Hostel Hopping

The Moon in Sagittarius gets us moving. We need wide open minds, souls, and attitudes, but can't sit still.


Perfect. I'm on the move!

While studying in Chile I got used to explaining, "I'm here for 3 1/2 months and then I have 2 weeks to travel afterwards." Those 2 weeks got closer and closer, but with the busyness of the last part of my program, I didn't give them much thought. Traveling around South America was a blurry fantasy-soon-to-be-reality that had not taken form even in a plan. Luckily some girls in my group had a little more foresight than I did, and I decided to join them in their adventures. Now I am with Isabel, Jill, and Katy, and we've made our way from Santiago over through Mendoza, Argentina and to Buenos Aires. Tomorrow we're takin a boat to Montevideo, Uruguay. In Buenos Aires we've joined our fellow hostelers at a club, wandered through a huge cemetery with elaborate tombs, checked out a craft fair, made various on-a-buget but good meals, meandered through an antique fair that spreads down blocks and blocks on a narrow street every Sunday, watched a great tango show in a plaza, watched a more trashy version of tango while drinking sangria in a restaurant, walked around the famous Plaza de Mayo, gotten a huge flank of steak, and generally seen how people get sucked into the draws of traveling. Oh man, I am such a cliche of a young 20-something with a backpack and hostel reservation!

Lovin you!

Onward

It's Okay
Hush chile,
In the universe 
Even the mistakes 
We make
Are music,
So carry on.
-- Minister Oyé

I just opened my planner and found this poem sitting on June 6th. June 6th!!! That's today --- the last day of SIT. The poem can take on different meanings, but I find it comforting....like it knew to mention "chile," it knew I needed a little nudge forward, and most importantly, it is telling me "It's Okay." The reason I need to be comforted? Today our group is saying adios. I dread not only saying goodbye to one or two good friends here, but to a whole entity, 20 other people that have formed an amazing bond. I have put of writing a blog for a while, knowing that it is impossible to explain everything in a way that other people can understand, but also wanting to describe everything to everyone. I am grateful that not only do I have a a close group here, but I have a network of people back home that care about my experience, and will listen (or read) as I fumble around trying to express myself.

This time leading up to the end of SIT has been crazy. I don't think I have taken a breath in weeks.

First, the exposition. The exposition! Oh my god, I could not have imagined it working out in a better way. I was a crazy gringa, running around the week before, picking up paintings, writing emails, re-writing emails, taking pictures, asking "are you gonna be ready," arranging catering. I almost had a heart attack when I only had one piece of work on the day I had told all the students to turn them in to me. Luckily, they pulled through on the night before the exposition and I ended up with about 25 paintings and drawings, way more than I had planned. I almost had another heart attack when we ran out of picture frames. But it worked out fine to make our own with some construction paper. On the morning of I hopped in a professor's car and unloaded all the art at a cute little cafe downtown Valpo. The cafe had a perfect space downstairs for a little gathering.

I stood down there alone. Me with the art that 20 teenagers had made for this day. The whole month, I had been working towards this day. And I looked at the concrete wall thinking, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing." With all the planning, I had overlooked the detail that I had no idea how to mount an exposition. Somehow, after dinking around on a ladder with some nylon string, a couple nails, and a paint brush handle as a hammer, I had a whole wall of pictures. Although I'm proud of my preparations, I have my group to thank, they were so supportive. I wrangled a couple of them in to help me at the cafe, and I got texts and emails of encouragement all day. Also, within minutes of school getting out, a group of kids came and helped me too.

The actual exposition was completely filled, both upstairs and down. At one point it was so hot from all the body heat that some things that were taped up started falling off the wall. (I'm gonna count that as part of the success) The participants, many of their family members, the teacher and my friend Denisse, a couple of my friends from Valpo, and all the members of SIT came. And I was BURSTING with pride of all the students that had let some foreigner come to their school, throw out a crazy idea of having an exposition, and actually going with it. The relationship I made with them will be one of the things I value most from my time here.

That weekend, to celebrate turning in our 25+ page essays written in Spanish, 9 of us decided to go up north to Valle del Elqui, a beautiful valley surrounded by huge, deserty, towering mountains. Here we stumbled upon a great little hippie compound in the middle of nowhere thanks to my friend Kristen, who organized everything. We hung out by the river, which is said to have magical powers, we took a nap in the sun, we star-gazed upon the region's famous sky while singing, and we went horse-back riding.

Last week we scrambled around, finalizing our essays, printing them out, and getting them bound in notebooks. One afternoon, I went to the school to have a little celebration of the success of the expo/going away with all the students that I had got to know. Of course, I cried, and was a blotchy mess as a couple of them walked me to the bus stop one last time. On Friday we went to a hotel to present our projects to the group and our directors and have our pre-departure, culture shock seminar. At the hotel, the clock started ticking, the days and hours and minutes dwindling until the inevitable goodbyes started. To make these even more emotional (and case-in-point about our whole group love) we decided to write everybody little notes about cool each other is.

