Last Month was Ridiculous

Sorry it's been so long. I've been outrageously occupied with a bunch of seemingly trivial crap this month, peppered with small and amounts of fury, wonder, fear, surprise, and pleasure.


To start the month, I had been getting pestered by my doctors in the U.S. to go get some checkups. For those of you who don't know, I had an illness when I was younger that requires I receive some rather complicated medical attention every once in a while. I detest hospitals and medical attention with a virulent passion, which I inherited from my father, who would rather suffer until he dies then get a physical, but that doesn't change the fact that I have to go. Anyways, you can imagine the hassle I felt having to hunt for a doctor down here. (A note about the medical system in Chile: there are public hospitals and private hospitals. You must pay for the services you want to receive up front at both types. However, if you were gut shot with a pistol point blank and went to a public hospital, you would probably bleed out and die on the floor from lack of attention next to someone who was dying from a stab wound who had been waiting longer than you for help. I went to a private hospital.)


I had been trying to set up an appointment with this hospital in Vitacura but the line had always been busy, no matter which one I called, so I had to physically go to the hospital just to ask for an appointment. Vitacura happens to be one of the wealthiest comunas in the Santiago area and is located all the way on the other side of the entire city from me and my humble and pobre surroundings. Getting there requires my riding the metro at the beginning of one line to the end of the line and transferring to a different line, riding that to the end of the line, walking to a huge bus station where people literally are shoving, shouting, punching and kicking to get on one of like, three buses, and riding that super over-crowded bus a half hour and then walking a few more blocks to one of the nicest hospitals in rich person Chile. So, I got up at six in the morning on a friday which is retardedly early. I usually don't have to work until two and sleep until noon, but on fridays I don't work until five, so you can imagine how pissy I was. I didn't know how long this process was going to take so I got up extra early, to be safe. Completely unnecessary.

I got to the hospital at eight thirty after unintentionally groping and being groped by thousands of public transportation passengers. Slightly flustered after this ordeal, I made my way to the ninth floor. The time was eight-thirty three. I spoke with the receptionist and set an appointment for monday at nine in the morning and left at eight-thirty five. I was a little annoyed but became more annoyed when I realized I still had to battle the rush hour commute to get back home.

Monday rolled around and I went back to the hospital. I met with a doctor and scheduled some appointments over the next two days, as my schedule would allow. Tuesday I came back ass-early in the morning and the nurses at the blood lab had some outlandish rules about drawing blood and wouldn't take my blood because I had eaten a bunch of food right before I came in. I was like, okay that's fine, and asked if I should eat anything before I came in tomorrow afternoon. They said no. So the next day I didn't eat any breakfast or lunch, went to work, then went all the way back to the hospital where the nurses wouldn't take my blood because I hadn't had anything to eat in fourteen hours! I flipped out in my head, which they kind of gathered, and left in a huff. At least I got one test done while I was there that day. Wednesday, I got up early again (which was starting to wear on me) and had another test done and discovered that they had changed the date of my next test to thursday morning at seven-forty and there was a two hour wait at the blood lab, which I couln't swing. By this time I was used to leaving the hospital red with fury, so I just left in a stormy silence. Also, for the thursday test I couldn't eat dinner the night before or breakfast, and I ended up not eating for the entire day just because I was super busy. Thursday rolls around, and I get to the hospital at seven so I can get my bloodwork done no matter what. I slide a white lie to the nurse (I had thought this handy trick up the night before to ensure my goals were accomplished.) and finally had my blood drawn. I leave and pick up the results of the previous days tests and zip up to the other lab to get my last test done. I'm chatting with the cute receptionist after making sure everything is ready to go. She asks how I'd like to pay, and I begin to pull out my credit card when I realize that somewhere in the hour between my arriving to the hospital and coming to this last, final obstacle in the massive pain in the ass this whole experience has been that I've lost my wallet which contained both my public transportation card, ATM card, my credit card, my super important chilean ID, and all the money that I had to my name. So, after a mild heart attack I politely excuse myself, and go back to the last place I was, which was the X-ray place where I picked up my results. I budge ahead of fifteen people as nicely as possible to ask if I left my wallet there and am promptly told that I need to take a number and wait at the back of the line. As I begin to protest, another receptionist interrupts me and says the same thing in broken indecipherable English, much worse than my Spanish, which only helps to infuriate me. My final appointment was quickly approaching and here I was, in a forty-five minute line (at least) waiting to ask two snotty receptionists if I had left my wallet there, which I probably hadn't! I was furiously damning the Chilean medical system, Chile as a country, all the Chileans that worked in this bastard hospital, as well as the initial medical problem which required I be there in the first place when the one thing I had to my name, my cell phone, rang. A nurse in the very blood lab that had been the previous bane of my existence had called to let me know that she was in possession of a wallet that had all my documents and a sizeable amount of money in it and wanted to know if I was still in the hospital. Joy of joys! Tearfully happy, I exited the X-ray department, went to the lab, got my wallet, kissed a slightly bewildered nurse, and returned to the second floor where to my amazement, everything went perfectly smoothly, and I left with only the beginnings of a slight ulcer, as opposed to a full on bleeder. I had to return fridayto go over the results with my doctor but at the more respectable time of eleven thirty. He pronounced me perfectly healthy and told me what my U.S. doctor always told me, stop smoking and don't drink so much. My week long trial of fire in the Chilean medical system had been completed successfully! That night I celebrated by drinking and smoking heavily.



