Dirty Water, Hard Partying Armenians & 235 Years of Rugged Individualism

Happy Fourth of July! As my independence day celebrations generally tend to be amusing, I figured I would recount this weekend.

On Saturday, some friends & I were going to go to Haymarket to the market to get vegetables, but then we rerouted and decided to go kayaking on the Charles! We had the best weather imaginable so it was a great adventure. Renting kayaks from Paddleboston, based out of Kendall Square, is actually quite affordable, at $18/hr for a double or $12 for a single cockpit, $1 drysack rental. A nice spot of exercise with fabulous views of Boston for about the same price as going to the movies. After that we never really made it over to Haymarket, but we walked back through Cambridge/Somerville, encountering a wild turkey yet failing to encounter the Union Square Farmer's Market. O well. That night, we had a bbq/fire pit which slowly devolved to the point where we were chilling on a porch with the 2 Irishmen who are subletting from one of my friends, trying to get them to remember our names and make their jokes slightly less offensive to women. Typical night for Slummerville, I suppose. The firepit was awesome though.

 On Sunday, I refused to do anything productive all day except read Kim Barker's "Taliban Shuffle" (still haven't totally digested how I feel about it) until I went to a catering around 8. I thought it rather odd that a dinner was starting that late, especially since it was a holiday weekend, but it made more sense eventually. Apparently, it was for an Armenian Awards Convention of some sort. I'm not entirely sure the details because all the posters were in Armenian. At least initially, I ended up serving food to the room they had set aside for all the kids, which was a terrible idea because it got rather rowdy. I felt like I was in a video game- dodging small fast moving objects while trying to get to a certain point. Or maybe babysitting. Definitely not your run of the mill catering experience. Kids running around, all the gorgeous adults drunk, a bunch of people making loud speeches in Armenian, a hooded religious figure, kitchen staff creepin' (Señorita, I love you!): it was rather chaotic. Dios mio.

Things got even more wild once they started blasting music with a live band. It reminded me of a Bollywood score, speed up, with extra string instruments thrown in for good measure. Eventually, everyone was dancing in a circle and then all these guys started breakdancing and then dancing with carrying men on their shoulders AND carrying another guy around the waist. Then they started waving various flags. By this point, it looked more like a mob celebrating election results than what I'm used to as a dance party. Quite unexpected but a good reminder that life is to be enjoyed. a lot.

So then it was time for independence day. I decided to be nice to America and spend a day without criticizing stuff, which is hard because pretty much all i do is read about reasons one should criticize american power and influence. (We know you can be better!!!) But anyway, turned off my brain & threw on some red white n blue & went to a bbq (i ate veggie burgers though).  Then we watched fireworks over the Charles which were AMAZING. it was quite good & far more laid back than my all night partying yeah yeah Chilean independence day. but 2 independence days in twelve months? Maybe I should make that happen more often.

The Ivory Tower Asshole & America's Favorite Pasttime

Last Friday, it was one of my good friend's 21st birthday, and to celebrate, a group of us went to a Red Sox game. This was exciting because it was something I had wanted to do before graduating from school up here. It also showed me how hilariously out of touch I am with the actual "real world." First of all, I couldn't even find normal clothes to wear- apparently I don't own anything red or Red Sox approved. I ended up wearing these absurb Chilean jeans (think acid wash + knee patches) and a tweed blazer, because they were the only things that I had clean. Saving up quarters to do laundry in my sketchtastic basement is sometimes a struggle.

Secondly, despite the fact that I can talk ad naseum about topics such as the Guatemalan Civil War and the politics of "Selective Service Provision in Latin American Cities," when it comes to things that the majority of people actually find interesting, I am absolutely hopeless. Thanks to gym class, I actually know how baseball is played, but as for actual players or stats or any of those things, I am completely lost. It took me a good 15 minutes after arrival to figure out where the score of the game was being tallied and which team was which. I got really confused when they started saying "You" when player Kevin Youkillis was up at bat, because it sounded like booing and I couldn't figure out why everyone would have such bad sportsmanship, especially towards their own teammate.

Surprisingly, given my tendency to be a complete bore at sporting events, I/we had an amazing time. Fenway Park aka the Green Monster (I knew that much at least) is a wicked awesome place. It was so fun to see everyone all excited and varied and it was just so American. And I can honestly say, other than times I was hanging out with family or friends, it was one of those moments where I felt truly present and happy to be exactly where I was. Wanderlust temporarily quenched.

Kind of did miss the insane illegal fireworks and riot cops aspect of South American sporting events though...

“Educación es lo que queda después de olvidar lo que aprendí en escuela”

Education is what remains after you forget what you learned in school.

I’m having a really hard time summing up what I got out of this semester. When people ask me, “How was Chile?” it seems totally clique and arrogant to say “It totally changed my life” as much as this may be true. So I usually end up saying "it was really good" which is totally lame.
If anything, my experience in Chile was more a look at what it is like to try another life on for size for a while, let it grow and then eventually step back to see what was created. And while that life may have passed, it still influences the way I think and act. But communicating the fullness of this is virtually impossible. And communicating the things I learned about culture, and human rights and mining and everything else aren't the quick fun stories everyone wants to hear, as much as these are the things I care about and want to talk about.

As many people had warned me, the culture shock coming back is much worse upon return than it is when you are abroad. Usually, I found that my culture shock in Chile was never that bad because it was similar enough and the things that were different were usually surprising or funny or interesting.
But upon my return, I feel like I’m analyzing everything double. And my natural adaptation to freezing cold climes from 20 years of northern hemisphere life is completely gone. I feel completely cold physical but also the culture itself seems so much colder. Aside from hugs, there is no physical goodbye or hello. Everything starts and ends earlier. I’m currently back at Tufts visiting friends which is wonderful, but it’s exam time, so everyone is essentially freaking out big time. And everything seems so petty in a way I hadn't before: for example, while students in Chile have clashes with the police to protest the privatization of their education, Tufts kids complain when their cafeteria trays are taken away to be more environmentally friendly. Come on.
By now, I’ve at least stopped speaking Spanish inadvertantly to people, but this makes me feel sort of empty, like something I want to is inaccessible.
It's gonna be a little while before it's going to feel like my country again.