Merry Christmas from Your Friendly Neighborhood Grinch

I kind of hate Christmas. I'm not down with religion or consumerism, which means the only part of the holiday left to celebrate is the "being with loved ones" part. And I don't so much have loved ones in Chile, though I'm starting to become very fond of about 3 of the 10 kids I spend a large percentage of my time with. (Incidentally, there are just as many little urchins that seem so inherently evil that every day I come closer and closer to putting the smack down on them. I try to constantly remind myself that the little demons have led some seriously fucked up lives. They're super lucky I'm all liberal and understanding of their situations. For the most part, I hold in my anger til after I leave the hogar and can punch my co-worker without being a bad example.)

So my plans for Christmas are to bake cookies and deliver them to the munchkins and then return home and make a dinner for the roommates and a friend. Very Martha Stewart of me, no? Up to today, I've had few sad thoughts induced by my not so Christmasy Christmas without my family or my super cool friends. It's hot as hell here. There's not even snow on the tops of the Andes anymore. I thought it would be enough to just not be alone. I figured not making the mistake of spending a foreign Christmas Eve at Auschwitz would be the step I needed to take to not be sad during the holidays. But something today was uncool. I spent hours grocery shopping, and my three hour trip to a Wal-Martesque store didn't even succeed in acquiring chocolate chips, pecans or really much of anything I couldn't have gotten at the supermarket 3 blocks from my place. It did however remind me that I sometimes hate other humans and that it is never worth it to go to a stupidly huge store like that. Never. Ever. Instead of leaving with the things I wanted, I left with a negative attitude and a feeling of guilt that I was one of their 500 customers participating in the mass consumerism of this season. Even though I've bought no presents what so ever, I still just spent 45 bucks on sugar and fat that I plan on distributing to children who are already drinking a half liter of soda a day and have the bellies to prove it.

www.storyofstuff.com

Isolationism

My roommate tried to explain to me today that he had never really connected with an American. (Take into account that he has lived with 3 of them besides me and is comparing us to countless German, French, Scandinavian, Australian and other extranjero roommates). He said there was a border, or maybe a better translation is a wall, that just didn't get crossed. That he felt like he never knew them completely.

His explanation included a quite beautiful example. "You know how you were sick this week? When the German girl was sick she vomited on me." Gross, yes. But I got his point. (I think, anyway;) He was demonstrating the necessity of depending on other people in certain situations. He said basically that Americans don't show their more vulnerable side. That we are always politically correct. Granted all of this is translated from what I think I understood, but we talked about this for probably half an hour, and what I know I'm not confused about is that he was saying we are guarded in a way that others aren't.

When I lived in Europe, it was very apparent to me that there was much more of a group mentality among my friends from various countries. But I never considered that we might somehow be excluded from a certain level of intimacy because of a persistent independence inherent to American culture.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

An update on my life in the past couple of weeks:

I found out that my practicum will involve hanging out in a transitional home for abused children. They apparently like to break a lot of windows when they get angry.

I went on my first travel excursion solo and discovered the amazingness of the Valparaiso hills and basil ice cream.

I started work with the volunteer organization, which so far has pretty much been SIT-style orientation. Only in Spanish.

I heard disgusting stories about women being sexually assaulted by dogs while touring a Pinochet torture center which is now a memorial park.

I missed the last day of orientation and my first day of work at the hogar because I got so sick that my body started doing things I don't remember it ever having done before. The pathetic part of me is thinking, hey, maybe you lost a couple of those pounds you gained sitting on the couch in the U.S.

Tomorrow, friend number 2 out of about 3 leaves Chile. Here's hoping some of those other volunteers turn out to be pretty cool.

