retiro

Friday I ran around the city doing errands and catching up on life. Ran into a cool little market selling vintage books and found a vintage copy of Gone with the Wind in spanish!! I explained to the vendor how the book was written in my home state, but he wasn't quite as excited as I was.

This weekend I went on a retreat (retiro) with El Oasis. We headed about an hour outside of Santiago (in which direction, I have no idea) to a rural area called Pintue. It was dark when we arrived, but in the morning we realized that we were nuzzled in a farming valley right next to a big beautiful lake. That's one more check for geographical features seen in Chile.

Friday night we played some games - round the world four square, some version of freeze tag, and a Chilean version of rock paper scissors. All were quite entertaining, but the latter was the funniest -- basically because instead of the fome (lame) rock, paper and scissor hand signals, we used symbols representing three Santiago youth social groups - Pokemones, Flaites and Punkrokers.

Timeout:

I've been meaning to explain the Urban Tribes of Santiago for awhile, so I guess now is as good a time as any. Now don't quote me on any of this information, because I'm very uneducated on this subject matter. However, I will do my best...

Pokemones

• American equivalent = emo
• clothes: black skater-ish attire, sometimes accentuated with bright neon colors
• colorful makeup (yes, boys too)
• lots of piercings in weird spots all over the face
• crazy hair colors/streaks
• like to post "fotologs" of themselves and their parties

Flaites

• American equivalent = gangster
• listen to hip-hop and reggaeton
• wear baggy clothes
• fans of Colo-Colo soccer team

Pelo Lais

• American equivalent = your average American girl
• upper class snobs
• well dressed
• never seen without a cell phone
• straight, long (usually blonde) hair
• apparently rivals of Pokemones?

Punkrokers

• American equivalent - punk rocker

When I see youth on the subway, I still have trouble distinguishing which urban tribe they belong to. All I know is that most of the time, those little 15 year olds scare me. I mean, these kids were born in the 90s! Shouldn't they still be watching Barney or something?

Anyways..

Saturday we heard some great testimonies from some of the El Oasis interns, played a bunch of outdoor games (chileans are much better at pickup volleyball than Americans! hooray for that) and had our version of the olympics, which included a dizzy bat race, bobbing for gummy worms in whipped cream, the classic egg toss and some other crazy stuff. My amazing team came in first place (woooohooo)

Decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and beautiful scenery by climbing to the top of a hill/mountain with Marni, Katy, Elizabeth and Andrew (all gringos...none of the Chileans wanted to come!). Followed a horse trail so we had to be careful not to step in the pebble-like droppings along the way. Got to the top and looked down on the beautiful lake + mountains, with the snow-capped Andes in the background. Gorgeous.

Took a shower and french braided my hair since I didn't have a blowdryer. Little did I know how big a hit my "trencitas" would become-- all the chilean girls admired the braids, so I taught a few girls how to make them! Then they spotted the "gringo gum" in my purse (gum with flavor that actually lasts more than 5 seconds! Wow!). I was pretty popular that night.

Around midnight we played name that tune. Marni and I dominated on the gringo songs (yeah Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls!) and just danced crazily and pretended to know the lyrics to the other songs. Thennn the night just turned into an all-out dance party. Danced a little salsa, then learned some sweet line dances to reggaeton/Brazilian music (the dances were like a cross between the macarena and the electric slide...but wayy more confusing and with lots of hand motions and hip shaking- see here and here) I looked like an idiot but had fun fun fun.

Sunday we had one last talk, ate french toast (!) for breakfast and then headed back to Santiago. On the bus ride home my friend kept me enthralled by telling me about the spanish translations of Disney songs. I kept trying to come up with my own translations for the songs ("A whole new world" would literally be "un nuevo mundo" but IN FACT it is "un mundo ideal." Fascinating.

Monday

Headed to class on time, but unfortunately arrived half an hour late after my subway car randomly stopped and kicked us all of the car and told us to get back on the train at the next station. I was a little ticked off at the time, but later one of my friends told me that supposedly the train shut down because someone tried to commit suicide. Yikes. 

After I heard that, I got kind of upset with myself for being so frustrated in the morning. Decided to face the day with a new outlook and start appreciating life's little joys. And then the day got much better. Went to a bathroom that was actually stocked with toilet paper (hooray!). Found a 100 pesos coin on the street (finding coins on the streets back home is one of my favorite pasttimes. And in Philly I usually find at least a penny a day. But this is the first coin I've found here- and it was a big one - like finding a quarter in the U.S.). The coin inspired me to write a poem about how little things can turn your whole day around. 

Worked worked worked. Trying to put together a booklet of tips from the Liderazgo Politico Feminino workshop. Later went to el Oasis for a movie night -- we watched "Run Lola Run" (a German movie, which we watched with Spanish subtitles...a bit confusing for my poor brain.) I'd seen a clip of the movie in my cinema studies class semester, so I had high expectations. Enjoyed the film and the messages it discussed; however, it's definitley not going into my top ten list.

Tuesday

Class class class. Had tofu for lunch with jello for dessert. But inside of the orange jello, there were bananas. Odd. Mountaineering workout was toughhh. My booty is dying from the workout.

Wednesday

Failed attempt #2 for the week of going to my Femenino en Dios class -- travel a good 40 minutes to campus San Joaquin, get to the classroom and am greeted with a sign that says class has been cancelled. Gah...communication people! Can't you at least send an email or something? Communication...that's all I ask.

So then I decided to go to the mall. Was looking for new shoes but instead found a hoodie. 

Went to drop off some forms at the CIEE office and Elsa gave me an intriguing invitation:

Elsa: How would you like to be an extra on a Chilean soap opera?

Me: huh? me??

Elsa: Yeah, I just got an email asking for exchange students who look like they are sweedish, and since you have blonde hair and blue eyes, I think you might work

Me: umm...okayyy (thinking to myself that I don't look sweedish at allll)

So apparently they are filming this Saturday...we'll see if it works out!

Went to work. Then got my hair cut. Decided to go Chilean and get bangs. The original plan was just to get bangs and then a supershort trim b/c i'm trying to grow my hair out. Buttt the hairdresser didn't really ask me what I wanted. She just started cutting. So now I have bangs and short layers. Oh well..it's just hair, right?

Must go read.

Chaoooo.

Lindsay