una estadia revuelta

Oh boy. What a wild, absurd, enjoyable, frustrating, and everything else few weeks in Valdivia, Chile! So in the last post Steve and I were settling in at hostal Aires Buenos, me doing odd jobs, him designing a rocket stove, both getting fed and housed comfortably. It continued as such for the next week but I was starting to get restless. I got to do some garden work, but mostly it was the shit jobs: painting the hallway, cleaning the basement, hauling lumber and huge backpacks full of vegetables back from the market. Plus, while the city has its charms, the noisyness, the cars, and the ridiculous tourists above all were maiing me restless for a farm. Some examples of the clientelle of the hostel: Colin from New Zealand who looked exaaaactly like Mr. Bean, a couple of fratty types from Australia that repeateadly awoke us at night, stumbling in drunk and lovelorn and who despite having been in Chile for several months were so inept at Spanish that they had to ask what poco meant. A Danish fellow named Johny who was a fanatic of backgammon and bribed us to play it for hours with peach vodka. As if that weren´t entertaining enough, the last few days things really started to unravel into absurdity. A couple nights ago a loudmouth woman from London got bitten in the night and come to find her room was infested by bedbugs. We inspected it and found more and everyone started to get hysterical and paranoid. We ended up rigging up a pulley to lower the mattress and bedframe out a third story window so as not to transmit them further. Then the fumigators came and sprayed the room and didn´t seal it properly so we were all coughing and decided to get the hell out. The owner, Viella had been out with a friend the night before and had the epiphany that she wasn´t sure she wanted to keep the hostel or build more on her cabaña so she terminated Steve´s rocket stove project. She also finally decided she had to get rid of the semi-feral cat Pierre, an adorable little rascal- all black with a white moustache- because he was spreading fleas and biting guests that tried to pet him so we ended up grabbing him, sticking him in a bag and walking a few blocks to dump him at the fish market near the docks where he´ll hopefully live well alongside the hordes of sea lions that come up to feast on the discards of fish guts. Ahhh, what a glorious parade of absurdity!! But I exaggerate the bad for dramatic effect. Things have been pretty nice. Yesterday for examp`le we fled the fumigation to go up one last time to the cabin. We cut some wood, covered up cosntruction supplies, and then enjoyed the walk down on a glorious sunny day with tons of wild blackberries, rasberries, and murta berries (like red blueberries tha taste extra cedar-ish) and the view of the lowland swamps. Then we celebrated our last night by cooking fresh fish, green beans, and feasting with peanuts, chocolate, beer, wine, and good company. Or last weekend, I managed to sneak away to spend a few hours by the ocean and ended up writing a poem (I often forget that I write poems until I´m somewhere like next to the sea and one just pops out), and doing some good existential reflection. SO life is good, as it always is when you stop to think about it. And now I´m getting out of Valdivia, settling my restless bug. And what´s more, I´m headed five hours to the north to stay on the farm of a Mapuche family that just got back to me yesterday! I´m so excited! They have animals and berries, and are no doubt wonderful. I´ll be meeting them hopefully by this evening. On the road again!!! For the long term plans, things are starting to get clear: I´m going to travel up Chile, cross to Mendoza for a few weeks, head to northern Argentina to wrok on a wonderful farm-forest reverve called Aldea Luna (look it up). I´m going to accept Chapel Hill´s offer for grad school, and either start there in August, or get the Fulbright and defer for a year to live in Colombia. Either way, I should be back in Missouri for a little while as soon as July! So hugs for now. Stay tuned for the next round of adventures!!!