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May 1, 2011 I was born in Torres, a paradise city in the south of Brazil. My house was at just three blocks from the beach. The weather in my city is warm almost the whole year. We also have a winter season, but is not as cold as in San Mateo, CA. Winter time in my city is a kind of recovery time after summer. People repair their houses in winter, businesses prepare strategies, and stock up for the next summer. It is also a time to review finances. The soccer championship starts in winter as well as school. We have two main events that happen every winter. One is called Semana Farroupilha, and the other one is called Balonismo. Semana Farroupilha is the celebration of gauchos and our traditions as well as is the time when we celebrate the civil war between the gauchos and the Brazilian empire. Semana Farroupilha is a week of celebration with music, traditional dance, food and clothes. We feel very proud to celebrate our traditions. Balonismo is a hot air balloon festival. On that day the skies of my city are covered with balloons with many designs and colors. People can have a ride on the balloons for a fee. My city changes so much in the summer when we are invade by tourists. We live for the summer, and we get prepared for summer, because the economy of my city is based on tourism. After repairing their houses, people are now ready to rent them out for the summer. When I left my city, there were around thirty six thousand people living there, but in the summer it can be around four hundred thousand. It is a crazy invasion. Tourists come from other cities in Brazil, from Argentina, and some, but rarely, from the U.S. Next time I will describe to you how crazy the summer is.  April 24, 2011 When I was kid we had three main dates that every kid in my town awaited with anticipation. Easter, Christmas and our birthdays were as important as New Year was for adults. When the Easter date approached, our anxiety started to show up with questions like "What am I going to get? Did mom go to the supermarket yet? Where they will hide the chocolates this year?" In Brazil the chocolate eggs are huge and inside they have more little eggs. We have some eggs of white chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate with fruit, as well as chocolate rabbits and much more variety of sweets than in the US. Easter in Brazil is a huge social event as well. Brazil is a very Catholic country, so they follow the church traditions and we celebrate Easter with family and friends. Everyone wishes happy Easter to each other. Our Easter was always celebrated at my grandmother's house with my parents, all my cousins, aunts, and family friends. We always had a huge dinner with many selections of food and desserts. As kids we enjoyed all the soda we wanted without restrictions. At the table, the conversations were loud and happy. Almost everyone had a joke or an anecdote to tell. After dinner, all the kids went inside the house while our relatives and friends were hiding the chocolates on my grandma's huge patio. After that we ran outside in search of the eggs, but all the eggs had names on them so no one got more than the others. Those days were all happy and we really enjoyed them. Yesterday I was talking with my cousin who lives in North Carolina about these days. We were laughing, but we both really miss those days. March 21, 2011 Dear Human,Thank you for your letter explaining to me your famous road trip style of vacations. I need to confess that it sounds for me a little strange why humans like to spend days inside a car. For me it sounds really stressful. Why do you humans like to spend time inside a car, driving for hours and hours? I figure that your biological system should get tired and the tiredness will build up on the road and through the hours, right? And if you need do your biological needs, or like you humans say "go to the bathroom," you need to interrupt the journey, but what happens if there is no bathroom available? Do you use an empty bottle? Run to the bushes? For me it looks like an uncomfortable situation. What about if you go with infants? Human kids are famous on my planet because they don't have patience. I just think how horrible it should be driving a limited transportation device with someone complaining about snacks, that they are bored, angry, tired and of course the famous question, "Are we there yet?" I did not use Google; instead I used Wikipedia to find a definition. Wikipedia said that a road trip is: a journey via automobile, sometimes unplanned or impromptu. If it is unplanned how can you enjoy it? On my planet we do everything according to a previous plan; in fact, our life and society follow a big plan, a plan with everyone's contribution, as we call it, is a general consensus. Our vacations are different. What we do on our vacations is take a period of time to rest our mind. We do almost all activities using our mind; I know it is hard to explain this to you because your race uses a limited percentage of the brain, and your activities are more physical. For example, if we have something like your road trip, it will be something like mind travel where we close our eyes and we let the mind go away. Another example is how we select our guide, or as humans say, "the President." We call him a guide because we do not have countries. We are a huge community working for general benefits. To select our guide we use a general conscience. The process is like this: One day at a certain time we concentrate on our community needs and the general consensus creates a guide profile. After that, the name of the guide shows up in our mind and we start to follow our guide. How you feel about the process you have on your planet to select a guide? March 14, 2011 Dear Self,Still inside of these four walls looking for an answer which never arrives. The deeper you go, the more complicated it is to explain. It looks like you are inside a cell and cannot find a way out even if the doors are open. Every day you renew yourself with hope and sadness. With hope because since two years ago when your family life ended and your kids were taken away, you are still here walking and trying every day as hard as you can to start a new life. I know it is not easy but at least you try. I know your antagonist called Mr. "I don't believe in myself" is always there watching every step, hiding in the shadows waiting for the opportunity to poison any attempt or idea of rebirth and freedom. Don't worry. I know you are going to win this fight one day. You feel sadness because it still hurts. Not because of the person, but because of the whole situation. It is just unbelievable how people can change so much, even reaching a point when you don't know anymore who that person is. Now you are feeling the aftershock of the whole situation and it is still strong, still hard to swallow. Why did you come to this country? Maybe it was in search of economic benefits? Opportunities? What have you gained here? The biggest prize here is education. You got a good education, and at least you got the opportunity to learn a new language and finish a degree. Economic benefits are just a joke. With a market system which looks like a casino where banks bet with your money and when they loose the government