Photo Wednesday: Spring flowers bring November showers?

Andes mts from Machali, originally uploaded by coming2cambodia.

Taken: October 27, 2007 in Machali on the road to Coya.

Perfecting procrastination

The truth is that right now I am a little overwhelmed with work and, as tends to happen in such situations, that means that I am perfecting procrastination. Such is my luck that November is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and so I am in!

To tell you, dear reader, the truth– I am not sure this will be easy for me. However, the difficulty will not be coming up with what to write about (I am not promising that it will be interesting, but there is always something, right?) More so, the difficulties will stem from travel and internet access. Although Chile is a very connected country (at least in the circles that I operate) when I travel I share online time with other people which means it is less, it is at odd hours, and that I have to use older, slower computers to post. That said, I will make the effort.

In the meantime, if you so wish, you may suggest topics for me to ramble about. I may or may not take your suggestions depending on my mood and if I think I have anything to say. That said, if you don’t suggest, then you do run the distinct risk of having a month of Harley stories ahead of you.

Time for a contest

Thanks to Chicory for this great idea– and for accepting me as her 5th person even though I live overseas.

So, here’s how it goes. The first 5 commenters here will get a small gift in the mail from me. All you have to do is post this on your own blog and promise to gift the first 5 commenters on your post if they promise to gift the first 5 commenters on their posts… you see how it goes. It’s a classic shampoo commercial.

See!! Blogging fun for everyone!

PS Delurking is welcome during this contest.

Bookworm

Yes, I admit it, I am a bookworm.  I loved all the literature classes I took in college; I read a book every two days during the Moldovan winters; my storage space is rented out for the primary purpose of housing my books and photos; and I do celebrate (and blog about) banned book week.

Knowing this about me, you can understand my sadness of having just learned about the 27th International Book Fair going on right now in Santiago!! This melancholy is compounded by the fact that I passed through Santiago on Friday and easily could have gone had I known about it. The fair, which is taking place Oct. 23 through Nov. 4th, is in the Cultural Center Mapocho Station.  They have a huge variety of editorials, book stores, and authors invited; not to mention that they have a series of cultural events.  Please, if you are in Chile, especially if you are in Santiago, check it out!

Having just talked about my love of books, I think its only fair to talk about the book I finished this weekend: Travesuras de una niña mala by Mario Vargas Llosa (or in English here). My love of Mario Vargas Llosa stems from a literature class I took at the Catholic University of Chile in spring 2000.  In the class, not one that many (read any other) americans signed up for we read:

• Essays by Mario Vargas Llosa
• Aunt Julia and the Script Writer
• Conversation in the Cathedral (the longest of his books and the one I wrote my paper on!)
• The War at the End of the World
• City and the Dogs
• Captin Pantoja and the Special Service
• The Green House
• The Leaders and the Cubs: A short story and a novel

All of these books, of course, were read in the original Spanish so I can’t make a comment on the quality of translations.  I can, however, say that at least in Spanish his books have a rhythm to them that is lulling and enjoyable.  More over his characters are lovable and have a way of making the possible seem impossible. Up until now, I would have said that Conversations in the Cathedral or Capitan Pantoja and the Special Service were my favorites… but I think that The Bad Girl has surpassed them.  A most unusual love story about the most ordinary of men and the many incarnations of a woman never satisfied with her life, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Teenage pregnancy

I have to say that I have been having a lot of conversations recently about teenage promiscuity and teenage pregnancy in Chile— sparked not only by my work, but also by two recent news stories: the wena naty videos and the couple selling their unborn child on the internet. Let’s review these cases for those not living in Chile and thus not bombarded by them.

The “wena naty” video has been a story circulating in Chile for weeks. Full story here. Basically, a 14 year old girl was video taped (by a cell phone) having oral sex with classmates presumably on school grounds. Afterwards, the video was put up on the internet, the girl was expelled, and the country has vacillated between shock and laughter. The girl, expelled from school, is now known throughout the country and is going to have a hard time living this one down.

The second is the story of a teenage couple who decide to try and sell their unborn child over the internet. Full story here. Basically, they were young, got pregnant, didn’t know what to do and decided to try and make some money off the situation. Currently Child and Family Services is involved and has promised to protect both mother and child.

And some facts:

• Chile’s National Institute for Youth reports that almost 14 percent of Chilean women are mothers by the age of 14.
• An average 40,000 babies are born to women younger than age 19 every year.
• Only recently has emergency contraception become a viable option for Chilean women (and girls) age 14 and up.
  

Needless to say, these stories have started a conversation about teenagers (and children) having sex in Chile. Sadly, all too often these conversations don’t seem to go anywhere. In the case of Naty, it has become a joke which people laugh about. Rarely have I had a conversation with anyone about the underlying machismo that resulted in the girl being vilified and expelled while nothing happened to the boys. Nor have I had conversations (that I didn’t start) about the fact that we are really talking about child pornography here.

