La vida nocturna

One thing I love about my Chilean life is how active it is. Weekdays are dedicated to lesson planning and teaching, and weekends to partying until the wee hours and then sleeping the whole next day to recover. We're coming up on a holiday weekend that promises ample opportunity for this, so I figure I'd talk a bit about the night life here, which is--in a word--awesome!

In general, Chileans are exceedingly friendly and patient enough to deal with beginning Spanish speakers without derision or exasperation. They are very relaxed about social gatherings, and since I've been here, I've been able to just sort of waltz my way into a circles of friends and show up at parties where I don't know the host without surprising anyone (well, other than the initial 'ooh, gringa !' reaction, por supuesto.) This is a breath of fresh air after France, where social circles are constructed at a young age and practically impenetrable (and where the people, in general, are much less welcoming and laid back as warm latino americans).
 
But what isn't a breath of fresh air is--the air! Chileans smoke. A lot. Technically, you have to be 18 to buy cigarettes, but the older high school students who come to class reeking of smoke report that the law is never enforced. Unlike in the US and France, there's no smoking ban here, so every bar, restaurant and club is full of smokers and clouds, and I come home from a night out smelling like an ash tray. The only positive thing about the cigarettes are the packages themselves, which skip the death warnings that Americans go for and appeal to the real fears of young, seemingly "immortal" youth--impotence! (Seriously, isn't that the most hilarious picture above?) The air quality in general isn't great, either--it's not as bad up north as the equal-to-5-cigarettes-a-day Santiago smog, but we have the dust of the desert and whatever sort of chemicals go into the air from the copper refineries nearby.

Anyway, back to nightlife. I came to Chile expecting the stereotypical, smooth-tongued, hard-bodied Latin Lover. What I've found, happily, is much more subdued. Yes, men can be forward (regardless of relationship status, age difference, etc) but they are generally not crude, and they are generally fairly respectful of women's interest or lack thereof. When dancing, most people seem to actually want to, you know, dance! Not just grind and grope, which is what passes for dancing in most of Europe these days. Here there's a trend towards more organized styles of dancing, and when men put a hand on your hip it's to guide you through the steps, not to cop a feel.

Here, a night out is marked by cheap drinks (relative to the US and Paris at least...it's about $4 for a beer and $5-$7 for a cocktail). The alcohol of choice is pisco, a strong grape brandy, that is most commonly mixed with lime juice (pisco sour), mango juice (mango sour) or Coca-Cola (piscola). If you byob, wine is abundant and dirt cheap. I have to admit, I still prefer the heady, full-bodied reds of France to the lighter, spicier, fruitier wines here, but quality is pretty good, especially considering the ridiculously low cost.

A night out here tends to last until the morning, which makes every weekend feel pretty epic (and often leaves me feeling like I need a weekend after my weekend!) Here's a taste of what I've done so far:
 
...checked out a lot of local bars/clubs/performance spaces and seen a few shows including a Beatles cover band (called, appropriately, Sgt Pepper's) a quadri-lingual modern jazz performance in the municipal theater and an up-coming Pink Floyd orchestral tribute...

 ...gone dancing (seen here in a really cool bar called Cafe del Sol, which is only two blocks from my apartment and which specializes in jazzing traditional folk music--think covers of 70s social activist Victor Para, or pan pipes and traditional, lute-sized charango guitars made from armadillo shells fused with saxophones)...

 ...sang karaoke (including once at a legit music venue, where singers had access to the stage, the lights, the sound system, costumes--everything! I sang Eye of the Tiger, Don't Stand (so close to me) and I Will Survive. Truly epic) ...

 ...attended "asados" (BBQs, where the specialty is the spicy "choripan" sausage, slathered in mayo on a hoagie roll)...

 ...eaten more than my fair share of meat-filled empanadas, and pichanga platters (french fries topped with a greasy assortment of sauteed onions, ground beef and sausage, with various spicy and creamy dipping sauces)...

 

...and attended a weekly conversation club in a bar, which is where I've met most of my friends. A language dork is a language dork in any language, and j'adork them all.

In fact, I'm off to the políglota meeting now. Hasta luego, mis amigos, y felizes fiestas patrias a todos!

