All (or a few) of my shenanigans

So I find I discover something new and weird almost every day here, and one of my revelations in the past week is this weird fruit called “caqui or kaki”. It’s a winter fruit, apparently, and unlike other fruits that grow in winter, caqui trees lose all their leaves and just keep the fruit. My host mom described it as “una fruta triste y sola” because it looks so lonely there. However, one of our neighbors has one of the trees, and the effect for me is more like Christmas decorations. You know, oversized Christmas lights on a leafless tree. It just happens that these lights are attached, and apparently make a delicious snack.

Another revelation is the ridiculously large amount of English-language porn on Chilean television. I swear, if I turn on the tv past 11, porn is on every other channel. Porn and soccer, and bad American reality tv, such as that horrible thing about the playboy bunnies. And of course, “Rock of Love”; my host sister is obsessed with that one. I was kind of hoping that the reality tv craze would not have such a strong hold on other countries, but Chile is the US’s protégé in all things American consumer pop culture.

In other news, I am now a married woman. Don’t worry, our vows are not official, but there was a ceremony one interesting night in Barrio Bellavista. My friends Chris and Tim and I were all out at about one o’clock in the morning, and the homeless guy at the table next to us asked us to watch his coke while he ran to the bathroom. Of course, being the nice people we are, we agreed, however unreasonable we thought it that someone would actually steal his coke. Which they didn’t, until right as he was coming back and thanking us for our guard services. Some punk kid yoinked the coke and was walking away with both the glass and the bottle, and the homeless guy had to run after him to regain his prize. PS, if you’re ever interested, read up about the different social pandillas they have in most Latin American countries. When I say punk, we’re not talking some kid who thinks he’s a badass. We’re talking eighties heavy metal, hot pink Mohawk and chains look. Usually with motorcycles. My favorites are the pokemon though. I’ve probably mentioned them before. Then Homeless Guy asked if it was all right that he join our table.

His name was Carlos (I’m pretty sure, and it’s a safe bet anyway since half of Chile’s male population is named Carlos or Pablo. Or Juan. Seriously not an exaggeration). After sharing his life story, he told me I was beautiful; not an unexpected comment from a Chilean guy on the street. He thought that I was too pretty to be going without protection, because of all the uncouth Chileans running around, and that my friend Chris was just as good-looking. At least, that’s what I think he said, but he was kind of a mumbler and I was sitting the furthest away from him. Anyway, somehow he decided that beautiful people like us need to be together, especially so that way Chris could protect me from all the ordinarios (ghetto losers, and yes that was a classist comment on his part) running around. So we had an impromptu ceremony, where Carlos joined us forever in holy matrimony. Of course, I still couldn’t understand exactly what he said, but I believe it was something like “ésta es una promesa. Una promesa para siempre.” So I guess I’m off the market!

Anyway, that’s probably enough for now. The tomas (sit-ins or takeovers) at the University of Chile are pretty intense right now, and I haven’t gone to one of my classes for about two and a half weeks, and there’s no end in sight. Here’s a video from a protest last week: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7424932.stm

It happened right outside one of my universities, and the metro station right there got flooded with the tear gas they were spraying, and they had to shut it down for a while. I was there that morning, but I missed all the fun. My host sister got caught with the gas when she was coming home from class, though. While I commend the Chilean students for being more politically active than us lazy American teens, they’re sort of screwing me over on the one class I needed here for my major. Kind of a bummer, but I’m sure it’ll somehow work out. In the meantime, there’s a teacher protest tomorrow so I don’t have class in the morning, and the truck drivers are in protest all across the country. So much political action… the US really needs to regain some of its politically active spirit, because if it’s widespread enough, the government cannot keep turning a blind eye.

So yeah, these are the sorts of shenanigans I get myself into here. Oo! Also, another good life experience – I went skinny dipping in the Pacific Ocean. Really good times; good, clean, invigorating fun! J