Thursday, July 29, 2010

Puerto Montt

I write from Puerto Montt, Chile, about 1000 km south of Santiago. The weather here is cold and quite rainy too, but the surroundings are so beautiful here in the south that it doesn´t bother me. I arrived here yesterday morning after an overnight bus ride; yesterday was mostly a day of relaxation, as well as going to prayer meeting in the evening (after all, I am staying in the house of a pastor). Today I was able to take the jeep with the pastor´s daughter Pilar and see some of the nearby towns, Frutillar (translated that would be "Strawberry Plant") and Puerto Varas. Both towns are located on the beautiful Lago Llanquihue. Apart from getting some great photos of the lake and surroundings, we were able to visit a German colonial museum, which was fascinating and also quite beautiful. Here are a few of the pictures I got today. I was able to use my memory card in Pilar´s camera, so for a change I actually could see what I was taking photos of today!

Here´s a photo of beautiful Lago Llanquihue.


There was a grand piano sculpture by the lake, so of course I had to try it out. If only it had been real!


I stumbled upon a pretty cool old bowling set in one of the houses at the German colonial museum.


Of course I had to stop to check out the tractor that was out back too.


And at the museum´s cemetery there was a grave that had a spot perfect for me to fit inside, so I did.


To cap off the experience perfectly, a brilliant rainbow stretched across the lake.


I am very grateful to once again be able to see God´s great outdoors and His power and majesty displayed in the world that He has created. Tomorrow I plan to go to a nearby national park, and on Saturday I head to Punta Arenas--right there near the southern tip of South America! You can check it out on a map or globe if you´re curious.

For a more complete photo album of today´s adventures, check out this link.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Uruguay

I crossed the Río de la Plata that divides Argentina and Uruguay two nights ago. Before I mention what I´ve been able to do here, I should make a few comments. First of all, hostelling alone is boring, especially when you are sick! Second, packing lightly on clothes when you are in the middle of winter is not necessarily a good idea. Just so you know. And if you´re going to be traveling with a camera, try not to break the screen until after your adventures are over! I miss knowing what I am taking pictures of.

My Buenos Aires experience started off a bit sour. First of all, the plane was delayed several hours, getting me into Bs. As. around midnight. Then on arrival, I learned that they charge gringos $140 to enter the country for the first time. Major bummer. Taxis were too expensive (and I didn´t even have a hostel reservation--I looked up hostels on arrival to the city) and it was already late, so I just found a bench and made myself as comfortable as possible. In the morning I was able to head to town hostel hunting, and eventually I found something workable. Pretty much all I did in Buenos Aires was a lot of walking. I also made some Chilean and Israeli buddies who were staying at the hostel, so I hung out with them a bit. The city has a very European feel (when I arrived to the center, I thought to myself that I could very well be in Europe).

When I got to Uruguay to the bus station, it was too early for things to be open, so I decided to make myself comfortable and try to sleep on a bench. Just as I was finally really comfortable, some security kid told me I couldn´t sleep there. Ridiculous. Sometimes I ask myself what the world has against sleeping. Actually, it reminds me of how in the Universidad Católica library in Santiago, you are not allowed to sleep--cruel and unusual punishment, if you ask me. Maybe it´s just that some of my best memories of junior and senior year of high school are nestling into the plush couches at Coffman Memorial Union and Bethel University Library, respectively, and sleeping delicious naps. But I digress...

After wandering the city for awhile, I was able to find a hostel here. So far I really have not done much, but today I took the bus to Atlántida, a coast town about 45 km from Montevideo. I was able to just walk along the beautiful coast of the Atlantic, where there were many fishermen fishing from the shore. I also visited the church that Luke Van Sistine recommended to me--La Iglesia del Cristo Obrero (church of the working Christ) which was just outside town. Unfortunately, after walking the 2 km to the church, I found that it was closed, as I´d been told it might be. It looked cool though. Here are a few pictures online of the building, inside and out:




Tomorrow I´ll probably just roam the city a bit more, before I head back late at night to Buenos Aires, and then later on Monday, to my beloved Santiago, before heading out on Tuesday to southern Chile. One thing is sure... I´m surely looking forward to seeing all my wonderful family and friends back in MN, and enjoying some of the summer heat! Make sure you save some good weather for me, please! :(|)

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Musings on a border tragedy

Hey folks, I´m still alive, for those of you who may have wondered due to my prolonged disappearance from the face of Blogger. Here´s a note that I just published on Facebook and decided to share with
y´all, since you haven´t all jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.

