Glenn

Every now and then you meet one. And when you do, it's important to remember as close to every word they say, because the true ridiculous of them is not borne out until you've reflected on it for a while. These are the people who live in a fantasy world, but talk about their life with such prosaic confidence that if you're not careful, you'll get drawn in to thinking, 'Well, good on them, at least their doing it.' Well, to be honest, this one wasn't too hard to spot. This was how I met Glenn.

Spanish lessons again. A long time seems to have passed since Cheese Wire's (June entry 07) painful lessons on damp, cold Thursday evenings, watching the clock tick down oh so slowly. Things are much better at the lovely Academia Buenos Aires, where the coffee is strong, croissants await you even if you haven't done your homework and nothing ever starts on time.

Monday morning, opening lesson, and German, our teacher, asked us to say where we were from, our age, what we were doing in BsAs, how long we were here for.... the usual ice breakers. Clockwise from the teach was: Aneesha, the States, 27, learning Spanish for two weeks then travelling. Textbook answer, no? Then Tina, Germany, 29, learning Spanish before becoming a lawyer in Germany. Then me, then Alex, 25, the States, working for an NGO with people affected by AIDS... then Glenn.

From first appearances I would have Glenn pencilled in as a charity worker of some sort, definitely had the Christian group leader look about him. Sensible clothes, neat side parting, the naive confidence to wear a t-shirt without an ironic slogan on it such as 'My Ironic Is In The Wash'.

Now, everyone had spoken in Spanish until now. Yup, even me, I'm clever now. Glenn only used one word of Spanish, pandilla, which means gang. I think it's best to quote Glenn in full:

- Yeah, well, I'm Glenn, I'm 24, and I'm from Canada (I suspect this was a lie to curry favour for 'not being American'), and I'm just doing a couple of weeks Spanish. I need Spanish for my job, but not really conventional Spanish.
- Why is your job going to be Glenn?
- I'm gonna be working with the pandillas of the South.
(He didn't actually punch his heart with his fist and then hold his arm out in a salute to the brothers, but I reckon it was well within his repertoire).
- You know, they change their slang every, like, dos o tres weeks so you gotta learn it from there.

I think it's accurate to report a stunned silence here of several seconds. Eventually somone asked:

- And what exactly are you going to be doing?
- Getting them off the street, helping them cope while they re-integrate themselves into society, that kinda thing.
- And... do you have experience of that kinda thing in the past?
- Yeah, some. In Toronto.
- Oh yeah, what did you do there?
- I was a courtroom reporter.

The following half an hour was alternately hilarious and painful as it became clear that Glenn was firstly in the wrong group (I refer to both Spanish and homo sapiens). The guy really spoke no Spanish. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure slang is important when communicating with the pandillas, but surely a context helps. And aren't the colloquials are the last thing you learn? And how am I getting stuck on the details?

As he rambled on, in English with an occasional Spanish word, I couldn't help but want to kill him, but reflected that the pandillas would more than likely do that for me soon enough.

At the end of the first day, I heard him speaking to Alex, the American girl.
- Hey Alex, you're living in Palermo, right? Do you know anywhere good there where I can get a tattoo?
- You're getting a tattoo?
- Yeah, thinking about it. Something to show my commitment, you know...?

Awesome! More to follow, surely, on this absolute biscuit.

Sledging, Argie style

One of the best things about the cricket here is the atmosphere of the games. Sledging barely exists, and, whilst I admit I love a few verbals, although not as much as the Aussies, cricket remains a dignified and gentlemanly game in these parts.

With this in mind, I found myself in conversation with a great man of Argentine cricket on Sunday, who regrattably shall remain nameless. In Scotland he would simply be Big Man. With the look of a battle hardened marine and skin as tough as the steaks he'd been weened on, he'd represented the Argentina Mens' hockey team, and competed in the decathlon at junior level, and is all in all a bear of a human being. A Big Man.

We were discussing the dark arts of sledging, which he, somewhat surprisingly, said he had no time for, saying it was a cowardly practice. He cited the recent ICC Division II tournament where Argentina took on the UAE, Namibia and other mighty cricketing nations. Playing against Namibia, the Namibia opening bowler took a dislike to the Big Man's batting partner, Alejandro, calling him a nasty name.

