Holy Gay Pride, Batman
This weekend was diversity weekend in Chile, and Erin and I didn´t know it... that is until we got home from the store on Saturday morning to find about six or seven members of Santiago´s gay and lesbian community blowing up literally hundreds of balloons in the foyer of our house. Some explanation is probably in order...
Shortly after we arrived in Santiago, two French foreign exchange students arrived to do internships in the city. Apparently it was a secret initially that they were lesbians, but they didn´t exactly hide it very well. Maybe they assumed that because they were French no one would notice lots of casual touching (that is how I imagine everyone is in France), but they were wrong. Anyway, like any secret in a house with about 20 people living in it, it quickly became common knowledge, and Erin and I enjoyed following the ups and downs of their WB-style relationship for about two months before we were told by someone that we were allowed to know they were lesbians. Life continued as it always had. Anyhoo, it turns out that one of them is actually doing her internship at Amnesty International of Santiago, which, as chance would have it, dabbles in, among other things, gay rights and acceptance, which in turn led to several hundred balloons being stacked in the entrance to our house at 1:00 on a Saturday (diagram that, Kevin). That´s the butterfly effect for you.
My first impression was that we were about to have a fantastic, exciting party in our house, and I was almost right. The six or seven new folks piled themselves and as many balloons as they could manage (not many) into a car about the size of a Mini, and took off for a park about fifteen minutes from our house. Meanwhile, we were enlisted to help cary the remaining balloons to the park on foot, so Erin, the French chicks, three other housemates and I each grabbed a handful of balloons and headed off for the park. We spent the walk talking about what gay rights slogans we might shout (I´m Erin Fay! I support the gays! or I´m not gay! But if you are, that´s ok!) and making tasteless jokes that were most likely counterproductive, so a good time was had by all.
When we finally reached the rally, it looked more like a carnival side-show than anything else. The nice part was that we fit right in with our bunches of balloons, and we got to enjoy a brief couple minutes of popularity as we handed them out to anyone who wanted them. Rafa tried, unsuccessfully, to sell the balloons at 500 pesos each, which is about a dollar. Some people actually considered buying one before walking away shaking their heads, at which point Erin would run after them with a balloon, tell them it was free for them and totally make their day. Having unloaded our merchandise, we were free to gawk at what truly was one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever seen. The Plaza Baquedano was swarming with about about 10,000 people, most of whom looked relatively similar to us (if we were dressed for an 80´s punk rock video), but a select few of whom (consequently, the people receiving most of the attention) were dressed in the most bizarre outfits you can imagine. After about 10 minutes, assless chaps didn´t seem so outrageous, and I started feeling like the people wearing them had really shown some modesty. There were men dressed as Marilyn Monroe standing over metro vents (with somewhat unpleasant results) and groups dressed as construction workers, minus most of the clothes you might expect someone doing manual labor to need. There was also a giant yellow condom, urging everyone to engage in safe sex. In order to really get noticed though you needed wheels. A transvestite wearing fuzzy lingerie is certainly eye-catching, but not nearly so much as the same transvestite wearing roller skates and weaving through crowds of people. Similarly, any man can dress up as a nun, but if he rides a scooter around and exposes himself, he gets more of a reaction.
By far, however, the most ridiculous thing was not the weirdos. It was that while standing next to a truck featuring real live transexual strippers (one of whom, Erin claimed, although I disagree, could pass as a relatively attractive female) doing the most bizarre shit you can imagine, a guy walked up to me and asked if his girlfriend could have a picture with me. Does this confuse anyone else? (Erin´s ed. note: refer to blog entry entitled Soy un Fenomeno).
After about an hour or so of wandering around, the gay pride rally turned into a gay pride parade, and pretty much everyone started off down the street. We watched the whole thing go by and took some pictures, which we´ll put up tomorrow or the next day, and then headed on home with the one or two balloons we had left. By the next day, the most bizarre people had disbanded (presumably to go home to their families and careers in business), but diversity weekend continued with a gigantic, live, free concert. The concert sounded good enough, although I couldn´t really understand much of what was being sung (besides the occassional reference to marijuana, which apparently becomes legal whenever a crowd reaches a certain size), but the real highlight, as with any Chilean event, was cheap chorizo sausage and beer, and I enjoyed a little bit of both. That´s pretty much it for the weekend. We´re now in our very last week of TEFL classes and gearing up to look for jobs, which should be an adventure unto itself.
