Recovery Photos

So, I took a little walk around my neighborhood that was, again, not heavily affected by the earthquake. The biggest sign is the falling electric post, but mostly things are fine. I unfortunately left my lens to my SLR at home, so please bear with the quality of the point-and-shoot photos.


Here are some of the sights around my house:

I'm preparing to leave my house and meet up with some of the other American students on my program today, for the first time since Friday. Yay for leaving the house!

On a Lighter Note

2 Truths and 1 Lie

Well, I had this all ready to go before the earthquake, so to lighten the mood a bit, let’s play a game. It’s called 2 Truths and 1 Lie, and you play like it sounds: out of the 3 points, two are true and one is a lie. Try to decipher the lie. The first half of the sentences are what “they” (guidebooks, friends, my study abroad program, the ever reliant wikipedia, etc.) told me about Santiago before I arrived here. The second series are things I was not told. Can you figure it out? A ver…

What they told me before I left:

1a. Chileans do not wear bright colors.

2a. It is easy to travel around Santiago on public transportation.

3a. Chileans drink lots of wine.

1b. The food in Chile is full of fish and red meat.

2b. Internet is hard to come by, especially wi-fi.

3b. There is very little presence of Air Conditioning.

1c. Chilean Spanish is the hardest to understand.

2c. Brewed coffee is a rarity.

3c. The women are beautiful, the men not so much.

1d. Smoking is a popular hobby.

2d. Going out for an evening of dancing and drinks lasts until 4am.

3d. Books are expensive to buy.

1e. There are 4 meals a day: breakfast, lunch, once, and dinner.

2e. The beach towns are close and easily accessible from Santiago.

3e. Pick pocketing is common in the city.

What they didn’t tell me before I left:

1f. Water is not automatically heated.

2f. There are many, many Chinese restaurants.

3f. Chileans are typically not very direct.

1g. I would have a swimming pool I my backyard.

2g. It would be very cold in the summer.

3g. Boys here have mullets.

The Answers (don’t you peek)

1a. Chileans DO wear bright colors! They have a great, loose, hippie sense of fashion here which I love, love, love.

2b. Me and all of the other gringos in my program all have wi-fi in our houses. I don’t even have wi-fi in my house in the states.

3c. Lies! There is plenty of beauty in the men to feast my eyes on and be quite full indeed. ;) Don’t worry mom, just looking!

2d. Going out lasts until 4am on an early night. Most clubs and bars don’t close until 5am. The night I went out with my sister and her friend, we got home at 6:30am.

1e. We still have three meals: breakfast before school/work, a big main meal at lunch, and once at around 9 or 10pm. My body still needs to adjust to the time gaps.

3f. Chileans are direct! My family corrects my Spanish, my manners, my views all the time in a very straight forward way.

2g. Actually, it’s rather hot. Rather, rather hot since there is not AC (stuffed metros and buses are not so yummy). But beautiful at night!

Surprised? Me too. If you got them all right, let me know I’ll get you a prize. Ha!

Aftershock

For the second day in a row, I woke up to a fairly large afterschock. 

We went to the grocery store today, after having tried to go yesterday only

to find most closed. While driving around, I noticed an air of panic as thick as the smog in this city. I feel that those who can remember the days of Salvador

Allende’s socialist government are acting out of memorial habit; people are

waiting in winding lines to obtain things—anything—to feel safe. Back then

people waited in line outside of stores or vendor’s houses for hours yet often

didn’t even know what they were waiting to buy. Walking into the local

convenience store (abarrote) and seeing the shelves empty first revealed this

comparison to me. These kind of things that people are buying like mad for the

most part do not carry life’s necessities, but are only little extras: candies,

crackers, cookies, randomness… Waiting for the essentials like bread, eggs,

bottled water, or milk seemed to be obviously worth it to me, but most stores

have plenty of these items left. It’s the other stuff that fills the abarrotes, and it is all this little stuff that most people are waiting and waiting to buy out of fear that it’s better than nothing. Of course I do not blame them or say that this is foolish to stock up on off-brand tuna spread, pickled olives or cracker bread. But the type of panic it takes for someone to buy tuna when they’re allergic to it, or olives when they hate olives, or cracker bread when they already have a life’s supply at home is immense, and this is exactly what happened in the early 70’s in Chile. And it is what is happening now.

The grocery store in the local mall was packed. Some boxes were still

disheveled and unorganized from the earthquake, many empty shelves again, and a massive chaotic bunch at the bakery waiting for bread. Everyone is going crazy for bread. In fact, last night for dinner all we ate was bread. Bread and cake. My mom dived into the frenzied crowd at the store while I watched with the cart, and I kid you not I lost track of the top of her head among the people. She emerged triumphantly with a bad of warm pancito. Guess what we’re having for dinner tonight?

Another thing I noticed while driving around is that all of the billboards

and signs now seem so ironic: the advertisement for the expensive fashionable

leather jacket, the promotion for a cell phone using the line, “don’t worry be

happy,” the Red Cross ad pleading for donations to Haiti… irony!

