On the road: ENCHANTED HOUSE CALLED CHILOE: HOMAGE TO SUMMER 2010-2011

1. A FAIRY`S TALE

ONE DAY I KNOCKED ON A DOOR OF A HOUSE THAT HAD WALLS MADE OF TREES, A CARPET OF MOSS COVERED ITS FLOOR AND ONE PAINTING OF AN EVERCHANGING LAKE HUNG IN THE AIR. THE WINDOW TO THE WEST OPENED EACH EVENING TO SHOW A SPECTACLE OF A SUNSET - ALWAYS A DEBUTE, ALWAYS A SUCCESS. A SILENT SYMPHONY OF STARTS WOULD THEN TAKE PLACE ON THE ROOF, ONE COULD SEE IT THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT, ITS MELODY ACCOMPANYNG THE DREAMS OF THE DWELLERS OF THE HABITAT.

I DID NOT WAIT LONG BEFORE THE DOOR OPENED. "CAN I SEE THE SUNSET THROUGH THE WINDOW ON THE WEST?" I ASKED THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE. HE ALLOWED ME TO ENTER AND GAVE ME THREE TASKS: FIRST, PAINT THE BRIDGE TO CROSS TO THE OTHER SIDE; SECOND, WASH THE WINDOW TO SEE BETTER; AND THIRD, PAINT THE SIGNS - BECAUSE TO SHOW THE WAY MEANS TO KNOW THE WAY.

I WANTED TO LEAVE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, SO WHEN THE FIRST ASSIGNMENT WAS DONE, I TRIED TO GET ACROSS TO THE WINDOW. HALF WAY THERE I GOT LOST. I FOUND MYSELF CIRCLING ONE MAZE ALWAYS RETURNING TO THE SAME PLACE. I WAS TRAPPED IN THE LABYRINTH TILL THE CONCERT OF STARS WAS NEARING THE END OF ITS FIRST HALF AND ONLY WHEN PROMISED THAT I WOULD STAY, THE WAY OUT SHOWED ITSELF. IN THE MORNING THE FOREST GAVE ME BERRIES TO EAT AND THE OCEAN BATHED MY BODY.

WHEN I HAD FINISHED MY SECOND ASSIGNMENT OF CLEANING THE WINDOW, A TABLE WITH A GOOD LUNCH WAS SET AND I COULD REST. STILL IT WAS NOT BEFORE I HAD STARTED WITH MY THIRD TASK THAT MY WISH TO SEE THE SUNSET WAS GRANTED.

A DOOR OPENED LEADING INTO A WIDE DINING ROOM. ON THE TABLE THERE WERE SEVEN PLATES, FIVE OF THEM FOR CHILDREN, AND TWO, I GUESSED, FOR THEIR PARENTS. SOON ONE MORE PLATE APPEARED AND SINCE THEN WOULD ALWAYS BE THERE WAITING FOR ME– THE NAME WRITTEN ON IT WAS TASURINCHI. I WAS ACCEPTED INTO THE FAMILY AND WAS ALLOWED TO GO WHEREVER I WANTED IN THE HOUSE.

THERE WERE THREE FLOORS AND EACH WANTED ME TO BE A GUIDE TO SOMEONE I HAD NEVER MET BEFORE YET WHOM I HAD ALWAYS KNOWN. THE DOOR THAT LED TO THE STAIRWAY HAD AN INSCRIPTION ON IT: TO GUIDE IS TO BE GUIDED; TO LOSE THE WAY IS TO FIND THE WAY.

ON THE FIRST FLOOR I MET A YOUTH OF SIXTEEN YEARS WHOSE NAME WAS "PAST". WE JOURNEYED WELL AND LAUGHED OFTEN. ON THE SECOND FLOOR I MET A YOUNG WOMAN CALLED "PRESENT". ALTHOUGH MEANT TO WALK TOGETHER, I WAS ABSENT MOST OF THE TIME, CALLED OFF BY "FUTURE". HENCE I ASCENDED THE STAIRWAY TO THE LAST FLOOR TO BE AGUIDE TO TWO STRONG WOMEN, ONE MY AGE AND THE OTHER AN INFANT. ON FEW OCCASIONS I WOULD GO BACK TO THE SECOND FLOOR TO SEE HOW "PRESENT" WAS DOING, BUT THEN RETURNED TO THE THIRD FLOOR. THE HOUSE WAS UNFAMILIAR TO ME, BUT WHENEVER FELT LOST I REMEMBERED THE INSCRIPTION AND DID NOT GO ASTRAY.