Shortly after we arrived in Santiago, two French foreign exchange students arrived to do internships in the city. Apparently it was a secret initially that they were lesbians, but they didn´t exactly hide it very well. Maybe they assumed that because they were French no one would notice lots of casual touching (that is how I imagine everyone is in France), but they were wrong. Anyway, like any secret in a house with about 20 people living in it, it quickly became common knowledge, and Erin and I enjoyed following the ups and downs of their WB-style relationship for about two months before we were told by someone that we were allowed to know they were lesbians. Life continued as it always had. Anyhoo, it turns out that one of them is actually doing her internship at Amnesty International of Santiago, which, as chance would have it, dabbles in, among other things, gay rights and acceptance, which in turn led to several hundred balloons being stacked in the entrance to our house at 1:00 on a Saturday (diagram that, Kevin). That´s the butterfly effect for you.
My first impression was that we were about to have a fantastic, exciting party in our house, and I was almost right. The six or seven new folks piled themselves and as many balloons as they could manage (not many) into a car about the size of a Mini, and took off for a park about fifteen minutes from our house. Meanwhile, we were enlisted to help cary the remaining balloons to the park on foot, so Erin, the French chicks, three other housemates and I each grabbed a handful of balloons and headed off for the park. We spent the walk talking about what gay rights slogans we might shout (I´m Erin Fay! I support the gays! or I´m not gay! But if you are, that´s ok!) and making tasteless jokes that were most likely counterproductive, so a good time was had by all.
When we finally reached the rally, it looked more like a carnival side-show than anything else. The nice part was that we fit right in with our bunches of balloons, and we got to enjoy a brief couple minutes of popularity as we handed them out to anyone who wanted them. Rafa tried, unsuccessfully, to sell the balloons at 500 pesos each, which is about a dollar. Some people actually considered buying one before walking away shaking their heads, at which point Erin would run after them with a balloon, tell them it was free for them and totally make their day. Having unloaded our merchandise, we were free to gawk at what truly was one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever seen. The Plaza Baquedano was swarming with about about 10,000 people, most of whom looked relatively similar to us (if we were dressed for an 80´s punk rock video), but a select few of whom (consequently, the people receiving most of the attention) were dressed in the most bizarre outfits you can imagine. After about 10 minutes, assless chaps didn´t seem so outrageous, and I started feeling like the people wearing them had really shown some modesty. There were men dressed as Marilyn Monroe standing over metro vents (with somewhat unpleasant results) and groups dressed as construction workers, minus most of the clothes you might expect someone doing manual labor to need. There was also a giant yellow condom, urging everyone to engage in safe sex. In order to really get noticed though you needed wheels. A transvestite wearing fuzzy lingerie is certainly eye-catching, but not nearly so much as the same transvestite wearing roller skates and weaving through crowds of people. Similarly, any man can dress up as a nun, but if he rides a scooter around and exposes himself, he gets more of a reaction.
By far, however, the most ridiculous thing was not the weirdos. It was that while standing next to a truck featuring real live transexual strippers (one of whom, Erin claimed, although I disagree, could pass as a relatively attractive female) doing the most bizarre shit you can imagine, a guy walked up to me and asked if his girlfriend could have a picture with me. Does this confuse anyone else? (Erin´s ed. note: refer to blog entry entitled Soy un Fenomeno).
After about an hour or so of wandering around, the gay pride rally turned into a gay pride parade, and pretty much everyone started off down the street. We watched the whole thing go by and took some pictures, which we´ll put up tomorrow or the next day, and then headed on home with the one or two balloons we had left. By the next day, the most bizarre people had disbanded (presumably to go home to their families and careers in business), but diversity weekend continued with a gigantic, live, free concert. The concert sounded good enough, although I couldn´t really understand much of what was being sung (besides the occassional reference to marijuana, which apparently becomes legal whenever a crowd reaches a certain size), but the real highlight, as with any Chilean event, was cheap chorizo sausage and beer, and I enjoyed a little bit of both. That´s pretty much it for the weekend. We´re now in our very last week of TEFL classes and gearing up to look for jobs, which should be an adventure unto itself.
posted by Erin and Nate at
2:20 PM
1 Comments:
So nice to know that you've been endowed with such a useful surname! And not to worry, the peanut butter fairy has heard your cry. Let her know when your stash arrives.
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Anonymous, at 11:17 AM
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