Futbol

Six of us were lucky enough to score tickets to the futbol game between Chile and Ecuador a couple weeks ago, Oct. 14. Chile had already qualified for the World Cup the previous Saturday, but Ecuador had not. It was an important game for Ecuador to win. Furthermore, Argentina and Uruguay were playing against each other that same night, both of them trying to qualify for the World Cup as well. Argentina and Chile were in a close race, so if Chile lost that helps Argentina. So even though Chile had already qualified it was still a game they needed to win.

Jessica and I had purchased our tickets last, so we went to Santiago separate from everyone else. We took the train at 8am on Wednesday, the 14th. It was a pleasant and quiet ride. The attendant in our car was a nice guy, he looked German and spoke some English. Jess and I took to calling him Ruperto. Halfway to Santiago there was some problem with the train tracks, so we had to get off the train, take a bus to the next train station, and get on a second train there. This didn't add much time to the trip, however, and we arrived in Santiago a little after one.

We took the metro to our friend's apartment (Nico, the son of our program coordinator) and did some window shopping while we waited for him on the rest of our group to get back. Once they did we took the elevator up to Nico's apartment, dropped our stuff off, and went right back out the door. First stop was a store to buy jersey's for the game. The four girls got red jersey's, Ryan got a red jacket, and I got a white jersey. Nico handed out our tickets for the game and we took the metro to the stadium. When we got off the metro this is the site that greeted us:

Hundreds of people were there selling flags, shirts, noisemakers, and food. Nico and I each bought a flag, the girls got their faces painted and bought a couple T-shirts, and then we headed toward the stadium. Before we were inside we had to go through the most intense security process I've ever seen. First up, about a 1/4 mile away from the stadium, was this post:

Next up was an entrance similar to gates you'd find in the States, just some event staff checking tickets:

The next two checkpoints I didn't take pictures of, so I'll just describe them. The third was the most serious security point where riot police where patting each person down (they weren't shy about it either). Finally, we entered a checkpoint similar to the first one where a person checked our tickets, we walked through the gate, and then a second person tore our tickets. Quite an ordeal, but we were finally in!

The preocupation with safety in this country has fascinated me since the first few days I was here. I was told that Chile had a more affectionate culture than the United States. I interpereted that to mean that the culture was safer as well, but I've learned that's not the case.

When family members or friends get together it's customary for the women to kiss each other on the cheek. Women kiss all the men on the cheek as well. Men greet each other with a handshake or a bro-hug. Families are especially close. Last night my older sister went out for her Bachelorette party, and my mom and sister both went with her. My sisters frequently sleep in the same room or bed as the parents. So at first glance it seems that Chile does have an affectionate culture. But this warm attitude only extends as far as the front door of the house. Once you step outside it's a completely different story.

People here are extraordinarly distrustful of strangers. My host-mom has explained to me that every time I go out at night she worries about me. I frequently walk to the grocery store about 5 minutes from my house. We live in what I would consider a suburb, on the edge of the main part of Chillan. In our neighborehood we have full time security guards posted at the only entrance to our housing track. The streets are well lit all the way to the store, and there's a high school a block away. Down the highway from the store I go to there is a military base that houses a battalion-sized detachment of the Chilean Army. And yet my mom still worries about my safety.

When Dave and I were in Santiago we stayed at a friend's house. As we were getting ready to go out one day (during daylight hours no less), the mother of the house took David and I aside to explain about safety. When Dave and I had trouble understanding her point she took us into the kitchen, grabbed a knife off the counter, and held it to her own throat to demonstrate what could happen to us. Dave also had a draw-string bag and it took us a few minutes to convince the mother to let us take it. She thought it was a traditional backpack with zippers, and she was telling us that it was unacceptable to go out with it because it would be such an easy target for pick-pockets.

Everywhere I go in Chile I am reminded of the safety-conscious Chilean mind. Almost every house, store, or building has bars on the windows of the bottom floor and fences with spikes, shards of glass, or electric wires. Houses that don't have fences or bars on the windows, like mine, have security guards patrolling the area 24/7. Every store has their own security staff, in part because there is no local law enforcement (Carabineros, the national police, serve as law enforcement, but because they are a part of the federal branch they are more of a presence than a public service). Businesses always have extra gates that they pull down at the close of business each day. Doors on the homes here do not open from the outside without a key. One of the girls in our group can't open the door to her house from the inside without her key.

