Sharing Forks and Sitting on the Floor: Thanksgiving in A Vagabond House

I live in what I affectionately term a "Vagabond House".

This is a house which is rented for 3 months or more (sometimes up to a year) by bonafide transients, typically (and in my case) foreigners without legal residency in the host country and with plans to move forward to some destination once said lease is up.

Due to the nature of the "vagabond house", it doesn't make sense to invest in too much furniture, because we'll just have to sell it. We have a stove, a washer, a fridge, mattresses, and some left over surfaces from whoever lived here before. Also, we bought one couch and 12 plastic chairs.

Everything else we have in here was constructed by us (i.e. Jorge, or Martin and Amanda....okay, mostly just not me) from dumpster diving acquisitions: a side table which Jorge nailed together from disparate found pieces, which he and I then lovingly painted wild colors; multiple crates that now hold tomato, chard and kale plants; decorative items such as the rusty children's bike that hangs suspended from our ceiling, etc.

While the Vagabond House doesn't have everything in a material sense, it has everything we need. (Well, a real French Press might be nice, but...hey. Vagabonds can't be choosers.)

But the key word there is "we"; the 5 of us that live in this house.

The Vagabond House doesn't have everything to accommodate the oh, let's say, 15 guests who are planning on showing up at your door for an Ex-Patriot Orphan Friendsgiving.

When my friend Peter and I were talking about Thanksgiving plans back in early November, it was a natural decision – yes, the feast must be here!  We have a very large house with an established reputation for fun times and hosting. Despite the lack of accoutrements for said wildly-large-Thanksgiving-feast, I told myself, “Hey. It’ll be fine. It’ll work out somehow.”

It was around one day before Thanksgiving that I realized that it might not actually work out. My guest list was 20+ people, with an established rule that “any American who doesn’t have a place to spend the holiday is welcome to come”, which meant that the 20+ people could swell considerably, depending on how many adrift Americans were found.

Aside from the 20+ guests, I realized something else: only 5 of us live in the house. Which means we bought/inherited our dinnerware based on this number. We have 4 coffee mugs, 9 regular glasses, and 2 wine glasses. There were less than 10 each of forks, spoons and knives; two pots for boiling water; one large casserole dish type thing that wasn’t a casserole dish but could be used as one; and one large bowl for mixing and serving purposes. Furthermore, we have 8 large dinner plates, 6 bowls, and one tiny plate that isn’t good for anything except, well, a pat of butter.

The math in my head went something like this: 6 + 5 + 9! / 17 – 4(x) + 33 =…..DRASTIC SHORTAGE.

The solution? Strongly urge people to bring their own cups. And silverware. And go buy a couple more casserole dishes.

I did these things, and on the morning of our Thanksgiving, we started baking and preparing extra early in preparation for the hassles of transferring dishes into holding bays while certain things were used and then unoccupied and then eventually re-transferred and…phew.

But I didn’t mention the best part—the Chilean stoves. Instead of clearly-defined temperature marks and an ability to know the difference between broil and bake, the Chilean Gas Oven features an infuriating knob with no lines, no numbers, and no indicator as to whether or not you are scorching the crap out of your casserole or just lightly heating it for 12 hours. "Turning it on" requires a terrifying 10 seconds of sticking open flame into two inconveniently placed holes where, once it lights, sometimes you can smell your eyebrows burning.

But you know what? Despite the shortage of items, implements and objects typically associated with Thanksgiving-Without-A-Hitch, despite not having an electric stove or any idea if I was baking at 245 degrees or 750 degrees….it worked out perfectly.

I made a literal vat of homemade mashed potatoes, the Bradford-Famous Corn Crop, AND vegan stuffing. Not to mention Amanda put TWO turkeys into the Chilean Thinly-Veiled-Inferno Oven, and neither were scorched, singed, or lightly caressed by heat for half a day.

Corn Crap Close-Up

It was a wholly successful Ex-Patriot Thanksgiving: made somewhat easier by the fact that the final count came to 17.

