Most Beautiful Day

After the rain on Wednesday came the most beautifully clear day I've experienced in all my time in Santiago. 

I feel a great kinship with the Andes now, as though they are a mountain range of my brothers. That's what I always say. The sun is my mother, the moon my lover, the sea my best friend, and the Andes my brothers.

One month.... 
a long time. 
a short time.
no time at all.


What a strange amount of time to have left in this place I have made home for what seems like a significant chunk of life. Carpe Diem while preparing for departure? 


I don't know how I feel about this 1 month I have left, but it is hard to think about.

"Lo que es bueno siempre cuesta."
-El Temucano

"What is good always costs."

Happy Five Month Chile

Colorful collages to commemorate my joyous four month anniversary with the country I love! 

Also, as far as the World Cup goes I have a cheer...

"Chi-Chi-Chi! Le-le-le! VIVA CHILE!"

A Rant on False Feminism

Cosmopolitan is NOT a feminist publication. The popular woman’s magazine that supposedly encourages women’s liberation does not at all promote liberty for women, but rather enslavement evermore to pleasing him. “How to get him to like you,” “How to please him in bed,” “How to be a great catch for him…” The liberal sex for personal feminine pleasure is completely undercoated with the theme of making him happy so that the woman can be considered sexy, beautiful, different, etc., to him. While debaters might claim that copious and free sexual encounters feed women's independence and progression by making her equal to men, the fact that this “progress” is continually all about him and using him to satisfy reveals that fundamentally, while women may be behaving more like for men for sexual satisfaction, the him still manifests a subordinate relationship. Forming an identity around being attractive for men and, much more, changing oneself to be attractive to men is exactly contrary to advancing away from male domination.

            Thus, while Cosmo features articles boasting exerting sexual control over men, the fact that it is still about men proves that part of what Cosmo considers constitutes being a powerful woman is actually a woman that exists to please men sexually. For a woman to be “liberated,” identity, self-esteem and happiness cannot be based on the man but on being comfortable with the reality of who she truly is aside form how men—or even other women—perceive her. A woman should want to please a man because she likes him and wants to express her love in this way, not because she feels pleasing a man puts her in the dominant position and needs this ego boost to sustain her sense of worth. Feminism states that women do not need a man to tell them that she is beautiful for that to be true. And while often Cosmo does not endorse or believe this idea, I believe all women should. 

Check out my soul mate Rachel's relfections on her visit to my adopted country! We had an amazing time together, and she shares her insights on things in her fresh way that reflect not only her experience but mine as well. Do take a look at her fabulous photos as well in the post:

http://racheltobias.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/santiago-de-chile/

San Pedro de Atacama

Whenever you come to a new place, encounter a new situation, even meet a new person, there is a natural tendancy to relate what you are seeing to what you have seen in the past. The Andes mountains look similar to my Arizona McDowells, the Providencia barrio reminds me of LA, my favorite bohemian beach town is very San Francisco...


But when I came upon the deserts and sights of San Pedro de Atacama, I was at loss for anything in my past to compare them to. They are absolutely so unique, it is difficult to even begin to find a reference point. The earth is absolutely screaming the beauty of its creator. 


We saw the largest and only outdoor copper mine, biked and hiked to sand dunes, mountains and cliffs, bused through flatlands to see the flamingos and salt deposits of Atacama, and stayed in the quaint pueblo of San Pedro.

Otoño

Fall is in full swing, and I must say, autumn looks good on Santiago.

This time of year in this hemisphere though, can be rough! All the major media coming from the west is advertising, spring cleaning! Summer vacation! Shorts, dresses, sandals! The sign outside of one of our malls right now says, Viva en Invierno! Long live winter. And a winter without Christmas? Boo.

Every pack of cigarettes comes with this dying baby picture and a giant label reading, "HEART ATTACK." True, but and slightly disturbing, but over-the-top to the point that it's kind of amusing... The most amusing part however is that despite these labels, there is still such a huge population of smokers in Santiago it's outrageous. 

Un Techo Para Chile

So I finally had the opportunity to join the large efforts of re-construction

and volunteer with the country’s biggest charity organization in building

temporary housing for earthquake victims. Un Techo Para Chile (“A Roof for

Chile”) is one of the biggest recipients of the telethon funds and government aid

(I finally found out!), and was started by young people to create temporary

solutions for homeless families affected by natural disasters. The group is now

based all around Latin America (Un Techo Para Brazil, etc.), and they exist to

build mediaguas. These are basically one-room wooden shacks that shelter

people from the rain, cold, etc. until they can begin re-building new homes. Thus, to volunteer for them is to build mediaguas, and this is exactly what I did last weekend. The students from my study abroad program and I went to the 6th region to a rural area where the damage was sever. 

Two days + 10 (+/-) people x 4 groups= four mediaguas. Or least, that was the goal.

Turns out Un Techo Para Chile is messy, just like basically every service

organization (or any org) in general. We left Santaigo at 5:30am to arrive in Las

Cabras 2 hours away in time to build on Saturday, yet due to lack of planning and communication, our group didn’t even begin building until 2pm. One site we

were supposed to work at didn’t have the old house completely demolished where the mediagua would go, another family just flat out wasn’t home, our bus got lost, the pre-existing organized groups of 5 people got completely messed up, we didn’t have the right tools and wood for the house… Messy! The thing about nonprofits that I have learned is that it is an almost guarantee that not everything will go as planned, so I understand the “non-success” of the pre-building planning. And who can plan the fact that we finally arrived, we discovered that the site for the mediagua is on top of a thick, 200-year old concrete foundation? Or that there would be another aftershock while we were building that would throw off the foundational posts after we measured tirelessly to get them right? Sometimes the intentions are good but the result is that the original goal is not met. We didn’t finish the roof of our mediagua for our family, and neither did another group in the program. Breaking the layers of concrete, brick and stone took the whole first half of the day, the construction manual we were given had incorrect information about the building process, and as first timers, we just weren’t fast enough to finish the house by Sunday night. The good news is that the family that was receiving the house had many skilled members, so they said they would finish the roof themselves another time. However, it was disappointing to leave them with an unfinished project.

Building mediaguas for Un Techo Para Chile is an interesting relief tactic.

The money and time it will take to build the goal of 40,000 mediaguas before the winter and rainy season just weeks away is hefty, and it’s pretty certain that the overall goal will not be reached. Besides that, the system of receiving a mediagua is highly political; those who are the most needy do not necessarily receive their housing first, but those who know someone in the local government or in the organization are. My family in particular was definitely in need, however they did already have 1 mediagua in the backyard, a large portion of their old house was still standing, and they are planning on receiving 2 more mediaguas in their front yard too. I also notice that they were watching TV with their satellite dish inside their existing house. On the other hand, there are still families living in tents in other parts of the country that, to me as a (potentially ignorant) outsider, seem more desperate than the family I built for. However, I am reminded that poverty looks different everywhere you go and is cannot necessarily be judged from the outside. The family I built for lost the entire front part of their house in the earthquake, plus valuables and household items, and although they were in high spirits when we were there and helped us build, you could tell they seemed absolutely worn out. There was the grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, aunt and uncle and two kids all living under the same roof from what I could tell, and when hearing them describe their experience then night of the earthquake, I cannot imagine the terror of watching your house crumble before your eyes. Of course they deserve and need a mediagua. But how do you prioritize the levels of suffering?

In the end, I am very glad I went and do plan to go again. It will be much

easier now that I know how to put together the mediagua and the work that goes into it. I still keep praying for all those families who are still waiting, and might be waiting for still a lot longer.