I got 2 exams and a paper out of the way this week, so now the only things I have left are a 5 page Poverty and Social Exclusion paper, a Public Projects oral presentation and final community partner meeting, and a Seminar of Latin America in the 20th century oral exam.  It all looks very manageable heading into my last week and a half, and I feel like I see the finish line in sight.  Most people that I’ve talked to on my program are ready to be finished with the academics part of study abroad—between the weird grading methods employed by our university and seeing everyone’s facebook status’s letting me know that I could be sitting on the terrace with the sun on my shoulders, I also feel ready to return to summer!

But it’s winter here!  While skyping with Carybeth the other day I noted her tank top and sunburned face, and she said to me: “You’re wearing so many clothes.”  Which I was: a thermal, a jacket, and scarf, sweatpants, and smartwool socks layered with another pair inside.  Since there aren’t central heating systems here you could see my breath INSIDE my house the other day.

Oh, I forgot, I got the flu, that’s why I didn’t post for so long.  I was stuck in my bed with my bones feeling like I was ninety for about a week—made me cherish my youth.  I’m pretty sure that it was just common flu, but apparently there are some people in my classes at my University that have H1N1—so maybe it was that, who knows?

So in the spirit of cherishing my youth I went out for a friend from Mexico’s birthday at an Irish Pub last night.  There was karaoke, so I got up on stage with 2 other gringas to sing “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin.  To our surprise, the words that came up on the screen first were NOT: “She’s into superstition, black cats, and voo doo dolls.”  They played the Spanish version—which I had never heard before…until this moment in a bar full of 100 native Spanish speakers….excellent.  I think we would have been more of a crowd favorite if we’d been able to sing the English version, but we still got an applause.

Afterwards, we headed to a bar called La Esquina do Samba [Samba’s a Brazilian dance].  While there were quite a few Brazilians in the group we went with, I was not one of them [obviously]—however the doorman did not know this as he started giving directions to me for the whole group in Portuguese.  While I had to tell him that I didn’t understand in Spanish, I felt impressed with myself for that few seconds.  My Brazilian friend Lizi that I met in Colombia always told me that I could probably pull off Brazilian.  That’s probably only 50% true, but I’ll take it.

Through a crazy twist of events, my professor’s wife ended up in my living room last Wednesday for a girl’s night [she’s an old family friend of the duena of my house].  So here I was drinking a Pisco Sour with the wife of my professor of my class where I’ve had issues with the girls in my group [such as last week where they “forgot” to tell me about the mandatory meeting we had with our professor and project assistant, and then just talked about me at the meeting—this is a very small incident in a much larger story]  Anyways, my duena, who I had been talking to about the issue all semester, talked to the professor’s wife, and then I met her and she was like “Don’t worry, I’m going to talk to him, and we’ll get this all worked out.” All of the women who were there [all were Chilean] heard parts of the story and were talking about how they have seen a lot of different situations where Chileans will be mean to people from the U.S. just because that’s where they’re from—when people won’t separate the politics and foreign policy of the country from the people.  I some how found it reassuring to hear this from all of them, I think because they agreed that I didn’t deserve to be treated that way [“It’s not like you personally created the policies”].

That night totally changed how I had been operating as of late because I realized I was taking things way too seriously.  Any problem that can be solved in an hour with a Pisco Sour probably wasn’t that big of a problem to begin with [granted it wasn’t really resolved right there, I just felt more at peace with the situation].  It’s really important to me to not confirm people’s negative stereotypes [because I totally understand people not liking U.S. foreign policy, etc.], so I was investing a lot of emotional thought and energy into worrying about why these girls disliked me when I felt like I hadn’t done anything wrong.  In the end I guess it’s not that big of a deal what they think of me.

Walking down the streets in Santiago and my neighborhood here feels very comfortable, it’s amazing to compare how I feel now with when I first got here.  So, for now I am just content to enjoy my last week and a half in Chile, and also really excited to get back to a Wisconsin Summer and my family.

I had an awesome weekend.

Friday night I went to a Brazilian AIESEC trainee’s birthday party.  We got there kind of late and everyone was leaving to go dance at an electronica club.  Luckily, I overhead a couple people saying they were splitting from the group to go dance Salsa!  So we opted for Club Mangosta where we danced salsa and merengue til 5 am.  I walked away with one only wound to my Achilles from another woman’s razor sharp heels on the dance floor…I hope it scars.

Why do I hope it scars, you might ask?

Well, that would make it the second scar on my body that I’ve received while salsa/merengue dancing in Chile…and there are some scars that you can glance at years in the future and say, “Ahh, memories.”  I’m big into nostalgia, can you tell?

