Escuchela, La Ciudad Respirando: Our Trip to Los Robles and Other Thoughts

Breathing. 

           Often taken for granted, often disregarded as automatic, often invisible as its fuel and product.

After frequenting the gridded roads and cracking sidewalks of Santiago, it’s more likely than not that your lungs will begin to house, like thin-walled bee trappers, a menagerie of irritants: sulfur, lead, cobalt, carbon,… Even with the miasma, the city breathes deeply, the sotto voce of its inhale matching the sway of falling leaves; but its exhale is quickened, more deliberate, spewing pseudo-smoke back into the graying clouds, mulling over the remaining taste of bewilderment and the prospect of inhaling once more, convincing itself that the next inhale will shed its smoggy ore and neutralize all that is wrong with urban life. With this hope, this hope that crime, poverty, car horns a la Taco, metro overcrowding, louche scrawls of spray-paint lesions on the chests of buildings, the chthonic stench of “clubes” and prostitution, street lamps drizzling light onto corners when the people desire a downpour, clouds drizzling rain onto corners when the people desire a downpour, pollution, will all dissolve in a common breath, in an orchestra of contracting diaphragms and changing air pressures, the city inhales once more. AndthenEXHALES.

It’s difficult to notice something like this until you leave Santiago. And, of course, we were provided with such an opportunity. Flipping our scenery completely on its head, we exited the Talca-stationed bus onto a muddy waiting area in the farm community called Los Robles. There was no one to announce our location over a PA; no red light flashing to signal closing doors; no glistening signs marking a path to “Combinación Linea 4.”

“Dorothy…we’re back in Kansas.”

Though I am not in the least bit synesthetic, I remember that the air smelt distinctly green, as though the army of moss and leaves dressing the trees had foamed and seeped into my nostrils. It reminded me intensely of summer camp, and before saying hello to our hosts or even cracking a joke (See: “Dorothy,” “Kansas”), I was positive that this would be a very warm and human experience. And it turns out I was right, our group “bonded” in the most cliché of senses. But often “cliché” is mistaken for “devoid of meaning,” and I could not disagree with this more from a purely ontological standpoint. The study of being, of existing, and thus of interacting, relies on experiences that are both common and uncommon, repeated and unique. Sitting around a table cluttered with cards, wine bottles, glasses small and large, and comfortable hands, I felt cliché, but in a marvelous way, as though the impending repetition of the past painted a warmer side to another cliché: History tends to repeat itself.

We began to talk. Our dialogue was now so different than before, somehow stripped of all its “JKs” and “LOLs” and “HAHAs.” Don’t get me wrong, we still laughed and joked and whooped to the hills, but it was just that: real laughing, real joking, real whooping, and all merely supporting characters in a scene fueled by sincerity, honesty, catharsis, and empathy. We talked about our families, our virginities (or lack thereof), our motivations for coming to Chile, our differences, our similarities, the stuff of our dreams that defines us without existing, the stuff of our realities that exists without defining us. We went on pouring and breathing each other’s dreams for hours, knowing that most of our words could never be real, believing secretly that all of them were. Personally, I realized, for the first time, the following:

1.     I would like to have 7 children: 3 of my own, 4 adopted (I realize that I am 19 and have no concept of how difficult it is to raise a child. But hey, aim high, right?)

2.     I used to think I wanted to get married early, around 24-25. Now, I’ve accepted that it’s really not time-based, which seems obvious and logical, but sometimes, I’m not all that obvious and logical

3.     Philosophies on life must not be the bedrock of our souls; their natural inertia, much like the people that espouse them, is to mold, crack, strengthen, change, and even disappear when faced with so many different perspectives over so many moments in time. To prevent this change would be to thoughtfully defy what is meant to be thoughtlessly followed.

4.     I am human. And that means that I am imperfect. And every mistake I make should remind me of this and not make me feel alien. After all, you can’t spell “mangelhaft” (imperfect in German) without “man.”

5.     These people were complete strangers to me less than two months ago. My instincts would now push me to protect them as though they were my family.

6.     My motivations for coming on this trip were precocious and callow, but my current experience, irreplaceable.

7.     Me We.

 

I breathe much easier now in Santiago. I’ve realized that you will not always inhale pure oxygen, just as you will not always receive the utopian feel of life all at once. The things around us are marred, miasmatic, imperfect; all of us, we take them in regardless, dreaming up their elysian shape, knowing their equivocal form. But when we do take a deep breath, of others, of air, of ourselves, we must keep in mind this imperfection, this tendency for great things to practice phronesy with the average. We must accept the oxygen with the sulfur, the dreams with their realities, the permanence of the past and the uncertainty of the future. And then, once we’ve come to terms with everything we’ve taken inside of us, we can stop, repose our chests, and e x h a l e.

