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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.
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| 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.
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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
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