a difference in the lives of those who made them.
Below is a list of comapnies you can shop with this holiday season and shop knowing your money goes to a good cause and your gifts are still nice, still cool. Ignore it and go to walmart if you want, but God if you could see what I see, you might choose to take the challenge. Look at the sites, make some purchases, and above all else, while the presents are good I have come to find in my program the best of presents are truly, yes it is a cliche, those you can´t buy. Enjoy one anothers company...
And lastly, my own personal wish... sometime between Thanksgiving and Dec 15th, give me a call. My cell phone gets free incoming minutes, I don´t pay a dime for incoming...Phone: 011.591.722.760.96
Invisible Children the Movie
By far my favorite movie AND A GREAT GIFT. Three guys graduate from college, go to Sudan, end up in Uganda and stumble across children being kidnapped and forced into a war they do not want to fight in. They made a powerful documentary to raise awareness, but they are doing more, and trying to make a difference. Buy a braclet to support a student to go to school, but first buy the movie, EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS MOVIE, and the website is great with some video clips and previews.
Greater Good
One of the cooler of the websites I have seen. A wide range of products and an opportunity to focus on the cause that really gets to you, from hunger to breast cancer to child literacy to animal rescues.
A Greater Gift
A website I used in the past and enjoyed greatly. They team up with artistans from Chile to India to sell products and they are good products, particularly Devine Chocolates.
GX Online
Another big site with a lot of stuff. A bit more for the super liberal shoppers, but overall the idea is the same: help poor people help themselves.
Shop at big time retailers, and have a portion of your money go to charity
Not the real thing, but a good compromise for the gifts you can't get at the other sites. This is a portal site, meaning they channel you to other companies but a portion (who knows how big) goes to a charity of your choice. Landsend, Barnes and Noble, Officemax, Ebay, etc... are a few of the over 600 companies. If you are going to buy from them anyways, why not demand a bit of your money does some good?
Born Into Brothels
A wonderful movie about one woman making a difference, one child at a time. Purchase the movie directly from the site and not only do you buy a good socially conscious movie, but you also contribute a little more directly to the nonprofit created in response to the movie.
No Sweat Apparel
Everything from sneakers to t shirts to jeans, all made sweatshop free. Look at the tag on your shirt, if it is a country you know very little about, it means it was probably made in dangerous working conditions by a kid you know very little about. Buy with confidence.
American Apparel Clothing
My favorite sweat shop free company, all the clothing is made in LA and it is of the highest quality and thus for me, my most comfortable clothing out of everything I own!
I am coming to you with a Thanksgiving/Christmas plea: do the smallest of things this holiday season and make a difference. At your big meals, buy Fairtrade coffee and shop with local markets (if you can find them anymore) but even do something greater: shop for Christmas gifts and for the first time ever, shop with the confidence that the gifts you give bring happiness to those who receive them, but also genuinely make a difference in the lives of those who made them.
Below is a list of comapnies you can shop with this holiday season and shop knowing your money goes to a good cause and your gifts are still nice, still cool. Ignore it and go to walmart if you want, but God if you could see what I see, you might choose to take the challenge. Look at the sites, make some purchases, and above all else, while the presents are good I have come to find in my program the best of presents are truly, yes it is a cliche, those you can´t buy. Enjoy one anothers company...
And lastly, my own personal wish... sometime between Thanksgiving and Dec 15th, give me a call. My cell phone gets free incoming minutes, I don´t pay a dime for incoming...Phone: 011.591.722.760.96
Invisible Children the Movie
By far my favorite movie AND A GREAT GIFT. Three guys graduate from college, go to Sudan, end up in Uganda and stumble across children being kidnapped and forced into a war they do not want to fight in. They made a powerful documentary to raise awareness, but they are doing more, and trying to make a difference. Buy a braclet to support a student to go to school, but first buy the movie, EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS MOVIE, and the website is great with some video clips and previews.
Greater Good
One of the cooler of the websites I have seen. A wide range of products and an opportunity to focus on the cause that really gets to you, from hunger to breast cancer to child literacy to animal rescues.
