Life clouds the judgement

I am a believer that if you keep your eyes and heart open life will show you the way. This approach has always worked in my decision making in the past, but maybe I have used up all my good luck and now it is just serving to confuse me.

As most of you know I am struggling with the decision of my future. It is no secret that I love living in Chile, but also no secret that I don't have the financial means to visit my family and friends in NZ and Aus as I would like to. Nothing new here. But everytime that I think I have finally made a concrete decision life comes along and changes my mind, and everything goes murky again.

Last Tuesday I was taken flying with my boss (Jo) by one of our students. It was an incredible cristilline day and we flew 2hrs south along the coast looking at all the towns and vacationers going about their relaxing days. We arrived at the holiday house of the student, landed the plane and were picked up by the caretaker. After inspecting the very nice house we went by jetboat to the restaurant and ate prawns for lunch, followed by a quick dip in the house jacuzzi while sipping on Baileys (me in my underwear because I forgot my bikini!). Around 6pm we got back in the plane and went back up the coast, flying low over any of the interesting towns on the way to get a good photo. I was dropped off at home in the BMW around 9pm. Yes, it was an incredible day and I was so lucky to go. The best part was that the student was genuinely excited to take us and treat us like queens. He was happy to have people that really appreciate these things and don't often (ever) have a chance to experience them. He is completely down to earth, as was demonstrated as we acted as a bus for every person walking to town when we were returning to the plane. I simply don't mix with these people in NZ or Australia. I don't know anyone who has a plane, let alone someone who would want to share what they have so freely. And this warm open attitude is something that I recognise at every level of society here, and something that will make me rethink (yet again) where I want to be in the world.

And here is a picture of me in the plane!

Resolutions

It's the time of year when we traditionally make resolutions. I have almost given up on this practise because I am horrible at keeping them. I do however like to set myself a challenge for the year. I don't have to set this challenge at the start of the year - sometimes it becomes clearer as the year goes on, but I need to complete something every year. In '08 I walked 100km for charity, in '09 I quit my job and moved to South America. I also walked the Inca trail. In '10 I learnt Spanish (an ongoing process which started the year before and continues, but 2010 was my year of breakthrough) and in '11 I read 50 books in a year. You might wonder what lies before me this year, and I can quite honestly say I don't know. The challenge hasn't yet become clear.

Every year I say I am going to write more on my blog, and every year I fail. Life gets in the way. However, it recently occured to me that this blog serves as an interesting chronicle of my time here in Chile. In the beginning the posts only thinly veil an underlying sense of panic. They improve around the time that I start to make Chilean friends and are filled with a sense of wonder and elation by the end of 2009. Life is good, and shiney, and exciting and stimulating. Coming into 2011 things become more negative. The earth starts shaking both voluntarily and from the stampede of Chilean students, and it seems that somehow everything becomes covered in dust. My last post of the year in 2011 sums up neatly what I now feel for Chile. I am comfortable here, and everything has lost its shine. I don't know if this is a sign to move on, or if my erratic chase of adventure leaves me missing the point of it all. When I am making a decision I try and weigh all the pros and cons. And when this fails I fall back on writing a list of three things I know to be true. So: I know that I have amazing friends and an easy life here; I know I love my job; I know that I haven't seen my family in two years because I don't make enough money to buy a plane ticket. And that is the thing that is going to provide my challenge for 2012.

Lack of lustre

When you live in a foreign country to begin with everything is shiney and new. Slowly it looses its lustre and everything becomes normal flat colours. It has taken some time, but Chile is down to normal colours for me. There are still things that surprise me, but last week I found myself writing an email to the teachers that suprised me for all the wrong reasons. Here is an extract from it:


As you are probably aware today and tomorrow are national strikes. This shouldn't affect us too much except for the normal problems of tear gas, water canons, barricades and transport disruptions. Tomorrow there is a march authorised from Plaza Italia down Alameda as far as Portugal (Uni Catolica) where supposedly they will turn off and go south. I suspect that may not happen and you should be prepared for severe disruptions all the way along Alameda (including in the metro). If you have to come into town consider using the Plaza de Armas or Bellas Artes metro stops. The march is supposed to finish near Parque O'Higgins so hopefully later in the day the disruptions for us will be minimal. Really, who knows!! I came across a flaming barricade before 8am this morning.... so it is impossible to predict.
Please allow enough time for disruptions in getting to class, and stay safe.


