My first blog from Peru.
I left Santiago on a plane yesterday morning and arrived 3 short hours later in Arica, the northernmost city in Chile. It was amazing, like out of a dream. The tan sand and the pale blue sky approach each other towards the infinity of the horizon, only distrubed by the black rocks of the coast to one side. I expected R2D2 to come out from behind a rock at any moment. We took a taxi from there to cross the border, the driver was very helpful in telling us what to do and what not to do. Crossing the border was kind of a joke -- we filled out some paper, put our backpacks through a scanner (although i´m quite certain they didnt even look at the scren as they went through) then went on our way. In the place where we changed our chilean pesos to peruvian soles I felt all the warnings i´ve heard about how dangerous Peru is for the past month whirling through my mind, magnified by dozens of pairs of eyes focused on my gringa-ness. i just knew that at any minute i would be pickpocketed or assaulted or something. but none of these things happened. When we went to buy the bus tickets, the man standing outside the office said he could cut us a deal, and not quite sure what we were agreeing to we got the tickets. we got them for 30 soles less than we had thought, which he reminded us to thank him for with a propina (tip) later. only slightly shady. so we went exploring and to find food in the centro, stopping at a small restaurant recommended by our taxi driver. we ordered something whose name we didnt recognize, hoping for our taste buds to be welcomed to the typical flavors of Peru. Turns out we ordered some kind of seafood soup with octopus. The waiter asked if that´s really what we wanted, and in the spirit of adventures we shrugged our shoulders and said "sure". much to our delight, it was delicious, and we had a good laugh at the ridiculousness of us eating octopus in Peru. The waiter was eager to answer our questions about Peru, explaining the statues and fountains out in the plaza, even throwing in a bit of Peruvian history.
Back at the bus station we had bit of a scare when we thought Molly had lost her wallet (complete with all her money, credit cards, and bus ticket), but we realized after much cursing and almost-tears that it was, in fact, wedged between her butt and backpack. See molly´s blog for a more detailed description. http://blogitademollita.blogspot.com
the 13 hour bus ride was not bad at all, except that my ears have still not popped and the adjustment to pressure is causing them to hurt. but no tummy problems, the octopus went down well. we have been blessed already with several people who are looking out for us... The taxi driver, the guy sitting in front of us on the bus who we chatted with, the lady behind us on the bus who loaned us her sweater to use as a blanket as we slept, and the woman in Nasca who helped get us to the centro and point us in the direction of a hostel. God is looking after us, and my stomach is filled with butterflies and re-remembering this sensation Chile was the unknown, when we didn´t know what "alfajores" were, or couldnt understand the chliean accent. Now several people here have asked if we ourselves are Chilean. I´m loving this country, and am excited to get to know it more. AAAAAND i´m excited that tomorrow we´re going to see KIM!!!! it will be a sweet reunion.
so, for now we´re going in search of some food and adventure, then resting up before another day of travel tomorrow.
please comment to let me know we´re not traveling alone!!! i love bringing you guys along with me everywhere i go.
much much love,
catie
Jul 9, 2009
on the road again, and in the air
the churning stomach, the scattered brain, the sleepless nights. it's travel time again.
no matter how much i travel, each time my departure is preceeded by an interlude of anxiousness that takes various forms. this week has flown by, filled with final preparations and the first of a large collection of goodbyes. molly's family arrived last saturday, so our preliminary goodbyes have been accompanied by a whirwind of hello's for them. Francisco was in town all last week up until tuesday, so we were cramming in as much Fancy Francy time as we could -- going out for coffee, cooking, sleeping over to watch movies all night. molly and i have truly become members of his family, and i couldn't be happier to count myself as a sister and daughter to these wonderful people. it really is an amazingly wonderful thing to have all the families i have -- my parents, my host mom here in chile, francisco's family, molly's family, maya's family, and the list goes on. i am truly very loved. **contented sigh**
yesterday i went to a nearby beach town to meet up with a couple of the men-in-tights friends for the day to say our final goodbyes. We played with star fish and other curious sea creatures in the tide pools until the grand finale played by the sun in its glorious descent into the ocean. We walked along the rocky beach, steered by the beating winds, until the last hue of orange faded into a deep navy abyss. by the time the stars were filling the sky we had walked to the next town down the road, and laid on the edge of a cliff by the ocean to look at the stars, sharing stories about the imaginary games we used to play as little kids. it was perfect and relaxing and for a few hours my anxiousness subsided into peaceful bliss. we ate pie and talked about everything -- but mostly about God and about Love -- until the wee hours of the night, and I felt as if I were hanging out with old friends rather than with two guys I had only spent time with 5 or 6 times and all in the past couple of months.
so here's the plan, or at least, the vague idea we have as to what we might be doing for the next 3 weeks.
