Wednesday, August 31, 2005
I was watching the TV...
The damage from Katrina is staggering, I knew that New Orleans was vunerable to serious flooding, but seeing on the TV is something else. It makes the flooding in Santiago seem like a spilled glass of water. There is a blog trying to post info about damage and info...
Waking up early at the mine
I don´t have much of a sleep pattern anymore since starting this job. I get up fairly early on Monday, obscenely early on Tuesday, and fairly early on Wednesday, then, my wake up time gets later and later as I move towards the weekend.
It is also a bit of a shock to go from the mine back to Santiago and vice versa. When I arrive in Santiago on Thursday morning around 3 am, it is a much different place from what I wake up to the next day. The hustle and bustle of the city is almost overwhelming. In the mine, I recognize many faces, people say hello to each other and aren´t afraid to make eye contact. All of that is out the window in Santiago. You avoid eye contact, keep to your friends, and pay attention. The smog blurs the view of the mountains, and the weather is different as well, more clouds, less sun, but warmer.
I feel like I have a double life or something. My focus and thoughts change depending where I am. The mine gives me more time for reflextion, to plot my next move, time to overanalyze everything, whereas in Santiago that sensation gets overwhelmed by the different options in front of me.
So tonight I go back to the mad world of the micro, where I have my space, and leave the cold, isolated, tight nit, and sometimes boring world of the mine until next week...
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
snow up here....
lots of snow up at the mine, I´m trying to get photos online but am having alot of problems with the photo site...
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Santiago turns into New Venice
You don´t have to go to Venice to have a romantic walk along urban canals, just come on down to Santiago and pick any major road, add a few days of rain, and enjoy...
Photos are from Sebastián Arancibia at Canal 13,
Photos are from Sebastián Arancibia at Canal 13,
Saturday, August 27, 2005
the rain continues..
Friday, August 26, 2005
from where I sleep at the mine...
Took a muddy ride...
I need a good ride after sitting too long at the mine. It 's good for the blood to take a ride as often as possible. Seems to get some sort of toxin out of the my system that the body creates when it has been enclosed in a small room, doing nothing for too long. All of those thoughts starting with "if" are pedalled out of my brain and at the end of it all, when I am finally relaxing, my life feels simplier.
So I set out, and not more than a minute after leaving it started to rain.
No problem , I thought, and headed on my way. My destination was a park in La Reina located on the edge of the mountain range. Even the edge is steep, and it is a ride that makes me want to give in. There is a hill that stands around 3,500 meters which I am aiming for, but after two attempts I have yet to make it up all the way.
The path takes me through several different neighborhoods, from tree filled, architecturally inspired part of town to muddy slums with too many metal fences. The road and side walk are full of holes, only a few curbs are anything decent to ride over. By the time I get to the base of the mountains from my apartment I have already fought through several kilometers of rough riding.
The uphill starts, and doesn't let up until you give up. It starts out on cement and goes straight up. Too steep, I always think as I stare up the road ahead of me. I thought that I would be able to handle it a little better since my last attempt. I had been on the bike more often and felt more confident about my physical condition.
Instead I found it more difficult. I was standing up while pedaling, counting my progress foot by foot. I had to stop several times in the cool drizzle that enclosed Santiago and isolated it from any sort of sun or blue sky. It also had a nasty way of holding in the smog, but that was only during the rain. After rainfall in Santiago you can actually see the mountains, in detail, and glazed with a fresh layer of Andean snow.
I continued my ascent, making progress slowly, but surely. After some time, I got to the block before the long, very steep patch of road before the entrance to the park. It was still the beginning of the ascent, but a patch of flat earth awaiting me. I stopped and took a short breather. While I was stopped, another biker, a mailman, pulled up to the intersection with his overloaded rig. It was still a drizzle, and the wet, steep street glistened, making it look even meaner. He took a look at the climb, then at me.
"Vas a subrir?" He asked me (Are you going up?)
"claro" I answered.
"puedes llevar un sobre alli? He asked (could you take an enevelope up there?)
