La Sebastiana

En mi casa he reunido juguetes pequeños y grandes, sin los cuales no podría vivir. El niño que no juega no es niño, pero el hombre que no juega perdió para siempre al niño que vivía en él y que le hará mucha falta. 

In my house I have brought together playthings small and large, without which I could not live. The child that does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child that lived in him and that he will greatly miss.

-Pablo Neruda

Well, I tried to get on the bus and instead of helping me up and saying, "Hola, Señorita Laura," the driver closed the doors in my face. I must be back in the city.

There were, however, some pretty amazing things waiting for me back here. Like the beautiful faces of my Seet-mates (so named for the Spanish pronunciation of SIT: Seet) who greeted me when I showed up un-announced at Thanksgiving dinner with hugs and laughter. And the beautiful time we spent sharing our holiday, however rag tag it might have been. Failing pumpkin pie, I made peach cobbler and Sloan showed up with the perfect accompaniment: blueberry sauce. No cranberries to be found either. And the ability to skype my family while they ate their pumpkin pie (I'm not bitter, really) and Katie played me her Thanksgiving song on the ukelele. So cute I felt like I was in a Google Plus commercial. And showers. I really like showers, guys.

Also, summer came to the city while I was away and I seem to have returned a friendlier, more vibrant and fashionable place. I think maybe Santiaguinos just don't like the cold.

Nevertheless, my first move upon coming back to Santiago was to leave again, and go to Valpo. I felt I had some unfinished business there. Namely, the unfinished business was to enjoy, but I also accomplished a goal I've had since arriving here: visit all three of Pablo Neruda's houses.

Isla Negra

I would generally consider myself a fan of Neruda (though I need to read more), before coming to Chile because of the complex beauty of his poetry and now as an icon of Chile's art and struggle. But his houses are an art of their own.

La Chascona

Neruda believed in space, and its capacity to shape experiences. And, like any good writer, he believed in symbolism. Isla Negra (near Algarrobo, where we spent our orientation weekend) stretches long and sprawling, like Chile. La Chascona, which I loved as its own island of serenity in the middle of Santiago, is for all the world, a ship. And La Sebastiana in Valpo goes up, with one room for each of its five stories, each one curving cozily in on its inhabitants in stacked circles.

La Sebastiana

I'd have to say Isla Negra is my favorite, partially because it houses in grandest scope the poet's collections. There are paintings of watermelons lining the walls, a table full of guitars and a whole room full of seashells. When asked about being coleccionista, Neruda replied that he was in fact cosista. That is, not so much a collector as a pursuer of things.

Something about that sentiment has stuck with me. I love significant objects. I just like tangibility. I like being able to hold reminders of my experiences in my hands, trace my memories with the my fingers. A bead shaped like a turtle from Pine Ridge. A teacup that belonged to my grandmother. A small smooth stone I picked up outside my back door in Chapod.

Surrounded by these things, I feel at home. I feel a little uncomfortable admitting that, because it feels slightly materialistic. But I think that in reality it's the opposite. I have little interest in things with no meaning. It the objects that tell stories that I love. Symbols, you might say.

El Poeta

In Neruda's houses, there are African masks, European paintings and Asian screens, momentos from his travels that he brought home with him to Chile, where he would sit comfortably in a chair he christened too, (called La Nube, The Cloud) and look at the water and write.

I think that's a way to make travels part of home. I'd like to surround myself with my stories from far-off places. Chapod, Santiago, Valparaiso, Buenos Aires. Algarrobo - where we will soon return to present our research projects. Now with altered perspectives, profound friendships and significantly improved Spanish. And then I will pack up my suitcase, with my stories and my things.

Disclaimer: The above quote really has nothing to do with post, except that Neruda said it and I liked it.

Here

You can’t know what this experience will mean to future you until you are future you. – John Green

These days, while I eat breakfast, I look over at the calendar hanging on the wall and play games with the numbers. 7 days until I turn in my research project. 20 days since I arrived in Chapod. 14 days until I leave for home.

