Tuesday morning, I had this interview with Sra Carey from CommunidadMujer (awesome website for a non-profit organization, in my opinion). We began the interview in Spanish, but within a few minutes Sra. Carey paused and declared "we can speak in English, if you want." Although I should be speaking Spanish every second of every day so that I can improve, it was nice to focus my energy on the interview questions instead of my grammar and accent.
Apparently things went well because Sra. Carey invited me to work with her on developing a program to train Chilean women skills for political leadership. Although they've already conducted a trial program in this capacity (which Chilean President Michelle Bachelet attended!), CommunidadMujer wants to figure out where to focus their efforts (local government vs. national government; new political leaders vs. current political figures) to best serve Chile- where only 15% of current members of congress are women. I'm really looking forward to this project. Perhaps I can even use the program back in the U.S., where women comprise a mere 90 out of 540 members of Congress (16.67%) and 8 out of 50 state governors (16%). And people say that women are treated equally in the United States? At least in Chile they admit that they live in a machismo society...
Pues, my morning started off on the right topic because in class on Tuesday we talked a bit about the Chilean system of government/elections/etc. Learned about the different political parties (which still confuse me muchisimo - all of the parties try to appear moderate, so they say they are center-left even when they are extremely left or vice versa. Ay ay ay.
Interesting facts about Chilean government:
-presidents are not allowed to run for re-election (for fear of another dictatorship/military takeover)
-they elect Congress through a binomial election which is fairly complicated and kind of silly in my opinion
Umm later that afternoon we watched a fantastic movie called Machuca. It's in Spanish but has English subtitles if you don't mind reading your movies instead of just watching them. The story focuses on the integration of lower-class Chileans in a private Catholic school and explains the rise of Pinochet through the eyes of two little boys. The movie is very touching, but also a bit heavy towards the end...so prepare yourself. The movie is really important for Chile because it was prohibited to make movies during the reign of Pinochet - so this film is filling in a lost period of Chile's cinematic history.
Learning about some of the terrible things that have happened in Chile has been pretty tough emotionally. When we leave class every night, we walk by La Moneda - where Allende was attacked - and we all get goosebumps down our spines. We also feel a bit paranoid - as if another golpe de estado could occur at any minute. Obviously, this is crazy talk considering the reign of Pinochet is long gone, but imagine walking through the Gettysburg battlefield every day - wouldn't you feel a bit uneasy too?
Tuesday night, went to the mall with a group of friends. My friend's host brother drove us there and we discovered the coolest thing in the parking garage: when you drive onto each level, there are illuminated signs that point you to open parking spots! Each parking spot has a sensor and a light above that turns green when it's free and red when it's occupied. Then apparently the sensors send a message to the sign which points you to the closest open spot! Amazing!!!
The initial reason for going to the mall was to go ice skating, but due to winter vacation, the ice skating rink was filled to the brim with little kids. So instead, we went shopping. I got a hair straightener (finally!) and then just window shopped. This mall is absolutely ridiculous. Along with an parking spot notifiers, an ice skating rink, a huge movie theater, a benihana, and a tgi fridays, they also have a grocery store and outdoor fountains. and on tuesday at 8pm, it was so crowded that you would have thought it was a saturday afternoon during tax-free weekend.
Came home, did homework, went to bed.
Pause - i'm trying to improve my vocab as much as possible so i'm going to include some new words in every post from now on. Here are today's fun Chilean words/phrases
-Que fome! - how lame/boring
-guagua (pronnounced "wawa") - baby
-coche - baby carriage
-auto - car
-cachai? - you know what i mean?
-cache - i know what you mean
Wednesday:
Decided to walk to school. Walked for an hour and a half and only got about 2/3 of the way there! Makes sense considering my metro stop is about 12 stops from where I had to go. Tomorrow I think I'll just go running and then take the metro instead of arriving at school all sweaty.
Learned about literature, art and theater during the dictatorship of Chile.
One really interesting "artist" we learned about was called CADA - the Collective of Art Actions. Because traditional art would have just been destroyed during the Pinochet regime, the artists of CADA performed different actions as a form of art in order to make political statements. For example, they in an effort called “Oh, South America” (1981) they flew six planes in the same route as the ones that bombed La Moneda in 1973. However, instead of dropping bombs, these planes dropped 400,000 papers with poems and encouraging phrases over the whole city. For example, one phrase was: “Each individual who works for the expansion of the space of his or her life (even if mental) is an artist.”
Another action of CADA occurred in 1983, when groups of people covered the city with the phrase "No +" (indicating "no mas" or "no more"). The effort was supposed to encourage the people of Santiago to fill in the rest of the phrase - "no more dictatorship" "no more hunger" "no more suffering" etc.
Very simple ideas, but very powerful messages.
That afternoon, we visited La Chascona - Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago. Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet/author/politician that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He was a fascinating character and had an incredible house to prove it.
Apparently, Mr. Neruda was very fond of collecting things. His house was filled with all kinds of paperweights, souvenirs from his worldly travels and a lofty collection of awards and medals. However, Neruda didn't just collect material objects...
If you've ever read Neruda's poetry, you probably know that he was quite the romancer. Not surprisingly, his beautiful words won him a handful of wives and lovers. Therefore, he had to maintain a few different houses to keep his ladies from getting jealous about one another. This house, La Chascona, was built for his third wife- Matilde (secret lover while he was married to his second wife).
The house is decorated in a nautical theme - all the furniture is from ships and the walls are covered with antique cartographer's maps (one of which shows the United States as two long islands - the east coast as one island and California as another!). The walls also bear numerous personalized gifts from his close friends (like a portrait of Matilde painted by Diego Rivera and numerous other gifts from people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman...you know... no-name people like that).
Apparently Neruda was a funny character too- he had a secret passageway in which he would enter the dining room to surprise guests, his salt and pepper shakers were labeled "marijuana" and "morphine" to see if people paid attention and he collected really strange, eclectic things (like a giant pair of shoes that were apparently used for shoe stores to put outside their door to indicate what they sold (in an era where a fair number of people didn't know how to read). Strange strange.
Ah must sleep but now I'll leave you with my favorite Neruda poem (spanish then english)-
Soneta XVII
No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.
Sonnet XVII
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Un besito,
Lindsay
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2 comments:
haha, wow girl i am so happy you are getting to do your women's power stuff hehe. and that dude sounds like a character. we miss you )0:
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