*Friday - fly from Santiago to Arica (the northernmost city in Chile) and take a taxi from there to Tacna, the border city on the Peru side. Then hopefully find a bus to Nazca.
* hang out in Nazca for a day or two or however long seems right
*take some combis and busses and who knows what else through the mountains until we arrive in Cabana with KIMMELA!!!!
*hang out, laugh a lot, love life, love Kim.
*mozy on over in the direction of Cuzco
*maybe go to Lake Titicaca?
*maybe go to La Paz?
*keep on loving life
*make it back to Arica on July 27, fly from there back to Santiago
*hang out in Valpo with MariaPaz for a couple of days, have a despedida with all our friends
*july 30 our plane leaves Santiago in the night, arrive in Dallas early the next morning, July 31.
*hug my family.
*eat mexican food.
i'll be in nac for a week or so, then austin, maybe dallas, maybe nac again... who knows. i'm all chilean when it comes to making plans, it would seem.
and there you have it: a very scattered and only minorly interesting last blog before I leave Chile and head into Peru. Keep us in your prayers for traveling safety, protection from bichos, that we would be attentive to what God's itinerary is for us, and for new adventures. i will have much more limited access to all modes of communication, but it is so refreshing when traveling to read messages from home when i do get a chance to do so. so please, comment away.
no matter how much i travel, each time my departure is preceeded by an interlude of anxiousness that takes various forms. this week has flown by, filled with final preparations and the first of a large collection of goodbyes. molly's family arrived last saturday, so our preliminary goodbyes have been accompanied by a whirwind of hello's for them. Francisco was in town all last week up until tuesday, so we were cramming in as much Fancy Francy time as we could -- going out for coffee, cooking, sleeping over to watch movies all night. molly and i have truly become members of his family, and i couldn't be happier to count myself as a sister and daughter to these wonderful people. it really is an amazingly wonderful thing to have all the families i have -- my parents, my host mom here in chile, francisco's family, molly's family, maya's family, and the list goes on. i am truly very loved. **contented sigh**
yesterday i went to a nearby beach town to meet up with a couple of the men-in-tights friends for the day to say our final goodbyes. We played with star fish and other curious sea creatures in the tide pools until the grand finale played by the sun in its glorious descent into the ocean. We walked along the rocky beach, steered by the beating winds, until the last hue of orange faded into a deep navy abyss. by the time the stars were filling the sky we had walked to the next town down the road, and laid on the edge of a cliff by the ocean to look at the stars, sharing stories about the imaginary games we used to play as little kids. it was perfect and relaxing and for a few hours my anxiousness subsided into peaceful bliss. we ate pie and talked about everything -- but mostly about God and about Love -- until the wee hours of the night, and I felt as if I were hanging out with old friends rather than with two guys I had only spent time with 5 or 6 times and all in the past couple of months.
so here's the plan, or at least, the vague idea we have as to what we might be doing for the next 3 weeks.
*Friday - fly from Santiago to Arica (the northernmost city in Chile) and take a taxi from there to Tacna, the border city on the Peru side. Then hopefully find a bus to Nazca.
* hang out in Nazca for a day or two or however long seems right
*take some combis and busses and who knows what else through the mountains until we arrive in Cabana with KIMMELA!!!!
*hang out, laugh a lot, love life, love Kim.
*mozy on over in the direction of Cuzco
*maybe go to Lake Titicaca?
*maybe go to La Paz?
*keep on loving life
*make it back to Arica on July 27, fly from there back to Santiago
*hang out in Valpo with MariaPaz for a couple of days, have a despedida with all our friends
*july 30 our plane leaves Santiago in the night, arrive in Dallas early the next morning, July 31.
*hug my family.
*eat mexican food.
i'll be in nac for a week or so, then austin, maybe dallas, maybe nac again... who knows. i'm all chilean when it comes to making plans, it would seem.
and there you have it: a very scattered and only minorly interesting last blog before I leave Chile and head into Peru. Keep us in your prayers for traveling safety, protection from bichos, that we would be attentive to what God's itinerary is for us, and for new adventures. i will have much more limited access to all modes of communication, but it is so refreshing when traveling to read messages from home when i do get a chance to do so. so please, comment away.
