Sunday, December 28, 2008

Susana

 

This is our dear friend Susana. A summer goal is to translate her poems. As I wrote about in my last posting, there are challenges living in a different country but to leave wonderful people like her will be very difficult if we decide to go home. Susana is one of our hijas, along with another young woman named Pamela, whose family we hope to be staying with in another week or two down in the south in La Union. Susana bring trickster energy to us, amazes us in how she's learned English by watching TV, and also the way she can remember new words when we've only mentioned them once or twice. She loves history, wants to teach, and is a writer by nature. So . . . soon, I'll get to the poems and share them here.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Trials

I love this photo my husband took of a sea cave along the beach in Quintero. It reminds me of an archetypal portal, a door leading from one reality to another. The sea can easily become a symbol of the life beyond, by which I don't mean beyond the grave . . . but beyond the day-to-day life, the special world we all go to when we are forced to grow in spirit, imagination, or even in the depths of love in the midst of crankiness or fear or stress.

Bill and I assume we'll go back home next summer (winter here . . . it gets so confusing sometimes to know how to reference the seasons.) I can have a job back in the Middletown Unified School District, not as a reading specialist, but more than likely a classroom elementary teacher. If we stay longer in Chile, I'm cutting the cord for good to employment in the U.S. The companies who run the Chilian pension system take an extraordinary amount of management fees, something we had no idea of when we first got here. Bottom line: retirement. We do fine with the day to day, but what about twenty years down the line?

There have been times I've wanted to run back home. Spanish is not coming fast or easy, though at the final talk by Miss Avril, St. Margaret's director, I understood practically every thing she said. But context is everything. I find that there are times things come out of my mouth I didn't know I knew, but then ten minutes later I can't ask for directions to the bathroom.

Dealing with anything that has to do with paperwork here feels crazy, though I suppose someone dealing with visas and bank accounts in the United States might feel the same. My visa here processed fairly quickly, but I'm sure it was because I had St. Margaret's behind me. One woman who works there told me her mother had to go 57 times to the Departmento de Extranjeros. Without the help of a friend, I'd given up getting my I.D. card processed. I was told to go to a wrong office of the International Police. When I got to the right one, my papers were filled out incorrectly. There was a long wait at the civil office to find out I had to go back to the police, more taxi rides, finding everyone at lunch at the police station (Vero banged on windows until someone came out to help us), and then back to the civil office just in time before the doors locked (at 2:00). My husband is having difficulty getting his visa processed because he took my last name. Right now, a copy of our marriage license is somewhere in limbo in northern California ready for it to be "legalized" by the Chilian Embasy in San Francisco.

Without Saint Margaret's help, I wouldn't have a bank account either. I'm not a permanent resident, so no bank would give me an account. I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY, I would say. They're weren't impressed. I was carrying nine thousand Chilian pesos home with me in my purse for two or three months, the equivalent of 2,000 dollars.

Getting Internet hook up at our new house was a similar spike in stress. The technician came out, couldn't find our place, wrote the wrong address down. We went back to the mall where we signed up but they wouldn't believe the address was different because . . . well, there it was on the official paperwork. We got through this with our duena's (landlady's) aid, but the address on our bill is still the neighbor's house, though somehow it gets put in the right mailbox.

Dogs on the street are everywhere. Many times I've had delightful encounters with them, but they're not always friendly. On Magdelena Paz, our passaje, there are three dogs that have adopted the street. We all feed them, and they're healthy and happy. Miel (Honey), who reminds me of a jackel, is aggressive. I was wary at first and let her know I had rocks for the first several times I walked down the street, but I'm her buddy now. However, she's nipped more than one friend trying to get to our house. The other two dogs: a big goofy guy we call Pisco because we don't know what his real name is and a hairy short legged combination we call Picha, are very friendly. Some gave Picha her own dog house, so she's like the queen of the street.

The two dogs below belonged to 18 Norte in Vina, where we first lived. At first, we called them Scruffy and Fluffy. After Scruffy bit me (gave me a bruise, didn't break the skin. I had a cola bottle and bopped him on the head), with a lot of yappy support from Fluffy, I thought of them as Big Fucker and Little Shit.



What bothers me the most about the dogs, though, is that so many of them limp from being hit by cars, and some are just plain sick. That said, most of them seem well fed, but with a little birth control . . . pick up the bitches, sterilize them, and put them back on the streets if need be . . . there wouldn't be so many of these strays.

Some communities have trash bins, but here in Concon trash is put in large baskets that are about three feet off the ground. Garbage day is a bonanza for the dogs; walking to where I get a ride to work, the street is strewn with what has been left after dogs have pulled it out and had breakfast, eating whatever they can. It is always picked up when the garbage men come; maybe there are more jobs this way? More men needed to clean up? I don't know.

Last week we had a 6.3 earthquake. No damage, but the area, as in all of Chile, is prone to have much bigger quakes. My husband, who has built three houses, looks at the construction, of even new places, and shakes his head. Not much bracing to help with the stress of shaking. A series of condos have been built in the sand dunes between Concon and Vina. I look at them and think of the condos we passed as we drove along the Gulf Coast as year before Hurricane Katrina.

Being from California, we're earthquake aware. There's more than likely a major earthquake in our future, whether we stay or go. In California, Santa Rosa, the largest city near our house, was flattened by the 1906 earthquake, but chances are I'll be in rural Lake County, where being safe isn't guaranteed, but there's a lot less to fall down. Anyway, it's something I think of.

And then there are the pulgas, the fleas. They should be the Chilian national insect. We and everyone we know have been plagued with them.