My general premise was as follows: any attending American should bring a homemade and/or beloved home dish, and all non –Americans bring something for drinking purposes. This way, we maintain the “typical food” of the holiday while nobody breaks the bank on supplying beverages for so many people. In addition to what Amanda and I created, we also were treated to the following dishes: a basic salad, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, bread pudding, cheesecake, home made bread, and pumpkin pie with cream. Oh – and a crap ton of wine.

Not too shabby, right?

I don’t know if I would have ever agreed to host even 17 people in the USA prior to moving abroad, much less the original estimate of over 20. I think I might have been too overwhelmed by a perceived "lack" of things for such a big number.

But this year, as I saw the number of guests climb and the number of dinner plates remain resolutely at 8, what became very clear to me was the following idea, which has permeated my life abroad as I follow the regular rhythms of life under very different circumstances:  if I have something to share and you have something to share, we can make something work. Thanksgiving 2013 proved to me just how far you can go with far less than what you’re accustomed to.

Sure, most of my guests were sitting on the floor (re: vagabond housing), leaning against the wall, or otherwise disobeying every rule your grandmother ever set forth for proper dinner etiquette on a holiday. I mean, for god’s sake, there was no autumn leaf-themed napkins!

But we were happy as hell. Delicious food, excellent company, and just enough spoons to go around.

Digging in! 

Me and Chelsea went first -- no need to delay,

we Americans know what to get extras on first. 

Happy International Orphan Friendsgiving!

And like every Thanksgiving in the States...there's always leftovers, no matter how much you stress about feeding everyone. We had enough turkey and potatoes left over to have a Thanksgiving on the Ocean the next day!!

Thanks for a great GraciasDando, Valpo!

Between Here And There: Part 2

In April of this year, I went to Mendoza on my first official border run, which I wrote about in the original post, Between Here And There. I spent only two days there -- a perfunctory visit as opposed to a sight-seeing, money-spending, OMG-I'm-visiting-vineyards-and-drunk-at-3pm trip like I typically like to have -- so when my next border run came up at the end of October, my boyfriend and I decided to make a vacation of it.

(Did I mention Jorge yet? I apologize, blog-o-fiends -- I have an Argentinian boyfriend. He is lovely, and darling, and sweet, and supportive, and talented, and a total delight in my life. This month we will celebrate 8 months together. This is his face:)

I like his face a lot. Like,

A LOT a lot.

This was not only our first vacation together, but a vacation that would allow me to meet every single important person in his life. I was going to meet the entire family.

Jorge's family is big. They hail from rural Argentina, a total born-n'-bred-on-the-farm type family. Jorge is the youngest of 6 children, and his eldest sibling is over 45 years old. He has 17 nieces and nephews.

Let me repeat that. Jorge has 17 nieces and nephews. And the eldest nephew is ALMOST THE SAME AGE AS HIM. Jorge became an uncle for the first time when he was 6 years old. 

When we first spoke of the trip, I had nightmares about it. Not because I didn't want to meet the family (I did), but the thought of being surrounded by so many of his blood relatives who only speak deep-Argentina Spanish (i.e. mostly incomprehensible) and would be sizing me up as the novia kind of made me freak out.

Also, I'm an only child. I don't have troubles remembering my family member's names, because there aren't a lot of us. My family can comfortably fit into a regular sized living room. We don't have to opt for the warehouse for graduation parties, and instead can choose the picnic table option. I don't have 17 nieces and nephews. I don't actually have ANY nieces or nephews. 

We spent the first leg of our trip with 2 of Jorge's "brahs" in Mendoza, where I got to experience far more Mendoza than the first time in April. There were no pink fountains this time, though there was plenty of city-exploring and Andes mountain-visiting.

Me and Jorge, posing by mountains in Mendoza, 

'CAUSE WE BY THE ANDES, YA'LL.

