Onward

Los Jaivas are a Chilean band we’ve been listening to a lot here. They’ve been playing music since before the dictatorship. One of their songs “Todos Juntos” is a Chilean anthem. So much so that during the Allende government, it was played before the nightly news. One part goes “Si vivimos todos separados, ¿para que son el cielo y el mar? ¿Para que es el sol que nos alumbra si no nos queremos ni mirar?” If we live separately, then why have the sky and the sea? For what is the sun that illuminates us, if we don’t love each other and look at each other? That’s kind of a clumsy translation as I’m rereading it now, but some really nice ideas. I’ve especially been fixated on the idea of looking at people. The power of looking. So frequently I ride the micros or the metro or I walk on the sidewalks teeming with people and I’ve been realizing lately that I had often managed to do those things without even looking at the people next to me. Sometimes it’s easier that way. But I think Los Jaivas are right, a fundamental part of creating a community, of fostering collective empathy and respect, is really looking at the people around you. And it’s pretty easy to do. But since I’ve started doing it, I’ve realized that it’s also kind of rare, especially in a city as crowded as Valpo. 

Two Sundays ago I went to a funeral for Exequiel Borvarán. He was 19 years old and shot in the street near the Plaza Victoria two Thursdays ago. There was a lot of confusion. Apparently, Exequiel had been spray painting the side of a building with a political message, or maybe gluing up posters. The landlords’ son came outside and shot him and Diego Guzmán, age 25. Exequiel was a member of Centro Cultural Roberto Matta. We never personally met, but Carlos and the other kids I work with knew him really well. Like many of the kids in the Centro Cultural, he was into circus arts: juggling, Diablo, things like that. In the photo of him that’s been circulating in the media, he’s got this huge smile and he’s wearing a clown nose. There were hundreds of people at the funeral. It was in this little modest chapel in Quilpué, and there were more people gathered outside than could fit inside. When we first arrived there was this older man standing by himself in the midst of everyone wearing a really nice, well-fitting suit, carrying a bouquet of fresh flowers, eyes kind of distant, face drawn. Wearing a bright red clown nose. It was bizarre. And so sad. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like it. A lot of the people at the funeral wore clown noses. And they were crying and solemn. I don’t know exactly why but to me, it exactly communicated the feeling of losing someone too early, someone who shouldn’t have died. It was perverse almost, in a really powerful, beautiful way.

I’m living with a new family now, and they are wonderful. My host-mom is a beautiful actress who is smart, giving, exuberant. I have two host siblings as well, both very kind, and smart. So much has happened since I moved, I don’t know how to write it all down. Last weekend Bridget and I went north to Valle del Huasco to help with flood recovery there. We met a 73 year old man, Don Domingo, who is still working on his land sunrise to sunset every day. His hands are so tough that he was able to coil barbed wire without gloves. His wife has Alzheimer’s and stays inside watching TV most of the day. He takes care of her really well though. It was cool to see that.

A few weekends ago our group went on an excursion to Santiago to visit all the memorials of the dictatorship. It was a heavy, impactful day. We visited a torture site, listened to testimonies, visited the massive grave site of people executed. But, the two most powerful things, I’d say, were seeing an exhibit of the victims’ personal items: a tie, a camera, a letter, a faded photograph of a missing man holding his baby. And also a video of a woman who’s husband was killed arguing with police as she tries to lay flowers in a public square as a tribute to him. Her son was with her and he was 11 and his face looked so lost.

My host mom and I went to a play about mothers who had lost their children a while ago. There was one part, kind of the climax of grief, where all the actresses playing the children unfurled sacks full of glass marbles and let all the marbles fall and scatter across the stage. The noise lasted for what felt like a really long time. Shortly afterward, a little boy, the only real child in the piece, walked onto the stage wearing all red and began to blow bubbles. Bubbles are so beautiful and light and silent and weightless. Especially compared to marbles. Cool image. The other day I was walking home and I saw a bright yellow butterfly flying along the sidewalk in the middle of the business and grime of Calle Condell and Subida Ecuador. It made me feel kind of the same way as the bubbles.