Hedgehogs Are The New Frogs

I had a bizarre experience involving hedgehogs recently:

So I'm in a bar, a clandestino in fact, completely unrecognizable as any sort of drinking establishment from the outside. A Chilean woman has latched on to my friends because she wants to practice her English, which is really not all that bad. There is a long discussion as we try to figure out what the English name is for her pets, and after much description, she finally pulls out her phone and we discover that they are hedgehogs, a fairly popular prickly animal to own in these parts. Somehow it ends up that she is now just talking to me, showing me picture after picture of her beloved creatures and rambling on about how wonderful they are. "I love them so much. I really love them. They are very happy when I come home. I like to play with them." All very normal things to say though expressed in an overly excited manner.

And then she says, "I like to lick them."

The conversation stops for a second while a I contemplate this. The bar is loud. She's not a native English speaker. Either I misheard or she used the wrong word. "You like to lick them?" "Yes," she says. And just to be sure that we are understanding each other, she puts her hand in front of her mouth, sticks out her tongue and makes a licking motion.

I am Privileged

Today was one of the coolest Turkey Days ever, spent doing normal things during the day, then slaving over a traditional meal in a bare Chilean house, with one of 2 Americans I know and her girlfriend. The gas to cook the food got rolled in on a dolly about 7:45 PM. As with any proper Thanksgiving meal, we were awaiting the food long before it came and long after the announced dinner hour.

The sweet potatoes were pale yellow instead of orange. The attendants were mostly not Americans. There was apple crisp in lieu of pumpkin pie (indeed the best apple crisp I've ever tasted.) We sat around a makeshift table and gorged ourselves as every proper American should.

Someone asked me if I missed my family at this time. After years of being away from them, I answered honestly, that no, I wasn't especially sad to be without them. An hour later when the amazingness of our cooking had come to fruition, I realized that there were a few people I miss intensely. They are not technically my family, but they are even more important to me than my blood kin. I wish you were here with me now and I hope you are celebrating your fantabulous lives in your various locations around the world.

I also wish you had been there to join in on our unfailing cure for the after turkey drowsiness. When you feel like sleeping, start a dance party instead. Usher and Justin Timberlake will make it all feel better, and help your body handle those extra 3000 calories way more than a nap during the football game.

Facebook hates me, lets see if this works on here

Spanglish

I’ve been meaning to update this biotch the last couple of days and I’m having trouble sleeping, so now is the time it seems. My sleeping problems right now, have way more to do with the fact that I’ve been going out a lot than any anxiety issues. Staying up til 5 being sloshed will fuck your sleep cycle altogether. Especially if you don’t have a job that demands that you be up at a certain time on Monday no matter how REM deprived. And I don’t. Have a job. I’m working on ways to occupy my time though. More on that later when there is success to report and not just the process of looking to mutter on about in a monotone voice.

So, yeah, so far Chile has been a fair amount of drinking delicious wine (to be continued tomorrow morning at 11:00 with a vineyard tour) without any major excitement other than seafood and the fact that there are a lot of times I have no idea what is going on. But that’s pretty much Coletta every day anyway, no matter what language is swirling around my head. Sadly, I have to admit that after several of days of being confused, mentally exhausted and substantially and embarrassingly more silent in social situations than my normally taciturn self, I’ve taken to throwing the Spanish out the door completely with the group of Scandinavians that have been involved in much of the above mentioned drinking excursions. I still speaka the Spanish with my roommates most of the time, and indeed, had a long conversation explaining the US electoral system en espanol this evening. But there is a point where my desire for any type of meaningful communication that doesn’t hurt just says, fuck it, English is the damn international language and we’re all so GOOD at it, why waste all that talent? Those Europeans have spent years and years learning my native tongue. They should get their money’s worth for that wonderful language education their governments are paying for. Plus there’s been a couple of boyfriends whose Spanish was even less than mine, so really, I’m doing it to make them more comfortable.

Movie tip: If you feel like watching a great Chilean movie that will make you feel shitty about capitalism, white privilege, social inequality and human existence in general, check out Machuca.

Los Cigarillos

The Chilean anti-smoking campaign is a little more hard-core than our pansy-ass Surgeon General's warning.