- What did you say? I asked
- Nothing much, shrugged Big Man, I just told him to be quiet.
Next to us, a team mate who'd played in that game overheard, and started chuckling.
- That's not exactly what you said, to be fair,, he quipped.
- What did you say?, I prompted.
- Well, the giant continued, he was talking to Alejandro, who by the way is the nicest guy in the world. You don't say anything to Alejandro - I would dive in front of a car for this guy, he is the nicest guy. Anyway, this bowler was saying things to Alejandro, so I told him to stop talking.
- Yeah. What did you say...
- Well, I waited for the end of the over, walked over to him as he was walking down to his position and said, Come here. (Obviously when he was now very close). You. You don't talk to that guy, ok. You say another f**king word to him I will kill you with my bare hands. I've done it before. Seriously, I will kill you with my hands. Now. No more talking.

Apparently the bowler was no more talking at all.

Like I said, he concluded. I don't really like all this sledging.

Where Have All The Boys Gone?

Fact, boys are dying out. At first I though it was simply because we were having a girl, and so you start to notice little people everywhere, especially little girls. But whilst travelling in Chile I became increasingly conscious that there did not appear to be a boy younger than the age of two anywhere in the country.

After some basic research it turned out that they actually weren’t trying to ‘even things up with China’ as I had supposed and I realised I had stumbled upon something really quite huge.

To escape any danger of objectivity or bias, I turned to my old friend, science. Using the technique of Content Analysis, as used by Einstein, I applied this to the streets of Santiago over two separate and otherwise unrelated days. The results are shocking, from a Scientific point of view:

Day 1: Boys under two: 5 Girls under two: 17
Day 2: Boys under two: 6 Girls under two: 13

We’ve all been so busy worrying about Climate Change – a subject one invariably reads about on a long haul flight – that we’ve somehow missed this one. Where have all the boys gone? What is nature trying to tell us? Jeremy Clarkson wrote hilariously about the screw top wine bottle being the fall of the last bastion of masculinity. Maybe that was the catalyst.

However, whilst thinking what total load of balls (or actually, a lack of…) this was, and I was making up silly statistics to justify writing a humble blog entry, I could hardly contain my surprise to read an article about this subject in The Sunday Times. Apparently I was not the first to spot this global sensation. The only difference being that I think the science and research I used was more accurate.

Homo Erectus Extinctus was the title to her article. Always good to start with a nob gag, I think. Anyway, Lois Roper wrote for The Sunday Times (and that’s a proper rag, so she’s a proper writer) a number of statements based on the most tenuous of links. She attacks the ' useless Y chromosome', which is a bit harsh on us fellas, me thinks, but one quote is particularly illustrative.

Roper states that 'in Marie's ante natal clinic, 4 of the 10 couples there are part of lesbian couples.'

Marie's is a gay woman and runs the clinic with her gay partner, in Hebden Bridge, the gayest town in Britain, according to the article (although not her choice of adjective), where '1 in 5 of the population is a gay woman', and the centre for gay adoption in the gayest place in the UK. Hmm.

Applying Roper's research methods, I found some interesting stuff. I surveyed some women at the recent Bebel Gilberto in BsAs, and 11 of the 12 I spoke to wanted to be, and were, lesbians. An incredible 92%. So that settles it.

Then again, it's not the easiest topic to find out about. When I googled ‘how many women want to be lesbians’, my laptop exploded.

Babies Names

When you're called Dougal, choosing a name for your little dude is simultaneously a cathartic experience and an opportunity. One the one hand you can right old wrongs and ensure that your child is not sniggered at stared at whenever they are calling the roll at school. On the other hand, you could resign them to the ranks of normality but calling them something universally unoriginal, never giving them the opportunity to answer the question: Yes, but what's your real name? A very polite people fall back on: Oh. Is it a family name? (Meaning, of course, do you have an excuse for that?)

To aid us in this dilemma, someone lent us the book, 10001 Babies Names. It sits in the bathroom, and as such one occasionally stumbles across the odd cracker... Again, as a Dougal, I'm on shaky ground taking the mick out of anyone's names, although I feel I am on particularly safe ground with any of the following beauties. I thought it amusing to put these in context, because it's easy to forget that these people are people:

- Oddrun
As in Come on Oddrun, you're going to be late (for your conselling)
- Chakakham
How would you tell off that kid without breaking into song? What have you done, Chakakhan, you silly boy, Chakakhan, you broke my mirror, Chakakhan...
- Conk
As in Please, just out the gun down, Conk, we can talk this through.
-Rockelle
As in that wrestler 'actor' the Rock's sister
- Schmoopie
As in, Dad, is it true that if I turn the car on and put a hose through the exhaust back into the window I can die from Carbon Monoxide poisoning, and thereby no longer be called...
- Tree
As in, You must be frikkin kidding me, you're calling your kid Tree? Which is hardly satisfied by the explanation. Yes, it means 'sturdy'. (Making it one of finite names where the explanation is a better name than the name)
- The
As in, I'd like to introduce you to The. To which I'm sure 'The' would often reply, And I would like you to burn in oil.

