Mapuche Who?

In southern Chile, there is a group of indigenous people known as the Mapuches. They’re frustrated with the government for not caring enough about their traditions. I experienced their hostility on a P-day during my mission. I was in Osorno, the biggest “city” in our mission, on New Year’s Eve. We went downtown to mail letters home, and as we walked into the post office I noticed a Mapuche demonstration next door, outside the civic center. There were 100 people or so, some standing and some chanting and yelling. They were playing music, and some were even dressed in traditional Mapuche clothing. I thought nothing of it—just the other day a member was telling us there was always a “civil” demonstration going on.

So my companion and I are waiting in line, the window to the post office is open, and the music and chants continue. We’re almost to the counter when we hear a big “POP!” outside, and soon smoke starts filling the room. People are coughing and I feel this tight burning feeling in my throat. It was tear gas. I grab my poor greenie companion and we rush outside. People are everywhere—cops with gas masks, bystanders, Mapuches—there was so much gas and my eyes were so teary I could barely see. My ears were ringing and I felt shaky.

When we got to fresh air, we propped ourselves against a wall trying to recompose. We called the elders; they were not helpful. A member ran into us and laughed as we wiped our tears and blew our noses. He wasn’t surprised at the protest and told us to rub lemon juice on our faces to feel better.

In hindsight, it seemed funny to me that something so chaotic from my perspective seemed normal to another person. It was an isolated situation that only affected those near the incident. The rest of the city went about it's day as usual, as though the Mapuches weren’t even there.

Chaos on the Streets of London

I was standing with three of my friends at the bus stop for Bus 144—not a typical bus for us. It was just before 19:00 and we were running very late. Being Americans, we didn’t know we were about to enter London Rush Hour for the very first time.

Seattle & Snow: "A No Go"

             

The northwest corner of the state of Washington is known for many things, one of which is its weather. For a good nine months out of the year you can expect it to rain at least once every week. Natives to the area are so used to the precipitation it does not seem to bother most of them… until the temperature starts to plummet, conditions are just right, and a rare occurrence takes place creating absolute mayhem: snow starts falling. Because snow is so rare in this part of the country Seattle and most of the surrounding cities are very ill prepared for this type of weather. Worst of all are the roads which, after a good hour or two of snowy conditions, become indistinguishable from a demolition derby event.

                I witnessed one of these destructive events first hand as a missionary for the LDS church. Two other missionaries and I were driving a van and attempting to drive up an unplowed snow covered hill, which rounded around the bend to top it all off. Cars were literally stacked bumper to bumper, the brave (and yet ignorant) continued to try and make their way through the mess of cars, completely ignoring any sensible driving laws and painted lines on the road. We were jumping out of the van attempting to brace our van as it slid down the hill, nearly hitting a woman’s car. To top the day off a semi came and jack knifed down the middle of the hill, proceeding cars falling suite like a life size game of Tetris with cars as the building blocks.

 

                No longer do I ever complain about traffic laws, or other roadway authorities. Without them driving would be… well… not driving.

The Night I Lost It

Social chaos stirs from disagreement, and typically disagreement stems from a discrepancy in two aspects of human nature: emotion and logic. I experienced this myself when I was twelve.

October 31^st 2001, Julian and I went trick-or-treating, by ourselves, in his upper-class urban neighborhood. Sound harmless? Well, that night it wasn’t.

Kreshatik

Kreshatik: before and after

After my freshman year in college, I traveled to Kiev, Ukraine for an internship working in orphanages and children's hospitals. Between the long hours of commuting through the city and working, I would spend my evenings with my friends on Kreschatik street. Kreschatik is the center of Keiv and is home to one of the best places in the whole world: Roshen Chocolate. It is so good that I gained 30 pounds while I lived in Ukraine (mainly because of the chocolate, but also because of the soft-serve ice cream stand right outside.