"No problema"
I stuffed the enevelop, destined for the park office, coming from the bank, into my pocket. Pedal by pedal, I forced my way up the hill. I got to the top and delivered the letter to some confused looking workers. After all, it wasn't everyday that there was a gringo delivering bank notes.
This park consists of an event center, a luge-type slide, an equestrian club, picnic space, and several hiking trails. I started up the trails, but found the riding overwhelming. Wheezing for air, feeling a little sick from all the pedaling, I pushed my bike for awhile and then started pedaling again. It was around then that I realized that the entire time I had been using the middle gears, not the granny ones for climbing. The anguish of the push up hill made a little more sense, and I sighed seeing how much of a difference the lower gears made.
I pushed on ahead, and arrived at a wide trail, It had been cleared recently and was more of a road than a trail. I headed up and after awhile again had to get off my bike and push it. Finally I was about out of gas. The nice thing about this ride is that you can ride all you want, and without a problem find the point where you just can't ride any higher. I found some shelter under a tree and gazed out over the clouded view of Santiago. I could barely see my neighborhood, which was relatively close in the scale of things. The center of town, much less the other side of the valley ,were completly hidden in the smog and rain.
The drizzle picked up to rain, and I deceided to head back down. Coming up, the road had been dirt, going down it was pure clay. It stuck to my tires, surrounding the chain, the brakes, the derailer. I had to stop every few minutes in the ever increasing rain and clear out the clay. At one point I couldn't even turn the back wheel. It was a matter of pushing the clay clogged bicycle, but at the same town keeping it from rolling down the hill to fast.
Finally, I made it off the mud road, cleared away some of the excess mudd and headed back to the paved road. The downhill, normaly the highlight of the ride, was difficult, mud flying in my face, rain coming down, I was trying to keep my speed low but because of the grade it was tempting to just let go of the brakes and let gravity pay the bill.
In the end, I made the long ride back to the shelter of my apartment. I was completely soaked, covered in mud, had cold hands, and worn out.
In other words, one great ride.
So I set out, and not more than a minute after leaving it started to rain.
No problem , I thought, and headed on my way. My destination was a park in La Reina located on the edge of the mountain range. Even the edge is steep, and it is a ride that makes me want to give in. There is a hill that stands around 3,500 meters which I am aiming for, but after two attempts I have yet to make it up all the way.
The path takes me through several different neighborhoods, from tree filled, architecturally inspired part of town to muddy slums with too many metal fences. The road and side walk are full of holes, only a few curbs are anything decent to ride over. By the time I get to the base of the mountains from my apartment I have already fought through several kilometers of rough riding.
The uphill starts, and doesn't let up until you give up. It starts out on cement and goes straight up. Too steep, I always think as I stare up the road ahead of me. I thought that I would be able to handle it a little better since my last attempt. I had been on the bike more often and felt more confident about my physical condition.
Instead I found it more difficult. I was standing up while pedaling, counting my progress foot by foot. I had to stop several times in the cool drizzle that enclosed Santiago and isolated it from any sort of sun or blue sky. It also had a nasty way of holding in the smog, but that was only during the rain. After rainfall in Santiago you can actually see the mountains, in detail, and glazed with a fresh layer of Andean snow.
I continued my ascent, making progress slowly, but surely. After some time, I got to the block before the long, very steep patch of road before the entrance to the park. It was still the beginning of the ascent, but a patch of flat earth awaiting me. I stopped and took a short breather. While I was stopped, another biker, a mailman, pulled up to the intersection with his overloaded rig. It was still a drizzle, and the wet, steep street glistened, making it look even meaner. He took a look at the climb, then at me.
"Vas a subrir?" He asked me (Are you going up?)
"claro" I answered.
"puedes llevar un sobre alli? He asked (could you take an enevelope up there?)
"No problema"
I stuffed the enevelop, destined for the park office, coming from the bank, into my pocket. Pedal by pedal, I forced my way up the hill. I got to the top and delivered the letter to some confused looking workers. After all, it wasn't everyday that there was a gringo delivering bank notes.
