Bomberos alarm

In Chile, everyone knows when it is noontime. When I first heard the siren makes its announcement, I was startled and surprised, holding my ears as if to escape the sound of a loud ambulance passing by. What is that awful noise, I asked? It wasn’t until I bought a watch and asked a few people what the sound was, that I realized in all of Chile, in every city, town, or village, the local fire station sets their siren to alarm at noon everyday, as if to have a community timekeeper or an alarm clock broadcasting the time. In between the high-pitched siren that happens to go off only 2 blocks away from the Caritas office, where I work, one can hear the faint melody of church bells competing for air space.

Not surprisingly the church bells aren’t as strong and don’t last as long as the fire siren, and only if one strains can they hear the sacred drone. I found it particularly interesting when I asked my supervisor why it was a custom in Chile to have a loud siren at noon, and she said that it’s derived from religious traditions. She explained that only recently has Chile become more secular within public life, but that many Catholic and religious traditions are still maintained out of custom and habit, within the community. Historically speaking, the Church rings it bells at noon everyday to pray to the Angeles. The Chilean culture is so accustomed to being notified when it is noontime, because of the Church, that they have made it into an everyday, nonreligious aspect of life. It’s interesting how traditions get started and how quickly we forget or loose site of their beginnings, also interesting how humans adapt, so effortlessly, without being conscious of it, as gradual changes soon become habitual norms.

What would the Chileans do without their noontime alarm? I have grown to appreciate it and smile, no longer being annoyed. I also have grown to have huge respect for all of the Firefighters here. Every firefighter in Chile is a volunteer; there is not ONE firefighter that gets paid for their work. That just baffles me. How can a job as valuable and necessary as a firefighter not be paid, when plastic surgeons, and strippers rake in the money?! Well, I know the answer to that, hormonelocura, but it still seems a bit absurd.

Another tradition, known to many Latin cultures, that is exercised daily here in Linares, is Almuerzo. The much anticipated, needed, and respected time of the day where everything and everyone rests and goes on break. It makes sense eating the largest meal during the day and a small meal at night, my mom always said it was the healthiest (thanks mom for the healthy tips!), and even though I always get afternoon sueño it seems important to take a break during the heat of the day. From 1PM to 3PM everyday I return home from downtown Linares, which is a 15-minute colectivo ride that costs me 290 pesos, 50 cents, and is shared with other people who are also returning to the Huapi neighborhood. Passing buses, taxis and other colectivos, we zoom through the exhaust filled streets and over the train tracks. On the shoulder of the street dozens of exhausted workers are riding home on their bikes to refuel, eat some lunch, and then return to work, probably doing construction or picking fruit. On the way to the Huapi, my humble and comfortable neighborhood, we pass buildings sprayed with graffiti murals and expressive words, and the gypsy tents, I can’t leave out the gypsy block.

Chile has many gypsies. I don’t know a lot about their history, where the came from originally, and how long they’ve been around, but they are certainly a stronghold in Linares and in most cities in the Central Valley. They are a very interested group of people that move from place to place, carrying their home everywhere they go, just like the classic nomadic gypsy image everyone has in their head. In Linares they take up an entire vacant block to the entrance of my neighborhood.

My family and the Chileans in general don’t seem to have a strong opinion about them because they aren’t apart of the community. Yet everyone finds them intriguing and mysterious, and a bit of a nuisance. They are kind of like aliens that people ogle at from afar and tighten with protective reactions when they come close. They are known for stealing from people, from private homes, and even cutting power lines from the streets to wire their TV’s and stereos. They all live in colorful circus looking tents and the groups vary from 3-8 tents. In the central plaza I’ve had several opportunities to observe their pattern of begging. The women walk around with long colorful dresses with fanny packs and naked babies hanging from their sides. They strut up to you, stick out their hand forcefully and say in Spanish “give me money” with an earnest and commanding voice. Some offer a palm reading in exchange for “Plata”, but others just get to the point.

When I’m ready to get out of the Colectivo I ask to be dropped on the corner, “me deja en la vuelta”, and I walk past a small creek murky with trash and smelling of unpleasant bathroom aroma, and a giant concrete Catholic church before coming to my quiet street filled with loose chickens and 3-dogs to every house. At the end of the block is my house with a small rose bush and a blooming nectarine tree out front. I enter the gate, knock on the locked door, and escape into the dark and cool house, ready to eat a combination of the following; tomatoes, beans, lettuce, bread, corn, and meat. I sit, always with the TV on, in the dark kitchen and eat with my host-mom, brother, and grandmother, and on the weekend everyone, including the sister and father, eats together. This is the almuerzo tradition. Something I will surely miss once I go back to long days where I forget to eat until its dark. In Chile, I never forget to eat. Food and family gatherings always find me, they are what people work for and wait for, and expect day in and day out.