But before I paint Chileans as complete safety-freaks, it's also become apparent to me that at least some of this is warranted. One of my sisters in my family and my brother have both had cell-phones taken out of their hands while they were talking on them. My brother was standing outside his school in Chillan when his was taken. And last week one of the Chilean students went to Santiago to get her passport to the U.S., and she got drugged and had all of her stuff stolen. She doesn't remember being in Santiago, only the bus ride there and waking up on the bus coming back to Chillan. So while the security measures in Chile sometimes seem excessive, there is a reason they exist.

How does a culture like this develop? Why is the culture in the United States different? These questions have been bouncing around in my mind the whole time I've been here, and I still don't have an answer to them. Perhaps it's not important to answer why things are the way they are. Maybe it's better to understand and adjust than to explain or diagnose the difference as if it's some kind of problem or sickness.

I've come to love Chile and the people here, and I think part of that love is learning how to look past the undesirable parts of a culture. I know that being here has definitely made me appreciate the States and look past the ugly parts of American culture.

People here, in general, respect the United States. It is still seen as a desirable place to go. My host-mom wants her son to spend some time in the States and become fluent in English. Several of the students at my University are going to the United States to work this Winter (their Summer), and those students are considered the lucky ones. I think I am most grateful to Chile for giving me back some of the admiration I had for my country.

Chile did win their match against Ecuador, 1-0. Nothing too crazy happened in celebration that night, though we did happen upon a square where people were climbing statues and flag poles. Up the street from the square, at the entrance to an apartment building, a dozen Carabineros decked-out in riot gear stood guard. I couldn't help but smile. This is Chile.

Vina del Mar

We went to Vina del Mar for the weekend, about 7 hours north of Chillan by bus. The city is right on the coast, and though it was supposed to rain on us not a drop fell for the whole weekend.

We left Friday morning and returned to Chillan Monday morning, so we got a solid weekend in. On the way to the city we stopped at one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which was fun. I bought one of his books of poetry a week ago for $40! The cashier told me the price in Spanish, but I thought "No way it's that much, I must've misunderstood" and waited until he gave me the receipt to sign. Well, it was that much. I should trust my Spanish comprehension a little more, was the lesson I learned. Anyway, they had the same exact book, at his house, for half the price. Oh well.

The house was interesting, but what stays with me is the fact that he amassed all of that beautiful stuff and now he's dead and it doesn't matter. I guess it's nice for us, but in the scheme of his life it's now a wash. And his poetry isn't even that good, in my opinion, so I came away from his house encouraged to do something with my life that truly matters.

We stayed at The Hotel O'Higgins in Vina del Mar, which is a grand old place that's a little run down but fun. My friend Ben put it best: "I think every room in this hotel is a little different." When Dave and I entered our room I said to him "I feel like I'm in the Bourne Identity," and we were both expecting to be assassinated in our room sometime during the weekend. That didn't happen, thankfully

We ate breakfast and dinner for free (or it was included, rather) each day, and we ate lunch out in the city. The first night we were there we went out to find some fun, but ended up going to a pub that charged us $30 more than they should have. People in our group argued for a long time with the bartenders, nearly starting a fight, but eventually we paid the extra and left. It ruined our night. We all gathered at a McDonalds down the street and tried to get up the motivation to go somewhere else, but we all just went back to the hotel around 2am, which is ridiculously early compared to most nights out.

The next day we went on a tour of the city. We took a little boat ride through the harbor and saw some sea lions. Then we took these things called "ascensors," which are little cars on tracks that go up steep hills, to the top of the city. We walked through the narrow streets, looking at what vendors were selling. We eventually had lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the harbor.

That afternoon Dave and I took a four hour nap, and we were awoken around 8pm by the sound of cars honking their horns. It's not uncommon here, but it seemed excessive. I looked out the window, expecting to see crowded roads, but there were only a few cars. Perplexed, I studied the scene for a bit. I noticed that the cars were driving around with Chilean flags hanging out their windows, and then it made sense; the people were celebrating their futbol team. At the time I didn't know, but later I found out that their team had won their game against Colombia earlier that night, thus qualifying for the World Cup in 2010 in South Africa.

