Monthly Archives: September 2011

No Quitting The Cueca In Oasis Called Quitor

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Mike

Folkloric Ballet of Chile. Photos, slide show below

What a week last week!

Chile celebrated its Independence Day in grand style, with cookouts, a wide variety of events that involved food, music and dance, and a healthy amount of patriotic flag-waving.

I had been so busy balancing work and enjoying what Chile served up during the celebrations that stretched over a month that little time was left to share with you – in a timely manner – all that I’ve been up to. In a nutshell, unabashed fun – even at work. That’s just how Chileans roll.

Team Blue at Gaby Mining Company ready for competition

For me, the long Independence Day weekend started  in earnest at the copper mine where I teach English to corporate executives and their support staff. Company employees took to the parking lot for friendly relay races that drew laughter and then to the dining hall to watch and take part in a cueca competition. The cueca is Chile’s typical dance. It consists of some foot-stomping and fancy footwork all while the dance partners wave white handkerchiefs. I started dancing the cueca about two weeks ago and I swear I haven’t stopped. If you come to Chile during Independence Day festivities, you can bet your bottom peso that someone will drag you out on the dance floor to watch you make a fool of yourself. No matter. After a few pisco soursyou won’t give a damn.

Careful laying that egg!

After much diversion at work, that very evening I went home, took a long nap, and headed over to the office for an office party that consisted of a barbecue, Chilean food and the unavoidable shop talk. It was at the office party that I learned that the following evening there would be a free performance of the Folkloric Ballet of Chile. I jumped at the chance to attend this rare cultural treat in Calama. If this dance company ever comes to your town, don’t miss it! The troupe has toured the world with an entertaining repertoire  of traditional and modern dance, highlighting Chilean folk music and dance. I thoroughly enjoyed.

Early the next morning I headed for the bus terminal with two of my housemates – Zack and Chris – where we  met others with whom we would spend the weekend in  Quitor and San Pedro de Atacama, high in the Chilean desert. That was some weekend, spent touring, eating, dancing, swimming and having an amazing time on an estate – an oasis of pleasure and relaxation in the middle of the desert – owned by the aunt of one of my colleagues. About 20 of us ate, sang and danced there all weekend long.

Monday afternoon we headed back to Calama content and a few pounds heavier from all that good eating. I believe the word “diet” was tossed about several times. What a week it was.

The Deja Vu Wrecking Crew: (left to right) Me; Christina, (New York, USA); Angello, (Calama, Chile); Zack, (Florida, USA); Chris, (Saint Jacobs, Canada); and Maureen (Chicago, USA), all English teachers at the International Center in Chile

Stone mermaid in Quitor, Chile, on estate where weekend was spent

Pre-Inca site in Quitor, Chile. What a find!

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Pilgrimage To Ayquina

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Mike

Aymara women stop for a quick prayer in the square just outside the church in Ayquina

I have to say that lately I have been too comfortable. I don’t like it. Comfort hardly ever amounts to motivation. A person gets comfortable and it makes them not want to get out and explore beyond that “comfort zone.” I get home from a long day of teaching English, weekend comes, and the part of me that wants to stay home wins out over the part that wants to get out and see the world. Too much of that and we’re in “stagnation zone.”

All week I had been talking about traveling to Ayquina to experience the annual religious-cultural pilgrimage that draws people by the thousands. People from Northern Chile, Southern Peru, Bolivia and Northern Argentina  – and tourists from every corner of the world – come to this dusty small town to pay tribute to the Virgen de Guadalupe de Ayquina, who according to legend appeared in the spot where the tiny church stands in her honor. Thousands walk across the desert from Calama to reach Ayquina.

Me, at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, giving thanks for safe travels

Chris and I arrived in Ayquina in the late afternoon by bus. We had made a last-minute decision to experience the annual religious-cultural pilgrimage in the desert town where about 50 mostly Aymara people live. Incredibly, the town swells to almost 75,000 people for this week in September. During the week, the faithful come to pay their respects to the religious icon known locally as “La Chinita.” I didn’t want to miss this event and so the voice that tells me to get out and discover doled out a bruising defeat to the one that promotes idleness.

