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The Calamity in Calama

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Mike

The dog on the left with the blue shirt and white star was attacked and chased into submission by these street dogs that invaded his neighborhood. Then the "alpha male dog" turned on another dog in the pack in what turned into a vicious dog fight I witnessed.

What you are seeing is a dog fight between two dogs of the same pack. The dog on the bottom got the worst of it and limped away.

The dog in the middle on top of the other dog is apparently leader of the pack and asserting his dominance as the poor neighborhood dog wearing a sweater approaches. He's in for a nasty fight.

 

YOU DON’T WANT TO TANGLE WITH SOLDIERS WHO WEAR THESE SUNGLASSES: Chilean troops based in Calama march through the streets, ready to defend the homeland.

The town is called Calama, but they may as well have named it Calamity. Or at least that’s the impression inhabitants have given in the short time I’ve been here.

In less than a week in this dusty mining town in northern Chile, I’ve been warned to be careful about packs of street dogs that behave more like wolves on the attack; tricky gypsy women out to relieve the unsuspecting of cash and credit; roving band of drug-addicted robbers looking violently take possession of other people’s valuables; of contaminated tap water with high levels of stuff that can kill you; on and on. Who would think a decision to come to Calama to teach English would be potentially hazardous to my health? Well, living life is a big hazard in of itself, isn’t it? I’ll just continue to hope my Guardian Angels have not abandoned me, thinking “kid, no way we are spending a minute in this Podunk town!”  🙂

For those of you who aren’t keeping up – and God only knows why you are not! – Calama kind of just happened. I was in Peru on my way to Bolivia. I had La Paz on my mind, its mountains, the salt flats of Uyuni, and the landscape and people I had heard so much about. Ready for Bolivia I was. Then the good people at the International Center contacted me to ask if I would be interested in joining their team of English teachers for at least the next six months. My task would be to teach English to executives at one of the local copper mines. After some thought, and with South America in the throes of winter, I accepted the offer. The idea is to wait out winter here and continue travel in nicer summer weather.

A word about the region’s copper mines: Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and boasts the world’s largest copper mine. The mines are in the northern part of the country and Calama is a town that sprung from that mining production. The mines date back to pre-Inca times. In other words, the indigenous people that lived in the region pulled copper from the area long before the Incas and the Spaniards came to the area. The mines were the source of wars between Chile, Peru and Bolivia with archrival Argentina threatening to also attack Chile. Argentina has a longstanding beef with Chile over some southern islands. Not to mention their rivalry over futbol 🙂 Chile managed to kick serious butt and in the process took land from Peru and Bolivia. To the victor go the spoil, right?

In that so-called War of the Pacific, Chile kept several cities and towns from Bolivia and Peru. One of those towns it took from Bolivia was Calama. The Chileans had marched all the way to Peru’s capital, Lima, and contend they could have kept even more territory. The Peruvians and Bolivians still hold a grudge with Chile over the lost territories, especially Bolivia which lost its access to the Pacific Ocean. Chile maintains a very strong army just in case its neighbors try anything foolish. Most military experts note that Chile would handily beat back any aggression. They are probably right. Chile maintains a military contingency in the north and I saw them marching through the streets and they looked like a fierce force.

Let sleeping dogs lie

Anyway, there’s no soft way to put it: Calama is an ugly city. Some say it’s not even a city, that it’s an encampment of miners and mining-related industries. A Chilean colleague at the International Center told me that I picked the ugliest city in Chile to visit first. She said the reason the city is so ugly is because it grew out of a collection of substandard houses and buildings to house and provide services to the miners. Nobody was thinking aesthetics.

One of the first questions I’m asked by residents of Calama is what I think of their city. That question is usually followed with a statement from them that it’s okay to say it’s ugly because it is. Clearly some of them don’t think much of the place. I for one think I can survive here six months. I don’t mind that the place is ugly. I care more about the people and how they treat me, and so far, people have been very friendly.

Now, if only those rabid dogs, those street thugs, those tricky-dickey gypsies and the carcinogenic water would leave me be.  🙂

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I Put My Travels On A Long Pause To Take A Job In Chile

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Mike

A section of the center of Calama, Chile, on a Sunday.

Today is Independence Day in the United States, the day the most powerful nation on Earth celebrates its independence from England. Today marks 235 years of that self-determination.