As I was watching the cars drive in circles around the plaza outside our hotel I heard chanting coming from the park. So we grabbed our cameras and walked over. What we found was quite the spectacle.

Hundreds of people were there, dancing and chanting and flag-waving and drinking, celebrating their team's victory. And more people were arriving all the time. I would say over a thousand people eventually showed up, and it went on for over four hours. We got some great videos, including one of a guy diving into a shallow pond in the park and smacking his head. He wasn't okay, had to be helped out by his friends, and later we saw an ambulance arrive and then speed off after a few minutes. But that was nothing compared to the rest of the night.

I moved from the park to an intersection right next to the park, where a second large group of people were gathered, dancing in the street and blocking traffic. Some cars tried to drive through the intersection, but the people were hitting and jumping on their cars so people gave up on trying to drive though. Police had showed up at this time, blocking off one street next to the park, and a big bus with police in riot gear was on another side of the square that formed the park. This intersection was the corner between the blocked off street and the riot bus.

Some cops on motorcycles finally showed up to escort the cars through. There were two of them. One drove his bike up to the front of the intersection, and got off his bike. The second lead the cars through the intersection to safety. No one touched the cars with the police there, but a girl kept trying to reach for the parked bike to touch it. Her boyfriend tried to hold her back, but she got to it and tipped it over, breaking one of the mirrors and the kickstand. When the bike fell everyone in the crowd let out an ominous "ohhhhhhh."

The cop was obviously pissed off, but he didn't see who had done it, so he just picked up his bike and held it up. A second officer came over to pick up the broken mirror. Just as it seemed like things were cooling off, I heard a bottle break on the ground. I looked to my right to see five of the riot police approaching. Apparently they had started to walk toward the intersection when the bike was tipped, and someone had thrown a bottle at the approaching officers. The police made for the side of the crowd that the bottle had come from, and everyone scattered. There were too many people for the officers to be able to pick out exactly who had thrown the bottle, so the incident blew over. The shops behind where I was standing had thrown down their gated doors as soon as the bottle broke, and they now reopened them. But it was close to being a riot.

I walked away from this intersection, thinking nothing else would happen, when I heard more bottles breaking on the ground. I realized that the people in the park were throwing bottles at the riot bus and the officers on the other side. This continued for a few minutes, with the riot police eventually packing up and driving off. There were less than a dozen of them and they obviously weren't up to the task of tangling with a mob if it came to that, so they did the right thing. As they were driving off a guy tried to push a garbage can in front of the bus. The bus nearly hit him but swerved and drove around him.

I forgot to mention that I was recording everything I've described, so I have some interesting video footage to show people when I get home.

Later that night we all went out again, looking for some dancing. We found a nice little club, but one of the guys in our group got kicked out immediately because he had brought in a bottle of rum, and they wouldn't let him back in. So we decided to move camp.

This eventually lead us back to the McDonalds from the night before. At 5am, as we were leaving, a couple of guys got in to a scuffle with the security guards. They were kicked out of the restaurant, but they didn't take kindly to it and were kicking the doors, and one of the doors they kicked hit one of the security guards.

The offenders were leaving the premises, but now it had become personal. The guards followed the guys down the street, throwing trash, food trays, chunks of concrete, and anything anyone could get their hands on.

I took a study-abroad preparation class before I came to Chile, and in this class they told us in no uncertain terms to avoid large gatherings of people and disturbances. I did exactly the opposite of this more than once that night. And I took my camera each time.

The fight continued down the street, with passersby gathering to watch from a distance. The offenders and the guards were yelling and pointing at each other, and continued to throw things back and forth. One of the guys in our group kept swearing at the guys in Spanish and English, and I was afraid that he would attract some attention and bring us in to the fight. I kept telling him to shut up and so did one of the girls in our group, but he wouldn’t listen. Mercifully, the guys fighting with the security guards couldn’t hear him.

I followed the fight down the street until they came to the corner, and the perpetrators went around it. I thought the incident was over, but the security guards kept yelling and pointing, and the guys came back for a second round of flinging stuff at each other. There were cars passing frequently, and a couple times it looked like somebody was going to step into the street at the wrong time. I got closer with my camera, far closer than I probably should have.

