Social Uprisings and Police Posture

I've written previously about my displeasure for the over-militarization of America's police forces. I generally think that units like LAPD's original SWAT are important, but that law enforcement would benefit from a more unarmed posture. That being said, there is a different history here in Chile that directly impacts the relationship the police have with the general public.
You may remember a guy named Augusto Pinochet that led a military coup in 1973 and continued to be Chile's dictator until 1990. Well I can only imagine that some of the Chilean police force's posture comes with that historical lesson in mind. March 29th is "Dia del Joven Combatiente" or "Day of the Young Combatants". It's a multi-day festival and protest that celebrates and mourns the death of the Vergara brothers twenty years ago. The protests tend to turn very violent and Cait received an email from the embassy a few days ago, warning foreigners of the disturbances.
With all that in mind, here are some pictures of the Carabineros de Chile(State Police) that we've been seeing around the city. In taking a picture of the graffiti above, Cait and I walked through what we
can only imagine to be the remnants of pepper spray. As soon as we saw the graffiti, announcing this year's protests, our eyes began to water, we began sneezing and I had some trouble breathing. We'd been walking through an area that was likely to see some action and had been commenting on what seemed to be an unusually heavy police presence. These fully armored Carabineros were all around us... and while their numbers were impressive... for many of these guys, the uniform you see is their daily getup. Even the private security officers you find at retail stores wear bullet proof vests every day. Maybe all of this is why Chile was ranked as the safest country in South America...

Voltage?

About a week ago, I was home and getting ready for St. Paddy's Day celebrations. The plans had been made, and without a cell phone, I just needed to get myself down to the bar around nine. Integral to getting ready, is a collection of classics...the three Ss. After finishing the first, and drying off from the second, I got down to business with my beard trimmer. Thirty seconds later I was looking at half a beard and listening to the last dying sounds of a dead, battery powered, trimmer. Pumped for the festivities, I grabbed a plug adapter and set myself up for some more shaving.
In the minute that it took me to walk to the kitchen to check my email while the trimmer charged up, I heard a pop...followed by silence. I immediately knew that the power had been killed with a beard trimmer that was not rated for 220 volts. First, and worst, a great fear of having to resolve this problem in Spanish took over me. Second, I jumped on the internet to figure out why resetting all the breakers hadn't worked. With 9PM approaching quickly and no electricity, I decided to meet Caitlin at the bar and figure it out from there.
Trying to introduce the situation lightly, I made a joke as we sat down with our first green beers of the night... "I broke the apartment" Now, in my head, this seemed like a good way to bring up the subject. However, it apparently conveyed that the problem was a serious one that might cost quite a bit of money to fix. Long story short...we called our landlord, Nelson, to try and sort out the problem. Between Cait's concern that the apartment was currently burning, the language barrier with Nelson... we quickly found ourselves walking back to the apartment to meet him.
This is where it get's good! Not only do we miss the metro stop and have to wiggle our way through security to switch tracks, but once on the right train...it stops and announces that it will be delayed for a short while. Approaching the correct stop, Cait pulls out her phone to check the time and notices a missed call from our landlord. It's five minutes past the meeting time, and she also discovers that the pre-paid phone is out of minutes! With no way to call Nelson...and knowing that he must be already waiting for us, I exited the train a few minutes later at full speed. Sprinting the .6 of a mile to our apartment, I arrived a full five minutes after our landlord had already left. Breathless and on the brink, I explained the problem -in Spanish - to the concierge, and by the time Cait arrived five minutes after that...
He had knowingly smiled and accessed the common breaker box on our floor and reset the main breaker for our unit.
After realizing that, had I not been so scared three hours earlier, we could be drinking green beer and be in the good graces of our landlord...we headed back to the bar with the full knowledge that Nelson might kill us and that they were still serving green beer!

Happy Day :)

Public Profanities

Living in Santiago will forever redefine how I experience conversing in public. A lot of the time I am comforted by the knowledge that 97% of people have no idea what I am talking about (refer to my February post about English fluency in Chile). When you are in this situation a whole lot of liberties are taken.

