Word of the Day:
izamiento de bandera- flag raising
volantin- kite
borgoña- wine with fruit in it. Didn't actually try it yet, but sounds nice.
anticucho- kabobs
fonda- originally small temporary tent celebrations that are now gigantic outdoor parties, crowded with people
banda de tributo- cover band
asado- barbeque
Here is the story of how I celebrated 200 years of Chilean independence with a very diverse group of individuals.
Friday the 17
9 AM
We started off our celebration quite typically for Tufts in Chile: with an academic lecture. Professor Winn who led our orientation was back in town and brought a guest speaker, who talked about collective memory and how certain events are interpreted differently and how certain currents of memory are surpressed in order to make way for the official story. She shared some information about the Centenial to give us an idea of the comparative context. She urged us to pay attention to the story of Chile that was being constructed through the Bicentenario.
12PM
We headed down the Alameda to the raising of a giant flag made especially for the Bicentennial and a speech by Piñera. Pretty bland speech, although he did talk a lot about the importance of indigenous culture. The cynic in me thinks he's making a focus now that there's a lot more press on the Mapuche huelga de hambre, which makes Chile look bad in the international community.
2 PM
Ended up at La Piojera, a famous Chilean bar which was quite the fun location to start off the bicentennial. We made friends with a hilarious group of 30 year old Chileans and ended up buying cowboy hats.
10PM
Met up with some Tufts friends, a friend of a friend, her Chilean host brother, and his friends, in Providencia at a much classier bar. Friend's host brother, Diego, suggested we got to a show by a Nirvana cover band in Nuñoa, leading to the best bus ride ever. People were dancing cueca, singing and chanting. The show was also very entertaining as the band was excellent and the whole thing just felt like a throw back to high school.
3 AM
Went to hang out with Molly and some of the people we went to Algorobbo with. Very chill, so much so that we were falling asleep, and had to count the number of times the phrase "weon, po" was used in order to stay awake.
Saturday the 18 : Fiestas Patrias!
2PM- Went to Plaza de Armas for a spectacular in which paper strips were thrown from planes, creating a really cool effect. Ran into Professor Winn and got ice cream with him at Bravisimo, a very famous ice cream chain that he claims is the best (I beg to differ). He pointed out the historical context of the event: at one point during the 1973 coup, the Plaza de Armas was bombed by aircraft.
4 PM- Went to my first fonda, all the way up in La Reina nearly the mountains. It was slightly cuica (high class, with a snob connotation), especially the prices, but still a wonderful time. There were tents with sample food, cueca dancing, traditional dances, traditional horse back rodeo tricks, dances with horses, traditional pueblo originario dances, Rapa Nui dances, historically themed interpretitive dance, a carnival, and arcade games.
Tried some chicha and anticucho that were superb! and of course the requisite empanada.
11PM- Went to Espacio Arte Matta, for a fonda featuring several cumbia bands. It was sort of like a crowded frat party, except way more fun because the music was so unbelievably fun and danceable. They played literally until 6 am- also in complete contrast to Tufts where parties never make it past 2 without being busted by the cops.
Sunday the 19:
1 PM- Asado with the family! Tons of meat. But it tasted good. Really good. It's going to be hard to transition myself back to an non-animal diet. Watched the traditional military parade on TV. I had planned on going, but it was far away and I was in no mood to be jostled by gigantic crowds in Parque O' Higgins, the biggest fonda.
5PM- Went to Barrio Yungay for the Bicentenario Ciudadano y Popular, meeting up with Chilean friend Ingrid, her friends, and some other TinChilers. No cost and filled with young hip people which was super cool. An awesome band, Chico Trujillo, was playing as well as several other acts. There were really creative floats made by college students. Totally leftist, totally different than the other celebrations. I love the ways holidays are celebrated here: streets just shut down and then everything is relaxed, people just drink and be merry in the street and no one really cares. I spent the whole time with a large enough group of Chileans that we had to speak spanish the whole night, which was good. We ended up bumping into a friend from soccer as well and then his friends came along too. This led to sitting around singing with a guitar, my favorite!
12PM- After hanging out for a while in various public parks waiting for Ingrid and her friends to finish going out to eat, we went to a gay club. I found it sort of amusing that we managed to bring along 3 straight Chilean men while we couldn't get any of our American male friends to come. There were a fair number of straight people there though. It was SOOOOOOO fun, ridiculously fun. Great music- it switched between American dance music, to which all the men were busting out the moves from music videos and fast fast paced Chilean music for the bicentenario. It just made me happy to see so many people getting to be themselves. Other than that night, I'd only seen 2 openly gay male couples in public, although I've seen many more lesbian couples in public which I find sort of interesting.
Monday the 20:
7 PM- Light show at La Moneda. I know, light show sounds corny. But there were such good effects! Lasers, lights, fountains, fireworks and projections. Of course, the cost of it probably could have easily paid for tons of educational reforms. Good thing I'm not in charge of a country: I would totally fail at spending sufficiently on "bread and circuses".
Such an amazing week and a half!!! Like a year's worth of fun condensed. Now it's back to reality with 2 tests.
No comments:
Post a Comment