Compared to the hospital crap, sending the results to the U.S. was only a slight pain. They don't sell envelopes big enough to fit X-rays, despite the fact that I was continually told that the next office supply store around the corner was sure to sell them, because they knew it for a fact. Lies! All lies! I had to buy a plastic tube that was way too big but would have to do. I also had to photocopy all the paper results and receipts and crap which turned out to be a hassle because I only had big bills for two days and all the places I went to couldn't make change. When I finally had smaller bills the first two shop's machines weren't working and the third one was out of ink. I went to another one who could make photocopies but got pissed off because I didn't have really small bills, only medium sized bills. Who has problems making change for the equivalent of ten U.S. dollars, especially when the dollar blows right now! Anyways, I finally get the photocopies made and everything packaged up. I get to the post office right before they are closed and are told that this particular post office doesn't have the means to process credit cards. I was a bit suspicious and asked probably a little too incredulously and sarcastically if this was an actual post-office, and not just a store pretending to be a post office, and was chased out by the sassy post-matron who was apparently not up for taking the insults of a close-minded gringo. The weekend passed and I found a post-office that was operating in the modern world and could process credit cards.



In between all these hiccups I went to a barbeque for my homestay brothers birthday, which was really fun. On weekends this massive park called Parque Intercomunal de La Reina fills up with young people and families grilling, listening to music, drinking, playing soccer, riding bikes, smoking weed, playing intsruments, and in general just enjoying themselves. I've been there a couple times and this was just as fun as before.



I also went to the pre-cordillera of the Andes to a place called Cajòn del Maipo. Me and a couple friends hiked up to some small waterfalls and wandered around some dusty villages in this weaving canyon. It was really nice to get out of the city and breath some fresh air and hear the wind blowing through the trees and nothing more. I think we'll be going back soon because there are some lakes at the end of the road that we weren't able to get to that I'd like to see.



There were some more riots in a park downtown. Every sunday the park fills up with hippies hawking every imaginable thing and creating big drum circles with dancers flying all around. There's a lot of pickpockets and drug dealers that come up, and you can literally see a cloud of marijuana smoke hovering above a couple thousand people. Normally, the carabineros don't break this up, but there most have been a real preponderance of drugs and tomfoolery, because they came blasting in with full riot gear on. Almost immediately the air began to be full of not only marijuana smoke, but flying bottles and rocks, directed at the carabineros, who deflected the projectiles off their kevlar and plastic riot shields, while surging forth into the crowds. After a heated half an hour the park had settled down for the most part, and some people had been arrested.



Hand in hand with urban violence goes muggings. I was at a bus stop with my friend Andy and two girls we had met at a club that night. It was about five-thirty in the morning and we were fairly close to my house, maybe three-quarters of a mile, but were right by a sketchy neighborhood. A guy and his girlfriend were at the bus stop with us, and we weren't paying much attention when all of a sudden, these two guys jumped out and started wailing on this guy, kicking and punching him, trying to go after his girl's purse. He's fighting back and Andy thinks he sees a gun and books off. I'm unsure as to whats going on and don't know who is attacking and who is being attacked. The guy's girlfriend runs off sans purse, and the girls were with are dragging me across the street. The guy gets punched a couple more times and lets go of the purse and the two guys book it towards El Nuevo Amanecer, a shitty neighborhood right by the bus stop. Craziness. You really have to be careful late at night. It all happened so fast, but I still feel kind of like a sissy for not helping out.

These last two weeks have seen a real change in the weather from hot in the day and cool at night to cool in the day and freezing cold at night. Due to this, I've developed a wicked cold and have been resfriado for the last week and a half. Most of the time, I wander around the school high as balls off Nastizol, which is like Chilean sudafed, and sort of helps with the congestion. I'm starting to feel a little better though. The pollution doesn't help and has been pretty nasty. We need a good rain to clear it out for a day or two.

So in between all these going ons I've been able to hang out with the secretary at the school a little bit. She's a cute little lady and enjoys my company. That's all I'll say about that.

That's all that's fit to print, and I'll let you know what happens when it happens.
(The computers are to slow to put pictures on, so I'll have to go to a different café to put some pictures of the mountains up, but there beautiful.)

Just to say hello...

Hello all. It's been a hell of a month and I can only say that I'll keep it brief. Muggings, riots, the pre-cordillera of the Andes, medical services, medical expenses, several late night parties, post office malfunctions, being "resfriado", the attractive school secretary, and a general lack of sleep have keep me very busy and demasiado cansado. I can only say that within a couple days those of you who pay attention to this thang should be graced with some sweet photos and a rather lengthy explanation to the aforementioned happenings... until then, chau! Which of course is Chilean for ciao.