The next leg of our trip featured Candelaria, the 4,500-resident pueblito where Jorge was born and raised. The majority of his family still lives there, minus two siblings who raise their families in the capital city of that province. This is where the cultural differences started to rack up. Let's use a list, because I haven't made one in awhile and am feeling twitchy:

More cultural differences between Argentina and Chile, and other things that are just bizarre:

1. Remember when I was horrified about chilled red wine, and *hard swallow* the use of ice cubes? Well, readers, things took a turn for the worse (for my palate, at least). There exists a phenomenon called vino cortado, which is red wine with soda water. Sometimes, they mix it with coca-cola. [lengthy pause] Needless to say, this was one cultural activity in which I did not participate. Most family members were horrified by the fact that I drank pure wine. COME ON, IT'S MALBEC!

Nothing to do with Malbec wine; this is part of the 

campo (farmland) where Jorge grew up and helped raise racehorses

and generally ran around half-naked at all times.

2. City planning is...different. In both the USA and Chile, cities are cities and towns are towns and there you go. Not in Argentina. They get a bit grabby with the city planning, and what is called "Mendoza" is actually several cities lumped together but differentiated by different names but still...Mendoza. The same for other cities in Argentina as well. It's kind of like how Brooklyn is still New York City but it's also Brooklyn. For my Ohio peeps, it would be like if Huron, Castalia, Sandusky and Milan were all called their names but technically named and considered Sandusky. Whaaat??

3. News coverage is a little excessive. While it reminded me of news coverage back home at times, especially with a preference for celebrity happenings over legitimate world news coverage, the segments in general were long-winded and redundant. The Buenos Aires news channel devoted a lot of time to the fact that it was drizzling. They sent a reporter to cover the drizzle, and the segment featured voluminous quantities of live footage of people ambling on city sidewalks where no rain could be seen. The amount of time dedicated to this segment was like something I'd see back home where a tornado had touched down in Oklahoma and ruined 35 houses and maybe some animals were injured. But no -- it was just raining. Invisibly. And not impacting anyone's day in Buenos Aires. At all. 

4. Meat, man. Meat. Meat meat meat meat. Meat meaty meatmeat MEAT!!! Argentina is famous for meat -- I knew that before I ever went there -- and while both Chile and Argentina are meat-centric cultures, Argentina wins the award on this one. Though my vegetarianism went out the window with my USA residency, I don't eat a LOT of meat in Chile, despite our frequent asados. I knew that going to Argentina under the wing of an Argentinian would be a, well, intestinal shockventure, since I wouldn't be cooking for myself at all. But I wasn't prepared for how damn GOOD it was all going to taste! Jorge's family killed and cooked a lamb for our arrival. That't not even a joke. I was honored, in a way, but also not sure that I should feel honored, because it's normal for them to raise and then kill lambs and then eat them in large group settings because all they can do is large group settings because there's 17 nieces and nephews. (Editor's note: my bowels went on strike after the third consecutive day of eating meat. My return to Chile -- and return to majority vegetarian diet -- has helped the situation, but there was a good week of alarming inactivity in my gut.)

This is Candelaria, by the way.

5. Americans aren't the only ones struggling with geography. I met plenty of people in rural Argentina who weren't really sure of USA's whereabouts. In a way, this felt good: finally, people who don't CARE that I'm American! In another way, this was shocking: how can you not know where America is? Or that we speak English? I suppose this revealed more of my latent egosim as an American, which is a good thing to get rid of while I can. Small towns are small towns anywhere, I suppose. And in some parts of the world, "America" is just a word you hear on the television. 

We wrapped up the last leg of our trip visiting Jorge's other siblings and their respective families in the capital of San Luis province (which also had an alarming amount of neighborhoods the size of cities grouped under the same city name but still called different names), and spent a lot of time eating meat, hanging out, playing with exorbitant amounts of nieces and nephews, and, well, eating more meat.

Jorge with Bauti, Alma and Tobias

(you guessed it -- nieces and nephews)

Jorge's brother and sister-in-law with spawn,

and us (not their spawn) during our daytrip to

La Florida, a beautiful spot outside of San Luis with

views of the Andes and a lot of gorgeous hues in the air.