Choreography and caserolazos for change

In case you haven't heard, student protests against the high cost of public university tuition are an ongoing "problem" in Chile, and almost all universities and a large percentage of public high schools have been taken "en toma" or seized by the students for a live-in protest. You can tell which schools have been taken by the chair and table legs that stick menacingly through the fences surrounding them, serving both as a physical barricade and giving a sort of barbed wire look to the property. Huge banners draped along the outside ("affordable, high-quality education for all!") and a few scowling student guards operating blasting subwoofers by the barricaded entrances are equally good indicators. Students have set up whole communities inside these institutions, with infrastructure for cleaning, public service, sleeping and meals (to prove they're responsible and serious), not to mention plenty of practice time and space for their creative protesting techniques.

It is these inventive, peaceful techniques that have won the movement international attention, as well as a sort of awe for the numbers and passion of the youth involved. Their publicity-stunt methods have included mass kiss-ins, large-scale public pillow fights, a nationwide day of marches with plenty of honking, puppets and banners, skits, and even dramatic mass ¨suicides¨where students choose a public area to lay motionless on the ground--"killed" by a neglectful government.

And then there's the dancing. I already posted video of their Thriller protest in an earlier blog, but here's a more recent Lady Gaga approach and an even more recent Party Rock episode that just occured last week in my city, Antofagasta. My tenth floor apartment towers over one of the high schools en toma, so for weeks leading up to the performance I was able to sneak a peek into the courtyard and see them practicing.

Chileans are constantly asking me my opinion of all of this. In general, I support the students, and believe that higher education, like health care, will only strenthen the societies that value it and should therefore be goverment-funded and affordable everywhere. However, when they point to my country as an example, I'm quick to clarify that universities in the United States, while excellent, are also exorbitant, although we at least have a much better system of scholarships and federal aid in place. On the flip side, I'm also fast to point out that the "free" schools that I experienced in France (or closer to home for Chileans, the free system in Argentina) are severely lacking in quality. In other words, I think there's a compromise to be made between the current, expensive system that doesn't make accomodations to cost of living or family income and the free-school-free-food-free-transport dream that the students are demanding, but in any case, change definitely needs to happen.

The Chilean public, which I think at first had more of an "aww, look at the young rebels! so cute!" attitude at the beginning, has become more and more respectful and supportive of the movement. In a country that is still very much living in the shadow of Pinochet's oppressive regime, the movement itself has grown to symbolize much more than just education--it's a demonstration of the power of individuals to affect change, of the political voice of the youth, of nonviolent protest and a good life for all Chileans. Chileans of all regions, ages, genders (the student leader is a girl!), races and backgrounds are banding together to support the students. One popular method being a nightly caserolazo, or pot-banging, where people lean out of their windows or take to the streets to hit empty pots with wooden spoons, creating a metallic chorus of discontent that echos that produced during the dictatorship (with the empty pots then representing the hunger of Chile's starving families). I participated in one of these with my host parents, who were moved and empowered by the parallels to the dark era that marked their early lives.This parallel was driven home in a quote from Camiola Vallejo Dowling, the student leader, who said “For many years our parents’ generation was afraid to demonstrate, to complain, thinking it was better to conform to what was going on. Students are setting an example without the fear our parents had.”


It's difficult to know when the protests will end, since Piñera's (new and increasingly unpopular) administration doesn't seem poised to appease them any time soon. The tension is escalating, though. At this point, many of the students have been absent from class for so long that they have forfeitted this year and will have no choice but to repeat it--in other words, they have nothing left to lose, and no reason to quit fighting. Protests have also been turning more and more dangerous, with more violence and tear gas on the part of the cops, culminating in public outcry over the accidental death of a 14-year old boy in Santiago last week. My students experienced this violence firsthand when a few of them tried to break into the school early last week to take it en toma, only to be roughly apprehended and taken to the police station to be collected by their parents.

Since my school is semi-private and owned by the Catholic Church and not the governement, it cannot legally be taken en toma--it would be trespassing on private property. My students still got their fair share of the action, however--striking with the teachers' blessings on the national day of "paro" to participate in the Antofagasta march, and then continuing to strike for several days afterward against what they perceived as the school administration's failing to protect them from the aggression of the cops during the failed takeover bid. After three days of sitting in the soccer field and drafting their own set of demands (that they not be punished for the classes they'd missed, that the school allow them to hang banners in solidarity with the cause, that the school agree not to call the police to discipline students in the future) they finally, begrudgingly returned to classes, but I get the feeling that many of the would prefer to join their comrades, because really--what an exciting time to be a Chilean high school student!

And what an exciting time to be volunteering here! First Tunisia, now Chile--I seem to have a knack for picking the most exciting, dynamic political climates to live in!