A Greater Gift
A website I used in the past and enjoyed greatly. They team up with artistans from Chile to India to sell products and they are good products, particularly Devine Chocolates.
GX Online
Another big site with a lot of stuff. A bit more for the super liberal shoppers, but overall the idea is the same: help poor people help themselves.
Shop at big time retailers, and have a portion of your money go to charity
Not the real thing, but a good compromise for the gifts you can't get at the other sites. This is a portal site, meaning they channel you to other companies but a portion (who knows how big) goes to a charity of your choice. Landsend, Barnes and Noble, Officemax, Ebay, etc... are a few of the over 600 companies. If you are going to buy from them anyways, why not demand a bit of your money does some good?
Born Into Brothels
A wonderful movie about one woman making a difference, one child at a time. Purchase the movie directly from the site and not only do you buy a good socially conscious movie, but you also contribute a little more directly to the nonprofit created in response to the movie.
No Sweat Apparel
Everything from sneakers to t shirts to jeans, all made sweatshop free. Look at the tag on your shirt, if it is a country you know very little about, it means it was probably made in dangerous working conditions by a kid you know very little about. Buy with confidence.
American Apparel Clothing
My favorite sweat shop free company, all the clothing is made in LA and it is of the highest quality and thus for me, my most comfortable clothing out of everything I own!
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Remembering the Martys of El Salvador
17 years ago today 6 Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her 15 year old daughter were dragged into a university courtyard in the late night and murdered by soldiers with M16´s at close range.
19 of these soldiers were trained at the US sponsored School of the Americas.
This weekend there is a protest in Fort Benning, Georgia. To learn more about this horrible mark on human rights violations on our nation, go here. Also, when I invited the priest who has organized the counter movement to speak at LMU, I was tracked down by a military official from the school and encouraged not to have the event. The email from him and my response is found at the following link...
Army Goes Email Hunting
Human Rights Watch
And In Spanish, Amnesty International- Chile
CLOSE the SOA, and to everyone going this weekend, BEST OF LUCK! Please, write an email to your congressional representitive saying CLOSE the SOA
19 of these soldiers were trained at the US sponsored School of the Americas.
This weekend there is a protest in Fort Benning, Georgia. To learn more about this horrible mark on human rights violations on our nation, go here. Also, when I invited the priest who has organized the counter movement to speak at LMU, I was tracked down by a military official from the school and encouraged not to have the event. The email from him and my response is found at the following link...
Army Goes Email Hunting
Human Rights Watch
And In Spanish, Amnesty International- Chile
CLOSE the SOA, and to everyone going this weekend, BEST OF LUCK! Please, write an email to your congressional representitive saying CLOSE the SOA
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Simple living versus Simply Living!
Only in Bolivia. I have said it a lot to myself, usually with a chuckle, sometimes with a sigh, more often than not a combination of those two. But this time the words came in between gasps for air as I slammed on the breaks in the midst of a long run (OK, I don´t really run that fast to use that expression, but still, it felt like that!) Here I was on yet another run through the city of Cochabamba, and yet again, failure was setting in.
I guess in the end, my first jog in the city was a little worse. I was cruising along, not a care in the world. Well not really, I was mad at myself for not washing my running shorts earlier, because the thick sweat pants I had on were not helping me overcome the 8,000 some feet of altitude and intense heat. But there I was, busting along in otherwise complete bliss when a loud growl and a tug on my pants shot me back into reality.
Fortunately, my lightening flash instincts (again, more than we can say about my running ability) allowed me to swiftly rotate the leg not being attacked to kick this dog (if he wasn`t neutered before, he is now) and quickly regain the power in our interaction by shouting out threats in a mixture of English and Spanish. I won the battle that day, but the street dogs of Cochabamba claimed the war to be theirs as I was reluctant to run on these streets, THEIR streets again.
And that brings me to the gasps, the breaks, the ¨only in Bolivia¨ day that happened a little over a month ago. I thought I had outsmarted the dogs by choosing to avoid the streets and instead taking advantage of Cochabamba`s one and only running path. It runs by my school and in the end, ends up in front of the giant Jesus statue in my town. Christo will take care of me, no? So there I was, pumping along, finally getting that run, that beautiful pain and dripping sweat I had missed so much when as I said, I came skidding to a halt. For you see, as I rounded the bend, the animal kingdom of Bolivia again tried to assert its authority in my life.
