a breathtaking sky in santiago today. rain clouds moved in for the first time in months. at sunset, the entire city was bathed in a supernatural golden glow. these photos were snapped from my bedroom balcony, the first to the east, the second to the west.
the other end of the rainbow touched down in the middle of the city. it started off as a double rainbow, but had dimmed by the time i grabbed my camera. still pretty spectacular.
i arrived on the island yesterday afternoon and made it down to chonchi, the small fishing community where ana has been conducting her research. she lives in a secluded little cabin by the water. it has an incredible view of the bay and the surrounding islands. off in the distance, you can even make out the snowcapped andes, dominated by and the michinmahuida volcano, which towers over its neighbors at 2400m.
la isla grande de chiloe is quite a colorful little haven. meticulously shingled homes and churches, misty inlets, verdant forests, and rolling hills give the island a personality all its own. last night, ana showed me around her town, where we feasted on steamed mussels and chatted with the locals. today we rode out to castro, the island's capital, and roamed the waterfront marketplace, sampled some curanto (chiloe's signature dish, a seafood stew), and picked up some chilote potatoes to cook later on (the island boasts 214 varieties and is rumored to be the original source of the world's potatoes). we also stopped by this internet cafe so that ana could send off her mid-term report.
tonight, we've been invited to dinner by one of her chilean friends, and tomorrow i am heading off to explore some of the smaller islands in the archipelago. internet access will be hard to come by from now on, but drop me an email if you want any handmade woolen island crafts. i can pick them up anywhere. they're well and locally made, warm, beautifully dyed, and yet so very cheap!
i've just finished my mid-term report. phew. now all i have to do is practice my presentation until the commission convenes on the 27th. since i've a week to spare, i figure, why not do the practicing in chile's southern archipelagos? i've been wanting to go there all year.
chiloe is the largest island in patagonia after tierra del fuego; its age-old rural traditions have survived centuries of isolation. although current salmon-farming techniques are encroaching on the self-sufficient chilote way of life (the research topic of the friend and fulbrighter i am going to visit), the islanders are trying to strike a balance between the old and the new.
besides having been dubbed a world heritage site for its unique wooden churches, chiloe is rich in mythology, elaborate seafood dishes, and lush, misty landscapes. it also rains there about 90% of the year. i expect to get drenched, but i hear that the rain only adds to the beauty of the island. here's hoping the rumors are true!
what i like best about the buses here (commonly called "micros") is that, because they are privately owned, the drivers personalize them as they wish. every other micro you get on is decked out with its own unique assortment of hood ornaments, decals, stickers, CDs, flowers, or religious trinkets. the best i've seen was a micro that had a black light installed on the roof and glow-in-the-dark stars plastered all around it. i also like the one that's basically a moving monument to disney characters.
this creativity may not last long after they start shaking up the way they operate public transporation here (private drivers and companies rent out bus routes from the government but otherwise handle everything, from fares to vehicle purchases, themselves). the government intends to standardize the city's buses, but it'll probably be a few more years before any sweeping changes are made.
upon looking at the mac mini another time, i realized that not only is it more powerful than my titanium powerbook (1.25 GHz vs. 667 MHz) and selling at a quarter of the price...it also weighs three pounds less. i feel so outdated. this must be how kip felt when we put together this old scrubs strip.
i cracked up at this spoof on apple advertising, sent along by dan in the spirit of the ongoing macworld expo. i admit that i'm an avid supporter, but i also reserve the right to say that their marketing strategy for the ipod shuffle is completely asinine. as if 'shuffle' brings anything new to the table. the mac mini, on the other hand, is an intriguing new addition for those strapped for cash.
of course, kip had the rebuttal up his sleeve, which shines the spotlight on apple-haters, for once.
i've been shamelessly plugging my good friend archie's amazing photoblog down here, and it looks like it's paid off. i've hooked my chilean friend and fellow artist quiltro onto archie's stunning photography, to the extent that quiltro has blogged his own online ode to whateverland, as archie's site is named.
you should check whateverland out, too...chieze has an eye for the surprising and subtle beauty of chicago (his base of operations), the patience to wait for that perfect moment, and the skill to capture it flawlessly. i sound like i'm exaggerating here, but no joke, his work really is breathtaking. my favorites thus far are this shot and this one. it's a wonder why the kid doesn't go professional. he's already got an international following.
i'm continually struck by how different the lives of me and my friends have become, after having shared pretty much the same daily schedule throughout our elementary, junior high, and high school years. i just received an email from my old friend tess, in which she recounts the progress of her life as a med student at uiuc. "now I'm moving on to the kind of medicine where there's no slicing, stapling, brain picking, or baby popping involved," she writes. wow...if i get to a point where i can list off as many bizarre or extraordinary daily activities in so flippant a manner, i think i'd have to throw in the towel afterwards. that's enough for me.
