Valparaiso is an olfactory smorgasbord. Nestled into a cove in Central Chile, it's a town that would prompt Liam Neeson to want to release the Kraken on its filth. The beautiful sea breeze wafts rotting fish, sewer water, and dried-out cat poop up into your welcoming nostrils.
Luckily for me, I love things that are slightly shitty. They appeal to me in that I-just-graduated-from-college-and-can't-afford-matching-furniture sort of way. Valpo, like Santiago, seems to have been constructed by a woman who has great taste in style but no matching fashion sense; stately art deco buildings are flanked by Swiss-style chalets are towered by slim San-Francisican-style tenant housing. Think Hell's Kitchen meets Lombard Avenue meets shanty town. Much of the housing is seemingly waif. Almost all the rooftops, though, are made out of sheet metal (as are the fronts of most of the buildings).
Valpo winds crazily up a series of cerros, or steep hills, where the sidewalk yields to a series of steps, like a staircase out of a M.C. Escher drawing. The city has hired a team of local artists to paint the otherwise grey stone buildings and cement walls, and everywhere you turn there is a fantastical mural or a bunch of guys fervently working on something new. In this way, Valpo is a growing comic book of pop art.
About halfway up Cerro Yuguay (spelling?) stands the Sunshine House, home of the talented Jeanette Hardy (whose blog you can find on the CIEE website or through the link here on my page). Tosh, Jackie, Matt, Laura and I slogged up with bottles of champagne and orange juice, sweating in the indian summer sun. We colapsed on Jeanette's makeshift deck (the boards aren't nailed in but are rather cleverly balanced on a wooden frame).
The Sunshine House makes much of material: its outside walls are drywall, sheet metal, wood, and glass, which explains the leaking Jeanette described after the tormenta they received; but the house is like the massive tree-fort mansion every adult secretly wishes they could live in. The rooms are big and bright, with whitewashed walls and distressed floors. Paper lanterns hang from the hallway ceiling. Outside the wooden portico curls upon itself in a series of whispy spirals, the cracked blue paint adding to the house's unending charms. We chilled with our mamosas and looked out on the rough Pacific Ocean and watched huge battleships sail in. I felt small in the wake of the ocean, but warm and relaxed in the company of friends.
We spent the afternoon exploring the insanity that is the city (a map of Valpo's streets exist, but it isn't at all helpful), coming upon neon-yellow and orange houses cheerfully setting in the afternoon sun. We faced undending bluffs and cliffs where the road abruptly ended or turned. A street vendor sold earrings carved out of avocado pits. Street dogs protected us from curious stray cats. My sandaled feet turned black in the street sludge. Music wafted from a reggae concert somewhere beneath us. A child offered me his half-eaten Chupa-Chup. I was loving it all.
As the sun set into the sea, I took refuge in a cafe. Sipping an iced mocha, I sighed into my chair, perfectly happy that I had escaped my city for a town that had as much growing up to do as I have. But I was so happy to come home to the order and elegance that my Bellas Artes pad has to offer, and to fall asleep to the noisy din of the bar below me, and, gently underneath, the purr of the night buses on their beat.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The World's Tiniest Violin Playing Just For You
On May 17th, 2009, Your Lovely And Witty Author Of This Blog walked her sandaled feet twenty feet across a platform and received her college diploma. There was smiling. There were proud tears. And then, after everyone cleared out and I was left to move myself in to a big, new, empty apartment, there was the sheer panic of not knowing what the hell I was going to do.
People expect great and extravagant things from bright young people. So clearly I felt I needed to be great and extravagant. But there I was, working part-time in a coffee shop where I made less-than-minimum wage. I really loved it. I loved smelling like coffee grounds and sweat. I loved mopping the black-and-white tile floor at the end of the night. I loved how the skin cracked on the backs of my hands from the bleach water in the disinfecting sink. I was so tired of being cerebral and I wanted to be off the map. I didn't want to be responsible and I definitely didn't want to be an adult. All I wanted was to be back in my dorm room the night before my graduation, where we slowly drank ourselves into a numb depression, feeling the final moments of camraderie, knowing we had battled through four years of growing up and making grades.
Thankfully after college, something happens. This thing is called Life. Life goes on. Life doesn't wait while you decide to be a baby and drag your feet. Life gets in your face and tells you to go call the Wambulance.
