Intermission

The protest posts were supposed to go up today, but I didn't get a chance to work on it. Personal issues intervened. I'll start and finish them tomorrow. There's a lot of ground I have to cover, so it will be a two parter. Goodnight everybody.

Just a Day

Wasn't planning on blogging this because nothing overly interesting happened, but I figured I was due for a post and that the sum total of everything is worth talking about.

Woke up sick today. Professor told me to come in the afternoon and only if I was feeling better. I got over it pretty quickly, so decided to bike to Mercado Central and pick up some food.

Biking has been a bit of a problem here. Every helmet I've found as been either too small for me or broken, so I've been going without one for now. I can't begin to describe how scary this is for me. Actually I can: it's pretty scary. Apparently I'm the only one in the city who thinks so, that or everybody else has the same problems with finding a helmet. It's definitely changed my biking habits. Most people who've biked with me know that I'm not exactly an aggressive biker but a proactive one. Biking isn't just about getting from point A to point B; it's about experiencing the act of biking. Bad roads, horrible weather, pedestrians... they aren't obstacles, they're challenges. Not so much here. If I get within thirty feet of another person I slam the brakes and walk the bike past them. I'm not taking any risks. Paradoxically, I think the lack of a helmet makes me safer. The few times I do try tricks I quickly regret it. Then again, the bike has two speeds: slow and jammed. I can't expect miracles from it.

A friend suggested that I only lock my bike when absolutely necessary. If I can I should walk it with me. This changes how I can shop. Instead of going on weekends, I need to hit up Mercado Central off peak times to avoid crowds. I can only get as much food as can fit in a backpack (not that I need much more). I avoid the inside shops, which has impacted my shopping experience by approximately nothing. My main worry about walking my bike was that I looked like a rude American. Then I saw three other people do it. I am no longer worried.

This is the first time I've shopped without Peter, and it's been pretty liberating. For one, I have a lot more agility. We don't have to mutually agree to purchase something, which saves a lot of time and energy. It also means I can impulse buy, which I've found helps my cooking a bunch. More importantly, I've been using Peter as a crutch. His Spanish is much better than mine. Shopping without him means I have to work much harder at it. Anything that improves my Spanish is A Good Thing.

I went to a vegetable stand that we shopped at before. The people recognized me and showed it. Before they spoke fast, getting frustrated when we didn't understand, the transaction just barely squeaking through. This time they spoke slower and were much more tolerant of my fumblings. It went well and I bought a thousand pesos worth of vegetables from them. Before now Peter and I would jump from store to store, always trying to find the best deal. After twenty minutes of looking we saved 4 cents on a pound of bananas. Now I'm thinking that's the wrong way to do things. Instead we should pick a few stores we like and stick with them. Always buy fruits from the same guys. Always buy veggies from teh same girls. Establish rapport with the shopkeepers. This might be the best way to learn Santiago "from the ground up" and seriously improve my Spanish. That's worth the four cents.

Mercado Central has a thriving fish market. Everything is caught the day of, if not sooner. I picked out a primary store and bought a kilo of salmon for just under three dollars. Stuff here is about as expensive as chicken. I imagine that by the end of the summer I'll be pretty good with seafood!

I biked into work at one o'clock. It was pretty nondescript; not gonna bore anybody with the details. After I got home I started work on dinner. This is the first time I had enough food to make two dishes, so I made salmon with onions and paprika-roasted potatoes. Neither is gonna win any awards, but this is only my first time making fish and second time making potatoes. I think they turned out well for novice attempts. Fish might have been a little undercooked, though; I'll let you guys know if I get Hep A.

Whenever I move into an apartment I try to get the food engine running. If you make three meals of food then you have dinner, lunch, and another dinner. During that second dinner you cook more food, and you have lunch dinner lunch. Then you make more food... rather quickly you're making more food than you can possibly eat and you can afford to relax and/or experiment. This time it hasn't been easy. I've tried to kickstart it on a couple different occasions but it putters out way too quickly. I think it's because I'm feeding two people right now; three meals is only dinner dinner lunch. Then we're back to square one. What I might do is get a kilo of lentils and make the biggest damn pot of lentil stew anybody's ever seen, creating enough food to keep us fed for a week. Soon we're going to have four people in the apartment, hopefully one of them will cook. That'll make things a bunch easier. If not I'm going to try to wrangle grocery stipends from everybody. I cook, you pay.