THREE MONTHS PASSED LIKE THREE DAYS. WITHOUT LOOKING FOR IT I FOUND THE RAINBOW-GATE TO SHOW ME THE WAY OUT. WHEN I STOOD ON THE ROOF CONTEMPLATING THE MEANINGS, A BOAT-BRIDGE APPEARED TO TAKE ME TO THE OTHER SHORE. I LEFT BEHIND THE POT OF GOLD FOR EVEN WITHOUT IT MY SOUL WAS ALREADY GLITTERING WITH GOLD THAT WEIGHED LESS THAN A FEATHER, STILL HAD A POWER TO FLY FASTER THAN A THOUGHT AND FURTHER THAN A DREAM.

2. TRAVELOGUE

The following events took place in the summer of the southern hemisphere – from December 28, 2010 to March 22, 2011 on an island called Chiloe which lies in the South of Chile. This is a follow-up to the post titled HOW I CAME TO CHILOE. Click on the title to read.

THE GROUND FLOOR

When the road brought me to the main entrance of the Chiloe National Park, all I wanted was to see the sunset on the ocean and leave. I asked the man in charge of the National Park campsite if I could do something for my stay. He said I could camp for free if I did not have enough money to pay 3000 pesos for what one night stay was worth. I said I only had 2000, but could paint or do any other chore. My friends, a mixed group of three French and two Chileans I had met that day were paying, I said it would not feel right for me to stay and pay nothing. I would then rather have gone and camped on the beach or in the woods. In fact I would not have even had this conversation, I guess, if it was not for the group, just gone and camped anywhere.

Bernabe seemed too kind of a person, I doubted if he would agree, so when he offered I painted the bridge, I was grateful.

We put up our tents in a campsite number 10 and while the rest went to the beach I borrowed some working clothes to start painting. That evening I got just half the job done, which meant I was to stay one more day. I wondered what I would eat; I was not really prepared to live outdoors for any amount of time. When later I went to hand in the clothes and tools, Bernabe invited me for dinner. I met Tatiana, Bernabe´s wife, their five children, girlfriend of his oldest son, Bernabe´s mother, aunt and cousin – it was too many people gathered in that little house for me to remember, so I just grouped them by age to tell who was who, the names went past me that first time.

The next day my co-campers and I went for a short hike to see lake Huelde, I took a swim – the water was warm, shared a sandwich with tuna and salad, took pictures:

When we returned to the campsite, I decided to finish my job and perhaps reach the ocean in time for the sunset. I left early enough, but got lost in the forest - did not find the sea nor the way back. I ended up circling one trail always returning to the same spot. The sky was full of stars, but there was no moon to light the way. I walked slowly, taking care of every step. I was not tired nor scared, just wondering what was going on. I had promised myself to look at the sunset and leave the next day, so now I had to change that thought– I promised I would stay. Soon I saw a small trail that I had walked past on previous occasions and it lead to the main road from where I knew how to get back to the campground.

It was December 31st, the last day of the year 2010, my friends left to celebrate the New Year in Castro. I went to Bernabe´s house – now that the bridge was painted, I needed a new task. On the hill there were six cabins; one of them was waiting for its first guests. Bernabe´s family had been working hard for it to be furnished and painted on time. I was helping to clean the windows when the guests arrived. They were six, a happy family reunion, parents and their adult children. I was invited for lunch.

I then went to Bernabe again and asked if I could paint a sign. The one hanging on a tree in front of his house that said "Firewood" was written with a pen on a piece of paper, I thought it would not last long.

"Could you paint signs?" asked his wife Tatiana overhearing the conversation.

"Gladly," I replied.

In my country it is a bad omen to leave a job undone before new year, but there was no way I could finish the task I was given that afternoon if I wanted to do it well. That evening I went to look for the sunset again, but was too late, though this time reached the sea.

I celebrated the new year with Bernabe´s family and few other campers – we had lamb cooked on an open fire. Anival, the eldest of Bernabe´s and Tatiana´s children played guitar, his girlfriend Camila had a violin. I was surprised to how quickly she picked up the Estonian tunes from the sheet music I had with me. Anival accompanied me with a couple of Russian melodies – the chords from an old songbook leading the way.