           

            It’s not to say that I’m not happy here. It took me this long to write a blog post because I figured you were all tired of hearing about how much I like playing games with kids and drinking mate. So I’ve finally decided the other side deserves some space as well, because it is a true and present part of my experience.

            The truth is I want to come home. Home is in reach now, but it’s true too that I’ve been ready to come home since about a month into the trip. And I do feel a little guilty about that. I know that when I’m sitting in a Spanish class in the Martha Miller Center at Hope College – an image that feels like a dream now – I will miss this. And maybe I will think why didn’t I appreciate all that while I had it?

            Maybe. But it’s also probable that months from now, when the emotions I am feeling right now have been recollected in tranquility (to borrow a favorite concept from William Wordsworth) I will understand them better; I will know some, though not all, of what I have learned and I will be grateful for it.

            So what about now? How to keep from feeling sad when there are only a few days left to enjoy this part? Or maybe not. Maybe the sadness is okay, not because it will be better soon, but because it has its own value right now.

            One of Daniela’s favorite activities in the evenings is looking at the photos I have on my computer. Cuddled up with me on the couch, she’ll leave fingerprints on my computer screen as she finds me in every photo. “Aquí estais tu,” she says over and over, using the Chilean verb form for familiars and loved ones: Here you are.

But me, I’m looking at the backgrounds. Its something I learned to do the first time I left home. We always look at the focus of a picture: the person or the action that was worth capturing. But photos (especially ones taken with point-and-shoot cameras without focusing capabilities) capture more than that. There’s the moment, and then there’s the world behind it.

I notice that in a photo of a sandcastle at the lake, the rowing shell is rigged on the shore: someone went rowing that day. In a picture of my sisters and I decorating the Christmas tree, there’s a can of Diet Coke on the table. My sister Katie’s, because she’s always drinking Diet Coke.

They’re silly, these little details. But right now they’re everything. They’re my world. And I don’t mind longing for them. “To look at seeds and believe He will feed us?” Ann Voskamp asks. To be satisfied by future hope? To be content with photographs, weariness and counting days.

It aches like sore muscles, painful but satisfying. I have accomplished something: I have made it this far. These new places, people, routines and surprises. They have become reality. But I am dreaming again; I am always dreaming. I am dreaming now of home.

Temuco

If joy were a color it would be purple pastel pretty. Like old women and young children both wear on Easter, smiling while having deviled eggs and drinking kool-aid, chasing blown bubbles in the backyard. - Bradley Hathaway

I am sitting at the table, sipping mate with Miriam, when their little round faces appear in the window. Daniela, Fernanda, Mati, Diego and Hernando. They beckon me to come and play. I go out the back door, pulling on my knit hat because even though it’s technically summer, the air still hangs chill and misty here in the south. My friends come darting around the corner of the house, their hands hidden behind their backs. I hold out my arms and they fill them flowers. Empty-handed, they are beaming and I am laughing out of pure joy.

I sort of feel as if this is all like that. Like my arms have been filled with this unexpected, simple, beautiful gift. There are limits to this place, but everything that I experience here in this house is so full and I am undeserving but so grateful.

Tossing petals 

My mind keeps returning to the morning not so long ago when the rest were here too – and we gathered around a campfire to share the things we learned here. And those too were gifts.

How Ali talked about how she could measure the hours by the arrival of the bus that comes to bring the country to the city. Now, in the mornings I board that bus, and the driver greets me in English and it makes the other passengers laugh. I watch them greet each other, reaching down from the aisle to kiss cheeks.

I arrive in Temuco and spend my mornings at the university. And then I catch the bus again with the mothers returning with their shopping bags and the students in their uniforms. An old woman with gray hair pulled elegantly back from her wrinkles says, “Parece que va a llover,” and it strikes me as an universal sentiment. Yes, I think so too. It looks like it’s going to rain. 

