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.