Now these events might seem surprising to you, but this in not what made me take note. It was the fact that I wrote 'the normal problems of...'. It strikes me as incredible that I see these problems as normal inconveniences now. I wrote about water canons not long after I arrived in Chile. I was impressed by them. Now I see them all the time and don't take any notice. A normal day can go: car, truck, bus, police horse (at which point I take a second glance as the police horses are beautiful), car, car, tear gas truck (run!!), water canon, car, car, hooded youth setting something on fire, police in riot gear, car, truck, police bus full of police in riot gear, car. 
I think you get the picture, it's all the same.


I do feel like I might be standing in the middle of a moment in history here. The eduaction protests, while they have quietened down for now, are not going away. They are beginning to build momentum in other countries too (Colombia has recently had hundreds of thousands of students in the streets protesting for reforms there) and there is solidarity between these two movements and burgeoning protests in Peru and Brasil. And yet I just see the inconvenience of getting tear gassed on a weekly basis, or of having to take the long way round the barricades to get home. I feel apathetic, but these things just annoy me now. Apparently my revoluntionary fire doesn't burn as brigthly as my ideals would hope.

Life in Facebook updates

I never realised how insightful it could be to track your Facebook updates. These random comments and observations of life illustrate the ups and downs of my journey from Melbourne to Chile (since approx September 2008). They aren’t in chronological order, rather completely random, much as they were random thoughts released into the ether of the internet. Recapturing them and remembering the moments in which I wrote them has proved illuminating, and given me lots of lovely times to relive. It really is incredible what you achieve and forget. This is an incomplete list, missing many which I am still editing and I hope to post in the future.

Wine with lunch - good decision; 5 glasses of very sweet orange stuff - bad decision; fish for lunch - good decision; left over chicken when I got home - really bad decision...
Celebratory lunch with Joanne after my first week as Grant’s Academic Director. Sept 2010

Thank goodness I was way up in the mountains enjoying swimming, swinging in a hammock, riding horses and drinking beer when the ABs decided to self destruct. Now, where has that good zen gone...
vs Australia December 2010

got caught by that rookie mistake - always have extra teaching material in case half your class doesn't show up and you have to postpone the planned test!!!
July 2009 – lacking those extra instant teaching ideas

needs a hottie. Any ideas on where to find one in Santiago?

en Buenos Aires esperando y esperando!
March 2010, waiting for my flight back to Chile

can run and talk in spanish, quite a workout for body and mind....
Running with Zeli, Nov 2009

Trabajo para hoy dia - un nuevo jardin con verduras....
Attempted vegetable gardening in Bellavista Sept 09. Unfortunately I went back to NZ, no one watered the garden through the hot Santiago days and what didn’t die immediately went to seed.



is watching the neurons march across the screen - again.
Mapping neuron trajctories in Melbourne July 2008



So this year I didn't walk 100km, but did the Inka trail instead. Next year the Himalayas? Who's keen...
Accomplishments and dreams near the end of 2010



thoughts and best wishes to all those affected by the mining tragedy - may you find some peace and closure soon.
After the Pike River mining accident in NZ, Nov 2010



Mañana Huaso Enrique? Tiki tiki ti!!
Any given Thursday in Santiago...