We're back in Chile now, happy to be home but a little salty that the vacation is over. It was fun meeting all 3,487 members of Jorge's family -- I remember all of their names, I swear -- and it was great getting a tan that will soon wither in the penetrating gray chill of Valparaiso, but it's also nice to be back home: to Valpo, to our house and its rhythms and its kitchen and the coffee, to frequent and consistent wifi connections, and to regular intestinal events.

One Year Down

I recently returned to civilization (I.E. regular internet use) after a week-and-a-half stint in Argentina, cavorting through countrysides as my boyfriend Jorge and I made the rounds to visit his extensive family. (More on this later!)

The first day of our voyage via bus through the rocky roads of the Andes led us through border control as we crossed in to Argentina. Once we were safely through customs, I paused to take a gander at my passport stamps, as these tend to excite the giddy traveler girl inside me (*ahem* all of them are Chile/Argentina) and I noticed something odd.

The entry stamp for my trip of October 24th, 2013 was right below another stamp into Chile, dated October 24th, 2012.

I unknowingly celebrated my one-year anniversary of Taking the Leap on the exact date itself, and my passport stamps are lovely evidence of this! I couldn't have planned it better if I tried.

STAMPS N' STUFF. 

Here's to one full year of living my dream! I raise my internet glass of Argentinian Malbec wine (which I consumed heartily during my trip in Argentina, being that we visited Malbec Country in Mendoza, and somebody remind me again why I didn't know about Malbec before??) to this, as I had no idea on October 24th, 2012 where I might be a year later on Ocftober 24th, 2013, but as it turns out, I'm right where I'm supposed to be: happy, healthy, and having a crapton of fun and transformative life experiences.

A year ago, my best friend Leslie, her sister and now-my-friend Amanda and I started out on this adventure not knowing where life would take us, and our paths have all taken surprising and positive turns. There's something to be said for not having a plan and allowing the wind to take you where it may. In my case, it floated me right into a dream house in a beautiful, artistic city where I spend my days writing, working, learning and loving.

I am so grateful for this year, and for this life, and for all of the things that came before it to lead me to this moment and to who I am today.

Thank you to all of you that have played a part in my journey. I appreciate it so much.

(I'm raising the internet glass of Malbec again -- everybody, lift yours too and say "Salud"!)

Self-Employment Woes: The Battle of Productivity (and a brief trip to Mordor)

As some of you may know, I spend a lot of time attached to my computer.

Not physically, of course, though that might be an option to look into someday, but the bulk of my professional, creative and time-wasting endeavors revolve around this sexy white piece of plastic known as my Vaio.

My main lucrative activity, sometimes referred to as my 'day job' is only possible via computer and internet. My side gigs, mostly copy-editing and translation projects, also utilize the computer 100%. On top of that, my creative brain decided long ago that it was going to forsake the pen and paper and now functions best (and exclusively) in Microsoft Word.

My only non-computer yet crucial activities, outside of things like Having Friends, Regular Meals and Using the Bathroom, include the following: journaling and yoga.

Great. So I stare at a screen for the majority of my days, taking plenty of breaks for movement, exercise, eating and whatnot, but still, the fact remains -- I spend a lot of freakin' time with this computer. And do you know what happens when I'm in front of this computer, readers?

Do you?

Just look at this sun-drenched corner of Mild Productivity!

I waste time.

Anyone who primarily writes or uses their computer from home for a living can attest to the fact that time-wasters and distractions run rampant. Facebook itself is a vortex that swallows you whole before you even have a chance to realize you're being sucked in -- then you look at the time and 45 minutes have passed since you casually ambled over to take a gander at the latest status updates. What the hell???

I've taken various measures to control, thwart and otherwise avoid the negative consequences of being self-employed, self-directed and without anyone to moderate me whenever I open facebook thinking "Oh, I just need to send this message real quick then I'm done". None have been very effective, which is why I was extremely interested to find Maneesh Sethi and his blog "Hack the System".