But . . .
As we ponder our future, wonderful things happen. A few minutes after finding the sea cave, we found this tide pool. As we sat there, putting our shoes back on, a woman came up with a basket and a parasol. She sat down and uncovered the exsquisite handmade chocolates. She explained the ingredients and prices for each. We were over a mile away from town, and off the main path, and yet here she was. The chocolates were chose were some of the best candy we've had here. Our hearts break open, and we want to stay.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Spirit of Giving: Music is Magic



Every year the girls at St. Margaret's puts on an end of the year show called The Spirit of Giving. This year's theme was Music is Magic. The girls above are in Miss Bertha's segundo basico class dancing to Walk Like an Egyptian. Or I should say were in her class, as today was the last day of school. The show was an extravaganza, as I know you can tell. And yes, they are singing They snap their teeth on your cigarette.

Each class had a spotlight song and dance while the rest of the classes danced and sang in the chorus. We only had limited memory on our camera, or we'd have recorded the whole show.

Next class is Miss Alejandra's primero basicos doing the Charleston:


Miss Sonia's primero basicos are next dancing to Love Me Do. I think this was my husband's favorite.


The soloist in this next video is a girl named Emilia who is in Miss Sonia's primero basico class. Emilia is seven and will give her first concert tomorrow night. The dancers in the lovely dresses come from Miss Graciela's cuatro basico classes. These girls will be in the middle school next year.


Bravo!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Crossing the Andes and Going to Mendoza


Bill and I went to Mendoza, Argentina this last weekend. Mendoza is the center of the wine region of Argentina, a town of around 100,000 people. Coming into it, I thought of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The whole area on the other side of the Andes as we came from Chile reminded me of the southwest.

Mendoza was very warm, a bit humid, but absolutely lovely with tree lined streets, good food (yes the steaks ARE good, but be sure to say you don't want it well done if you prefer it that way), and it's famous for being a shopper's paradise. The stores were stocked with yerba mate cups which resemble honey pots with silver straws that strain the herbs as you drink the tea. Beautiful reasonably priced leather goods are everywhere, as well as artisan stands in several areas around the main part of town. Women used fans as they walked along the streets at night, and everyone seemed well dressed. I had a bit of a fashion melt down in my denim shorts, golf shirt, anklets and tennis shoes, but I got over it.

At dinner, we were approached by several people for money, something I'm slowly getting used to. We've been approached for the same thing in Santiago, but not quite so often. There are times when they just stand there after you say no. More often, though, they put cards . . . small calendars, saints, etc. on your table and then come around to collect money, no hassle if you don't want to buy anything. We got two Gemini cards from one young girl who wasn't older than ten or eleven.

Going over the Andes was incredible . . . you need to do this. They're similar to the Sierras as they were formed by the coastal plate lifting up the contenintal plate. One passes fairly quickly through the foothills and the mountains rise very fast. No trees though except in some of the valleys. Plenty of waterfalls. We were able to sit in the front of the double decker bus on the way to Argentina and had a huge window to look out of. The bus driver was crazy, passing on curves. My husband has posted a video of what it was like on his blog. Click on Travels beneath Good Links, then go to the Transportation in Chile posting. Scroll down to the third video. (If you want to know what it's like to ride the micro (public transit buses), check out the second video.

On our way back, just before we got to customs (eat your cheese before trying to enter either country) and not ten minutes after passing Mt. Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western hemisphere, I saw a glimpse of a condor. I thought at first it was a hang glider, and then realized what it had to be. The split second made me realize how huge these birds are. He flew so that people on the other side of the bus got a better look.

Now for the unpleasant news. Right outside of Santiago, five boys (don't know their age as I didn't see them) threw rocks at the bus. One of them hit the window across the aisle from us. Fortunately the woman sitting there saw them and ducked. Glass (safety glass) sprayed everywhere. I felt a small piece whiz by my face (I ducked as well and covered my eyes). No one was hurt, thank goodness, but it was scary. Evidently this section of the road has had problems like this . . . but so does Los Angeles, unfortunately.

Anyway, I'll let the pictures do the talking now:








Note what side of the road we're on.

In the Andes!









On the Argentina side, descending.

Mt. Aconcagua in the background





Finally, Mendoza.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Assemblies at St. Margaret's

Almost every week at St. Margaret's, the different schools have assemblies in which girls present performances. Here is a sample from last Wednesday's. The first video is of two segundo basico classes performing the Cirque du Soliel's Alegria for the infant school. This performance has had a lot of demand. They first performed it for junior school, then for the high school, and, finally, for the littlest girls. These girls choreographed it themselves. You'll get a glimpse of the jugglers and the chorus, the girl on roller skates and the one on stilts. Clowns threw confetti at the audience. The main ballerina has been dancing for less than a year.


They're learning gymnastics at school and the corridors and play areas have been full of cartwheels and flips. There have been a lot of casts for broken bones and splints on fingers lately, but it doesn't seem to be a big deal. There is a concrete stage and a concrete play area. Girls run across the stage, land on their hands and then do a back flip landing on the play area. My heart is in my throat as I watch, but their doing this seems to be an accepted part of the school culture.

The next group of girls, the little Charlie Chaplins, are kindergartners from the Infant School. I've mentioned the "History of Hollywood" show that the Infant School put on in an earlier blog. I think these are the same girls who were Charlie Chaplin in that assembly. Too cute to only perform once.



And . . . Miss Carmen, one of our wonderful Junior School librarians, was the director of this performace: The Pied Piper of Hameln (the German spelling), presented just as the news that rats have recently invaded the town hit the news. The performers were from Miss Graciela's cuatro basico class and Miss Sonia's primero basicos were the children and the rats.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Election Watch: Chileno Style


This is our neighbor Boni on the evening of the election. He and Sandra invited us to their house to watch CNN as we don't have a TV. He taped the sign to his forehead, and it was still there when we left two hours later. Chileans were ecstatic over the election; at school the next day I was given many hugs and kisses. Everyone was smiling, and many of the teachers had stayed up for most of the night to watch Obama's speech.