So I applied to Teach in Chile. I felt proud. I rose to the call of being a bright young adult. I was going to do something great and extravagant.
I didn't realize how long ten months really was, though. And I am sitting in my living room and I haven't showered all day and I'm eating four-day-old pasta and feeling bad for myself. Tomorrow I have to lesson plan for at least the next two weeks' worth of classes. Winter is setting in and it is flipping freezing in my apartment and the sun sets at 5:30 and all I have is this flimsy blanket and it sucks. It isn't at all glamorous. If Life told me to go call the Wambulance right now, I'd tell Life to shove it.
I remember feeling so excited when I received the opportunity to come down here. I sentimentalized it. I told myself it was going to be a dream experience; what I had always hoped and wished for. In many ways, it is. But on a day-to-day basis, it's still life. And life has its ups and downs. We are all feeling the reality of being without our support systems at home. We've settled in to life here, and it's adult life: we pay our bills, we cook our food, we go to work. We take crowded subways. We battle with sickness caused by the never-lifting cloud of smog over Santiago. Our computers crash; our Ipods break; I cause fires by burning toast on my gas stove.
But I have this really adorable roommate, Emma, who is French. And as I'm sitting in my sadness and my own unshowered filthiness, she comes flitting up to me, with a tomato in her hand, and she makes the tomato talk to me. It tells me in French-accented English, "Hello, I am a little lonely tomato. I do not know if I am your tomato. But now I am alone on the shelf and I need to be eaten because I am rotting. I used to be the prettiest little tomato of my company." And then she runs away, la-la-la-ing into the kitchen, squishes the tomato into a pulp in her tiny hands, and chucks it into the wok.
Life here is weird. But it throws you funny curveballs just when you need it the most.
People expect great and extravagant things from bright young people. So clearly I felt I needed to be great and extravagant. But there I was, working part-time in a coffee shop where I made less-than-minimum wage. I really loved it. I loved smelling like coffee grounds and sweat. I loved mopping the black-and-white tile floor at the end of the night. I loved how the skin cracked on the backs of my hands from the bleach water in the disinfecting sink. I was so tired of being cerebral and I wanted to be off the map. I didn't want to be responsible and I definitely didn't want to be an adult. All I wanted was to be back in my dorm room the night before my graduation, where we slowly drank ourselves into a numb depression, feeling the final moments of camraderie, knowing we had battled through four years of growing up and making grades.
Thankfully after college, something happens. This thing is called Life. Life goes on. Life doesn't wait while you decide to be a baby and drag your feet. Life gets in your face and tells you to go call the Wambulance.
So I applied to Teach in Chile. I felt proud. I rose to the call of being a bright young adult. I was going to do something great and extravagant.
I didn't realize how long ten months really was, though. And I am sitting in my living room and I haven't showered all day and I'm eating four-day-old pasta and feeling bad for myself. Tomorrow I have to lesson plan for at least the next two weeks' worth of classes. Winter is setting in and it is flipping freezing in my apartment and the sun sets at 5:30 and all I have is this flimsy blanket and it sucks. It isn't at all glamorous. If Life told me to go call the Wambulance right now, I'd tell Life to shove it.
I remember feeling so excited when I received the opportunity to come down here. I sentimentalized it. I told myself it was going to be a dream experience; what I had always hoped and wished for. In many ways, it is. But on a day-to-day basis, it's still life. And life has its ups and downs. We are all feeling the reality of being without our support systems at home. We've settled in to life here, and it's adult life: we pay our bills, we cook our food, we go to work. We take crowded subways. We battle with sickness caused by the never-lifting cloud of smog over Santiago. Our computers crash; our Ipods break; I cause fires by burning toast on my gas stove.
But I have this really adorable roommate, Emma, who is French. And as I'm sitting in my sadness and my own unshowered filthiness, she comes flitting up to me, with a tomato in her hand, and she makes the tomato talk to me. It tells me in French-accented English, "Hello, I am a little lonely tomato. I do not know if I am your tomato. But now I am alone on the shelf and I need to be eaten because I am rotting. I used to be the prettiest little tomato of my company." And then she runs away, la-la-la-ing into the kitchen, squishes the tomato into a pulp in her tiny hands, and chucks it into the wok.