Has found somewhere permanent to live - yay! No more being a sponge!
First house in Santiago, March 2009



thinks house hunting is hard enough without factoring in a foreign language that you hardly speak!
The frustrations of house hunting in the first days in Santiago, February 2010



Observations of today: Bus drivers + road rage = frightening scenario, Karen running on the street + eating bread + choking = she has beautiful eyes, and cement truck + driving the wrong way on a one-way street = nothing new.
Santiago May 2010, its amazing the things that are no longer surprising.



slept through last nights aftershock. Apparently it was strong. Naty said she was waiting for me to come screaming up the stairs but it never happened... I must have been tired.
Getting used to the ground rattling underneath me. Stability has a whole new meaning. March 2010



Why does the word Spanish word for handcuffs look the same as the plural of wife? Two wives = handcuffs?? (Las esposas).
Language realisations, June 2011



won a trip to Peru, and is super excited about it!
April 2009 - won a trip with Intrepid to Peru, to walk the Inca trail and explore the villages surrounding Cusco.


will be touring Santiago today, giving classes in different corners of the city.
Sometime in early 2010. The realities of teaching English in Santiago are that you become extremely familiar with the metro and bus system as you pass many hours each day acquainting yourself with the insides of these fascinating places.



is enjoying the long straight flat roads of Lagmhor on her bike.
No traffic lights, no pedestrians, no significant hills, just miles and miles of flat road. Bliss on two wheels, at my parents house NZ February 2010



Sorry, what was the outcome of the game??? GREG????!!!!
Anytime NZ beats Aus at the rugby...



estoy cansada....
Tired, probably any given Friday of the year!



is on a diet of mote con huesillo until she gets paid...
November 2009, some very tight months financially when I remembered exactly what it was like to have to eat like a student, and to search under you bed / in the bottom of every bag you own, for every last peso that you have. Mote con hueillo is peach juice with corn in it, and it’s a cheap option when you have no money!



exhausted - too much talking, words finished....
After a day of 9hrs of class, including 3hrs at the airport, July 2009

really just wants to go down to the tav and have a few quiets with her bros and cuzzies.
Summer 2010 / 2011, a bit of homesickness. Summer is always the hardest when I talk to my family and they are all working hard in the harvest and I am not there to share it with them.



is at the library, planning English lessons, on a Saturday.
Planning practice English classes for my TEFL certificate, December 2008



had issues trying to hang her washing out with two fat possums sitting above her, just watching and waiting...
Fear of possums, especially after being peed on, Sept 2008 in Melbourne.



is totally over being sick and wishes the doctor would hurry up and figure what beast is living in her stomach!
The souvenir I brought home from Peru which didn’t allow me to be more than 10m from a bathroom for 2 weeks.... Nov 2010


en NZ. Gracias amigas y amigos para una despidida muy bonita. Los quiero mucho!!! Nos vemos pronto....
After a gorgeous farewell BBQ and a beautiful farewell from all my friends in Chile when I went to visit NZ for 2 months, Jan Feb 2010



Took 20min to put on her socks (stupid Tait back)
Put her back out sleeping in her bed, ridiculous and frustrating as everythign took twenty times longer than necessary, and I’m not known for my patience... July 2009

Today my elementary student told me he was having Christmas with his family and "political mother" (mother in law). I nearly fell off my chair, it certainly made my day!
Students poetic mistakes. Another student said ‘cheers’ when I sneezed (a direct translation from Spanish usage of the workd salud). They try so hard and it makes me so proud. Dec 2010S

thinks its even more annoying when you don't understand the words to the song that is stuck in your head than when you do. Who knows what I am humming as I go around the supermarket...
Language learning, Jan 2010



was interested to learn that there was an "explosion of gays" in 2004 in Chile. Where did they come from? The sky? The things you learn in Spanish class ay?!
Basic Spanish classes Feb 2009



working working, colours, boxes, arrows, more colours, not really like work at all!
Writing conference presentations and posters for the Neuroscience conference in Cairns. July 2008



pichileeeeeeeeeeeeemu eh eh eh!
Trips to the coast with Eduardo. So much partying, so much family, so much love.
Sometime in 2009 or 2010

quiero tomar el sol en una playa linda... pero estoy aqui en la ciudad y hace frio!
NOT enjoying winter in Santiago Aug 2011



is looking forward to a evening watching Cricinfo.
NZ cricket tests when they looked like they might actually win something....



