La Solidaridad de los Viajeros

All’s been quiet on the blogging front because for the last two weeks I’ve been so entirely immersed in the happy busy-ness of life creating, making and exploring with a wonderful group of friends in la Serena, who’ve come to be known as “la Familia”.

 

I had the amazing luck of joining la Familia de la Serena through a chain of friends:  my old art college friend and flat mate the lovely Steve Floyd has a friend and old uni-mate Sara who visited us at Omega last year, and passed on the email of her old house mate in Spain David, now living in Arica in northern Chile, who passed on the email of his friend and travel buddy Mauro, whose house I’ve been staying in for the last two weeks.  Phew what an impressive chain of friends-of-friends and the trust and reciprocal hospitality of the solidarity of travellers, as David named it – “la solidaridad de los viajeros”!

 

I’ve felt so at home within Mauro’s home and group of friends at 831 Jose Larrova, where so many folk seemed to pass through the house throughout the fortnight that I was often reminded of our home at Omega Works in London, here each of us hopping sleeping spaces to make space for everyone who passed through.  Indeed Mauro and his flat mates shared their space, food and time with me as though I was family (hence the name la Familia!) and I was so touched by their generosity and openness in sharing.... I was telling my Uncle Noel how much he’d love it here because the Chilean warmth reminds me of the welcoming hospitality of our Irish family. 

 

Two things that impressed me hugely about this group of friends, all young adults in their early twenties, were their highly developed consciousness about political, social and environmental issues, and their creative and intellectual energy.  I’ll come back to these points in a later post focusing on the currently intense water and educational issues in Chile.  For now, suffice it to say that these were a truly stimulating two weeks of thought provoking conversation and inspirational creative collaboration.

Two important international events occurred during the two weeks I've just spent in La Serena.  The first was the day I arrived, Tuesday 5th March, the president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez died.  He had suffered from cancer for over a year and his death was described as a heart attack, although there are conspiracy theories suggesting there was foul play involved.  As such a prominent and at times provocative socialist presidnet, Chavez's death has inevitably provoked a lot of discussion and wondering about the future of Venezuelan and South American politics.  There seems to be some doubt that Vice President Nicolas Maduro has the character necessary to replace Chavez, although he is now and will be temporarily head of state until the upcoming elections on 14th April.

The second important date was 8th March, Día de la Mujer, meaning Women's Day... similar to Mother's Day or Father's Day back home, a national (and I believe international?) day to celebrate and treat women.. brilliant! :-) (In reality we didn't really do anything to mark the day, but it made me smile to know that it was a recognised day, this graffiti "Feliz día"  meaning "happy Day" also made me smile every time I went past it!

 Cinema helps to dream, TV to sleep :)

As with every Chilean city I have visited so far, here the walls are covered in graffiti, slogans and posters. Here in la Serena my attention was most grabbed by the posters objecting to the mines and the water issues facing Chile, but I will come back to these in a later post.  For now, these are a couple of the other messages that particularly struck me.

He who doesn't move doesn't hear the sound of his chains.

La Serena, a thought provoking and energising place.

:-)