Life here is weird. But it throws you funny curveballs just when you need it the most.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
What I Wish I Brought More Of (A.K.A., The Contents of My First Care Package)
Tampons. Tampons. Tampons. I don't think CIEE puts enough emphasis on just how hard it is to find tampons here (when you do find them, you get 8 for about $16 U.S. dollars), so I thought I'd just make it extra clear that you should dedicate one of your two suitcases to this necessary toiletry.
Magazines and Art Supplies. Surprise of surprises, Duoc has a lot less equipment to use in the classroom than I had expected (read: no audiovisual, sound, or internet resources exist in the English classrooms at my campus). So I've been turning to doing some easy and quick art projects to liven the mood a bit. But like any country, art supplies (especially paper here) are really expensive. Anything you can find that is cheap and reusable (markers, paper, paint, paper, brushes, paper paper paper) is incredibly helpful. Especially when Duoc surprises you and tells you that you will be teaching a Graphic Design course.
Julia Child. I set the oven on fire in my hometown's YMCA trying to bake a chocolate cake when I was six. We had to evacuate to the parking lot. It was the middle of winter. This experience adequantly summarizes my culinary skills. As Americans, we get so used to having things premade or cooking supplies prepackaged. Although prepackaged stuff does exist in Chile, it does not exist in the quantity, quality, or economically friendly way that it does back in the good ol' U.S. of A. So perhaps I would have brushed up on how to bake brownies from scratch (the mix I found here made brownies that were the consistency of rubber chocolate - I would have done better to bounce them across the floor than put them in my mouth), cook a mean pasta-and-fresh-vegetable dish, or learned how to make some sauces. The internet is a great resource for these things, and with YouTube and some help from the culinary gods, I've had some successes.
Any knowledge whatsoever of metric conversions. I couldn't even tell you what I weigh or how tall I am. Also, cooking becomes increasingly difficult when you cannot convert Fahreinheit to Celsius (and becomes downright impossible when your gas oven comes equipped with two settings: "On" and "Off").
Other good items to bring?
Razors
Shaving Cream
Lots of Medications (Tylenol, Immodium to be sure)
A coat (it DOES get cold down here)
A duplicate pair of your favorite shoes (you walk everywhere)
A library of books in English, if you like to read as much as I do. Books here are very expensive - usually $16-$40 U.S. for a paperback in English.
Magazines and Art Supplies. Surprise of surprises, Duoc has a lot less equipment to use in the classroom than I had expected (read: no audiovisual, sound, or internet resources exist in the English classrooms at my campus). So I've been turning to doing some easy and quick art projects to liven the mood a bit. But like any country, art supplies (especially paper here) are really expensive. Anything you can find that is cheap and reusable (markers, paper, paint, paper, brushes, paper paper paper) is incredibly helpful. Especially when Duoc surprises you and tells you that you will be teaching a Graphic Design course.
Julia Child. I set the oven on fire in my hometown's YMCA trying to bake a chocolate cake when I was six. We had to evacuate to the parking lot. It was the middle of winter. This experience adequantly summarizes my culinary skills. As Americans, we get so used to having things premade or cooking supplies prepackaged. Although prepackaged stuff does exist in Chile, it does not exist in the quantity, quality, or economically friendly way that it does back in the good ol' U.S. of A. So perhaps I would have brushed up on how to bake brownies from scratch (the mix I found here made brownies that were the consistency of rubber chocolate - I would have done better to bounce them across the floor than put them in my mouth), cook a mean pasta-and-fresh-vegetable dish, or learned how to make some sauces. The internet is a great resource for these things, and with YouTube and some help from the culinary gods, I've had some successes.
Any knowledge whatsoever of metric conversions. I couldn't even tell you what I weigh or how tall I am. Also, cooking becomes increasingly difficult when you cannot convert Fahreinheit to Celsius (and becomes downright impossible when your gas oven comes equipped with two settings: "On" and "Off").
Other good items to bring?