The (Ex) Host Family, or An Ode to a Failure

In my journal (Yes I have a journal. Once my Lit Theory teacher said journaling was “puerile”), is this passage written on January 29^th 2015, “I got my visa everyone this is real I’m going to Valparaíso Chile in 19 days. Then I will stay there for 147 days. Worst-case scenario there is a giant earthquake at the same time that I get kidnapped and lose all my contact lenses. Best-case scenario I find myself/figure out my whole life.”

This week I moved out of my host family home. What a phrase. Host, family, home. Before coming to Chile, the host family experience was the aspect of study-abroad I was most enthusiastic about. By far. I didn’t even know the names of any cities in Chile apart from Valparaíso and Santiago. I didn’t know what kind of government Chile had. I wasn’t sure even which countries bordered Chile. I didn’t know what classes I would be taking, when they would start, or whom I would be taking them with. I essentially came in blind. But I did know I would be staying with a host family. And for that reason, I could tranquilly float into the unknown.

It’s hard to describe now what happened, what went wrong if something went wrong, whose fault it was if it has to be someone’s fault. I feel simultaneously regretful, guilty, angry, confused, tired, and also euphorically relieved.

My host family consisted of a relatively young couple expecting a baby. Several years ago, they experienced an epiphany together that led them to revolutionize the way they lived. They chose to become vegetarian, to quit their jobs and work for themselves, to let their hair grow out.  They believe that life is beautiful and that the noblest thing a person can do in life is to endeavor to live in peace. I say “they” so much because they really seem to be of one mind on almost everything. When they speak, they almost always use “we” instead of “I.”

They believe that their house is a sacred space, that it is pervaded by energies, and that it is crucial to cultivate good energies by cleaning often, by burning incense, by removing shoes before entering. They reject drugs in all forms. They don’t drink coffee. They believe that alcohol is replete with bad vibrations, and they avoid it at all costs. It is not permitted inside the house. Nor are people who are drunk or tipsy.

They eat wholesome, healthy, fresh food, though in small quantities. They love Mapuche culture. They reuse almost everything. They hate finding hairs anywhere. You have to be really careful about hairs. They love music. They love dance. They really, really love each other.

What it came down to in the end, I think, was that the two words family and home didn’t apply to the three of us at all. And I felt like the parasite to their host. And the catalyst, interestingly, was an outbreak of parasites in my bedroom. Last week I woke up every morning with at least ten fleabites all over my arms and torso. I had brought home fleas. This is easy to do in Valparaíso, where there are thousands of street animals and everyone rides the same micros, but I brought them all the same. In fact, I had been convinced for a couple of days that they were bed bugs, which in the United States is equivalent in urgency with small pox. The week before, I had had a sinus infection, which had been festering for more than two weeks. There I was, sleeping in their house, eating their food, bringing in all sorts of plagues. With the baby coming, I told myself, it would be better to remove myself from their lives, to stop causing harm. It would be better to live without worrying constantly that I’m doing something wrong, even if it’s something I can’t control.

I told my program director, who asked them to come to his office, it was urgent, to tell them. It’s program policy that the program director informs families when the student decides to move. I hate this policy. They were shocked. They felt blindsided. When we discussed my decision after they returned from the meeting, they told me that they would continue to feed me as usual until the end of the week, and after that, they would never speak to me again. I tried to ask “And if we run into each other on the street?” But I accidentally used the verb chocar, which is pretty literal. “And if we crash on the street?” The answer is still no. We will not speak.

This whole thing has caused a shift in me that I’m still trying to identify. Why did I feel like a parasite? That’s a significant mental route that does warrant reflection. Granted, the three of us rarely spoke when we weren’t eating a meal together, which happened once a day at most toward the end. I had never sat on our couch. We had never shared a belly-laugh. Sometimes we didn't even look at each other. And now seeing how another host family functions (I’m staying for a few days at Jennie’s house), I feel so much better. But I really failed. I failed at the host family. There are people in the world now who don't ever want to speak to me again. When I decided to move, I hurt people, caused a lot of stress, burned bridges, or bridges were consequently burned really. All for the sake of no longer feeling like a burden. But I can't imagine not doing it now. I know this is better. I felt really uncomfortable and now I feel less uncomfortable. There's a lot there, I don't know. A lot to think about. 