Nostalgia is what made night 2 of my weekend so great as we headed to a restaurant called Mi Tierra Colombiana.  I ate patacon and drank a jugo de mango en leche as we watched the Colombia vs. Argentina soccer game.  Even though they lost, within 5 minutes they began clearing a dance floor (while playing this song, my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azAjn8jHt5Y) and then a live salsa/merengue band took the stage!  We danced merengue, drank Ron Medellin (for all of my little gringuitos colombianos that are currently there– you will realize how good Ron Medellin is once you leave, so take advantage of it now), and befriended the table next to us after they asked us, “Are you gringos?” during the city pride shout out section of the evening where the band yelled, let me hear Cartagena….Barranquilla…Bogota….Cali….Santa Marta….Medellin!!!!!

I obviously did a little fist pump for Paisa pride.

and by the time it expires (July 31st) I will be back in the U.S.

Can you believe it?

That’s what I think about all of this swine flu madness.

The media has been been sensationalizing it up the wazoo [some Chileans believe the sensationalistic media coverage has been lead by the U.S. and is all an effort to make people forget about the current economic crisis] which has only lead to people living in a state of panic, which in turn has caused real panic to ensue.

I give you example 1: Argentines stoning a Chilean bus that they thought was carrying a man with la gripe de porcina…turns out he didn’t have it.  I’m sure glad that multiple people were injured, rubber bullets were fired into the crowd, and a total brawl broke out (footage was all over Chilean news).

I give you example 2…oh, wait I can’t link to anywhere on this one, but I could show you my gift from the Argentine Ministry of Health: a face mask.

Face masks I can deal with, my issue is the particular process I went through in order to obtain this face mask, so I started writing this blog to explain it:

On our flight to Buenos Aires last Monday no one could have predicted the craziness that would ensue after my friend puked once on the flight.  Yes, once.  [you know those stories that you read and think: man, this must be an exaggeration, they must be leaving out some key point that set off the chain of events, etc?  This is not one of those stories.  Everything included here is factual, unfortunately.]

No one could predict the craziness, except Wren maybe [who randomly was re-routed from Chicago to Mexico City to Santiago to Buenos Aires to Lima—and ended up on my flight!] when she said: “I hope they don’t put your friend in isolation.”

“That would be absolutely ridiculous, there’s no way that could happen” I replied confidently.

Well, I was right on about the part about it being absolutely ridiculous…sadly, I was way off about it not happening.

The flight attendants walked around on edge quickly giving my friend and her sister masks and assuring them that doctors would be available as soon as the plane arrived.  “That really won’t be necessary, I feel fine,” she chuckled.

As we hit the runway the passengers were instructed to stay sitting as a team of doctors in masks boarded and escorted my friend and her sister off the plane.  They were shuffled into a side room only for my friend to be poked and prodded, with things being forcefully shoved up her nose and down her throat and no explanations being offered.  Her temperature was taken three times, where one time it registered as a little bit high.  Finally they were let go and handed information about la gripe de porcina [swine flu] with a number to call if she experienced any more symptoms.

Fast forward to almost 24 hours later when an ambulance with a doctor and a police escort show up at our hostel with orders that they take my friend to a hospital for further evaluation.

And see that’s where I got tired, because it would just be articulating another 24 hours of frustration and dealing with the bureaucracy that is the Argentine Ministry of Health.

It so suddenly became a bad 80’s movie that you wanted to turn off but you couldn’t because you realized you were a main character.

Oh, it was also a bit E.T. when we arrived to the National Hospital of Infection only for my friend to be swept into a sort of lock down chamber full of doctors in full body suits with no exposed flesh– obviously taking precautions because this is SWINE FLU we’re dealing with.  You know that illness that they determined has comparable side effects to regular influenza (which kills thousands of people every year) if not less severe?

I won’t go into all of the specifics of where the doctors and other randoms in positions of power screwed up, because frankly we would be here too long…but basically because the swine flu has been sensationalized so much I got the feeling that this Argentine Hospital wanted my friend to have swine flu so they would have a story to tell.

Maybe that’s why they forced her into “isolation” (she was in a room where she had an open doorway leading into a room full of other people who looked comatose, hooked up to breathing machines, etc) for 24 hours but told us their policy: “We can’t force her to stay here, but she is now an international health threat, so if she leaves the international police will follow her and she won’t get very far.”

This is what put me over the edge.