Para los gringos, that says: THESE CIGARETTES ARE KILLING YOU

Livin the Hostel Life

So I made it to Santiago and the customs dudes didn't even blink when I told them I was vacationing for three months in their country. That damn little blue booklet they stamped sure comes in handy sometimes. I've been here for about 36 hours, so there is plenty of time for me to freak out in the future, but I have to say, the actual process of doing this crazy thing became incredibly less anxiety ridden once I began the journey and was no longer sitting on the couch trying to plan it. I'm not really freaked out about anything yet. I have my own tiny room in a hostel, where if I put my wireless card on my shoulder, I sometimes get a "very good" signal. This only happened after 20 minutes of the owner giving me tech advice on how to connect to his hidden network, but it's not like I really have anywhere to go. He also sold me an adapter so I can plug my computer in. Thank you very much, sir. And some other guy that works here gave me an old phone, so all I have to buy is the SIM card.

My apartment search has been slightly less successful. After several confusing emails and a couple of missed appointments cuz the lady didn't respond, I finally looked at the first place this evening. A very nice apartment indeed. The only problem is, when the woman answered the door I realized that I had made a huge assumption that she was my age and not my mom's. And as much as I love my mama, I was happy to move out of her house and don't feel like moving in with a Chilean mom 3 days later. So the search continues. Luckily I have a few leads and hopefully one of them will pan out.

I seem to have dug myself into a hole

Today, I decided to take care of the stack of loan papers that arrived about a week ago. And I immediately thought, this is the stuff that blogs are made of, discussions of financial matters. Anywho, the point is, in the process of tackling this indescribably frustrating and boring task of figuring out what the eff all those papers said, I discovered two things. 1) I incrued well over $1000 interest on student loans this year (and by using skills gained in grad school, I have deduced that this will probably happen every year until I make a substantial dent in the debt), and 2) some agency in Vermont wants me to start making payments November 1st, which, as of a little over an hour ago, is tomorrow. Oops on the second one, damn the man on the first.

This is happy news on top of the fact that today I added $200 to my already sufficient credit card debt to purchase 8 months of hormonal contraceptives, and my dad recently started a pleasant conversation with "Let's take a look at how much money you owe me."

Apparently some people just ignore there student loan payments all together, but I'm just too afraid of getting in trouble for that kind of behavior. Lame, yes. But who knows, maybe some day I'll want to buy a stupid house or something. So if anyone has any ins on insider trading possibilities or get rich quick schemes, please let me know. I'm sure the solution to this problem lies in listening to 10 hours of Donald Trump on cassette tape. It has to be that simple.

Sicko

The most disgusting thing about riding my bike along the country roads near my house is not the splash in the face that accompanies the semi zooming past on oil soaked asphalt on a misty day. Nope. It's the constant encounters with road kill. Carcass after carcass just splattered in my path. An entire flippin deer that was luckily a few yards away in the ditch (though still close enough for his half open eyes to creep me the fuck out.) To many possums to count and worst of all, flies zooming around someone's kitty. Yick.

Every few days when I decide to escape the chaos of my unstructured life by scooting down the road on my rusted hand-me-down bike, I get to deal with death. I'm torn between mourning the animals' sad demises, and taking a Darwinist approach. Because seriously, if you can't figure out from all the dead bodies lying around that that unnatural line of black rock running through your back yard is a death trap, well, that's some shitty luck, but maybe your genes just aren't up to surviving the modern world.

The not icky part of my biking experience is that every time I huff up the hill that kicks my ass, it kicks my ass a little less. In fact, this last time, it increased my heart rate so little, I was inspired to take a (very short) run after my bike ride.

My Odyssey Continues

For at least the past year and a half I’ve been in a rather constant sort of existential crisis. My closest friends are used to the non-stop whining, ranting and/or philosophizing that goes along with this, and put up with my nonsense, I’m guessing, mostly because, well, their lives are in an unending state of crisis too. For a short time I thought perhaps I was just associating with people who were slightly crazy. Who knows, maybe all the sane ones have their own set of friends and I gravitate toward the loonies because they're my people.