Sociology report: general observations about Chile

This weekend marks the two-month anniversary of my arrival in Chile. I thought I'd celebrate with a summary of my observations about this wondrous country and its people thus far:

Relative to other countries I've lived in, Chile has an extremely homogeneous population. Even in Santiago, the capital city, it's rare to see people of African, Arab, and especially Asian origins, and we "gringos" (which is not offensive, in Chile at least, but is simply used to identify white, English-speaking foreigners) while a little more common, are still pretty few and far between. Don't think for a minute that this somehow equates to less discrimination, though: Chilean society is very classist. This is reflected in derogatory words that exist for pretty much every group, such as flaites (ghetto) or cuicas (snooty upper class). Sadly, skin tones roughly correlate with class (the variations between which seem slight to this gringa's eyes, but apparently a few shades can carry a lot of meaning here). Dark skin and hair are associated with the working class, peasant indigenous populations or "morena" immigrants from Peru or Bolivia, while pale skin and light hair and eyes (here, blue eyes are not azules but a heavenly sky blue, or "celestes!") are idolized--not to mention an immediate target for sexual attention. I often hear "rubia" (blonde) hissed at me as I walk past men on the street (I can never tell if it's a come-on, approval, or just stating the obvious) despite the fact that my light brown hair ranks, at best, "dirty blond" in America. Meanwhile, flaite girls who bleach their hair to my color are distastefully called the far less flattering "rusia," a word that technically has the same meaning but carries a connotation of fake and trying too hard. Even within my growing circle of friends, the Chileans have taken to calling me Ricitos de Oro (Goldilocks) in awe of my hair.

On a more positive note, of all the countries I've traveled to, I think Chile also has the least direct relationship with/hatred of Americans, which has been a pleasant change. Here, America culture is adored, and unlike in Europe, American English is valued over British English and our vocabulary and accent is taught in schools, where nerdy students savor Americanisms and collect our slang. Students love American music and American tv shows, and don't have the same contempt for the less-than-flattering portrait they paint of us (I've learned since being here that Jersey Shore's Snookie is Chilean, so they can't hold her against us!)

Stray dogs are everywhere, and their health is usually a good indicator of affluence (dogs in the nicer neighborhoods of Santiago even had little polar fleece jackets, courtesy of some local do-gooding group). Street dogs are usually pretty street savvy, knowing to look before crossing busy roads, or to at least tail human pedestrians to avoid being run over. Once I watched a street dog eat the ubiquitous pina empanadas like a pro, peeling back the pastry and nosing out the olive to lick up the beef, then the pastry, only finally turning to the olive to knaw the fruit off of the pit. For the most part, they're pretty harmless, although they tend to get whipped into a frenzy by motorcycles and bikes and will attack the riders from time to time. I've become accustomed to the dogs that live in our neighborhood that I pass on my 15 minute walk to school, which include a white, three-legged dog that my host dad has dubbed "Tripodo" and a threesome he calls the "Flojos" (or lazies) that sleep all day on a rare patch of Antofagastian grass.

Lunch is the main meal here, and society's schedule is arranged around it. Everyone is given a two-hour lunch (or longer!) break to allow time for going home and sharing a large, multi-course meal--schools close, shops close, and work ceases until midafternoon. This puts a bit of a burden on Chilean mothers, who are expected to prepare this daily feast, regardless of whether they work or not. Some of the teachers I work with report getting up a full hour earlier in the morning to began preparing the day's lunch in their "spare time" before our first classes at 8am. Schools go until 6:15 to compensate for the long lunch break, and work schedules last till about 7. Dinner, on the other hand, is a nonevent consisting of something light--salad and juice, or bread, avacado and tea, and as such, is not even known by that word ("cena" in Spanish) but by "once," or "elevensies" (the photo on the right shows a restaurant advertising their once). Snacks throughout the day are sickeningly sweet: chocolate bars, chips, ice creams, candy and a whole rainbow of sugary sodas--although since they overload on these sweets earlier in the day (rather than splurging for a late evening desert) they seem to have plenty of time to burn off the calories. This little snack shop in the photo selling soda, ice cream, candy and chips is right across from my school, and is a pretty typical find in Chile (down to the "Hay Pan", or "There is bread!" signs that crack me up every time I see and translate them in my head, which announce that they sell the round rolls Chileans like to eat for once).