Through a mix of tears and rage I yelled in my best Spanish at the doctor: She is not an international health threat!  Thousands of people die every day from treatable diseases and that is an international health threat!  Right now you’re pouring the resources of multiple doctors into a girl who is not even sick!  She threw up ONCE and has no other symptoms and hasn’t had a temperature since, this is ridiculous!

Doctor: “Oh well we didn’t order this, this isn’t our fault, someone else told us we had to keep her here.”

Me: “Well who ordered it?  Where are the test results?  Am I the only one asking any questions?!?!?! And why do you keep making up rules?”
[such as: the amount of protective gear needed to enter the room to visit my friend; Molly: face mask and cloak U.S. Consulate Representative: face mask, cloak, gloves, hat, etc.]

The nightmare only continued for a few more hours until the negative test results finally arrived for my friend and her sister [interestingly enough they never took any tests on her sister but she still had negative results...manage your information much?] and we walked out of the hospital with a flimsy piece of paper [only because we requested it] saying she was swine flu free and some despedida besos [goodbye kisses] from the head doctor.

He better not think those besos made up for all of the hours of our lives devoured by an unnecessary state of panic.

Colleen Kinder may have said it best in her article:

As if concluding an episode of “Scooby-Doo,” my sister yanked the mask off Mexico City, to reveal what the 20 million of us had, in five days, lost sight of completely:

“The people around you could actually be sick.”

Even though I have an exam and 2 papers due tomorrow I’m feeling surprisingly not stressed– nor motivated, but eh, whatever.

I’m leaving for Buenos Aires, Argentina with my friend Lisa and her sister on Monday til Friday.  I think we’ll take the ferry over to Montevideo, Uruguay while we’re there [it's only about 3 hours]

I’m also going to an AIESEC Leadership Conference in Concepcion, Chile [about 6 hours south of here] at the end of May.

I have a feeling the end of my time here is going to go REALLY fast.

Ok, I’ll stop procrastinating now and start studying.  For real this time.

AIESECers from the English Conversation Table (a 2 hour English practice session that I and another girl from @Miami of Ohio run every week) sing my dad Happy Birthday in Spanish and English!

I hope gaining another year of wisdom was spectacular, dad!

I think a Chillabration is in order for when I get home…do you think Dairy Queen can fit “Molly, Ben, and Dad” all on to one cake for the birthdays we missed?  Or should we just get 3?

This post was originally titled: The two pound bag of Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups in my closet remained relatively untouched until the beginning of this week. Today there are only 7 left…if that’s any indication of what kind of week this has been.

Then I ate the last 7, and suddenly the title didn’t fit.

The original content of this post was complaints, but I decided that didn’t fit anymore, either.

I did find myself extremely frustrated this week at multiple points which explains why I downed an entire two pound bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (oh man that sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, emotional eating anyone?).  But Carybeth introduced me to the idea of the “Happy Week” earlier today, and I’m going to try it out [I also don't want to give my father any reason to make a smug look of I told you so- there is in fact no reason to ever leave your country]

My frustrations kept stemming from cultural differences that were happening at my University (La Catolica)– heralded as the best University in all of Chile, and one of the best in all of Latin America.  Turns out it’s also extremely close-minded.  This week’s left me longing for my Madison bubble where I can walk around grinning knowing that everyone thinks in an equally liberal manner.  [ha! just kidding, kind of.  I have also realized that being at Madison it's easy to never develop your power of persuasion because it doesn't take much to get everyone to jump on your bandwagon since you all share similar opinions.  I realized during election season that I needed to put myself in positions that would develop my ability to reason and discuss with people who shared totally opposite view points than myself-- so maybe I was asking for it?]

But man, I am just a fish in a totally and completely wrong pond.

I received a pretty poor grade on an in class essay for my History of Latin America in the 20th Century class [apparently the prof didn't get the message that you're supposed to grade easier on the gringos, this isn't their native language and they're just studying abroad, ha].  When I asked a Chilean friend to take a look at it his first comment was, “Well you got a bad grade because you didn’t follow history, you say here ’stolen lands’ when referring to indigenous lands…nothing was ever stolen, we just mixed…Besides it’s just the Mapuche that make up 3% of Chile, and the government tries to work with them, but they’re crazy.”

Feeling already frustrated I went to my group project meeting for my Poverty and Social Exclusion class where I talked about the email the TA had sent me with an issue example for our topic: the sociocultural dimension of poverty interventions. The TA pointed out that in Chile they often try and do interventions in the Mapuche communities in Mapudungun [the Mapuche language], but that the language is often not spoken any more except by the elders.  So this is one example at an attempt to be culturally approrpiate that fails.