But fear not, fellow 20-somethings, that state of restless confusion and general lack of understanding about what path you’re supposed to be following is apparently just another phase that is part of the normal lifecycle of the modern human. Like adolescence. So keep your chin up. We’ve all just been waiting for another adolescence anyway, right?

My crises consist of questioning everything from career choices, to significance in life, to relationships of both the friend type and the more scandalous sort. And pretty much anything else you can think of, including methods for ending poverty (don't worry I've almost figured that one out.) This results in periodic indecisiveness or occasionally doing things I once would have never done, because really, people are all different and who am I to be all judgmental? The upside is, my compulsive actions induce incessant bouts of laughter from Kim. So at least I’m making someone happy.

The most salient aspect of instability in my life for the past several months is that I have yet to start the second phase of my Master’s degree, the part where I have to have a job or an internship. The reasons are various and we’ll just say involve personal and financial concerns and leave it at that. As I have complained in previous posts, I’ve been living at my parents’ house, trying to both save some money and rectify the practicum “situation”. Neither of these plans has succeeded 100%, as it’s not easy to find temp jobs or secure real jobs that take place on another continent. As the time I’ve been livin’ in the basement has grown, I’ve become more and more nervous about the direction my life is headed. And while worrying is always fun, it’s at its best when it induces insomnia.

There are two types of sleeplessness. One is when you kinda toss and turn and are restless and stuff, but it’s only unpleasant because you know you might be tired the next day. My recent bout of insomnia was not this fun kind. It was an inescapable anxiety-ridden hell. After several near sleeplessness nights, determined to conquer the beast, I decided to do yoga in my front yard before tucking myself in. Ah, peace. I am totally zenned out, sitting below the stars, with the wind blowing through the trees and the sound of water dribbling through my dad’s bird fountain. I am ok. I don’t even need a relaxation CD. I have found tranquility. I might even be a peaceful warrior. It will all work out as it always does. No prob, Bob.

But one short trip down the basement stairs changes everything. The second my head hits the pillow, a flood of anxiety washes over me and thoughts start bouncing around in my skull at a pace I can’t even keep up with. What will I teach oh that bill needs to be paid how will I ever survive a year on my own if don’t fall asleep now I’ll never accomplish anything I’ll still be in this basement in 5 years I have to email her that application is not finished. OH. MY. GOD. If I can’t sleep tonight I won’t be able to get up on time I’ll sleep in and it’ll be harder to fall asleep tomorrow this insomnia will go on and on and on and on the basement get me out of this fricken basement.

Fun, right? Luckily, I did eventually succeed at my dad’s “not trying to sleep” method which works pretty durn well if you can chill out enough to do it. Also lucky: it’s been several weeks since I was dealing with this baloney. I am only just now strong enough to talk about my pain, but I’m making progress. That’s a lie. I griped to anyone who would listen when it was happening.

Not long after, I realized that I’m not special and my stupid fears are not unique. I’ve decided the craziness of my life is a good thing and as long as I can keep laughing at myself, I will be happy. Sometimes I forget how to do this, but then Kimberly does it for me.

Next stop on my odyssey: Chile. Why? Because they speak Spanish there, summer begins around my November 3rd arrival, they have a crazy history of democratically elected socialists being killed by American supported military dictators, and it is the longest country in the world. I’ve decided to take a new approach to finding a practicum. I’m going to show up and offer to work for free. I have high hopes that someone will be down with exploiting my half-finished Master’s education. If not, everyone needs to speak English. And guess who’s an English teacher. So, hasta la bye-bye, I’m diving in head-first. Come see the spectacle for yourself.

Pictures Are Better Than Words Anyway

A little bit of Missouri for you

Mi familia pretending they're cool

Copper's Farm Adventure Begins

The Pond

A Better View of Copper

Apparently Jefferson City is multicultural. We even have a festival.