has been watching High School Musical - in Spanish.
TV is in Spanish, radio is in Spanish, everything is in Spanish! Kids programmes are just easier to understand. May 2009



has bought the cheap airfares to Cairns, now she just has buy the expensive ones to South America...
Flights for Char’s wedding and to live in Chile, exciting times. Who knew what would lie ahead. Three years later I remember the exact moment I wrote this, and basically announced to the world that I was leaving Aus to live and work in South America. It was 6pm on a Friday, I had given my resignation notice that morning, and I was about to head up to catch the end of work drinks. An emotional moment Dec 2008.




is working working, but not too long to go now!
The excitement of my last days at the Florey, and the adventures ahead, Melbourne Dec 2008



Karen Tait: the Christmas grinch.
Not feeling the Christmas spirit (ie missing the family), Dec 2010



had an amazing time picking grapes in the south of Chile with an amazing bunch of people
A defining moment in my life - a weekend where I met my best friends and the people who would become my family in Chile. I participated in a wedding there later the same year, saw the house destroyed by the eathquake, and the resilience of the people who are now rebuilding it. Beautiful people, full of love, acceptance and courage. This weekend is the reason that I am still in Chile after 3yrs. March 2009.



No mucho mas tiempo ahora hasta voy a ver mi pequeña guacala!
Getting excited about seeing my little dog in Chile after 2 months in NZ. March 2010



ate her weight in steak in Argentina, almost. They even have steak flavoured chips....
Border run to Mendoza, May 2009.



Donde puedo ver 'le tour' en Chile??!!!
Trying to find a location to watch Cadel Evans win the Tour de France, mid 2011.



Huevos, cafe, pan y sol! Necesito el periódico y el dia es perfecto!!
Eggs, coffee, bread and sun. Just need the paper and the day is perfect. April 2010, enjoying a lazy Sunday.



All Blacks, 11am Saturday.... anyone else up for a breakfast guinness (or coffee??)
Trying to excite some supporters, always a battle due to the time zone.. August 2011



thinks that the yanks might have finally done something right.
The election of Obama, whenever that was.



was eating steak in Argentina when a crazy Latin dance remix of Fat Freddy's 'Hope' came on the radio - go NZ music!
Border run to Mandoza May 2009, getting sentimental about NZ music.



is waiting for the people of Australia to wake up...
Waiting to skype my friends in Aussie for a catch-up. All too rare unfortunately.



is amazed at the number of public holidays in Chile - there is one every month!
Living in a Catolic country isn’t all bad - a realisation from May 2009



primavera + cerveza + el sol = Karen muy feliz!
Spring, beer and sun makes a happy Karen. Enjoying the patio in Bellavista in October 2009



hopes Mr Laing knows the profound effect he had on so many people.
The passing away of my extraordinary swimming coach, Mr Lang. A sad moment when I felt very far away. Mid 2010?



got on the party bus today and realised she was in South America! Latin band on public transport, with people dancing in the aisles....
Catching public transport in South America is often quite entertaining. Another experience to add to the shiny and new category of happenings, June 2009.

Everybody leaves

It is not a new realisation, but lately it has come to hurt more. Everyone leaves. I guess before now it was always me, moving on to University and leaving people in Ashburton, moving on to work in Australia and leaving all my Uni friends, and then moving on from Melbourne and leaving those people behind. Now it is happening to me.

I have been in Santiago for 2 years and 10 months. That is longer than I lived in Australia. In that time I have made a lot of friends. Most of them are Chilean so leaving hasn't been a big problem (I have one really good Chilean friend studying in Germany but he is coming back so he is forgiven). I have probably made three or four really close foreign friends. Now the third one of those four is leaving. It is really hard to find people who have a similar mentality, and when you do, you want to hold onto them. But it is a matter of letting what you love go. It doesn't make it easy. And it makes it all that much harder to let another foreigner in. Always in the back of your mind you will be thinking; how long until this one abandons me.

