Let´s See How Far We´ve Come...

music: let's see how far we've come (matchbox 20)

When you start losing hope in where you going,

look back to see how far you have come.

Brujo

I didn´t believe in messages from the universe in the same gentle, curious way that she did.  Still, in that moment, I tried to listen for one.  My devout agnosticism allowed for neither belief nor disbelief in anything.  Sometimes I was smug about it; feeling exalted above the need for false security and “absolute truth”.  Sometimes, it was exhausting.

“El universo es sabio,” my expat girlfriends told me borrowing from a variety of different clichés and languages -- the universe is wise.  “Everything happens for a reason.”

Perhaps it was a chink in my armor that allowed me to entertain the idea.  I try not to linger too long near the doors of churches in moments like these.  There is something about the things you allow to touch you when your guard is down.

My incredulousness wasn´t reserved for conversations on religion.  It also extended to modern medicine as a whole and, with more tangible reason, to the medical system in the small Peruvian village where I´d chosen to carve out a home.  The pain was bad, but the nearest clinic was not only a hassle to get to, but offered little hope of resolution. I ruled it out almost immediately though I was vaguely enticed by the promise of strong, easily-accessible painkillers, illegal in the country I had left behind.

Later, a friend from Lima would laugh at me over cervezas and ceviche about the route that I had chosen to take.  “Fucking gringos,” he would say if though my decision was typical of my kind.  His reaction was fair enough, I suppose.  I couldn´t keep a straight face through the story myself and as soon as the word “brujo” (shaman or wizard) escaped my lips, the table erupted into laughter. 

As I walked home from dinner through the chilly desert night, I thought back to the so-called “brujo” who had pushed on the back of my head in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  In my mind, I had neatly labeled him as a chiropractor.  Still, in his own, the work he did was irrevocably tied to God´s.   It made it hard to maintain the secular little bubble I so wished to confine him to. 

After a few minutes of pressing his fingers deep into my shoulder blade, he paused.   He left his hand cupped a few inches from my head, presumably to stop my soul from spilling over.  Moving his hands over a few inches, he went back to work.  Something cracked deep in my neck and a gaggle of goose bumps flew south down my spine.  He slipped softly from the room.  I could hear his kind voice from the other side of the door.  “Está durmiendo,” he said—she´s sleeping.  I wasn´t. 

Her voice softened to meet his and their conversation slid under the door into the tiny room which was barely wider than the cot that supported my wilted body. 

She had come to the brujo with burdens of her own and her hopes that he could help her seemed to be higher than my own faith that he would put an end to my two weeks of migraines.  Her man, she said, could not be brought to God.  I wondered if the problem was really his lack of faith or its perceived connection to his lack of faithfulness.

Familiar with the machismo reality in which we existed, the latter seemed, to me, the most probable.  I understood her desperation intimately.  I did know a few honest men who had seemingly been kept honest by religion here.  Far more common, however, were contradictions definitively not unique to this corner of the world.  Splattered across the windows of every motorcycle taxi and family restaurant in town, God was flaunted ostentatiously but seemingly absent from day-to-day dealings.   The incessant cycle of sin, repent, sin, repent was as deeply ingrained as the other rituals rarely questioned in Catholic country. It dribbled out of the churches and into the Peruvian men we were trying so hard to love, or not to.

Hold him, that was his answer for her; simple and precise.  Instead, she held me.  Tiptoeing into the room where I lay, she hovered over me and draped her arms across my bare back.   Hot tears trickled from my pounding head into my ears and I wanted nothing more than to run.  I wanted to run to the place that felt closest to home here, so far from my own.  I longed to sit in his earthen-floored living room.  I ached for the familiar smell of his mother´s cooking and the resolute way his father talked about God.  I cautiously toyed with the notion of prayer and how nice it must be to have a one-size-fits-all remedy for everything.  I knew that I was playing with fire, even just  thinking it.

The next day, the migraine intensified, just as the brujo said it would.  The world around me blurred and pulsed to the rhythm of my beating head.  I strained my eyes trying to find beauty in the reality I had chosen.  The distinct life I had carved out on this seemingly randomly selected speck on the map made increasingly less sense.  At the end of a long day, I collapsed into a puddle of pain, exhaustion and doubt.

In the morning, the clouds parted.  Once again, I had the necessary headspace to grapple with the uncertainty of the unknowable.  Once again, everything was equally as likely as it was unlikely.  God was everywhere, and nowhere.  The pain was gone.

I didn´t believe in messages from the universe in the same gentle, curious way that she did.  Still, in that moment, I tried to listen for one.

Painful Lessons in Vocabulary

The beauty of living in another country is the daily opportunity to learn new things.  Between the culture, the people and the language, there are always new things to discover.  However, like with anything, there can be growing pains along the way.  Here are ten of the most painful Spanish vocabulary words I've learned in Chile:

1. Hinchado/a: I learned this little beauty of a word back in May when my board popped me right in the face during a surf lesson.  I got this nice fat lip (pictured above) as a souvenir and the word "hinchado" (swolen or, in this case, fat) as a long-term reminder of what a kook I was  am in the water.
  