Each of us picking up on spoken English in Chile is like a blood-hound picking up on a scent (it's similar to that scene in Ghost when Vincent Schiavelli attacks Patrick Swayze on the train as he recognizes immediately that he is also a ghost). Scott has been eager to jump into conversation with gringos whenever he hears our native language. He's already drawn the hand out to shake, having also already offered his name in an introduction. I personally feel he enjoys hearing his name echoed back to him correctly "Ahh Scott, nice to meet you." All of us English-speakers do feel a sense of comraderie of overhearing English on a crowded train, in a store, on the street. Yesterday we met an American fellow named Justin and before the introduction Scott said he noticed something out of the corner of his eye with this Justin fellow... What you say? Well we were taking "the liberties" as previously mentioned (talking about finances and travel pretty loudly, not really monitoring the conversation at all) on the metro. Apparently Scott saw Justin watching (or at least reacting) pretty much from the moment we got onto the train; he finally approached and Scott offered his traditional warm welcome.

No I don't know if this is good or bad but I tend to take out any language and general barrier frustrations out on the train as well. The night of the electricity meltdown I had a string of bad words flow from my mouth when I saw we had missed the call from our landlord. Scott was embarassed because he was sure they "knew THAT word" yet I didn't see anyone flinch.

It went kind of like this:

me: %@#!, (#$!, &*^%
scott: cait?
me: what!!! they can't understand me anyway.
[each of us looking at people, no one looking at us]
scott: i think they know that word...

You might argue, no one would flinch if you yelled the f-word on the subway in nyc... Perhaps this is true but even if someone understood me here they probably wouldn't have enough English to tell me I was rude :) Which I completely, without a doubt was.

I sound a little bit rough, it's true. But sometimes it is rough. I completely do not expect to have the comfort of speaking English with strangers here but not being able to convey exactly what you want to when you want to can be pretty stressful.
Try buying a bicycle from a vendor who makes his own bikes and sells them (aka you need to ask for an adjustment) when it's a particularly bad day of speaking for you and the only "bicycle parts" words that come to mind are "seat" and... "bicycle"

Really though, it's going to be hard to actually monitor myself whenever I get back in English-speaking territory. I take comfort knowing I am not the only gringo to speak out loud freely, as if I am perpertually in my apartment bathroom... Coming back from Radiohead last night I saw three Americans discussing a rather risky maneuver a Chilean on foot had just pulled in traffic while trying to get on a bus (while he was relatively right next to them). "Whoah don't do what that guy just did, you'll be screwed." (Ok so that was boiled down but their actual verb was a little offensive so I shan't write it here).

And so I'll leave you with this little tidbit.
* Last night at Radiohead Thom Yorke (lead singer) said "buenas noches" as his opening comment to the crowd which technically would be incorrect because he was just starting the night, not intending "good night" but "good evening" instead (which would be "buenas tardes"). Regardless, the crowd went crazy. He then says audibly into the microphone "crazy" and the gringos laughed while the Chilenos kept cheering...

Vamanos a Radiohead

Update!! Check out about 40,000 people singing along to Creep...in English...as the final encore to a great show.

-----------
Off we go...rockin out the door to kick it to some Radiohead. Never seen these guys live so I'm definitely ready to rock my socks off!

Queuing Up For Radiohead

After chasing Radiohead tickets online and over the phone for a couple days in a row, Caitlin and I headed off to join in what Chilean's do...do it in person. All over this city, people pay their bills and buy tickets in person. Caitlin had heard stories of the lines that people wait in to do this...and now was our chance! We met at a Ripley's department store, which sells everything you could imagine. The sports floor alone could hook you up with a motorcycle, spin bike, mountian bike, headlamp or soccer ball.

After waiting in line for an hour...we were rewarded. A chance to speak with the only employee who was selling tickets! The only sign that people minded this setup at all, was the occasional sideways glance at someone walking past, toward the front of the line. It's small things like this that really point out to me how differently daily life is practiced. Though for good measure and a taste of home, check out the background music!

speaking in tongues - updated!

Update:

I saw this while walking home today and laughed out loud. Yet more photographic proof of my linguistic foibles-----------------------------------

When I left the states, Brendan informed me that he was eagerly awaiting a blog post, detailing the myriad of ways that I would be mis-using the language down here. I've put off writing this until I had a little collection for you all. I must say that rather than embarrass myself in a classic sense, I find that I'm constantly not taking the time to read simple things like street signs and the like. We've been in this apartment just over a week and the street I walk up and down every day is San Isidro. It wasn't until two days ago, that Cait and I started noticing the butchering that we've been giving road names. We've been calling this street San Isidoro (ee-see-doh-roh). Immediately, it was clear that in the effort to not put our feet in our mouths...we've been screwing up these small things. Even more clearly was that we were screwing them up in a way that fits into a stereotypical spanglish translation just throw an oro, ita, ito, ella on it!

