Gringo Men

I have a private class with the most adorable children in the hemisphere who crack me up on a weekly basis. This past week V. mentioned her encounters with gringo men on her school trip, while C. impressed me with his knowledge of WWII. When he dropped the "Battle of Midway" in conversation I was stunned and immediately transported back to 9th grade Honors World History with Mrs. Dietrich. In retrospect, Mrs. Dietrich was something of an aging-Warhol-muse-hipster who tried to expand our minds with weirdo films. "Battle of Midway" was obviously part of the curriculum sent down from the School Board of Broward County to make students grateful for technicolor. However "Rapaccini's Daughter" and an ironic animated film about cathedral-making were obviously a ploy to shock our conservative suburban high school selves. Though most of my smaller-minded classmates wrote Mrs. Dietrich off for being a Nazi (okay, so showing pics of her sons in lederhosen raised one of my eyebrows), I dug her. I walked away from that class with this caveat: "Not all Germans were Nazis and not all Nazis were German."

After WWII, Chile and others in the Southern Cone-ish area seized an opportunity to populate the desolate south with Germans (and some Nazis). One in particular, Paul Schafer, set up a little commune called "Colonia Dignidad." Fast forward about 50 years and Paulie is in deep --pedophilia, cars at the bottom of rivers, underground tunnel systems. And, to add to the collection of conspiracy theories, a bag of bullets tagged "JFK." Now if I were Paulie I wouldn`t have made such an obvious tag. Something in the neighborhood of "Norma J's Revenge Pellets" or "Killer Back Relief Pills." But then again there's a reason they lost the war.

However, channeling Mrs. Dietrich, not all Germans were Nazis. At the end of the 19th century, the Chilean government gave land grants to many lovely Germans in the south of Chile. They came, made babies, and built quaint cottages. Of course in that era the south of Chile was booming. I caught "Subterra" the other day, a great film about a late-19th century coal mine in southern Chile. Misfits, anarchists, bougie girls with skipping rope, and dead canaries. The development of Chile since Independence in 1810 is linked with the development of mining throughout the country. Back in the day nitrate made northern Chile prosperous. Once a synthetic fertilizer was developed, the mines were closed and the north was re-embraced by the desert. Many of the small towns devastated by the recent earthquake represented most of the leftovers. My private student V. was touring these deserts, ghost towns, and random 5-star resorts when she happened upon some lovely gringo men.

...so in response to my fans, I have emerged from my silence to blog about Germans, the counter-culture, and Chile; and of course as Mrs. D loved to do, come full circle.