¿Chile de todos?

Hi all!

I want to preface this entry by saying that one of my biggest regrets while here has been my failing to get informed on Chilean politics and current events. My biggest sources of news have been the complaints of my host parents and the huge signs placed over building entryways proclaiming worker strikes.

However ill-informed I might be, it has been impossible to miss the national presidential and parliamentary elections that occurred here on November 17. During the week leading up to election day, the huge billboards and posters that had covered the streets and sides of buildings since I arrived in July multiplied ten-fold. There were also pamphlets (either passed out by campaigners in the streets during rush hour or apparently thrown by the hundreds out of windows by the looks of some areas of the city) and men who rode around in the back of patriotically decorated campaign trucks with everything from bullhorns to very sophisticated sound systems alternatingly blasting cumbia music and lobbing campaign promises.

The campaign ads were different from the ones you see back home because they all, without fail, starred a picture of the candidates. I don't think of Chile as a very image-conscious society, so I wonder if the pictures indicate a more personal relationship between the people and their leaders. Regardless, it's definitely quite a risk to put your face out there on the streets of Valpo: I saw many pirate-patched eyes and surprisingly realistic-looking drawn-in mustaches, to mention some of the more benign incidents.

Michelle: Everyone's Chile

Evelyn: Let's win together

Among the multitude of candidates, the two most prevalent were the two front-runners for President, two women: Evelyn Matthei and Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet, who served as President of Chile from 2006 and 2010,  represented the liberal Socialist Party promising constitutional reforms, free higher education, and to diminish the ever-growing gap between rich and poor. Evelyn represented the conservative right Independent Democratic Union party aligned with current president Sebastian Piñera and his policies of privatization and lowering taxes.

The fascinating underlying story here is that these two women have known each other since childhood. Their fathers were both Air Force generals before the 1973 military coup. Under the dictatorship Evelyn's father remained with the military, becoming a member of the junta that was responsible for the torture and death in prison of Michelle's dissenting father. Michelle herself was tortured and exiled.

So, I imagine that for these two women and for most Chileans, the race was underlyingly, an emotionally charged choice between two different versions of history that in turn shape the vision of the country's future.

As expected, Michelle won 46% of the vote, a clear plurality, but not enough to stop the run-off election scheduled for December in which she will again compete (and almost certainly win) against Evelyn, who received just 25%. For a more accurate summary, here's an article from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24977405

I was lucky enough to get get to go with my host mom to her polling place on election day. We drove across the city to a school that has been assigned to her based on gender and her national id number - which means that my host dad actually goes to a different, much closer place to vote. The procedure was familiar, if a little antiquated with paper ballots, cubbies with plastic sheets for privacy, and stamps for sealing the ballots before dropping each into its assigned box. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take pictures.

This was the first general election in which voting was not a requirement. And from what I've heard, turn out, especially among the young people who like to protest and demand action so loudly and frequently, was disappointingly low. All the Chileans I know voted, but were very careful not to show up to the polls before eleven in the morning, because apparently the first people who show up to vote are commandeered (ie legally required) to fill-in for the awol summoned volunteers who are either no longer alive or chose not to devote their entire day to sitting at a table and checking voters' IDs against often inaccurate rosters.

What really struck me was the seriousness in the air. This is a country where for 17 years of military rule, there was not political expression, opposition, or voting. That memory is still fresh, so voting is by no means a burden or a throw-away. It occupies an entire day during which all businesses shut down and the only people on the streets seem to be heading in streams either to or away from polling places.

That did not stop my host mom from stopping to buy celebratory flowers.

(The title means "Everyone's Chile?")

Ciudad informal

Estimados (hah!),

I only have a month left in Valparaíso (less really, when you take out my two remaining weekend camping trips with Mountain Sports and my planned expedition to Patagonia during the first week of December).

It's the strangest thing because from when I got here up until a few weeks ago, I looked forward and saw what seemed like an eternity ahead of me. But now, it feels like there's no time at all. Where did it all go? How'd I go from counting down the months to desperately clinging to each of my precious few days? Is this going to happen for the rest of my life? Ok, I'll save the quarter-life crisis for later. Ironically there's just not enough time for it right now!

I'm going to gloss over the incredible trip down south to Pucón my interchange program took us on. I'm fortunate enough to be returning in a month (AHHHH) with my family (Hi M, D, & Nad! I can't wait to see you guys by the way!) and will certainly share more about that region after that trip. However, I can't resist a small preview of what's to come:

When not traveling or working frantically on applications for things at Georgetown (yes, somehow it still manages to take up more of my time than the university I am actually attending), I've been trying to spend a lot of time with my host family. They are really such wonderful people and have made my transition into their family as smooth as it could have possibly been. And in addition to that, they're my single greatest source of insight into this crazy city.

A few weekends ago, they took me to an exhibition that was part of the Festival Internacional Danzaalborde, a week long contemporary dance festival. My host mom, being an architect and urban planner, wanted to go to this exhibition in particular because it took place outside and was supposed to move from the top of a hill down with each successive performance.

We arrived to the plaza during the start of the first dance. They had delineated their "stage" with tape on the ground and set up giant speakers to blast their creepy modern techno music (I'm at a complete loss for words for how to describe it better). But aside from those two formalities, the performance looked just like people going about their regular business had broken out into beautiful ballet and attracted a small crowd, sitting and standing along the borders of their performance. The dancers were wearing plain clothes and kept on entering and exiting the performance from the street, blurring the lines between audience and participant. There were dogs barking and nipping at the heels of the dancers, children climbing in overhanging trees, and a man walking through completely immersed in an iPad and seemingly completely oblivious to the performance. I still have no idea which parts of it were planned and which weren't.

Note: my host siblings and mom in the foreground and iPad man towards the back

Immediately after the music stopped, things really got weird. A group of five people dressed in street clothes that looked normal from the front, but as if they'd all laid down in the same color yellow paint from the back, struck a pose and then scampered off. The audience followed, demonstrating the porteño (Valparaisian) acceptance of the weird and unexpected that I'm going to fondly call flexibility of thought.

These yellow ballerinas proceeded to lead the audience down the hill, winding, hopping, climbing, prancing, rolling, and frequently stopping to lie down in the middle of the street, on rooftops, on each other. The whole thing was quite frankly baffling.

But what really struck me was how exceptional Valparaíso is. A city where dancers can literally take over the streets? Where cars are expected to wait for the art to pass? Where a passing police car is heckled for not giving creativity a respectful distance? Where these dancers could practice this performance without being committed to an insane asylum? How incredible.

It reminded me of something my host mom had said earlier in the week. I'd walked into the kitchen during what was supposed to be a city-wide water outage to see her washing dishes. Surprised, I asked how the water was on. She thought for a moment, then said "Mi hija, vienes de un lugar distinto. Hay ciudades formales y hay informales. Esta es una informal" ("Daughter, you come from a very different place. There are formal cities and there are informal cities. This is an informal one."). In that moment, she was both laughing, but deeply serious and sad, but proud.

An informal city of water-outages that happen two days late, sidewalks converted into trash mountain ranges by the reverse erosion of a garbage collection strike, streets not assumed to belong to cars, and creativity that seems to seep out of every crack in every deteriorating building. Is the mess needed for the beauty of this place? Could it change? Should it?

I have no conclusions for you today, only wonder. I'm no artist, but hope I've been able to share even a little bit of it.

(Ciudad informal means "informal city")