Missing Tooth

Half of my tooth fell out yesterday. Actually, the bonding that had been added to my tooth fell out, revealing my ever-so-tiny natural tooth. I was reminded of how the kids in seventh grade called me turtle because of my chiclet teeth. I laughed and told Fabian I look like white trash, which I don’t think he really understood. I didn’t know how to explain it to him without sounding extremely classist. It’s just a joke, okay? A few hours later, at his house, I huddled over the gas cooking stove on which he had lit all four burners as an attempt to warm the kitchen while he made a fire. Yes, I was warming my hands over open flames on a stove with a huge gap in my teeth. I laughed out loud; white trash indeed!

It is now apparent that this tooth chipping was foreshadowing for the bad day that was in store for me upon waking this morning. It started off just fine, in the arms of Fabian I hit snooze on my digital clock a few times and finally mustered up the bravery to face the cold outside the five layers of blankets that weigh heavily upon us. I’m reminded of Fabian’s invitation to go to sleep the night before: ¿Vamos al sobre? Shall we go to the envelope? Not, of course, before putting boiling water in my Nalgene bottle to lessen the shock of the frigid frigid sheets (yes, so frigid it merits repeating) and firmly positioning my hat over my ears. If nothing else, life in Patagonia in the winter is COLD.

But back to today… as I stepped outside the front door of the cabin, I put some upbeat Clumsy Lovers bluegrass on my MP3 player and crunched through the snow the seven blocks to my house, shielding my eyes from the sun the whole way and focusing on what I was going to do in my class of fifth graders that started in half an hour. It was going to be a good day, I was convinced, because I didn’t have class with the freshman who are my real problem class.
Upon entering the school, the head of the school district (which consists of the school in Futa and four rural schools) asked to speak with me in his office. He there informed me that he had spoken with the mayor and that they can’t pay me for the two weeks that I’ve been working full-time to replace the current English teacher because I’m not licensed in Chile. Rather than begin a long digression about the informalities of Chilean policies yet the ironic strictness with which they follow these loose rules, I will suffice it to say that it is not the lack of being paid that bothers me so much as the manner in which the school dealt with the issue. The director even said to me, “The Foundation pays you for your educational service to the community, correct? Just think of it as part of your role with the Foundation.” No, I replied, I have separate responsibilities to the Foundation that do not correspond with having the school take advantage of my goodwill. Hmph.

After speaking with him I went, late, to my eighth grade class, where I had a time and half with a student who was hiding behind a bookshelf, throwing paper, walking around the room, talking the entire class period while his peers gave presentations, wouldn’t listen to me when I asked him to please sit down, please respect your classmates, please stop throwing paper. Finally I resorted to taking him to the principal’s office, something I’ve never done and don’t like to do because I like to handle discipline problems myself but this was beyond me.
Another student in the same class who I sat next to me during the presentations because he was talking excessively proceeded to tear up small pieces of paper and throw them on the floor. One.after.another. Rather than reprimand him yet again while his classmates were presenting (you have to choose your battles), I waited the fifteen minutes until the bell rang and asked him to stay after and clean up the paper that littered the floor surrounding his desk. He refused to.

He walked over to the window and looked outside at the other students going home for lunch, throwing snowballs, sliding on ice patches, laughing. I tried to make small talk with him as I walked around and straightened desks and chairs, explaining how I used to have a job where I had to clean up after other people and I hated it when my clients were disrespectful and carelessly threw their garbage on the ground. He continued to look out the window with his back to me. Silence. “¿Te gusta la nieve?” I ventured. No response. A longer silence.

I decided to take a different route. I attempted a long explanation of why I was willing to spend my lunch hour waiting there with him, not for the mere fact that I wanted him to pick up the paper but because it’s important to me that he understands that his actions affect other people. I went overboard in inspired teacher mode, started a tangent about how all of our actions, good and bad, his and mine, impact other people with whom we come in contact in our lives, and that we have the power to determine our actions, yadda yadda yadda. He walked slowly to the adjacent wall while I spoke and began staring out a different window. A still longer silence. I thought about how I had told Fabian to meet me at the house at 1:30 for lunch. It was close to 2 now. I had to create a window for him to pick up the paper without feeling like he’d surrendered, without having to swallow his pride.

“Well, I’m going to start picking up this mess and if you’d like to help, I would appreciate it.” I bent over, picked up some scraps, looked over, and caught a glimpse of his face as he walked toward me and then the door. He didn’t look at me, but his cheeks were red with emotion and he looked as if he was trying not to cry. It really gave me pena, I wanted to hug the poor guy. Who knows what was going on in his head, what has gone on his life that he just doesn’t care. I let him leave, not even upset that he didn’t listen to me but sad for him and whatever battle he’s fighting. I finished picking up the paper bits and walked home for lunch. I had forgotten all about the fact that I wasn’t getting paid. Not to mention my dental drama...