My labmates told me about a protest tomorrow, possibly the largest of the year. We're going to be heading out as a group. Will hopefully have pics up of that tomorrow night. I now know what I'm getting into and will be much more cautious.

Second Batch

Short post tonight because there's not too much to talk about. Finally got in contact with Tito and Alex and Malus and Arthur. Arthur and I went to get him at Tito some prepaid phones, while Alex already has an international one. Forget what Malus has planned. Then we all had lunch and swung by our place to chat and catch up. Both AlexMalus and TitoArthur have expressed interest in the apartment, so I think we won't have trouble filling it up.

On the way back to Don Santiago we ran across some more protesters. When they saw I had a camera they stopped and posed for me.

"Education of your child is a right, not a debt of millions of pesos."

Later we romped around and made snarky jokes about each other. Tomorrow's a vacation day, so the entire city is going to shut down. We were looking for something to do outside of it but found that those, too, are gonna be shut down. Looks like it's either going to be a "go out and explore" day or "sit inside and trawl Youtube" day. I'm hoping for the former.

Jonathan Katz provided the translation. He requests that people contact him if it's inaccurate. 

Mercado Central

This post was supposed to go up later tonight, but Peter and I are waiting for Alex and Tito to contact us. We've been waiting three hours now and have nothing better to do, so I killed time by writing this.

Due to the move and other fun complications we really haven't been making that much food. Either we eat out or nosh on bananas (30 cents a pound!) or cereal or something. Faced with two more mouths and a lot more time on our hands getting groceries has increasingly become a priority. There are a grocery stores in the region, but they're small, crowded, and expensive. If you want good food you go to Mercado Central.

Mercado Central is not a supermarket but a super market, a bazaar spanning five city blocks. If you can't find it here, it either doesn't exist or is banned by the government. Note that the inverse is not true. I think I found a stand selling unicorn blood. It's not just food and restaurants. Two vendors were selling kitchenware, one shop carried bikes, and at least three casinos stood in plain sight.

But we didn't come here for the tea kettles. The big attraction is the food. These shops are just two in a legion of produce stores built in formation. Everywhere you go baskets of fruit and crates of vegetables line the walls. We didn't bother to count the number of places, but it was probably more than fifty. If somebody counted a hundred I wouldn't be surprised. And they're all incredibly cheap. We bought ten pounds of potatoes for two bucks. Combined with another five pounds of onions, carrots, and bananas getting home quite the challenge!

Spices are a little hard to track down. They're either sold in dry good stores like this one or in small unlabeled packets in the stands. Mostly you differentiated them by sight and smell. Easy for spices, not so much for herbs. I avoided doing it because I was worried about getting in trouble. I don't think people appreciate it when you jam a pack of powder up to your nose.

   

Tito and Alex never ended up showing. We ended up staying home and making lentil soup. I think that was the first real dish I ever learned to cook. It reminds me of warmth and home. Tomorrow we'll definitely be meeting up with the two, plus hopefully Malus and Arthur. I'm looking forward to it. It'll be nice to meet other people from the States.

Oh, and before I forget:

LLAMA LLAMA LLAMA 

Our New Home

This was supposed to go up Wednesday night, but then we didn't have internet and last night was the riot... so it's going up now. Better late than never! The short of it is that Peter and I moved into our new place two days ago. It's a cold-but-cozy four person apartment for 200 dollars apiece. Given the size of the place and our location that's an insane deal. At least three people in my lab have expressed jealously so far.

Of course the first thing I looked into was the kitchen. It's surprisingly well stocked with equipment, including a nice heavy-bottomed saute pan. I'm gonna be doing a lot of experimenting here. Note the gas stove doesn't have a pilot light. If you want to cook anything you have to open the range gas pipe, turn on a burner, and manually light it with a match. I've gotten pretty accustomed to this but we're gonna get a stove lighter just to be on the safe side.

This is the hot water heater. If we want hot water, we have to turn this on and manually light it. Kinda like the stove. It's not strong enough to feed two systems at once, so I can't wash dishes while Peter showers. This isn't actually as much of a problem as you'd think. The shower system is terrible anyway, so I'm anticipating that I'll be doing fast showers in the late afternoon to get it done with the minimal amount of time and freezing. But when three other people are doing the same it might get a little tricky to clean up after dinner. I was planning on rigging up a brick sauna system but Peter vetoed it. Plan B: Electric kettle + wash rags = 2 minute eco shower!