I got a call from all the way from Israel today, from a Chilean woman living

there looking for her son who is in Concepción. She obviously had the wrong

number, but she asked me how I was and how my family was before she hung up. This is so very Chilean of her, to ask a complete stranger how I am and how my family is. It reflects the other sentiment in the air: one of patriotic compassion, similar to the union that was felt after the terrorist attacks in the US. Yes it is dog eat dog when it comes to who gets to buy the last little random thing at the abarrote or who gets their bread first in the mob. But people are still being respectful, caring and helpful to others.

School will begin next Monday, March 8th according to the government.

Watching the news a lot gives me such a perspective on how lucky we are in

Santiago, even if some are without running water still or have damaged homes.

We are still standing!

As usual, sigue orando.

Earthquake

I was dreaming when I first felt the earth moving. It took my mind some

time to awaken, realize there was something wrong, label it “earthquake” and tell

my body to run to my host parent’s room. I was still delirious when I reached

their doorway where my host sister had already fixed herself. My host parents

were inside their room, one securing the TV and the other holding on to the

dresser. It was my first experience feeling the ground move left to right like that,

like some kind of dizzying carnival ride you feel sick after. I watched as the house

literally swayed with the current. My mamá grabbed my hand tightly. We heard

the lamp crash, the shelves fall, the dishes jumping, the car alarm sounding, the

windows rattling, the world ripping apart at it’ seams… but underneath the chaos

my family kept assuring one another, “Tranquilo, tranquilo, tranquilo.”

The shaking lasted three minutes. Just after it subsided, my mom went for

the candles and I for my cell phone flashlight to survey the damage. The noises

around were unsettling, with alarms and sirens and screaming like a movie sound

effect. We went together, my host sister and I, holding hands, into the living room

and kitchen. I, praying the whole time, helped replace some of the tumbled

objects but because they knew aftershocks would follow, we left heavy things like

the stereo on the ground where they had fallen.

Opening the front door to see the outside world, I momentarily forgot the

electricity had gone out—everything was so well illuminated just as if the street

lights were on. My sister pointed to the sky: a brilliant round moon and vividly

bright stars. “Mala suerte,” I joked, noting the stereotypical omen of bad luck on

nights with a full moon. But just after I said that, I realized that the opposite was

true; this sky light was actually a gift from God for the people who would remain

without electricity through the night, attempting to collect themselves and gather

their families and belongings. My mind immediately jumped to the poorer parts

of Santiago, where strong houses like mine are not found and where there for

sure would be more than just broken plates. The moon would guide the victims

away from their collapsed surroundings and (perhaps) save lives. Seeing as the

terrible earthquake in Haiti happened in the middle of the night too, I wondered

if they had a full moon too?

The aftershocks my parents predicted did come, and are still coming, and

might continue to come for another 5 months. This morning at 8:30am I awoke

to the now familiar feeling. It makes me nervous just hearing a slight rattling

from my bedroom window, even if it’s moving from the outside wind, because it

means another rumbling is approaching. For the most part however, I am

remaining tranquila through remaining with God. The damage here was

thankfully very little compared to other parts of the country, both in Santiago and

in both directions outside the city. We visited my host brother’s house in the hills

outside of Santiago, and his whole neighborhood is without running water,

houses are cracked in two, and roofs completely caved in. He and his family

cannot even occupy their house right now, and imagine the families who have

nothing to occupy anymore.

I’m not sure how school will go from here, with registration and the first

day previously scheduled to be next week. The country is in a declared state of

emergency, and most businesses and public transportation are still closed. The

government is asking that people not be traveling around the city or even leaving

the house if not necessary as they try to survey the damage and help the

desperate. Thus I will be staying in for awhile.

I end my story with a plea for your prayer for my newly adopted country

and for my newly adopted people, mi gente. I’m sure at some point you will be

able to donate money too, but for now there is nothing you (or I) can do but ask

for the stability and safety of the country once again, for the rescue of those still

trapped, and for the families of the over 700 people who died. Know that I am

fine, gracias a Dios, and as soon as I can I will be a part of the relief efforts down

here at the end of the earth.

-KK

Mi Casa (es su casa)

Greetings from the end of the earth...


My Chilean family is so wonderful. Here are 3 reasons in photos why they are perfecto for me:


1.

 My room's wall. Note the bright green wall and Gaugin painting.

2. 

They grow grapes outside my room above their garage.

3. 

 They bought me chocolate as a welcoming gift. 

My family consists of Papa, Mama, and Stefie, my 23 year-old rad sister. They are all wonderful and are super hospitable. I feel very at home and I enjoy this place very much.