Jun 25, 2009
questions
i'm going to give a semi-chronological update on what's been going down the past week or so. it's been a while since i've done that.
last week was the most intense week of schoolage i've experienced quite possibly ever. thursday i spent literally ALL day doing school things -- from waking up early to study before going to class to take a test, until staying up until 2am working on a paper that night. i think i started to go crazy. does hugging the kettle make me crazy? or just cold from moving very little from my tiny desk...
i had to get away. i had to not do school things. i needed... you guessed it, nature.
so friday night we were going to go to church before heading out of town, but it turns out that everyone except molly, myself, and two other guys got the memo that church had been cancelled on account of the rain. no church because of the rain? yep, you heard me right. they're serious about staying dry here. i mean, the poorly designed streets turn into rapidly rushing rivers with the rain, meaning getting on a micro involves wading through frigid, muddy puddles. all that to say, since there wasn't any church, we went walking in the rain with the two other guys who had been left out of the memo. turns out they were exceedingly interesting, and for the following several hours we talked about everything from linguistic psychology to jesus-changed-my-life stories, we munched on slightly soggy cookies while seated on the beach in the rain, and all-in-all enjoyed aimless wandering in the seemingly ceaseless rain.
we already had our bus tickets for the 10:30 bus to santiago, so we arrived around midnight and stayed at our friend's house that night. Saturday was spent mostly galavanting all across Santiago before we finally made it to our destination, Cajon de Maipo. It is a small town in the foothills of the Andes, where snow-peaked mountain tops line the horizon. we thought we had a cabin reserved, but it turned out to be a swanky hotel. most gloriously of all, it had a heater!!! winter as arrived in full force here, but chileans don't really do heaters, so i hadn't really been warm in a very long time. needless to say, molly and i cranked up the heat in our room almost as high as it would go....
once we had been thoroughly heated all the way through, we ventured back out into the damp cold to have an asado (bbq) in the dark. i can't possibly imagine why we were the only people there cooking out in the cold, damp darkness......... anyhow, we shared conversation, peanuts, and chunks of meat that we ate with our bare hands straight off the fire, then retreated back to the heated room. the friends who we went with are in a tuna, which is an organism far too complicated for me to fully explain here -- largely because i don't fully understand them. but in summary, it's a several-hundred-year-old tradition of university students who play music and travel together to earn money to help pay for their living expenses while they're living. and they usually wear funny rennaisance costumes. yes, it's the men in tights from february!!! (for those faithful readers out there who have been keeping up with this blog all along) once back in the room they serenaded us with all manner of music and merriment for hours upon end.
but the real reason we had come was for the stars... so put on as many layers of clothes as we had with us, and ventured out into the night, following the gravel path into the darkness. miraculously the clouds from the rain that had hoovered for the past two days disappeared especially for our star-gazing pleasure, and from our position on top of a tin roofed building the view was spectacular to say the least. we saw one shooting star after another, and the only other sound besides that of our own voices was the distant roaring of the nearby river.
we talked about God, about Jesus, about the church, about community, about friendship, about chivalry, about respect... We talked until the cold seeped into our bones, and finally we went back. finally around 5am we went to sleep, for the first time in a while that i fell asleep with my arm outside the blanket. the heater was glorious.
sunday we woke up, had a wonderful breakfast of fresh-baked bread with cheeeeeese, then went exploring down in the river. later we walked into the town, had some empanadas and french fries, played with some puppies, danced in the middle of the main plaza, and headed back. unfortunately both molly and I had homework that had to be done, forcing us to leave our friends.
this week has been less intense with school things, although i had one test and a paper to turn in. now all i have left for next week is one essay and two tests and then on wednesday i'll be DONE! Praise God that a guy from my literature class offered to be my partner for the big final paper for that class, which meant I contributed my half of the content to the paper but he was able to fix it to be spanish that actually makes sense. i can't imagine how it would have been if i had tried to do this paper without him.... i am so so so thankful.