More than ever I wished I was back in LA, running along the beautiful beach as the sun set upon me as I gazed upon an endless ocean. But instead, I was forced to confront my reality as it was: There was no gazing, only a herd of cattle, grazing on my running path. I wish I could tell you this was some joke, some desperate ploy at a creative blog, but no friends, the honest God truth was if the dogs were not going to stop me, the cows were.
And so I joined a gym. I know I know, simple living what? And where? But in the end, I was forced to choose between what mattered most: simple living or simply living. I have ran into enough drug addicts, dogs, and now cows on the street to feel confident in my decision to invest in a gym. Now the gym is like everything else here in Bolivia: they use products that were beat to near death in some first world country and then to avoid dumping costs, sold to Bolivia at a cheap price. So when the treadmill (I remember this model from the 1990`s when I would visit hotel gyms if that helps you picture it) rotates irregularly and I almost fall off (again, sadly no joke), I do miss those runs on the beautiful coast of California. But after my experiences in the streets, falling off a treadmill because it does not function regularly is the least of my worries. So to my friends back in the beautiful state of California, take a jog somewhere on that incredible coast for me, because you never realize what its worth until a pack of cows threatens to attack you in Bolivia!
VIVA SANTIAGO
In other quick news, I have my address for the next two years. I guess I could not get enough of LA and while it is not 12 million people, there are 6, and an equal amount of smog. Entonces, Santiago here I come!
Asociados de Santa Cruz
Attn: Patrick Furlong
Casilla 238
Correo 11
Santiago Chile
I guess in the end, my first jog in the city was a little worse. I was cruising along, not a care in the world. Well not really, I was mad at myself for not washing my running shorts earlier, because the thick sweat pants I had on were not helping me overcome the 8,000 some feet of altitude and intense heat. But there I was, busting along in otherwise complete bliss when a loud growl and a tug on my pants shot me back into reality.
Fortunately, my lightening flash instincts (again, more than we can say about my running ability) allowed me to swiftly rotate the leg not being attacked to kick this dog (if he wasn`t neutered before, he is now) and quickly regain the power in our interaction by shouting out threats in a mixture of English and Spanish. I won the battle that day, but the street dogs of Cochabamba claimed the war to be theirs as I was reluctant to run on these streets, THEIR streets again.
And that brings me to the gasps, the breaks, the ¨only in Bolivia¨ day that happened a little over a month ago. I thought I had outsmarted the dogs by choosing to avoid the streets and instead taking advantage of Cochabamba`s one and only running path. It runs by my school and in the end, ends up in front of the giant Jesus statue in my town. Christo will take care of me, no? So there I was, pumping along, finally getting that run, that beautiful pain and dripping sweat I had missed so much when as I said, I came skidding to a halt. For you see, as I rounded the bend, the animal kingdom of Bolivia again tried to assert its authority in my life.
More than ever I wished I was back in LA, running along the beautiful beach as the sun set upon me as I gazed upon an endless ocean. But instead, I was forced to confront my reality as it was: There was no gazing, only a herd of cattle, grazing on my running path. I wish I could tell you this was some joke, some desperate ploy at a creative blog, but no friends, the honest God truth was if the dogs were not going to stop me, the cows were.
And so I joined a gym. I know I know, simple living what? And where? But in the end, I was forced to choose between what mattered most: simple living or simply living. I have ran into enough drug addicts, dogs, and now cows on the street to feel confident in my decision to invest in a gym. Now the gym is like everything else here in Bolivia: they use products that were beat to near death in some first world country and then to avoid dumping costs, sold to Bolivia at a cheap price. So when the treadmill (I remember this model from the 1990`s when I would visit hotel gyms if that helps you picture it) rotates irregularly and I almost fall off (again, sadly no joke), I do miss those runs on the beautiful coast of California. But after my experiences in the streets, falling off a treadmill because it does not function regularly is the least of my worries. So to my friends back in the beautiful state of California, take a jog somewhere on that incredible coast for me, because you never realize what its worth until a pack of cows threatens to attack you in Bolivia!