Things We Americans Know Nothing About: Fútbol and National Pride

My face was on fire. A tickle like scattering embers shot through my eyes and up my nose, plunging down the back of my throat and digging spurs into my taste buds. Antonio, our program director, called it “unpleasant”, but I never imagined this: a restaurant brimming with sneezing, coughing, tear-welling victims of the noxious breathe of La Ley, struggling to compose itself enough to complete a single order-serve cycle. Following a round of sniffles and a side of fingers vigorously mining swollen tear ducts , I saw the waiter wandering over to our table. I could tell that he was uncomfortable, his blood-pregnant eyes pulsing as he tried to keep a solemn face ­—SNEEZE.  

 

So much for that.

 

“Saludate.” If only I had a Luca (1000 Chilean pesos or 2 dollars) for each “Saludate” offered on that Wednesday night. That night, Plaza Italia, the social locus of Santiago, was showered in wishes of health, as everyone expressed their disgust for the tear gas through verbal empathy.

 

Out the window, the streets were empty. There were a few cars and zealous locals keeping the maintaining the pulse of Chilean pride, shouting “Chi-Chi-Chi! Le-Le-Le! Viva Chile!” But the car horns were sparse, and the cheers were muffled by running noses and swelling sinuses, crickets compared to the bellowing hiss that emanated from Estadio Nacional just hours before. It was frustrating to see so much excitement, so much pride in Chilean fútbol (and so much temporary disgust for Bolivian fans), quelled less than 2 hours after a four-nil victory that all but ensured Chile’s entry into the World Cup.  Documentary clips of Abbey Hoffman and violent pontifications by Richard J. Daley came to mind… but in truth, this tear gassing in urban Santiago was nothing monumental. In fact, it happens quite often from what I understand, usually when Chile defeats a Latin American foe.

 

The reason: Traffic.

 

Upon leaving El Estadio, the people cluster in the streets, waving flags and celebrating the success of their team as cars pile up and horns harmonize into a tangled maelstrom of impatience. For most, there is no time for the extravagancies of nationalism; they have kids, they have work, they have wives and girlfriends and brothers and sisters to get home to, and home PROMPTLY they wish to be. One minute, la calle is bumping; the next, heavy clouds of white smoke are encasing the trafficjammers like a suit of irascible bees, forcing all those affected to scatter to the nearest bar, restaurant, or taxi. A sea of Red, White, and Blue is reduced to an asphalt block brindled with salt-stained cheeks and rising gas. I thought, FOX or MSNBC could make a show called “When Supporting Your Country Goes To Far” if this happens as often as I’m told. Unorthodox as its methodology may be, perhaps El Gobierno feels that Chilean pride should move its people to tears…

 

Yeah, and the NSA was collecting telephone calls for a “voyeur” audio-art project.

 

But enough about politics. Ah, yes, of course— The Game.

 

My host family’s apartment is located about three metro stops from Nuble, the station closest to El Estadio. On a busy morning, it might take you ten or (apocryphally) fifteen minutes to hop on at Parque Bustamante and off at Nuble. Double that, and you have my total waiting time on the platform at Parque Bustamante on Wednesday night. People inside the trains contorted their bodies in unsettling shapes, merging with those to their right, left, front, and back just to avoid the vice of automatic doors. To get on the train, you had to target people who were getting off, and jump in front of them so that they would have no choice but to pull themselves into your spot, and, naturally, you into theirs. And so there we were, a gelled pod of human marmalade packed into a jar of glass and metal. At Nuble, we were set free by the automatic door, everyone shouting “Permiso, Permiso!” but not a single person allowing another to pass him. And so we poured over one another into the station, relishing the extra six inches of space created as we emerged from the station onto Dittborn Street.