He wrote an article called "Why I Hired A Girl On Craigslist to Slap Me In The Face  -- And How It Quadrupled My Productivity" which speaks to his attempts to better focus while in front of the computer. Using a combination of friendly slaps when he was observed to be off-task and a program called Rescue Time, which monitors overall usage of programs and applications, he was able to quadruple his productivity according to numbers generated by the program.

My first thought was, "Holy god of crispy things, I need this", followed by "Dear lord above, do I have the strength to face the evidence of my procrastination??"

I didn't care, I needed to know. While the slapping aspect of Sethi's experiment didn't resonate so much with me, I DID need PROOF of my excessive time-wasting and/or moderately productive computer usage. I downloaded the free version of Rescue Time, which analyzes how much time you spend utilizing anything and everything on your computer, down to how much time spent on certain websites. You're able to designate which activities are Very Productive, Neutral, or Very Distracting (and levels in between). Furthermore, it sets goals for you automatically, which you can tweak to your own liking -- for instance, spend less than 90 minutes on social networking platforms overall, and 3+ hours on Very Productive activities.

Once the program was up and running, I felt a little spied on and a smidge of secret judgement from the quiet eye of Rescue Time, unblinking and watching all. I could practically feel the red numbers ticking upward as I flicked over to facebook to send an actual scheduling-oriented message to a friend for that day (RESCUE TIME, I NEEDED TO GO THERE), and noticed a pleasant hum of satisfaction as I stayed rooted in my work tab the rest of the morning.

The Eye of Sauron sees all in Mordor -- similar to the way

Rescue Time quietly and unfailingly witnesses my computer activities.

This picture is an Eye of Sauron desk lamp, which I might need to purchase

as a way to keep myself on task as opposed to hiring someone to slap me.

Once enough hours had passed for the program to collect any meaningful data on my productivity (or lack thereof), I braved my way into the Dashboard to see what the results might be, knowing within myself that I had spent the day thusfar as probably 'decently productive'.

The percentage of productivity that faced me was 32.

THIRTY-TWO.

WHAAAAAAT??!?

One the shock of judgement via arbitrary computer program had subsided, I looked further into my usage. 52 minutes facebook, fine. 4 minutes iTunes, great. But then came a surprising tidbit -- it had categorized my 3.5 hours of Outlook, Gmail and other Legitimate Work-Based Activities as "Highly Distracting".

Rescue Time, no! Bad Rescue Time! That's my bacon, my dough, my fat cash, that's not highly distracting! You've got me all wrong! Contact the database administrator, tell him I've been working, working HARD, for god's sake! Alert Mordor, inform the orcs before they arrive to slap the shit out of me! HURRY!

After spending a solid 20 minutes trying to figure out how to re-categorize computer activities (which technically detracted from my time spent working but I went ahead and classified as 'neutral' because, I mean, this is important), I was able to re-brand certain computer activities and websites from "Very Distracting" to "Very Productive". This changed the number around. It jumped from 32 to 68.

PHEW.

However, still not that productive.

To be honest, I'm not sure what number equates to "a good work day". I don't really care, either. I'm not going to force a number up against my life and expect it to have any meaningful value. But what Rescue Time has been doing for me is shedding light onto my time-wasting activities, allowing me to face the cold hard truth behind my less-productive days and see exactly where 46 minutes here and 37 minutes there was spent when my only real goal was "to work".

I won't beat myself up if I score an 83 versus a 96 one day, nor will I strive to make a certain number each day. I will, however, utilize this data to better inform myself about where most of these hours spent in front of the computer are really going. Knowing is half the battle, especially when engaged in the amorphous world of self-employment from home, and distractions lay a mouse-click or Google Chrome tab away.

So, in summary? I need to stop using Facebook.

(But don't we all?)

Lessons in Valpo

"There's a couple things you need to know about Valpo," a friend said the other night, after we found ourselves whining about the city over glasses of wine. She's lived here for years, and to boot is Chilean, so that gives her a certain correctness in complaining about the place, a respectability that I am unable to achieve as a freshly-minted ex-pat.

"They cut off the water," she said, "and the garbage workers go on strike."

