It's a Riot

I've been in Chile for three weeks, and I'm still having trouble figuring out their sense of humor:

• A joke at a party had the punchline, "If I am polar bear, why am I cold?" The setup was completely irrelevant.
• At a recent host family gathering, my host uncle asked me (in Spanish), "How do you say open the door?" He did this while demonstrating how to open a door. I told him how to say "open the door" in English. He than asked me, "How do you say close the door?" He closed the door. Again, I translated. Than he said something I didn't comprehend, while opening the door halfway. I hesitated, than replied with my three favorite words in Spanish: "I don't understand." Everyone laughed after that. It was explained to me that I was the victim of a joke. This same thing has occurred twice now.
• I was conversing with my professor about Chilean beer. I told my professor that a certain beer, Escudo, is cheap. He laughed so hard that he did an 180-degree turn.

I don't get it either.

This past week has been an important one for Chile's national soccer team. They had two World Cup qualifying matches, one on Saturday and another yesterday. Down here--believe it or not--people actually watch soccer; even stranger, they enjoy it and sometimes pay for tickets to watch it live. The first time I heard this from a Chileno, I thought he was being sarcastic so I laughed loudly and gave him a few friendly pats on the back. You should have seen my face was when I found out he was serious!

Some friends and I decided to go to a couple bars to make sure they weren't confusing soccer with football. Much to my surprise, they were actually watching soccer--they even paid a cover to watch it! One bar's cover was that each patron had to buy two liters of beer. You're not going to believe this, but watching soccer here is actually a lot of fun. Everyone shouts crude words, chants slogans, and sings songs. I took part in a "son of bitch" chant in English, something I hope to do many times again in my life.

Unfortunately, not all of my time here is spent in bars. Sometimes, I have to go to class. The other day I was waylaid by a violent protest while walking to class. Apparently, riots are an annual occurence here every September. Students are unhappy about increases in tuition so they:

• Cover their faces with bandanas or facemasks.
• Start fires in the middle of the road.
• Throw rocks at a house.
• Break wood benches with big poles.
• Shout about high tuition.
• Throw paint on the ground.
• "Un-park" cars from their parking spots and move them into the road.
• Throw a small metal barricade violently on the ground, repeatedly.

It would be illegal for me to take part in any of these protests--foreigners are not allowed to protest anything here--so I just watched until the police sprayed tear gas everywhere. Than I left while holding my jacket in front of my face. Having tear gas in your face is not very fun; on a "degree of fun" chart, it's right next to wearing an uncomfortably small turtleneck or watching a Sheryl Crow music video. It feels like being allergic to mammals and rubbing a cat on your face. Sadly, because of the selfish, delinquent actions of these select few students who could not peacefully express their opinions, class was canceled for two days. It is very upsetting that a small group of hooligans can postpone the intellectual enlightenment of so many bright, assiduous students.

Now, what you've been waiting for--the bullet list:

• When I was riding in a cab to get home from classes, a guy walked up to the cab trying to sell individual band-aids. No one in the cab was bleeding at the time.
• During the same cab ride, a guy pulled up next to us at a stoplight. His stereo was blasting "Another One Bites the Dust" really loud.
• Two grown men rode one normal sized bike on a road by my house.
• Parental Control is on TV here, but I still have not seen Shaq Vs.
• A type of hot dog here is stuffed with sea food instead of mechanically separated beef, poultry and pork products. It really sucks.
• A bar here is called "The Beer Place."
• Girls wear fannypacks. Most of these girls are completely normal. Some of them are even cool.
• I went to an open-air market today (how interesting!) and saw probably over 500 kiwis on one table.
• A restaurant had menus in English with exotic dishes such as "chicken to the juice" and "hot big."
• A cabdriver shook my hand before letting me get out.
• Mullets are in fashion here. A lot of guys have jheri-curl mullets (like Lionel Ritchie), but I have seen some particularly galling dreadlock mullets.
• I registered my statys with the government the other day. The women registering me had me look directly at a bright flashlight for one minute.

I'm off to, as they say in Chile, "make a cow" with some friends. Hopefully, nobody "walks duck" tonight. Until next time, ciao!