Due to delicate plumbing in Chile, toilet paper should be binned, not flushed. Nuff' said, but important for gringos to know (one boy in the problem said that he managed to block the family toilet three times, with them passing it off to "gringo problems" before they finally realized that he wasn't aware of the 'bin it' policy!)

Chileans are pretty affectionate in general, much to my delight, and they greet each other with kisses on the cheek and incorporate a lot more physical contact (arm pats, shoulder squeezes, hugs) into conversations. They also love public displays of romantic affection. I once got trapped in the corner of a shop when my path to the door was blocked by a woman whose overenthusiasitc boyfriend was practically sucking her neck off as she disinterestly browsed jewelery. He didn't even pause when I muttered a "discúlpeme" and pushed past to freedom. The students at my school imitate this sort of behavior with their teenage boyfriends/girlfriends, and the teachers hardly seem to notice.

Chilean Spanish is muy raro (really weird). I probably should have researched this before I came, but Chile is perhaps the hardest country in the world which to learn Spanish. Chileans speak rapidly, often dropping the ends of words, so that plural feminine nouns sound nearly indistinguishable from their singular form, (ex. las ventanas or the windows-->; "la ventana"), or omitting hard vowels, so that todos ("all" or "everyone") becomes "to-ohs" (much like one might say "aiight" instead of "all right" in English--except that here it's not slang, it's just the way language is spoken). They proudly pepper their speech with Chilenismos, or a type of Chilean slang that is so commonly used that one might well call it a dialect. Even their normal Spanish has odd variations, where words that I learned in college Spanish class, like "novio" (boyfriend), "frijoles" (beans), or "fresas" (strawberries) are replaced by synonyms: "pololo", "porotos," and "fruitzilla" (an odd word which, for me, evokes the image of a giant berry on a rampage through Tokyo). Perhaps their most common Chilenismo is their "po," which ends up at the end of everything. "Sí-po." "Ya-po." "No-po." The closest equivalent I could give in English would be the SoCal valley girl "like," a pointless add-on that contributes nothing to the sentence but a certain colloquialism.

Chileans, while living in a Catholic country, are actually fairly liberal overall. Gay culture is still a new thing here, but overall, there seems to be little discrimination and growing acceptance of the community at least on a societal/political level (although as could be expected, I've heard from friends that getting your family to accept a queer sexuality is another story...). Birth control and abortion are still fraught topics but are becoming more and more accepted and available. Women are respected and empowered, with many in the workforce and marriage and childbirth often delayed to even later than in the United States. Politically, socialism and even communism are not uncommon, and services like tax-funded health care are an expectation. Low cost, quality education (at the college level, too) is also an expectation, although on that is not currently being met, and that has resulted in country-wide strikes for the last several months. More on that in tomorrow's post!

Antofantastic!

Welcome to Antofagasta: a horizontal strip of a city sandwiched between mountains bordering on the desert to the East and the ocean to the West, and my home until I leave Chile at the end of November. The capital of the region that shares its name, Antofagasta is big enough to have a sense of culture and decent nightlife, but small enough that it's fairly easy to get around and meet people. Although it's essentially owned and run by the mining company Minera Escondida, it manages to escape the dreariness of the true mining towns further inland. As a general rule, the closer you get to the water, the nicer (i.e. more expensive) the houses/apartments become; the closer you get to the hills, the poorer it becomes. Once you cross over the train tracks, it gets a bit rough, or so they say--I haven't tried, of course, although we drove through the outskirts on the way in and based on memory it's a world away from where I live now. Which is here, on this street:

My host family is a young couple in their late 30s. My host mom trained as a journalist and now works for a telecommunications company, and my host dad helps run a nonprofit artist workshop that invites experts to give lessons and lectures to young, aspiring artists, and that also hosts performances or exhibitions of local art from time to time. They have some sort of a side business that specializes in graphic design and creative productions, and their artsy side comes out in the eclectic decor in their beautiful apartment. For example, I love the little collection of antique cameras on this shelf:
We live in a really nice, modern building that is close enough to the ocean for a view, but far enough that we're just beyond the tsunami evacuation zone: I have my own bathroom and bedroom:I share a living room and kitchen with them. As part of the program, they're required to provide meals for me. However, their demanding work schedules mean that they can't often afford to return to the house for lunch, so they buy me groceries to cook for myself. Considering my lack of enthusiasm for the bread, beef and mayonnaise diet that seems to be typical in Chile, this suits me just fine, as I can eat all of the vegetables, fruit and whole grains that I want. Here's our living room:

The huge windows are perfect for Antofagasta's climate, which is consistently sunny, with a high about 16 degrees Celsius and a low of 10 or so at night (in the winter). In the summer it gets warm without being too hot. The mountains and desert to the East keep the air dry and slightly dusty, but the evaporation from the ocean keeps it from being as arid as Calama. It only rains about once a year, and then the city is as dramatic about the water as the Wicked Witch of the West. Water runs right over the hard-packed ground to flood the gutter-less streets, it leaks through un-waterproofed roofs (see example from my school on the left) and leaves standing pools in open-air schoolyards, which have been known to close for rain days. The annual rain arrived in "Antofa" just before I did, however, so I don't expect to see any of this "extreme weather" while I'm here. All I have to worry about are earthquakes, which are apparently a pretty common occurrence.

The combination of low-lying, earthquake-safe construction and desert air makes for consistently stunning sunsets, and our 10th floor windows provide the perfect vantage point.

Last glimpses of Santiago

Although it may not rank among my favorite cities I've vistied, overall, I was a fan of Santiago. With an intimate feel for a capital city, it bustles but is filled with open plazas, street art, and tree-lined avenues. Santiago's downtown area feels surprisingly "western" in terms of cleanliness and commercialism, although the scores of sopapilla and empanada street vendors serve as a constant reminder of where you are. Indeed, many of the buildings were built in the style of buildings in the West, or, as is the case with the Museo de Bellas Artes, directly modelled after existing buildings. It added a surreal quality to my musuem visit to realize that, though I had never previously been to Santiago, I had walked its halls before--at the Petit Palais, in Paris. And as if the building itself didn't offer a strong enough sense of déja-vu, the art inside contributed to the European remix, with plaster casts of famous statues and featured Chilean artist José Bassoes modern geometrical take on Western masterpieces in his "variaciones sobre Monet":

Santiago's own cathedrals were equally art worthy: blocky, bright, and with a very latinoamerican look:
However, there were other aspects, like the Metro, that were nothing like Paris. In contrast to my beloved but filthy Parisian Métro, the Santiago version is new, clean and beautiful, if less extensive and equally impossibly crowded during rushhour. In defense of Parisians, however, I will say that the Santiaguinos sill have a long way to go to acheive the strict, unspoken code of etiquette that governs their public transport. Like the Frenchie I've become, I glared a silent "putain!" at the rude people that stood on the left side of escalators, and that swarmed violently toward arriving trains, shoving their way in before allowing departing passangers to make their way onto the platform. In Paris, where life is governed by innate knowledge of the way things should be done, this kind of behavior would not stand. Also, unlike in Paris, where the metro crowd usually included a lot of tall, lanky Senegalese that made me feel like a dwarf, when I rode the metro in Santiago I felt tall for the first time in my life. At 5 foot 4, I'm a full three inches above the national average height for women, so I practically towered over wizened old grannies, and even stood eye-to-eye with a number of men!

I found these appropriately Americana pair of umbrellas at a street vendor on the 4th of July. That evening, we tracked down one of Santiago's "American" bars (in other words, they offer beer pong and promote dancing on tables) to celebrate our independence by mashing into standing-room-only areas to quaff beer and watch the Chilean football (soccer) match of the night, a big playoff game with Mexico for a South American Cup. It was here that I learned some cheers that served me well for the rest of playoff season ( "vamos...vamos a Chilenos....esta noche...tenemos que ganar!"). We won the match, setting off a mad jumping party that resulted in sloshing pints of beer being spilled over the heads of most everyone present, to the tune of some chant that apparently translated to something along the lines of "we're all jumping for Chile's victory, if you're not jumping you're a gay Mexican." Charming. The victory also set off near riots of ecstasy in the town center, and when we passed through on a taxi back to our hostel we saw that a tank-looking thing with a pivoting fire hose on the top had been brought out to dissuade and disperse the mobbing crowd.

