Bookends

It's been criminally long since I updated this thing, I think almost two weeks. So maybe not quite long enough to get shipped off to prison, but I still feel bad. It's the kind of thing where if you're in the habit of updating, you will do so more often, but let one event pass without feeling that it's remarkable enough to write on and soon they start piling up. I haven't had the most exciting two weeks but a few things happened that might be interesting to some:


Two weeks ago I was in Valparaíso for the weekend. My friends finally got an apartment and it's got a view. It's surreal. I'll upload a picture. As I wasn't really working, I had no obligations in Santiago so I ended up staying there for quite a while. It was a relaxing time. A couple days later an earthquake around 8.3 in magnitude occurred off the coast that rocked the northern part of the country. The city I had been in was on tsunami warning in the wee hours of the morning. Nobody was hurt--there was talk down here of Bachelet having seriously gotten her shit together since the disaster of 2010, during which it took days for the military to hit the streets and control the lawless looting, according to my roommate--but my friends were treated to a tsunami day, a neat concept if not a little foreboding. But again, the country was prepared: a state of emergency was declared well in advance of event's actual repercussions.

I made it back to the capital on Tuesday morning (on a 5am bus) to meet my first student. He's a quiet but very friendly man who knows practically no English. To be honest, I shouldn't describe him as quiet, now that I think of it, as I'm sure I come across as quiet to most of the locals; my Spanish is leagues behind his English. But he's an eager and appreciative student, even when I'm a less-than-stellar teacher, so I do my best to earn his business. My other student, who I met later that week, is a professional with an intermediate grasp of English. His lessons are much more conversational, which is a treat, during which I get to really flex my grammatical muscles--admittedly also a treat. Between the two of them, I've been keeping busy enough planning lessons to keep from going insane, and the extra cash is proving to be essential.

At the behest of a friend, I ran in the annual Maratón de Santiago with essentially no training. Okay, it was the half-marathon event, but I still only trained for two days after having been off the track for a month. So I'm fucking proud. It was really surreal: running for two hours straight among a sea of people with encouraging shouts not only from all directions but for essentially the duration of the race was, in a way, cathartic. It really made me feel like a part of something, like I was running for my place among the people--even if after the race I walked straight home without talking to anybody. Hopefully I can find the motivation and courage to start practicing my Spanish with strangers sometime soon.

My roommate took me rock climbing on Friday, which was exhilarating and refreshing and therapeutic. Despite having never actually got into the sport, all that time at the climbing gym I spent in high school really made me feel like a part of the culture, and I didn't realize until this weekend how much I missed it. So it was nice to get back into it. My forearms are still sore, too, which is a great feeling. Afterwards Andrés took me out with a couple of his buddies and we got good and trashed at a bar on cheap beer. It was a real treat.

Yesterday (Sunday) I spent the day with a couple friends who I hadn't seen since before the beginning of the events of this post: we went to brunch at a posh little cafe where we ate melon and prosciutto and drank fresh watermelon juice, hit up the local fine arts museum and spent a relaxing afternoon contemplating various visual mediums, and finally settled in at their place to watch the much anticipated Juego del Thronos (!!!!). It was a good day. What I hadn't anticipated, though, was the news that I had missed after spending one of my only full days away from a computer.

Apparently, in Valparaíso where I had so recently spent a four day weekend, a fire broke out on Saturday afternoon that is still burning fiercely. The blaze has swept up and over one of the hills that the quaint city was build upon, tearing through hundreds of homes, claiming a dozen thus-confirmed lives, and leaving thousands homeless. From what I've heard, you can't find someone who through only one or two degrees of connection doesn't know someone who hasn't lost everything they own. And I feel the need to reiterate the fact: the fire is still burning. It's a national tragedy whose human suffering is only magnified by the loss of generations of historical and intellectual character that was until now preserved in the artistic and magical city. I'm currently looking to donate--I've never been one to solicit but I am posting the information in an effort to raise awareness. And just in case you're so inclined, here's a link to the Red Cross's page in Chile: http://www.cruzroja.cl/donaciones

Read more here:

In English - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27007884

With good pictures - http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/04/12/3875187/forest-fire-destroys-150-homes.html

Minuto a minuto en español - http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/2014/04/14/655364/minuto-a-minuto--incendio-en-valparaiso.html

And my pictures:

Taken by me two weeks ago. Beautiful fucking city.

Taken by my friend two days ago. Not the same hill as depicted above, but it give you a good idea of the severity of the incident.