This newspaper is a left-wing periodical. The headline says Defiance to Racism.



Chile's presidential election is in approximately a year and a half. Michelle Bachelet, Chile's current president, is a moderate socialist who believes in free market policies. Her father, a general, served under Allende in a food distribution program. Her parents and she were tortured under Pinochet, her father died from cardiac arrest while he was held prisoner. Bachelet's popularity is very low at this time. There have been scandals in missing funds in both education and a government sponsored sports program. People I've met, both wealthy and the not-so-wealthy, feel the government is too lax in handing out stiffer sentences for criminals. I've heard nostalgia for the "good old days of Pinochet," and that Pinochet "saved Chile" has been told to me more than once . . . even by a young woman whose grandfather was killed by his thugs. Our mouths drop open when we hear this type of thing. People are very careful in saying much about this era, as family members were killed and injustice done to both sides. The distrust is still here.

We've talked to people whose family farms that had been in the family for generations were taken away under Allende and "destroyed because no one knew how to take care of them." We've been told that people here were beginning to starve and that Chile was on the brink of civil war when Pinochet's coup occurred. We say in response that stability isn't worth tyranny, that both sides of the government, the left and the right, should work together to make Chile a better place instead of spending energy blocking each other's attempts to improve situations. (Of course that can be said of a certain country to the north).

Hopes are so impossibly high on Obama, but perhaps with his election, and because problems are so serious, the United States could be a real leader in having each side of the government thinking first about the country and partisanship last. Perhaps the joy expressed about Obama's election here, and in other nations, will create an opening for acceptance by the rich and powerful to allow for justice and for equality to become more pervasive. Maybe there's a young Obama in Chile, a Mapuche boy, or a girl from the slums of Santiago, who will one day help the nation step out of its past wounds and begin a new era for the nation.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Elvis Found Singing in a Small Club in Chile

My husband and I went back to El Gato en La Ventana last night. To our surprise, Elvis walked in, began to perform, and had the whole place on its feet.

There were a couple of other performances. Here's one song of a group, though I'm sorry to say I don't know what they're called. At one point, the mother of one of the members came up to the stage and sang a couple of songs.

Finally, this is Rosemary, one of the music teachers from St. Margaret's, and her daughter Blanca at our home.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Best Treasure



The picture above was taken in Coquimbo, Chile, where the local legend says that Sir Francis Drake and his men hid out between attacking Spanish ships for their gold. Many of the locals say their descendents of his men, who are seen as pirates, or cursarios, of which they take great pride. There are many pirate murals in town. One section, where the pubs are, is called Bario Ingles.

I wrote the following story for an annual celebration at St. Margaret's called The Gareth Pugh Event. Mr. Pugh was a wonderful music teacher, and this event consists of third and fourth graders from several schools getting together, singing and making music around a theme to remember him by. Ximena Achondo, music teacher par excellence, and a good friend, has coordinated it during the past several years. She asked me to write a pirate story for this year's event.

Here it is:

The Best Treasure

A girl named Estrella walked along a lonely beach full of magical jewels. She kicked the sparkling sand and she threw diamonds into the nighttime sky to light her way. Though she had riches, she was very lonely and dreamt of friendship and love.

Far away in Kingston, Jamaica, a boy named John was dreaming too. He was a poor boy though. His only possession was a treasure map his father had given him. One day as he fished for his dinner, he saw a reflection of a girl in the water that made him think of the lost jewels his father had told him about. He was so enchanted that he didn’t see that pirates were close. They captured him and took him away on their ship.

The pirates were led by mean Cap'n Tom. John, and another boy named Alfred who was also kidnapped, scrubbed the decks, and sewed the rips in the sails all day long. The pirates bragged about their riches and their evil ways. John taught Alfred songs of his home in Jamaica, and they sang them to keep their minds off of their empty stomachs, for they were only given food the pirates didn’t want.

The pirates spoke of an island of lost treasure. Cap'n Tom promised he would never rest until he and his men found it. Late one night, John heard him say, “Argghh, if I only had the map that Fearless Pete took from me that night in Bermuda. I would have that treasure.”

Jack’s father was named Pete. Did he have the same map that Cap'n Tom wanted? Thinking they were alone, he showed the map to Alfred, but Captin’ Tom’s first mate was watching. He snatched it away and hurried to the Cap'n’s room. Five minutes later, Cap'n Pete yelled for the ship to change directions. The men sang as they changed the sails.

Estrella saw the ship coming, but her joy turned to fear when she saw the skull and cross bones of the pirates’ flag. She ran and hid in the trees. Cap'n Pete and his evil crew shouted for joy when they saw the beach filled with the magical jewels. They sang and loaded them in their treasure chests and didn’t see the two boys run away.

Estrella followed John and Alfred. She called to them with a song her mother taught her about a far away land called Jamaica. When John saw her face, he knew she was the girl he saw in the beautiful blue water that surrounded his home. Estrella knew that she finally had friends. She led them to a magic treasure chest hidden in the forest. It was from this chest that found the diamonds to throw into the sky. Whatever was taken from it would always be replaced.

The pirates left, forgetting the two boys now that they had found the treasure of Cap'n Tom’s dreams. John and Estrella, with their friend Alfred, buried the treasure and built a boat and sailed back to Jamaica, fishing for their food, and having diamonds to light their way. They knew they could always return for diamonds and gold, but that their true treasure was love and friendship.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Special World


As we stayed up late, and I'm a bit rummy, today I'm including videos taken in Santiago and Valparaiso last summer. The first is of a group playing Mira Ninita on the Paseo Ahumada in Santiago. On the weekends, there used to be sidewalk vendors and entertainment. This isn't happening anymore, as far as we know, which I think is too bad. Travel books said to watch your wallet, so maybe that's why the city stopped it??? Don't know. Go to the feria in front of Cerro Santa Lucia for some of the same deals on sweaters and crafts.



