No to Parties in the Back

9/11/08
The youth movement here is centered around punk, apathy, and mullets. If popular culture were the only way to distinguish what time period I was living in right now, I would definitely choose the 80s. Many clubs play 80’s music, which is fun and kind of goofy to go to, but definitely like traveling back in a time machine. The music also, as I believe I have mentioned before, has a monopoly on the micro system. Love ballads set to keyboard music and synthesized is still rampant here. Many shirts profess their love for the 80’s and claim that they will never die. At the same time, this part of culture is mixing, albeit horribly, with new punk culture. All black all the time. Tight pants on both guys and girls. Towards the fringes of society, collars start to appear amongst other bizarre accessories. There is one gang of punks who live rather close to my house dressed in torn fishnets and army jackets. They sleep on benches and oftentimes I see them drinking beer at 9 in the morning. Today I walked by, like usual they were asking for money, and one carried a sign explaining why: “We are lazy.” This isn’t even to mention the hair. The mullet to actual hair cut ratio here is off the charts, and that data doesn’t even include the ever popular rat tail (not sure how that fits in), or, as I shudder while I type it, the lesser known, more absurd looking, side rat tail. I know that I am finally becoming assimilated to Chile when the other day I caught myself thinking, “You know, mullets aren’t that bad.” At once I grabbed the nearest persons hand and slapped myself across the face. There are some things that I can do to learn and experience Chilean culture, but there is a distinct line that I can never allow myself to cross. Never can there be business in the front, party in the back, as much as this country is trying to persuade me otherwise…

I deliberated a while as to whether or not I should post this or not. I don’t want to give the wrong impression to people back home as to the character of the area of Valparaíso I live in here. Security has never been an issue for me. I walk around the city at all hours of the night. Many times I walk from my house down to the plan even though I live in a neighborhood that would never be described as being safe. I have always taken for granted my being a guy, not looking like a gringo, and being able to run. Two nights ago I was walking with Catherine back to her apartment. It was late, and not many people were out on the streets. She lives in an area much more touristy and wealthy and generally much safer than I do (it is about a 20 minute walk down from where I live and a 15 minute walk up from the “plan”). We approached a plaza that is in front of her house and there was a man, alone, leaning up against a light pole. As we walked by him he began to follow along next to us about 15 feet away. We walked through the plaza and began to leave it up a residential street. Neither of us were speaking so that he wouldn’t know that we weren’t Chilean. My arm was around her and I pulled her in closer to me. All the while he kept shooting me glances over at us and staring me in the eye. I slowed the pace and he slowed as well still mimicking our every move. About 50 feet up the road or so is the turn off for her apartment down a small road that leads to her complex and one other. I didn’t want to turn down that dark road with the man following us so we stopped at the corner. He stopped at the corner. I pushed my other hand into my pocked ready to act if it became necessary. I took a deep breath to calm myself and prepared for the worst to happen. We stood there for a bit, him continuing to stare at us. Luckily, another man happened to be walking on the street and we took the opportunity and darted off down her street and went into her apartment building. I stayed there for a while waiting because I had to leave going the same way we had come in, except by myself. He never tried to actually do anything, and didn’t do anything more than follow us and stare at me, but I am sure of his motives. I’m glad that nothing more came of the situation, but it was definitely a reality check as to the dangers of being out late at night walking around in whatever city in the world. It is easy to become complacent once you get accustomed to a place, so hopefully this will serve as a reminder to me that just because I am comfortable with the city, that doesn’t mean that all dangers have disappeared.

11/11/08
For this past week I have been having a different set of new experiences than before in my travels here. The ISP (Independent Study Project) period has begun. We have one month to complete a research project over a topic of our choosing. I am looking at the health care system in the surrounding areas of Valparaíso. The city itself is divided into the plan, the flat part next to the ocean, and the cerros, the hills that surround the plan inland from the ocean. As a general rule of thumb, the population that lives farther up on the hills farther from the city live in more and more poverty. I am investigating their access to health care and the inequality they experience just for living on top of the hills. I have spent the past week jetting around the city talking to contacts of contacts trying to establish myself in certain sectors. For instance, yesterday I found myself in the center of dispatch of emergency services, today I went to a consultorio (sort of like a clinic) in a very poor area of the city. Even after just a week of the process, I feel like I have learned a lot about how to approach random people in high places and obtain information and more contacts. It also doesn’t hurt that I am a gringo. There are many things I am doing right now that would not be possible if it weren’t for that fact. For instance, with no background check at all, nothing confirming my story, I now have access to this consultorio for 3 hours a day to question patients about their views of the health care system. I was able to set this up purely through the call from a doctor that I happen to know (spent half a day with) to the nurse that works the evening shift. As much as being a gringo here is frustrating, always being different, singled out, its accent has its advantages. I haven’t been experiencing much of the city lately because I have been pretty busy, but I plan on getting some good ocean/beach time soon as it is starting to get to be summer down here.