That said, I have had some outstanding moments of poor translation. While looking for our first apartment, we were trying to make conversation with the awkward woman who was playing her seduction music for us. I was trying to compliment the few things we liked about the place, and told her that I loved "this month right here, it's so nice!" mesa = table mes=month That was a pretty innocent, but was only a harbinger of how this dangerous behavior was going to affect me.

The next two instances happened while I was talking to our landlord, Nelson. He was over at our apartment with a contractor, fixing our blinds. The running joke of the evening was my poor spanish and that they could say whatever they pleased. From the kitchen, I heard him laughing with the repairman and was desperate to jump in... as if I understood. I had heard him say the word "punta" and ran with it. The next five minutes were spent trying to describe what punta/puta mean as swear words, and that he'd been calling me one to see if I was listening. Turns out, he was referring to the tip of the curtain rod...punta = tip

Finally and possibly the best, was while signing the contract for our apartment. We were sitting at a table at a lovely sidewalk cafe with Nelson. Getting down to business, I thought I'd help things out by asking Nelson if he needed a pen to sign the contracts with. Watching Nelson and Cait break down in laughter was not in my plan so I asked what was so funny. They explained that pene in spanish is penis. I had, fairly loudly on a street corner, asked my new landlord... "do you want a penis, because I have one for you?" Needless to say, I've become less adventurous with guessing at the spanish language. Hiking in the national park the next day, I was presented with a little proof that, what I said really wasn't appropriate...in the form of good old fashioned graffiti.

an avocado as big as a pineapple

planes, trains and automobiles

Scott and I went on a magical trip last weekend. A guy I met through the program down here asked if we'd like to tag along, sure- why not? We met Rob at a transantiago metro stop/bus combo deal early on Saturday morning. We found him at the Tur-Bus booth struggling with an employee... "Iremos al Olmue?" I jumped in to help with my imperfect Spanish. We found out the first step was to get to Viña del Mar (a trip I had taken two weeks earlier). From there, he scrawled on a piece of paper, we would take "1° Norte bus." Then, he walks us all the way to the end of a platform where a bus will take us to the other terminal where we can actually get on the bus for Viña. Ok cool.

So we get to neighboring city Viña (an hour and a half away from Santiago) and find no one who knows of this Norte bus. Instead we're directed to the metro which we firstly need to find and then once we do we learn it is like 5X as expensive as the transantiago metro. At that point I took a moment to appreciate Santiago, smog and all. We jump on the train and take it into the rolling landscape of the neighboring city (Valparaíso). At the very last stop (Limache) we get off (Picture starting point- city underground- end point is the country). At this juncture we are lead to believe (through infrequent communication with other gringos via telefono) that we need to take at least one bus through Olmue. Great we can do this.
* One thing you must know about buses here- first of all, there a couple different kinds- Santiago seems to have two major kinds- troncales y alimentadores- troncales are what you might guess are "truncated" with a piece connected in the middle (making them huge). Alimentadores are of regular length but substantially newer and hold more occupants than a general colectivo. Colectivos are family-run maybe? and definitely exist in smaller towns and cities on a pretty extensive scale. These buses, different than the other two might have the dad driving, a child collecting money and giving out tickets and the rest of the family might be hanging out for a bit in the front row.

Anyway, we see a ton of colectivos at the train station and a man tells us to "ese bus, acá."
* Note- depending on who you talk to- acá is an everywhere, completely all-encompassing locational term in Chile.

So we get on, not paying the driver because we have no idea where the hell we're going. After getting to talk a Chilean dude who says he'll tell us when to get off for "La Campana- El Parque Nacional." (I'm thinking- yes, finally that's exactly where we're going). What was funny was for a minute I was pretty sure he wanted me to give him money for the information which is a pretty uncommon thing in Chile, but I was in the countryside now so I wasn't sure how things worked here for us gringos. This guy's wife starts telling us to be careful at the top of the cerro (hill) we're about to climb because people die quite frequently as the trail narrows off pretty steeply at the top; it is easy to lose footing and fall. In fact, she says an American girl died there last year.