And today was the day. I'm sticking around south here for a bit to travel to Buenas Aires, so I haven't gone through my leaving Chile emotions yet, just the friends departing ones. My friend Rachel and I headed to the bus stop to say goodbye to everyone that was flying out today. Unfortunately, we were a tad late and our bus didn't stop in a place we recognized, so we found our selves late and blocks and blocks from the stop, where the bus was about to take off any minute. In a dramatic scene, we ran through the streets of Viña del Mar, our notes for everyone still folded up in our purses and our spoken goodbyes still unspoken. This little run was more exercise I have done in 3 1/2 months, and the two off us jumped on the bus, frazzled and completely out of breath. I started sobbing at the site of our friend's red, teary faces, but we only had about a minute before we had to get off the bus so it could pull away.

But, It's Okay, like the poem says. Those of us stragglers who have different travel plans or who are flying out later took a stroll through a park and found a tree with crazy roots that were perfect to sit in and reminisce. Last night poured rain, but today the sun shone with a vengeance. (Although vengeance is a bit strong, because in reality it was just so comforting and magical). So we carry on. On to new adventures. Yay! And with little notes of words that warm the soul from friends that do the same.

Three months

Another moon in Aquarius. The Moon in Aquarius connects us to our community....We abstract, communicate, and work the crowd, but may be less intimate.


Which community is the moon connecting me to? I feel like a half moon myself, hovering between different worlds. As my program comes to an end, I'm finding myself in yet another transition in life, not quite grounded in anything. And some might recall, transitions scare the shit out of me! At the very least, they throw me in a funk.

Now, I'm faced with the classic, ahhh, I didn't do everything I wanted to do while I was in Valparaíso thoughts, and I'm not ready to leave. I even had a dream that I started selling crafts on the street to make money to stay all summer. I'm also having the ahhh, what am I doing next? thoughts. With my head having been in my project for the past couple weeks, I've been saying, "I have two weeks to travel after the program" without making any plans, whatsoever. After those thoughts come the ahhh, what am I doing this summer? thoughts. I have no idea yet.

Luckily, the Moon in Aquarius reminds us that we are in this together. All my compañeras in the program, who also have to say goodbye to Chile soon; all my friends from home and school who are doing random, awesome, lovely things this summer; the world, who goes through raptures and revolutions and riots* --- we're all transitioning. I started getting all squeamish about it today....but I had the same feeling about three months ago, and everything has turned out WONDERFULLY.

*ask me about the riots

Going Back to High School

It sounds like some people's worst nightmare: going back to high school. For some reason I did it voluntarily. Yes, it's been slightly terrifying. But I keep going back for more.

The Superior Industrial School of Valparaiso is a large orange school that resembles a factory and is full of hundreds of teenage boys (only about twenty girls are sprinkled in the sea of testosterone) who preparing for technical careers -- mechanics, electricity, metallics, etc. It sits right on the highway in between Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. Through a friend of a friend, I ended up there and have been drawn back every day since my first visit. Denisse Montenegro Olguín teaches art at this school. Energetic, eccentric, stylish, and seeping enthusiasm, she is the perfect ally for my project. She lets me hover in her class, sit next to her at her desk and observe, ask question after question -- and she's stoked about the exposition.

"Everybody!" Denisse yells in a big shell of a classroom to introduce me. The students only have art class once a week, so each class I attend is new to me. In the room, huge windows overlook the highway and the ocean, and starch white walls make the cold, gray days even colder and grayer. "This is Liza. She's studying art in schools and will be here to observe you guys. Be good!" Almost forty teenage boys who have been either staring at me or murmuring to their classmates about me before the introduction, greet me in unison and then while most go back to chatting, some ask questions in scattered English or rapid-fire Spanish. "Where you from?" "Ms., what your name?" When I'm feeling ballsy I walk around and start conversations. The other day one boy convinced me to sketch a picture for him while his friends asked me if I knew anything about hydraulic shops in Miami.

While a lot of the students seem to view the obligatory art class as a time to talk to their friends and listen to horrible quality reggaetone on their cell phones while dragging a colored pencil across some paper, I have met a group of students that is passionate about art. Twice a week, apart from their regular classes, about 18 kids meet for an hour for an art workshop, where they do sketches and paintings. They are my saviors. Not only have they befriended me (greeting me with a "Liza!" and a kiss on the cheek every time they see me), accompanied me around the school to protect me from the other boys and even on the bus into Valparaiso, invited me to do some graffiti with them, and answered my questions enthusiastically, but they are also excited to put their artwork in the exposition!