I should probably mention that if you are easily upset by graphic descriptions or images, you might want to avoid reading the articles that I´ve linked in the note, and especially the slideshows that accompany those articles.

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Anyone who´s made a point of keeping up on the news in Mexico recently knows that Ciudad Juárez is probably not the best place to honeymoon--or to touch with a 10-foot pole, for that matter. I don´t need to document here the floods of violence characteristic of the city since 2008 due too rivaling drug cartels--you probably already know how to do that using Google. It´s worth noting, though, that according to various news outlets I´ve read, Juárez is considered among the most dangerous places in the world, perhaps the most dangerous. With a population of 1.3 million or so, this city has seen around 1400 murders in 2008 and more in 2009. As the article just linked mentions, this piece of data is even more shocking when you realize that Afghanistan, with a population of 29 million, has seen "2,412 civilian deaths and 520 coalition military deaths for the entire country" in 2009. The murders tend to be drug-related, but innocent and uninvolved civilians are dying too. What makes the stakes so high for the battling cartels is the huge drug demand in both the U.S. and Canada--and it´s worth noting that the cartels largely receive their money and arms from their northern neighbor.

This whole situation of greed, violence, addiction and fear produced in Ciudad Juárez have fascinated (and deeply disturbed) me because of the vast injustice and flawed systems it showcases, the deplorable state of the human condition to which it testifies, and the fact that it is happening on my country´s border (Juárez is opposite El Paso, Texas). The immediate motivation for reinvestigating this, though, is a paper I have due on Tuesday (and one of the many things constituting the mountain of assignments and exams to climb before I can reach the end of the semester here). I´m analyzing a part of the posthumously published novel 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. The novel´s a fictional take on a real series of crimes committed against women in Ciudad Juárez in the ´90s. The line of my analysis is basically the idea that the crime chronicle presented in this book is a testimony to the search for justice to investigative journalism as part of that search. And in order to be all relevant and such, I plan to talk about what´s currently going on in Juárez in my paper.

It´s hard because it kind of bothers me to sit here writing a largely useless literary analysis that almost belittles the horror of what´s actually happening. I write about Bolaño and his ingenious testimony to the power of journalism, with the specific case of Juárez--meanwhile, innocent (and perhaps not-so-innocent) people are being gunned down in that city, most likely literally as I write.

The news that the major networks bring us is often a lot of bad news and garbage; I have no problem agreeing with that line of argumentation. However, as a truth-seeker, and especially as a Christian, I want to be open to dealing with the realities of the world, even the ones that it would be more comfortable to not know.

I have a million questions. How is it possible for the gross injustice to be made right? Who´s going to do it? What is the Christian community In Juárez and surrounding towns doing to help alleviate the suffering felt by the families of the deceased and to point the hopeless to the living hope that is in Jesus? Is it worth learning about this reality if I can´t directly do anything (or don´t directly do anything) to change it? Have I even once prayed for the city of Ciudad Juárez and for the suffering felt there?

While I don´t really have any answers myself, I believe that this suffering is not going unnoticed--despite the fact that virtually none of the assassins are ever brought to justice in the short term. What I do know is that I serve a God of justice (interesting linguistic note: in Spanish, the word for "righteousness" is simply justicia, or "justice." Gary Haugen does a wonderful job presenting this truth in his highly recommendable book Good News About Injustice; but then again, it´s not surprising that he can speak powerfully about justice, since it´s something he´s dedicated his life to seeking out and making a reality. And as someone who also believes that God uses His people to seek justice, I want to be willing to take part in that battle. Right now, I can´t do anything in a physical sense to fight the injustice
that´s terrorizing Ciudad Juárez. But I can pray to the God of justice for this city and be ready to do my part in being the answer to my own prayer... in whatever way and wherever in the world that may be.