The man grins, pointing to our friend Rob and asks if he's from the US? (As if I'm not... like heh... look at that gringo back there.) Instead of selling out my Spanish-less friend, I chime in yes, and I'm from the US too. Damnit! Could he have thought I was like Cuban or some other Spanish-speaking ethnicity?!?


The bus drops off pretty much in a field and we talk to two others in Spanish while Rob finds a person who actually speaks English! Boiling down all three conversations we eventually find a bus to get on which takes us to the main entrance of La Campana National Park.
(Now this bus was actually pretty cool, zigzagging through dusty side roads, pulling hard to make it up steep inclines with a max. of 5 mph. It was also playing a soundtrack of classical music favorites- the theme from "Beef, it's what's for dinner" along with the Nutcracker Suite.)


Now were there, we check in with the attendant, pay money to hike the trail, learn we have about an hour to hike before rangers start to bring us down (hike is about 6 hours) and then he tells me a bus from Santiago leaves from a road about 1km away. Oh, you mean directly back to Santiago? No thanks, I'd rather take a train, plane and an automobile.



Oh, and then we saw a dairy cow in the woods...

as Scott and Cait are leaving Rob alone to camp in the woods...

rob: whoah what was that?
scott: what's up
rob: it's a cow
scott: f-you... really?
rob: i'm a little scared now
[all of us a little in disbelief- would the cow be able to stop it's momentum and not run into us?]
cait and scott: well we better be on our way. have a good night man!

what?! all this only for only 12 USD?!?

That's right folks... jealous? ;) No, in all seriousness "crap ain't cheap here." In doing conversions we've found we're paying less for fresh meat, fish, wine, vegetables, fruits and rent but possibly more for pizza, cheese, good beer, electricity and phone calls. (Plus I make less money but I work half as much, yessss!)

We've had fun checking out all the markets (within walking and public transit distance). My first experience with finding out just how much a kilo was ended with giving away half of my green bean stash on the street after I had just purchased it because it was weighing down my new-found walking self.

Here's a picture of tomatoes at the market which cost about 60 cents for 2.2 pounds.

And here's just.... yeah..... for all you vegetarians out there :)

femicide

In the United States when women are murdered by intimate partners, former partners, husbands or ex-husbands, the press repeatedly distorts the issue and consistently fails to mention domestic violence as an issue leading up to the murder. I have written to People magazine for their awful representation of the story about the WWF wrestler (Chris Benoit) who murdered his family and then killed himself two years ago. They query, was it roid rage? Maybe he just snapped one day? US politics distort issues of violence in general but it especially fails to link culture to violence; the US press world prefers sensationalism to disappointing and unfortunate realities. The WWF dude in Florida killed his wife and kids because of the same reason why men all over the world kill their partners/ex-partners- the perilous end to a vicious cycle of domestic violence.

In Chile, when a man kills his girlfriend, wife or ex they call it femicide. When I first saw this, I thought "wow, doesn't that convey a different message?" According to Wikipedia, all-knowing, ever-correct Wiki ;) femicide is defined as the systematic killing of women for various reasons, usually cultural. Femicide is seen as a gender crime. The word is attested from the 1820s. What would happen in the USA if the murder of women by intimate partners/ex-partners was called femicide? Shit would hit the fan. The only thing we know about words that end in -cide is a word called "genocide" and that doesn't happen in our country, only in countries really, really far away...

Don't get me wrong, Chile also has its problems with domestic violence; a country with about 17 million people, has just recognized its 10th femicide of this relatively new year of 2009. The Chilean Government (Gobierno de Chile) has launched a campaign "Cuando las mujeres advanzan Chile se advanza" (When women advance, Chile advances). The campaign has plastered large banners around the city with this phrase and a picture of ladies confidently walking next to each other (kind of like a Sex and the City poster). But the point I am trying to make here is that is SPONSORED by the government directly!


Yes, you might say "but Caitlin, March is Women's Month." Let me tell you, these posters and signs are so ubiquitous that they will be sticking around until October... I'll have plenty of time to conduct a public opinion poll and report back. :)