This park consists of an event center, a luge-type slide, an equestrian club, picnic space, and several hiking trails. I started up the trails, but found the riding overwhelming. Wheezing for air, feeling a little sick from all the pedaling, I pushed my bike for awhile and then started pedaling again. It was around then that I realized that the entire time I had been using the middle gears, not the granny ones for climbing. The anguish of the push up hill made a little more sense, and I sighed seeing how much of a difference the lower gears made.
I pushed on ahead, and arrived at a wide trail, It had been cleared recently and was more of a road than a trail. I headed up and after awhile again had to get off my bike and push it. Finally I was about out of gas. The nice thing about this ride is that you can ride all you want, and without a problem find the point where you just can't ride any higher. I found some shelter under a tree and gazed out over the clouded view of Santiago. I could barely see my neighborhood, which was relatively close in the scale of things. The center of town, much less the other side of the valley ,were completly hidden in the smog and rain.
The drizzle picked up to rain, and I deceided to head back down. Coming up, the road had been dirt, going down it was pure clay. It stuck to my tires, surrounding the chain, the brakes, the derailer. I had to stop every few minutes in the ever increasing rain and clear out the clay. At one point I couldn't even turn the back wheel. It was a matter of pushing the clay clogged bicycle, but at the same town keeping it from rolling down the hill to fast.
Finally, I made it off the mud road, cleared away some of the excess mudd and headed back to the paved road. The downhill, normaly the highlight of the ride, was difficult, mud flying in my face, rain coming down, I was trying to keep my speed low but because of the grade it was tempting to just let go of the brakes and let gravity pay the bill.
In the end, I made the long ride back to the shelter of my apartment. I was completely soaked, covered in mud, had cold hands, and worn out.
In other words, one great ride.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The strange realm of the internet....
The internet is a bizarre place, or it can be. Especially its outlet hubs where people gather to view, interact, download, upload, chat, blog, copy, burn, and email. I remember in the computer labs of the UI library (UI by the way received a high ranking as one of the US's biggest party schools) people would gather and there was a strange sensation of some sort of progress being made in the world. Papers were being written, people were learning, in the internet room of the Hotel Mina, here in Los Pelambres, things are different.
There are those downloading music, some from the 80's, guns n roses, Tracy Chapman, Led Zeppellin, Chilean music, you name it. Others are playing army video games with people yelling commands in a walkie talkie style sound, screaming about this and that. Others download strange comedic performances taped in the Plaza de Armas of Santiago. Of course, no group of miners on the internet would be complete without someone downloading or copying some porn. I don't know if sites are blocked, but I doubt it. Needless to say, the noises, sights, and impressions all blend together in one very interesting medely.
Here's to the power of this strange creature known as the internet...
There are those downloading music, some from the 80's, guns n roses, Tracy Chapman, Led Zeppellin, Chilean music, you name it. Others are playing army video games with people yelling commands in a walkie talkie style sound, screaming about this and that. Others download strange comedic performances taped in the Plaza de Armas of Santiago. Of course, no group of miners on the internet would be complete without someone downloading or copying some porn. I don't know if sites are blocked, but I doubt it. Needless to say, the noises, sights, and impressions all blend together in one very interesting medely.
Here's to the power of this strange creature known as the internet...
Friday, August 19, 2005
that struggle within...
Sometimes, well maybe a little more then sometimes, life seems to be this struggle to maintain some sort of continual balance. Ever since leaving school, and shortly thereafter, leaving the US I have been engaged in this struggle to figure out when on earth I might possible be heading. My focus shifts constantly, not just in subject, but on the level in which I squint my third eye. What part of my life demands the next step? Is it my personal life that needs some extra flavor? Is a good group of friends better than a best bud? Will a girlfriend overcomplicate my life or bring another aspect more beautiful than I could have envisioned? If I let my professional side lapse, can I make up the slack with my hobbies? These questions seem to be even more difficult when there is another language, another culture, and my own unstable brain all competing for that next conscious push forward. In the end, I end up moving forward on some sort of path that almost feels predestined. I try for something in spirit but all of my conscious efforts fail. Only after a mixture of coincidence, foresight, and a lot of pure luck do things seem to move in the way that I had wanted, or maybe more honestly put, move in a way that afterwards I can accept, thereby letting one part of my life move on, and actually feel somewhat content. That is, until things change, and that feeling which suggests that things must change sometime soon comes over me once again.
