First real day on the job at CommunidadMujer. They gave me a desk and a working computer and everything! Compiled a list of potential program funders and started putting together a draft of a leadership handbook that they're planning to make. Then halfway through the day Susana (the executive director) told me that she wanted me to put together a proposal for a long-term leadership program to encourage women to get involved in politics so that they could present my idea to some potential funders in a week. Wow...that didn't take long to earn her trust. Oh and she also invited me to join them for their annual luncheon on September 2 so that I can hang out with Madame President Michelle Bachelet (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). This had to be the best first day of work ever.
Later that night, met up with Marni to go to a free salsa class at La Chile. Although I thought the class would be infested with gringos, we gladly danced the evening away with all Chileans! I was also surprised to find out that Latin Americans are NOT in fact born with the natural ability to dance and shake their hips like Shakira. In fact, Marni and I picked up on the dance steps a lot faster than some of the people in the class! When it came time to pick partners, I was quickly approached by a nice guy named Eduardo who definitely knew his salsa stuff and patiently helped me as I tried to figure out the turns. So so so funnnn.
Thursday:
In my bright and early Latin American politics class, learned about Latin American political parties. A little confusing trying to distinguish between the numerous parties of each country, especially coming from a 2-party system. Also a little confusing because my mind likes nice orderly chronological explanations of historical events and my profe likes to explain things by leaping back and forth across decades...makes for a nice challenge at least!
At noon I was supposed to have my sustainable development class, but after waiting for the profe for about 15 min the janitor came in and told us that our class had been cancelled for the day (yet the profe had failed to mention this on tuesday - come on, communication people!)
So then my after-class lunch buddy and I headed off to get a bite to eat an hour early. As nice as it was not to have class, this gift of time that we received actually turned against us. You see, normally my lunch buddy and I go to the same little hole in the wall restaurant. It´s right next to our campus, it´s cheap and it´s yummy. However, with the longer break, we decided to explore other cuisine options.
After searching for awhile, we found what appeared to be a quaint little cafe advertising cheap lunch specials. Upon entering, I realized that this locale was in fact not so quaint. In fact, it was what Chileans like to call "un cafe con piernas" (literal tranlsation: Cafe with legs) (further translation: a hybrid between Starbucks and Hooters. and the REAL Cafes con Piernas are a hybrid between Starbucks and a gentleman's club). Loooovely.
So the frustrating thing was that I had wandered around this area an awful lot (it's really close to campus and I'm always seeking places to get coffee in a to-go cup...more on that later). Anyways, I KNEW that the area was infested with cafes con piernas. However, most of said cafes blatantly declare their services.Either
a) all of the windows are covered in black so that you can't see what is going on inside
b) the window has a picture of voluptuous women/female silhouettes
or c) the place has a name like "Cafe Risque" that forewarns you about what you're getting yourself into.
UNfortunately, this particular establishment was not so kind. It was called something mundane like "the corner cafe." It had glass windows with cute little plaid curtains. And there were neither pictures nor silhouettes nor warning signs of scantily-clad women that we'd be facing in the near future.
So my lunch buddy (a boy, I might add) nonchalantly walks in the cafe and I mindlessly follow behind, preoccupied with walking whilst frantically reading a Neruda poem in preparation for my next class. Thus, I don't realize what is going on until I turn to listen to the dainty voice asking for our drink order - and lo and behold I'm greeted with Pamela Anderson's chest squeezed into a preteen-sized tube top. In complete and utter embarrassment, I lower my head - but alas, there I see that our waitress somehow lost the rest of her jean skirt--because she's only wearing about 6 inches of it. In fact, I think the length of her skirt just might have been equivalent to the hight of her high heels. Ay dios mio...
Don't ask me why, but for some reason we decided to endure this place for an entire 10 minutes or so. (I think we were scared of getting robbed by a pimp or something if we left). We ordered the only option on the menu- soup and salad- which turned out to be the nastiest meal I've ever eaten. The soup was just a broth with like one pepper floating around in it, but it was a greasy broth. I couldn't take more than one spoonful. And then the salad had a scoop of BROWN tuna on it..tasted like they had just blended tuna guts instead of the actual meat. Ugh so gross.
So as I moved around the food on my plate and tried with all my might to stop myself from laughing or staring. As if that didn't take enough energy, I also tried to make some sort of intelligent conversation, but all that really came out was "soo...ummm..." (giggle, blush, stare at the floor). It was painful. The whole time, my lunch buddy sent me apologetic looks and insisted on paying for this lunch and another lunch to make up for it. (We also decided that we probably had to leave an extra big tip for the "attentive" waitress...and I was NOT about to support such gross objectification of women.
After what seemed like hours, we sprinted out of that place and almost fell to the floor laughing once we got outside. At least we can check another authentic Chilean experience off the list...
The strangest thing about the cafe was that although most of the customers/clients were single men, there was one married couple sitting together, enjoying their coffee just like it was any other normal coffeehouse. Absolutely bizarre.