Just before midnight we wrote on small pieces of paper what we wanted to let go of, then burnt the messages. After that, on another sheet we wrote what we wanted for the new year. Tatiana gathered the papers from her family members to read these out a year later and see if the wishes had fulfilled.

Five children of Bernabe and Tatiana

THE DINING ROOM

There were several signs that the campsite needed – I calculated it would take me at least a week to finish. Since I started painting I had no more food worries. It was just the first couple of days that I would eat berries for breakfast or whenever hungry - Calafate was such a great treat, although tiny, but very nutritious.

In the morning the forest gave me berries to eat

Bears eat berries and they are big animals, so I could live on berries too – I derived logically. But it was not to be – when Tatiana and Bernabe invited me to have all three meals with them I became officially adopted. They called me Tasurinchi.

Instead of telling me who or what exactly Tasurinchi was, Tatiana gave me a book to read. Written by Mario Vargas Llosa, the book titled "El hablador", in English "Storyteller" introduced a Peruvian folk hero named Tasurinchi and described as a "walker" living a nomadic life in which he visited different communities and when doing so gave them news of other places, told stories of people´s lives, solved family problems even, for he knew these problems from other families he had met. One could be honest with him because Tasurinchi would not use that information against anyone. He did not stay long enough to belong to a place, but was just a carrier of information and in right place and time would use it to help people facing similar difficulties. Tasurinchi was not just one man who lived during one time, but could be any man, anytime, anywhere. When the Christian missionaries came to Peru, to spread the teaching of Christ, the Machiguengua also called Jesus a Tasurinchi, for he had also been a storyteller on one endless walk.

"They went to visit Tasurinchi, wanted to talk to him, that he would go and work with them…/…/ with these you will work the time you want, they will give you food, a knife, a net to fish/…/," wrote Llosa.

Maybe indeed I was a Tasurinchi, nothing close to Christ of course, nor the one who had many wives, nor any other mentioned in the book, but a walker and a storyteller of my own kind, and now I was given a task to do, a place to stay and food to eat. But more importantly, I was given a family. To the question when I would leave I would say I did not have a ticket nor a date of departure. Whenever I would see the door… Yet instead of a door out, I saw another, leading in.

THE STAIRWAY

Tatiana asked me if I could make a map of the campsite. I had never drawn a map before, but I said I would try. It took me another week to finish the job.

I drew the area to look like a tree – the reception was the root, the main road was the trunk, the trails were branches and 25 campsites I drew to be nests. I called the travellers birds that would come and go and was happy to show around any who needed guidance.

Then followed a task of making a tourist map of the village and its small businesses, also the hiking trails needed to be mapped, we thought it would be good to have a guestbook, a photo book of the trails, a book about the services that the local community offered – suddenly there was so much to do. I needed help.

THE FIRST FLOOR: EVALUNA

She was the oldest daughter of Tatiana and Bernabe, they called her Luna and she was only sixteen. Yet since the first walk that we took together, we became a good team. It took us about a month to complete the task: two weeks to get to know the villages of Cucao and Chanquin, their shops, restaurants, kiosks or any other services that the locals offered. We also got to know the people behind these businesses and their stories. We hiked the near-by trails and gathered information and photo-material about the longer walks from tourists who came to the park.

When the material was together we went to LLigaldad a small place near Castro, where the family house was on top of a mountain. Tatiana and Bernabe trusted us to live alone till the job was done. It took us altogether two weeks to shape the data into posters, a foldable tourist map, a book called "Aqui se puede", in English "Here You Can" - a tourist guide to the services of the villages of Cucao and Chanquin. We also made a guestbook with a woolen cover and compiled a photo book with maps of the trails.

While I mainly concentrated on the illustrations and content of "Here You Can", Luna was in charge of all maps, which were not few: she designed two big posters, the foldable pocket-map, the maps of each trail for the photo book, and the maps that went into the guide book "Here You Can".

