KATHRYN IN CHILE, POST #2

Today we went downtown, and there were some amazing street shows going on, like puppets and mimes. One guy was giving another guy a haircut while lots of people watched. I didn't get why it was so fascinating, but it reminded me a little of Sweeney Todd so I felt a little creeped out.

Last night, one of Mom's colleagues, Patricia, her friend Ester, and Ester's daughter Dafna took us to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. Often when you stop at stoplights there are people selling things and washing windows from car to car. In Valparaiso, a guy came out while we were at a stoplight and rode a unicycle and juggled in front of us in the street. It was one of the more amazing things I've seen.

We went to this little hole in the wall for dinner where these locals who are all at least 75 years old sing and play Chilean folk songs every night. It was pretty fantastic. I'm trying to upload a video of it onto Youtube so you can partake in the awesomeness, but have been thus far unsuccessful. In the meantime, my new Facebook photo is of me and Dafna (who's about my age) sitting on the lap of one of the singers after we asked him for his autograph.

At dinner, my mom's colleague's partner leaned over to us and told us that the man sitting at a table next to us used to be a judge. She was the court reporter on a case that he had presided over, of a rich man who had been accused of murdering his young mistress. All the evidence pointed to the rich man as the murderer. The judge was offered a bribe by the rich man's family, but he sent him to jail to await trial anyways. So the rich man's father went to him, upping the bribe, and the judge accepted it. But the father actually had something else in mind. He had tape recorded the conversation, which he then spread publicly, demanding a new trial for his son. The request was granted, and a new judge, whom the rich man's family already had in their back pocket, was assigned the case. The rich man was acquitted, and the original judge, who had been exposed, was disbarred. Meanwhile, a poor man in a local neighborhood was found hanged in his house with what was supposedly a suicide note, in which he "admitted" to killing the woman and felt so bad about it that he committed suicide.

Evidently that kind of thing happened all the time during Pinochet's regime, and it's really common to run into famous and infamous people in public places in Chile these days. Patricia said that she and Ester were out at dinner one night and Ester leaned over to her and said, "See that guy sitting next to you? He was one of Pinochet's primary torturers." The current president of the country was in an elevator where the door opened and the man who had tortured her stepped onto it next to her.

As you can see, this evening led to a whole mess of "when I ran into a famous person in Chile" stories by Patricia, Ester, and Dafna. Ester evidently had to interview Sr. Lagos, the last president before the current one, while he was Secretary of Education. She couldn't find a babysitter for little Dafna, so she brought her along with her. During the interview, Dafna announced "I hate politicians!"

So I hope you made it through my rather long blog entry, and I hope life is going well back in Los Estados!