No es un chiste (It's not a joke)

Dana and Yvonne on the boat, after Luis said something weird and awkward.

This past weekend a friend from K College came to visit. Dana has been in Ecuador working on her SIP (She studied in Quito last year at the same time I was here in Chile) and decided to come check out Chile for a few days. She arrived at a mediumly chaotic time here in Valparaiso with the protests and me attempting to get work done and start saying my goodbyes, but we had a good time together none the less. The night she was scheduled to arrive I had to go to a despedida (a going away party) for a good friend of mine, Victor, who is headed off to the USA to study in Indian for a semester. I am hoping to road trip down to see him when I get back to school. Victor lives in Villa Alemania which is about an hour micro ride from my house. I was going to go by myself, but Victor told me I could bring friends and Allan had told me that in order to be more Chilean I had to start asking favors. This of course led to a long discussion of how I'm really independent and don't ever ask for help, like most of the USA. I feel like I've successfully detered my friends from ever wanting to go to the USA, they all think we're cold and solitary...oops. It's interesting the cultural things that people crave and the ones they reject. I, for example, dislike having people walk me home all the time. I don't know why it bothers me so much, I guess I'm just used to having the freedom to do so and I feel bad asking someone to go out of their way to drop me off at my house. I also don't feel uncomfortable walking home alone (I don't live in a dangerous part of town). However, my male friends find it offensive when I reject their offer to walk me home. I'm still working on finding a balance between the two. Point being, I asked my friend Allan and Diego to come with me with Victor's house, they were alarmed and impressed that I was going to take the micro to Victor's house by myself. 'You're such a gringa'

The next day I went to the beach while Dana was exploring Isla Negra (another one of Pablo Neruda's house, which I hope to visit before leaving). It was so beautiful outside I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be outside.
Mil Tambores, August 15th

I made friends with the stray dogs, and had a man tell me I was ' la dulce de su vida' 'the sweet of his life' as he handed me a candy 'un dulce'. I will miss this country and the weird things that happen to me here. Dana, Edwin and I then met up at my house before going out to La Sala and dancing until the wee hours of the morning. The next day we were up early (10am?!) and took a boat ride around the bay with our friend Yvonne, who is another K college student here studying. A friend of Lore's awkwardly invited himself along (another Chilean thing I will never understand) and continued to be awkward for the rest of the day while we kept trying to ditch him. Life as a gringa continues as normal. The boat ride was beautiful and the sunshine and warmth was much appreciated. Our guide had a very dry sense of humor and constantly would say something funny like 'we sell stolen cars to Bolivia and then they re-sell them' everyone would laugh and then he would say 'it's not a joke' Oh....

Dana and I then went and had mariscos and pisco sours at the mercado, sat and watched the sea lions and pelicans play and then went to the 'ferria' they have here on the weekends. Basically people sell whatever shit they own in market style. I have to go back next weekend, I don't know why I haven't taken advantage of this before. After some bartering and laughter at the very weird items that were for sale, we returned for a well deserved siesta. Upon waking up from my nap I promptly threw up multiple times, and was pretty sure I was going to die. Needless to say I did not go out that night, even though I wanted to go see my neighbor's band play.
Lore playing at Mil Tambores

Dana headed out, I stayed in and watched Wall-E and drank Camomile tea. I woke up at 8 to say goodbye to Dana and then went back to sleep. I woke up at 2:30pm feeling so much better, but still wary of eating more food. However, I couldn't stay in since it was 'Mil Tambores para la educacion' and it was an experience I was not willing to miss because of an upset stomach. As you'll recall from last year I went to a drum festival called 'Mil Tambores' that takes place every year in October here in Valpo. The students decided to recreate this atmosphere for one of the marches for education here. I went with my housemate and Lore to meet up with some other musician friends. I didn't stay in the march for too long this time, but for once it didn't end violently, which is a good sign. I talked to my friend Cona (who is probably reading this :) ) today a lot about the education movement, but I'll get into that more tomorrow when I've done a little more research.
One week left, working on getting a few more interviews and starting to say goodbyes. I hope the warm weather holds out til I get back to the states!