Disturbing Trends: Juvenile Public Urination

Cultural differences are always hard to understand. That's what makes them interesting. That's also sort of what makes this blog interesting. But I feel like there is a universal expectation of parents that they are instilling positive habits in their children. Toothbrushing. Vegetable consumption. Respect for the law and basic public hygiene. But sometimes that just doesn't seem to be the case. No fewer than four times now I have seen mothers helping their young children pee against walls. None of the children were more than six years old. Everyone can understand that bladder control is newer and more difficult at that age. But urinating against the wall of a business hardly seems like a responsible solution. I witnessed these events not in tucked-away alleys or side-streets, but in plazas, pedestrian malls and major thoroughfares. Just today I saw the most recent example at 2:30 in the afternoon in the middle of the financial district of the city. No one expects these children to have perfect control of their bladders, but really? Public urination is illegal is not just because of puritanical expectations of modesty. It just isn't hygienic to have human waste on the sidewalks. I am hoping I have just noticed a large number of aberrations. That this isn't a commonly accepted phenomenon. Though if it is perhaps it explains the drunk man who continued to cat-call at me while urinating on the building next door to mine last week.

Chilean Election Primer

So this Sunday is election day in Chile. Officials at all levels of government from municipal to federal will be selected. Of course, the presidential contest is the most closely watched of these races. This round of voting has four major front runners. If no one wins a majority there will be a run-off between the two candidates with the highest percentages. Most people seem to expect a run-off. This election is particularly interesting because for the first time since the military dictatorship ended in 1990, a candidate from the right is likely to win. The incumbent, Michelle Bachelet, is pretty popular right now but has decided not to seek another term. Neither of the candidates from her party have been able to parlay her popularity into real momentum. In ascending order of polling numbers the four major candidates are:

Arrate: Jorge Arrate is the candidate for the communist party. He held a position (economic adviser of some sort) in the government of Salvador Allende. He seems to have the most interesting, liberal policies. Pretty much everyone I know who plans to vote plans to vote for him. They also all seem confident that he will only take about 12%. Since most of what I know about candidates I infer from the campaign signs that litter EVERY intersection in the city, Arrate has an appealing, Mark Twain-like style. I dig him.

Enríquez-Ominami: As far as I can tell, Marco Enríquez-Ominami's most distinctive qualification is that he is sort of a babe. He's thirty-six years old and has very little experience to recommend him, except that his dad was a popular figure in leftist politics. I get the feeling that a candidate like Ominami would get a lot of flack in the US for being a spoiler. He's not going to win, and it seems like he's only splitting the centrist vote. Because technically there is a coalition system in Chile rather than a strict bipartisan system this isn't exactly true. Ominami has the endorsement of four parties. Practically speaking, this run seems more like an attempt to set a foundation for future national campaigns. But for now, we can all enjoy his super-shiny hair and dazzlingly white smile.



Frei: Eduardo Frei seems like sort of a wet blanket. I mean, dude is never smiling in his campaign photos. What's more, he has already been president and ran into some problems with corruption. It's a bit puzzling that he would win the candidacy at all. But he too is the progeny of a figure in the Chilean left. His father was president before Allende in the late 60's. He's become something of a martyr since it was recently proved that Pinochet had him slowly poisoned to death. The major problem with Frei the second is that everyone thinks his government will simply perpetuate the status quo. People are pretty concerned about the state of health care and education here (public schools were closed for more than a month due to a strike this year). Many people care more about change than they do about the potential policies that will be implemented. You could see it as a twisted turn in the world-wide, Obama-ist change movement.

Piñera: Is currently leading all polls. Sadly because he's a total neoliberal. Additionally he is the richest man in the country. Which is always sort of suspect (remember how Steve Forbes always seemed vaguely unreliable?). The final creep-factor for Piñera is that he is highly involved with Opus Dei. Opus Dei seems to have quite a lot of power in Chile and often comes up when discussing right-wing politics. Generally I nod knowingly during such conversations, when in reality everything I know about Opus Dei I learned from The da Vinci Code. So if (and, it sadly seems, when) he wins he'll probably move to privatize health care further and implement even more voucher programs for schools (or the Chilean equivalent of vouchers which seem to subsidize private schools with public money). And we all know how great those ideas work.... Sigh.