VIVA SANTIAGO
In other quick news, I have my address for the next two years. I guess I could not get enough of LA and while it is not 12 million people, there are 6, and an equal amount of smog. Entonces, Santiago here I come!
Asociados de Santa Cruz
Attn: Patrick Furlong
Casilla 238
Correo 11
Santiago Chile
Thursday, November 09, 2006
What the heck do I do now?!?
I walked into the language school with my head held high. I had plenty of reasons to chalk the day up as a bad one before it began. I was on three hours of sleep, a plethora of homework assigned to me remained where I left it the day before: unfinished in my backpack. I had a killer headache but along with that headache, the biggest smile on my face. It took coming to Bolivia to taste a flavor I had never once known in my young career: sweet oh so sweet victory.
I never in a million years would have believed it was a sentence in English I would have the most difficulty understanding, but days later, here I am, still trying to break it down and process it. ¨We won¨ I heard the Democratic correspondent announce on the television. ¨CNN predicts the Democrats will control the house.¨ It was about 1 AM Bolivian time as I pounced out of my chair. Victory, overwhelmingly obvious victory. I jumped out of my seat, the only person in the language school this late at night, screaming and howling, jumping up and down, screaming expletive after expletive, mostly along the lines of ¨no _____ way!¨ I wanted to do something but I did not know what to do. I felt like I needed to call another progressive older than me and through excited cheers ask the question I was dying to get an answer to: what the hell do I do now?
I have voted in every election I ever could since I was 18 and never once known what this victory tasted like. I grew up with a Republican Congress and have spent about 25% of my life under the rule of George Bush Jr. 65% of my life under a Republican president. I had heard stories of a once great political time. Bobby Kennedy and protests for human rights regardless of skin color that provided tangible and inspiring results. But these tales were nothing more than a history so far removed from me that they felt like nothing more than fiction. This was the life of progressives in a generation before me, my progressive life has been much more dim.
I have been declared unpatriotic by nationalists(keep in mind I had a flag on my car before 9/11) for refusing to support the war in Iraq from the start. Click this link and read the list of dead. I challenge everyone to read the ages and profiles of some of these men and women while keeping in mind this does not include the thousands of civilian deaths and Iraqi security forces, refered to by the government as CASUALTIES (what is so casual about it?) of war.
Year after year, I felt my Catholic values being undermined by the Religious Right and a few crazy bishops in my own church, and this year I finally had the courage to declare he´s my God too damn it, so give him back! Anti Death Penalty, anti war, anti poverty, pro climate change for the good of my grand kids (even if it hurts the fortune 500 company down the road), pro working wage and all, he might be on your side as you say with abortion, but how dare you deny he is not with me and those issues as well.
And so friends, the Democrats have won the house and the Senate. We have the first woman as Speaker of the House in the history of our great nation. A war hawk void of wartime service has resigned (or been forced out, however you want to break it down). Hard to admit, but I will miss some of Rummy´s greater press briefing moments (known unknowns, etc...) I read what the Democrats are planning to do, what they are calling their first 100 hours plan, and what a joy it is...
* bringing in rules to break links between lobbyists and legislators
* enacting all the 9/11 Commission recommendations on domestic security, for example on port security
* raising the minimum wage
* expanding stem cell research
* limiting spending by requiring budget offsets for any new spending
In the longer term, Democrats have ambitions to tackle big issues like health care, domestic security, climate change, and the budget deficit.¨
Who knows in the long term what will happen. I have learned to be cynical, to not get my hopes up. Even before the election, I got in a disagreement with my conservative father: he said the Dems would take the house, I said John Kerry´s stupid mouth was just one more way for us to screw ourselves. But here I am, fresh off victory and still in need of advice from any progressives who have felt victory before, what the hell do I do now!?! How do I celebrate? It is so foreign, so incredibly, deliciously, oh so damn sweet and foreign! For now, a glass of wine and tonight, dreams of Barrack Obama for President in 2008.