Here are some of the illustrations from the book:

And one of the maps designed by Evaluna:

THE SECOND FLOOR: CARINA

During the time we were trying to get to know the trails and the villages by the side of the National Park Luna and I met someone special. Her name, just like my name was Carina, just like me she was also a volunteer but working on the other side of the Chiloe National Park in a place called Chepu. Carina´s homepage www.wanderingnature.com shows her journey where among other stories she tells of the very traditional Chiloe dish kuranto which was also our first meal that we shared together:

click on the LINK to read.

Carina, from United States, was designing maps and educational materials about nature, her scholarship gave her freedom of movement and action, which is how she soon came to us and started working on a recycling and compost project. We designed a proposal for a children´s trail together, and would have perhaps done more, if I had not met Hana…

THE THIRD FLOOR: HANA AND MELKAM

Hana was from Ethiopia, doing her master´s in University Austral of Chile and Melkam was her seven month old baby girl. Hana wished to do her research in Chiloe and came to Castro to make an interview with Tatiana. Tatiana asked me to translate. Hana´s topic about rural territorial development with cultural identity interested me so we agreed to meet a couple of weeks later – I was to become Hana´s translator during her stay on the island.

I wondered if Hana had made a right choice, or if my wish to practice a new role, was not too ambitious. I knew Spanish well enough, but for translating one needs more than that – to be neutral, to express no personal opinion. I failed to be such a bridge – it was difficult for me to distance myself enough from the topic to remain impartial.

The more I spoke to Hana, the more involved I became. Going from one organization to the other meeting their leaders who worked with territorial development in Chiloe, we found a good balance: Hana trusted me to make the interviews with the questions we had discussed beforehand, the conversations were recorded and later I transcribed them into English.

We lived in a small apartment of one friendly guesthouse in front of Castro´s public library.

To tell the truth, in the beginning what troubled me more than my translation skill was that my baby-knowledge was close to zero. Babies do not talk – how to interact with them? I observed how all women who were mothers would light up when Hana and Melkam walked in; they would look at the baby, praise her beauty, ask Hana questions and make faces trying to get the child to smile. All of this was so alien to me in the beginning.

Melkam was a good teacher – in that one month I spent with Hana and her child I learned how interesting those littlest people can be, how much character and personality they can show despite their youth, how they communicate without words, but through smiles and facial expressions, and how much joy can they give when you have won their trust.

During the time that I worked with Hana, we also got to travel and learn a lot about Chiloe.

We learned that the Archipelagos of Chiloe had first been inhabited by the Chono nomadic tribes and later the indigenous Huilliche agriculturers, and then during the colonization period the people were mixed with the Spaniards. For a long stretch of time the only way to come to Chiloe was by water, which is also how an English naturalist Charles Darwin visited the island in the summer of 1834-1835.

The islanders were known for their good boat-builders so when the Jesuit missionaries brought over from Europe the designs of the churches, local masters accommodated these graphs to available materials and skill of carpentry raising their churches out wood, ceilings often reminding bottom of a boat. Today sixteen of these churches are recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The potato, world´s third largest farming culture, was brought to Europe from South America, part of it from Peru, and another from Chiloe. Hundreds of varieties of Native Potato can be found on the island, which together with other agricultural products and their organic growing processes have taken Chiloe to become a part of seven World´s Agricultural Heritage Sites.

For its physical isolation from the rest of Chile and social isolation from the rest of the world practically till the year 1960, Chiloe has conserved an identity and a natural habitat that many now come to experience. Just as the Easter Island or San Pedro of Atacama in the northern part of the country, Chiloe has become well known for its natural and cultural treasures. Also the people of Chiloe are proud and conscious of their distinctiveness referring to themselves as Chilotes and not Chilenos, in English – Chileans.

Today the modern has mixed with the old, the roads have reached the furthest villages and satellite dishes on the little wooden houses together with the world news bring new ideas and values to Chilotes´ homes.

Tourism is a sector that gives economic value to the cultural identity but is confronted by the salmon industry which though offers well-paying jobs erases that particularity by taking people away from their traditional lifestyles. It is a five year break that the salmon industry took because of an ISA virus that invaded the waters, but they will be back and till then there is time to help people make right decisions – said all those concerned with the threat in which that industry had put the spirit of Chiloe.

Raul Espoz the head of Fundacion con Todos (Foundation with Everyone), instead of using the word protection of cultural identity, uses the word "defence" which he said was more active than the first. Pablo Alfredo Duran Leiva, the director Foundation Radio Estrella del Mar (Radio Star of the Sea) tells of a formula that was given when a similar "attack" to the culture of the island took place in the end of 1970s.

