These are the people in the neighborhood.

Hey pa, where you going with that ax? It´s now evident to me that whe I travel, I prefer settling in one place and staying there for a decent period of time, getting to know the streets, the people, the lifestyle. Traveling from place to place seems to only encouagre meeting more expats and english speakers. During this trip to Chile, for the last 4 weeks, I have been staying with Rocio Westfall, her family and friends. It´s quite a cast of characters, and it´s fun to describe them . . .so here goes.

Rocio is the queen. Her home is perched like a palace at the top of plaza esperanza (faith) in the Recreo neighborhood. Though she coordinates the international programs for University of Valparaiso, she also is currently hosting 8 people in her home. Her daughters, Jamie 23 and Mollie 21, her parents, Fernando and Acension, professors, Veronica and Frank, a student who just got out of the hospital from Salmonella poisening, jonathan, and little old me. She is a strong, beautiful independent woman, recently divorced with interests in yoga, martial arts, and exchanging ideas. She has inspired me to re concieve the concept of home, and an open door. Í´m very comfortable here.

When I fisrt came to visit, 3 weeks ago, before I decided to move in, I met frank sitting at teh round dinner table. Upon Rocio´s intro that I was a teacher from New York City, he immediately told me about his ¨25 year old attracttive neice who is a teacher and lives in Queens, you gotta meet her¨. Later he complimented me for trying to speak spanish with Rocio´s fast talking nephew Phillipe. He´s usually quick with a compliment or an arresting fact about the destruction of the environment or how our diet is quickly killing us (like that cows milk contains 3% puss). I admire the bleeding heart liberal attitude that he carries through his working environment, 70% right wing repulican christian Furman University of South Carolina.

JAne is Frank´s wife but she doesn´t live in the house with us. . . hmmmm. She is motivated to immerse herself in Spanish so she lives with a Spanish only house. When she comes over, though, she is happy to engage in English. A retired teacher, She is here with Frank and spearheading a project to help a shelter for sexually abused children. We had a couple of meetings over the last week, I´ve taken notes and started a blog. You can read about the project at sonrisasdelmar.blogspot.com

Linda is Jane´s friend from Greenville, though she was born and raised in Cambridge , England. A drummer, traveler and veteran teacher as well, she lives down the street from Jane with an enormous German Shepard called Rocky. She has also come to Chile to work on her Spanish. Linda hosts the meetings for the shelter, usually Rocky barks when we arrive.

Veronica is the other teacher from Furman university. She was born in Rural Mississippi in the mid 40s and has lived all around the south for her entire life. Even after hiking la Campana, a 9 hour hike to the top of an 2800 meter peak, the aqua net hair spray continued holding her little blow out perfectly. She is extremely formal, and quite conservative though she has traveled extensively through Americas, Europe and Asia. She is worldy yet simple. We had a 5 hour walk together to an antique fair the first week I was here, and I enjoyed her company immensly. It´s amazing to see her and Frank work together because they´re quite different.

Fernando and Ascension are Rocio´s parents. Every morning at 630, Fernando gets up, puts on a little cuban hat and goes out to rund errands. When he comes home, he enjoys telling stories of avation, flying both commerically for LAN airlines, and for the Chilean airforce. He eats large portions of food, enjoys growing mangos and ginger at his home in La ponte.

Ascension seemed cold toward me at first, but that{s probably becasue I was sorta cold toward her. One day I gave her a hello kiss (normal here) when she came in, and she lighted up saying, sobre tiempe (it{t about time!) Now she has brightened up and seems to like correcting my spanish. Ironically, this makes me less likely to speak around her becuase I don{t like being corrected. However, she used to be a school teacher, and I think she likes that I do that too.

Mollie is the 21 year old soft spoken daughter of Rocio. She was working full time for coordinating Furman U activities as the assistant to Frank and Veronica, until she got the chicken pox. Since then she{s been home, in bed, listening to Los Mutantes (70s psychedelic Brazilian music. . . that I like) and playing Jenga with whoever is around. . . often her boyfriend Phillipe. Finally, she left the house today, but as she was putting on her sweater, the scab came off the chicken pock on her forehead. She no longer looks hindu, with a red dot between the eyes.

