I didn’t like Halloween when I was a kid. I was too self-conscious for the school parade part, and too shy for the knocking on strangers’ doors part. It was a relief to move to Chile in 2003 and more or less ignore the day. Many people didn’t like the concept of Halloween because[...]
Archive for the ‘Event’ Category
Smells Like Justice
Argentines have a strong history of political activism. One of the most famous Argentines in history, Che Guevara, is an international symbol for revolutionaries. While Che is long gone, the revolutionary spirit is still alive and well in Argentina. In fact, it’s so potent you can smell it. Li[...]
Small Frustrations and Big White Elephants
Here’s one: The Chilean English professors use English-Spanish dictionaries pretty often in class. Unfortunately, the ones we have are old. When you pick some of them up, they fall apart. Pages slip out onto the floor, and students frantically run to gather and scotch-tape them together. Moreover,[...]
Life and Death
9:34 a.m. I’m sitting in a cafe in downtown Minneapolis, eating breakfast with my dear friends Rachael and Jarvi hours before I board my flight back to Santiago. I get a call from my mom and I silence it, trying to give my undivided attention. 9:38 a.m. I receive a second call from my mom an[...]
Blog Action Day, 2010: Water – How to Reach Eight Glasses a Day
This post is in honor of Blog Action Day today. Latin America contains 26% of the world’s water resources and hosts 6% of the world’s population. This means a lot; this means little. Unequal water distribution is not just spatial. It is temporal, through cycles of drought and flood. It [...]
Cavorting Across the Cultural Divide
It’s been quite a momentous year for Chile, what with the earthquake, the inauguration of Sebastian Piñera (first right-wing leader since the dictatorship), their first World Cup in twelve years, and now, this September 18th, the two-hundredth anniversary of their independence. September 18th is [...]
Ode to Costa Rica
In my last post, I don’t think I was very convincing of living la vida idealist, naming all the possible health problems I could get and how I have lots of time in this slower pace of life to sit and think about them. So with this space, I’m going to do the opposite and [...][...]
When it Comes to Fundraising, Be Persistent
I have been volunteering with the preschool classrooms at San Pablo la Laguna for two years, and with the Ayudame a Pintar Mi Futuro (APMF) project in San Pedro for over a year now. Every six months, I buy a lot of the work of local artisans and weavers and take it to my [...][...]
