Abuela

My grandmother has finally arrived. I am so happy to have her here and show her life in Santiago. My host parents were very excited to meet her and love the extra company. I will just recap my activities in the past week leading up to the arrival of my abuela.

Last Wednesday was the all important Chile vs. Colombia World Cup qualifier match, but something more important happened earlier in the morning that I had not expected. I woke up to a rare early morning phone call on the main house line and it turned out to be a family relative sending the news that my host parents had become grandparents following the birth of their first grandson. While it was known that on of their daughter's was pregnant, she was expected later in September. Regardless, Elias was born the morning of Sept 10th fully healthy and the family is overjoyed. It appeared to be a good omen.

With painted faces again, I went to the stadium with incredible nervousness and anticipation: Chile loses, kiss the World Cup 2010 dream goodbye. Stadium completely sold out once again with flags waving everywhere and chants of Chi-Chi-Chi...le, le, le...Viva Chile every 30 seconds or so, Chile jumped out to an early 2-0 in the first half, and ended the match with a 4-0 wipeout. The other teams in the South American group all tied their opponents that night, putting Chile near the top of the group for qualifying.

Thursday was the other 11th of September, the anniversary of Pinochet's march on La Moneda to begin his coup in Chile. Usually there are riots and protests all day, but the heavy mount of police all around the city and the fact that a violence plot had been discovered the night before which involved about 500 people, the day was much more low key than expected. Early that evening I said goodbye to my Santa Cruz friend Lydia and wished her good luck and good times for her program in Concepcion in a more southern part of Chile. While there was not much during the day, I specifically tried not to be out late that night and with good reason. I heard gunshots, bottle breaking, and much more as I went to sleep that night. The power to our complex flickered often, while my parents expected it to be entirely cut by activists at some point.

The power luckily stayed on, but other barrios weren't so lucky. 15 police were injured, and numerous activists detained for the violence that night. Luckily, they're weren't too many deaths if any at all. It seemed pretty hypocritical that Chileans protests the terrorism of the state that took place back in '73 by inciting more violence, but I am not one to judge a cultural phenomenon I guess. Friday morning I traveled to the nearby farmer's market (feria) near my house with my mother to pickup fruits, vegetables, and checkout the scene. There are loads of vendors, everyone calling my mother reina (queen) when she passed by the booth to encourage business. It is very convenient for my mother to walk a couple blocks to pickup cooking supplies that are fresh, cheap, and straight from the farms. In the afternoon, my host parents got to video Skype with their daughter and son-in-law with the new baby Elias: they were very happy.

Saturday was the annual cleaning day in our house, with every inch of the condominium cleaned. This took most of the day to take care of, and at night my host parents and I went out to the movies to see a Chilean film called Tony Manero, which is a disturbing story that takes place during the coup about a older man obsessed with the character Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever and dreams of dancing on a television program in the same way. There is tons of symbolism and shows the desperation the protagonist in achieving his Americanized fantasy while portraying the unlivable times of the coup.

Football Sunday I went back to my favorite bar in Santiago to catch all the games that day. I have made good friends with most of the people there, just wish there would be some Chileans who like American football that would come in, but that might be asking too much. It is a new bar, so we shall see. I did however run into an Economist/Political officer of the U.S. Embassy here in Santiago. I had unsuccessfully tried to explore the embassy last week, but with no luck due to specific hours and lack of action in part of the national holidays and fiestas going on. Hopefully I can checkout the the scene at the embassy a bit more with the help of this new contact.

Following the extensive violence that is going on in Bolivia over president Evo Morales's attempt to distribute privately owned natural gas amongst all citizens of the country, an emergency conference was called on behalf of Chilean President and current head of UnaSur, a young organization of all the Latin American countries to work together during times of problems. The meeting took place at La Moneda on Monday afternoon, with presidents of Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay, and Colombia in attendance (Peru declined to participate because of the tense relations with Bolivia). After 5 hours, a Declaration of La Moneda was created to be used as a guide for resolving the crisis, but I am not sure how much can be changed without the participation of the opposition in international discussions. Following the meeting, Bolivia arrested a mayor of the one of the rich territories controlling the natural gas in Bolivia and for now the violence has subsided but the resolution has not been achieved. More will become clear once Evo Morales's newly constructed constitution is voted upon in a referendum scheduled to take place in December.