While most Americans will be celebrating with a day off from work and with picnics, cookouts and just having fun at music concerts and fireworks displays, I will be reporting for work as an English instructor in Northern Chile. I will be working for an agency – the International Center – teaching English to employees and executives of a company that operates the largest copper mine in the world. This bit about the company from www.visitchile.com:

“Chuquicamata is known around the world because of its copper production (activity that preceeds the Inca Empire). It´s an industry that began circa 1882, although it started operating properly in 1911 when US capitals finished its construction. Today, the production reaches the 630 tons of fine copper every year. The Chuquicamata Mine belongs to CODELCO (Copper Corporation), the most important Chilean mineral industry, and it`s the biggest copper mine in the world (4,3 kilometers long, 3 kilometers wide and 800 meters deep). The mine has a balcony for visitors, who can also learn about copper procedures.”

Calama is also a gateway to the Atacama Desert, known as the driest place on Earth. It’s a fascinating place, with geysers and hot springs. I of course intend to visit.

New, more modern business emerging outside of downtown. Fantastic! But where's the Starbucks? 🙂

I will be working in Calama for at least the next six months. So this desert town will be my home until December. I will share a house with several other teachers (I’m not quite sure how many – perhaps three or four) but I will have my own room. Housing, health care, utilities, including Internet, are all provided free of charge by International Center, which has contracts with dozens of businesses and corporations around the world to provide language and translation services.

So what does this mean for my three-your journey around the world? Well, I see it as just a pause, an opportunity to stick out winter in one place and resume travel across the rest of South America in summer. It’s a chance to catch my breath. To stay in one place longer and learn about the people and culture. It’s a great opportunity to try my hand at something other than journalism. And it’s good for my resume, too, should other teaching opportunities in other parts of the world arise.

I’m not sure what my six months in Calama will be like. For someone used to big cities like New York and Miami, Calama is a small town. I took a walk around the town on Sunday and it looked like a ghost town. Just about every business was closed. And the few people who were out and about just stared and probably wondered what the heck was I doing in this dust bowl of a town. In the ice cream parlor the woman behind the counter asked if I was Colombian. Her eyes lit up when I said from the United States. She seemed pleased to see someone from a continent away and went out of her way to be helpful and to share information about little ol’ Calama.

This is a mining town! And evidence of that is everywhere. The men in town look like miners, and the women, well... 🙂

I also stopped in one of the local barbershops. I had walked past it and notice the three people inside looked so bored. I told them so and they laughed. They said things are kind of slow in town on Sundays. I also talked to two young Chilean soldiers sitting on a park bench. They said they had been assigned to Calama and they had been in town two months. They said they were from the capital, Santiago, where there is much more hustle and bustle. But Calama had a couple of clubs and on Fridays and Saturdays there were at least two nightclubs and several bars. Calama also is growing – or I should say growing up. It has a relatively new rather swanky Sonesta Hotel and a casino next door. A shopping mall is just three blocks away. And several very cool new businesses and restaurants are set to open any day now. The center of town is not exactly an ode to modernity. All the buildings are rather old and it reminds me of an old frontier town, like the ones in Western movies in which desperados ride in to town on horses looking for a couple of shots of whisky and a woman named Kitty in the saloon. In fact, as I walked through town, one of the local drug addicts pretending to mind cars for some change, first asked if I needed to park my car. Funny, since I was on foot. I said no, then he asked if I was looking for the company of a woman. Apparently, the drug addict/parking attendant is also part-time pimp. I told him I was just checking out the town. I had been drawn to that corner because I saw that there was a Blockbuster. Good heavens! Maybe there’s a Starbucks, too! Fat chance!

The Sonesta Hotel Calama, pricey modernity but modernity nonetheless

So today, Independence Day for my fellow Americans is Orientation Day for me. I report to meet the International Center staff, fill out presumably lots of paperwork, make arrangements for a medical exam (mandatory for employment), and more paperwork to get my Chilean work visa. Not sure if today I will meet my roommates. Just hope they’re the kind not to mess with my stuff! (I joke 🙂

My friend Brian Tarcy, ever the jokester, asked if now the blog will be known as Mike Tends To Work. Funny, Brian. No, as I consider this venture all part of my travel experience. And I still intend to travel to nearby places on my free time. Bolivia is but a bus ride away. The rest of Chile, too. I will bring you my work and travel adventures here. Several days a week I will have to travel for work anyway, to the mine, where I will conduct my lessons. The mine is about 16 kilometers away from Calama. Those bus trips should be interesting. But more interesting, I think, will be this six-month journey. Let’s see how it goes.