You can hear the same band in the background here:



This is a scene of Chile's third place victory in the World Cup. They won against Argentina, so I guess the victory was especially sweet. Watch for the dog.



Finally, a very short and dark clip from El Gato en la Ventana, a folklorico club in Valporaiso. This was taken summer 07, as well. We were there early this morning. I love how this section of the city churns through the early morning, mostly with young people. The music is LOUD but beautifully done; if you like the first video of the street performers, you'd would love this place. People around us knew all the songs and sang with the performers. It's a place full of joy and, at times, dancing. Last night, an elderly man, a definite extrovert, got up and sang opera in between sets. His friend (his son?) fell asleep at the table next to ours. We left about 3 a.m., found the buses lined up to take people home. Ours was full, complete with twenty people standing up and holding on. Back to home and bed by 4:30.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Meeting a Mentor


This is Maria Jose, better known as Miss Cote at St. Margaret's. Getting to know her in my first few weeks was a true blessing, as on our drives to school she clued me in to things like how to get photocopies done, shared her stories about getting lost in the giant school (more than once when I've gone up one too many set of stairs and found myself in the "out of bounds" area, I've thanked her in my mind for her story of doing the same thing), spoke of her own feelings of being overwhelmed with so many new faces and names. She also drove Bill and I around so that we found our first place here in Concon. I appreciate Cote's devotion to recycling, her cheerfulness, her love of teaching English, and envy her ability with languages (she speaks French, as well as English and Spanish).



When we moved to the place Cote helped us find, I thought I was in paradise for the first six weeks. The weather was still warm, and though we were in one room, we felt it was grand because the Pacific was just outside our window. We had a bed, dining table, and small kitchen, though I hesitate to use that word for it. We've discovered that a tiny stove, refrigerator and sink is called an American Kitchen, for some reason. The sink was so low, Bill had to do dishes on his knees. He's 5'8" and says that there are times in Chile he feels tall. The bathroom technically counted for a second room, I guess, though it was matchbox size. I loved writing looking out at the waves and watching the surfers at the beach. We'd sit on the roof and drink piscolas, made from pisco,a type of brandy made from grapes and cola,on Friday afternoons. Sunsets were . . . hmm . . . sitting here trying not to think of a cliche to describe them . . . so I won't. I'll just show a picture:



I'm grateful for having lived there because teaching in a new place, being the only non-Spanish speaking person on campus, wanting to prove I was worth the risk the school took hiring me . . . what can I say? It was stressful. I'd open our gate, walk down the steps and around the corner of our dueno's vacation house, step onto their patio which led to our place, and the sea would be there. The sound of the waves and the expanse of water was just what I needed to keep myself together.

Then winter came. The roof leaked. We'd have periodic floods underneath the door, the toilet started acting up. We'd often get rained on when we were using it, too. We were buffeted by wind and it got cold, despite the propane heater we bought. We kept the shades down because it kept the place warmer, so there wasn't much light.

Thanks to Rosemary, one of the inspectors at the school (an inspector is the assistant to the head teacher and someone who acts like a vice principal and takes care of a lot of the discipline issues), we found our new casita.



We were tempted to move to Valparaiso. We found a cool tri-level condo we almost took. The trip to work for me would be long, an hour on the bus each way during rush hour, but we thought having the chance to live surrounded by great atmosphere, living in a real city for the first time ever, might be worth it. Rosemary was dead set against it and started an Internet search for houses for rent. Valpo has a reputation of being un poco peligroso. The cerro that the condo was on could be viewed two ways: seedy or having a whole lot of character.

We were told by neighbors things would be fine as long as we weren't out late at night, but while we were walking around before the real estate lady came to let us view the place, a man spotted us from a hundred feet away; he could see we were norteamericanos from that distance. He was un poco boracho and started talking to us in English. "My f . . . name is Nixon Jimmy, and if you don't f. . . believe it, here's my identity card. My mother named me after your f . . . presidents because she wanted me to be strong. I used to live in f . . . New Jersey. Welcome to f . . . Chile." We told the lady we'd take the apartment, but the bus ride back to Concon seemed even longer and we both woke up the next morning with some anxiety.

We got up early, walked here (to Calle Magdelena Paz . . . I love the name of my street), saw it, fell in love, and called Rosemary to thank her. Had it not been for the bus ride and my having to come home latish on some nights from work, we still may have taken the apartment. New Canadian friends, Norm and Charlene, have found an apartment in Valpo in an area which they describe as "interesting;" a part of me still wanted to do the more Bohemian thing when I read their email last night.

Norm, Bill, me and Charlene


But, here I'm close to work, we still have a view of the sea, a beautiful garden area, nice neighbors. The main drawback is the cacophony of dogs that bark for hours from across the little canyon below us, but I think in time it'll just be background noise as I get used to it. Here's the garden:



Getting back to St. Margarets, it also took me some time to learn the British system, mixed with the requirements of the Chilean Department of Education. Grades are called "notes," they fall from 1 through 7, 7 being the highest grade, except no one is ever given a 1. The Infant School has playgroups for three-year olds, pre-kinder and kindergarten classes. Today the kindergarten girls did a tribute to Hollywood for an assembly for Teachers' Day. Six or seven of them were dressed as Charlie Chaplin, complete with canes and mustaches. They handed out caramel corn to the teachers before they did their dance. Some of the other girls did dances to Pretty Woman (which I thought was an interesting choice), Flashdance, and Footloose. The junior school is made up of grades 1-4, the middle school grades 5-8, and the senior school contains grades 9-12. Seniors are all the girls in senior school. First senior is equivalent to ninth grade, second senior is tenth, etc. Grades 1-8 are also called basicos, and the senior grades are also called medeos. The girls have 15 subjects with music, p.e., and religion teachers. Every day the schedule is different. I had to look at my time table (which is what they call the "schedule") every day for two months to figure out where I was going. There are playing fields for hockey below the school. Other British schools have their playing fields about ten miles north of Concon. And there are houses the students and teachers belong to, just like in Harry Potter. Ours are York, Lancaster, Stuart and Windsor. I haven't been officially told what house I'm in yet. During school week when there were competitions, I hung out with the Windsors.

