stretching

Today in futbol was the flexibility part of the fitness test. I guarantee it's the same as the one the dinosaurs did, back when the female dinosaurs had to wear dresses to gym class, which meant drill team/ cheer on the male dinosaurs. Yeah well I'm proud to say that I at last out did everyone (someone) in that class by breaking the record of 18 cm with 23 cm. Claim to fame, no? Profe's reasoning was, He's from a developed country (and something about how he hadn't realized that was part of a country's development program but apparently it is...). It was funny. Laughter.

But this sort of comment frames a lot of my interactions with people here, especially people older than myself. Our interaction is set in a framework of nationalities (I'm obviously gringo to chileans, though german to most others. Chileans also assume that all european-looking people speak english.) - US-Chile - which, in general, is interpreted economically. That the US is rich, "developed", powerful, further along some road that Chile is trying to follow, the model for Chile to follow... Anyway, it's a sort of exoticism (which does not preclude the elements of truth that it may contain), although gringos are not in the least exotic. Hi my name is Wiley, I come from Gringolandia, and I am an agent of the dream of economic "development" symbolized by my country.

On another note, my mind has made the switch for good. I am currently translating from Spanish to English. And finally, when I have conversations etc in English, my mind reverts to Spanish afterwords instead of the opposite.

Some photos of walls for enjoyment. Found a beautiful old neighborhood in Santiago. Built for the elite after the war of the pacific, when Chile annexed a ton of land from Bolivia and Peru, land which contains all the mines that generate an enormous percentage of chile's wealth.