Big Friday Night

Today is a big day for two reasons.
1.) It snowed last night for the first time in the streets of Futaleufu. My students were enchanted with the word "snow." They loved repeating it softly. Snowwww.
2.) I have big plans for my Friday evening. Yes, tonight is the Truco tournament. Truco is a card game typical of Patagonia that involves lots of lying, signs, and special chants. The first time I watched it I was completely lost. I've dedicated myself to learning how to play and last week I entered my first real game. With Fabian as my trusty partner (we've got all the signs down) and Eva and Trinidad, two other teachers, on the opposing team, we sat down to a serious game of Truco. Laughs were had, insults thrown, suspcious glances abounded. Best out of three games, and the matches used to keep score showed that we lost the third game by two points. Intense to say the least.
Tonight we meet again to pay off our bet of a bottle of wine and chocolate and to have a rematch. I'm stoked.
I've been extremely busy this week replacing the official English teacher in the district who has sick leave for 2 weeks and it has been... fantastic. Great to see new faces and meet new students, have a change of pace, and even great to feel mildly stressed. I would hate to say the laziness/ slow pace of the south had rubbed off me, but it is slightly contagious. Why rush if no one else is? I mean, the roads aren't even paved and I walk two blocks to work, how stressed can you be?
Yesterday I bought myself a fabulous snowsuit of sorts. I spied it at the "ropa americana" (I actually had been on the hunt for one of these puppies, I see people wearing them all the time here and they look so warm) and it's pastel pink. I seem to have bought it at the perfect time since it snowed last night. Today I donned my new gear and felt a bit like Barbie, but boy was I toasty.
I absolutely love my living situation with Eva. She is a firecracker. In the school she is notorious for being strict; she often complains that the principal doesn't know how to wear pants (a figure of speech, obviously) and that she always has to be the one to lay down the law (she's next in command). At home, however, it's a different story. Her sense of humor is dry, sharp, and ever-present. When Fabian came over after fixing his car, his jacket caked in dirt and his face smeared with grease, she claimed he dirtied himself on purpose so I'd think he actually works. She's learning English, slowly but surely, with our "lessons" in the house that consist of jokingly insulting each other.
The other night the electricity went out (it's been doing that a lot lately, nobody really knows why) and she and I huddled by the woodburning stove and went through some phonetics flash cards I have. One card had 4 words that start with "BR." She asked me what BRAIN means, so I pointed and she eventually guessed that it's cerebro. Not knowing its meaning either, she read the next word out loud: BROOM. "That's the sound your BRAIN makes when it explodes- BROOM!" She hooted in Spanish.
Yesterday I was at my computer and she came in, sat down on the couch, and asked me what my opinion is of men. Here we go I thought. What proceeded was an hour long conversation about fidelity, latinos, temptations, machismo, you name it. That woman sure can talk, and what she has to say drips humbly with wisdom and experience. She is stoic and joyful and I consider myself very lucky to have landed the living situation that I did.

Family Vacation?

“A ver…” Eva started in Spanish. “I (pause…) to like dis fud.” She held up her cookie and beamed, knowing that her sentence was full of errors but proud of having thrown herself in the pool anyway, as they say here. No shame, just go for it and no worries if you’re wrong.
I smiled encouragingly. “Mhhmmm.” Point to her. “You like this cookie?”
“Jes,” she replies from the backseat. The other two Chilean teachers in the backseat join her in laughing. Communication!
The three women, each with children around my age, are teachers in Futaleufu. They are also my English students. And now, for a long weekend, they take on a new role as my traveling companions.
Tito, Veronica’s husband, is driving the large SUV and smiles as though he should also find the situation amusing but honestly doesn’t. In actuality he’s nervous. He’s been noticeably nervous the entire six hours we’ve been in the car together. Having gotten on the road two hours later than originally planned, Tito is concerned that we won’t make the border crossing back into Chile before the customs office closes at 8 p.m. A valid concern, I suppose. With three hours to go, I’m hoping we make it but I’ve learned not to worry.
It’s a surreal event for me, this car trip, mixed with waves of comfort and foreignness. One of those times when you stop and realize you’re more comfortable than you should be in such a foreign situation. It’s the first time I’ve really traveled in Chile by car. It oddly takes away the feeling of travel. The loud motor, curtains, elevated seats, strange faces of a bus all lend to the mysticism of travel, the feeling of being safely removed but curiously inserted into “place.” Now, however, I am curiously part of “place” and this feels safe. As I turn around in my co-pilot seat and take in the beautiful Patagonia landscape, lake after lake to my right and snow-capped mountains to my left, I can easily imagine being in a US National Park, passing through with colleagues in our plush SUV. I’ve become used to hearing Spanish so much that even the language difference holds no shock for me, no feeling of misplacement. It’s like traveling…at home. At home traveling.
This general comfort I feel lends a sort of sneakiness to the cultural differences that do creep up on me. For example, one would think that among the four Chileans in the car aged 45 and over more than one of them would be willing and able to drive. One would be wrong. Veronica, the owner of the vehicle along with husband Tito, apparently drives only in Futaleufu. She gets nervous going high speeds (over 25 mph) and managing curves, this nervousness manifested in a shoulder-to-ear posture and white knuckles at 2 and 11 o clock. Witnessing this, I offered to drive and she gladly pulled over. All passengers resumed breathing.
I requested that a CD I had made the night before on my new laptop be played. Throw some familiar music into the mix, put me behind the wheel, and the situation only becomes more eerily comfortable. As I belted out songs by Jewel, Joni Mitchell, and Tracy Chapman the landscape changed unexpectedly to a desert-like terrain (it had been dark on our way there a few days prior). I confidently kept my foot on the gas, turned on the lights as dusk approached, admired the Monument Valley-esque scenery, and proposed we played “Twenty Questions.” A hit.
So what was the cultural difference that creeped up on me? Upon finishing my shift at the wheel I received a high-five from Eva. “Muy bien hecho!,” she told me, commenting on how impressive it is when a woman can drive well and unafraid. The others all joined in the praise (and I’ve heard several comments since then about what a great driver I am, a fact that anyone who knows me from the States would certainly not attest to) and I’m left wondering if their undeserved lauding stems from the fact that I’m a woman or that I’m young. Whatever the case, their reaction struck me as odd. Actually, it snuck up on me as odd. Odd it may be, but it has earned me a position as chauffeur on at least three potential trips that the women are planning now that they have someone reliable who can drive them. “I to like dreeve!”