Vivir para contarla

I suppose that´s now García Marquéz´s saying, but I play it over and over in my head. Living to tell the tale. As in, I survived, look at me, now I can tell you all about it? As in, my life exists for the sole reason of telling you about it? It´s like: Ride to love/love to ride...So many ways to read it, all reveal the love and the ride and the loving to ride and the riding toward love and half the joy of living is sharing it with someone, anyone, but especially those you love.

Both yesterday and today, I couldn´t bring myself to wake up before noon, though I had fallen asleep 12 hours before that. Finally my body is cleansing itself, and then I go and put vino tinto in it, maybe it´s a bad combination, but finally I´m relaxed. Yes, three days here and I´m at home again. Well, second day here and on my bike and I´m at home again. Always brings me home, two wheels así.

So yesterday I awoke, came to this same café in the barrio Bellas Artes, wrote for you all (and me), had a delicious lunch--vegetarian lentil soup and Kunzmann--at US prices (at least it made my box wine seem cheap, at $3 for the beer alone--next store at the trendy café--and decided to climb Santa Lucía. There I was, minding my own business. I had written a lot already in my journal, pondering the times I had been up there--it was very much my place to be alone, though it fortunately reminded me of Andrew visiting and most unfortunately reminded me of a time I met a guy there who turned out to be a creepy, creepy stalker--and of course the times I had been bothered by a million other creepy chilenos. But never mind that. It was fun being there again. Especially because now that I´m here really as a tourist, and am getting over my fear of the camera, I somehow have no problem documenting my time with pictures. What I wrote up there: "I stick out, it´s summer anyway, and I´m far from the only extranjer@. But what do the tourists see, anyway? What does it mean to these gringos, do they feel anything?" A touch of the sentimental journey in me, a touch of the self-righteous traveller. I also noted: "This hill is faker than Central Park with its ´natural´beauty, but I think it had a purpose at one point (the architecture indicates it was a military look-out or something). Now it´s crawling with SEGURIDAD, and I´m not sure why (but all of Stgo is like that)--make sure the pigeons and stray mutts don´t kill each other, or the lovers don´t go too far? ... Am I just living to write about it? Am I writing to have some excuse to be alive here? Very consciouly running out of paper" (in my journal).

But no! Dear reader, it was all part of dispatch´s plan. Because after I put down my pen, read Baldwin for a spell, and fought fatigue in the shade, I began to hear shouts, una manifestación! And what could it be but a "Marcha lesbico feminista!" The Santiago Dyke March! I descended quickly and found myself in the midst of lesbians from all over Latin America. As they assembled, there was a roll-call: Perú, Guatemala, Brasil, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, Uurguay, and I´m sure more from Latin America--but even a smattering of women from the US, England, and Australia. They were actually all here for a conference, and this was one event to inaugurate or punctuate it, I wasn´t sure what.

I assure you, dear delicate reader worried for the safety of your vulnerable gringa daughter in South America, that it was safe for me to do what I did. I marched! Well, it was funny to be somewhere where they didn´t specify if they also acknowledge the oppression of other queer women/girls/bois and trannies, but no one kicked out the bisexual forgeigner, and the cops let it all happen, even the painting in the streets. It struck me as the beginning of a movement here, obviously connected to other struggles for social justice: along with my favorite chant (which made everyone giggle),
"Chucha con chuca--eso es mi lucha"
Other big hits were
"Lesbianas contra la guerra, contra capital, contra facismo, el terrorismo neoliberal"
And
"Saque sus rosarios de mis ovarios"

And so it was that about 250 women and some men marched from the Gabriela Mistral mural at the foot of Cerro Santa Lucía to Plaza de Armas proclaiming lesbian pride, identity, and visibility. Before the finally rally in front of the massive church at the Plaza turned into a kiss-in and bra-tossing party remiscent of the women´s liberation movement in the US (at least, according to legend), we circled around the Brasilian drum corps, someone read what I think was a Mistral poem, and we collectively pronounced the end of racism, violence against women, rape, war, imperialism, homophobia, family abuse of queer kids, female genital mutilation, sexism, machismo, and oppression. I imagine the conference is intended to fill in the details about how to do all that, but I don´t think I´m going to make it there.

