Gasco Drummer Guy is the bane of my existence

The traffic on the roads of the cerro I live in is quite different than what I am used to seeing back home. There are several categories that I think incorporate almost all of it. First, the collectivos. One of these black bullets races by about every 5 minutes during the day almost always at a dangerous speed. The road is only wide enough for one car, and there is one section with a series of hairpin turns, so a system must be devised to avoid crashes. Here is an example of how the system works. First step: Approach curve at breakneck speed. Second step: Don’t slow down. Third step: If it’s daytime, honk horn, if nighttime, flash brights. Fourth step: Don’t slow down. Fifth step: Pray to something of your choosing that you don’t hear a honk/light flash in return. Second, Gasco. Houses here don’t have central air or heating or access to hot water just by turning the tap. To get hot water for a shower you have to light a mini gas furnace. Every house operates under the same system, so it makes sense that there is a large demand for propane gas tanks (a little bit bigger than the ones used for grills). Following this logic, it also makes sense that there would be companies, one in particular for my cerro, willing to provide a service of removing used up tanks and supplying new ones. That’s where Gasco comes in. Throughout the entire day, Gasco has at least one truck driving around the cerro loaded in the back with a bunch of gas tanks (don’t want to think about safety). However, they need a way to announce their presence as the drive by, so that people can flag them down. That is where the second person’s job comes into play. He sits in the back of the truck with all the gas canisters drumming incessantly on them. Literally all day he rides around in the back drumming the same beat. Every. Single. Day. Curse you Gasco drumming guy. Third, micros. Micro 519 does a big loop on my cerro until about 11 at night. These lumbering elephants somehow climb the hills nonstop slowly but surely, forming a blockade that traps usually 3 or 4 collectivos in its wake. To help portray exactly how steep the road is, I will relate a story. Today I went for a run on the cerro. I was on my way back up, a little less than half a mile away from my house when I converged onto the micro route. All the way up to my house I did a Breaking Away reenactment with the micro. I ran alongside of it at first up a long uphill stretch, we reached the top and a little plateau and I faded a bit behind it, but still close enough that I had to convince myself the exhaust couldn’t be that harmful…We then came to the series of hairpin turns and I eased up along the drivers side. I could see the driver in the mirror looking back at me smiling. A little girl in the micro gave me a thumbs up. I churned next to him all through the steep part. The final stretch before my house is flat again, but luckily the micro driver had to stop to drop off a person so I was able to stay with it to the end. Fourth, animals with four legs be it dogs or horses. And I guess the occasional car, fifth.

3/10/08
Somehow the first phase of our classes are already finishing up, and I have my final Spanish class next week. Today was our final excursion (before I go South for two weeks to live in a Mapuche community). We went to Santiago and visited the cemetery and a torture facility during the Pinochet era turned peace park. Obviously, it was a pretty somber day. We returned back to Valpo and things were about as opposite as they could be. Friday was the start of a festival called Mil Tambores or Thousand Drums. We got back just in time to see the final parts of the parade. I guess the best way to describe it would be as a mini-Carnival (I have never been to Brazil to see Carnival…), although that doesn’t mean there weren’t many people involved. The main street that runs through Valpo was completely shut down and there were thousands of people walking around. Parades here are a bit different in that they are completely interactive. There are, of course, groups of dancers and performers very well choreographed, but then half of the parade is just people following the groups adding their own dances (usually not as good – I didn’t help the quality much, that’s for sure). It ended at a plaza where a spontaneous street party erupted. We hung around for a bit but had to return to our houses to drop off our stuff. I quickly put my stuff up, ate, and returned to the plaza to see what was happening. The formal party had broken up, but now the plaza was even more packed with a much more informal crowd. There were little circles of dancers crowded around random people with drums and tons of street performers. A couple people were twirling balls of fire at the end of chains, and one guy was breathing fire for about 15 minutes (it was actually really impressive). After staying at the plaza for a while, the police began chasing people off because there was another party associated with the festival on the other side of the city. Through a long course of events we finally ended up there and weren’t disappointed. It wasn’t very carnival-esque but it was a concert with an Andean group that rapped to folklorical music. Superbacán.

4/10/08
I organized a much bigger trip to the sand dunes so that we could go back and go sand boarding again. It’s kind of hard to get a bunch of people together because we all live in different parts of the city, but about 10 people or so showed up and we had a ton of fun. I ended up sandboarding for a long time, and hurt a lot after it. My final run of the day was down a super steep part of the slope, and the problem with sandboarding, is there is no easy way to stop. Usually what happens is you either just fall off to the side, make it down the hill to where it is flat, or hit a rivet in the sand and go flying. The latter is what happened to me the last time, and I took quite a good spill. Totally worth it though. I didn’t bring my camera this time, but a lot of people did so hopefully I can get a hold of some pictures of us sandboarding to post. That night I went to Catherine’s apartment for her sister’s birthday party. It was fun but pseudo-awkward at the same time because her family is convinced that either we are an item. The party went fine until the end when I had to leave. I already have enough trouble at functions like this leaving, cause it isn’t possible to do it easily or quietly. You have to first announce it to everybody, then walk around the room kissing all the women on the cheek and shaking every man’s hand. It was at this point that Catherine’s mom told her she better walk me down out of the apartment so that I wouldn’t get lost. They live 2 stories up…and it is not a big apartment. People in Chile don’t have the same American concept about relationships…or subtlety. I also needed my jacket, so they directed me to Catherine’s room. Well, neither of us were thinking that much about it, and she followed me in and we began talking about something for a couple minutes, and then realized how we weren’t really helping the situation any. Definitely a mistake. Her mother was more emphatic than ever at that point to have Catherine go with me outside, and we had no other choice but to oblige. Woops. After leaving Catherine’s place, I met up with a bunch of other students and we made our way up to the toma I work at for a party they were having. The party was not what a bunch of the other students were expecting. It was a bunch of people from the toma in a clearing with a huge bonfire in the center. They were selling beer, wine, and sopaipillas that were incredibly delicious. People from the toma took turns reading poems, making speeches, playing guitar and singing, and near the end two neighborhood kids freestyle rapped for a while and were amazing.