What Class Is This? or A Severe Lack Of Toilet Paper

From Top to Bottom: Mapuche protest sign that says: "With Autonomy and Revolucion, Liberation Fight"; Mapuche leaders speak with very friendly, accomodating Chilean police; Madonna is performing in Chile for the first time: magazine says, "Finally Gringo Meat Arrives." I'm hoping the translation is not as literal as I think...

I was quite confident my second day of classes would go better than my first. Actually, in thinking about it, this is not true at all. I'm confident of a lot of things, including global warming, the ability of love to conquer all, that Maggie shot Mr. Burns on purpose...but I am not confident of my classes situation.

So, as I unconfidently entered the building of my first class today, and unconfidently failed to find proof that the room I had written on my schedule actually existed, I sought the help of the secretary, who kindly escorted me to a room called Auditoriom. Now, my schedule didn't say anything about an auditoriom, but he appeared so confident, and besides, the word Auditoriom just seems to give off an air of confidence. So I confidently strolled into the class, which was called, "Antropology, Education and Development." And after 20 minutes of listening to the professor talk about Latin American poetry, I began to wonder, "What does Latin American poetry have to do with Antropology, Education and Development?" It turns out, not much. Not much at all. In reality, I was in Latin American Poetry.

At this point, I had two options...try to find my Antropology class, which I was beginning to believe was merely a figment of my imagination, or stare at the professor, who looked uncannily similar to our family friend and dermatologist Bill Resh. Naturally, I chose the latter, so I spent the rest of the class contemplating what it would be like if the real Bill Resh spoke Spanish. I also learned that it's fun to hear English poets like T.S. Elliot prounounced in a Spanish accent.

So anyway, after the class finally ended, it turned out I had to go to the bathroom, drop the kids off at the pool, "echar the larga" as they say here in Chile. As I calmly walked into the bathroom, I uncalmly noticed that none of the stalls carried toilet paper. And I began to more uncalmly notice that all the other buildings all didn't carry toilet paper, until I was speed walking to the other end of campus, where perhaps exists the only building in a 2 mile radius with toilet paper in the bathroom. Apparently in Chile you don't have to bring your own beer (BYOB), but you do have to bring your own toilet paper (BYOTP). Fortunately, because of months of practice with this type of thing in Ecuador, I didn´t ruin my good reputation by pulling an Ethan on the stone steps of the Valdivia campus. There are some things to be truly grateful for...

Speaking of grateful, here´s a nice video, if you´re into this kind of thing :-)
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=428

Anywho, Lilly, Alex and I met two German exchange students, and then a third German exchange student, and we sat down to have a proper international coffee/tea. It was pretty cool, speaking Spanish with Germans in a German Spanish accent. We all had a good time, secretly appreciated the ease with which we could understand our slowspeaking gringo selves, and eventually parted ways.

At this point, I managed to stumble into a protest by the Indigenous Mapuche people, a small but active part of the population who, much like the American Indians of the States, were forcibly (and violently) removed from the land, an action whose effects are still seen in abhorrent levels of poverty in the Mapuche population today. About 50 strong, with traditional Mapuche dress and all kinds of cool Mapuche instruments, the group blocked one side of the road, had a brief chat with the police, and continued on, with the police leading the way. At one point, I started walking with them, but I wasn't sure if they would take kindly to me walking with them and also snapping pictures to satisfy my tourist nature. My host mom told me the protest is part of a "land reclamation" movement, an up and coming theme here in South America, where the Mapuche are trying to reclaim land, at times forcibly, which was taken from them long ago. Pretty cool that I got to witness it!



Well, I've learned much today, but most importantly, to always carry a roll of toilet paper in my backpack. I have yet to attend a class I want to take, but my confidence in the Chilean Educational system is at an all-time high, and I'm fairly confident tomorrow won't let me down. And if it does, at least I'll be prepared with 505 sheets of double-tiered toilet paper.

Oh yeah, and here's a cool poem I found by poet Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? --Mary Oliver

Love,
Ryan