yesterday molly and i went to a cafe after classes to cleanse our minds of academic things, discussing instead some soul issues that had recently come up. you see, we've been going to this bible study-ish thing on tuesday afternoons in a small group of 5 girls. this week we were going through some supposedly basic questions about the Christian faith, which turned out to be really difficult for me to answer. i've been going through a process of letting my faith out of the box i had spent my whole life constructing for it. i needed this time to see God outside of the church, outside of religion for that matter. i experienced Him in a much bigger way than I have ever been capable of experiencing Him before, but now, back in the context of a church, these questions are hard for me to answer. What does salvation mean? how does Jesus's death equate my eternal salvation? What am I being saved from? deep down I know these things through the holy spirit.... but i don't know how to answer those questions with words. i mean, i could give you an answer, but i dont know the answers, cachai? So molly and I sat on a couch in the cafe asking questions, looking for answers in the bible, daring to ask. but now, do we dare to recieve the answers? i'm a big fan of wondering... there's something utterly beautiful in a question, but there also comes a time for answers, and i think that scares me more than the questions.
so there's the past week.... the end is in sight, and i'm very ready to be through with school things. not so sure i'm ready to be through with chile, but school can be over any time now. (although another thing God has shown me recently is how to actually be thankful for trials... like being glad that i have to work hard and think hard for school. i dont want things to always be easy, and i want to be challenged) francisco is coming into town this weekend, which is exciting. we're going to hang out at his house all weekend and cook things and stay up late talking and watching movies... it's going to be awesome.
last week was the most intense week of schoolage i've experienced quite possibly ever. thursday i spent literally ALL day doing school things -- from waking up early to study before going to class to take a test, until staying up until 2am working on a paper that night. i think i started to go crazy. does hugging the kettle make me crazy? or just cold from moving very little from my tiny desk...
i had to get away. i had to not do school things. i needed... you guessed it, nature.
so friday night we were going to go to church before heading out of town, but it turns out that everyone except molly, myself, and two other guys got the memo that church had been cancelled on account of the rain. no church because of the rain? yep, you heard me right. they're serious about staying dry here. i mean, the poorly designed streets turn into rapidly rushing rivers with the rain, meaning getting on a micro involves wading through frigid, muddy puddles. all that to say, since there wasn't any church, we went walking in the rain with the two other guys who had been left out of the memo. turns out they were exceedingly interesting, and for the following several hours we talked about everything from linguistic psychology to jesus-changed-my-life stories, we munched on slightly soggy cookies while seated on the beach in the rain, and all-in-all enjoyed aimless wandering in the seemingly ceaseless rain.
we already had our bus tickets for the 10:30 bus to santiago, so we arrived around midnight and stayed at our friend's house that night. Saturday was spent mostly galavanting all across Santiago before we finally made it to our destination, Cajon de Maipo. It is a small town in the foothills of the Andes, where snow-peaked mountain tops line the horizon. we thought we had a cabin reserved, but it turned out to be a swanky hotel. most gloriously of all, it had a heater!!! winter as arrived in full force here, but chileans don't really do heaters, so i hadn't really been warm in a very long time. needless to say, molly and i cranked up the heat in our room almost as high as it would go....
once we had been thoroughly heated all the way through, we ventured back out into the damp cold to have an asado (bbq) in the dark. i can't possibly imagine why we were the only people there cooking out in the cold, damp darkness......... anyhow, we shared conversation, peanuts, and chunks of meat that we ate with our bare hands straight off the fire, then retreated back to the heated room. the friends who we went with are in a tuna, which is an organism far too complicated for me to fully explain here -- largely because i don't fully understand them. but in summary, it's a several-hundred-year-old tradition of university students who play music and travel together to earn money to help pay for their living expenses while they're living. and they usually wear funny rennaisance costumes. yes, it's the men in tights from february!!! (for those faithful readers out there who have been keeping up with this blog all along) once back in the room they serenaded us with all manner of music and merriment for hours upon end.
but the real reason we had come was for the stars... so put on as many layers of clothes as we had with us, and ventured out into the night, following the gravel path into the darkness. miraculously the clouds from the rain that had hoovered for the past two days disappeared especially for our star-gazing pleasure, and from our position on top of a tin roofed building the view was spectacular to say the least. we saw one shooting star after another, and the only other sound besides that of our own voices was the distant roaring of the nearby river.
we talked about God, about Jesus, about the church, about community, about friendship, about chivalry, about respect... We talked until the cold seeped into our bones, and finally we went back. finally around 5am we went to sleep, for the first time in a while that i fell asleep with my arm outside the blanket. the heater was glorious.
sunday we woke up, had a wonderful breakfast of fresh-baked bread with cheeeeeese, then went exploring down in the river. later we walked into the town, had some empanadas and french fries, played with some puppies, danced in the middle of the main plaza, and headed back. unfortunately both molly and I had homework that had to be done, forcing us to leave our friends.
