A long overdue post.
I just got back from a four day weekend in Santiago. The day after the US celebrates Halloween, Chile gets the day off for All Saints Day. The day before is also a national holiday for something to do with protestantism because Chile is an equal opportunity holiday celebrator, provided it's a Christian holiday. In any case, this translates into a five-day weekend for me because I don't have classes on Wednesdays. Thus it was the perfect opportunity to explore Argentina or some other distant clime. Unfortunately I still had the issue of a lost passport looming, so I decided to go to Santiago to deal with paperwork.
Bus seats were scarce and tickets were expensive due to the super-long weekend, so I had to delay my trip by one day and shell out nearly 25,000 pesos ($50). Bus seats come in many varieties: normal, with legroom designed for quadruple-amputee midgets; long space, which would nearly have enough legroom for me if the bus companies didn't bolt a useless plastic panel behind the seats; semi-bed, which would definitely be long enough if not for a useless leg-resting device; and full bed, which caters to the rich-but-not-quite-rich-enough-to-go-by-plane. I bought a long space seat and slept a couple of hours on the 12 hour trip in spite of the on-board movie (The Fast and the Furious 5) being played twice.
Arriving in Santiago, Camilo, an old friend from UWC, came to pick me up in the busport. He just got his driver's license last week and was still a little shaky on using some of the features of the modern automobile, such as the brakes. We were blessed, however, with practically non-existent Sunday morning traffic and didn't have any problems getting back to his house in Recoleta, a neighborhood in the North of Santiago.
I got to meet Camilo's grandmother who had been in Brazil that last time I visited. She's 91 years old and doesn't hear all that well, but her memory is clear as can be, and she's full of stories about her travels in Brazil. She is also a very gracious host and made it her personal mission to see to it that I was well fed during my stay.
It was nice to be able to kick back for a weekend, watch television, read economics, talk about old times, and generally hang out. I also went shopping a couple of times. After my aborted attempt to find a copy of Cien años de soledad in Valdivia, I went hunting again in Santiago. This time I had a guide. Camilo's uncle Lionel, an air traffic controller who- by pure coincidence- was also a childhood friend of my host family in Valdivia, accompanied me to the Persa Bio-Bio. Think of a flea market. Now think of a flea market that sells absolutely everything and spans an entire sector of the city. That's the Persa Bio-Bio. We eventually found a copy for 3 luca ($6). It was pretty awful quality and rather expensive, but the experience of finding it was definitely worth the price.
I also went looking for a new disc (my last one being stolen at knife point) with Camilo in the malls of Las Condes, one of the richer parts of the city. The malls were enormous temples to consumerism, an incredible contrast from the market of the day before. We found lots of nice, and extremely costly, wilderness gear, but didn't find what we were looking for. To my knowledge, the only regulation ultimate disc in Chile is the one I left in the hands of some juvenile delinquent in Valparaiso.
On Wednesday morning I had an appointment in the American embassy for an "interview" for my stolen passport. The embassy was big and opulent. The security check was a metal detector that didn't pick up my belt, keys, spare change or cell phone. The interview consisted of turning in the paperwork I had already filled out, promising that I didn't make anything up on it, and paying the $135. The staff was very friendly and efficient (in direct contrast to all of my other dealings with the US federal government). It turns out that my Chilean national ID has the wrong date of birth. Apparently the JAN on my passport looked more like junio than enero to the civil registry official. Luckily I had brought my Ohio driver's license just in case, and didn't have any further problems.
I had the afternoon free on Wednesday, so first I took care of some schoolwork. I needed to interview someone involved with the student movement. Somebody told me that the central house of the University of Chile was in toma, that is to say taken over by the students, so I headed over there to try to find someone. There was a fair-like atmosphere outside of the central house, which is located very close to the Moneda (the headquarters of the government). Inside was practically deserted. I introduced myself to a couple of students I found, told them I was an American exchange student working on an ethnography, and eventually I found someone who was willing to do an interview. We recorded it in the middle of a huge, interior plaza that was almost eerily empty. Afterwards, waiting for Camilo in front of the University, I ran into one of my professors from Valdivia, tallying up another odd coincidence for the weekend.
Later in the afternoon I went with Camilo to tour Santiago's Cementerio General. This place was fascinating, a veritable city within a city, a labyrinthine sprawl of every conceivable type of tomb. The cemetery is divided into different neighborhoods, each with unique characteristics. The richer areas sport mausoleums of every shape, size and architectural style. There are classical temples, post-modern cubes, Egyptian pyramids, Gothic behemoths, skyscraper type mausoleums reaching eight or nine stories high, and everything in between. We must have seen the tombs of half of Chile's presidents in our brief sweep and lots of other names I knew from my Chilean history class. Salvador Allende's tomb was particularly touching. Inside it has a granite slab with a quotation from his final speech, given by radio from beneath his desk as the Moneda was being bombed. Someone had placed a flower across the top of the inscription, and it had just started to wilt.
The middle-class sections of the cemetery look more like warehouses or Hollywood studio buildings with the sides covered in niches where the names of the interred are written. In the poorest of neighborhoods are row upon row of graves packed side by side in the ground. We visited on the day after All Saints' Day, so these areas were absolutely covered in flowers, plastic twirly things, futbol club flags and the like. Everyone had done their visiting the day before, so despite all the decorations, there were almost no other visitors.
We also saw a very moving memorial at the site of the mass grave were the victims of the 1973 coup were buried, Site Number 29.
I had bought a kilogram of strawberries before going to the cemetery, and they were probably the best purchase I've made in Chile. They also provided a nice contrast to our mortuary choice of tourism spot. There's nothing more symbolic of life than eating ripe, juicy strawberries until your hands are stained pink.
I have learned most of the tricks for sleeping on buses now, and so I slept a good bit on the ride back. The problem with overnight buses is that you have to get off the bus and go right to work, class, or whatnot, which leaves you with the feeling that you need another weekend right after your weekend. Good thing I only had to wait two days for the next weekend to arrive.
No pictures this week because my camera went to Bariloche, Argentina with Jessie.
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