mapuches, markets, megacities

I have been on my own again for almost a week now. I have not been hitchhiking. I have been in gritty markets, on nighttime buses and in a giant city. The gritty markets were in Temuco. Temuco is known for its bus stations, its universities, its markets and its Mapuche. "People of the Land," or the Mapuche, are the native people of southern Chile and Argentina. Historically they have been mistreated and tension is still strong. Their presence is more concentrated in Temuco than perhaps any other place in Chile which gives the town a particularly foreign and also segregated feel. While youth in collared shirts with german blood attend catholic universities on one side of town, ox-carts pull pig carcasses around and drunks sleep in the streets on the other. I saw both sides. I watched the students, nearly my contemporaries, coming and going from sterile academic buildings, taking cigarette breaks outside the library, reading from sturdy textbooks in between classes. On the other side of town, I saw blocks of headcheese piled high behind chickens nervously laying eggs, towers of tightly bound seaweed and rows of bright spices in open burlap sacks. The market is the largest in Chile and is proudly run by the Mapuche people. They should be proud too. It is a glorious and impressive sight. I was told many times by my Argentian coworkers that the Mapuches are mean. I took this as narrowminded racism. However, these market Mapuches lived up to their bad name. I was poorly recieved at the market, especially by the elderly cheese women with faces like old apples wrapped in thick shawls. My questions about the cheese--how long was it aged, sheep or goat or cow, what was on the rind--were less then welcome. Regardless, I was impressed.
So late at night I went to one of the many bus stations in Temuco. I took a bus that drove me through the night north on the Panamerican Highway. The seat, while supposedly semi-cama (reclining) seemed to be trying to spill me out all night. People snored loudly and I suspected that the adolescent sitting next me had a boner beneath his fleece blanket. If I could have tossed and turned, I would have, instead I just shimmied around in my seat all night.
I woke in Santiago. Sunrises in smoggy places are magic. This was no different. Everything has that hazy orange glow that makes you want to go to Hollywood and get famous. I was too cranky to entertain these fantasies, though I did think longingly of California.
I am staying at a very funny hostel here. It was not my first choice. My first choice was destroyed in the earthquake, which I discovered upon arrival in the hazy orange morning light. This place was next door, and still under construction. It is a beautiful old beautiful building with high ceilings and wavy glass windows looking out to a central courtyard. But the paint is still wet on the walls and the workmen come and go tracking plaster powder across the raw wood floors. The woman who works here is a gamer. She lives upstairs with her sixteen year old daughter and when she is not cleaning or microwaving chicken for her daughter, she is playing games on the computer. As we speak, she is behind me, face inches from the screen, clicking away at something that looks like midieval themed tetris. She also told me that she dreamed of going to Finland. She once had a chance to go there but was five months pregnant, so she couldn´t. She also drinks so very much instant coffee, late into the night.
Everyone (guidebooks included) seems to make apologies for the Santiago. They lament the lack of sights to see or nightlife to be had. I disagree. The city, so thick with smog, is delightfully self-satisfied. The buildings (most unattractive or atleast unnoteworthy) have been built sturdy and rooted to withstand impossible earthquakes. A personality seems to have come with this, a confidence that I find quite seductive. THe city knows itself, its limits, its strengths and it goes about its business in a graceful, cool, collected manner. In the last few days I have climbed to high heights to see the city under a blanket of smog, I have consumed fruits never before seen, I have visited lovely art museums and grimy markets both. It doesn´t seem bothered that I, a tourist, am here, nor is it doing anything to welcome let alone acknowledge me. This suits me. It is like the city version of a cat. And its behavior after the earthquake has proved that it can, indeed, land on its feet. That said, my eyes burn red and my skin feels filmy. This, I suppose is the price some pay.