Our hockey fields looking out to the ocean:

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Mira Ninita

I ended my blog yesterday with versus of the song Mira Ninita (again, can't do the tilda because I'm on an English keyboard). We researched it today. The song was written in 1972 by a Chilian rock band, the Los Javais. Here is a link to youtube to hear them sing the song. Please copy and paste in your browser because I can't seem to get the link to work correctly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8cC-D8L02I Also, here are a couple short videos taken in Valparaiso:

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Life in Chile


Okay, it's been months since I last blogged. In that time, I've worked at St. Margaret's, written the second half of STARVED, HUNGRY's sequel, found out that Hungry won't be reprinted as I was finishing it, made good friends, gone through various stages of culture shock, moved three times . . . excuses, excuses. It does feel good to be back here! I have two months left of school, then summer vacation comes.

The picture above was taken by my husband at the Mercado Central in Valparaiso, a large city about ten miles south of here. I haven't begun to think metric, I'm afraid. Valpo has a bit of an edge, is famous for the theft of purses and cameras, but it's a city Americans and Europeans love for its windy cobblestone streets, vistas of the sea, and architecture from the 18th century, the era when many British(and Germans) lived there. I know many of their descendents, including women in their 70s andd 80s who speak the Queen's English. They built the first acensors, elevators/trollies that carry people up the steep hillsides. There are also the Scottish Steps, named for the Scots who didn't want to spend their pesos for a ride.

We were in Valpo a few weeks ago, walking to a flea market. A crowd of people were walking across the street a block or so ahead of us. We heard a woman scream and then disappear. When we got to where she was, we saw that there was a huge hole in which her toddler had fallen in down to the sewer. She had jumped in after him. Baby had been pulled out and looked okay. People were getting a ladder to the woman. Times like this we realize that we are in a different world. I walk home from St. Margaret's. The first street I take is full of houses that would make the most upper middle class neighborhood proud in the United States, but on occasion, there will be horses grazing.

We find almost everyone wonderful and kind, although we're warned quite a bit that crime is on the rise here. We've never been in a place where we haven't felt safe, however. Public transportation is great. We find we can live easily (most days) without needing a car. The only days when it hasn't been easy has been when there have been big rains. The rain here is phenomenal when it comes. Not much drainage, so the streets fill up fast. The metro in Santiago, sardine-like during rush hour, is still a showcase. Very clean, nice art in some of the stations, and on time!

We have a bigger social life than we've ever had. We lived in the country, in a rural county where the sidewalks roll up by six or seven o'clock in the evening. One thing that we love because it's so different is that dinner parties don't start until 9:00 or 9:30 at night. We've been out until three or four in the morning. I'm a night owl when I don't have to work, so I really enjoy it. I have to admit, we often try to rest before hand (and we eat a little extra because we're still used to having dinner at 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening).

We love hearing about the customs here. Three weeks ago, there was the national holidays for the 18th of September. Barbecues were everywhere, little girls in floral dresses danced with boys in bolero outfits. There's a richness I don't sense back home. We had one of the music teachers from St. Margaret over yesterday for lunch, along with her daughter. She told us about songs from the south of Chile, sang a song that has haunted me since I heard it on our first visit here, a lullaby, as it turns out, called "Mira, Ninita," or "Look, Little Girl." With fear and trembling, I'll translate:

"Look, little girl, I'm going to take you
to see the brilliant moon on the sea,
Look toward the sky and
and forget this languid fear,
that is your permanent emotion.

Ay . . .this permantent emotion
for the daughter of a man
with crystal eyes
and stolen paper of the skin."

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Miss Alicia



When I started to write Hungry and Alicia let me know she wanted to be in the novel, I didn’t want to give her that name as it’s so close to mine. She insisted that was her name, though, so I thought, “Okay.” As I wrote, I pronounced the name the English way, A-lee-sha. I have a new identity now at St. Margaret’s. You guessed it. I am now A- lee-see-a because the “th” sound is difficult for many native Spanish speakers to say. Actually, I’m “Miss Alicia.” Or I’m “Miss Ali,” because that seems to be the other nickname that I’ve been given.

There are about a hundred teachers at the school. I’ve put about a dozen or so names with faces so far. There are three teachers from England (I think, I’ve got a solid grounding on who two of them are), and the rest are from Chile. Though the school is a “British school,” all meetings are conducted in Spanish except for the ones conducted in the English department. I’m sometimes getting the “gist” of things, but it is only a rough approximation. We had an in-service about bullying today, and because the main ideas were projected with an LCD player I was at least able to follow along with my electronic dictionary. What I’m excited about is that at times I’m finally catching whole phrases (not often, but at least it’s a beginning) and I’m getting the object pronouns in the right places. Sort of.

I’m also learning a lot of new jargon for the British structure. Forms are used instead of grades, or the word is used interchangeably. Once the girls pass eighth grade, they have IB levels. I’m teaching 3rd level A2, the highest group of what would be juniors in high school for us. Infant school is kindergarten. The juniors are grades one through four. The middles are grades five through eight.

