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Published: January 6th 2008
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Today
Its October. A Monday. I think the date is in the teens, but I can’t really be sure. I woke up today with a long list of things needed, but it’s a holiday, so nothing is open. I think the holiday may be commemorating the coming of Columbus, but again, I can’t really be sure. No TV. No newspaper and an erratic internet connection. As this day marked the beginning of the end, the Mapoche were marching down the Alameda coming from Plaza Italia. The Mapoche are the largest indigenous group left in Chile. They managed to resist foreign incursion in the south for quite some time, but eventually, they too were overrun by ‘progress’. The one consolation is that history has it that they captured Valdiva, the Spaniard who arrived from Peru to found Santiago, on one of his attempts to ‘civilize’ the natives. There are two stories of Valdiva’s fate. In one, his arms are hacked off and then eaten as he watches. The other says that the Mapuche poured molten gold down his throat to satiate his unquenchable thirst for the metal. The latter reeks a little too much of the sentimentality of poetic justice. Anyway, that
was the good news. The bad news is that eventually the natives that could not be eradicate through disease or warfare were rounded up and put on reservations. These days the government has conveniently chosen their land to build dumps, log, and pursue hydroelectric projects. Understandably, they are not happy about this. The march had the requisite drumming, and chanting, and wildly colored dancers, and lots of flag waving. The predominant flag is that of the Mapuche: blue, red, and green with a yellow circle within. Although there is obvious significance to the symbols on the yellow field, they, like most of the issue, are a mystery to me. There were also a smattering of red flags with the hammer and sickle and black anarchy flags. For good measure, Amnesty International was representing as were some Feminists. Although I admittedly don’t understand the parameters of the issue, I was a little confused by the Anti-Nazi flag waver and the rainbow gay pride protestor, but I guess if it’s a holiday and you have protesting on the agenda, any flag will do. Many of the banners carried by the marchers attested to their dissatisfaction with capitalism. I don’t know if the
irony of a protestor stopping and resting his black anarchy flag against the wall so that he could buy a Coke from an opportunistic businessman hawking soda on the street corner was fully appreciated. Nevertheless, presumably private enterprise lies behind the exploitation of Mapuche land and resources. Most entertaining were a couple ’wearing’ cardboard cars around their waists and skeletal masks. Following a dreadlocked black flag waver, they raced through the crowd. One shook water out of a green liter bottle, while the other left some white powder in his wake. Like a good tourist, I took pictures of all the things I don’t understand. Presumably, in time, there will be some sense made of it all.
After Today.
I’ve had 3 weeks of language classes now, but am taking a week off to gather things and then another to do things. Carly is going to Seoul, Korea at the end of the week to attend some international conference on e-governance. I have no idea what that is, but presumably it has something to do with information. I don’t pretend to understand anything about library science, but my impression is that doing stuff to make information easily accessible is
of some importance. I am fairly certain that Carly doesn’t know much about e-governance either, but when your boss says go to Seoul, you go to Seoul. Anyway, if her ticket does in fact arrive, she leaves this weekend. Given that this will temporarily absolve me of my cleaning / cooking / being pleasant responsibilities, I plan to head 3 hours south to a city called Talca. East of Talca, there are two National Reserves: Siete Tazas and Altos del Lircay. There is a rumor that there is bus service, but given my Spanish, it will be quite interesting to see if I ever get there. If I do, there is a 3-5 day hike joining the two reserves. Apparently the trail isn’t marked and often vanishes altogether, but I’ve got a book with GPS coordinates and a general description. Although there is considerable room for variance, follow valley north (in other words, don’t climb mountain) seems to be fairly straight forward. There is apparently a river crossing or two. I have to say that crossing glaciar fed mountain streams (rivers?) isn’t something that I am looking forward to.
Before Today
Language classes. The first week was 9-1, 2-4. Week 2 and 3, just the morning section. One thing about being a grammar teacher is that when they insist on teaching you grammar, you begin to delude yourself into thinking this has some bearing on the language. Of course, a quick trip to the corner store to get an empanada or the weekly trip to drop the laundry off is all that is necessary to remind you that the blur of sounds cascading from that persons mouth is absolutely meaningless. That said, there is reason to believe that sometime in the next couple of years, I may actually speak Spanish. I am not nearly as disillusioned and demoralized as I expected. I try to read the paper with some regularity, but much as it pains me to consider, a television would probably be a tremendous help. Despite the presumed usefulness, sitting around watching telenovelas such as Days of out Lives in Spanish might drive me to despair. I have also found a conversation partner. On the upside, she’s a psychologist, so I may be getting free head screening as part of the deal as well. The idea is that I teach her English and she teaches me Spanish. So far, I am not keeping up my end of the bargain. Last Friday, I got three hours of Spanish for an hour of English grammar that I largely taught in Spanish. In Spanish, I think we violated her doctor patient confidentiality agreement, but as there were no names and large gaps in my comprehension, things ought to be alright. We talked about Institutional conditioning, Evangelicals and Schizophrenia. Don’t be impressed. The bigger the word, the more likely that it is similar in English. It’s words like ‘wall‘, and ‘sink‘, and ‘rechargeable cell phone card’ that are difficult because this learning really just means memorizing, which means studying. In addition, the Chileans also have some inexplicable disdain for the letter ’s’, so everything that is supposed to end in ’s’, doesn’t. There must be some other rule governing the random deletion of syllables, but I have no idea what it might be. ‘Nada mas’ often comes out sounding like ’na ma’. Now I’ve gone on long enough about Spanish so I probably ought to go study. Good day.
Cheers
c
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Bob Sullivan
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Reading Matter
Colin, Tio Bull again. See if you can find a copy of Isabel Allende's latest novel, Ines of My Soul. It's based on the Spaniard your Indios may have made kebabs of and his major squeeze (the Ines of the title). Allende is a cousin, once removed whatever that means, of Salvador Allende. She is one of my favorite writers. She did a lot of research to write this book so I imagine the historical references are pretty much spot on. And here I thought Panama was the only place Spanish speakers dropped the "s" off everything. I did hear a young Chilean say of an airplane, "Esta Chileno" except what he said was eh-tah, no "s." I found Ecuadorans the easiest to understand. If you guys ever get the opportunity to hear a Chilean musical group that includes a harpist, don't miss it. I'm talking Rolling Stones stuff. Bull