When talking to my group it became clear that they thought that the Mapuche topic is “overdone” and “I mean really, how many of us even know someone that is Mapuche, or someone that has a Mapuche last name?”  [Apparently she missed the last Chilean census that determined that 90% of Chileans have Mapuche blood.  Ninety percent.  In a country where if you want to be successful it's not okay to embrace your heritage and having a Mapuche last name limits you from many job opportunities]

But what do I know, I’m just the estadounidense gringa that doesn’t have a perfect grasp of the Spanish language [these are the 3 reasons that I've narrowed down as to why one girl in my group particularly does NOT like me: a) from the U.S.- most likely this option b) not from Chile c) I don't speak Spanish perfectly.

So, since it's happy week, I will have the largest smile on my face next week when we give our presentation on the sociocultural dimension of poverty and talk about "uniting factors like friendship and love," and The Littlest Prince, and a group of middle schoolers that uses role playing to facilitate inclusion and discourage bullying, and show a video with English subtitles ["To make our foreign classmates feel included" -direct quote in an email from the student to the professor], and make a mural with all of our hand prints in paint at the end to show that together we make something beautiful, as well as write one promise they each make that day to be more socio-culturally understanding, “like learning how to say ‘hola’ in Dutch.”

I’m sorry did you think for a second that I accidentally ripped a page out of my older sister’s 1st grade teacher’s curriculum guide?

Maybe if we’re lucky rainbows and butterflies and puppy dogs will shoot out of thin air.  At the very least I’ll animate them into the power point.

Anyways, looks like I just got a bit complain-y, happy week starting now…

*in a chipper voice*: While it makes me a bit jealous to see people’s statuses that say they are going to sit on the Terrace in Madison, because we are currently entering our winter here and it makes it quite cold when there is no central heating [or heating, period.], I will rejoice in the fact that my duena just gave me an electric blanket that a past student left here.

And I will laugh at my brother’s response to my email that said essentially the same thing [since he doesn't read my blog that little booger]:

Molly, ignorant people in positions of power is infinitely frustrating.  Get used to it.  Ignorance in national ethos is also frustrating.  But you’re probably already used to that: USA! USA! USA!

I guess I can’t have any more frustrating weeks, because they don’t sell peanut butter cups in Chile!

At least I’ll definitely be warm while I’m sleeping [were you wondering what Chilean plugs looked like?  I thought so.]

Goodbye, goodbye, to one place or another,
to every mouth, to every sorrow,
to the insolent moon, to weeks
which wound in the days and disappeared,
goodbye to this voice and that one stained
with amaranth, and goodbye
to the usual bed and plate,
to the twilit setting of all goodbyes,
to the chair that is part of the same twilight,
to the way made by my shoes.

I spread myself, no question;
I turned over whole lives,
changed skin, lamps, and hates,
it was something I had to do,
not by law or whim,
more of a chain reaction;
each new journey enchained me;
I took pleasure in places, in all places.

And, newly arrived, I promptly said goodbye
with still newborn tenderness
as if the bread were to open and suddnenly
flee from the world of the table.
So I left behind all languages,
repeated goodbyes like an old door,
changed cinemas, reasons, and tombs,
left everywhere for somewhere else;
I went on being, and being always
half undone with joy,
a bridegroom among sadnesses,
never knowing how or when,
ready to return, never returning.

It’s well known that he who returns never left,
so I traced and retraced my life,
changing clothes and planets,
growing used to the company,
to the great whirl of exile,
to the great solitude of bells tolling.

-Pablo Neruda
I made it to the third of the three Neruda houses today [La Chascona in Santiago].  And while the whole reason this house was built was to hide his lover from his wife, I still love the man-  he writes magnificent poetry.

I am now on a quest to find the book I fell in love with in Valparaiso in La Sebastiana called “Odas a las cosas ordinarias” [Odes to Ordinary Things].  I think it’s a hard find because I haven’t seen it since, everyone keep your eye out for it!

This copao is the fruit that grows on the cactus…tastes just like aloe vera!

In other news:  Those who’ve been tracking my eating habits all of my life will be happy to know that I CHOOSE to eat cooked tomatoes now, in fact I even cook them myself (homemade tomato sauce has become a favorite of mine, since tomato sauce here is more like ketchup).  I think I might even be able to train myself into eventually liking raw tomatos!  When I was cutting them up the other day I just took a little nibble to start adjusting the taste buds.

Aunt Melanie you’ll be so proud when I come visit you this summer!  (which P.S. let’s start planning?)

This jem was found in Vicuna, Chile.  And yes, that is a single dreadlocked rat tail sticking out from the hat on the right, in case you were wondering.