Thursday evening I departed for a weekend trip to a little town called La Serena. Met a friend at the bus station at 9 and we left around 930 for a 7 hour bus ride to the north. If you've never been to South America, then you might not understand their obsession with/reliance on long-distance buses. Essentially, buses travel anywhere and everywhere on this continent. It is not uncommon for people to take 24-hour bus rides to get from one locale to another. And there are buses for every economic status -- they have executive buses with nice (i think) leather seats, they have cama (bed) buses where you can make the chair lie completely flat, and then have your standard "semi cama" (half bed-- in actuality, just reclining seats) coach buses. On most trips, you have the pleasure of watching a terribly dubbed D-list American film (i've seen Ice Cube star in "Are We There Yet" and then I watched the Rock star in "Gameplan"). Then you drive and drive and drive, stopping occasionally to pick up and drop off passengers along the way. Sometimes the bus driver also picks up a snack or gadget vendor -- someone comes on the bus with their basket full of candy bars or pencil kits or pastries and then they start chanting their sales pitch (such as: "Super ochoooooooo, cien pesos, cienciencienciencien" or "pasteles pasteles pasteles pasteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, compra sus pasteles, solo 500 pesooos"). It's quite amusing.
I must say that I still much prefer driving in my own car or taking a plane to get from one place to another, but I'm learning to adapt to the bus culture down here. Although I had great plans of sleeping soundly through our overnight bus ride, I unfortunately could NOT get comfortable and could not fall asleep with the bumpy roads. So when we got to La Serena at 4:30 in the morning, I was not a happy camper.
My friend and I tried to catch a wink of sleep in the bus station while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive (they were an hour behind us). This time, our bodies were in a comfortable position, but we were absolutely frozen so the shivering prevented us from relaxing very much. Darn.
Friday:Around 5:30 AM, the other 6 girls arrived. Our English speaking and our blond hair attracted a random lone traveler from Idaho, so she decided to tag along with us for the day as well. We celebrated with some coffee at the bus station and then set off in search of the ocean so that we could sit on the beach to watch the sun rise. I used my map navigation skills to guide everyone to the beach and we had fun singing songs and picking up new friends (in the form of stray dogs) along the way.
Celebrated on the beach, watched the sun rise, then found our hostel to drop off our stuff. Next goal: find someone to take us to the Humbolt Penguin colony (the main reason for the trip). Went in search of the tourist center, but since it was a national holiday (some Catholic Saint's day), they weren't open. Thanks to my handy dandy Moon guidebook, found a nice guy who we thought was just giving us a ride but ended up being our tour guide for the day. Drove us to the supermarket to pick up lunch supplies for a picnic, drove us through the flowering desert, stopped along the side of the road to teach us about cool desert plants and animals (including the guanaco- kinda like a llama or alpaca) and then finally brought us to a dock where we got on a boat to see the Humbolt Penguin Reserve!!
During our boat ride, we saw the following animals:
-Humbolt penguins (miniature little things! so adorable)
-Lobos del mar (seals!)
-Dolphins!
-Nutrea (water rats...we used to see them running around the golf course in Sugar Land!)
-20 legged starfish
-sea urchin
-a bunch of cool birds
It was really neat to see the animals in their natural habitat, especially watching the seals climb up the sides of a cliff with their little fins! And the water was the most incredible crystal blue...ah so wonderful.
Drove back to La Serena and cooked dinner in the hostel. Had an incredible meal of rice and stir-fried vegetables, something we'd all been craving since most of the veggies here are doused in salt or oil or served with mayonnaise (one of my friends had mayo-covered broccoli one night! yuck-o)
The rain definitely dampened our plans, however we made the best of it. Luckily we all brought rain gear because rain was in the forecast. And luckily I brought both my rain jacket AND pants so I looked like a big black puffball. But at least I stayed dry!
Went to an artisan market but didn't find anything super cute. Ate a shrimp and cheese empanada that was super rica. Took a bus to a nearby town called Coquimbo that was recently restored and is known for its giant cross that sits on a hill (turned out to be a kind of ugly industrial-looking steel structure...)
The town had some really cute restaurants and shops, HOWEVER everything was closed for some reason (because it was a saturday afternoon? because it was raining? we have no idea...) Then we wanted to see this cool preColombian age cemetery, but that was closed too.
So instead we puddle hopped and forded the rivers that had taken over the streets. Found a quaint little cafe and hung out there for awhile before catching the bus back to the hostel.
Made a delicious tomato pepper chicken rice soup that was oh so wonderful. Mid-preparation, the electricity went out, but luckily we were working on gas burners so we kept cooking. While trying to fix the electricity, the hostel owner came in to apologize and told us that it usually rained in their town 2-3 times a year and they hadn't had rain like this SINCE 1955. Wowza.
Watched some olympic action while listening to the rain continue to pour down. Woke up on Sunday and it was still raining. Eventually stopped around 1130, just in time for us to make the trek back to the bus station to catch our ride home.
Monday:
-class. work. went to el oasis (this christian fellowship thing) and had a scrumptious dinner, but my table lost a trivia competition so we had to do everyones dishes. but we had a fabulous time singing and dancing around the kitchen as we did dishes.
Tuesday:
-class. lunch buddy and i returned to our safe, regular lunch spot. i ate tofu that was delish. for my poetry class we have to write a poem and present it every tuesday. this week my poem was about men who catcall on the street because it's really been annoying me lately. some day i'll post the poems i've written so far. they're all really lame because i always have to make them rhyme (i dont know how to write an non-rhyming poem) but it's been therapeutic writing them.
Wednesday:
-teacher showed up 45 minutes to class b/c of a traffic jam. worked. salsa lesson round 2.
Thursday:
-class. ran a lot a lot in montanismo. hung out at el oasis and made some new chilean friends.
tomorrow i'm heading out to san pedro de atacama (the desert). will return sunday!
ciao,
Lindsay
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1 comment:
The new job sounds very exciting and I restrained my laughter (since I'm at work!) when reading about your cafe on legs experience!
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