What was remarkable about this is that when I was here before, I did not meet a single out gay or lesbian or bi person. I knew kids who went to the gay dance club--probably the only place in Stgo you can go without being harassed by creepy hetero dudes (if yr a woman), but there was no one in real life--and my Chilean friends were leftists, artists, bohemians, young, hip, cool.

And also notable was the presence of a young group of Trotskyists afflilated with the Fourth International, very sheepishly selling their newspaper, Clase contra clase. They were pretty cool, but I missed some of the story about their recent split from another group I didn´t know. Dude seemed impressed to meet a Trotskyist from the states but was disappointed we had no grouping to the Fourth International or anything of the sort. At any rate, I´ll see what else is going on. I can´t get a sense yet of the political pay-off from the Marcha de los Pinguinos--the rebellion in the schools that happened last year--or Pinochet´s death.

Oh! And when I got to the march, I noticed this woman who looked so familiar. I finally asked here where she was from, and it turns out she´s on EAP from Berkeley. I geeked out and didn´t giver her my email, but it would have been nice to have someone to hang out with. I think she must have lived at Oscar Wilde House or something. Maybe I´ll see her again, maybe not, but it was a cool connection.

After the march, I got my pictures put onto CD (hmmm, maybe I should have brought my computer, it would have been much easier), so you can now see them!!! I have a folder on my flickr site that´s all pictures from this trip so far. Nothing from today yet, but everything else, so you can get a feel for where I am. It´s www.flickr.com/photos/corriegrrl

Good goddess, I have so much more to say, I haven´t even gotten to today! Chuta. Well, long story short since it´s already almost 10 and I would like to head home soon (unfortunately there aren´t any really good internet cafés close to home, they´re all cheap and slow, so it´s a long ride). Yes yes, well I found the feria and got fruit for the next couple of days. It was good, a feria I hadn´t ever been to, not too far from my house, but made me get on my bike again. It´s better that way, I still have nasty cuts on my heel from the other day. And after I dropped the produce off at my house (and will have to eat it ignoring the GMO/pesticide-ridden/cheapness of it all, but sooooo riquísimo!), I went out for a ride, and it was a lovely, lovely day.

Went looking for the play Polo referred me to, then got on the bike route I used to take to get to school, took some good pictures, relaxed into the bike, rode up to Providencia, the icky rich part of town where my host family lived and I stayed when I first got here, had lovely gazpacho at this veggie restaurant (remembert it, Mom?), and rode to the other big hill in town.

I had previously taken the funicular up Cerro San Cristobol, and I decided this was a day for a real ride, so up I went...and went...and went. Luckily it was late afternoon, but still, very warm and sticky in my jeans. And there appeared all the bike geeks in Stgo, all latexed and helmeted up. I don´t know why they bugged me so much. But no matter, it was a nice ride up, and halfway up, I saw why the mountain bikers were so stoked to be up there--there are some great dirt trails to bomb down. But I wasn´t feeling that adventurous. So I rode to the top and came back down, and here I am.

Exhausted. Happy. Enjoying my vacation. Who cares if I´m in Santiago? Who cares if I´m alone? Who cares if it´s Saturday night and I haven´t done anything social really since lunch the other day? Or cultural. Shit, who needs it? Just kidding. But now it´s late for that, almost 10, and I´ve probably already missed whatever play I might have wanted to see tonight. Marcelo gets back to town tomorrow, and I´m planning on seeing the boys and going to punk-rock flea market tomorrow--and maybe if I can get a chileno to go with me, to this shady market to buy a bike for my trip. Shit, I haven´t even had a pisco sour yet, so maybe I´m not really in Chile yet!

Muy buenas noches, compañer@s, padres, amig@s, y amor de mi vida. I hope you´re not drowning in the SF rain or freezing to death in New York or Chicago or some other wintery place.