Some things seem to be universal. As I mentioned, the talk today was about bullying, which the teachers perceive as a problem. The girls seem to have the same issues as the kids did at the two schools I’ve taught at in California: neglect, emotional issues, tardiness, not being respectful. Avril, the wonderful headmistress of the school, says she insists the girls stand up when a teacher enters the classroom—something I might get used to J.

I’ll teach the English IB curriculum. The idea is to connect social and cultural issues to a text that is explored slowly and in depth. The girls will do most of the research. There will be a lot of writing, creative work, debates, etc. I will only grade a few papers per report card period! I’m sure I’ll look most of them over though and ask for revisions when it’s appropriate. I’ve decided to start with The Crucible. I want them to begin by researching how women in Europe were persecuted as witches. If I remember my history correctly at this point, there were a few men who were executed in Salem as well, but I want to discuss how the values and beliefs influenced what happened. I hope another group will be interested in exploring what happened during the McCarthy era. I wish I could show Good Night and Good Luck, but finding a copy seems a bit overwhelming at this point. Then we’ll launch into the play. I read the introduction to Act 1 last night and wondered when I read the play. I assume college. The vocabulary is intensive, but these girls supposedly like to be challenged.

The other books we’ll read are The Handmaid’s Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird and I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings. With the last of these, I hope to have the girls explore issues about the Mapuche, the indigenous people of Chile who mainly live in the southern part of the country. There are other groups, but the Mapuche fought back against the Incas (their empire stopped at the Mapuche borders), the Spanish, and are still fighting against assimilation and to take back control of land they believe still belongs to them.

The rest of my time I’ll spend doing “literacy” with the juniors. I wish, wish, wish that I brought more teaching material with me. I decided to go for survival stuff like a few more clothes, and thought I’d bring the extra things back with me next time I go to the U.S., as I wasn’t sure what my school day was going to consist of. Tomorrow I’ll meet with the head teacher of junior school and know more specifically what they would like from me. Their reading program in English seem to consist of copies of books a la the Wright Group and Rigby back in the whole language days. I’m told all most all of the girls don’t have problems decoding. I think doing Lindamood LIPS (without mouth pictures?) to help pronunciation will happen. I keep thinking of the Houghton Mifflin frontloading materials I copied over that have sentence frames for different levels of English language learners . . . they’ll be here in time.

I need to find out if there are more books. I’d love to do some novel reading and exploration with the third and fourth graders. I don’t think they’re there. The school is very beautiful and new and not paid for all the way, and from what I’m picking up, there isn’t money to buy this sort of thing.

One of the biggest challenges for me is that I’m used to coming into work at least a half hour early. More often, though, I work until four, four thirty, and sometimes later, getting things prepped. I’ll be taking the bus with the students and other teachers, which is fabulous, but the bus will arrive just in time for school to begin. There are few computers, so if I want to do research I’m not sure how this will work, as I don’t have Internet at home right now. The Internet place around the block has its challenges, as there’s the Spanish keyboard. I don’t know how to do the @ sign for writing in email addresses. Often there is fairly slow download time, and then the web pages disappear and I have to get back on. The teachers have left this week right at two o’clock, the end of the workday until students arrive next Tuesday.

Another change: the school provides a lunch! Salad bar, main course, dessert . . . but 2:00 is considered lunch hour. I probably will be able to eat with the juniors (at noon . . . closer to our 11:10 lunch at Minnie Cannon) or the middles (1:00 ish) four days a week. BUT Thursdays, I don’t get it until two! There has been a snack period this week about 10:15 where the NesCafe, tea, and some cookies come out. I’ve brought cereal bars and fruit to keep me going, but I’m starving when I get home.

I think I may have made a faux pas on my first day. There were some supplies being passed out to the junior teachers, and I asked if I could have some. I was told yes, so I picked up a box of pencils. It turned out I could only have one. I have one dry erase pen, and a red, blue, and green marker, and some tape, correcting fluid. I really need to find chart paper somewhere as I use a lot of it. At Minnie Cannon, I taught so many different levels, I didn’t have board space, so I often prepared what I needed the day before (or a few days before if I was lucky) and didn’t have to spend time writing stuff on my board or the ones in the classrooms I worked in.

Now for the wonderful part! Chileans (woman to woman, often woman to man and visa versa) greet and say goodbye with a cheek-to-cheek “kiss.” You touch cheeks and make a kissing sound. It’s lovely. I hope when my Puritan work ethic kicks in and I’m feeling stressed for not having the space I usually need to think about my day and look over my lessons, I’ll remember that starting one’s day like this is probably much healthier. My teaching will get done anyway.

On the second day of work, we got on these great cushy buses and toured Valparaiso, a town that Chileanos think of as their San Francisco (I had compared Concon to Santa Barbara before I knew better. It’s more like Sausalito. The weather has been cool, foggy and misty like summer around the SF bay.) Valpo is hilly like San Francisco and has a historical, yet Bohemian air. If you read Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, the book started here. We went to an “ascensor,” first walking through a very long tunnel and then riding up an elevator to an observatory platform where we could see the whole city and far out into the ocean. The set up also allows for the local people who live on the hill a way to get up and down with more ease.

We went to a monument to Bernardo O’Higgens, who is roughly equivalent to George Washington, and is a father, if not THE father, of Chile. He led the revolution against Spain. We then went to what might have been the home of the British Lord Cochran who helped in the fight. We walked through the oldest part of the town where many of the buildings are being torn down for infrastructure and lack of resources to preserve them. Natural gas is coming to Chile.

The next stop was at a monument for los heroes, the men who went down in a ship in a fight against Peru (1850ish? Can’t remember exactly.) Vente-uno de Mayo is a national holiday (and my birthday!) that honors their loss of life. Chile lost the battle, but won the war, by the way, thanks to the British.

