babies, busses, and blisters

time flies between blogs, and crawls when i sit down to spell out events, emotions, and images in these poor excuses for words. first i'll go for the concrete stuff.



last thursday i went with my host mom to her daughter's house in Valpo for once and to meet her neighbor's new born baby. her house is a perfect example of valparaiso quirkiness -- built into the side of the same cerro (hill) as one of Pablo Neruda's houses, its precarious concrete walkway leads to a worn old door snuggled between tin walls. Inside the living room boasts creaky wood floors and high ceilings, the kitchen shares a concrete wall (and some dirt that periodically creeps in through the cracks) with the steep street outside. the stairwell to the second floor is vague as to whether it is indoors or out, and in the dark humid air you almost have to smell your way up the steep stairs to the upstairs bedrooms. it is small and without heating or cooling, but it is rich in character. i appreciate so deeply being reminded here how little we can actually get by on, and how extravagant i often allow myself to believe my "needs" to be.

her neighbors were equally charming, with their beaming, new-mom-and-dad smiles lighting up the whole room. they are both musicians, and the dad earns his living by playing his guitar and singing on the micros (minibusses) every day. the mom has a permenant smile on her face and an optimism that is almost as tangible as her sleek, black hair. we drank deeply on conversation and REAL coffee (not nescafe) until the night chill let us know it was time to part ways. in valparaiso at night the city lights immitate the stars in the upside-down dome of the sprawling cerros, twinkling with an orangey glow that floats on the allusive niebla.



friday i woke up entirely too early to catch a bus to santiago with nearly the entire congregation of my host mom's church (there were 18 people) for a country-wide Familia con Proposito easter celebration. we were corralled into the 3rd floor room by hugs and besitos, and promptly we began what would be about an hour and a half of solid praise music. it was sweet to remember what it feels like to be lifted up in collective song to be snuggled up close to our Lord's bosom. there was also a really long sermon, which i had a really hard time paying full attention to because i was falling asleep -- and because it was a lot of spanish coming at me very fast. later we broke up into smaller groups to pray for the country, its leaders, its people, and its churches. as glad as i was to be in christian community and as much as it was so refreshing in so many ways, i was also weirded out by many aspects of it, as has been the case lately with religion in general. i couldn't tell when they were speaking in tongues or just speaking really fast spanish, and when a woman started telling us to pray for the homosexuals -- 'Because we love them, we love everybody, but pray that their ways will be corrected' -- and i cringed. my stomach did a few flips, and i closed my ears to lift up a prayer for our poor human interpretation of Love, of right and wrong, and of morality in general. i wanted to leave the room, but i was glued to my seat by discomfort and unpreparedness. in my two years of liberal sheltering at st. eds i sometimes forget that other ways of thinking exist.

anyhow, besides this discomfort and a general sense that religion is a very strange thing and most definitely not the only way to reach out to God, the day was very enjoyable. the people were exceedingly nice, and i was able to relax in pleasant conversation with a girl who had just gotten back from studying english in Florida for 3 months.



saturday molly and i slept in, and the afternoon eagerly fled these city streets for some much-needed soul rejuvenation in nature. we left vina significantly later than we had planned, and ended up arriving at the park after it had already closed, but we wandered into the camping area anyhow and ended up sharing the last spot with another couple that had wandered in after hours. we lazily conversed over wine and sandwiches, and soon discovered a shared enthusiams for the Beatles -- which is hard to come by here in Chile. Molly and I excused ourselves to go see a break in the trees so we could see the stars. Stargazing is my therapy of choice; it reminds me to stop, to feel small, but at the same time big. And, as always, Orion was there waiting for us. We snuggled close in our one-man tent against the night's chill, and in the morning quickly packed up our things and headed up the mountain. actually, it's called a cerro, or hill, but in our own defense we have decided to refer to el cerro de La Campana as a mountain. it is large and steep, and i really feel that a 4 1/2 hour ascent deems it worthy of the title Mountain. after the first hour we were asking ourselves why we keep thinking that climbing up steep things is a good idea, at hour two the nearing peak gave us a small spark of hope, at hour 3 i was ready to give up, and at hour 4 we were mere meters from the peak. ultimately we didn't make it to the actual top because we had to turn back in time to get out backpacks from the ranger station before it closed, but the view was equally spectacular and we ate it up eagerly along with our sandwiches of questionable meat product and delicious cheese. after the 3 hour descent i was ready to fall over and sleep for a month straight, but instead we wandered down the dirt road until we found our bus and rested for the two hour ride home.


classes have been going pretty well, although overwhelming. i'm really frustrated that i can't fully understand everything we talk about in my literature class, because it is really interesting. during lecture i definitely catch the gist of what is said, but it's not quite to the level of perfect comprehension and certainly not enough so to be able to participate in discussion. there is an impossible amount of reading for that class, but i think i've come to terms with the fact that i will not be able to actually read all of it, so i'm feeling less stressed out. Italian is by far my favorite class, even though my head feels like it wants to explode after every class with foreign language overload. i had a test in Theory of Translation this week, and it was awful. it will be a miriacle if i passed. we've been talking about Kafka in my art class, and it's fantastic. except, i couldn't help but ache for Kafka as a person after reading all of his dark, depressing short stories about how awful society is and about the lies we live in. it is fantastic literature, but i wonder if he ever knew joy in his life. did he see things that were beautiful, too? what did he have to hope for?

our dear friend David is leaving for New York to study graphic design in 4 days, so this week we are squeezing in as much hanging out as possible. on tuesday we had a taco feast at our friend Francisco's house -- Francisco used to be a chef. it was delicious, and we topped it off by watching Into the Wild (which brought me to tears and touched the raw part on my soul that recently exploded before my last entry....) , listening to "El Curanto", eating freshly made kuchen, and singing/dancing to michael jackson music videos. it was the perfect way to spend the day, and on the bus ride back home that night molly and i thanked God for hearing our prayers for real friends and for hanging out time that isn't necessarily "going out".


my soul is learning and growing every day, which hurts sometimes, and other times feels really good. it's learning how to approach every day as a new adventure and also what God's hope actually means. mostly it's very thankful, and it's gobbling up that fresh new that that i've been breathing in.


now, it's your turn.
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