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For a fascinating article documenting the interview of a Ciudad Juárez hitman apparently turned Christian, check out this link.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Running the race set before me

On Sunday I got the opportunity to run in the Maratón de Santiago. It was quite the experience. I won´t try to tell everything (you´ll have to talk to me in person for the full experience), but I´ll at least include a few pictures. First we have a somewhat sleep-deprived me before the race.


And then 42 km later. The funny part of this is that a few friends from church showed up... about an hour after I finished. Part of that was because I finished much faster than I expected, which is always a good thing in a race. At any rate, when these pictures were taken, I´d already had the chance to hydrate and relax a bit.




There were several points in the race where it was really difficult to continue--especially between the 30- and 40-km points. Things like live bands, encouraging spectators, and the little kid who gave me a high five really were necessary to make it through. And most of all, I´m extremely grateful to God for giving me such a beautiful day, and for helping me to have a wonderful experience and make it successfully to the finish line. I´ll close with some great passages that analogize the Christian life to a marathon. Part of the one from Hebrews was running through my head as I pressed toward the finish line on Sunday.

"But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13b-14).

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Lessons in endurance

As most of you reading this know, I've been training for a marathon the last few months--the race is only 3 weeks from tomorrow. Today I ran 20 miles, the most I plan to do before the actual marathon. I made the decision (mistake?) to play some soccer yesterday, so I was already sore. I don't think that made the run any easier today :).

Thankfully, the weather was nice, and I ran in the evening cool, so in that regard things were peachy. Still, though, by mile 16 or 17 things were starting to get pretty rough. When I passed by any little store selling fruit or sweet drinks, I started just imagining what it would be like to stop the race and partake. Finally, I stopped and grabbed a pastry and a liter of juice. I sat down next to a nearby intersection, scarfed down the food and guzzled the juice, and got back up and kept running, this time with a half-full glass bottle of juice in my hands instead of the two mostly spent water bottles I carried before.

My time was 2:58, two minutes within the 3 hour goal that I had set for myself. I was pretty happy, but also pretty dead. I managed to walk to the park next door and lay in the grass for awhile, trying not to think of doing this again in three weeks.

Here's a little picture of what happens when you have a toenail that doesn't keep to itself. I hope you're not eating right now. :S


And finally, a picture of how beautiful I looked in the aftermath--thankfully for you, after I showered.


Now it's to bed, to bed for this sleepyhead. Good night :)

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The Earthquake

It's been almost two weeks since the historic earthquake devastated much of Chile. However, while things are mostly back to normal here in Santiago, the tragedy is still playing out in full force in many of the places that were hit hardest. Also, today we have had a string of quite strong tremors, so a post on the earthquake is still very relevant.

Most of you have probably seen, heard, or read something of the massive quake here, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining about that (in fact, most of you have even heard from me what my experience was like). I will just show a few of the pictures I took detailing the effects here at my home.

Here's my brother's bedroom:


The pastor's office:


The dining room:


The kitchen:




And finally, the only real structural damage, a crumbled wall outside:



I'm thankful to be safe and in good health--God definitely protected me. However, I want to be able to help in whatever ways I can in the rebuilding and recovery effort. Even if this stops making the news, the effects of this quake will not be over for a long, long time.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Back at it

Well, it's been awhile since I've written--I have internet again, and I have to start settling into a more regular schedule, as school starts on Monday. I hope to blog more consistently, but time will tell.

I suppose to be chronologically logical, I'll show a bit of my stay in Boston. It was wonderful to stay with David and Kelsea, and to get a taste of their daily life. Some of the highlights were eating at John Harvard's and Regina's Pizzeria and visiting the Gardner museum. And--how could I neglect to say--the meals we had every night were quite exquisite. Kelsea is quite the cook, and I certainly availed myself of that fact.

As I review the photos of the week and a half out east, I see that we had a little trouble behaving ourselves. I think the first two speak for themselves.



This last one is of Kelsea scratching off a lotto card.