so the hearing of the soon-to-be-confirmed nominee for attorney general, alberto gonzales, has come and gone with no surprises. sparing and evasive with his answers, gonzales follows admirably in the tradition of rice and rumsfeld. all this leads me to wonder...what is it that supposedly sets the united states apart from the human rights violators we supposedly condemn? freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, due process, and assurance of humane treatment while in custody, perhaps? yet here we are, on the cusp of handing over the office of attorney general to a man who publicly denounced the geneva conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete." as the the white house staff's legal specialist, gonzales not only recommended strongly that prisoners of war be denied the protection of the accords, but he also moved to redefine torture in a way that sanctioned the apalling abuses of abu ghraib and guantanamo, all the while helping bush to circumvent, rather than uphold, laws meant to protect our soldiers overseas.
does a man like this deserve to be the country's top legal enforcement officer? the correct answer is no, but as nyt editorialist bob herbert puts it, "...this is the bush administration, where incompetence and outright failure are rewarded with the nation's highest honors." in a time where the american public is unwilling to believe anything negative about those who glibly claim to be protecting us from terrorism, and where shouting "support the troops" is enough to exonerate you of any wrongdoing, i guess gonzales' promotion is only fitting.
some might argue that torture is a necessary evil, for the sake of protecting our country from further harm. mark danner has a fitting response to that. as he points out, "the war in iraq and the war on terrorism are ultimately political in character. victory depends in the end not on technology or on overwhelming force but on political persuasion. by using torture, the country relinquishes the very ideological advantage - the promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights - that the president has so persistently claimed is america's most powerful weapon in defeating islamic extremism. one does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture." torture may get a suspect to talk, but it is ultimately self-defeating. and it will certainly not win this war.
now that i'm off the road and back home, i've had time to read up on all the news i've been missing out on. the more i learn about the tsunamis in asia, the more the horror of the situation is sinking in. the initial damage was bad enough, but now with thousands more dying of diseases and injuries...unbelievable. what amazes me most is this: even though the world expects the death toll from disease to rival that of the tsunamis themselves, everyone seems to resignedly accept that nothing much can be done about it. how can the pooled resources of the entire planet not be able to stop a preventable threat when armed with full and prior knowledge of it? the task may be staggering, but i'm always struck by how easy it is for governments and organizations to prognosticate a social or political tragedy, compared to how difficult it is to gather the will and wherewithal to actually do something about it.
clearly, i don't mean to demean the valiant and crucial relief efforts going on right now. this critique is really more appropriate for other situations (i.e. genocide in sudan...!) than for the current disaster, which has been morbidly blessed with the massive news coverage necessary to generate worldwide sympathy. such is the generosity and heartfelt goodwill of bystanders across all nations, doctors without borders has announced that the $53 million it has already collected is enough to fully fund its operations, making further donations unnecessary. it's worth comparing this impressive sum of money, raised in eight days, with the modest $850,000 the organization scrounged up over two months for starving genocide victims in darfur, where around 70,000 lives have already been lost. if only all tragedies deserving of attention and relief received the quantity rightfully attributed to the tsunamis.
just because doctors without borders is sufficiently funded, however, doesn't mean that your donations are not desperately needed elsewhere. long-term relief efforts by the red cross and smaller NGOS like refugees international, whose plans involve water purification and rebuilding victim's livelihoods, still need your support. in this editorial, one EMT in thailand gives a particularly candid and moving account of the medical and psychological trauma he witnessed in the tsunami's aftermath. he writes, "I saw fathers nearly catatonic over the loss of their children, and children grown mute at the loss of their parents. Here, as in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and all the other countries that fell victim to the tsunami, thousands of adults and children saw loved ones disappear before their very eyes. The deep feelings of grief and irrational guilt will not soon disappear."
love and strength to all who are suffering from this disaster.
i bade farewell to elgrey at the airport today. it was wonderful having her down from chicago to do a bit of traveling together. whether we were climbing the hills of valparaiso, dining in viña del mar, or relaxing on the beaches of reñaca, i was continually astonished by the spontaneous events and rare finds we encountered along the way. a refreshing and rewarding vacation for the both of us. now, however, it's back to work.
above: el and i take in valparaiso's skyline. the angle of the shot couldn't be helped---the camera was on timer mode and hanging from a tree!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! i don't think i could have ushered in 2005 in a more extraordinary yet offbeat way. i brought elgrey to a friend's barbecue party, held at the top of one of valparaiso's outer hills. fifteen germans were also in attendance, transforming the evening into one of babel-like linguistic chaos. as midnight neared, our host herded us down the street to the home of family friend, whose light-bedecked patio boasted the most breathtaking view of valparaiso by night. the entire bay and surrounding mountains were laid out before us, laced by the glow of chile's coastal cities, from valpo to viña del mar to reñaca and beyond. stationed at various points across the bay, seventeen barges loaded with fireworks awaited their debut. at the stroke of midnight, we welcomed in the new year amidst a confusion of spanish, german, and english, hugs and wine, and a spectacular 20-minute pyrotechnic display that engulfed the entire landscape. welcome, 2005. may this year be one of peace, discovery, and healing.
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