Razors
Shaving Cream
Lots of Medications (Tylenol, Immodium to be sure)
A coat (it DOES get cold down here)
A duplicate pair of your favorite shoes (you walk everywhere)
A library of books in English, if you like to read as much as I do. Books here are very expensive - usually $16-$40 U.S. for a paperback in English.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Down With Love (and Sentimentality)
Topping off at a whopping five feet three inches tall, there is nowhere in the world where I should feel like a giantess. However, there is something about men in Chile where they inconveniently don't grow much higher than my armpit. You can imagine how uncomfortable this is, especially when I have to reach up and grab a bar in a crowded, hot, sticky subway car when I've got Chilean man-nose up in my haven't-shaved-in-a-week-and-might-have-skimped-on-the-deodorant-today business.
A lot of people travel abroad with the expectation that they will fall in love. I think every travel-abroad-er has heard of at least half a dozen romance-novel-worthy love stories erupting from study abroad experiences. I, on the other hand, came with the expectation of being single for a year. I feel like I'm getting older quickly and I have to start doing things that are more serious than boy-chasing. I am reading and writing and teaching, and that takes up a serious portion of my time. I am being career-focused. And I feel like for the first time in my life I am settling into myself. It's nice to be single. I'm selfishly enjoying it. And I don't want any muchachos to get in my way of this nice little single-bubble I've created for myself.
Sitting at Bravissimo with the girls today (where else would we be but the ice cream shop?), our conversation quickly turned to various frustrations in Chilean dating endeavors. One of my roommates is still fuming after finding out that the guy she made out with last weekend at a party has a pretty serious girlfriend back in Ecuador. Another girl bristles about how aggressive the men are here. Yet another speaks of a man who is so opposite of the typical hombre that his lack of making a move is almost annoying. And, of course, we all balk at how munchkinlike Chilean men tend to be.
Connie sinks into my leather sofa Saturday evening, waving her wine at me as we catch up on our love lives. She left a relationship back home when we committed to teaching here, as have some other girls (we fondly refer to our at-home heartthrobs as "psuedo" boyfriends). She asks me about a young lad who has been doggedly pursuing me for the last month or so, and I tell her that every time I meet someone remotely interesting down here I can't help but think of a certain someone back home. "Isn't it nice how that works?" she pontificates, circling her wine glass in the air. "It just re-emphasizes how great our guys are back home."
I guess the truth is that the prospects of finding the "love of my life" here in Chile frankly scares the pants off of me (or, you know, keeps them on me). Don't get me wrong - I'd appreciate a good flirt once in a while, but otherwise, I don't want the complication of "falling in love" down here. I think about the obvious obstacles that would stand in the way of any sort of success: the language barrier; the cultural clashes; the eventual having to choose whether to stick around here or to go home to your family and friends, etc. Not really romantic anymore, once the thrill of your summer love wears off and you're left in the cold winter of reality.
However, it is dangerous to sentimentalize any romantic relationship - here OR back home. It causes unnecessary (and sometimes unreal) pain, not to mention myopia, thus unjustly eliminating an other side to the equation (in this case, dating Chilenos). This crosses over to sentimentalizing other things back home - friendships, jobs, food - which all cascades into sentimentalizing Home itself. Sentimentalizing is at the heart of all homesickness. So it would be wrong for me to say that Mauro, who isn't quite tall enough to smell my undeodorized armpit on the subway train, is a less viable option than any man back in the States. And if he doesn't mind that I'm a bit frazzled, and he thinks the way I squint my eyes when I smile wide is adorable, I might have to give him the chance to wine and dine me for the evening.
Just as long as he is content with a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night.
A lot of people travel abroad with the expectation that they will fall in love. I think every travel-abroad-er has heard of at least half a dozen romance-novel-worthy love stories erupting from study abroad experiences. I, on the other hand, came with the expectation of being single for a year. I feel like I'm getting older quickly and I have to start doing things that are more serious than boy-chasing. I am reading and writing and teaching, and that takes up a serious portion of my time. I am being career-focused. And I feel like for the first time in my life I am settling into myself. It's nice to be single. I'm selfishly enjoying it. And I don't want any muchachos to get in my way of this nice little single-bubble I've created for myself.
Sitting at Bravissimo with the girls today (where else would we be but the ice cream shop?), our conversation quickly turned to various frustrations in Chilean dating endeavors. One of my roommates is still fuming after finding out that the guy she made out with last weekend at a party has a pretty serious girlfriend back in Ecuador. Another girl bristles about how aggressive the men are here. Yet another speaks of a man who is so opposite of the typical hombre that his lack of making a move is almost annoying. And, of course, we all balk at how munchkinlike Chilean men tend to be.
