El Kiwi en Sudamérica

As per usual, I will give you the gritty details etc. of my latest haircut (while you all scream, “He’s always writing about this! He’s obsessed…” or perhaps “Yes! I love it when he writes about his escapades in the fashion world!”
This latest doo wasn’t really planned – more of a result of circumstances – so here is the blow by blow-dry account:
I was chatting to Maribel the other day at church, and I asked her how her hairdressing training was going. Next thing you know, out she pulls her practice book, and shows me the pages of men’s haircuts that she needs to do. So, despite the apparent lack of need on my part, I told her that she should give me a call when it’s a good time. I noticed that there were gaps in the manicure section of her practice- but unfortunately she didn’t take my offer to help out with that.
On the following Wednesday (at prayer meeting) Maribel asked if I could do it the next day at 10, which fitted into my schedule perfectly. After telling Anthony about it out came all of the usual “your brave” comments that go around when you say your getting a practice cut. She cut Ronny’s hair once recently, and it looked all right… So I was quietly confident that it’d be all right.
After finding the Salon (after taking a bus to get there – not as easy as it sounds, due to the educated guess work involved – Respect!), I hesitantly went up the stairs to the salon. From the outside it didn’t look that big, but appearances were deceiving, as I’d find out.
As I reached the entrance I saw this room full of Hairdressers and noticed that there were adjoining rooms to the side. I felt the all too common ‘everyone’s eyes are on me’ as I don’t think they get many male customers, especially foreign ones.
So I asked if Maribel was there, waited for her to come (she was in the process of getting her hair done) and so I subsequently went and watched chatted while she got finished (all of the hairdressers seem to do each others hair – a perfect way to fill up downtime!).
While this was getting done, I got to see that the salon must’ve had around 20 employees, all with female cliental. The staff all wore these pink apronish outfits, and the clients were with pink over thingies. The walls were all covered with the usual picks of models with their way out to boring haircuts. I searched franticly for some men’s examples, to find a small array of pics across in the next room…
So, after she was finished, it was all go. The pink over thing looked all class on me, for the record. Maribel stared with a bit of hesitation, which freaked me out somewhat. Thankfully the tutor guy came by and gave her some tips, and demonstrated some technique. Tutor dude didn’t seem to fit the stereotype of the male hairdresser-In other words he didn’t have a good enough haircut/outfit to be considered as possibly gay, But he sure did have some mean as skills with the scissors.
So, Maribel finished off the job, and it looked all good – and she’s gonna source me some wax that I can use instead of the gel that seems to be the only thing they sell here- happy days!
-Money making idea #276- Become an importer of Hair wax, and convince a footballer or two to use the product to make it sufficiently macho for public consumption.
So, here's a pic right after the cut (in reality I had hardly anything cut off, not that I needed much)…
from left, Maribel, some randoms and me.

Anyway, last week was a fairly big event for the people here, being holy week and all. I first got to see some of the action on the Sunday before; as, in between youth group and the evening service, there was a procession that went by the church. There wasn’t that many people involved, but there were the sounds of explosions into the cool early evening air- some people were laying out this powder and little cardboard tubes full of the stuff, then lighting it as the procession came by. One guy was also firing off full on flares into the sky… and I was so thinking ‘I need to get myself some of those’ but when I asked where you could buy them I was told they were illegal (¡agua fiestas!).
Around here there is quite a ‘Semana Santa’ tradition, as I found out during the week. At the language place I’m studying at we had a day where we cooked some tradition Easter treats dishes; a seafood soup traditionally eaten on Good Friday (complete with fish eggs- quite crunchy) and some desserts. We also had an in-depth look at what happens each day of the week, and the points of the cross- interesting stuff. My favourite tradition would have to be “la quema de Judas” or the burning of Judas. What happens is this; some people make a paper ‘Judas’ loaded with fireworks, and then they hang him with some rope. Before lighting him up, they read his ‘will’ with ridiculous things that they bequeath to famous locals etc. for example, if the mayor was overweight they might write “give my diet pills and aerobics video to…”, I didn’t get to watch this performance, as it was early Sunday morning- sounds like good times though.
At the Church we had two special services, on the Thursday and Friday nights. Things went well, there was a lot of ‘fringe’ people and a few first time visitors as well.
We (the youth group) have started raising some money for Mother’s day, to buy the Mums some rice, sugar etc. as times a hard for so many. So two weekends ago we made and sold anticuchos (kebab kind of things- delicious) and this Saturday we’re making something else- but I forgot the name (one of the many trials of my time in S.A has been trying to remember what dishes are called, so when some asks me “have you had this before” I normally have to answer “ummm…. Maybe?) That is if I don’t climb Misti, the volcano that dominates the skyline. Some of the students will be climbing it this weekend- it’s a huge as mountain, some 6,000 metres or so, but right now to climb it you need crampons once you get near the top- unlike other times of the year where there is basically no snow. I’m probably not going to go, as it’ll cost me a bit of money to get boots as well, esp. in my size (though I’ll need some if I do the Inca trail, unless I (cheat) take the train). We’ll see.
On the fútbol front, Melgar are still top of the table, despite losing to Bolognesi in the weekend.
Colo-Colo is, after starting with two losses, have proceeded to destroy the other teams in their group in the Copa Libertadores (the champions league of Latin America). Not a small feat at all considering their pool, which includes River Plate (Argentina) famous for their rivalry with Boca Juniors (Maradonna’s team, back in the day).
So they’re looking good to finish top of their group, then proceed to the 1/8th finals or something. Fingers crossed they'll continue their from the Copa Sudamerica (like the UEFA cup) despite the loss of both Matias Fernandez and Alexis Sanchez to clubs in Europe… Sanchez is, in the next few years, going to be huge… you heard it here first. He’s only 17, has great footwork and is as quick as anything. Matias will be pretty handy too, esp. considering his knack at scoring free kicks.
Ok, you can all wake up now… hahaha
That’s all for now, I’ll try think up something interesting for the next installment.

¿Quieres perder tu tiempo? Buscas qué estoy escribiendo… las paginas del red son buenas para traducir frases- ¿sí o no?

Nathan