Back at the casa, I've been enjoying some chilean family time. Made pancakes last week for Mother's Day. Went to my brother's school party for families last night. Also helped my brother paint his wall.

Chao, Love

Picture I painted in Sebastian's room

Some murals at the school done by students

The other day I was walking past a cluster of stores when I heard the song, Tubthumping, by Chumbawamba and had a flashback to Marty (cousin), Katie (sister), and myself dancing spastically around Marty's room when we were little. Right in time to the lyrics, we'd throw ourselves on the bed -- I get knocked down -- and then fling back up like rubberbands -- But I get up again. Over and and over again, our actions as repetitive as the lyrics. You ne'er gonna keep me down.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-zK1S5Dws


This is how I feel right now with my independent project. Every time I sprawl on the bed of my own discouragement (it's happened a lot), every time I think, "This sucks" (I've thought it a lot), something happens to lift me out of this to where I love Chile! I love my project! I love my life! And I feel just as wound up as Marty, Katie, and I used to get. Kinda like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

What is this so called project I keep talking about? Ok, I want to investigate the art program in various public schools in order to see what kind of options high-schoolers have for creative expression. Why? Various reasons. First, Chile, especially Valparaiso, is a place where art covers the street, yet at the same time people say there is a lack of venue for kids to express themselves. Where is the disconnect? Secondly, Chile has an interesting (neo-liberal) school system with public schools, semi-private schools, and private schools. The disparity in quality of education is greater between private and public schools here than in the US, and it affects everything down to the creativity of the teachers in art programs to the art supplies kids get (at the school I was at today, they don't have paint or pastels, so they use regular ol' color pencils in the advanced art class). My idea is to have an art exposition in a cafe or gallery at the end of the month with a variety of work from high-schoolers who are especially interested in art.

A month sounded like a long time to get the project done --- until I twiddled my thumbs for a whole week. With no teachers to talk to, no students to talk to, no school to go to I felt very discouraged. Many very friendly and helpful people were helping me with connections, but none of them were coming together completely. When my advisor suggested I go to Quillota, an hour away, where she knows a director at a public high school, I was a little hesitant because it's so far away, but thought I might as well get started.

And I loved it! My friend Samantha, who's studying history curriculum in Chilean schools, and I trekked a couple towns over and made our way to the school, where we were very welcomed. Not only did I have my first interview (successful), but we met another gringa there who is teaching there. (I might just have to come back over after graduating and teach a lil ingles). So, I'm going back to attend a class, talk to some students, and have another interview!

It's all happening!

                                                          
Footnote: Luckily I think He drinks a Whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink...pissin the night away from Tubthumpin mostly went over my head when I was about six, but I do remember Marty reassuring me that "pissing" wasn't a bad word in this context because it means drinking in British.

Love to all!

So much to tell, ask me for details 'cause I can't write it all

I was in Colorado on crack. I was not on crack, the mountains were. When the wind shifted and made the grass in the field shine and reflect the sun, I caught a breath of familiarity. When the flies and birds harmonized just so with the river singing in the background, or when the sun highlighted the mountains orange at the end of the day -- just for a split second I knew where I was. Then, instead of an abrupt noise, an insistent silence broke my thoughts. I was in Belén, a pretty little ghost of a town, home to almost fifty, where a smattering of houses and a fertile valley rise steeply into dry mountains -- more drastic than I’ve ever seen. At least I think I was there. Now it feels more likely that I was living in an alternate plane that only appears in dreams.

Things that may or may not have been real:

Ë The drive to Belén. Two by two, we were dropped off in different villages hours apart for our indigenous homestay on a windy dirt road. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking we were probably going to go careening over the edge.

v My hostess. At first Señora Natalia, a little old lady whose head doesn’t even reach my shoulders, seemed shy. But she did not stop talking in her cute little voice since five minutes into my stay there. History, stories, gossip -- I wish I had caught every single word she said because they were all so entertaining! She lives alone and still farms her plots of land down the road. Although this was my indigenous homestay, my hostess claims that her family is not Aymaran, they’re Spanish.

Leading me to the field

Digging for potatoes

    Ë Belén itself. 

        It’s soooo small, so quiet.

Belén in its entirety 

v The mix of old and new. Houses built out of adobe the way they have been for years and years; novellas (soap operas) on tv at night. Aymaran rituals for harvesting; Catholic church with kitschy statues of Jesus, Mary, and random saints. An old kitchen, separated from the rest of the house, with walls stained black from the woodburning stove; instant Ensure for breakfast every morning.