The nights when we play outside with all those neighborhood kids, I remember how Lane saw that family here is something different. And children are raised by the village, given work and responsibility but loved and cared for, precious to everyone. I think it must be lovely to grow up here, where it is still safe to run free.

Inside we watch telenovelas and Roshard’s words cross my mind. How here the life we are living is not the same as what we see on TV. So we do not try to reproduce that image. We just live. He spoke too about how we must learn to value the things we have been given.

So often, when we go somewhere new, and meet people who are happy with so much less than we have, I hear the response of surprise and discomfort. And I think it’s easy to turn that knowledge into bitterness. But I don’t think that’s the right response. Soon, I will go back to a world of constant internet access and hot running water and a car to take myself to whatever I need whenever I need it.

And that’s where I live. It’s where I learned to play and to work, where I watch TV and look for flowers and where it rains too. And back there is the family I am counting down the days until I see again.

So instead of bitter, I think I’ll choose grateful. So when this place and these days become memories, they will be flowers still.

What to do with all those flowers? Stick them in my hat, of course. 

Chapod Again

Changing your mind is one of the best ways of figuring out whether or not you still have one. - Taylor Mali

You all thought I was going to Valparaiso for my research project, didn’t you? Well, so did I.

But then, of course, if you read my post about Chapod, you’d know that in the words of my host mom in Santiago: I fell in love. I’ve known for a few weeks now that I wanted to come back to the campo, and a lot of thinking, project proposal tweaking and some stressful conversations with my academic director and my poor mother finally got me back here.

House and Home!

It was, at first, a strange decision, if in truth not a hard one. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to stop constructing images of what I think my life is supposed to look like, and I had a pretty strong picture of this month, and more generally, of study abroad.

I saw myself traveling, exploring cities, and in general having a grand experience. But the more I experienced that reality, the more I realized that I don’t like big cities. They overwhelm me. I don’t like the constant pressure to take advantage of where I am, see everything and go everywhere.

I realize now that my passion for travel is different. Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve known on a small scale. I’ve seen Ukraine from English camp, El Salvador from the barrio and Malaysia from the campus of my boarding school. And even though those experiences were limited, they were precious and worldview-altering.

I would rather see the world like that. I don’t care if I never see the Pyramids or the Great Wall or for that matter Machu Pichu or Easter Island. I’m content with the view from this little house at the bottom of hill, surrounded by the piglets and the rooster crowing and the smell of the bread baking.

It may not be as wide an experience as I might have had amidst the colors next to the sea. But it will be a deep one. And if it is culture I seek to learn, haven’t I said before that culture exists in its simplest form within families?

This one, for now, is mine. We’ve spent our first day here (and by we, I mean Amanda and me. She couldn’t escape the pull back here either) drinking mate, taking naps in a bedroom that feels like our own, showing off photos of our faraway homes and taking new ones in photo booth (that’s a pleasure I haven’t experienced in a while). And we’re ready to study the reality of education in this place, that is, if we ever take a break from playing ninja. 

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Beauty is a prerequisite for social justice. If you care about the marginalized, the misfits, those who are the edges of society, who are mistreated and abused - if you want to see justice brought to them then you have a vested interest in cultivating an appreciation for beauty. - Skye Jethani 

It's very apparent. I am in a different country. 

Perhaps I should have expected this. But in the 30-second speech I used to rattle off to explain my study abroad plans, I would pretty much just throw, "and then we're going to spend 2 weeks in Argentina," right in there without missing a beat. And that's sort of how I though of it, just another stop in the general South America experience.