West African Dancing

My dog hears thunder I don't hear

He was barking his ass off earlier today. My mom says it was apparently at the precise time of a downpour 5 miles away in Jeff City and he likes to bark at thunder. Learning that my dog's ears still work after years of being subjected to my dad's speed reduction device was lovely. That was pretty much the highlight of my day. Because I live with my parents and am only marginally employed. (For those of you who are wondering, "speed reduction device" is code for: my dad puts a bunch of old tin cans around Copper's neck when he's off the chain so that he doesn't run as far/fast and my dad can hear where he is).

But back to me and my pain. I haven't posted anything lately because I am a) not in Honduras and b) just too bored by my life in Missouri to find it worth recounting. So instead of composing something that will inevitably drive readers crazy by my whiny tone, I will post pictures of my recent weekend, which actually was pretty cool. The picture posting was a failure in Honduras, but I have an inkling that it might work now that I'm back in Americuh.

The first Tour of Missouri was last week and I went to watch them fly around the capitol for like 2 seconds on Saturday. Somewhere in there is the winner of the Tour de France. Can you see him? And I just noticed that Monsanto sponsored the event.



And I went to St. Louis for Jen and Chris's wedding. Probably the most fun wedding I've been to with lots of dancing.



My next stop was in Columbia where I visited the Heritage Fest (i.e. an excuse to sell furs and claim you are preserving pioneer culture or something). And this dude had a bicycle which did somersaults.


And this is a puppet Harley made for a law school project. He seemed to think it was completely normal to have extra sculls lying around to be used for art.


P.S. Josh, this post is dedicated to you.

Pimp My Taxi

One of the defining characteristics of La Ceiba is that there’s an excess of taxis roaming the streets. Way more cabs than a town of 80,000 could ever need. I can stand on the street in my residential neighborhood for 5 minutes waiting for friends and have 15 taxi’s drive by and honk at me in the hopes that I’m just looking for one of them to pick me up. Sometimes they will pull over as you are walking and wait for you to get in. Like maybe you won’t realize you hadn’t flagged them down.

Apparently the phenomenon is specific to Ceiba and taxis aren’t so numerous in the rest of Honduras. The only requirement for being a taxi is that your car is white with a purple stripe and that you have a taxi registration. Supposedly you have to pay for the registration, but there are rumors of corrupt officials giving them away. A flat rate of 75 cents per person gets you almost anywhere in the city. Given how hard it is for cabbies to find customers, it seems it would be difficult to make a living, but it must be working for most of them.

Frankly the cabs are kind of annoying. Always imploring you to splurge and spend the 15 lempiras and screw the exercise that will help burn of your lunch of eggs, refried beans and fried plantains. But what I love about the taxis is that they are fucking pimped out. Most of them have names or sayings on their windshields to distinguish them from the pack. They say things like Capricornious or Evolution or Guiami Senor (Guide me Lord). The vast majority of them are Christian messages. Some have Bible verses covering the whole back windshield. They’ve got spinning rims and flames on their panels. One or two extreme ones have their back lights redone or artwork covering the hood. Unfortunately, all the personality doesn’t equal business. Although who knows, maybe Abuela feels safer on her way to Sunday Mass in a Christian car.

Machismo

After spending last weekend soaking up the sun, this weekend was pretty slow. Most of the people I know here (myself included) don't have phones so its a little difficult to get in touch. If plans don’t get made after class, they often don’t get made.

So I wandered around the local market on Saturday in effort to entertain myself and bought some sweatshop wares. I happened to run into a friend from the school who convinced me to go with him to some church fundraiser dance his house mom was requesting he attend. Not to0 exciting, as the majority of the people there were 50-year-old Hondurans, but it was interesting to see them doing different latin dances. During one slow song, I was sitting at a table with my friend watching people sway on the dance floor and thinking , oh, its so nice to see so many old people who are still in love. My friend suddenly leaned over and goes, “Ninety-eight percent of those men are unfaithful.”

According to the local paper, which was referring to a recent study by the United Nations Population Fund, 98 out of every 100 Honduran men have extramarital relations. The article also talked about a people sleeping with as many as 1000 women who weren’t their wives. 98% is unbelievable to me, but my teacher didn’t seem to think the numbers were wrong. My male American friend was much more flabbergasted by the concept.