Ë Our bus breaking down. In the middle of nowhere. In the driest desert in the world. After four days of the homestay a couple tour buses came to pick each of us up in our little villages. In my bus we were excitedly talking about our different experiences when we stopped and the driver hopped off only to come back on announcing he was going to walk 10k to somewhere (the somewhere was unclear) to get help because the axel was broken. So there we were, seven kids alone in the scene of a horror movie. Luckily we had plenty of water and many of us were stocked with homemade goat cheese and fried bread. Two hours passed quickly as we sang Joni Mitchell at the top of our lungs, listening to the echo in the vast nothingness, nothingness, nothingness…and a cop came rolling around the corner with our bus driver. The seven of us, plus the cop and driver, plus all our luggage, squeezed into the truck, and we were driven to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, where we waited for another bus to come and take us to Arica.

After all the adventures in the north, I am now back in Valparaiso, ready to start the next chapter of the SIT program --- the independent project. Actually, I’m ready to rest for a day or two --- and then start the project. 

Sending love!

The North

I can't really breathe. My head spins when I stand up. I'm really tired. But as we've started saying here, it's completely vale la pena, worth the pain, to see the things I've seen at 11,000+ ft!

                                                                             ****

On Monday our group split into two, half of us going to the south of Chile and half of us going north. Us northerners flew to Arica from Santiago. Surrounded by sand, sand, sand, Arica sits on the coast and has a beautiful stretch of beach but is also known as one of the driest cities in the world. Here we stayed for a couple nights at a hotel, with seminars in the morning --- about the social movements of the indigenous Aymaran population, their cosmovision, the history of Afro-descendants in the region, and their present-day situation -- and a theatre workshop in the afternoons. That's right, yours truly is a star in a play. Not the star, but an actual star in the sky from a traditional Aymaran story that the group is attempting to act out. Led by two lively directors, we are tapping into a form of creativity that, by the looks of it, none of us have ever tapped into before. However, it's pretty fun! Why a play? The play, and the act of doing it, combines a couple different aspects that we're learning about. First, in the traditional Aymaran culture gracias does not exist. Instead, everything is reciprocated, so in order to reciprocate our welcome in the little mountain town of Putre (where we are now), we are presenting the play to little kids. Also, both the directors have participated in a local organization in Putre called Kimsakalko. Kimsakalko organizes theatre, murals, and dance in the village to revitalize the Aymaran culture...

In Arica, we also met a group of urban Aymaras at the local Lyons Club building for some lively dancing, some overeating, and also to take part in a ceremony in which a man and a woman ask permission from Pacha Mama (mother earth) and Tata Inti (sun). It was quite the mixture of tradition and modernity -- men and women swirled around in their customary dress while everyone, including the Aymaras, took pictures. We ate the traditional llama jerky while everyone exchanged email addresses. Then the gringos joined in the dancing, with confetti sprinkling our heads and the floor.

Mom, her name's Sara!

On a completely different note, the next night we rode across the city to a poor neighborhood to meet a group of women contaminated by toxins from nearby factories. This was one of the heaviest experiences of my time in Chile. We all sat in awe as a woman explained how the families in this neighborhood had cherished living in their own homes, humble as they were, until they realized that they are being poisoned by the ground their children play on, the materials they live within, the water that flows by their houses, and the air that hovers over them. Although they connected outbreaks of various illnesses with the toxic contaminants, like arsenic, the government refuses to acknowledge the problem. When a woman, who had been sitting bundled up in the corner with earphones in, started talking to us I realized how real the problem is. This woman had been living homeless on the beach before she realized her dreams and moved into a house that was hers, that she owned. Years later, just a whisper of a person, she has lost 4 children to diseases related to arsenic and she herself has cancer. I didn't catch everything she said in her quiet, shaking voice, but I did understand, I'm dying. Now this group of women is fighting to be have their voices heard by the government.

The next morning we headed in a tour bus (for those of you who were with me in Costa Rica, reminiscent of Scooby) out of Arica and into the mountains.

                                                                               ****

And the show goes on at 3,600 meters (11,800 feet) in the cute mountain pueblo, Putre. Despite everyone being hit by puna, altitude sickness, we keep rehearsing for our little theatrical debut (which is tomorrow), we keep eating entirely too much food, we keep laughing and bonding as a group (we're gettin pretty weird), and we continue seeing things that do not fail to amaze me. Yesterday we walked around and saw all the murals done by Kimsakalko and heard the Aymaran stories associated with each one. And today we toured around and had our minds blown by the incredible scenery even higher up than Putre at one of the highest lakes in the world, Chungara, and some hot springs called Jurasi.

On Monday I'll leave our nice little hotel in Putre to live with an Aymaran family in a pueblo even smaller for a couple nights!!!

Photos taken by the lovely Kandice Stover