But before the new stamp was dry in my passport, it was obvious that Buenos Aires can be compared to  nowhere. There's mate on the subways, entire neighborhoods dedicated to football teams, and giant old ships watched over by scrap metal sculptures in the center of the city. The pastries are sweet and the mate is bitter. The museums are grand and the nightlife is frenetic. And the cafes are... there. I'm taking full advantage of this fact because I've discovered cafes are not a thing in Santiago. And this I could get used to:

Amanda and I have settled in to our new home, a funky two-story house furnished with floor to ceiling bookshelves and photos of John Lennon, Charlie Chaplain and Eva Perón. Before meeting host family number 3, I was feeling a little weary of inserting myself into other people's lives, but after a few mealtime conversations about Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, the American Civil War and the concept of concrete infinities, I knew I was going to get along just fine here. The only problem is the persistent desire to just stay inside and read. 

Cafes and books were also the theme of my favorite afternoon here. After a long day of school visits last week, friends and I ducked into El Gato Negro. After a lovely conversation over our drinks, we found ourselves in a used bookstore. While I was in raptures over finding a copy of Despertar de Primavera (Spring Awakening) with an inscription from 1977, Carolina was busy chatting up the proprietors, a sweet old woman and her son who wanted to practice his English. I wandered back in time to join in a round of mate, which is evidently a normal thing to do with strangers in a used book store in Buenos Aires. 

On a larger scale, the city is huge and sprawling and seeps culture. Culture of the art, music, philosophy variety. And that's made me wonder about how we define and value culture. In my classes, we talk about educating for change. That's something I believe in 100%, but I tire of the political flavor to the discussions. And the conversations I've had here about authors and art have been invigorating and affirming. It's made me realize how firmly I believe that we should be educating a generation capable of cultivating not only change but culture as well. I believe we must treat culture, both our own and others', as worthy of study and profound and useful in its own right. Here I've seen high school students painting murals in response to literature they read and elementary schoolers putting on plays about human rights. And I believe the vibrancy of the city is the result. 

I want to be a part of advocating for justice in this world. I'd like to one day teach students about the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo (who, by the way, I marched with on Thursday). But I also hope I can get some teenagers to write poetry. Because look at the world that celebrating culture can create! 

Chapod

Wherever you have dreamed of going, I have camped there, and left firewood for you when you arrive - Hafiz

I've been putting off writing this post because I can't figure out a way to put the week I just had into words. I'm going to do my best.

The world we lived in for seven days was small, pretty much consisting of the gravel road between the elementary school for the village of Chapod and our house. During the day, we'd sometimes travel outside of that world, to visit other Mapuche communities (Chile's primary indigenous people group) multicultural schools and the city of Temuco.

The road home

But in the afternoons, we'd walk home, turning off the road in pairs to our respective homes, until six of us reached our shortcut. Then we'd duck through the slats in a fence, cross a few cow pastures, and leave Sloan and Lane at the top of hill, where their sister for the week would run out to meet them. Then we'd walk down past the grazing calves and wave goodbye to Alex and Koral, our neighbors who shared our bathroom, enter through the gate into the yard with the laundry hanging from a barbed wire clothesline and piglets underfoot munching on fruit peels, and Amanda and I would be home.

Outside the front door, featuring the mama pig

Inside, we'd snuggle on the couch with our five-year-old sister Daniela, watch Phineas and Ferb, page through an animal-themed coloring book (both of these experiences helped me learn a new word: ornitorrinco, platypus), or read aloud from Donde viven los monstruos. 

Some days we helped our mom, Miriam, make bread. Not a day passed when she didn't measure flour from a giant sack under the counter, pound the dough with strong hands, and leave it to rise under the windowsill where a small wooden box read El Señor es mi pastor, nada me faltara. There was a modern oven in the house, but the bread was still baked in a woodstove, which also served to keep five kettles constantly ready with hot water.   

Eventually we would make our way outside to play, knocking on the neighbors' door to invite Alex and Koral and their sister Fernanda. The call to play was usually Mati's doing. Mati was 14, and both Amanda and I were expecting a 14-year-old host brother to be way too cool for us, but instead he was the best brother anyone could ask for. We taught him how to play ninja and he taught us how to tease in Spanish. I'm especially fond of the song he wrote about me after a community soccer game. It went something like this: "Laura plays soccer. But she's afraid of the ball. She never scores a goal. Believe in yourself Laura!! You can score a goal!"