Connie sinks into my leather sofa Saturday evening, waving her wine at me as we catch up on our love lives. She left a relationship back home when we committed to teaching here, as have some other girls (we fondly refer to our at-home heartthrobs as "psuedo" boyfriends). She asks me about a young lad who has been doggedly pursuing me for the last month or so, and I tell her that every time I meet someone remotely interesting down here I can't help but think of a certain someone back home. "Isn't it nice how that works?" she pontificates, circling her wine glass in the air. "It just re-emphasizes how great our guys are back home."
I guess the truth is that the prospects of finding the "love of my life" here in Chile frankly scares the pants off of me (or, you know, keeps them on me). Don't get me wrong - I'd appreciate a good flirt once in a while, but otherwise, I don't want the complication of "falling in love" down here. I think about the obvious obstacles that would stand in the way of any sort of success: the language barrier; the cultural clashes; the eventual having to choose whether to stick around here or to go home to your family and friends, etc. Not really romantic anymore, once the thrill of your summer love wears off and you're left in the cold winter of reality.
However, it is dangerous to sentimentalize any romantic relationship - here OR back home. It causes unnecessary (and sometimes unreal) pain, not to mention myopia, thus unjustly eliminating an other side to the equation (in this case, dating Chilenos). This crosses over to sentimentalizing other things back home - friendships, jobs, food - which all cascades into sentimentalizing Home itself. Sentimentalizing is at the heart of all homesickness. So it would be wrong for me to say that Mauro, who isn't quite tall enough to smell my undeodorized armpit on the subway train, is a less viable option than any man back in the States. And if he doesn't mind that I'm a bit frazzled, and he thinks the way I squint my eyes when I smile wide is adorable, I might have to give him the chance to wine and dine me for the evening.
Just as long as he is content with a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Off With Your Heads!
"Como sabes que ellas son mujeres?
-Porque tienen faldas!"
-McBeth, Performance at Museo Bellas Artes
If anyone had told me yesterday night that I would be bent over laughing while watching Macbeth, I would not have believed them. I mean, men in skirts get me every time, but Macbeth as a tragedy is so deeply ingrained in my head that it was difficult to even imagine how it could be turned into a comedy. The acting troupe outside Museo Bellas Artes, however, had no problem at all doing just that - and all it took was a few skirty kilts, some crossdressing men, a one-eyed Lady Macbeth, and a marijuana leaf.
In 2008, Chile celebrated the election of Sebastian Pinera, Chile's first right-wing president in 30 years, with a staunch sobriety. But seriousness and laughter even mixed at the inaugeration ceremony this past Februrary when, amidst three strong aftershocks, the Peruvian president explained in nervous laughter, "[The aftershocks] gave us the chance to dance for a few minutes."
Not everyone was laughing. Pinera's election was garnered by a thin margin, sparked mass controversy among political leftists, and provoked fear for more than a few Chileans for whom painful memories of Pinochet's dictatorship lingered. News articles in the United States and Chile alike spoke about the earthquake as almost good fortune for the new President, who would most likely have faced vicious criticism and protest on his inaugeration day had it not been for the changed mood of the country.
One month later, as the King of Scotland lie murdered in his bedchamber beneath a chilly autumn sky in Santiago, a Chilean MacDuff joked, "The stars exploded - WHOOM WHOOM! - A black cat howled, running past - MEOW! - Pinera was elected President - ACK! - and the moon dripped rain, but not any rain - IT WAS BLOOD!"
Pinera was ragged on throughout the performance, as the political backdrop of the play added more than enough fodder for witty one-liners and toeing-the-line digs. But the play also took the opportunity to have a hearty chuckle at the Chilean tendency to run out of minutes on their cell phones, to smoke a little too much pot, and to like some really gnarly 80's rock bands.