Both of these 'Valpo Highlights' have been common occurrences lately. It started with the water. A couple weeks ago, I get a friendly message from a Chilean friend saying, "HEY. They're going to cut off the water today at 6pm! It'll be back the next day at 6pm. Make sure you save water! Besitos!"

[insert lengthy pause here]

I'm sorry, what? The water will be gone? Who is doing this? The city can't CUT OFF the water. That's impossible! 24 hours without water, for an entire city? Valpo, are you nuts? 

She was right. Come evening time, all faucets had been reduced to a sorry sputtering drizzle of droplets and then...nothing. The water was gone! Seriously, Valpo??? And without even informing your citizens!

The water came back around the next day as scheduled. But then, a week later, IT HAPPENED AGAIN. The same Chilean friend warned me in enough time for me and my roommates to get showers and stow plenty of water for coffee-making, pasta boiling and more. We're 5 people in this house now, so it's more critical to know in advance.

But wait, readers! There's more.

Valparaiso is known for being rather dirty. Some describe it as 'filthy.' I would instead say it has a gritty charm. Sure, there are scrapes of dog poop on every street, the understandable clash between pedestrians and the enormous amount of stray dogs in the city. Wisps of plastic and paper float through the streets at all times, every day. Certain corners reek of urine, I won't lie.

Common trash buildup in the city.

Is the trash just a physical expression of street art?

BUT IT'S VALPO! Half of it's charm lay in the aura of port-city disrepair.

Garbage disposal is a bit different here. In fact, there's a system that I still scarcely understand, seemingly composed mostly of word-of-mouth and blind faith. I will attempt to explain the system to the best of my ability, but please be aware that aspects of this may be wildly inaccurate.

For starter's, you don't need to call a trash company and pay for service, because there just IS trash service in Valpo. On certain nights, you must leave all of your trash on your front stoop (or at a designated point outside your building if you live in a place with multiple houses/apartments). But not EVERY night, because they only come certain nights, and this information is only available by asking your neighbors. When you wake up, the trash will be gone. People appear in the night to whisk it away, though I'm still not sure if this is accomplished via truck pickup, hired roaming hobos, wild packs of dogs, or obliteration via laser from some of those warships sitting in the harbor.

At any rate, the trash disappears. Usually.

Because sometimes the garbage pickup workers (or hobos, or dogs, or laser beams) go on strike. Which means that all of that unsightly trash you left on your stoop at night will still be there in the morning. And then it bakes all day in the sun. And then the dogs come and poke around. And then one of them finds a hole and steals all of the remains from your asado the other night, leaving a trail of asado scraps and other awkward things you threw away knowing nobody would ever see but is suddenly on display for a quarter mile outside of your house. Like those To-Do lists proclaiming a need for rugs, tampons and soy milk, and other notes to self like "FINISH THE NEW WEBSITE ALREADY".

Garbage workers striking in Valpo is an annoyance itself, but what it does to the city is heinous. This week, they went on strike for maybe the second time since I've lived here. I noticed this only because during my noon-time walk through the city center, there were far more stacks and piles and crumbling pyramids of trash bags than in common. Usually, there are none -- during the day. Night time is different, since that's when everyone telepathically decides to toss, which makes for a striking visual difference depending on when you arrive to Valpo for the first time. Your first impression will be either gritty charm (prior to 8pm) or chaotic, heathen decadence (after 8pm).

The piles of trash lasted for a couple days, and then, governed by the same mystical forces that dictate the water shut off, everything was gone and clean this morning. Including all of my panicked To-Do lists and notes to self.

I'm happy to have water again, and a clean(ish) front stoop. I still don't know when the garbage workers come -- it doesn't help that when I ask Jorge, who is the Bearer of Garbage Knowledge for this household, he responds "Monday, Wednesday, Saturday...no, no, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday. No wait....Monday, Thursday, Saturday" -- but I remain strong in my faith that when I leave my tidy plastic bag of sundry trash on my front stoop, it will eventually disappear, whether by force of stray dogs or mysterious garbage workers that materialize during the night.