this week has been less intense with school things, although i had one test and a paper to turn in. now all i have left for next week is one essay and two tests and then on wednesday i'll be DONE! Praise God that a guy from my literature class offered to be my partner for the big final paper for that class, which meant I contributed my half of the content to the paper but he was able to fix it to be spanish that actually makes sense. i can't imagine how it would have been if i had tried to do this paper without him.... i am so so so thankful.
yesterday molly and i went to a cafe after classes to cleanse our minds of academic things, discussing instead some soul issues that had recently come up. you see, we've been going to this bible study-ish thing on tuesday afternoons in a small group of 5 girls. this week we were going through some supposedly basic questions about the Christian faith, which turned out to be really difficult for me to answer. i've been going through a process of letting my faith out of the box i had spent my whole life constructing for it. i needed this time to see God outside of the church, outside of religion for that matter. i experienced Him in a much bigger way than I have ever been capable of experiencing Him before, but now, back in the context of a church, these questions are hard for me to answer. What does salvation mean? how does Jesus's death equate my eternal salvation? What am I being saved from? deep down I know these things through the holy spirit.... but i don't know how to answer those questions with words. i mean, i could give you an answer, but i dont know the answers, cachai? So molly and I sat on a couch in the cafe asking questions, looking for answers in the bible, daring to ask. but now, do we dare to recieve the answers? i'm a big fan of wondering... there's something utterly beautiful in a question, but there also comes a time for answers, and i think that scares me more than the questions.
so there's the past week.... the end is in sight, and i'm very ready to be through with school things. not so sure i'm ready to be through with chile, but school can be over any time now. (although another thing God has shown me recently is how to actually be thankful for trials... like being glad that i have to work hard and think hard for school. i dont want things to always be easy, and i want to be challenged) francisco is coming into town this weekend, which is exciting. we're going to hang out at his house all weekend and cook things and stay up late talking and watching movies... it's going to be awesome.
Jun 16, 2009
taking a break
writing this blog is going against all rationality, but i have to do it. i have to write things that express myself instead of plastic words weighted down with academia. i have to remember that my life is much bigger than that which will (hopefully) soon fill these 10 or more pages, single spaced, size 12 font of my essay.
last week molly and I saw the Russian Ballet perform selected solos/duets from 10 of their greatest ballets, including, of course, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, and Don Quixote. Our gallery tickets put us up in the slaves' quarters, where columns or other balconies blocked the view from most seats, so we nestled down on the ground in front of a nice man who didn't mind giving up his right to cross his legs in order for us to see the 8.000 pesos worth of ballet we paid to see. and it was magical. in all my 15 years of ballet i never managed to lock my corporal self into that mysterious realm of expression where color, emotion, and heat take the form of movement, but when I see it I can feel it surge through my body. My thrills and griefs streched out to the tips of their outstreched arms, pulsing in tensed back muscles, tip tapping in the wooden toe shoes on the black stage. One couple danced the perfect harmony of two becoming one, each one anticipating every curve of the other's body, breathing as if one creature. when they danced, I had to remind myself to breathe, and as the curtain before them I found myself open-mouthed with brows raised.
in short, it was amazing. then afterwards we drank hot chocolate in our favorite cafe, solitas, because everyone else in this country was watching the futbol game. (we won, by the way)
a weekend again with our new friend, Maria Paz. she is Francisco's little sister who we have gotten to know in Francisco's absence, and I feel quite certain that leaving her in July is going to break my heart into at least a thousand pieces.
i have 2 tests, a presentation, and an essay to do this week, the pressure of which is on the verge of bursting my well of tears. in this dreary grey cold all I want is to hibernate and for the cumbersome reality of school and grades to dissipate into the fog or drown in the waters of the much-anticipated rains. but, armed with a few remaining dark chocolate M&Ms and a patience that could only be God-given, I know I'll make it through. And when I do, oh what a glorious day that will be.