I like to avoid partisanship with the blog, but the experience and the emotions and everything was simply too much too ignore writing about!
I never in a million years would have believed it was a sentence in English I would have the most difficulty understanding, but days later, here I am, still trying to break it down and process it. ¨We won¨ I heard the Democratic correspondent announce on the television. ¨CNN predicts the Democrats will control the house.¨ It was about 1 AM Bolivian time as I pounced out of my chair. Victory, overwhelmingly obvious victory. I jumped out of my seat, the only person in the language school this late at night, screaming and howling, jumping up and down, screaming expletive after expletive, mostly along the lines of ¨no _____ way!¨ I wanted to do something but I did not know what to do. I felt like I needed to call another progressive older than me and through excited cheers ask the question I was dying to get an answer to: what the hell do I do now?
I have voted in every election I ever could since I was 18 and never once known what this victory tasted like. I grew up with a Republican Congress and have spent about 25% of my life under the rule of George Bush Jr. 65% of my life under a Republican president. I had heard stories of a once great political time. Bobby Kennedy and protests for human rights regardless of skin color that provided tangible and inspiring results. But these tales were nothing more than a history so far removed from me that they felt like nothing more than fiction. This was the life of progressives in a generation before me, my progressive life has been much more dim.
I have been declared unpatriotic by nationalists(keep in mind I had a flag on my car before 9/11) for refusing to support the war in Iraq from the start. Click this link and read the list of dead. I challenge everyone to read the ages and profiles of some of these men and women while keeping in mind this does not include the thousands of civilian deaths and Iraqi security forces, refered to by the government as CASUALTIES (what is so casual about it?) of war.
Year after year, I felt my Catholic values being undermined by the Religious Right and a few crazy bishops in my own church, and this year I finally had the courage to declare he´s my God too damn it, so give him back! Anti Death Penalty, anti war, anti poverty, pro climate change for the good of my grand kids (even if it hurts the fortune 500 company down the road), pro working wage and all, he might be on your side as you say with abortion, but how dare you deny he is not with me and those issues as well.
And so friends, the Democrats have won the house and the Senate. We have the first woman as Speaker of the House in the history of our great nation. A war hawk void of wartime service has resigned (or been forced out, however you want to break it down). Hard to admit, but I will miss some of Rummy´s greater press briefing moments (known unknowns, etc...) I read what the Democrats are planning to do, what they are calling their first 100 hours plan, and what a joy it is...
* bringing in rules to break links between lobbyists and legislators
* enacting all the 9/11 Commission recommendations on domestic security, for example on port security
* raising the minimum wage
* expanding stem cell research
* limiting spending by requiring budget offsets for any new spending
In the longer term, Democrats have ambitions to tackle big issues like health care, domestic security, climate change, and the budget deficit.¨
Who knows in the long term what will happen. I have learned to be cynical, to not get my hopes up. Even before the election, I got in a disagreement with my conservative father: he said the Dems would take the house, I said John Kerry´s stupid mouth was just one more way for us to screw ourselves. But here I am, fresh off victory and still in need of advice from any progressives who have felt victory before, what the hell do I do now!?! How do I celebrate? It is so foreign, so incredibly, deliciously, oh so damn sweet and foreign! For now, a glass of wine and tonight, dreams of Barrack Obama for President in 2008.
I like to avoid partisanship with the blog, but the experience and the emotions and everything was simply too much too ignore writing about!
Monday, November 06, 2006
Some Lines Were Meant To Be Crossed
Some lines were meant to be crossed, some norms are just waiting to be violated. At least that is what I kept telling myself as I wondered if I would have the courage to do what I have wanted to do for two months now. Taking a deep breath, I stood up and tried to pretend I did not notice the ceasing of conversation at the table of 20 some people I have come to call my Bolivian host family. I kept my eyes down, perhaps even closed, fully anticipating what would come next and wondering if for once I would find a way to take the moral stand my heart was screaming at me to take…
When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? I have learned to show up to meetings late just cause everyone else does. Despite my intense craving to never see another tomato, I smile at almost every lunch and do my best to enthusiastically comment on how delicious the tomatoes are.
