Posts Tagged With: Chile

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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Every Protest Should Rise To This Level Of Fun

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Mike

"What Would Chile Be Without Calama?"

I have to hand it to Chileans. Well, at least the Chileans in the northern town of Calama. They know how to make anti-government protest and random acts of civil disobedience entertaining. I’ve never had so much fun at a demonstration.

Not that I’ve participated in many protests to know the dynamics, the mechanics and what is to be expected. I have to think back to my college years to recall a demonstration I took part in. It was against a proposal to replace the free-wheeling, free-choice Liberal Artsprogram with a mandatory core set of academic subjects. So instead of entering college and choosing which subjects you wanted to take toward your major, a freshman would be required to take a series of  courses in math, science, English and a sprinkling of other subjects before he or she could fully concentrate on subjects in whatever major he or she had settled on.

Masked Man

Minority students saw that as a backdoor strategic move to scrap ethnic studies, such as Black Studies and Puerto Rican studies. Demonstrations decades before had led to the establishment of those departments and students weren’t about to let them go without a fight. I still remember the chant of hundreds of students in front of the administration building: “Core curriculum we say no! Ethnic studies won’t go!!” We lost that battle. All the college administration had to do is wait. Soon, the vocal opponents would have graduated and moved on to real life issues, such as jobs, marriage, kids, a mortgage.

After college I was not allowed to participate in protests or even so much as sign a petition no matter how worthy the cause. I was a journalist and journalists give up certain rights and freedoms other citizens have. Journalists have opinions, certainly, but they must keep them in check if they want to keep their jobs. Of course, journalists who are paid to give their opinion, well that’s a different story.

So this protest thing was sort of foreign to me. As a reporter I had covered my share of demonstrations, but they ranged from peaceful gatherings to the odd guy in a monkey suit chained to a bike rack in front of a federal courthouse.

Music and protest

In Calama, it was all about music. This protest to force the central government in Santiago to give Calama 5 percent of the revenues generated by the copper mines in the region was more like a folk and rock concert than anything else. In between pronouncements and denouncements of the administration of President Sebastián Piñera, bands took the stage and rocked the crowd. The headliners, the Chilean band Sol y Lluvia, had the flag-waving, mostly young audience jumping up and down in unison and singing along. Sol y Lluvia formed in the 1980s and became popular for their brand of music that mixes modern and traditional instruments, but also because of their strong opposition to the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. I really enjoyed this band. And so did the rest of the audience on hand.

Besides the bands, there were cheerleaders doing acrobatic stunts, men and women in strange costumes, jugglers on stilts, flag dancers, loud vuvuzelas left over from World Cup Soccer, and an assortment of other acts that pleased the audience. This was the most excitement I had seen in Calama in the nearly two months I’ve been here.

Freed mayor speaks

Now, I refer to the amassed crowd as an audience rather than protesters because the event evolved into a street festival. Sure, there were some tense moments, but few and far between. At Chuquicamata, the largest open-pit mine in the world, Calama Mayor Esteban Velásquez and several others were arrested and put in jail for several hours after they blocked the entrance to the mine to stop vehicles from entering and exiting in a failed effort to shutdown mining operations. According to eyewitnesses, several of the demonstrators who showed up at the mine around 4 a.m., were forcibly removed by riot police brought in from the town of Iquique, about five hours drive north. The mayor and the others were freed after boisterous demonstrators turned up at the police station to demand their release. Other demonstrators claimed they and others were beaten by riot police at the mine.

Also at the Calama Shopping Mall, which chose to ignore the citywide work stoppage, demonstrators blocked access and refuse to allow potential shoppers to enter. Mall security and police worked out an agreement with the demonstrators to allow the mall to stay open until noon. The protesters agreed and promptly at noon were back at the mall chanting and turning away people who were trying to do some shopping.

Several demonstrators at the mall tried to get me to join them and I pointed out that I was not Chilean and the penalty for foreigners participating in demonstrations in Chileis automatic deportation. The women said they would protest my deportation. Funny.

 

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Sol y Lluvia

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