Adult Onset ADD

...is something that I might have. I tend to take on too many gigs, and during busy periods is usually when I decide to start new, complex creative projects, which leads to long stretches of the day where I'm flicking hyper-actively between programs and browser tabs, unsure of what I was doing 30 seconds ago and what I was supposed to be focusing on.

Though this doesn't surprise me, given the To-Do Lists I used to come up with as an adolescent during the summers. I think I'm still working on finishing some of those, almost 20 years later!

One of the outcomes of this is my newest website: ShannonLeighBradford.com

Go check it out! It's a cute little meeting point for all the crap I've done. Or rather, the crap I want to put out there in a portfolio sense. (Family and friends will notice Shanonce is absent.)

Reports From the New Window (and Unexpected Cultural Commentary)

My bedroom window faces a house situated "across the street" (these phrases mean nothing in Valpo..it's pure alleyways, terrifying staircases and precipitous streets) but up the hill a little further. I've spent the majority of my first week in the new house settling in, working, and gazing lovingly at the seafoam green walls and the plants in my windowsill. During my frequent PonderGazeFests, I noticed a couple boys hanging out on the balcony of this house, stringing what looked like wire from their balcony to some unknown location in the distance. 

The next day, the boys were back at it. Except this time, I noticed that the wire was in fact a string, which was attached to a kite. Which they were flying.

And then an hour late, still flying a kite.

And then for the next seven hours...still flying a kite.

Sheesh, I thought. Flying a kite is fun but not THAT fun.

Or is it? I must make mention of the last time I flew a kite. It was this summer in Tennessee. My mother suggested we take the kite with us on the boat, so we could fly it as we cruised the lake. Cool, I said, more in an effort to please her. Who flies kites, anyway? I'm not against activities that are deemed "childish" by any means -- I spend a large part of my life trying to consciously incorporate play and childlike wonder into my days -- but a kite? Pssh.

Once we got going on the boat, out came the kite -- a bizarre purple octopus with plenty of tentacles to put on display in the airborne mating ritual. I stood toward the back, tasked with  getting it waytheheckupthere. The wispy, purple octopus that had lain quiet and neatly folded in its packaging only moments before was now a wild animal, tormented and struggling and whipping against the gusts and curls and updrafts as it fought its way higher.

I let out more string. I watched it fly higher. I let out more string. Higher still. And then came the point when I realized...holy crap, this is THRILLING.

I never wanted to stop flying that kite. I don't know WHY flying a kite is so fun. But there is something entrancing, mesmerizing and otherwise holy about the endeavor.

Some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as Octokite roamed free: Oh my god, look at how high it is! This is so cool! Wow, it's beautiful. It's a dancing octopus in the sky. LOOK, IT'S EVEN HIGHER NOW!! This string is really tight, I wonder how high I can get it. What if it goes into outer space? What is the Octokite seeing up there? When it comes down, will it have PTSD? Can you use a kite more than once? Why is this so goddamn fun? SERIOUSLY LOOK HOW HIGH UP THIS THING IS.

Look at that freakin' kite!

We took turns holding Octokite as it struggled to free itself from our grip. We held fast. It continued following us as we zoomed across the lake. Finally, we reeled it in, and the unwavering black smile of the octopus was still there, a silent witness to the joys and secrets of the stratospheric experience, tentacles weathered but accounted for.

So, back to the boys across the street. They've been flying kites everyday, for hours each day, without fail. Even as I reflected upon my newfound-but-forgotten appreciation for kite-flying, I continue to ask myself -- What the hell with so much kite flying?

I mentioned the borderline obsessive past time of the Chilean youth to my boyfriend the other day. He responded casually--as though it were common knowledge, come on, you gringa--that September is Kite Month in Chile. Everyone flies kites, or volantines, during September. It's classically breezy in September! Come on. Go fly a kite. Or volantin in this case.