Finally, we were treated to a lovely lunch at the restaurante Bernardo O’Higgens, starting with our choice of soft drinks or alcohol, either a pisco sour, the national drink, or a vai’in— which I probably am spelling wrong. I went with the vai’in, a vanilla flavored liquor. I had to. I never had a drink on teacher time before! All I can say is, “Yum.”
So, to sum things up, estoy nerviosa. But I always am at the beginning of a school year, and somehow I survive. At home, by the mid of October I felt I had my life back. April is the new October for me, and I hope I feel more settled and secure by then.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

La Magia Esta En Tu Alma



I love the murals in Santiago. The city is covered with the same kind of tagging as any urban place in America, but the level of creativity seems to be higher here. Amid what looks like gang graffiti there are message like this. Respect is to love. The magic is in your soul. I like the vampirish like creatures looking on, as though the forces of darkness were taking heed of the message. There are occasional messages on walls proclaiming: Capitalismo es muerte. Other pictures that are intricate and fanciful lace the streets. In the Bellas Artes area, near San Cristobal, the highest part of the city, and where one of Neruda's three homes is located, the mural art is taken to the highest levels, street after street, in a neighborhood full of houses where color and whimsy cry out.

Bill and I went to the immigration office today. The nicest people work there. I was told that St. Margaret's is the "most prestigious school in Chile." Yikes! Definitely not like the Title One schools I've always taught at. We panicked when the forms and procedures were explained to even get a work permit under a tourist visa. Send my teaching credentials to the consulate in San Francisco just to get a stamp and from where they have to be mailed back to Chile?) But then I finally connected with the Sra. Avril Cooper, the director of the school, who said,"Relax, relax. Our people are working on it." Okay, sounded like good advice to us. So I'm sitting in a courytard writing now at La Casa Roja instead of dealing with bureaucracy. Que beuno! (I need to find how to transform my keyboard in a Spanish one but that's a learning curve I just can't take on right now.)

We went to lunch yesterday and today at two sidewalk cafes. A cute little dog, kind of a cocker spaniel/dachshund cross showed up at our feet yesterday. Small and sad. We thought she was a puppy until we noticed she'd recently had babies. We named her "Cute Little F . . ." Amazingly, there she was again today, at least two miles away. She had to have crossed the freeway, going up the steps and across the bridge along with people traffic. She came immediately to our table, lay down, and fell asleep again. We chose not to think of it as a sign, as we're weak where in the cute little doggy area of life. And we need to get Wiley down here. He'd probably be p.o.ed to see a strange dog in what he'd rightfully think of as his place. After today, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll do. after today My job starts Monday (trying not to panic-- I left a lot of my standby teaching material at home because of weight limitations on the airplane). Our house in Vina is cute, but not the place we want to stay forever. We don't want to connect Internet up, only for the two months we'll be there. I may spend a lot of time on the weekend at the Internet place around the corner, but I could also be correcting papers. Oh yeah, i've got another novel to finish.

One last thing! Great news. Nicole, the publicity person at HarperCollins told me that a review posted by Emily Robbins, a thirteen year old reviewers from Readers Views, was picked up by Reuters and usatoday.com. I can't stop smiling!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Night is Falling in Santiago


I chose this picture, though it has nothing to do with Santiago. It does have a lot to do with being willing to venture to unfamiliar places both without and within. Thank you, Mother Eve, for taking the first bite to a realized life.

We have been in Chile for just over a day. I'm sitting in an upstairs lobby of La Caja Roja, a hostel full of mostly young people from all over the world. Loud music is blasting from downstairs. Voices of guests eating their dinners on the patio blend in, along with clinking plates and laughter. Here, it doesn't feel I'm half a world away from winter, where the bells of my school ring, and my commute is driving up a mountain road. The Germanic orderliness that the United States possesses isn't found in Chile.

Bill and I stayed at this hostel for two of the weeks we spent here in July, so coming back felt like coming home in many ways. Out on the streets of the city, though, walking among the blankets spread full of bolsas and zapatos for sell, the crazy traffic, having a poor mother sing a song for some pesos to feed her baby, the reality that I have made a commitment to a strange new life is impossible to ignore.

Ice cream is a real highlight. It's simply wonderful, very similar to gelato. Most of the pastries, on the other hand, are heavy and unappealing-- which is a good thing because I have a weakness for them. I'd rather spend my dessert calories on the helados.

Took a trip to Vina del Mar today to rent a house that we found out about back home. Outside of Santiago, it becomes desert-like, similar to the few un-watered parts of southern California that remain. We passed chapparal and chemise, vineyards in the Casablanca Valley, slums on Valparaiso's hills.

Chile is a poor country with an expanding "middle class," however you might define it, and the wealthy whose homes could be anywhere in tonier areas of the states. Our new house is where a purse being snatched won't be out of the question, but that's probably the worst of worries. I wish my work clothes had deeper pockets to hide my i.d. and what little money I'll carry. I'll travel by bus or taxi to St. Margaret's, which has a gate models on Buckingham Palace, teaching girls who go home to fine houses, mas rica que mi casa.

I've stepped out of the "garden," of what I have always known, into a world where more knowledge and experience will be gained.

I need to work on my book, but so much nicer right now to put my thoughts here.

Tags: chile, hungry, la casa roja, teaching in foreign countries, vina del mar

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Threshold Guardians


According to the Hero's Cycle, heroes need to pass through obstacles that guardians place before them in order to prove the heroes' worthiness to enter into the special world where the story will unfold. Guardians can be other characters, circumstances, or objects (locked windows). I feel that Bill and I are passing through our share of these guardians. To be cliched (as I am using Joseph Campbell's ideas here), we're "following our bliss" in our preparations to move to Chile. Daily we're coming up against a variety of guardians, but somehow a mixture of sheer willpower and serendipity are helping to dissolve them.
Some of these have been:

Reducing a household to four suitcases and a dufflebag full of bedding.
Luckily, we're not horders and have less to get rid of than most people. We're leaving some things: photos, some books, a few of my winter clothes as we'll be living in late summer in just a few days. It feels wonderful to let go. There are no family things on my side and only a few on Bill's, so this has been a blessing.