The master bedroom. This was originally a single bed, but the owners tossed in another to make the place more attractive. It has its own bathroom and everything. Currently Peter's living here, and we'll push a second person in when we get a full house.

My room. Much smaller than the master bedroom. I picked it because I like sleeping in a top bunk. Five years in one can do that to you. Not sure if I'm going to move when the new guys come. On one hand, bigger room! On the other, it could look like we're assigning them to the cruddier room for the cardinal sin of Arriving One Week Later. And I'd have to move my stuff. What'll probably happen is we'll all sit down and hash out a sleeping plan. Maybe we'll rotate rooms. Maybe we'll all go crazy.

The living room. We've been using it as a work room / dining room and are looking forward to seeing it with four people in it. I've already staked my claim on the couch. The TV looks so sad and alone. It will probably stay sad and alone.

Central heating in Santiago is very rare and expensive. Everybody uses these space heaters. This one is powered by propane. It makes a bone-chillingly cold room pretty warm in a very short time. The gas can be a tad expensive, though, so we're only using it early morning and late night. We're supplementing with lots of tea.

Peter's been pretty happy with the place, but it still feels wrong to me. I've gotten used to the quirks and lukewarm showers and gas ranges, but there's something missing. Something vital...

That's better.

I bought it at a hole-in-the-wall bike shop for fifty bucks. It's rusty, it's creaky, and it's got the most insane gear changing system I've ever seen. It is, simply put, the worst bike I've ever ridden.* And I love it. It's crap, but it gets me around the city. With this Santiago is no longer a discreet set of metro stops but a continuous city. I always feel more complete when I have a bike. Now I'm ready to take on the city.

That covers our living situation. Tomorrow we're gonna get a truckload of groceries and meet up with the arriving interns. Should be a fun day!

*FIXIES ARE NOT BIKES

Pandemonium

In the last days of the Chilean dictatorship Pinochet passed the notorious LOCE laws. Among other things, these laws privatized all education and reduced the power of educators in the system. People across the board have widely criticized it, but for the past 20 years nothing has been done. Frustrated with the slow pace of reform and faced with progressively worse school conditions, students shut down schools in 2006. This year they have done the same. At its peak in 2006 almost 800,000 students protested, and this year's strike wasn't much smaller.

Up until now my encounters with the protesters were fairly brief. A song here, a marching band there. Complicating manners was always my ignorance of the language, making it impossible to tell protesters from revelers. The rule of thumb seems to be that mixed gender marching teens with banners are probably protesting, groups of people with music and masks are probably protesting, and those old ladies walking their dogs are probably protesting. Mostly the protests congregate around a school or school district, and can reach hundreds strong. For example, the Quinta Normal protest happened earlier today.

I silently wished them luck and went on my way. My mind wasn't on the protests of a country half a world away from my home. I was worried about groceries, getting to work, keeping my bike in shape... mundane things, blithe compared to the culture war going on around me. Today was the protesters' day, though, and that was not the only rally happening. Nor was it the largest. I left the neighborhood and biked south. I had to cut east along O'Higgins, the main artery of Santiago, before I would reach the university.

I biked right into another protest. This one was slightly different from the first. Instead of hundreds of students, it had thousands. Instead of stopping at the traffic lights, it forced cars into the side alleys. Soldiers and policemen rerouted buses while armored trucks sedately followed the crowd. Or were they prowling? I parked my bike near the path and fumbled for my camera. Everything was peaceful, uniform, students smiling and singing songs and waving banners and chanting their minds. I got my camera out and switched it to video.

Then someone threw a gas bomb and everything went to hell.

I didn't get a shot of the ensuing chaos. I was a safe distance away from the cloud, but when you're faced with five thousand screaming people you run. I don't remember too much aside from the shrieks and roaring convoys. I almost ran over a man. All around me where panicked crowds, all around except behind. Behind was the slowly advancing wall of white.

I got behind a building and caught my breath. By some miracle everybody else did too. When the gas dispersed people picked up their tattered banners and continued marching. This time I was able to get a video. It only captures a fragment of the original protest. Even this is just a fragment.

With things a little steadier I also had the chance to take some pictures. They didn't come out too well, partially because I was still shaking too hard to keep the camera stable.

After five seconds after I got that second picture the next round of bombs went off. The fragile order collapsed again and the last dregs of protest completely shattered. This time I was safer. I managed to get a video of the panic and another round of pictures.