But this day, I could no longer follow the old adage of when in Rome. A choice was to be made and there was no grey zone: stay silent in respect of the culture, or speak up, possibly offend some people, but maintain my dignity if for no one else, myself. Bernadette Devlin said that to maintain our dignity, we might have to give up everything else. As the tension escalated in the room, I prayed she was wrong.
Anyone who is familiar with the machismo of many Latin American communities can perhaps vividly imagine what the show down looked like that day at lunch as I went around the table picking up dishes. ¨Sit down, it’s a woman’s job, you don’t have to do this,¨ etc...
I wanted to go on a diatribe that very moment about the equality of women. I had an entire speech, a soap box waiting to be stood upon. But instead I smiled, thinking of my sister, my mother, and the many strong women who have and (God willing especially after this moment) will continue to support me and said ¨I think my mother back home, a single mother, might disagree with that... And so, no disrespect, but I need to help.¨ Silence… until my host mother finally laid down the law (it might be a macho culture but make no mistake, it’s the women who will have the last word when they want it) ¨If this is how he was raised, then we respect that.¨ I walked into the kitchen to begin on the dishes, heart beating, dignity soaring.
I have learned a lot from my Bolivian host family, they are all great people who have so much to offer. But maybe, just maybe, this day the student became the teacher. I did the dishes with my host brother tonight (first time two men have done this task), I could not help but wonder if maybe soon enough there would be two male feminists living in this house.
In other news, I spent $8 to fax my absentee ballot back to the United States. I make $60 a month, so you do the math of how much of my salary just went to pay for democracy… Inherent in this statement should be the obvious: with all the hurdles I just jumped to get my one vote in (I just told you about the cash, don´t get me started on how hard it was to get a ballot), I will be disappointed in anyone who does not make it to the polls. And if my people do not win, I will cry, not only on the basis of my values, but on the fact that I also lost 1/6 of my monthly salary!
When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? I have learned to show up to meetings late just cause everyone else does. Despite my intense craving to never see another tomato, I smile at almost every lunch and do my best to enthusiastically comment on how delicious the tomatoes are.
But this day, I could no longer follow the old adage of when in Rome. A choice was to be made and there was no grey zone: stay silent in respect of the culture, or speak up, possibly offend some people, but maintain my dignity if for no one else, myself. Bernadette Devlin said that to maintain our dignity, we might have to give up everything else. As the tension escalated in the room, I prayed she was wrong.
Anyone who is familiar with the machismo of many Latin American communities can perhaps vividly imagine what the show down looked like that day at lunch as I went around the table picking up dishes. ¨Sit down, it’s a woman’s job, you don’t have to do this,¨ etc...
I wanted to go on a diatribe that very moment about the equality of women. I had an entire speech, a soap box waiting to be stood upon. But instead I smiled, thinking of my sister, my mother, and the many strong women who have and (God willing especially after this moment) will continue to support me and said ¨I think my mother back home, a single mother, might disagree with that... And so, no disrespect, but I need to help.¨ Silence… until my host mother finally laid down the law (it might be a macho culture but make no mistake, it’s the women who will have the last word when they want it) ¨If this is how he was raised, then we respect that.¨ I walked into the kitchen to begin on the dishes, heart beating, dignity soaring.
I have learned a lot from my Bolivian host family, they are all great people who have so much to offer. But maybe, just maybe, this day the student became the teacher. I did the dishes with my host brother tonight (first time two men have done this task), I could not help but wonder if maybe soon enough there would be two male feminists living in this house.
In other news, I spent $8 to fax my absentee ballot back to the United States. I make $60 a month, so you do the math of how much of my salary just went to pay for democracy… Inherent in this statement should be the obvious: with all the hurdles I just jumped to get my one vote in (I just told you about the cash, don´t get me started on how hard it was to get a ballot), I will be disappointed in anyone who does not make it to the polls. And if my people do not win, I will cry, not only on the basis of my values, but on the fact that I also lost 1/6 of my monthly salary!
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