explosions in the sky, the street, and sewage on my feet

since finding out very early in my year that valparaiso de chile (valpo) shared a nutso fireworks display with it's neighboring coastal towns on new year's eve i was charlie brown down and there without question. in a year that has often been about discarding expectations and plans, valpo on new year's was always a sure thing. at the same time, i had no desire to book a hostel because all my chilean friends and students told me i wouldn't be sleeping. i had no real idea of what the show would be like because i never wanted to know any concrete details. most important, i hadn't the slightest from where we would watch the spectacle, but just knew as i always have in chile, that things would find a way of working themselves out.


in the end, things did work out. mostly. we had a warm dinner (not the food, the ambiance) with some great chileans and venezuelans that we'd come to know through perry, another volunteer and friend from our first night in a shithole hotel in miami. chileans have a congenial disposition to be generous hosts and perry's lady camila and her family treated us as kin. eventually, we made it out to their patio in playa ancha, one beach town north of valpo and brought in the new years with foghorns, fireworks, and friends. due to the smoke that eventually choked the coast because of the blanket of fog and clouds that night, it was hard to take good pictures, but i have this video. my sissy-shriek at the end of the clip may lead you to assume that i was drunk, but i wasn't, i was just real happy-like:

after the spectacle we took to the streets to meet up with some fellow gringos and take in the madness. it was initially just hedonist bliss. most people weren't visibly inebriated though many were. the majority were just enjoying and celebrating the joyous potential of the new year and all it symbolized. many of the chileans were running through the streets yelling ¡feliz cumple! - literally wishing each other, dear chile, and the world a happy birthday. when we realized that the swaths of people that had flocked to valpo had literally flooded the cell phone networks, we gave up on finding people, hung in the plaza and just took in the euphoria. it and the following hour or two were unforgettable.


though i hate to go negative on this 'ere blog, i gotta speak the truth. after a couple of hours in the plaza we decided to head back to camila's place to crash out. this involved, for reasons still enigmatic to me, heading into the valpo cerros (hills) to eventually walk back to the streets we began on. totally unnecessary, and perhaps potential fodder for the next wave of animaniacs' "time for another good idea bad idea." the hills stunk like urine and the variety of party going on a little higher up was less pleasant to be a part of. the streets were packed and claustrophobic, dudes were more likely to belligerently accost the ladies i was with, random dudes were snorting random white powders, people puking and pissing all up in your face were all of a sudden a little more all up in your face, and then there was the portapotty overflow. the second we escaped from a gaggle of cats packed into one alley, we came out onto another that seemed a little precarious. then the smell hit. three of the portapotties that had been set out for public usage had overflowed and a chocolate-poop-piss water had flooded one of the city's most gorgeous vistas. trying to make sure we didn't get separated and being the walking support for some stranger behind me, i ended up taking a double dip into the funk. from there on in, the night had lost a little of its magic. we spent the next thirty minutes stuck in an irrational mess of drunk, confused, and scared chileans trying to get down a cramped corridor where the real ugliness of the night showed its face. people were laughing while carelessly pushing the strangers around them and causing others on the periphery to rub up on the rocky walls that surrounded us. girls were screaming, boys were yelling, and douchebags were considering jumping off an overlook to crowdsurf over the distressed to freedom.

ugh. though we eventually turned around, scurried up a pipe adjacent to the corridor's stairwell and wondered through a more logical route to freedom, the night had been tainted. at the same time, the next day we still woke up safe, content, and thankful that we had been lucky enough to be here with friends and see some real magic. it was a perfect way to end the year here in chile - to see all the beauty and all the offal that we as a people are capable of producing. at least in my year, the same cycle has worked itself from beginning to end countless times with varying degrees of profundity. on the same night that we saw chileans audaciously shove each other into pain and despair, a group of perfect strangers took us into their homes, fed us, hugged us, and loved us as if we were family, a plaza filled with youngins peacefully came together to share their excitement and love, and 2009 was berthed so that the cycle could continue.

to get a little heavy, chile has forced me to take chances, to trust that people will usually try to do the right thing, to believe in the best that we have to offer, and to never stop hoping. it has made me grow up, to treasure patience as the virtue we've been told that it is, and to be just a touch more responsible. i'm grateful for that and i'm ready to come home.