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What Has Stuck With Me About This Place Peru

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Mike

EAT, SMILE, EAT, REPEAT:

The New York Times said it a bunch of times. Other newspapers and magazines have been saying it. And a gazillion trillion others have continued to echo it: Peru has the best cuisine in the world! But don’t listen to any of them. What do they know? Listen to me. It’s true! I may not be able to cook a lick, but I know food that goes beyond the ordinary when I see and taste it. I have not had one bad meal in Peru. You just have to know where to look, but you don’t have to look very hard or even far. Just about anywhere you turn in Peru, you will bump into great cooking. People who know a great deal more about food than I do credit Peru’s diverse cultures that have borrowed from each other – a spice or two here, a cooking method there – to create unique dishes and presentations. So Europe meets Africa meets Asia meet Indigenous meet in Peru! And Le Cordon Bleu Peru continues to crank out skilled chefs in the great tradition of the acclaimed Gaston Acurio. I had the pleasure of dining at two of Acurio’s restaurants – Tanta in Lima and ChiCha in Cuzco – and it made me happier than a fat kid in a bakery. The dishes were a burst of flavors. At ChiCha  where I struggled to get a table, I had a seafood risotto that was killer. I ate every grain and wanted more. And just as ChiCha, I found Tanta purely by accident: I was walking around looking for a place to eat and noticed the crowds. If you don’t take my word for it, listen to the New York Times and the gazillion trillions. And the other newspapers and magazines that have continued to extoll Peru as a gastronomic powerhouse. It truly is.

WITHOUT ME YOU ARE NOTHING!: 

Peru has a race and class problem that has led to a bit of an  identity crisis. You see, white, wealthier Peruvians tend to look down at the Afro-Peruvian and indigenous populations. They don’t value them. If anything, they treat them as a thing to be scorned.  Of course I’m not talking about all Euro-Peruvians, those with Spanish backgrounds. Just some. It’s not talked about much. But ask any Peruvian about it and they will open up about it. A great deal of this disdain is reserved for the indigenous population. You hear the word “cholo” directed at the indigenous population and you know it’s not exactly a compliment.  This has lead to young descendants of the Incas denying their heritage. Some refuse to learn or speak Quechua. They are conflicted about who they are. They want to be identified as anything but from indigenous stock. And yet, were it not for their culture and the heritage that their ancestors built, Peru would lose a huge chunk of its tourism. You think the tourists are coming to see white Euro-Peruvians dressed in their suits and ties? No, they want to take home photos posing with indigenous people in Machu Picchu. Snap your finger and rid yourselves of the indigenous populations and Peru would be just another mediocre country known for not very much.  Well, except it’s good eats J Anyway. It’s time the indigenous populations of Peru – Cuzco, by the way, is somewhat of an exception – start fully embracing who they are and that white Peruvians stop painting them as low class nothings.

THAT’S SO RUDE!:

Okay, so I completely understand that what works for the United States and other supposed “civilized” and “refined” countries doesn’t necessarily work in other countries where chaos is somewhat of a norm. But rude to me is rude. If I’m standing in a crowd watching a parade and you come along and shove me aside to get a view of the parade with not an “excuse me” or “sorry” you are rude! rude! rude! Pushing and shoving people to take their spot was a daily occurrence in Cuzco. I thought at first it was an individual and isolated thing but it just kept happening. So I asked several Peruvians from Cuzco about it and they all said the same thing. That they were aware of this rude behavior and that it was due in part to people simply not being taught manners at home. It’s accepted behavior. Other outsiders – i.e. visitors – experienced this and also wondered about it. Sorry to say this behavior was largely in the indigenous population, i.e., poor and largely un- or miseducated.  Now, I’m taller than most in Peru, so being shoved to the back didn’t trouble me much. I could still get a good view over the people in front of me. But still, manners, manners!

THE PRICE IS WRONG!:

Cuzco is so expensive  it has priced out even Peruvians. Many Peruvians are poor and can’t afford to travel beyond their borders. But I found it interesting that many Peruvians can’t afford to visit Machu Picchu and never have. The entrance fee, the transportation and other related costs put Machu Picchu and other Inca sites out of reach. I understand that governments try to squeeze every dollar or euro out of tourists, but they some seriously need to evaluate the money they ask their citizens to pay. This is especially true of Peru. One of the employees at my hotel said he had been to Machu Picchu only because someone else paid the costs, but his wife – a Peruvian born and raised in Cuzco – had never been to the site. They simply could not afford it. Just about every South American country has two or three different prices – one higher price for tourists, one for citizens of the country and one for locals. Galapagos, for instance, has such a system in which locals pay no entry fees or very little. Peru, it’s time you get a clue.

WARTS AND ALL:

With all its faults, Peru is magical, breathtaking, beautiful, fun, and rich in Pre-Columbian and colonial history. And the civilization that the Incas built is everywhere, not just Machu Picchu. I loved Peru!

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