David and I had some fun in CVS too. Note the name of the item I'm holding in the first two photos.





It was also really fun to be able to hang out with Dave Rojas for a day, who drove all the out from New Haven, Connecticut.



And finally, we have a nice shot of Kelsea and David at the aforementioned museum,


and the bros about to devour some killer floats.


Overall, it was an excellent finish to my wonderful few months spent back in the US, and I'm grateful to God for all the opportunities I had to spend time with family and friends during that time.

Friday, February 5, 2010

The photos

A few photos from my outdoor antics in the past couple of days are in order. Timo and I had lots of fun shoveling and working on a snow fort together.



I don't think I wrote about the 13 Christmas snowmen in the first place, but here is the site of their massacre.





The boys got to go sledding together after dark, which was really a blast. It's kind of funny that the pictures that worked out here are mostly of us wiping out. I guess that goes to show how hardcore the experience was.





Wednesday, February 3, 2010

O'er the hills we went

Tonight Joseph, Daniel, Timo, and I went to Battle Creek Park to sled. After google maps directed us to some forlorn corner of the (huge) park with the hill nowhere in sight, we were lost about 20 minutes trying to find the sledding hill. Eventually we found it, and although the lights were off (it was past 10 pm), we decided to sled a bit anyway.

It was quite entertaining. For one thing, every able-bodied Minnesotan should probably go sledding at least once a year just to keep it in the blood. Also, the couple inches of fresh powder over more packed snow gave perfect conditions for hitting the slope. We all tried to make it down in one piece and without fracturing our tailbones, and we succeeded fairly well in both of those. It was kind of funny when a couple other late night sledders showed up and one of them popped their inner tube the first time down the hill. I couldn't help but laugh. We finished by all linking arms and going down the hill side by side. We all crashed, as we knew we would, and most of us went down together, but somehow Timo escaped and made it to the bottom. Overall, we sustained only minor injuries, and the experience was satisfactorily exhilarating.

Unfortunately my ailing computer is not wanting to read my SD card, so the inclusion of the few pictures I took will have to be postponed indefinitely.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Why I Blog

Looking at my blogging record for the past couple of months, I must stop and ask myself, "Why am I doing this anyway?" I am well aware of the fact that my blog is no state-of-the-art publication, and I'm pretty sure it's not revolutionizing too many people's lives, or even keeping people up on what I'm up to--certainly not when I publish something once a month.

I write for several reasons. For one thing, I like to think, and even if my thoughts are crazy, I like to share them with others. Along that vein, blogging about something makes me think more concretely about it. I think about a lot of things, but putting them down on "paper" makes me think of them in a more concrete way. In addition, I love language, and I'd like to learn how to express myself better in a variety of media. I will never become a better writer if I never write.

My final reason for writing, if my boldest, is that I believe I have something to contribute to the world. I don't say this because of who I am, but more because of who God is, and who people are in light of that. God has created us in His image. True, we are fallen people. However, we still can learn so much from the perspectives of those around us, through the relationships we have with them. In the academic community, I hear a lot about the benefits of collaboration and interdisciplinarity. At the heart of those sometimes lofty-sounding ideas is the simple truth that ideas grow into meaningful thoughts, words, and actions when you share them with those with whom you have contact. I suppose the best way to ensure that your life will not matter much is to stay to yourself and keep your notions in your own head.

Having said all that, no one really likes to read a blog that doesn't have a healthy dose of pictures, videos, or other more visually attractive elements. Since that's the case, I'd love to share a few pictures to capture a few of the highlights of my last several weeks.

The family enjoyed the puzzle that I got free from church and gave to them. :)

After a fun time bowling with CEF oldies, we made it to Annie's with the Lee clan.

We had to strut our gangsta-ness just a little.

I got to hang out with my former roomie Mike in Madison. Here he is in front of the seat of Wisconsin's glorious government.

At Northwestern, I was able to attend my first NU basketball game--all the more fun since we beat the University of Illinois 73-68.

I spent a little time in my beloved city of Chicago.

I also got to travel back on megabus with family, which was a new treat.

Here Dad and I stand next to the majestic bus itself.