Now i will get back to academia. Your comments are a refreshing elixir, keep 'em comin'!
last week molly and I saw the Russian Ballet perform selected solos/duets from 10 of their greatest ballets, including, of course, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, and Don Quixote. Our gallery tickets put us up in the slaves' quarters, where columns or other balconies blocked the view from most seats, so we nestled down on the ground in front of a nice man who didn't mind giving up his right to cross his legs in order for us to see the 8.000 pesos worth of ballet we paid to see. and it was magical. in all my 15 years of ballet i never managed to lock my corporal self into that mysterious realm of expression where color, emotion, and heat take the form of movement, but when I see it I can feel it surge through my body. My thrills and griefs streched out to the tips of their outstreched arms, pulsing in tensed back muscles, tip tapping in the wooden toe shoes on the black stage. One couple danced the perfect harmony of two becoming one, each one anticipating every curve of the other's body, breathing as if one creature. when they danced, I had to remind myself to breathe, and as the curtain before them I found myself open-mouthed with brows raised.
in short, it was amazing. then afterwards we drank hot chocolate in our favorite cafe, solitas, because everyone else in this country was watching the futbol game. (we won, by the way)
a weekend again with our new friend, Maria Paz. she is Francisco's little sister who we have gotten to know in Francisco's absence, and I feel quite certain that leaving her in July is going to break my heart into at least a thousand pieces.
i have 2 tests, a presentation, and an essay to do this week, the pressure of which is on the verge of bursting my well of tears. in this dreary grey cold all I want is to hibernate and for the cumbersome reality of school and grades to dissipate into the fog or drown in the waters of the much-anticipated rains. but, armed with a few remaining dark chocolate M&Ms and a patience that could only be God-given, I know I'll make it through. And when I do, oh what a glorious day that will be.
Now i will get back to academia. Your comments are a refreshing elixir, keep 'em comin'!
Jun 10, 2009
Jun 7, 2009
June 7
I am fairly certain that my calendar is lying to me. Every time I have consulted it today, sitting menacingly in the bottom right corner of my screen, it tells me that today is June 7, but that would mean that my time here is nearing its end far sooner than seems possible. Perhaps I should report the problem to Windows -- just imagine all the problems that would arise if masses of Windows users were walking around living in a day not yet marked by the present, disillusioned in an eternal future.
May 30, 2009
imagery
The power of an image. We will all nod our heads in vague agreement, but we stop there, afraid of what it means to recognize something that is truly powerful. We tilt our heads and bite our lower lips when set before some photograph or painting that creates a vocabulary of its own to describe a split second in our sloppy human condition. And nobody disagrees with the outrageous injustice that advertising as an elusively Big-Brother-esque institution does for society (another word that we spout off when the rot in our heart lies to have us believe that bemoaning existence might make it go away). The indigenous peoples of the Americas occupied an entire concept of the universe centered in the image, relaying what we try to call ‘absolute truth’ through these images that remain open to interpretation, recognizing that each viewer might see a different version of the same story. Memory was a beautifully chaotic performance of dance, music, and images, or perhaps some colorful knots on a string or plated silver adorned by a youth. Westerners arrived with their written word and obsession with precision, and they feared these people of the image. They prohibited their images and incarcerated their memory in languages that were never made for such a realm of mystery and imagination. They burned their pages and punished their dances, forcing upon them images of a glorified virgin mother and verbal submission to the invisible powers behind the rising sun. They took their culture captive and injected it full of that disease called Progress, then complained at the inconvenience that its limp body lying on the floor caused for their efficient gluttony. But they did not eliminate the image, and dance has not been stilled. The poison of that western hatred mutated these forms of expression, these once-glorious ways of being, into a murderous fiction. I walk through the streets or glance at a television through a window, and see this land’s fictitious identity lying through its teeth to a captive audience. “We are white, we have blonde hair and straight teeth,” she says. “We have sculpted bodies and smile as we bow to the gods of consumerism,” he chuckles. I have seen in my own country the damage that idealized figures in advertising and pop culture have caused to a world craving a God to worship, but what amazes me even more here in Latin America is that these images are borrowed not only from an invented reality, but from an invented reality of another world. In the same way that indigenous spirituality was slowly strangled by the cult of Christianity, the Latin American image of self is held hostage by a European ideal. They are exhausted from trying to find God in the gold-plated cathedrals where the plaster eyes of a dead virgin and the soft hands of a plump bishop seem only to laugh at their pain, those houses built in God’s name with bricks borrowed from the devil. Since they do not find God here, they turn to these lying images, these blonde beauties who assure them that they will never be allowed the luxury of beauty. Their sleek dark hair and softly rounded noses deem them uncivilized; they enslave themselves to the images and the lords of consumerism who mockingly offer indulgences. “Perhaps,” they tell them, “if you buy into these things, and if you can lose who you really are in a cup of pisco, then perhaps you will become who I want you to be.” Speak English, mimic a world apart. The evil spirit that inhabited the invading Europeans thought it expelled the image, but it merely turned it into a lie.
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