September also coincides with another important tradition in Chile -- the fiestas patrias, or patriotic holidays. Two important events occurs during September, apart from the historically-perfect kite flying weather: the anniversary of the famous coup of September 11th, 1973, in which former socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown (giving way to the Pinochet regime), and September 18th, Independence Day (Chile broke from Spain on this day in 1810).

Between the breezes, the political history and the patriotism, the month of September is burbling with activity. Most Americans are familiar with stores decorating well in advance for the 4th of July, or Christmas, or Fall In General or what have you, but our celebrations tend to be limited to observing the day itself, and then perhaps additional celebrations the following weekend once work has ended for the week.

Not here. Daily operations came to a grinding halt at 7pm on Tuesday, September 17th. The majority of the city has been closed since. It's Saturday, September 21st, as a reminder -- that's four days of public quiet, shuttered storefronts and very minimal pedestrians on the streets of Valparaiso. That's some serious reverence.

But that's not all. The public rest might have started on Tuesday at 7pm, but the celebrating started at the beginning of the month. There has been an unusual (almost worrying, really) amount  of asado scents wafting in the breeze, frequent gatherings overheard from neighbors, more dissonance than usual in public spaces, a huge amount of patriotic decorations littering the steeets, and plenty of excuses to get really drunk and really full.

Wait -- did you think that was all? Not only does September herald important political and patriotic observances, it also means SPRING IS COMING! It's the societal thaw; September is here, winter is over, let's get this crap started right by celebrating for a full month.

Jorge and I were wandering the streets on the 18th, discovering new areas and views near our new neighborhood, and we crossed an uncountable number of asados taking place on the sidewalks. It's probably not a surprise to anyone that during our walk we decided to go home and have our own asado because, like, we totally can do that whenever we want now, and as we headed back to the Homestead, we crossed what appeared to be a very heated kite-flying competition. It made us stop in our tracks -- the kites were so, so, so high, just tiny squares of Chilean-flag decorated paper. One climbed higher, the other dipped sharply, then the first one lost its lead while the second soared upward on a fierce gust. Grown men hooted and hollered in the streets -- one grandpa exited his house, wearing white socks in the gritty Valpo streets, carrying a grandbaby in his arms as he cheered on the unseen kite-fliers.

A poor representation of the kite excitement.

(Kitecitement)

The dog watches the spectacle, unamused.

As a foreign observer/peripheral participant in these happenings, I must say that I admire the dedication to patriotic celebrations. It's no secret here that the Pinochet dictatorship left an indelible mark on Chilean history and society. What the older generations lived through - and those that are still around to talk about it -- betray the fact that the wound is still there, healing but still aching. 40 years have passed since the coup, but this is a tender scar on the surface of daily life.. Conversations about living through the dictatorship with those of my parent's age is always fascinating, educational and extremely sad. 

The volantines, at least to my wandering and dreamy eye, serve as a potent and visible reminder of the freedoms post-Pinochet. The citizens are able to soar free, at least compared to prior times, and there is now far more energy, far more breathless hopefulness, than in recent history. Just as children and grown men crowd around to see how high the kite might go, who might win, will the cord break, will it get caught in a tree, will the octopus suffer PTSD, I feel that Chileans are able to turn that breathless, hopeful eye toward the future when before that was only a wild, and potentially dangerous, fantasy. Armed with memory, respect and forward motion, Chile is a symbolic volantin that has the potential to soar high, higher than what was believed even 30 or 40 years ago. 

Once again, I must remind you readers that I am by no means a political expert, nor an apt judge of economic/governmental/cultural conditions. I'm just a writer living in Valpo, inhaling culture and sights and experiences and exhaling personal perspective. 

And beyond that, I'm sincerely curious to know how long it will be before these boys get sick of flying these kites everyday for multiple hours (seriously, don't they go to school or something?!). 

My beloved Valpo! You're so picturesque n' stuff. 

Read more about the Chilean 9/11 Anniversary here: Chile's 9/11: Survivors recall horrors of Pinochet coup, 40 years on

An article highlighting the various current-day opinions on Pinochet's reign: Chile still split over Gen Augusto Pinochet legacy