I watched the spectacle die. Within minutes the street was quiet again. Seemed like as good a time as any to leave. That was not the end of the protests, though. I ran into at least three more in the last stretch to work. I snapped a few uninteresting pictures of one. I ate lunch next to another. After that I went to work. It was pretty interesting, mostly working out a tricky analysis, but I'll spare you the boring details.

I later found out that at least some of the clouds were tear gas. I watched APCs run through clouds of white, and I saw rioters throw streaming cans. Which side used the gas? Both? Who knows? I've been working over a few scenes in my brain. Trying to match up the sounds, sights, and emotions. I feel like I've experienced something special. Despite all of the chaos and frenzy, I feel almost blessed to have been there.

The rest of the day passed quietly. Work. Went out with Peter and a friend from work. That deserves a post, but it feels sacrilegious to put it here. Got lost on the way home, ended up walking two or so kilos. All minor things not really worth talking about right now. For me, today was about the riot. I prefer to keep it that way.

Work: Day 0.5

I haven't been posting much until now; Saturday and Sunday were pretty boring. Rain kept us mostly indoors except to shop for food and stuff. Mostly I spent the time making halting conversation with the other Hostel folk. So far that has been my best way to practice Spanish.

I've been feeling more confident with my speaking skills. I'm still at a three-year old level, but at least now I can reasonably navigate the city. My sentences are sharp, terse, the phrases of a caveman who just got out of the glacier. But it works! I've gotten directions and bought food. Some people, especially the restauranteurs and shop owners, love it when I come in. I think they're impressed that I'm making an earnest effort to learn the language. Yo quiero ser culto etcetera.

Today was supposed to be the first day of work, but apartment hunting took over. On the minus side, I came in very, very late. One of the apartment contractors tried to help me get back, and we ended up 3 km from the nearest metro stop. Fortunately my professors were very understanding and set me up. I have three papers to read as 'homework' for Wednesday, which should occupy me for most of tomorrow morning. I also get my own office. I'm really moving up in the world! I didn't get a chance to talk with many of the people in the lab, but they seem very friendly. Señora Anderson also put me in touch with some of the other students. I'm much more optimistic about befriending people now.

More good news: we have an apartment! It's a four person place for about 220 per person. Compared to what other interns have paid, it's a steal. I'm going to have to add another commissioner to the list of housing contacts. Pictures when we've moved in!

Now the important part: pictures. I finally figured out how to change the camera from "screw up the pictures" to "let me screw up the pictures myself". Combined with me walking about 12 km while hunting for apartments, I had a lot of opportunities to take pictures.

All three of the HQs we checked out were in the Providencia district of Santiago. Like the rest of the city, it's overtly not much different from Detroit or Chicago. Fewer burning buildings, maybe. A lot of the differences, aside from the different language, were a lot more subtle. Different colored buses, superior walk signs, etc. The street signs list the highest and lowest addresses of the buildings on that street, an urban policy so brilliantly simple I'm shocked the US doesn't do the same.

In the distance is the San Cristobar Hill. It's the largest park in the city. They say that on a clear day (ie after it rains) you can see all of Santiago from the peak. It's surprisingly easy to access via metro and I'm planning on spending a Saturday exploring it. Not all of our travelling has to be done outside of the city.

This fountain is a tribute to the famous Chilean sculptor Tótila Albert. Before his death in 1967 he taught at the Universidad de Chile and created multiple famous and influential pieces around the city. I want to track them down. This shot does not contain his tribute statue, mostly because I'm a terrible photographer. Closeup of the water, as well as a building I'm calling "Souther Campus":

That's all I have for now. The next couple of days are gonna be taken up with actual work and moving to the new place. After that I'll finally be able to explore the city for pleasure and not necessity. I'm looking forward to it!

How to get around Santiago (if you don't know Spanish)

1) Take out map

2) Go up to the nearest person, point in a random direction, and ask "¿es norte?"

2a) If they say "si" orient your map.

2b) If they say "no" turn your map upside down.

3) (optional) End up ten kilos south of the city and wonder how the heck you got there.

Day One

We've landed, gotten through customs, and settled down. I spent a good five hours walking today. There isn't that much to say. High points were a broken conversation with one of the hostel owners (She doesn't know English, yo no comprende castellano) and successfully buying electrical equipment. Low points? Many. Getting around is really tough when you don't know where your goal is and can't ask anybody where to go. I'm still in that zone where I don't know where to shop or anything. Cooking will be tough until I get a place and eating out is expensive. Most all, Peter and I are utterly alone.