Bajo la Dictadura

The part of Carlos' mural en Belloto Sur that depicts the military coup

There’s so much I want to say in this post, and I don’t think there’s really a clear through-line. So bare with me.

The other day as I boarded the ascensor Espíritu Santo from above I could hear the sound of drums faintly from below in the plan of the city. The ascensor operator was leaning out of the window of the station perched on the hill. I asked him what he was looking for. He responded that there was a march that day. I had heard that some high school teachers were on strike so I asked him if this was their march. It wasn’t; it was a march against the Chilean healthcare system, he said. I rode down with a mother and her son who was probably about six. He stood on the bench of the elevator to be able to look out the window for the approaching protesters. When I smiled at him, his mother said to me, “Está malo este país. Está malo.” It’s broken this country. It’s broken.

Two days ago, a man at the crosswalk asked us for the time. When he realized we were foreign, he began a monologue about the evils of living in Chile. “Why do you come here to live,” he asked, “when we all want to go to your country?”

A few days before, Jennie and I had gone to the Plaza Victoria to watch a student march against the largely privatized education system. We sat down on a bench next to an old man named Guillermo. He was waiting for his dentist appointment. He had come so early because he thought the march might cause traffic. He told us that Valparaíso used to be different. The people could access the water, for example. Now there are barbed wire fences along the entire coast barring people from entering the ports that separate the sea from the city. He also told us that he had lived in Canada for several years, fleeing Chile in 1973, fleeing la dictadura.

Barbed wire en Estación Bellavista blocking access to the sea

Almost every day here I have a conversation like this, that begins with modern Chile, and how broken it is, and almost always winds up at a phrase like “bajo la dictadura” or “durante la dictadura” or “antes de la dictadura.”  In 1973 in Chile, a military coup overthrew the Socialist government of Salvador Allende and replaced it with a dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet. Allende was the first Marxist presidential candidate to be elected in Latin America, and the only one since. The coupe, or golpe de estado, was backed—if not organized by—the CIA under President Nixon. There are varying estimates of how many people were killed under the Pinochet regime, ranging from 3,000 to 15,000. Allende himself was killed, driven to commit suicide as Pinochet’s army surrounded la moneda, the capital buiding. Thousands more were arrested and tortured. Around a million fled the country. Pinochet ruled until 1990. In 1988, he agreed to a country-wide vote, yes or no, to decide whether he would continue to control the country. The no vote prevailed by a slim margin: 54% to 46%. Pinochet was not exiled, nor subjected to a trial for human rights violations in Chile. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the army until his retirement. The constitution drafted under the dictatorship is still in effect in Chile.

A portrait of Salvador Allende in the family home where we stayed near Currarehue

That’s the overview but it’s not simple, nothing about it is simple. When I told my host-dad about what the woman in the ascensor had said, he responded in his characteristically diplomatic way: in every country there will be satisfied and dissatisfied people. In every country there are problems and there is corruption. Who were those 46% of people who voted for Pinochet? I haven’t talked to anyone like them. I asked my host family about the plebiscito, the country-wide vote for yes or no, and they explained that voting wasn’t secret, that many people were scared to vote, and that many people just didn’t know what was happening because Pinochet controlled the press. So really it’s kind of a miracle that Pinochet lost at all.

Carlos Villamar, the muralist who works with the Centro Cultural Roberto Matta, painted a mural in Belloto Sur about the history of Chile (specifically Belloto Sur) in the last 100 years.  My understanding of the dictatorship, of what has happened here since 1970, is somewhat like Carlos’ mural, an almost overwhelming collection of vivid, somewhat disparate images. But I still don’t feel like I really get it. 

In my classes here we’ve talked about the golpe a lot, but most of what I’ve learned comes from conversations that happen every day, usually with people I’ve never met or barely know.