Election Policy: Certainly every democratic system has its short-comings. There are two particularly strange policies concerning elections in Chile.

-First of all, if you are registered to vote, it is illegal not to. Unless you can prove to the police that you were sick or more than 300kms from your poling place you must pay a fine. People have told me this discourages them from registering. While I understand that the idea is to underscore the importance of the democratic process, this just seems a little backwards. If I'm not mistaken, this law has been overturned and this is the last affected election.

-Secondly, it is illegal to drink the night before the election. Apparently all the bars are closed. This sort of cramps my style since I unwittingly planned a margarita-soaked, Mexican dinner party for tomorrow night. I hope I don't get arrested.

I'm sure I'm grossly over-simplifying and over-editorializing here. Even after two months it's hard to fully understand the structure and history of politics in Chile. Anyhow, it will be interesting to watch how things go. I don't think Piñera has enough votes to avoid a run-off, but people seem more and more certain of his eventual success. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

Thanksgiving!

So even though it's pretty much always sunny with highs in the seventies, Thanksgiving was last week. The Southern Hemisphere continues to confuse me. To celebrate I cooked the traditional meal for pretty much everyone I know here. I was expecting seven and ended up with ten (eleven for dessert). I also feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment at having done it all by myself. The hardest part was tracking down all the necessary components. For example, although there are Chilean cranberry farms, there are virtually no cranberry products for sale. Also, fresh herbs (besides parsley) apparently won't be available until around Christmas time. Needless to say finding a whole turkey was not possible. But! I documented the whole process and, at the risk of boring all of you, this is how I did it:



I was going to need chicken broth for the stuffing and the gravy. The grocery store had condensed cans of Campbell's soup and cubes of mono-sodium-ized bullion. So I had to make my own stock. The kitchen is not equipped with many storage containers so I ended up pouring the stock into an empty bottle that once held a grapefruit flavored seltzer drink. I think the twinge of citrus the broth leeched from the plastic really added to the complexity of flavor.



So after searching high and low, I was only able to find dried cranberries and a bottle of the most expensive cranberry juice cocktail of all time. I decided to cook these down with frozen raspberries, some red wine and apple chunks. In the end I added quite a bit of orange zest to accomplish tartness. It wasn't cranberry sauce. But it was pretty tasty.



I have been so spoiled having a Cuisinart for the last two years. Cutting together pie dough by hand is tedious and tiring. I was glad that shortening is readily available here though. And it's made with animal fat rather than just vegetable oil so it's extra delicious.



I did a sort of loose conversion of my mother's ratios for crust into metric. And then I realized that I don't even have metric measuring cups and eye-balled the whole thing. I might have skimped on the flour a little, but ultimately it's hard to complain about a crust being too buttery.



I guess I've made more gorgeous pies. I'll have to practice more.



So it's a chicken, not a turkey. And I trussed it with dental floss (for a hint of mint). But there wasn't a single bit left. So I must have done something right.



We didn't have knives for people to cut the meat. Wine was mostly drunk from mugs. We even had to improvise a seat with the propane tank from the stove and a board... But it fits nicely with the spirit of the holiday to have people from six different countries come together over a meal.

Film Festival Fail

So I led you all on. I told you there would be theater and film reviews all week and all I gave you was silence. I'm so sorry. But, in my defense, I have had some pretty bad luck with the Film Festival. Infrastructure seems to be an issue for festival facilities as well. Every single thing I have tried to see has been thwarted in some way. There have been bad tapes, bad projections, cancellation due to electricity issues (that would be the container festival) and tonight just a lame, unspecific explanation that they didn't have the film. The gentleman who explained the film's absence (at length without saying anything exactly) kindly showed his own film instead. I do not exaggerate when I say that it was the worst film of all time. Aesthetically on par with films from the Fast Forward Teen Program I was in during tenth grade. The sound of each fork scraping a plate rang out like a bell, but the dialogue might as well have been delivered through a pillow. And the plot. Well it was about a family and business and probably lots of things. But mostly the director seemed interested in the incest aspects of the story. The plot line seemed to surface without any particular explanation and was so graphically depicted that I think it would be more accurate to just call it sister fucking. Pardon. We stayed for about thirty minutes and then just had to leave. In an effort to make sure that the director knew how awful his work was, my friend tried to make as much noise leaving as possible.