Picking Blueberries

Although they still picked twice as fast as me, their wrinkled and brown hands swiftly moving as if this rhythmic motion had been imprinted into them, I still like to think that my first day of blueberry picking was successful- and there’s no doubt that picking tomatoes on The Thirsty Goose Farm on San Juan Island helped me: my durability to work in heat, my desire to get the best product and to please, my soft hands careful not to destroy the fragile and perfectly round crop oozing with juice, and my utmost respect and admiration for the hard work put in by farmers. My hands were slower, yes, but I don’t pick blueberries for a living 6 days a week for 3 months straight. No, I don’t, but today I got a slice, just a small flavor of what 150 women (a few men), including my host mom do for a living, hoping to make enough during the summer months to last in the winter when there is no fruit to pick- and this was only one farm among hundreds in this area that export, potatoes, flowers, corn (grain), raspberries, nectarines, wine, etc. Picking blueberries all day in the scorching sun, blueberries that will be sent around the world, exported primarily to China and the United States. We woke up at 6AM, Saturday, just like everyday for Rebecca, my Chilean mom. The mornings here in Linares (central valley) are cold and crisp. We walked out together, water bottles and lunches in hand, wearing all the layers that I brought on this trip. As we walked 20 minutes into the agricultural fields that surround this city for miles, the clouds slowly began to light up behind the mountains, filling the sky with a soft blue color. I was introduced to everyone as the American student, coming to work in the Blueberry fields for the day to get a better understanding of their daily work. Soft smiles, shy smiles, and sleepy smiles- all very sweet smiles gazing back at me. Maybe 3 men, at the most, stood in the crowd. Women of every size, shape, color and age put their sunscreen on, their hats on, their layers (soon to be shed), and geared up with buckets strapped around their waist. Each picker got assigned to specific rows, to ensure fairness and efficiency. Like everyone- they each had their own style of working. Some were quiet, some didn’t stop talking, some continuously yelled across the field of blueberry rows making jokes and laughing, sending good energy into the air. The scene was focused let lighthearted. I worked with Rebecca, who has an allergic reaction to all the chemicals they use on the Blueberries. She, like everyone, has developed a persistent rash, especially on her knees from crawling to get the low-hangers. We dug our hands into the huge bushes, delicately fingering at the powdery blue balls and dropping them into our buckets. Conversations flew around me, mostly questioning fellow workers about family members, discussing Haiti and how awful and sad it is, talking about money gained, lost, and needed, and talking about how cold it was. In two hours everyone was over-heating and sweating, hoping to pick from the shade and trying to avoid the 90-degree sun. On Saturdays she only works a half-day, because she has another job on the weekends. We finished at 12. We had picked 15 buckets all together, each big enough to fill a large crate of blueberries, and each worth $1. On a good day she gets 20 buckets, $20. I think about what we buy blueberries for in the U.S., I think about all the middlemen and where and how the money is distributed in the process of exportation, I think about how this is not a sufficient wage for them. I think about the usage of chemicals- what it does for the animals that share habitats, the bodies of humans, the plants, what it does to farming in general. In our global world, how far, and through how may processing plants, does our food go through to get to our plate? Who will eat those blueberries I picked today? Fascinating world we live in.

IDIP reflection

I arrived in Linares, Chile on January 16^th, the eve before Chile held its presidential elections. A momentous shift in Chile’s political administration took place the following day as the candidate, a Harvard graduate and businessman, from the conservative right, was elected into office. Since the dictatorship of Pinochet, Chile has maintained a center-leftist coalition called the Concertación, and this recent election marked the first change in 20 years. For some Chileans, this is an exciting and refreshing juncture, for others, it is a suspicious change that feels uncomfortably similar to Pinochet’s conservative party. Either way, my first full day in Linares was filled with honking horns, celebratory smiles, and music in the streets, and it was powerful to watch a thriving and functioning democracy of people cast their votes - generations of women holding hands, marching to the ballet box, and freely expressing their opinions in a country that experienced 16 years of dictatorship. The elected President, Piñera, is Chile’s third richest man, owning a TV channel, an international airline, and a national Fútbol team, among others, and it is disputed among his opponents that his billionaire wealth is not a healthy mix in Chilean politics. Fascinated by politics, and as an outsider, I’m excited to be here for the transition and the sequence of opinions that will surely follow.

Back to Linares. When I arrived I was welcomed-in by a smiling family of six, who live on the outskirts of town; their house is bordered by blueberry and agricultural fields on one side, and a crowded and active neighborhood on the other. It took me a while to get comfortable with the unfamiliar idioms of Chilean Spanish, and it has become a daily routine to study them, but my host-family was relaxed and everso gracious. The Chileans are very clam and light-hearted, and I immediately felt comfortable in my new home. Now, it has become customary to return home for almuerzo (lunch) everyday in a collectivo (a 50-cent shared taxi service), and eat “once” (dinner) together every night as a family. My host-parents are hard-working laborers, working construction and picking fruit everyday. Last weekend I got to work in the fruit fields with 75 other women, who make $20 tops a day. It was interesting to gain an insight into the hard work they do day-in and day-out, picking products that will all be exported. Located in the central valley, in the heart of Chile’s fertile land, Linares is surrounded by fields of every type of fruit, corn, wheat, rice, flowers and much more. The central industry here is transparently dependent on foreign demand and cheap labor. This brings me to my internship and scope of work.