Here’s a list of a few things I have heard about  that happened during or resulted from the dictatorship (keep in mind that these things come from conversations, I’m including them more to demonstrate how the dictatorship is perceived by the people I’ve talked to than to provide facts): certain types of traditional musical instruments were prohibited, a concentration camp-like prison was set up in the stadium of Santiago, in it, Victor Jarra, the “Bob Dylan of Chile,” was killed within days of the coup, the economy was transformed from a developmental model to a neoliberal model (with the help of Americans and Chileans who had studied at the University of Chicago) so everything was privatized, the economy appeared to improve, abortion was outlawed, there was a curfew, puñuñalchefes, the Mapuche ritual midwifes, were arrested and killed, Mapuche land was divided and assigned to specific families, driven into poverty, they sold their respective shares, reducing their total portion of land by a huge percentage, Torres del Paine national park was founded, professors from the left were replaced with professors from the right, partially due to a reduction in pay so professors from the left couldn’t live off the wages, police uniforms were militarized and now faintly resemble those of the Nazis, perhaps because Pinochet admired and provided refuge for Nazis fleeing Europe, family members, friends, and neighbors disappeared.

It seems like every day here there is a protest, a demonstration, or a march. Today there is a march for water rights throughout Chile. When we were in Currarehue about a week ago, we went to another water rights march with the Mapuche people against a dam that threatened their community’s water supply. 

The march in Currarehue protesting against hydroelectric plants and dams

People are frustrated, but they are so active. They care. And that’s something that’s been relatively new to me here. Since arriving, the world seems more and more malleable every day. So many things that I’ve been taking for granted, I’m realizing, are not the way they are because they have to be that way.  In fact, it’s starting to seem like most things shouldn’t be the way they are. At all.

A man at a march protesting against corruption within the Chilean healthcare system.

"Corruption and nepotism, consequences of capitalism"

Space

I’m taking a class called Poesía y Ciudad (Poetry and the City) in the Católica. It’s an art class so I take the train to Miraflores in Viña del Mar every Thursday morning for the Instituto del Arte. Class usually starts about ten minutes late, after our professor has had a smoke outside. I’m the only gringa in the class, which I like. I also like the art students with their sketching and their cool hair. For the last several classes, we’ve been discussing a book by an Italian architect Francesco Careri called Walkscapes. The book explores the “art of walking” as a way of conceiving of space, tracing the practice back to our nomadic ancestors, whose only form of architecture was the very steps they took. I like that idea, the idea of creating a space by simply existing within it, walking through it.

This past week we traveled to the south to Patagonia to hike in Torres del Paine National Park. It was breathtaking, surreal, indulgent. We spoke English almost the entire time because almost everyone we met was from Europe, Australia, or the United States. It was a kind of disorienting experience of space, as though we all existed on a cultural island, a place without location as I have come to understand it. Yet we had had convened to experience the sensation of being there. There's something special about walking through a place like this. 

We talk about the concept of space a lot here in Valpo. In our Community and Culture seminar, our professor Vania has observed to us that Valparaíso is an amphitheater crouched on a slope around the ocean, with everyone gathered, watching. She wants us to think about what it means to live as part of an audience, to be able to look out over one’s peers almost constantly, to always be visually aware of the existence of thousands of others, rather than embedded in the plane of a typical city. About a week and a half ago, there was a huge thunderstorm that began around four in the morning. The thunder woke me up, and I went upstairs to watch from the glass doors to our balcony. My host parents were already there. We watched as huge cords of lightening dipped into the sea, right offshore. I loved knowing that everyone else in the city was quietly, groggily watching from dark windows as well.

I’ve started working a little bit with an organization called Centro Cultural Roberto Matta, which engages local communities by painting murals. For the past few Saturdays, I’ve been traveling to Belloto Sur with Carlos, a founder of the organization who is a muralist and art teacher. He’s one of the most interesting people I’ve met ever. The project in Belloto Sur is focused on involving children with the mural. According to Carlos, kids barely have any access to art here through school. The first two Saturdays, we talked about what the community wanted the mural to represent. They discussed the themes of peace, love, the right to fresh water, and Mapuche ancestry. The kids drew things they liked that had to do with those themes: fish, flowers, rain. Last Saturday, we began painting. Carlos reproduced the kids’ drawings on the wall and we all filled them in. One girl watched as Carlos outlined on the white wall the flowers she had drawn, now almost bigger than her ten-year-old frame. She turned to her grandmother and said, “¡Mis flores! ¡Son mis flores!” I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone give a gift like the gift Carlos gave that community that day: a confirmation of existence, of agency, of the capacity to create. It was a beautiful use of space.