Is the world ending?

Chile has gone a little bit insane. Is the world really coming to an end?
I had the most bizarre day yesterday. There was another student education protest and this time they changed the route so that they walked right past my house and congregated in the park. I went home early simply because of the number of people congregating making it difficult to get anywhere, and the possibility of trouble later... The march was something to see - 100,000 people filing past my house on Espinoza singing and playing music and chanting for 3hrs.... All very peaceful. Then about an hour after the last person passed the trouble started. We were able to watch from our terrace as a large group of delinquents systematically broke down poles, raided rubbish bins, and commandeered advertising and almost anything that would burn to make a barricade in the middle of 10 de Julio and set it on fire. We could also see the police congregating a block away just waiting and watching. All the kids were picking up stones and branches ready for a fight. Then a police van came racing through from behind the barricade and the students, at which point the students all let their rock missiles fly to come hailing down on the van, quite frightening. The van didn't stop, but went racing down as far as the police, pulled a U-turn and came racing back into the crowd. A sort of decoy I guess to try and get the projectiles launched before sending in the cops on foot, who came running in behind the van. I still saw at least 4 cops get severely hit by stones, one in the head which laid him out on the ground. The protesters didn't hang around but more or less took flight, and then the tear gas van arrived and doused the whole scenario (including us as we were making a hasty exit inside) with gas, though it really only served to make the cops cry as the protesters were already gone and barricading some other nearby street.
And we didn't even have the worst of it. They burnt a car in a neighbouring street, and when one of the residents of a high-rise building dropped water on some of the trouble-makers they responded by sending stones through the windows followed by burning objects. Luckily that was a couple of blocks away from us (though Zeli admitted to me that perhaps her yelling at the kids to stop pulling down the traffic signs wasn't the smartest move and I may have been right to tell her to shut up!)
One of my teachers rang me in the morning to tell me she couldn't get out of the bank. I cracked up laughing (extremely supportive when she was panicking) and asked her if she was lost... Turns out one of the unions is on strike there and they have barricaded the building so you can't get in or out. She managed to get out (not sure how, I suggested a window but as you can imagine banks tend to have bars over their windows). But there are no more classes in the bank this week..... And I was speaking to one of the secretaries and she aid that all the employees were barricaded inside until 7.30pm because the protesters wouldn't let them leave. Pleased it wasn't me....
In the evening I went to a gallery opening, and coming out of the metro in the uptown area was a surreal experience. When I left my metro station there were rocks flying through the air, tear gas, water canons and people running in all directions coughing and choking on the putrid air. The streets were full of burning debris, rocks, glass and general rubbish. When I came out of the metro uptown there were people sitting on the sidewalk in t-shirts drinking coffee. I could fill my lungs with relatively clean air and didn't have to keep looking around to see where the next flying object might be coming from and the shops were open rather than boarded up as if preparing for a hurricane! The journey was 20min but it could have been from one decade to another the change was so dramatic. The strangeness didn't stop there. We went to the gallery opening on Alonso de Cordoba, a street I was not familiar with. We were driving along and there were people out walking their toy poodles. jogging in the park, and shopping. The most impressive moment was when I spied a fifty something woman about town walking out of a shop, followed by a small peruvian woman (clearly her helper) struggling to control 20 bags branded with high fashion designer names. The poor young women made it to the car, where she proceeded to start loading the bags in the car, only to be interrupted by the need to open the door of the car for the lady about town, who was only holding her handbag.
The gallery was really interesting, great art, free alcohol, intimidatingly dressed people, and I felt that at any point I may make a mistake and knock something over or use a paper-towel that was actually part of a sculpture to wipe my hands. Arriving home in the taxi later, after being gassed again and having to take several detours around burning barricades, I couldn't help thinking that maybe the burning in the streets, has something to do with the lady and all her fashion branded bags.
At least I didn't spend the evening in London....