So it goes...
So it goes...
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
A white winter has finally fallen...
Snow is here, or at least up where I'm staying at the mine. I was riding in an elevator last night on my way to my last class of the evening and I saw a street light. In the light you could see the snow pass by, it reminded me of cold Iowa winters spent trapped indoors. At lower altitudes it is only raining, but up here at around 2,800 meters there is a blanket of snow covering everything. It looks so smooth, so perfect, a soft layer of white that pleases the eye but freezes the hand.
Makes me think of all those winters sledding at Longfellow elementary in Iowa City. It was such a big hill, and I was so small. There would always be these pile ups of kids crashing into each other. I remember one really bad one, it seemed like there were fifteen kids all lying in a heap covered by snow and plastic sleds bought at Hy-Vee.
Snow is something that I do enjoy to see every now and then, but to be honest, once a year is probably enough, I look forward to spring which will be on its way in about a month. Bring on the good weather...
Makes me think of all those winters sledding at Longfellow elementary in Iowa City. It was such a big hill, and I was so small. There would always be these pile ups of kids crashing into each other. I remember one really bad one, it seemed like there were fifteen kids all lying in a heap covered by snow and plastic sleds bought at Hy-Vee.
Snow is something that I do enjoy to see every now and then, but to be honest, once a year is probably enough, I look forward to spring which will be on its way in about a month. Bring on the good weather...
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Hurry up and wait...
It was a concept that I thought I had left behind me as I drove away from Fort Bragg, NC. Getting up before the sun comes up so that you can spend most of the mourning waiting. Hurry up and wait, they say. It seems to be that I have found another opportunity to live in such a way.
I woke up at around 5:30 am this morning, roosters were calling out, telling me that it was entirely too early to be getting up. A cool rain drizzled down on to the quite streets of Salamanca. I found my place at the corner where the bus stops and boarded it a few minutes later. Then came time for a quick nap. It isn´t good sleep or anything, speed bumps, cramped spaces make it difficult at best to catch some Zzzzs. It was a long weekend so Tuesday was the first day of the work week and many people were still arriving to the mine from all over Chile.
The mine, especially in the valley near the copper plant, has a very particular odor. I sensed itimmediatelyy after getting onto the bus. It reminds me of industrial cleaner and food for the masses. It makes my stomach turn in place.
I arrived at the mine, had to get off the bus run to the gate office to get my ID checked, security guards use hand scanners to check every person who enters or leaves the mine, my ID is suppose to work, but it always has problems. Finally we arrived to the cafeteria, I ate quickly and went to find a ride up to the Hotel Mina, some 1,200 meters higher on the way to the mineitselff, however no one was home in the Human Resources building. That was shortly before 8 am.
It is about 10 now and I wait in a cold room typing on a slow computer, thinking about that warm, comfortable bed that I rushed away from several hours ago...
I woke up at around 5:30 am this morning, roosters were calling out, telling me that it was entirely too early to be getting up. A cool rain drizzled down on to the quite streets of Salamanca. I found my place at the corner where the bus stops and boarded it a few minutes later. Then came time for a quick nap. It isn´t good sleep or anything, speed bumps, cramped spaces make it difficult at best to catch some Zzzzs. It was a long weekend so Tuesday was the first day of the work week and many people were still arriving to the mine from all over Chile.
The mine, especially in the valley near the copper plant, has a very particular odor. I sensed itimmediatelyy after getting onto the bus. It reminds me of industrial cleaner and food for the masses. It makes my stomach turn in place.
I arrived at the mine, had to get off the bus run to the gate office to get my ID checked, security guards use hand scanners to check every person who enters or leaves the mine, my ID is suppose to work, but it always has problems. Finally we arrived to the cafeteria, I ate quickly and went to find a ride up to the Hotel Mina, some 1,200 meters higher on the way to the mineitselff, however no one was home in the Human Resources building. That was shortly before 8 am.
It is about 10 now and I wait in a cold room typing on a slow computer, thinking about that warm, comfortable bed that I rushed away from several hours ago...
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Dia del Minero...