We're the first wave. Nobody else is coming for at least a week. The hostel owners and other rentersare nice and friendly, but the owners are older than us and the hostel folk are equally removed from the culture. Peter knows little Spanish and I less. We will probably not have any Chilean friends until our work starts, and maybe not even then. We have no guides or mentors. We are experiencing the city completely removed from all of the life and energy around it.

I'm really starting to empathize with the UChicago international students. Not knowing the language cuts you off from everybody. I can already feel the temptation to hide in our own circle and never experience the city. The alienation hurts that much. The pragmatic difficulties of navigation do not help either.

It's not all complaining, though. Slowly I'm learning more Spanish. And I think I've figured out a way to meet some people, especially people who know a bit of English. There's a park three blocks north in which I'm going to try a juggling bit. Peter and I may have found a place for the next two months. I've successfully done some daily activities. The first week is gonna be rocky, but that's what we wanted. That's why we're the vanguard.

I spent a lot of time walking around the city but no time taking pictures. I'm not yet comfortable enough to play the tourist. Another part of it might just be the natural laziness that comes from unfamiliarity with cameras in general. There was one picture I just had to take, though.

I don't know anything about the place. I just thought it was striking in a way, something so different from the rest of the city that it deserved the first picture. I think it was a church. Maybe I'll explore it if I wouldn't get in trouble. I don't know. I don't know how the next ten weeks will evolve, aside from the fact it will be interesting and possibly life-changing. Best laid plans.

The First Flight

I'm typing this first post while several thousand feet in the air. This is the first time I've flown in ten years. The last jaunt was so far away I can only remember the book I was reading. Not even the thoughts and emotions I had remain. So this experience is effectively new to me. I'm not sure how to describe it, because either you've flown before and know exactly what I'm talking about or you've never flown and will not understand what I could say. How do you describe the feeling of your body pressing in on itself to a person who's never experienced the G-force? The edge of excitement just before the plane ascends? The centrifugal swing as the airplane banks and turns? I guess a rollercoaster would count. Used to be afraid of those things, now I need to try one. There is one thing I can try and describe though, being more visual than tactile.

There is another world above this one. A world where the ground is always white and hilly, a world were islands are bordered by empty space. We entered that world a few minutes ago, the quilted farmland giving way to a tundra. First we passed the low-hanging patches that fell from the sky. Next came the bulk, long sprays of foam frozen in time. Finally nothing was visible but the endless expanse of white.

As I write this we pass the edges of a skybound country. Below is once again the lands of man, clashed and chaotic with a million kinds of earth. Only a few scattered reminders of this other place passing us by. Only dots of white and the cirrus ceiling, forever out of reach.

Suddenly the Mississippi is cutting up the land. Saying the water glows is an understatement. It's a long, winding band of light that completely blinds out the surrounding land. Just as fast as it appears the clouds hide it again. I can't see it off in the distant; the fog is too thick. There isn't much in existence.

We just passed another plane. I barely noticed it, it moved so fast. Must be the difference between seeing one a thousand feet away and being "right next" to it. It's a miracle either of us can navigate without the land. I can't say I suddenly see why being a pilot is so difficult, but I least I can get a glimpse into it. The intercom goes on; the long white continents were storms. We skimmed passed them and got ahead of schedule.

We are preparing for descent. The sky takes a mad skew as the cirrus clouds jut out at 45 degree angles. And slowly the plain goes down. A hundred glowing ponds dot the landscape. If I crane my neck I can see the first rays of sunset. There's a small chance, too small to expect but enough to hope, that the sunset will continue into the next flight. I wish I could document the final dive, but all electronics must go off. This is the last sentences I can write in the last few seconds. I hope I covered the flight well enough.

Afterword: Writing this on the second flight. We took off at night, so I didn't get to fly into the sunset. I would love to describe the sprawling, burning city underneath, but then I would have to title this "The First AND Second Flight". That's not a step I'm willing to take! There was one thing that happened after shutdown, though, that I think I need to mention.

Just before the final descent we made one last ascent. The plane climbed higher than ever before. That combined with the late hour put the plane for a few seconds, a few brief seconds, above the sun. My breath caught when I saw it. I don't know what else to say about it, so I will just leave it at that. The seconds above the sun. Even if every other aspect of the plane ride was torture, it would have been worth it just for that.