I spent my Tuesday planning my surprise visit to the airport to see my grandmother as she arrived. She expected to meet me at the hotel for dinner that night, but I bought a bouquet of flowers and arranged for a transport to take me on a one-way route to the airport. The plan worked perfectly and she was so happy to see me right away. We had a late dinner at an Italian restaurant near her hotel that night.

I came back to her Hotel the next morning for breakfast. Afterward we went on a full tour of the city to see all the sight and had outdoor lunch in downtown. She picked up some gifts for her secretaries at the office from an artisan market as well as a beautiful watercolor of the Aconcagua for my grandfather. After returning to her hotel to take care of some work and give a call back home to checkup on my grandfather, and a nap for me, we went to my house to introduce her to my host parents. For transportation, we took a bus, which she said was the first she had used other than one briefly in New York, in 40 years back in Argentina. My host parents had a nice chat with her over tea, and after we went to the National Stadium for a early celebration for the Chilean independence holiday. We watched traditional cueca dancing and music with the mayor of the community in attendance. My grandmother confidently went over to the mayor and got a picture with him. I'll be sure to post it next time.

We are about to sit down for an Independence day lunch at my place and I am not even presentable. I'll post sometime on Sunday night after my grandmother heads home from her vacation to visit me. Cheers and Happy Dieciocherra!

Whoops...

Well, well, well...

Things had been on absolute cruise control for the past couple of days. I had class in the early afternoon all of last week. This coming week, class changes to the morning so at least I will have free afternoons and it will be a lot more of a flexible schedule. One evening last week I went to see a Brazilian independent film at the famous La Moneda (The Treasury), which was the site where Salvador Allende barricaded himself in a room and gave his last speech via radio while outside Pinochet and his troops proceeded to bomb the building and force entry. Allende committed suicide following his speech. The film was entertaining and cost not even 2 dollars to enter.

After the film, I went to a going away party for a Chilean student who is the neighbor of one of the American's in my program. He is going to study in Australia in 6 months and invited a bunch of people over to his house. It was very fun and I met a lot of nice locals. Couldn't stand the fact the only music was played was reggaeton, but whatever makes the people dance I guess. It get's old fast, especially after 5 straight hours of it.

On Friday of last week, I spent the morning registering my visa downtown and requesting a identity card. That should arrive in about two weeks. The office is like the DMV, but worse and slower. After, I got a quick haircut and headed to campus to take care of some school work. Class felt slower than usual since everyone was itching to get out and celebrate our day of Independence. A couple of us immediately headed to a Pizza and Suishi place after class, which was pretty fun. I came home to have dinner and drop off some stuff and returned to downtown around 10 to start the fun. ugh....

The night began at Le Petit to meetup with a small group. We headed to the park across the street quickly after arriving to watch a group of people perform a strange type of Brazilian dance, Capoeira, which combines dancing with slow fighting. It looks like slow motion martial arts, but there is no contact and people sing in a circle around the two participators. We then proceeded to place across town called Bar Barsico where pretty much all the students in the program packed the place full. That was fun, but many of us were craving to avoid dancing with just gringos all night. Bouncing around a couple of different places, I ended up at a large dance club with a couple people and had a good time. However, when leaving the place, I got in a taxi, first mistake, let alone a cooperativo (group, cheaper), second mistake, and on the ride home, all four of the people in the cab including the cab driver turned on me, one with a knife, and took my wallet and cell phone. I knew the dangers of this town and I could have avoided this situation easily. Lesson learned I guess. I have spent the majority of this first real weekend recollecting lost items, canceling cards, picking up a money wire at the bus station, etc. At least the things I lost can be replaced and I still have my health.

For the rest of this weekend, I am doing class work, watching Wimbledon finals, and reflecting lots of the past few days. As I said, class starts early on Monday but it makes my daily schedule easier. Hasta luego.