When the Astillas project (The Chip Project) had put in danger the ecology and culture of the area, the bishop Juan Luis Ysern, who had recently been transferred to the island from the Atacama Desert, initiated a discussion with the community and organized a symposium on the topic. The project was withdrawn as a result of series of activities where people were shown the impact of such a project to the ecology of the area. Juan Luis Ysern initiated three foundations: "Radio Estrella del Mar" (Radio Star of the Sea), "Fundacion con Todos" (Foundation with everyone) and "Amigos de las Iglesias de Chiloe" (Friends of Churches of Chiloe), where the first gave voice and connected the people, the second listened and took action through projects in various areas and the third focused mainly on restoration of the churches, defending and reviving the carpentry skill. All of these shared a common goal for the culture to be able to defend itself from future initiatives that would come to threaten it.

The formula on which all three foundations based their further activities was a communication theory: 1) To speak 2) To listen 3) To distinguish 4) To create.

To speak is to give. The communication is the meeting point of the human beings. When you communicate, you give two things: the tangible, which is the act of passing on the news or the content, and the intangible which is the identity, the knowledge, the story – a part of one´s inner self. The mix of these two I give you when I communicate and then you learn to listen, to receive that present of the content and the identity, and that process of meeting is love - the communion. When I give you, and I know how to speak and you know how to listen, now you have to distinguish between what you have and what was given to you. And that means you have to know who you are, who is the person talking to you and to decide together in that dialogue an alternative, create something new that emerges from the both.

So now when the community knows how to communicate, how to speak, listen, distinguish and create, they know who they are and what they are getting, and what is the modern project coming, then they can make a conscious decision of the way they want to go – which is development.

When the director of the radio station had finished explaining the bishop´s idea, I thought of how simple and universal it sounded: to speak-to give, to listen - to receive. What if that filter would be put on one´s own speech – what are we giving? Is it something that another person would need? Or is it just something that we want to get rid of? Or to look at the sources of information that reach us – what are we receiving from them and how does it make us feel. Do we really need that information? Each person´s immediate surroundings could then be seen as a territory, the heart of which is one´s distinct and unique identity. Does the environment we live in, the lifestyle we practice, reflect our personality? Is that "heart" satisfied and well-nourished? Always present is the threat which intends to take away our singularity and make us like everybody else. When it cannot be avoided, it should be faced. This means knowing how to "listen". Acknowledging our identity will further help distinguish what we can benefit from or on the contrary, what can possibly harm us. Knowing this, one can make the right choices. Communication is learning, and learning is creation or development of the Self, first of all on individual and through that also on the level of the community which shares a territory with a particular cultural identity.

The three organizations named above are just a sample of the many actors on the field to help strengthen the cultural consciousness of Chilotes. They are individuals, public institutions and private businesses who share a similar vision of the future of the Archipelagos and whose work directly or indirectly considers the cultural identity of the territory.

Every day Hana and I went out to look for them to talk about what they are doing and in that search travelled the island in its lengths and widths. The outcomes of these conversations are to become a case-study for Hana´s thesis.

THE ROOF

Hana wanted to pay me, Tatiana had warned me that that would happen. I secretly hoped that when my Ethiopian friend got to know me better she would give up on the thought. My first argument was that I was not working but learning and benefiting, and doing so with a "scholarship" that paid for my living and travel costs. My second argument was that my skill of Spanish had been a gift that I had received from the people free of charge, which would make it impossible for me to charge anything for it.

"Don´t you have needs?" asked Hana the first time we had that conversation. After some pause of thought I said that I needed a pair of socks and a needle.

The day that we parted the money was donated to the people who work with cultural identity in the rural areas of Chiloe. That way we reached a compromise – Hana could give, I could receive and then we could both give to a cause we believed in and thought important.

"I want you to continue your journey", said Hana and with these words got me a ticket to leave Chiloe on a boat that set off on Tuesday March 22nd towards Puerto Chacabuco on the mainland of Chile.

In the morning I was to leave the island Hana called me to the window that opened to the south and showed me a bright rainbow - the seven-coloured gate had once again appeared to tell me it was time to go.