Amanda and Mati were the prominent ninja players

After several games of What time is it Mr. Fox?, Untie the knot, and Sardines (My youth group/babysitting arsenal came in handy) we'd be called in for supper. We'd sing a prayer, then dig in to the fresh bread (sometimes sopapillas, the fried masterpiece I'd been warned about) lettuce salad (Mati's favorite) and delicious meat. We'd recount stories of the day to Danny, who, after accidentally bruising Amanda's arm during the soccer game, earned from us the loving title "Papá abusivo." Like a good dad, he specialized in watching over everything and quietly laughing at all of his children's antics.

Sopapillas and other delicacies 

When the food was eaten and the kids had gotten their hands on Amanda's kindle to play angry birds, (Mati developed a signal to let us know he wanted to play. He'd look at Amanda slyly and say "cuckoo!") it was time for Mate. I'd learned about this South American custom in Spanish class, but hadn't experienced it since it's disappeared from most urban households in Chile. Mate is loose herbal tea drunk through a filtered metal straw, but drinking mate, passing one mug around the circle with each person drinking a cupful before passing it back to Miriam to be refilled, is another thing entirely.

Over Mate we talked until Amanda and I couldn't keep our eyes open, and it was in these conversations that I learned that not only are the majority of the Mapuche community evangelical Christians, they're Alliance Christians. I had heard that, as a result of its focus on missions, the little denomination I grew up in was bigger outside of the United States than inside of it, but it was incredible to me to see that this thing we do called mission work had transformed an entire oppressed people into dedicated and joyful followers of Christ.

Drinking Mate with my mom, Miriam.

When we finally got up from the table, I would go outside to the back porch where the sink was, sometimes stepping into the yard to look up at the sky dusted with southern hemisphere stars while I brushed my teeth. And then I would go to bed, and in the morning I would wake up again into the rhythm of that home. It was a music composed of baking bread and feeding pigs, playing games and drinking mate.

We learned, of course, about the struggle to retain Mapuche culture in the face of dictatorship and a racing "modern" culture. And we learned about the theft of Mapuche land and the draining of natural resources through giant lumber companies. I was reminded in many ways of the time I spent with the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge reservation in the US. I thought about the big issues of indigenous oppression. But in the small world, this week was fundamentally different from the hopelessness I saw in Pine Ridge.

This was contentment, faith and family. I was reminded that culture, as a huge a thing as that is, exists in its simplest form within families. This family lives their lives resting comfortably in their traditions. And even though those traditions are radically different from the ones I grew up in, there was something fundamental that was exactly what I know family to be: work and games and food and laughter. And it was just enough.

What a wonderful family! 

Registro Civil de Santiago

This is not so much a post as an apology.

I genuinely desire to uphold the promise of posting every week. This week, however, I am leaving momentarily to climb on a bus and drive through the night to Temuco, where I will spend the next week in an indigenous village, where I have been warned I will most likely not shower, be attacked by fleas and lice and be stuffed full of fried bread. So, I'm very excited! That's supposed to be funny, but not sarcastic. I am very excited.

I had every intention of writing my weekly post today, Saturday, but I did not schedule into my day waiting in line for 5 hours to get my foreign identity card, a week after arriving in the country, because the civil police have been on strike until now.

I'll tell you that you're not missing much. This is what my week looked liked:

School. Study. Sleep. School. Study. Sleep. School. Study. Sleep. Wait in line for 5 hours.

The real story on study abroad, everyone.

You'll notice, however, that earlier this week I did post a poem. If you don't speak Spanish, I suggest google translate. Aside from some grammar tenses, it is shockingly accurate. My own translation might be forthcoming, when I return fat and flea-bitten, with better stories.