In the case of the teens trying to sell their children most people have been shocked. The reasons the children gave (to buy a car, because you can’t go to parties with a little one) are horrifying. At the same time, it is not leading to a much needed conversation about sex education and access to contraception that needs to take place on a national level.

Admittedly, it has been a long time since I was in high school (both here and in the states), but sadly very little has changed. About the only progress here in Chile is that girls who get pregnant are not automatically expelled from school as they were in the past. However, the sex education is still negligible at best. And, teens who want to have safe sex, continue to have problems in accessing condoms or birth control– especially out in the regions where stores may simply refuse to sell them to teens or threated to tell the teen’s mother.

It is all in the laws

We all know that places have crazy laws, silly laws, and things that just do not make sense.  These are the two that struck me today:

• In Chile prostitution is legal for consenting adults.
• In Chile voluntary migration of adults for the purpose of prostitution is illegal.

Online videos

Mongkol posted a piece on Sand Art earlier today. I liked the three he had up, but not as much as the one my friend Gilda emailed me the other day.  Since I do think they are a neat idea and enthralling to watch, I decided to post Gilda’s.

While I was going through my archives looking at recent videos I had previewed, I ran across “The One Semester Spanish Love Song” that Soda sent me.  Since I am in a video sharing post at the moment, and I did laugh quite a bit each time I watched this video, I thought I would share it as well.

Perhaps tomorrow I will animate myself to write an actual post.  For now, enjoy!

Photo Wednesday: My freedom

Clare, originally uploaded by coming2cambodia.

Subject: Me
Taken: El Subterraneo, a club in Valparaiso Chile
Date: October 18, 2007

Visitors

Brian and Clare in Bellavista, originally uploaded by coming2cambodia.

It is always nice to have visitors. This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing Brian who was in my MSW program. We spent the day in Santiago doing all kinds of touristy things:

• Going to the Moneda
• Going to the Cultural Center at the Moneda
• Climbing Cerro Santa Lucia
• Going to the arts fair Santa Lucia
• Eating sushi
• Going to La Chascona, one of Pablo Neruda’s houses– my favorite in fact
• Walking all over town
• Window shopping
• Checking out Bario Bellavista
• Having lunch
• Taking pictures
• Explaining the metro and mass transit system

Music and Message

I like music with a message; as I tend to learn lyrics very quickly, I also tend to know what songs talk about. I have, in fact, I have blogged about music on human trafficking before. I don’t necessarily choose all music by the lyrics; some stuff is just fun to dance to. On the other hand, it is worth thinking about how music socializes people and how the messages effect what we think of ourselves and the world. I believe this is especially true when thinking about the messages that children receive.

This comic was published in the newspaper put out by the Santiago Metro on Saturday. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that it was funny because it was so true!

Translation: The stage says “No more violence”, the person in the first scene says “We don’t understand where this macho violent culture comes from! That’s enough! We are raising awareness in this festival!” The second scene the person says: “And for the first number, the king of reggaeton! Applause for Daddy Papi!!” The final scene shows a singer singing: “Get naked, I’m gonna give it to you, you are going to like it, black hot bitch! Take off everything or I am gonna hit you…”

The comic made me think of two moments which I would like to share.

The first was a year ago when I went to a conference in San Diego on human trafficking. Probably the best session that I was attended was given by one of the investigators of the FBI’s unit on internet crimes against children. He spent sometime talking about pimps and prostitution. Throughout his presentation, he used the lyrics of 50 Cent to illustrate how demoralizing prostitution is and how pimps break girls down. Here are the lyrics to one of the songs that he quoted.

The second incident was a couple weeks ago. I was walking with a friend, who in general dislikes pop music, rock music, reggae, or anything that isn’t jazz, classical, or folk. During a moment of silence on the walk home, he started singing Atreve-te, a popular hip hop song by Calle 13. Lyrics here. Once I got over the shock that he knew the words, he asked if I had ever really listened to them. In this case, I hadn’t. I knew the song, but just from hearing it at clubs or in the background at noisy restaurants. The song is so popular, in fact, that it best short video version for a song at the Latin Grammys. My friend, it turns out, knew the song because it is played on the bus that he takes weekly to go to Santiago– in fact, the video is shown. Once we had discussed the sexism and violence embedded within the message (really, I am talking to the choir when talking to him), we had to discuss the video. Mostly, the dancing. How do those women dance and walk he asked? After searching for it on youtube, my questions are 1- how to women learn to wear those heals and not break their ankles? and 2- how do young girls and boys internalize the messages they are seeing here?

In both cases, the songs (while having a good beat) perpetuate the idea that women are objects, to be used up and thrown away. That being a descent girl is just a show and that all a man has to do is beat it out of her because really wants it (sex, violence). In both cases, adolescents are the target audience of the musicians. I know some people will say that I am over reacting and they are just songs. But they are messages that are getting put into peoples heads; they are invisible forms of socializations and sexism; and they make me sick.

Isn’t it about time that we question this type of socialization and search for something better?