The traffic cleared for a minute, and one of the offenders ran into the street spraying what had to be mace at the guards on the other side of the street. As he made it to the middle of the road, one of the security guards hurled a large chunk of concrete into the air. It came down right on the guy's head. He immediately went limp in the road. I caught the whole thing on camera. But now I stopped taping, turned around, and walked away with everyone in my group. We were all shocked. The security guards promptly left the scene as well, everyone coming to the realization that what had just happened was way beyond what the offense warranted. The guy was unconscious in the street, and some of his buddies had gathered around to help him. But it looked like he wasn't getting up on his own that night.

It was a crazy night, and a crazy weekend. We went to the mall and the beach the next day, but it all fades to the background compared to that night. I'm sure I'll get scolded by my family, and maybe by most of the people that read this, but I honestly wouldn't do anything different if I had the chance. It was completely fascinating to witness that up close, even more so since I can go through my videos again and again. I wouldn't trade those videos for anything.

I'm back at home now, but not for long. I got a ticket to the futbol game tomorrow, Chile vs. Ecuador, and I'm going up to Santiago in the morning. I won't be back until Thursday, and since we didn't have class Monday, today is the only day I'll attend class this week.

I'm much better health-wise, almost completely healed I think. I took the last of my antibiotics this morning, and I don't have a cough or any congestion anymore.

I learned two weeks ago that I don’t have the money to travel after the program is finished. I was bitterly disappointed for a couple days because traveling is the equivalent of adventure to me, and I was looking forward to having some great adventures. Despite my inability to travel, I’ve definitely managed to find some adventure.

English Fast

It has been over a week since my last post, mostly because a few of us got together and decided that we would only speak Spanish this week. It has been an interesting experience.

The thing I learned on my first day here was that, despite my infancy-status as a Spanish speaker, I could still communicate. That held true this week, especially because I have learned a lot more Spanish since my first day here. Once I made the commitment to speak only Spanish, I found that I could do it. If I didn't know a word or a phrase I learned it, because the next time the same subject came up I was going to need it.

I have found my biggest weakness in speaking Spanish is simply knowing conjugations for verbs. Verbs that are used all the time, like ser and estar (to be), tener (to have), ir (to go), and querer (to want), fly off the tongue without a second thought. But when I have to stop and think about a conjugation the conversation slows down. So I've been trying to spend more time familarizing myself with as many verbs and their conjugations as possible. It may seem obvious, but speaking a second language really is a matter of "getting in the habit", or making it second nature.

The part of this process that I have yet to experience is thinking in Spanish. During this last week I barely spoke any English, but I always thought in English. My self-talk was always in English. I was looking for something in my backpack yesterday, and without thinking I said outloud "Donde?" (where), but the words in my head were still "Where is it?" So I'm making the transition, but my mouth and my brain are not in it together yet.

I have also started to pick up some cultural things that Chileans do when they speak. For example, a very common way to say "okay" or "I see" or "yes" is to say "Ah, yah". I do this almost all the time now, even when I'm speaking English. I have a feeling that that expression will become a permanant part of my vernacular. It will be fascinating to see which cultural traits I retain when I go back to the States.

I wonder if people will notice anything slightly "un-American" about me when I'm home. By that I mean culturally, how I behave when I interact with others. There is a professor here that our group has a class with. He is a younger man (early 30's is my guess), and he spent a significant amount of time studying in Chicago and New York. Multiple Chilean students have told me that this professor is "weird" or "crazy", but the more I got to know him the more confused I became. He seemed very intelligent to me, friendly and sensible. What were these other students talking about?

Yesterday I realized what was going on. This professor no longer behaves quite like a Chilean professor, or at the least how Chilean students think their professors should behave. Because he spent so much time in the States, and because of his younger age, he actually developed a teaching style that is more comfortable for American students. That is why I found that my interactions with him never lined up with what Chilean students told me to expect. To them, he is a little weird and crazy, not because he actually is those things, but because he is a Chilean who has picked up some American traits. Very perlexing to Chilean students, I'm sure. And I wonder if any of them have figured this out yet. The students I talked to definitely have not.

A brief personal update: I went to the doctor today because I've been sick for almost three weeks. He prescribed me $80 worth of medication, which I started taking tonight. Hopefully that will help! Our group is spending the weekend at the beach, so I will be back next week with plenty of pictures and stories.