Yuni and myself are both in Linares working with a social organization called Caritas. Briefly, Caritas is an International Catholic Organization that focuses on working with and providing opportunities and services to the most marginalized and poor communities. Here in Linares they work in close connection with the Chilean Government, where the majority of the funds come from. One interesting thing about Chile and working with Caritas is how integrated the Catholic Church and the Government are. Collaborating together on every social service, these two forces are constantly at work in the Caritas office. The first two weeks in Linares we received a full and broad introduction to each program, employee, and project. We spent the mornings conversing with program coordinators, and frequently went into the “terreno” during the afternoons. A few of their projects include, housing for children who are victims of abuse in their homes, micro-loans for small businesses, job-training for unemployed youth, and cooperatives for temporary fruit pickers. One of my favorite days “in the field” was spent cultivating honey from a bee farm with two families and a Caritas employee. The honey project provides families, that have no reliable income and who are considered to be below the poverty line, with the necessary equipment and information needed for a bee-farm. For example, this family was able to harvest enough honey to be sold in a small roadside stand to keep them going financially throughout the year.

Although we’ve visited and experienced many programs, the one that I have chosen to focus my project on is working with the “Temporeras”, the temporary fruit pickers. Currently working on a project to organize the women into groups and unions, Caritas intention is to help educate the women on both their legal and human rights as fruit pickers. Basic rights, such as the right to a bathroom, a lunch-break, and cold water, and a living wage, are not recognized in most companies here; the workers voices are not respected nor heard. Exporting all of its products to places like the United States and Europe, Chile boasts its open market, yet the repercussions felt in the field are devastating. For the next two months my intention is to work with Hermana Fuesanta (the program coordinator), record the stories and experiences of these women, and help to compile the information into a pamphlet. The days in Linares feel comfortable and routine, as if I was heading to and from my house and office in Seattle. Mobility is smooth, and I enjoy drinking Nescafe with a spoon-full of sugar every morning in Caritas, watching goofy reality shows in Spanish with my family, and taking public transportation wherever I go.

arriving in Linares

2/5/2010: I have already been in Linares for three weeks; it feels like home as I greet neighbors, meet up with friends, and walk through my daily routine- where has the time gone? After splitting with my parents in Pucon I arrived in Linares feeling excited for the unknown and wondering what this new home and internship would be like. I’ve traveled a lot and normally I enjoy taking adventures alone and delving into a completely foreign environment, but for some reason on this day I was feeling vulnerable and attached to the comfort of traveling with my parents. I had to transfer buses in an nondescript town in order to get to Linares. Standing at the ticket window was a somber looking man who refused to smile. I asked him how much the bus was to Linares and where I needed to catch it and he responded in what sounded to me like a jumble of incoherent words, which slid unnoticed through his closed mouth. I asked if he could repeat what he said and please say it more slowing, and he repeated just as fast and this time looking annoyed. After asking around and only getting curious-stares as if asking, who is this foreigner? and fingers that pointed in the direction of his ticket window, I returned, I failed, and I started to cry. I was shocked at first at how easily the tears came. Sometimes, for no real reason, if enough time has elapsed without releasing these power drops, something small will trigger my emotionally side, and there they come, like a tsunami. My core felt unsettled and I didn’t feel strong, the cold temper of this one man had infected me. How strange, how unfair I thought. After sitting down, I took a few deep breaths, telling myself this was part of travel, this was part of speaking a different language. Within minutes a women was helping me get the directions, speaking in a soft and understandable Spanish, she sighed when I told her about the unhelpful man, and she said, “Yes, unfortunately there are people like this everywhere in the world, but luckily they’re the minority.” Thank you, I said. Energy is a powerful thing, especially when you’re speaking a language that isn’t native because you rely on body language and perceptions to give you feedback when words fail. Simple circumstances like this teach me that my actions, my tone, my energy, affect people in ways that I am not aware of. It made me think about his circumstances of which I didn’t know, and I dwelled on the possibility of being him in situations that I wasn’t even aware of. Did he know that I felt like I was shrinking as his hand gestures and words flashed in front of me, if he knew would he have been more patient or cared, does it matter? All I know is that if one person has bad energy, a cycle begins, and it’s incredible how quick the mood changes and how fast communication barriers build. Last week I listened to a paramount speech given by Obama; his Q & A time with the Conservative House. His underlying message was about tone, being careful with rhetoric, and getting problems solved in a healthy debate rather than attacking one another and pointing fingers. I was impressed, like usual, by Obama’s insight; the truth he was speaking was so simple yet so difficult for the collective human, or American politics, to put into everyday action. Why is there a need to attack others to boost the confidence or support of oneself? On a side note of language, this experience, and numerous others down here in South America, where the vernacular Spanish is unfamiliar to me and laden with slang, has heightened my recognition and appreciation of people who have difficulty learning English in the United States. The mental demand and inner discipline that is required to learn a new language is hard to understand until you’re living it.