 

Filing down the long stretch of car-bound road leading to El Estadio, we must have passed at least 200 sandwich stands, a few hundred drink and nut kiosks, and thousands of street vendors, each one shouting over and over the shortest elevator pitch known to man (Luca! Luca! Luca!) in an attempt to shed piles of t-shirts, jerseys, and flags bearing the insignia de la patria Chileana. And after weathering the temptations of cheap consumerism, we finally arrived at the impressive (and crowded) Estadio Nacional. Picture 67,000 flag-wrapped fans beaming with praise for their beloved team and brimming with maldichos for their opponents (Note: Mothers were brought into it and there were many, MANY confident accusations of Bolivian homosexuality) . 

The poor Bolivian fans, crammed into a caged box about a thousandth the size of the stadium, protected by a shield of Chilean metal and Kevlar (ok, so I doubt the Kevlar is Chilean) so that they all may return home alive. “Maricon,” “Puta Madre,” and other unspeakables were arched and launched like ardent arrows at the nation that sits at dead last in the Latin American league, not because Chile hates Bolivia, but because Chile loves Chile. It could have been Brazil up there (though, the “cage” would have to be widened quite a bit) or Spain (in which case “gringo” would quickly change from affectionate to pejorative and malicious) or the United States (well, there would be no one cheering for them in El Estadio, so I’m guessing our beloved players would just have to swallow all of it themselves…). The point of soccer at the international level is to bring the people of a nation together in celebration of strength and vitality. And at game, the goal-triggered twitch and explosion of Chilean fans, all shouting “Chi-Chi-Chi…”in unison told the story of a nation welded together by its culture, by its history, and its soccer.

 

In retrospect, that might just be something worth crying over.

 

Dude, we're in Chile...Excellllent!: My first experience with Chilean Slang

For those of you who were so blessed as to receive the inculcations of traditional Spanish in American school: fasten your seatbelts, twist your pristine horizons of frases y parafos into the inverted position, y estaí como un pez en agua… cachaí?! All those years of instruction, of infinite memorization of vocabulary words que se puede apilar tan grande como los Andes, of merciless grammar rules and rigid sentence structures, de examenes y pruebas y ensayos y actividades de escuchar, all in vain as I am greeted with an animated, “Como taí, hue'ón?” upon entering the hotel in Santiago.

 Como taí...? Espera…what?!?! 

When speaking informally in the second person, I was taught to conjugate “estar,” an “ar” verb free of twists and turns, with the suffix “ás.” Therefore, the correct pronunciation when questioning my mental, physical, social, and economic state, also known as my phenomenal being, would be: “Cómo estás.” Furthermore, this “huevón” creature, a slinking ghost of a word absent from my mental dictionary as well as my paperback, elicits images of cracking eggs, sweating and frying in a bubbling pan. I thought, maybe he’s talking about my forehead, slaked with sticky sweat and Economy-section loam from the long flight; I  heard from friends that Chileans are known for creating nicknames from physical features, not as a pejorative practice, but rather an affectionate one.  Even so, I became more self-conscious: was I an egghead?  Did I seem feminine (there is nothing more clearly feminine than an ova) or perhaps masculine (then again, maybe I am perceived as king of the eggs…)?  Instead of playing a guessing game, I just asked for the English translation, and of course, the response was very clear: “Pues…huevón can be like…anything. I don’t know…you just…you just say “huevón” al fin y…it’s like…” We were getting nowhere, the Chilean language slowly melting into a pool of unpinchable mercury, a colorless stain on the linguistic fabric.

 

“…its like…dude.”

 

Yes.

 

Dude.

 

Excellent, as Ted would say (for those of you who have seen the film, and for those of you who have not, but still believe in The Excellent Adventure).

 

My first, and most important, Chleanismo.

 

I learned much later that “huevón” functions  like the word “bro” in the pseudo-hyper-masculine sphere of American fraternities. These words are dropped like Lehman Brothers from portfolios or Chilean copper prices from ’06 levels.  And in Chilean, this word is transformed into a verb, and even used in place of words for no reason at all, simply at the discretion of the speaker. As far as nouns are concerned, all things “hue” are chameleons, relying exclusively on context to retain their place and legitimacy in the lexicon.

 

As I begin my work here (which I will discuss in my next entry) and interact more with Chilean culture, I’m sure I will have many numerous, if not never-ending, encounters with Chilean slang. And I promise, I will do my best to make these nouveau discoveries a subtle motif in my future posts. But I thought, considering “huevón” is the “bro” of Chilean slang, I would make this one completely about language, because words connect people, connect cultures, connect nations, connect the world, and thus, whether in Chile or New York or Beijing, we all move across the universe as one. Cachaí? (You feel me?) I know, that’s deep…huevón.