Llegué

I am here in Santiago, and I can only compare it to a story Elizabeth Gilbert tells in Eat, Pray, Love (my guilty pleasure plane read):


When a new hen needs to be introduced to an already formed group of chickens, the farmer cannot just place the chicken in the coup during the day, because the others will consider the newcomer a threat and attack her. Instead, the farmer places the chicken in the coup during the night while both the others and new one is sleeping. When the group wakes up, they see the new chicken and assume they just never noticed her before. The clincher is, awakening within this flock, the newcomer herself doesn't even remember that she's a newcomer, thinking only, "I must have been here the whole time..."


This is how I arrive in Santaigo. I feel like I have been here the whole time.

Count Down to Chile

9 days...

until I leave for Santiago, Chile for 6 months to study abroad and change my life.

I supposed I would make a list of goals, places I want to see, etc. in preparation for departure, but you know what? Sometimes it's best not to make plans. Yes that is super cliché and is not at all nothing original, but I do declare myself free from goals and lists! Freeeeeeeee!

How lovely.

I will use this nook on the world wide web to communicate my discoveries to anyone who cares to read. 

Bienvenidos a mi mundo, compañeros.

On Travel...

I recently finished at book called The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. Unlike many travel memoirs, this book is divided into sections (Departure, Motives, Landscape, Art, Return), and goes chapter by chapter inspired by varying artists (or "Guides" like Van Gough, Edward Hopper, Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, Alexander von Humboldt and more), and place they traveled. An interesting compilation of essays by Botton, complete with pictures of the paintings, photographs, writings of the artists and pictures of the places they loved.

Some excerpts to share:



"Unexpectedly poetic travelling places--airport terminals, harbours, train stations and motels."
"It always seems to me that I'll be well where I am not, and this question of moving is one that I'm forever entertaining with my soul." -Charles Baudelaire

"Baudelaire honored reveries of travel as a mark of those noble, questioning soulds he described as 'poets,' who could not be satisfied witht he horizons of home even as they appreciated the limits of other lands, whose temperaments oscillated between hope and despaire, childlike idealism and cynicism. It was the fate of poets, like Christian pilgrims, to live in a falled world while refusing to surrender their vision of an alternative, less compromised realm."
"Carriage, take me with you! Ship, steal me away from here! Take me far, far away. Here the mud is made of our tears!" -Baudelaire

"What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home."

"I'm obsessed with inventing stories for people I come across."
"I think I must have been transplanted by the winds to this land of mud; surely I was born elsewhere-- I've always had what seem to be memories or intutions of perfumed shores and blue seas." -Gustave Flaubert

"I am a soul brother to everything that lives, to the giraffe and to the crocodile as much as to man." -Flaubert

When asked where he came from, Socrates said not 'from Athens' but 'from the world.'"
"L'infinie immensité des espaces que j'ignore et qui m'ignorent." -Pascal
"The night is even more richly colored than the day.." -Vincent Van Gough

"The most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so."


Ah, the words are so tasty to gobble whole.

Mexi en el Otoño

I made two trips to Tijuana, México this fall to visit my beautiful babies at the orphange Cuidad de Angeles. Every time I go down I never want to leave. The kids bless my heart so much, so much more than I could ever bless them. Each child is literally a miracle; their stories are crazy yet they are alive and well. 

The young girls are soon entering their tween years which is apparent from their sassy selves. I lent Liliana my camera the past two visits and was shocked at how grown-up they pose in their photos. It's great with the juxtoposition of the things they take pictures of in their lives-- teddy bears, trash cans, backpacks, bed sheets. The pictures are a unique look at their world from their own perspective, not mine as a relative outsider, an older girl, an American, a visitor. They maintain their childhood while shooting Myspace-esque photos of themselves in the mirrors. I was intruiged when I got my camera back. I wonder, where did they learn the vanity of mirror self portraits? How did they learn to pose with sexy lips with the camera above their heads? These girls do not have abundant access to the internet; I don't even know if they are computer literate. Is it from TV, which they can and do freely watch? I was slightly disturbed that they are already learning to make suggestive faces and pouty lips at their age. It's too much a Lolita complex with their underlying naivite beneath the model posing. I don't want to ruin their childhood more by over analyzing their photos, but they had to have learned the sensual performance of picture posing from somewhere, it cannot possibly be innate. What could be innate is the desire to be beautiful-- both a cultural and universal construction. It seems like young girls are being taught earlier and earlier how to be desirable to the opposite sex, and the social networking sites seemed to have fed this in recent history. But these girls seem to be affected by the styles and inner culture of these sites by diffusion, not even having a Myspace or Facebook at all. I didn't start caring as much about my own personal appeal in photographs until about 13, and then even more at 15 when I opened my Myspace account. These girls are barely double digits.

Are they just having fun taking pictures of themselves or do they know what they are implying? Are they trying to be older? Are they trying to be sexy?

Style Like U

My good friend Lily began this aweseome site on personal style that I am obsessed with. Check out my post (with my best friend and roomie Rachel) and the other creative, amazing artists:

http://stylelikeu.com/closets/rachel-tobias-kaitlin-king

Lahve.