2. Multa: This unknown vocabulary word kept popping up on our itemized lists of gastos comunes (shared community charges that pretty much every apartment building in Chile charges) at our old place.  One day, we got the brilliant idea to look it up and found out that we were being charged a "multa" (fee) for paying those gastos comunes late...almost every month.  Lesson(s) learned.

3 & 4. Asangrar & Toser: I never really found the need to know either of these words until Jeff arrived to Chile and began doing both of them at the same time.  A nasty case of strep throat (his second week in Chile) brought us to the infamous Clinica Iquique with a little scrap of paper that held our very important new vocabulary words: "toser" (to cough) and "asangrar" (to bleed).

5. Riñón: Although I had the basic body parts down before moving to Chile, I never made it around to the internal organs.  It wasn't until I had a triple dos of terrible in the form of e.coli, salmonella and an infected "riñón" (kidney) that I learned this little gem of a word.  

PS. I still don't know the names of any of my other internal organs, including my liver; although I've put her through quite a lot here in Chile.  I blame the terremotos.

6. Gusano: Speaking of drinking...after being force-fed the "gusano" (worm) at the bottom of the mescal bottle by a very drunk friend, this slimy (yet satisfying) piece of vocabulary won't be soon forgotten.

7. Atropellar: One day, I was talking with my good friend Kenita via facebook chat and she said, "¡Alguien me atropelló en Baquedano!" which (roughly translated) means "Someone somethinged me on Baquedano!"  Thanks to the fabulous spanishdict.com, I was able to look up the word instantly and find out (to my shock and horror) that someone RAN HER OVER...on the street I walked down every day to work.  Dually noted.

8. Celeste: This painful vocabulary lesson took place on my October trip to Peru.  When I showed the park rangers in the lost and found office a little bag that my mom made me and asked if they had seen a similar one with a camera in it, they made an announcement over the walkie-talkie system about a bolsa celeste; a word I had never heard before.  That day I learned that "celeste" meant sky blue and begrudgingly took this vocabulary word home instead of my pictures from Machu Picchu.  RIP Camera :(  

9. Resbalar: For some reason, this was a word that I could never remember for the longest time.  Surf class after wax-deprived surf class I would mime it out to my surf teacher by gliding my hand along my surfboard and exaggeratedly falling back into the water to show how I had just "resbalar"ed (slipped) on my ass.  This was followed by a plea for mercy and "cera" (wax).

10. Erizo: The newest edition to my painful vocabulary list is erizo; a word I had heard several times but never committed it to memory until it committed itself to my foot.  Last weekend, while beach camping just outside of Iquique, I made a new (not so friendly) friend when I stepped on this critter in the ocean and he (or she) left one of its pokey little spines in my foot.  Ouch "erizo" (sea urchin) ouch.

Lamentablemente

The Word of the Day, I was informed, was lamentablemente.

lah-mehn-tah'-bleh-mehn-teh
(adverb) unfortunately, regrettably

Examples

1. Lamentablemente, cuando llegamos a la playa había empezado a llover.
   Unfortunately, when we got to the beach it had started to rain.
2. Lamentablemente, cuando Claudia llegó al viñedo, Eduardo estaba encamado, sin muchos ánimos de seguir luchando.
   
   

   Regrettably, when Claudia got to the vineyard, Eduardo was bedridden, with not much of a will to continue fighting.

   
   

   Both coincidentally and quite lamentable in and of itself, I not only already knew the word, but had also had it thrown at me just a few hours prior.  It was used as an opener to laundry list of unfortunate developments in my work situation.  Lamentablemente, the mining company had confirmed earlier that day that they changed their mind about needing a native speaker at the site.  Lamentablemente, they were now requesting a teacher who was qualified both to teach both English to their Chilean workers as well as Spanish to their Canadian workers.  Lamentablemente, I didn't fit the bill.  Lamentablemente, since I was only staying until July and wasn't going to the mine anymore, it wasn't worth their time to give me a visa... 
   
   I stared at my boss for a few seconds in silence until I could absorb the full shock of the blow.  Her tone of voice was so light and casual that I needed a moment to bend my brain around the words she was saying and wring out the weight of their true meaning.  Her tone and facial expression said something more along the lines of, "Unfortunately, when we got to the beach it had started to rain." but the words coming out out of her mouth were infinitely more destructive.
   
   In my mind's eye, I could see all of my plans lined up in a neat little row.  With one clumsy flick of the wrist, she knocked down the first of them and they fell like dominoes; each one colapsing onto the next.  There wasn't a glimmer of sympathy involved, not even a simple "I'm sorry", just the dreaded Lamentablemente. I was back to square one.
   
   I felt like Charlie Brown, running at full speed towards that football, only to have it yanked away at the last second and fall flat on my ass.  That's beginning to describe my relationship with the academy alarmingly well.  It seems to be empty promise after empty promise with them lately.  I always approach cautiosly at first but (much like Charlie) am quickly convinced to give more trust than has been earned.  
   
   Within the next few weeks, I'll be scrambling to put together a new plan (be it in Iquique or elsewhere).  When my other boss gets back from vacation, I'm sure he'll have lots of lovely things to tell me about how great it will be for me if I stay on here in Iquique.  He'll hold out another football and things will seem shiny and new and promising again.  Maybe I'll run after it, or maybe I'll just walk away.