My eye mostly focused on the cross-gender performance aspects of the production. Lady Macbeth was played by the tallest man in the ensemble, and assumed a grizzly, deep voice, while her husband was portrayed as a small boy. Thinking about Chilean society - whose blood runs thick with machismo and patriarchy - the demasculinization of the men in the performance seems pretty clearly a sign of a failing, flailing, and wailing (literally, in the play) patriarchy. But it also calls attention to the masculinized woman as a kind of perverted symbol and a participating factor in Chile's social downfall, specifically pointed at the crippling effect that the earthquake had on the already fragile Chilean economy (and perhaps references former president Michelle Balechet's "slow" response to the quake damage). I do not know if this is what the scriptwriters intended, but the implications have me worried as to what extent Chile accepts the "modern woman," and overall how Chile views women as participants in building and running Chile's political and economic future.
The Bellas Artes performance of Macbeth had me in stitches, but most poignant is that the banter is set with the original play in mind. This makes the viewing a sobering experience, and calls attention to some very, very black humor. After the performance, Karla, Felipe and I took shelter from the cold in a cozy corner bar, and I asked them what the attitude currently was toward Pinera. The muscles in Felipe's face tightened, and he restrainedly said, "We will just have to see what happens." That's a pretty just answer - Chile has made its bed, and is now holding its breath, waiting to see how the next four years will play out.
-Porque tienen faldas!"
-McBeth, Performance at Museo Bellas Artes
If anyone had told me yesterday night that I would be bent over laughing while watching Macbeth, I would not have believed them. I mean, men in skirts get me every time, but Macbeth as a tragedy is so deeply ingrained in my head that it was difficult to even imagine how it could be turned into a comedy. The acting troupe outside Museo Bellas Artes, however, had no problem at all doing just that - and all it took was a few skirty kilts, some crossdressing men, a one-eyed Lady Macbeth, and a marijuana leaf.
In 2008, Chile celebrated the election of Sebastian Pinera, Chile's first right-wing president in 30 years, with a staunch sobriety. But seriousness and laughter even mixed at the inaugeration ceremony this past Februrary when, amidst three strong aftershocks, the Peruvian president explained in nervous laughter, "[The aftershocks] gave us the chance to dance for a few minutes."
Not everyone was laughing. Pinera's election was garnered by a thin margin, sparked mass controversy among political leftists, and provoked fear for more than a few Chileans for whom painful memories of Pinochet's dictatorship lingered. News articles in the United States and Chile alike spoke about the earthquake as almost good fortune for the new President, who would most likely have faced vicious criticism and protest on his inaugeration day had it not been for the changed mood of the country.
One month later, as the King of Scotland lie murdered in his bedchamber beneath a chilly autumn sky in Santiago, a Chilean MacDuff joked, "The stars exploded - WHOOM WHOOM! - A black cat howled, running past - MEOW! - Pinera was elected President - ACK! - and the moon dripped rain, but not any rain - IT WAS BLOOD!"
Pinera was ragged on throughout the performance, as the political backdrop of the play added more than enough fodder for witty one-liners and toeing-the-line digs. But the play also took the opportunity to have a hearty chuckle at the Chilean tendency to run out of minutes on their cell phones, to smoke a little too much pot, and to like some really gnarly 80's rock bands.
My eye mostly focused on the cross-gender performance aspects of the production. Lady Macbeth was played by the tallest man in the ensemble, and assumed a grizzly, deep voice, while her husband was portrayed as a small boy. Thinking about Chilean society - whose blood runs thick with machismo and patriarchy - the demasculinization of the men in the performance seems pretty clearly a sign of a failing, flailing, and wailing (literally, in the play) patriarchy. But it also calls attention to the masculinized woman as a kind of perverted symbol and a participating factor in Chile's social downfall, specifically pointed at the crippling effect that the earthquake had on the already fragile Chilean economy (and perhaps references former president Michelle Balechet's "slow" response to the quake damage). I do not know if this is what the scriptwriters intended, but the implications have me worried as to what extent Chile accepts the "modern woman," and overall how Chile views women as participants in building and running Chile's political and economic future.
The Bellas Artes performance of Macbeth had me in stitches, but most poignant is that the banter is set with the original play in mind. This makes the viewing a sobering experience, and calls attention to some very, very black humor. After the performance, Karla, Felipe and I took shelter from the cold in a cozy corner bar, and I asked them what the attitude currently was toward Pinera. The muscles in Felipe's face tightened, and he restrainedly said, "We will just have to see what happens." That's a pretty just answer - Chile has made its bed, and is now holding its breath, waiting to see how the next four years will play out.
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