(Footnote: I should point out that The is from Thailand, and probably does not provoke hilarity in the Thai tonal tongue. However, spare a thought for the Kunti twins, who a friend of mine taught in Tower Hamlets. Recently moved from Bangladesh, how could the two little Kuntis have known what verbal bullying awaited them in the English speaking world. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. As if that wasn't tough enough, the boy was called Ama and the girl? Seema. Tough call, no?)

A Few Facts About Chile

Having spent nearly 9 days in Chile now, I feel it is my duty to inform you a little about this ridiculously thin country.

1. Whereas in London on the Underground you are never more than 6 metres from a twat, in Chile it's much more exciting: you are never more than 7 feet from a Volcano!
2. There are more Germans in Chile than there are in Germany. This is evident in, amongst other thing, the amount of Kuchen available to buy.
3. The widest point in Chile is 37 kilometers, and the shortest point just 2 metres. If you fell off any of the Andes, you would land in the sea. There are three places in the country where you can reach both the East and West borders by standing on tip toe. Many parts of the country are so thin there is only a one way road, and 3 point turns are impossible in huge lengths of the country.
4. At any moment in Chile a volcano is erupting. Chileans loves to mis-quote Dennis Hopper from Apocalype Now, saying I love the smell of lava in the morning which is very drole. The Germanic influence evident once again.
5. The average Chilean owns 3 dogs: 2 of which at any time are tethered outside a hostel, all of which are barking.
6. Santiago has infamously just upheaved its public transport system, to the disgust of its inhabitants. Formerly, from what I can gather, every citizen was picked up from their breakfast table and taken to work for free in no less than 10 minutes. Now, the system is based on the London model: you walk 5 blocks to a stop for a bus that never comes, and if you don't have the exact change in the denominational coins that the driver specifies and in the right order, you are denied access and abused. Still, better than Mexico.
7. Chile has a population of around 17 million. 11 million of them have, in the last 48 hours, stood in the middle of a busy road for no apparant reason.
8. Chileans, unlike English speakers, especially English speaking fathers, do not feel honour bound to make puns on the similarity between the country's name and the English word indicating that you are quite cold.
9. A MORI poll recently contradicted the common myth that the most common form of unnatural death in Chile was not 'walking into a mountain', finding that it is 'drowning in lava', edging into 3rd last year's unsurprising winner 'being run over'. 'Being barked to death' is prominent, but due to the social taboo people rarely report such fatalities. That's statistics for you.
10. Chile is very very long and thin.
Question: If you were to take Chile's most Northerly point, and flip it vertically in a Southerly direction, do you know where its most Northerly point would land?
Answer: That's right. The Moon.
11. The Salmon industry is the fastest growing in the world, but not without controversy. It is very unsustainable. I read that you need to feed a salmon 4 salmons just to make one salmon.
12. The national sport of Chile is Motorway Wandering. the rules are exactly as you would expect. It should be that crap bat and ball game (again, rules are quiet easy). Absurdly high quality of that beach bat and ball game as evidenced by the beaches of Vina del Mar.

Oh, and do you know what Cafe Con Piernas are? No? It's definately googleworthy, as one of those people you might be 6 metres from in London might say.

And now you know some things.

New Year, Same Old Problems

Watching the news on January 1st was a reasonably terrifying experience. The titulos ran as follows on C5N, one of Argie's finest news channels, at the start of the news for 2008.

- Temperatures reach 41.6 degrees in capital (with clips of people melting, an interviewee offering the insightful, Si, mucho calor, mucho calor)
- Thousands left without electricity or water during heatwave (with clips of tired poor people carrying buckets of water)
- Carnivorous fish attack bathers in the lake in Rosario (no evidence offered to back this up at all)
- Boys shot by stray bullet in Quilmes
- ATMs out of cash over Christmas and New Year in BsAs (angry queues of people making Italian hand gestures)
- Volcano erupts over Chile (this was news everywhere else 3 days ago, but the wind had changed direction so suddenly it's newsworthy)
- Strikes and protests at Ezeiza Intenational Airport (complete with clip of PILOT, being restrained whilst trying to punch a PASSENGER)

Cuts to news anchor. He shrugs.

Text on screen.

- New year, same old problems.

Brilliant. How, seriously how can that be normal same old same old?

Happy New Year

We are in Chile. Updates on return, and photos that will make your eyes bleed with jealousy.