helps them instead helping the people. Yep, it's a joke. The opportunities are not so different from those in your country, and there you are not an immigrant. Now stand up and walk tall. March 3, 2011 To Someone on Mars,Hello. Greetings from my planet Earth! Earth is the planet where I live. Well, we are pseudo-neighbors. Between you and me, we are separate by a long distance, but since we share the same system, I can say that we are neighbors. I don't know anything about your planet; in fact I know just basics facts. What I mean is I've never been there. How do you guys take vacations there? It should be kind of hard, right? I am saying this because you guys are surrounded by chemical gases, and methane in the air, and that creates very hot temperatures on your surface. The satellite pictures show that you do not have a highway system; but, of course, our pictures just show the surface. Maybe you guys have highways underground. The planet Earth provides many ways to spend a vacation. We can go to the beach, camping, or we can travel to another country. I am living in the USA, which is one of the earth countries. Here it is very popular to go on what we call a road trip; maybe you are wondering what a road trip is? Well, basically a road trip is having fun traveling by car without a destiny. Road trips also have some rules to make sure you are going to have fun:
Maybe you do not understand anything that I am talking about. A car? Travel? Countries? Vacations? I think those words just apply to earth. Anyway if you have any question just go to www.google.com I am sure you will find the answers there. February 20, 2011 Dear Brother,Just like Chile the U.S. provides many options to spend free time or vacations. I'm sure you can remember how fun those days were that we spent playing in the snow next to the Andes Mountains. We had so much fun making snowmen, angels in the snow, and of course our snow wars. I keep in my memories the times, after hours of play and games, when we enjoyed a family picnic, full of sandwiches, cakes, and hot cocoa. In the U.S. we also have those moments, but of course a little different, because now if I want to go, I have to drive for many hours. I live in San Mateo, a nice town close to San Francisco, so first if I want to go and spend sometime in the snow, I need to rent a big car with 4x4 because of the snow on the road. So that was what I did this weekend. I rented a 4x4 pickup loaded with my snowboard, boots, and a variety of warm clothes. I drove for more than four hours to reach Lake Tahoe a very famous place to practice snowboarding in California. For long weekends, many people go there to have fun. The TRAFFIC on the freeway to reach Lake Tahoe can be very busy, but at the end, it is worth it because the place is wonderful and beautiful. There are so many options to do over there. Today I went to practice snowboarding; the sport is quite fun, but is hard as well because you need lots of balance. I practiced for about three hours, and after that I was pretty tired. Even so, later I went on a trail, and at the end of the trail it was a frozen lake. I got many pictures and I will send you some next time. It has been fun on my trip to the snow, but I cannot compare it with the trips we had when we were kids. Love, Rogel February 8, 2011 Dear Brother,Hope all is going great with you in Barcelona, and I hope can go to visit you someday. I am writing you this letter to share something about American sports with you because they have some sports that are different than ours at home. For example, they have one sport that is called "baseball," which basically is hitting a little ball with a stick. I know it is more professional than that, and they must have some strategy. I need to confess, the first time I went to see a baseball was at the Giants field. We had very good seats, just next to the field in the 3rd row. Basically I was watching someone throwing a ball and the other one trying to hit the ball as far as he could. After that experience I felt that this game called baseball was super boring and a waste of time. If I compare baseball to soccer, baseball has a big lack of action. Last year the local team, called the Giants, played really well and went to the "World Series." By the way, the World Series is played just with American teams and some Canadian. I guess the term "World Series" is not really a world championship. Well, I guess that's the American way. So last year I started to pay more attention to the game, learn some rules, players' names, and to talk about the game with my friends. I also bought a Giants hat and I started to follow the World Series games. I didn't miss any game. I was cheering, jumping and screaming at every throw (or "pitch," I guess is what they call it). At the end I was very excited when the Giants won the World Series, and at the end I really enjoy this new sport for me. I have figured out that baseball has a lot of strategy and is not like my first vision of hitting a ball with a stick. The only thing I will never exchange is the soccer. Even though Baseball ended up being a good game, soccer is the king of sports for me, and I'll never exchange soccer for any other sport. My friends said to me, "Why do you get so excited?" "Why do you jump?" Why this or why that? Well I try to explain to them our way of experiencing sports with passion. Well, one day they will learn. See you next time with another American curiosity.  January 27, 2011 Dear Brother,I arrived in this country around seven years ago, and I have been learning about this new culture called "American Culture", but I don't know if they really have a unique culture or a mix of different cultures. I think the second option is more accurate. Don't worry; I'll explain to you why. Our country, Chile, has a very well defined culture, and almost all Chileans follow our cultural patterns. We know what is acceptable, what is moral, what is wrong and what is polite or not; however, it is not the same here in the U.S. It looks like it depends on where you are, or to be more specific, it depends on people's race, background or heritage. For example, for my Mexicans friends it is ok to drink heavily every weekend. That is normal for them; in contrast, for Americans, that is alcoholism. Do you remember when we were kids and we needed to ask permission to give our opinion or just to speak, brother! Here kids have almost the same if not more opinions than adults. They don't ask permission to speak at the table or to give their opinions about something that they do not have the minimum knowledge of. Here kids just speak and express themselves with total freedom, sometimes more freedom than adults. Do you remember the movies we used to watch on weekends -- those movies where most of people were blonde, blue-eyed, tall and athletic? Let me tell you this: IT'S NOT TRUE. The first day I arrived here, I took my daughter to the park because I wanted to see those movie stars. When I arrived at the park, there were all kinds of people, but not the ones we saw in our movies, and most of the people spoke any language but English. Brother I have been learning a lot about different cultures. I hope when I return to Chile you will be back from Spain so that we can share our experiences. Love you, brother |