Un Funeral

            I wanna dedicate this blog to my friend Catalina, one of the most beautiful, deep-thinking, and open-minded people I have ever met.

            First of all, classes are going well. They’re hard at times, but going well. I know, all of my Facebook pictures are of the beach so one might think that I don’t go to class. I promise I do! J My Culture and Society of the Hispanic Caribbean class is interesting…sometimes I feel like I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s because my professor is quite possibly the most philosophical person in the Hispanic Caribbean or maybe it’s because it’s at 8 in the morning. Could be either one. I gave a presentation the other day on Cuba, about its history and its government. Surprisingly I found that I already knew most of that stuff (probably from my previous Che Guevara obsession). Then we watched a film called Bitter Sugar, which if you haven’t seen it, you really should. Cuba is such a provoking topic of conversation because you really can’t talk about its current situation without also talking about the United States. In fact, you can’t talk about any Caribbean island without mentioning the United States. Sometimes it’s amazing to me how our country has had such a profound impact on all these islands, all these nations. I now understand how it feels to be from a place whose economy, whose future, somewhat has to rely on a greater power. It’s something that we in the US never really had to deal with because we have always had the upper hand in the situation. All the dictatorships that we have put in place in Latin America and the Caribbean, all the money we have gained from them. It’s very humbling to be on the other side of the story and to find the balance between feeling guilty and understanding the situation. Overall goal: recognition. Because feeling guilty about it doesn’t do any good unless that guilt motivates you to want to do something about it, like educate others J

            Apart from this, something happened last week that deeply saddened me and made me very vulnerable. In the Dominican Republic, funerals are different than in the United States. Here, they often take place in a house or near a road, and anyone can come by to visit the body and say goodbye. Well, when I went to teach my English class in Cienfuegos on Thursday, the road was somewhat blocked off. I couldn’t figure out why there were all these people gathered outside the Escuela where I worked. My first impression was that it was a strike, because in Chile there are strikes outside of schools every 5 minutes. But it wasn’t. I saw people crying. People were sad. I walked up to my students and asked them what was going on, and they told me that it was a funeral. Of course it was! I had been to a funeral here before (remember the really embarrassing bright orange shirt incident?) We went inside and I taught an hour of class and then let the kids out for recess. During recess, the kids went to go look at the body in the house, asking me to come with them. I couldn’t do it. The person who died was a 30-year-old man who had been shot in the head in the middle of the night. I simply couldn’t go look, not only because I didn’t want to see the body, but also because I felt that it wasn’t my place because I didn’t know this guy. I told the students I didn’t want to go, and so they went on their own. I felt extremely uncomfortable, sitting on the front steps of the school with my students, watching them go and look at the body. I tried to make light conversation, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about how casually they were going to look at a guy who had been shot in the head. Then we started to go back inside, when one of my girl students pulled on my arm, telling me that the boys in my class were laughing at the body. At this point, I completely lost it. I’m not an angry person. I don’t get really mad and I don’t yell. But man, did I. I told those boys to get back inside. When all the students were back in the classroom, chatting and playing, I yelled, “SILENCE!” Then I asked the boys if they had been laughing at the body. They made up some crap about how they were laughing at something else, no se que no se que. And I yelled at them. I told them that it was disrespectful, imagine if that had been your family member and you saw someone laughing at them. I don’t remember what else I said. But they listened to me. I made the whole class take a minute in silence. The whole time, I felt like bursting into tears. How disrespectful, how rude, how inconsiderate. I felt so disappointed in my boys, as if they were my own kids who I was responsible for. I let class out a bit early. And I trudged back to the PUCMM, feeling extremely sad and extremely defeated. How could they? His poor parents, family, and friends. Seeing a bunch of kids laughing in the face of his death.

            But then I started to think. Why was I so much more upset than the rest of the kids about it? Because I’ve never been in that situation before. Sure, I’ve been to funerals. I’ve seen some suffering in my time. But for me, this was not casual. For these kids, it was. They’ve seen this before and to them, it’s just one more death of a young person in the neighborhood. A dead body? Hey, sure, let’s go look at it and see what it’s like. I come from a middle class background in the rural Midwest in which we are lucky that things like this are such a rarity. It was quite a bit of a culture shock for me, seeing all this happening and as a sociologist always trying to see the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that I work in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city of Santiago, and things like this happen all the time. I’m just not used to it. But it does no good to turn the other cheek and pretend like this isn’t happening. Even though it was hard on me, it was good for me because I learned and came to some self-realization. Next time this happens, I won’t get angry. I won’t yell. I’ll try to put myself in their shoes and be more open-minded about the situation. Being vulnerable is good sometimes because it teaches you to think more broadly and you are forced to learn. This isn’t to say that it’s ok to laugh at someone’s dead body, but everything is contextual, isn’t it?

            Sorry that the blog wasn’t exactly light-hearted, but one thing I’ve learned is that although it’s good to be care-free sometimes, there are some times when we have to care. Ignorance is not bliss J Thanks for listening, loves.