Como un pez en el agua

I can only say that my day has been surreal. My housemate Marcelo is letting me use his spare bike, so I got to ride today for the first time in a month and a half. Can you understand how good that made me feel? I’m a free woman on two wheels in this city! And it’s a crazy enough city on two legs, or on the four wheels of a micro. But there I was, following Marcelo as he showed me the way to the campus Macul of U Chile, way the hell across town, huffing and puffing to keep up with him (I’m not that slow—he just has long legs, I swear), riding like conservative safety-geek me never rides. Yup, I did sidewalks and wrong-way-down-a-one-way-street-type riding. Pure anarchy, and I have to say that, like many things I do in this life down here, it’s been good for me to break out of my usual ways. So I have the biggest smile you can imagine just from being able to get around like this. I’ll have to get my own vehicle soon, but in the mean time I’ll be jumping curbs with confidence on this slightly-too-big Trek mountain biking machine.

So naturally, as I believe the best way to know a city, besides walking in it, is to get lost, I proceeded to discover new sectors of Santiago after Marcelo left me to my own devices (“Just stay on Santa Isabel, and you’ll get right there…” Not so easy). Though it’s obviously not a small city, I’m starting to get the sense of how all the parts come together. For me, it’s getting to the point where I feel like I can walk to certain areas, and from those, I can go to other comunas, etc. So Barrio Brasil->Estación Central->Santiago El Centro->Ñuñoa->Macul. Of course I still only know maybe 40% of the city, but hey, now I can go anywhere!

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I have a psycholinguistics class that meets Tuesday/Thursday, and the professor said on the first day that there often wouldn’t be classes on Thursdays, because there tend to be lots of demonstrations that fall on that day of the week. I just thought that was kind of neat and chalked it up to the prof’s solidarity with the students’ political activities. Class was cancelled today for other reasons, and I just had to go to campus to make photocopies of the readings (they aren’t into buying books here—they just make a lot of copies). So I got to campus and took care of my business and sat down on the patio of the café at my facultad (the building where the Philosophy and Humanities classes are) to do my reading in the glorious sun that decided to pop out for the day.

Just as I was over-heating from the effects of said sun and decided to pack it up to go home for lunch, however, I heard some noises that sounded remarkably like little bombs. Like little bunny-rabbits coming out of their holes, these Black Bloc kids appeared, all decked out in the requisite face-covering bandanas. Hmmmm. Before I could even get up to check it out, these two students came up to me and warned me that I should relocate, to avoid tear gas. The bandanas those kids had were not just for fashion, as I have become accustomed to in the US—they were carefully chosen to protect themselves from the tear-gas bombs they themselves were throwing! So I thanked these kind young women for looking out for me and asked what was going on. “Nadie sabe.” Apparently, this is the type of “manifestación” that happens once a week, shutting down part of the campus. They told me it would be about an hour before the gas cleared, so I had to leave my bike locked up and take lunch on campus.

Yeah, I don’t really get it. In this case, the “demonstration” had to do with the release of political prisoners (I think I mentioned this before—they’re left over from the Pinochet days, and were the subject of a hunger strike that was going on when I got here), but as far as I could tell, it only consisted of throwing Molotov cocktails into the road (where I had to ride my bike!) and parking lot of the facultad (where workers were attending to their business). Gee, they really got their message across and showed their solidarity with the workers, I tell ya.

But it was so strange, because they did their little rebellion, and the caribineros (cops) showed up to “clear the air” by spraying their water-hoses in the affected areas. I was concerned it would be uglier than that, with arrests and struggle and everything, but it turned out to be worse than that: when the caribineros arrived, the students in the facultad applauded and cheered for them! So I’m not really sure what to think of that. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not so sure about this “radical” campus I’m at. Maybe there’s a reason no one takes it seriously when stuff goes down at Macul. The only clue to the political message of these kids was the tiny little papers they littered the ground with after they stalked off (yeah, they just eventually walked back onto campus, like it was no big deal—who are these guys? [Yes, they were all dudes]). Not the most coherent communication of what they were about.

I guess there’s not much more to my day than that, but I did find out that one of my best friends on the program is going back to California, instead of finishing the term here, so I’m pretty bummed out about that. On the other hand, this past week, I discovered the Asian district in Santiago and finally got to buy real tofu and shoyu and miso and wasabi (which I’m really needing, since I’m all congested again) and curry.

Which leads me to the most important point: I’m making dinner for everyone (I think I like cooking for the multitudes—I think there will be close to thirty people) at my new house tomorrow night (probably today, by the time you get this—Friday), and you’re invited.

A small point of concern, though: I am running out of recipes! I didn’t bring any cookbooks with me (which I pretty much only use to get ideas, anyway), and I’ve already made my top ten meals (various curries, chili, soba, spaghetti, etc.). Any suggestions? Send me your recipes (veggie or fish only), because there will be many more months of this. And no, I’m not really learning Chilean cuisine, as it is unfortunately incredibly fome (boring) and meat-and-potatoes-like.

Yeah, I’m really glad I can ride a bike, because though my friends are all doing capoeira and Thai boxing and salsa lessons, I haven’t gotten around to that yet, and I’m feeling gross. Especially now that I have a kitchen and can cook to my heart’s content, and I think I’ve been eating too much (I can’t say that before that miracle I was eating anything tasty enough to make me OD). Do you know what it is? I’m obviously trying to make up for something in my life that’s missing, and I’m pretty sure it’s CHOCOLATE. But no matter how much yummy stuff I make and consume, it’s still not going to fulfill that craving for scrumptious dark bittersweet chocolate, which I do not believe exists in this country (someone please call Nestlé and tell them to start manufacturing it). So there it stands. Maybe some good aerobic exercise will put a stop to that. I can only hope.

But really, my life here has been different in every possible way from that in California. From living with Tom to staying with Tía Sonia for a month, to relocating with three Chilean guys. From relative isolation to always being around my full-of-social-energy girlfriends. From constant political activity to doing almost nothing but talking a lot. From riding my bike at least 50 miles a week to only walking 5-10 city blocks a day. From working to earn money to…not having any. From having places I like to hang out to not knowing the city and knowing I never will. From only knowing parts of the US to the chance to know much of South America.

As I’m going to bed for the night/early morning, a chorus of sad cats whines outside my window. A thousand Jupiters, only desperate and lonely, in spite of the company of others of their own kind. I can understand why there are crazy cat ladies; I feel so compelled to bring in one of those miserable creatures, even though they must all be infected with all manner of infections and diseases. How did I become a cat-lover? The thousands of stray dogs never seem so gloomy--only pathetic.

I guess you could say I’m a little melancholy, in spite of occasional wonderfulness. I think I’m both crazy and lucky as hell to be here, but I understand why Janessa’s going home.