Used book markets in the more bohemian part of Santiago:
My favorite part of the city was Bellevista, Santiago's premiere district for nightlife--for student age and price ranges, at least. At night, the ambiance is great the drinks are cheap, and its cute if rather anonymous cafes give way to packed clubs with the setting of the sun:
And last but not least, one of my favorite topics: street art. Graffiti is a serious art form in Chile, where it serves the clear purpose of adding color and intrigue to what would otherwise be dirty or undeveloped industrial blank space. There were a more great examples in Santiago than I could fit on a memory card, but here are a few worthwhile samples:

Academedic

I now have a month of solid teaching under my belt, which enables me to reflect on the rewards of teaching (giving back, changing lives, yadda yadda we've all seen that Hallmark commercial) as well as on the downsides (the 9th circle of hell that is school administration, classroom management, not having a fluent mastery of the student mother tongue, the list goes on). By far the biggest drawback, especially during Southern Hemisphere winter, is the constant exposure to germ-ridden tykes. In other words, yes, I'm sick for the second time in two months. But I'm sucking it up (*snnniiiifff, snooorrrk*), ODing on fruits and veggies and trying to find the humor in the situation. Such as:

*One of my students reacting to my correction of her pronunciation of an English word by making fun of my congested voice and trying to correct *my* stuffy pronunciation.

*My host family telling me my English sounds nicer with a cold, because I have more of a British accent. Ha.

*I start every class with "Good/morning class (good morning Miss Rebecca) and "how are you today?" (fine thank you and yoooooou?). So I used illness as a teachable moment, explaining the difference between "I am cold" and "I have a cold" (which switch am/have verbs in their Spanish translations). When one boy finally grasped what I was trying to say, he used a hand to wipe his snotty nose, and gave a big sniff before responding "But Miss, why?"

da North

I spent my third week in Chile/second week of English camp in Calama, a town that my Lonely Planet introduces thusly: "How do we put this delicately? Hmm, there's just no way. Calama's a shithole."

After having lived there for a week, I'd say that the description is a bit harsh.

But only a bit.

The North of Chile is defined by two things: the Atacama desert, said to be the driest in the world, and mining. Calama is smack-dab in the middle of both.

The Atacama is beautiful in a stark sort of way, and it boasts the town of San Pedro, a mere 45 minutes from Calama, which is a famous backpacking launchpad for visits to nearby geysers, the valley of the moon, salt flats, and flamingo-filled oases.

Unfortunately, Calama's share of the Atacama is only flat, endless expanses of nothingness, the dry climate, the freezing night temperatures, the araña del rincón (chilean recluse spider, one of the most deadly in the world) and earthquakes that happen once every few weeks (or "tremors" as they're called here--in a zone with such frequent seismic activity, it takes a lot to qualify as a quake).

As for the miner half: well, the town is old, predominately male, and way more expensive than it should be considering its size and location (Bumfuck, nowhere--the high mining salaries inflate the local prices). English Opens Doors volunteers in the region said that teaching is pretty bleak. After all, no one cares about learning English in a town where the boys will never finish high school because mining pays more than any doors English can open, and the girls get pregnant when they're 16 and shack up with a miner sugar-daddy (who likely has several such "families" going at one time). (Seriously, it's a often-referenced Chilean stereotype, proven true by the trapped Chilean miners last year, many of whom had several women awaiting them by the time they were finally freed from the earth). Calama's also full of mangy, malnourished dogs, who you would feel sorry for if you weren't so terrified every time a pack of them burst through traffic, yelping and snapping after a cyclist, or after a bleeding, teeth-mark marred compatriot, or crazed by a female in heat. As far as I could see, the one "benefit" of the mining is that it contributes about the only beauty Calama can claim--copper everything, including a spire on the local church, and various shrines to miners scattered through the town, such as the one above (photo complete with street dog!)

All in all, it was an extremely depressing place. The whole time I was there, I saw hardly anyone my age, as far as I could tell, your choice for weekend entertainment is between super smoky, overpriced, holes that qualify as "bars" and the local mall, which is a 20 minute (apparently dangerous) walk away from center town. On my first night I opted the first, only to wind up making my cold worse with the smoke, so I then switched to the latter. I think I was one of a total of 10 people in the cinema for the once daily showing of Harry Potter in its original English.

Calama's other points of interest: monuments to llamas, the town mascot:

On our field trip day of camp, we drove 45 minutes away to an oasis, where I encountered the real deal:
After a week in Calama, the oasis was gorgeous:
And a good place for livestock...

...and abandoned vehicles?

A church in the middle of nowhere (Chui Chui), said to be the oldest in Chile:
In conclusion: The last Harry Potter movie was awesome, and the highlight of an otherwise forgettable town. The week I spent left me feeling apprehensive about my placement town, which is also a mining capital and a mere 2.5 hrs away, but happily, Antofagasta beats the pants off this place. Pictures and details to come, stay tuned.