Today is the day of the mine, an annual celebration of mining here in Chile. This year brings much to celebrate as Chile´s main export, copper, is selling at a high rate. This means that the mining industry is doing quite well, politicians are scrambling to impose taxes, workers are looking to change jobs as new work opens up, and the mine can afford to hire people to do things such as teach English!
The day of the mine is celebrated by a special lunch which is going on right now. A young girl sings songs and the hotel receptionist (where I work, and where most of the miners sleep at night) passes out wallets, belts featuring large, texas style belt buckle with the name of the mine, Los Pelambres. Tonight the operators, ie, the miners, will get a show from an exotic dancer with a name to the effect of tities so and so.. the management, and support staff (which features a percentage of females employees) will receive a tamer event, with singers, and a comedian. I hope to be able to make it to the watered down dinner. I have been warned that the comedian has been known to single gringos out from the crowd and make fun of them in a dialect that only a Chilean could understand. On top of that, I have also been told that there is an effort to well, bother any foreigners, gringos, Japanese, and whoever has the misfortune of ending up a target of bad humor. Last year one of the English teachers drank a little too much red wine and started dancing on a table. Something that was laughed at then, but was also noted when time came to renew the contracts. Needless to say, my boss gave us all a warning about "etiquite" but I think we all should be ok.
So goes my one month anniversary of working here, it has been interesting, to say the least.
Salud por el dia de la Minera...
The day of the mine is celebrated by a special lunch which is going on right now. A young girl sings songs and the hotel receptionist (where I work, and where most of the miners sleep at night) passes out wallets, belts featuring large, texas style belt buckle with the name of the mine, Los Pelambres. Tonight the operators, ie, the miners, will get a show from an exotic dancer with a name to the effect of tities so and so.. the management, and support staff (which features a percentage of females employees) will receive a tamer event, with singers, and a comedian. I hope to be able to make it to the watered down dinner. I have been warned that the comedian has been known to single gringos out from the crowd and make fun of them in a dialect that only a Chilean could understand. On top of that, I have also been told that there is an effort to well, bother any foreigners, gringos, Japanese, and whoever has the misfortune of ending up a target of bad humor. Last year one of the English teachers drank a little too much red wine and started dancing on a table. Something that was laughed at then, but was also noted when time came to renew the contracts. Needless to say, my boss gave us all a warning about "etiquite" but I think we all should be ok.
So goes my one month anniversary of working here, it has been interesting, to say the least.
Salud por el dia de la Minera...
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
I remember applying for the Peace Corps...
It was over a year and a half ago that I deceided I would apply to the Peace Corps. It was a decision based on my desire to live outside of the US for some time. There were many advantages of the Peace Corps, such as a good training program (or at least they claim) espenses paid, contacts upon arriving, and incentives upon completion of the two year stint. They would include a bonus, pay a severange of several thousand dollars, but aside from these financial benefits there were looming disadvantages as well. First of all, not being able to have much of a say where on earth I would end up. Tanzania is much different from Bolivia, there was no guerentee that I would´ve been able to land a job in a Spanish speaking country. The biggest disadvantage though, was the connection to the US governement, and utimitaly to the Defense Department, even if only in people´s mind. There are many reasons to distrust anything with a US government label these days, and having already spent three years in the heart of this military machine, I wasn´t too sure that I wanted anything that remotely was related. But of course, the Peace Corps is seperate from the military, and each situation depends on those involved. Well, this is the case now, but according to an article in the Washington Post, there is a plan on the table to incorporate military service with Peace Corps service. The move has alarmed many within the Peace Corps, and who can blame them. The idea of going from patroling the streets of Baghdad with a loaded M-16, then moving this person to a situation where they are working on a community project with locals sounds like a collision of two very different worlds. It would also make it hard for countries receiving help through the Peace Corps to rest assured that there is no other agenda at work within their borders. Altogether, sounds like a very bad move to me. My Peace Corps appication faltered at the first interview when I was told that everthing which I had applied for, well, I just wasn´t qulified for it. Teaching English on my own accord as a private citizen sounded much better, and I can say for sure now after reading about these new plans, that I indeed made the right choice. |
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