The right to protest

Since arriving in Chile over two years ago I have been tear gassed 6 times. Three of these have been in the last week. Tear gas was not something I had any experience with growing up in small town NZ, or even living in Melbourne Australia. I attended the odd protest for education or the environment, but there was never any threat of me being blasted by a water canon, or finishing my day with nose and throat burning and my face wet from my weeping eyes. Here in Chile I have never officially attended a protest, and yet I have been gassed six times. You would wonder how this could be?

Firstly, there are many more protests here than back in Oceania, and this year especially they are supported by thousands of people (two of last weeks protests yielded 30,000 and 40,000 people respectively). People here are angry, and want to be heard. And the police are all to keen to keep it all under control, in so much as they often seem to pre-empt the trouble by firing gas into the crowds before there are any real problems. This in its own right frustrates people, and they fight back. In the ensuing carnage normal people get caught up, hence I have been gassed 6 times. I am certainly not saying that the protesters have no role to play in this – there is a small percentage of the marchers who are very destructive. Walking down one of the pedestrian streets after one of last weeks manifestations I saw (through my streaming eyes) all the park benches in our local park destroyed, the glass recycling tank overturned and all the glass smashed and spread across the road as a sharp centimetre thick blanket, traffic lights not only torn from the pole, but the pole itself snapped in two, and the smouldering piles of whatever they had decided to burn in the middle of the street. It seems a little ironic to me that these protesters who are generally asking for better working conditions, or more money for education (both extremely valid points of conflict here) would want to cause what must be thousands of dollars worth of damage to highlight their plight.

The other part to this story is what exactly these people are protesting over. One part of the protests is about education, and in this respect it seems to me that they have every right to be upset. Chilean post – graduate education is the third or fourth most expensive education in the world (when compared to GDP and cost of living). The other big protests are about the approval of a project to build five hydroelectric dams on two rivers in Patagonia. I find these protests and this story more interesting.

Firstly, I would like to state that coming from NZ, I am quite used to hydrodams. It is the way that we generate the majority of our power. We use the lakes for recreation and irrigation, and apart from some problems with flow on the Waitaki river, as far as I have seen they haven’t caused any particularly negative effects for the regions. I was not old enough to understand the controversy surrounding the Clyde dam, but my parents tell me there was some (they had to move a whole town to make way for the flood waters). Now however, it is one of the best equipped towns of the area.

The proposal to build dams here in Chile has split the country, with the upper classes generally defending the project as progress, and the working class protesting against it vehemently as destruction. I have searched for literature on this project and it’s impact, but have turned up short. I have asked my friends who are against it what they are against and they invariably answer that it destroys the environment. However, when I ask how it does this or what the alternative is they tell me that that isn’t their problem. I find this strangely contradictory. The long and the short of it is that Chile needs energy to grow, not today, but in the future. That current energy sources are fossil fuels, nuclear or sustainable energy. I am sure that my friends don’t support either of the first two proposals, which leaves us with the sustainable sources, wind, water or sun. They argue that the dams represent a major destruction of the landscape, and they are probably right, but so do the other two alternatives. Wind farms are ugly, and Chile only has reliable wind along it’s prized coast – are they telling me they want hundreds of turbines as a backdrop to their summers on the beach? Or would they prefer to fill the Atacama Desert with large solar panels. I don’t understand.

Some people tell me that Chile doesn’t need any more energy. This is clearly putting their heads in the sand. Although government estimates may be top heavy, wouldn’t it be better (especially for the lower part of society) to have an abundance of energy and therefore choice, which may actually push the prices down, rather than an increased demand and diminished supply which is guaranteed to only allow those who can afford it to turn on the lights.

I think it is relatively clear where I stand on this issue, and until someone can provide some form of proof and education on this issue (which is sadly lacking in all forums) I will try and stay out of the tear gas, and quietly shake my head at the antics of those who believe in their cause.