So much has happened in a short time! Gone from Valparaiso—endless travel in buses with Caitlin playing word games and musing about everything (why do we binge on mints while traveling?)—now we have even left Lumaco (read Caitlin's post between-n-betwixt.blogspot.com), but how to speak of it all and not bore you?! I won't!
Today I hoed thistle. It was the start of something good. I hope. It was the first of what will be many days working on the Tralcao Park Farm with Daniel. Although he no longer has his vegetable garden, or hog farm, or yogurt business, or many other projects he once had for that matter, the place still has the potential to be a fabulous first WWOOF experience. There will be some work, but as Daniel's many projects have died off over the last 26 years there is less and less to do that is strictly speaking ´farm work´. But he isn't concerned. In fact, his demeanor is probably the most interesting thing about this place. Who knew that when thrust into southern Chile after little more than a week I would be in the company of a chain-smoking-Ohioan-former-hippie with more than an hour monologue on almost any topic? That of course is not to say that they are uninteresting monologues; who doesn't want to learn a little more about dog training? Or the end of the world for that matter. . . (both conversations we had late into the night yesterday). Whether his advice or predictions about the world are sage (be sustainable!) or from a Blade-Runner dystopian universe (The era of robots will mark the transformation of human spirituality, and it will be good) it makes for interesting listening.
As for important Chilean news, the miners are all being saved from the mine in the north. The news cycle is 24/7 taken up with this story. The people are all glued to the TV everywhere. I still don't completely know why. Daniel blames it on the inhumanity of the former dictatorship (finally the world cares about the little man). I'm not sure.
Pictures are coming super soon (maybe even today. . .)
And write me!
The story on the miners was an incredibly big deal here too. Not sure what's up with that. I'm excited to read more! -Anneli
ReplyDeleteHi Nathaniel! I'm certainly glad to hear that you're getting an education down there. Thanks for posting your adventures! I can promise you that no travel story of yours could possibly be boring next to a stack of 100 freshman papers on Nature vs Nurture.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that Chile was sort of taken with the idea that the world was actually paying attention to them for a moment. But besides that, who knows when you might get stuck in a mine shaft and need to know, like, everything?
Keep on having fun down there! Can't wait to see the pictures :) -Karen