Being here reminds me that if you’re gonna be a woman, the best place to do so is probably the US. Every time I step out of the house, I realize this as every other man from the 65-year-old on the street, to the entire 10-year-old soccer team being transported in the back of a pickup truck yells, “I love you, baby.” My favorite was when some rich 19-year-old in his brand new SUV pulled up next to me as I walked to the mall alone. He introduced himself by saying, “Where are you going?” A few exchanges followed after I told him I wasn’t going to tell him where I was going. He then proceeded to say, “You people are not good with Honduran people.” (All this in perfect English.) What a fucker. For as horrible as we people are with Hondurans, he thought he’d give it one more try and yelled “You seem cool,” As he was forced to move through the traffic. Bah. I thought briefly that maybe its just part of the culture and the women here don’t mind it, but my teacher told me the second thing she would do if she were president, was institute a fine for men you yell nasty things at women. Luckily their English isn’t quite good enough to get crude. Fuck machismo.

Una Vida Diferente

Monday I got back from a weekend on the Bay Islands off the northern coast of Honduras. Words can’t properly describe that experience. But I’ll try. Some of the teachers at the school arranged the weekend and brought 6 of us to check out their life. I concentrated really hard on not upchucking during the horrendous hour long ferry ride across the ocean. The nice captain guy gave me a barf bag and a piece of gum to feel better and counted down the minutes til arrival for me. The rest of Friday was fairly uneventful other than watching some super tan gringos with blond dreadlocks travel around Utila on golf carts and motor scooters.

The next day with all the massive miscommunication that accompanies traveling in groups, three trips to the super market were made and we left for a private island without my Spanish teacher. I still don’t understand if she was never coming or she just decided to stay at the last minute. Yay for shitty language skills.

I’ve somehow rambled on an on about the boring part of the trip. The fun was being on an island owned entirely by some friends of the teachers. Somebody’s dad died and, Boom they were in possession of a fucking island 5 times the size of my parents yard. There was a huge house with beds for everyone to sleep in and a million hammocks scattered around the property. The only catch was a lack of electricity and running water. No worries. We flushed the toilet by pouring a 5 gallon bucket of rain water down it and then used the same bucket to wash chicken and do the dishes. Thanks to an overuse of hand sanitizer I successfully avoided getting diarrhea again.

So we pretty much laid around, swam/walked over to another island 300 meters away, laid around, smoked, drank rum out of coconuts from the trees, swam some more, laid in the hammock, swam, drank, etc. One of the island dudes made some kickass soup from fish and lobster he caught himself mixed with coconut milk and some potatoes and onions and “bread fruit,” something that looks like a white melon, but tastes more like a potato.

As boring as all this laying around was for one fellow traveler, the group of people on this island was bizarre enough to keep me fairly entertained. I found out another student had broken off an engagement just before coming and was all excited that the tan line from the ring had finally vanished. She also told of sending chocolates that had been replaced with her own poo to a guy who fucked over her friend. Yeah.

But the really interesting folks were the island natives whose first language is English. Sort of. It’s some kind of creole or pigeon dialect or whatever. They sound kinda like a Jamaican Brad Pitt from Snatch. When they talked to each other, I had no clue what was happening. When they spoke directly to us, they were comprehensible and incredibly humorous, saying things to the effect of, “You know what really sucks man is when you’re on a boat and it starts goin down. That’s a really bad feeling,” or, “We’re destroying ourselves because we’re not meant to be this smart. We’re meant to be like animals.” They talked about finding 6 kilos of coke on a beach when some fool mistook their hunting shots for police fire. Another anecdote being at the rave that happens on the next-door island and hearing people talking about a hog running around. Upon investigation, they found that, sure enough, the pig they were raising had swum over to join the party. As far as I could ascertain, these dudes didn’t have any reputable means of making a living. They just kinda chill on the islands and maybe sell drugs sometimes. And fantabulous as the weekend was, God I was excited to shower and rid myself of all the salt when I got home.