yu-en-me ´a man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher, .. he who goes from country to country guided by blind impulses of curiosity is .. a vagabond.´ - oliver goldsmith

(I dedicate the first part of this entry to my
high-school bus-buddy, with whom I shared many laughs
talking about old people and how entertaining they
are.)

as some of you remember from my last groupmail, I
recently went on a trip to the south of Chile (around
Puerto Varas if anyone´s looking at a map) to act as
guide/interpreter for 3 elderly French ladies. Bouts
of forgetfulness, minor dementia, and a very proper
way of speaking made for a very entertaining few days.
Eg –
Little Old Lady (LOL) 1 – oh how lovely this shrub
smells!
LOL 2 (uncertainly) – mm, yes, quite lovely…
LOL 3 – I really don´t know what you two are talking
about, I can´t smell anything. Can you, Yuen?
ME – no, not really.
LOL 2 (with obvious relief) – oh, whew! I was
pretending before, I can´t actually smell anything
either… I was afraid it was just me.
LOL 3 – no, no, I think it´s Renée… I don´t know what
she´s imagining she can smell…
LOL 1 – well, whether it´s my imagination or not, it´s
a wonderful fragrance…

Another time, one of them started giggling
little-old-lady-like in the car, because she´d
absent-mindedly stolen cutlery from the last
restaurant we were at. Or that time they told me in
hushed tones about their secret plans to invite
gentleman visitors to share their hotel room, ‘so
don´t worry, dear, if we seem a little weary tomorrow
during our daytrip’.
much of the funniness was in the visual: one of them
in particular would seem to be completely off with the
fairies, then all of a sudden her eyes would dart
around taking everything in around her, settle on me
with a self-satisfied wink, then glaze over again as
she started ´singing along´ to the background music
(most often singing so off-key that I wasn´t sure if
she was singing along or just inventing her own tune).
Ahh, I can´t wait to be a little old lady myself.

I´ve finally managed to put my finger on what makes
Chilean Spanish so different from neighbouring
countries: they use a LOT of onomatopoeic
words/expressions. Even if you don´t speak Spanish,
say the following out loud, and see if they don´t
somehow sound like what they mean:
ENCLENQUE (en-klen-keh) – ´wobbly´
GUATA (gwah-tah) - ´stomach´
CATCHAI? (cut-chai?) – ´get it?´ (from the English ´to
catch´)
GUAGUA (wah-wah) – ´baby´
And they have a verb ´tinkar´, (eg, in the expression
´me tinka´ - ´it tinks me´) the meaning of which is
roughly: ´I like the sound of that even though I have
a few doubts about it, but i´ll give it some thought
and hopefully we can iron out any parts that don´t
quite fit, so that it can work out in the end´. I
personally think this is a wonderful word, and propose
that we start using it in English:
´hey, how´s about a drink after work?´
´well, I´ve got a major deadline coming up, but the
idea tinks me.´

music is such a big part of my day that I can´t
believe i´ve spent more than 6 months on this
continent and haven´t mentioned anything about it.
Probably because before arriving in Santiago, I mostly
relied on my mp3 player (oh, the number of nights i´ve
fallen asleep with kasey chambers reprimanding me that
if i´m not pissed off at the world, i´m just not
paying attention…). With my current stability however,
i´m delighted to report the discovery of a local radio
station that keeps me happy with choice morsels from
julieta  to the eagles, dolly parton to portishead.
This may sound very close-minded and gringo-ish, but
let me tell you that I *have* forayed into the local
market, and was bombarded with what´s known as
´reggaetón´: reggae with a latin feel. Think bob
marley pretending to be shakira (or vice versa), and
you´ll understand why I prefer the angsty whine of
up-and-coming ah-tistes any day of the week.

The weekend just gone, I went with a whole bunch of
uni students to construct houses for people who are
living in less-than-glamorous conditions. The family
that my group was assigned to consisted of 7 people
squished in a mudhouse with dirt floors, doors and
windows which didn´t close properly - thus allowing
the cold to get in, - and flies buzzing around the
chicken carcasses hanging from roof beams in the
kitchen. And yet they seemed so happy and content in
life, sharing their food, good conversation, and
general peaceful countenance with us… – making me
wonder who benefited most during those couple of days.


this week, i´m working with a group of Commerce
students at one of Chile´s richest universities,
founded by the Opus Dei. Just upon entering the
carpark, you can smell the wealth in the air. The
students look like they´ve come from the set of The
OC, and the campus buildings aren´t far behind. (there
are individual light switches for *each toilet
cubicle*…) within an hour of meeting me, one of the
students started musing about how maybe he might go to
Australia for a few months this coming summer. When I
asked how he was going to save for it, he shrugged and
said ´dad will help me´. And so, in a few short days,
I managed to go from one extreme of Chile to the
other.

I love how looking at things from different angles
lends a certain childish wonder to life. For example,
when I put my Anglophone-tinted glasses on, I´m amazed
by the strength and power of some of the Hispanic
names I come across. my collection so far includes
Trinidad (´Trinity´), Soledad (´Solitude´), and
Némesis. (far out, Nemesis! I´m still blown away by
the power of that!) On the boys´ side, it´s not as
impressive, but i´ve still managed to meet a couple of
Césars, Ángel David, and Jesus. I´m now waiting for
God (-oh! … if only Beckett were alive to appreciate
this jeux-de-mots!).. The childish part of me still
giggles internally when I meet the stereotypical
Pablo, Pedro, or Pancho. Note: this is the same
childish part that can´t wait to have twins so that I
can name them Machu and Pichu respectively.

And to finish off with some food for thought: the
following comes from a friend I made whilst in Buenos
aires, in a situation similar to my Turkish friend
r.e. military service. This guy´s from Israel, but
unlike the majority of young Israeli travelers you
meet, has *not* done military service. This was a
conscious decision, and, in his case, made possible
only by pleading mental illness. This is a notion
which floors me each time I give it thought, and lends
particular poignancy to his last lines.. (i´ve cut and
pasted parts of his email; all of the following comes
directly from him):
<< i arived to la-paz, the ¨cpital¨of bolivia as such
tel-aviv is of israel.
Yesterday around 12:pm me and another girl were rushed
to the terminal to cach
a bus.the prob is that there is a straike and there
arent ofishial buses,but there still
privete compenios. so i bought tickets for nice and
comfteball one, and we hit the road
at 13:00pm.
now for the jucy part as we get out of the cochabamba
city(that by the way sound like a snak) we encountered
the striking pepole, in seconeds they sarted to trouh
stones
on the bus windos ( because we have the nervs to
travel while they straiking).
with our jewish luck our window was one of the two
that smashed.
the other girl is origenally from ¨gush katif¨so i
asumed that she is use to this,
but she was totally in shok, so put her head betwin
her legs, and we ducked
furword, until the bus pass the angry folk.
un/suprisenially i was totally colm and relexed , and
just cleaned the glases from the seats, and some
bolivian put some carton board atuched with
maskentipe.........
aperenatlly i had to leave israel to fill how is like
in other parts in israel,
but the end is allways good,
and i m fine
take care
love >>

his email touched me on so many levels – not only for
the cold fast facts of what happened, but also, for
example, for how it affected him, and how he reacted.
´tis amazing the impact made by someone who I lived
with for a few days, whom, in all likelihood, I will
never see again, and who probably has no idea that his
experiences/story have affected me so much… and so
even though I have a million thoughts running through
my mind on just as many topics (kasey´s quite
influential, after all), I´ll follow his example and
bid you good night, saying:
the end is always good,
and i´m fine
take care