Theater and Film Week!

So I totally missed writing yesterday. Sigh. I guess I won't win the chocolate covered MacBook, or whatever they were giving as a prize (a chocolate covered MacBook, for those in the generous mood this gift-giving season, would be sublime).

But as an update of sorts, yesterday was the first day of the Festival Theatro de Containers. My roommates and I went to see a Catalonian aerial dance troupe perform in the middle of the largest square in the city on four giant shipping containers stacked one on top of the other. It was pretty rad. Unfortunately the non-aerial aspect of the performance was a half-hearted clowning gestault. As a caveat, I am completely unable to see theatrical performances without being incredibly critical (this also applies to movies, fashion and architecture, improbably).

In addition to the Container Festival, there is also an international film festival in Viña del Mar this weekend (Viña is Valparaíso's sister city). So I am going try to see at least (!) one performance or film every day. I have several willing accomplices in this effort, so I think it shouldn't be hard. And! You lucky readers will get to hear all of my very strong opinions! Think of it as an early Christmas gift.

I am not really sure if this counts as not forgetting to blog. Since it is technically Saturday now. It's sort of a weird arbitrary thing. Dates start at midnight. Years too. A minute and you're a year older. I feel sort of attached to dates. I sometimes test my memory and try to remember really specific details of what I was doing on a certain date in years past. What I was wearing or what I ate. Usually I can only remember specific days. If I'm playing the memory game with March 3, for instance, I will probably do better because that's my very first best friend's birthday. And the date still tends to protrude a bit even though I haven't seen her in years. And of course some days stick out so much that they sort of loom in the distance beforehand. And sometimes one significant date is replaced by another thing that happens on that day.

I've been thinking a lot about this time a year ago lately. And how much it changed the direction in which I was headed. I feel certain that I made the right decisions, took the signs to mean the right things. But I often wonder what if things had happened differently. Right now I would probably be in Law School, thinking about things in past Novembers like going to the Cloisters with Ryan and Alex or that time I accidentally burnt a mouse in the toaster oven. And I'd probably read some friend's blog about moving to a completely different place and feel jealous and maybe a little trapped. It's strange to have moments where you can see your decisions stacked up behind you. Piled around the giant, immobile facts of events beyond your control.

Complaints: Plumbing Infrastructure

All things considered I am feeling pretty good about where I am so far with this crazy project. I am learning tons of Spanish. I have an apartment. I'm making friends. There are some things that just drive me insane about life here. Plumbing is very high on that list.

1) It is unheard of, as far as I can tell, to have hot water in bathroom sinks. Public restrooms and private homes alike. Not to be a typical American germophobe, but they do serve a purpose. My wasteful expectations of boundless hot water aside, it seems a fairly simple pleasure: splashing warm water on one's face, rinsing off the grime of the city. In terms of hand washing, I rely much more on soap, which is drying out my skin. Because I'm a pampered princess, basically.

2) The hot water that is available in my apartment (in the kitchen and the shower) is extremely limited. If I were the kind of person who used Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs as measuring units for her life, I would say that the Lord Chancellor would not reach the description of his dream in the duration of a hot shower here. 90 seconds. Max. It's deeply demoralizing.

3) This is going to come as a shock to all of you, but you are cannot flush toilet paper here. At all. There are small wastebaskets next to each toilet for used tissues. For the first week it was distressing and vaguely mortifying. I am mostly used to it now, but each time the basket is full and I have to bring it down to the street I experience a wave of physical revulsion. It adds dimension of desperation to the sanitation worker's strike which has been ongoing for the last two weeks.

4) My toilet might be older than my father. The age of the plumbing is apparently responsible for the above mentioned general infrastructure problem, but my particular device is truly a relic. Water never completely stops running into the tank. In order to avoid exorbitant water bills and quite a bit of noise I have to turn the water on and off waiting for the tank to fill each time I want to flush. It's really only a problem when I need to be somewhere and can't take the two minutes. I often find myself using the bathroom immediately upon arriving at places.