I must say it felt good to be back on a bus headed to some unknown place. Chris and I joked that the bus company had pulled a fast one by displaying one of those new, double-decked buses with comfortable reclining seats and other modern conveniences, then at the time of departure revealing the actual bus we’d be traveling in. It was tucked way in the back, hidden from view: an old, rickety, smelly bus that had seen better days. Oh, it didn’t matter to me, really. During my travels across South America I had been on worst modes of transportation, some downright dangerous, if not cruel and unusual to man and beast aboard. I was just happy to be off on another adventure, even in a bus that looked like it could not make it down the street.

The Virgin Guadalupe of Ayquina

We arrived in Ayquina in the late afternoon and immediately launched into snapping photos. Chris – oh did I not introduce this Canadian character Chris? He’s from the sticks somewhere just outside of Toronto. He’s my newest housemate – with now five people in the house. He wears the Maple Leaf on his sleeve like some Americans wear the Stars and Stripes. I’ve never met a Canadian more patriotic. At every opportunity he talks up Canada – Canada’s tourism board ought to give him a medal – and takes good-natured swipes at the United States. We have this ongoing Canada versus U.S. banter that provides for some comic relief. But I swear the man has maple syrup running through his veins!

So Chris and I walked all around the town shooting pictures of the Aymara dancers dressed in their traditional dress. The Aymara remind me of the Incas. Their dances, their manner, their traditions are similar. The Incas did conquer this part of Chile, but their culture did not really take root because the Spaniards arrived soon after. Still, the Aymara – heavily concentrated in neighboring Bolivia – are close cousins of the Incas. In Cusco, I was fortunate to experience the traditions of the Incas. And now in Northern Chile, which was once part of Peru and Bolivia, I was now witnessing the traditions of the Aymara. It was simply spiritually uplifting.

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Gone But Not Forgotten

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Mike

Not Forgotten!

Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since the terrorists attacks in the United States. To me it feels as if it happened yesterday.

I remember where I was – living in Portland, Oregon, where I worked as a reporter for the state’s largest newspaper, The Oregonian. That previous week, I had worked long days and extra hours, so I had been granted a day off to catch up on some much-needed rest. I was in a deep sleep when the first phone call of the day came from a colleague. She didn’t bother with the usual “hello”. Her immediate frantic words were: “Mike, New York is under attack!”

Groggy and still half-asleep, I gently protested that she woke me up and asked what in the world was this about. She told me to put on the news. I turned on the television and didn’t have to switch the channel to find the unfolding drama as every television channel was broadcasting it live. Still, I switched to CNN, because what I was seeing on the television seemed unreal, like a Hollywood movie. Soon after I had tuned in, right there on live television, the second airplane crashed into the second World Trade Center tower.

I tried to call my family in New York to see if everyone was okay and out of harm’s way, but the phone calls would not go through. The phone lines were either jammed or down.

As I watched this insanity unfold, the second phone call came, this one from my editor who said he realized that it was my day off, but “we need all hands on deck.”

As I made my way to the office, I caught my first surreal image of a nation at war: A pickup truck sped up Broadway, one of the main downtown streets, with a man in the back holding high a very large American flag. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at him, struggling to hold the flag high in the wind and to the truck’s jerky movements. As the truck slowed at a traffic signal, he looked dead at me and said nothing. There was fire in his eyes. He seemed ready for a fight. I guess it was his way of sending a message to the terrorists.

September 11, 2001, touched me in much deeper ways – an attack on a city that I love filled with family and friends who worked either in the towers or the World Trade Center area. My hometown, where as a teenager in Brooklyn I would stare at the Manhattan skyline dominated by the Twin Towers. Those attacks affected friends and family in unimaginable ways. Some are simply not the same people. I’m not the same person. I still travel and will never stop traveling, but like so many, I am wary. I study every passenger who comes aboard a flight I’m on and think about what I could and would do in the event of a terrorist act aboard. It’s the new reality we live in.

At one point that day 10 years ago, I ended up in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Downtown Portland, sitting alone and being comforted by a complete stranger – A woman who didn’t have to ask what was wrong. On that day, 300 million Americans grieved over the same loss and the rest of the world joined in that grief.

So I take this day to remember those nearly 3,000 people from all walks of life; representing dozens of nationalities, who lost their lives 10 years ago. And I pray that these evil men who profess to follow the teachings of a holy book and yet kill helpless men, women and children in the name of religion, are defeated once and for all. Evil is evil, no matter how they try to wrap it.

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