el Quisco, el 18

Friday was the 18th, Chilean independence day, which is days, week for some. At the last minute I was invited by Maria's (Cartagena from PVA!) relatives to visit Senora Luisa, Maria's grandmother, in Quisco. It was incredible! Great fun meeting all the friends and family and incredible incredible (normally the word doesn't mean what it should, but this time it does) land, beach, views, hills. I think the most beautiful I've ever seen. I took several nice long walks alone, which was so refreshing. But I'll say no more:




































Need I convince anyone to visit me? (There are many more on Facebook.)

Asado Sunday

Flying kites.


Kite. Kites are big at Fiestas Patrias celebrations, and the 18th is the independence day. The freeway was lined with racks of kites on our drive out to my host-mom's brother's house, on the outskirts of Santiago. It's a wealthy community in an area that's half urban half rural. They have a ton of space:



I went with my host mom and dad to the house of her brother, with his wife and 2 kids (11 and 7) and her other brother met us there with his wife and 2 kids (same age). Oh, and Abuela:



I let the 10-year-old run wild with the camera, so I've got bunches of their dog and unsuspecting people caught surprise-eyed by the barrel (I swear "nos(s)el" was a word, but I can't find it anywhere and am not sure how to spell it. It's the thing that goes on the end of a hose to control the spray...) of a camera in their face.


Mom and Pop.

jawndiced said...

"Do you only blog about soccer (football) and food?"

Sorry John, I blog about what I do. I'll try to DO something else. Tomorrow I'll blog about the history paper I just wrote analyzing perspectives of positivism on discourses of race, gender, and class in fin de sicle South America. Or this jello I keep eating.

In the process of shredding the fence.


Fabian, with pride.







On the bus ride back, we were 3 of the quietest, for sure. Me and a friend were two of the more "repressed" in general, out of a group of locos that drink from 11 AM until death, smoke, shout, chant, harass, smell, beg (for food, money, alcohol, etc.), and be generally convivial. Two friends from my fútbol class and I caught a bus of Catolica fans to the match against (some other decent team) in Viña del Mar, where we would meet up with some of Fabian's friends from Chillan, a seven hour bus ride to the stadium compared to our 2. It's actually "an hour and a half" but we left at "11" and arrived at 3.15 (sans quotation marks).

I remember driving through a medium-sized city in Ireland on a game day, passing a snaking line of cars miles long, with a parade of impassioned fans marching alongside to support. I remember thinking there is nothing (sporting event wise, politically rarely, although we saw it full force with Obama this year) like that in the US. Sports are tranquil, you remain seated until someone scores or the seventh inning stretch forces you to grudgingly rise and pretend to enjoy "Deep in the Heart of Texas" (so say others, I love the song!), or buy a footlong frank with orange imitation dairy product. Do you know that a billion people watch the world cup final? A billion and one with me next year. And the fans are crazy! The bus was crazy. Capacity of 42 (and the chauffeur said he could only manage an extra 8 (which means 16) standing) seats, maybe 10 of which were occupied with the 50 something people on board. We would stop along the side of the freeway, and I so wish I had a photo of this, so that the passengers could form a line in the grass and pee into a ditch. Only about 4 girls braved the bus. We rolled into a gas station, and I mean literally rolled as the bus had just run out of fuel, and the line formed again behind the trees.

After pulling into Viña del Mar, a city of hills on the Pacific coast, we walked down to the beach where we hung out and ate bread and ham we bought a supersupermarket/mall monster that would make the US proud. The beach was littered with Catolica fans and their banners. Peaceful, misty coast, ruptured as by a rash of chanting, inebriated die-hards. After a pair of hours, we more or less stormed the city as a mass, blocking streets and waving banners to subdue the hometeam fans. Fans get barbaric. I think they refer to it as passion? But people in apartments throwing rocks at the crowds on the streets so that we had to divert our route, and the crowds throwing rocks through windows and painting their colors on street posts like dogs peeing on car tires.

The stadium is actually very beautiful, with lakes surrounding and walled in by tall evergreens. And at night, with the field lit bright green by the stadium lights - I love stadium lights. Pintoresco. And filled with fans ready to tear the place down. Which is actually what happened after the game. The home fans prevent the Catolica team from leaving the field by launching miscellaneous objects at them. Finally the Fully armed police (something that surprised me at my first game, that there are so many police and that they are fully armed and armored, head to toe, face masks, helmets, foot shields, bullet proof everything, and big clear shields) escorted them off in small flocks in a formation reminiscent of those three-horned dinosaurs defending their young (triceratops?). But the Catolica fans had had enough. And to show it, they literally extirpated the metal fence, which separates them (en-cages them?) from the other side. I have a video of the gleeful process. Unfortunately a line of jocund carabineros (policeman) prevented them from crossing and massacring their foe. Do they construct crappily intentionally? so that it doesn't matter too much when structures are inevitably destroyed. I question the logic....

On the ride back, Fabian, Felipe, and I were exhausted. We sat in the bus in the parking lot for a solid 45 minutes, trying to outlast the controversy boiling over into the parking lot. Apparently, after the game, there were a lot of fans who wanted to go back to Santiago but didn't have passes. So they rush to where the buses wait and hop on before anyone can stop them. There are so many of them and they cause enough chaos on board that it's nearly impossible to make them get off or show you their ticket. They respond to requests like, "Get off the bus so that we can all reload and show tickets as we get on," with inane retorts like, "Come one man, how are we gonna get off the bus now?" ("we are already on and it's super difficult to descend the four steps etc.) Plus, you don't really know who is supposed to be on the bus and who isn't. Finally the bus driver gave up even after citing how much trouble we good in if stopped by a carabinero with so many extra people. CHEERS. Drive with the curtains closed, lights off and shushing everytime we pass a carabinero motorcycle, which is quite often.

We were three of the more subdued, repressed. Fabian because he was tired; he's usually effervescent with the best of 'em, starting chants and what not. But Felipe and I because we are quieter. The three of us are students at the Catolica, which is the most rigorous, if most conservative, U in the country. I don't know about the rest. Maybe they are students there too, but I doubt most of them are (prejudice shining through?). Successful students because externally restrained? Internalized watchmen/ authority? A "good" student complies. Or maybe if a good student is supposed to challenge, she does so within a framework, or after complying enough to be admitted to the upper echelon. Hmmm... my thoughts were more interesting last evening on the dark, curtained bus, occasionally joining the chanting that blistered the midnight calm of the Chilean countryside.

Blahblahblah... photos soon.