Dogs
The hardest part has been deciding what to do with our dogs. We can't take them now because we don't really know if this is going to work. Will we stay in Chile a few months or the rest of our lives?

We were going to have Lily, our 90 percent Ausie and 10 percent mystery dog, be our Chile dog at first. Then, we decided not to bring any of them. Then all of them. Then . . . We found a wonderful organization called We Care Animal Rescue in St. Helena, California. Through them, Lily found a home with a wonderful couple in the Sacramento area. As traumatic as it was for us to say good bye, Lily was won over by a chicken sandwich. She hopped in her new mom's car and off she went. She's happy. Got her teeth cleaned. Playing lots of fetch and going on oodles of walks.

Lily was a thirty pound whirlwind that kept Dazie wound up and puppy-like for six years. There was an amazing transformation from the very first day. Dazie came into her own and wasn't as fidgety, not even wiggling when I tried to brush her. So . . . we said, "Let's keep Wiley and her!" Friends tried her out on a sleepover to see how she'd do until we figured out how to do this, but on a walk in the hills above Upper Lake she got away.

I was taking Wiley to Petaluma for a potential foster mom to meet him when another guardian came my way. My wallet was stolen before I got there, so I had to return home to cancel things out. I got the message about Dazie. I left Wiley with some food because I hadn't fed him that morning (he gets car sick)and drove the hour to Upper Lake. We spent hours looking for her. She'd run off the road up a hill that was full of chemise, coyotes who'd come out at night, and that led into a wilderness area. I called and called her name at the spot she disappeared. She didn't answer. She could have been anywhere in rugged terrain. Bill was stuck in an elevator during this time (did someone say Mercury Retrograde?) and when he got home, he brought Wiley who only had to bark once for Dazie to answer. She was at the same spot I had yelled for her, but dog-to-dog communication won her over. Bill and Kenn then had to climb the mountain, though, and Kenn had to use all his forest service training to get through the brush. She wouldn't budge when he found her. She weighs 60 pounds and he dragged her through about ten feet of the chemise with her pissing and . . . you get the picture. Once she saw Wiley, she got up and trotted down the mountain with him.

We contacted We Care again for Dazie because we decided the move would be too much for her. The next day heard from a wonderful woman in Yountville (Napa Valley). We took Dazie to her house yesterday. She now lives on a 48 acre vineyard in a 5,000 square foot house full of comfy pillows and gourmet food cooked just for her. She'll eat plenty of fruits, vegetable, New York steak cut just right, and gourmet doggy biscuits. She'll also be taken out to a restaurant that gives the diners plates for their dogs, and back at home has a bidet for her very own to be able to drink fresh flowing water. I'd have felt guilty NOT to let her live there. I've always thought that our dogs had it nice. It's been boot camp for them in comparison! Though she did break our hearts. The two nights she was with us, she climbed into a suitcase to sleep.

What is wonderful is that both of the new families will let us know how Dazie and Lily are doing. We even have an invitation to stay in Dazie's paradise when we're in northern California. And through Dazie's little adventure, the people who were going to take her are now taking Wiley until we can figure out things. He is now the official Chile dog in residence.

However, contacting airline customer service to figure this out has turned out to be the most formidable of the guards at the "gate". I ended up screaming I WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE HUMAN! When we got the humans, it was still difficult. We're still not sure what to do.

Car
No one wanted a Corolla with a stick shift even though we were offering under blue book. What about gas economy????? We were amazed. We dropped the price to way under blue book, and a woman from Willits called us. She was thrilled that our car even had old fashioned roll up windows. We've sold it at the last minute.

House in Cobb
The first people to look at our house are making an offer. HOWEVER, whether their offer is something we'll accept is another matter. We're free here, though, because through a conversation at the Mountain High Coffee Shop, serendipity allowed us to find a renter we can trust if the house hasn't sold by the time the listing runs out.

Home in Chile
Another conversation, at the Cafe Vasquez in Lakeport this time, has given us a fully furnished house to rent (with washer and dryer) in Vina Del Mar, twenty minutes by bus from where I'll work at St. Margaret's.

Work Visa
Last hurdle. By the time we got the documents we need, it was too late to process the visa up here. It will take the FBI four months to process my "rap sheet." Ah, let's see . . . there was a ticket on my way to church a few years ago for going a few miles over the speed limit. That must be what is holding things up. So, we're hoping we can process what we need to do once we're in Santiago. I only have a few days before I begin work, but not being anxious about this is a good lesson for me. If it doesn't happen, our journey may take off on a different path as happens in many good stories.

HUNGRY
Sales have been "quiet" according to my editor. Which means if things remain the same, the book I'm halfway through writing won't be wanted. I worry about the effect of being in Chile will have on my writing career. A friend suggested I blog on my webpage as Deborah in Chile, which I think is brilliant . . . the country's name allowing for a lot of puns with eating. I just hope I have time to do this. Anyway, I just have to believe that bliss and prayer and as much attention as I can put into promoting the book from down south will work.

I haved managed to sneak in a couple school visits through all of this: Lu Sutton School in Novato, where I saw again how much kids connect with the book. Also, another presentation on the Mendocino Coast at Horicon School in Annapolis, and the Four-Eyed Frog Book Store in Gualala. Grandmother Pig's Butt, my alter ego, is still training recruits for the great invasion of Earth, complete with an alien make over of a very brave volunteer. I hope she can somehow keep the training going in Chile.