Jamie is a little older than Mollie, but is even more soft spoken. She paints and the house is covered with murals. On my bedroom wall, there is a Jester riding a unicycle on a tightrope with a scared cat watching! She also does canvases, tonight we went to a gallery to see some of her stuff, but it was closed. She runs a yoga class out in the front yard a few times a week, though sometimes her boyfriend, Boris, runs it. When I first got here, she generously took me to a converted pornography movie theatre (that becomes an art cinema on the weekend). There was this neat mini movie animation of George Bush leading sheep through the streets of NY.

This family is counter culture. I like it here.

more later.

Ex- Carcel. . . ex jail.

Nadia and I struggled up the cerro conception. Beyond an old decrepid concrete wall, we heard the sound of drumming and guitars. On the curb at the foot of the hill, painted under a small mural in bright yellow letters were the words ¨ex-carcel¨(ex jail) with a little arrow pointing toward the left of the wall.

Curious, we hurried up and around the curvy wall and through the imposing painted gates; passing a small cafeteria on the left and 2 small tourist offices on the right. We entered the courtyard looking to the left and seeing a 3 story whitewashed wall with rows of small barred windows facing the center courtyard, a jail! The music was louder. Immediately we walked toward the building and crept through the small door on the right. 4 drummers, an acoucstic guitar player and a keybord player were bashing away, swaying back and forth with their eyes closed. I stood, smirking and listening in the dark dank hall, while trying to read and understand the writing on the wall plaque explaining the history of the space. In 1999 when the jail was abandoned, the city government converted it into a community art center. Now the Chilean department of culture is responsible for maintenence and upkeep. It was mindboggling to be in a place that once stood for confinement that now stood for expression and freedom, what an interesting contrast!

Nadia walked over and started bouncing to the rhythm of the drums and taking photographs. Then we wandered around the first floor of the jail house and through the exit on the other side, only to encounter another group of drummers practicing samba music. However, over the sound of their drums we heard the buzzing of table saws, as we continued toward to the back, we saw a complete wood shop with 3 shirtless guys manufacturing tables.

We turned around and walked up the fire escape to the 2nd floor of the jail house, and entered an old cell. . . there were still old magazine cut outs of scantily clad women pasted on the wall near the ceiling, where the 3rd bunk was. Amazing.

We returned to the ground and walked through the first floor past the first band again. It was time to explore the rest of the grounds.

Opposite the jail house is probably what used to be the administrative quarters. Now those spaces are a museum with a permanent exhibit displaying the history of the jail, and a theatre showing independent and experimental productions. . . tonight was Nimia (something about nymphs I think.) A guy was juggling in the lobby.

On the other side of the administrative building is a series of shops. Apparently artesans, working with recycled materials, can rent space for $10 a month. Though the spaces were not busy when we were there (its summer and many people are away), palm tree bark and leaves were poking out the window of one shop and, another was filled with plastic and glass bottles and old aluminum siding that were to be used for recycled crafts. One space had large colorful mandalas on the wall with the words, ¨historio de la cuidad y cultura¨ stenciled above.

The entire wall accross the back of the jail complex was covered in a mural painted by 80 local children from December 2004. Other nooks and crannies around the grounds have interesting graffitied spray paint murals.

Nadia and I sat down with 2 guys at a table in a kitchen (located close to the entrance)There was a native indiginous Quecha woman cooking and her weaving covered the wall, she offered some juice and explained that people who need to can eat for free. She sells her crafts at markets. This kitchen was her work space.

I was just dumbfounded that a jail could be turned into a community center. I can see how a kid would think that it´s cool to be practicing music in a jail, spraypainting murals on an old wall, and coming there at night to see events. This place provides safe space for creative development, without sacrificing ¨coolness¨ that so many teenagers need to feel authentic.

When I mentioned that I went to ex-carcel to Molly (who I live with) she mentioned that it is run by a convict that used to be incarcerated there.

What if Bush had suggested that we convert jails to community centers in his state of the union address? We have a long way to go.