What's happening in the cowboy scene???

I will tell you!

I made this blog for my friends! I wanted to read stuff they have to say. It will be fun.

If you're wondering where the name came from, it's from the song "Cowboy Dan." It's hard to think of things sometimes!

Here are a few rules about the cowboy scene. 1. If you wanna join just ask me! 2. Put a bunch of labels on your post, why the fuck not! 3. Any content at all is accepted, but sometimes a good post is appreciated!

Here's an example of a good post. It's this one.

I want to tell you a story about Santiago, Chile. I went there like two years ago, and only for a month, but it was so fun I have lots of stories!

One of the classes we took there somehow involved helping English teachers in colegios in the poorer parts of the city. Colegios are schools for students between 5 and the age they quit going to school. Could be as high as grade 12.

My school was a relatively new building somewhere in the northern part of the city. I have no clue where, I got rides there and it's not an easy place to navigate. I remember getting picked up at Estación Baquedano and going north on Pío Nono and then passing this big billboard that said "Sonrie! Dios Te Ama!" (Smile! God Loves You!) and then eventually getting there. At some point the road had a ton of holes. It was really a series of holes rather than a road. Also someone had defaced a street sign close by in a creepy and strangely funny manner. The sign originally said "Las Violetas," The Violets. Okay, not a great street name, but in English "Violet Avenue" has a nice ring. Somebody had taken spray paint to it and turned it to "Las Violé," which translates to "I Raped Them." Shocking most of all because Chileans never much displayed an affinity for puns.

Anyway we went there once a week, and we were there for four weeks. It was so short it was mostly a joke. I could hardly learn the teachers' names, certainly not the students', and I couldn't help teach since I showed up so infrequently. I worked with an awesome guy named Miguel. More on Miguel later. Mostly what I did was show off some sweet American pronunciation and word choice, since they learn British English there. Mobile phones, autumn. Maybe lorry or lift. Probably not.

Here are the two awesome parts. Halfway through our time there, almost every student in Santiago held a strike. The students struck. Their main complaints were that bus fares were too expensive, and in general that the law governing education was unfair. The strike had two parts. In "paro," students refused to come to class and school was cancelled. "Paro" comes from the verb "to stop," so that makes sense. The other part was called "toma," from the verb "to take." How did students take? They physically moved into the schools and prevented staff from coming in. They lived in their schools. It was awesome. At least, watching on the news.

The school where I helped never reached toma, but we were in paro one of the weeks I was there. I still went to the school and talked to the teachers and the students and generally fucked around, mostly by playing basketball (Chileans are awful at basketball) and watching soccer (I am awful at soccer). It was funny because it was this awesome mix of actual complaints students had and ridiculous complaints that made no sense. They had the students get up in groups and present their problems, and several groups said the school should expel students with bad behavior. Then one group got up and said the opposite, and Miguel leaned over and said "That group is composed entirely of troublemaking students." Noice. Anyway the paro was good fun because apparently students there actually give a shit?? I think students striking in the US would be met with derision and mockery, and these kids were getting interviewed on the nightly news. It was cool.

The best thing at the school was the staff. I knew four people by name. Miguel was a teacher, and he was Chilean but he'd been to the US. He spoke English with a very unique accent that included some terrible mispronunciations, since he'd never heard some words spoken before. Then the other teacher I knew was María, who was quiet but funny. Her English was less good but still pretty good, more of a typical Spanish-speaker's accent. Then there were two girls who were there as volunteers, both from Great Britain. One was Scottish and one was English. They were both pretty talkative and very funny, and they didn't know a ton of Spanish so when we were all together we spoke English. I remember the British girl was Kate and the Scottish one...oh damn. I don't think I'll remember. They called her "Barbie" because girls with blonde hair are so rare. I have very fond memories of the five of us eating together. The accents in our conversations were freaking great. All of us speaking the same language and not saying any word exactly the same way. It was fuckin cool!!! I want to go back.

All right, bye!