Chile Day

My friend invited me to her house for Chile Day. We ate fantastic food with her family and friends, and we danced till 2 am. The older couples danced La cuenta to traditional Chilean music with white handkerchiefs for dramatic emphasis. Their children put on Brasilian and reggae variations of the same. The next generation down fought in a heap over the contents of the pinyata.
I had to dance barefoot in the end because my boots were restricting my feet.
There was a boy from the Dominican Republic who had me completely entranced. He was beautiful and he managed to lead the whole room when he was dancing. He danced with all the older women in a way that was sexy enough to be flattering but respectful at the same time. I looked at his hand on a woman's back. It made kind of an 'S' shape as he held her. He was guiding her in a really subtle but amazing way. He was setting a limit for her body without restricting the ebb and flow of the dance.
The father of one of the gorgeous Latino girls told me about growing up in a shanty town in Chile. His parents had no money and sent him out to look for food. He did not find food as often as he found books, and he taught himself to read English and French.
In order to stop Pinochet's special police force from literally washing out their homes with water cannons, the people of la favela erected a Chilean Flag in it's centre. This made the site untouchable and they named the shanty La Victoria. A. is writing the stories of his childhood, and has said he will show me the photos he took recently when he returned to visit the place in which he grew up.
This week is an different anniversary for the Chilean people. A. said that Allende was a socialist and told me that when he saw the twin towers go down he thought he was watching a re-run of a bad disaster movie. He was not happy to see those people die, he said, but that date should also remind the US of what they did to Chile.