During my evenings on the street I would notice a few tents set up here and there, but it took me a long time to understand why they were there. Apparently these were people protesting the government. Specifically, they didn't want the President to stop trying to enter the EU.

Luckily (especially from my parents' point of view) I was back in the United States before riots broke out, but a part of my life was still over there, and I became very worried for so many of my dear friends. During the initial fighting, I was in constant communication with my previous translators, the orphanage workers, and the kids. I heard stories of police men beating people to death and hiding their bodies in the forests. I heard my friend Zhenya explain how he didn't want to be called to fight because he didn't want to leave his three little girls. I heard that the missionaries and temple workers were all safe, not one of them had got caught in the commotion. I heard so many sad and horrible things from my friends who were right in the middle of the struggle.

The whole time this was going on, I felt so blessed to know that the temple, the temple workers, and all the members in Kiev were safe. Not a single person was harmed. Despite the chaos around, all of my loved ones were protected. What a blessing it was for all of the members to have a local authority that they could trust when the national authorities were thinking of other things.

Stop Smokey! Start a Fire!

Smokey the bear, our favorite forest fighting friend, has crafted guilt-inducing messages for years. His goal: to convict our consciousnesses and cause the cessation of careless human fire management. Indeed the horrific images of decimated forests coupled with cute depictions of cuddly forest creatures serve his purpose well. By the time a boy turns twelve and enters the ranks of the boy scouts he is firmly indoctrinated by Smokey the bear. I myself subscribe to his views. But I haven't always.

Zap, Crackle, Pop

Suddenly, I collapsed.
My coach, just a few feet away, ran over. Another across the gym rushed to her side. The other ushered the rest of the girls into the locker room. Somebody called the paramedics. They were only two minutes away, but you can't wait two minutes when your student's heart is no longer beating.

The two coaches started CPR; the girls in the locker room started to pray. Two minutes later, the paramedics were there; they stuck the shocky-shocky pads to my chest and let 'em fly.

Zap.

Didn't work. They charged 'em up again.

Zap.

In the meantime, the school office called my mom. In typical junior high administrator fashion, they spoke so calmly over the phone that my mom thought she would arrive to find me propped against the gymnasium wall, smelling salts under my nose.

Things were a little different.

She arrived to see the paramedics wheeling me out on a stretcher. They drove me to a hospital. They helicoptered me to another hospital. My lungs had filled up with fluid from the trauma. They dunked me into a medicated coma. I vibrated on a breathing machine for the next four days, a tube hanging from my greenish, half-open lips. My friends prayed. My family prayed. My ward prayed.



Then, on Friday, I woke up.

With a sigh that echoed like an avalanche through my little social world, the chaos subsided. We were amazed with what we saw when the smoke cleared.

A cloudy February day and a muddy track, which made the students practice inside. Coaches and doctors who had stepped up and acted with haste and precision. Paramedics who had done the wrong thing, which turned out to be the right thing. Love and care from the school administration.

And suddenly, it was very clear that a higher Authority had been above it all.

The Snowpocalypse

I am from Georgia. About as South as you can get in the United States, before hitting Florida (which we don't count as the South, anyways.) As you can imagine, it rarely snows where I'm from. (You can imagine my shock when I first moved to Utah.) And when it does snow, due to the lack of of snowplows, salt machines, and any other gadget that would help clear up the roads, the entire city, nay, the entire state, shuts down - even for just a small flake or two. Georgia has still had its experiences with a few bad snow storms - the city shuts down, grocery stores are ravaged, and the greater Atlanta area looks mostly like a ghost town. In these instances, Southerners, who don't know what to do about snow that actually sticks to the ground, tend to freak out about where their next meal is going to come from. If the roads are blocked and the stores are empty, how are they going to get food? (Shameless plug for food storage.)

Last year in 2014, Georgia experienced one of the worst snow storms in the state's history. "Tuesday's storm, the beginning of mass hysteria," "Ordinary commutes turned into chaos and confusion," were only a few of the headlines that graced the papers that week, and the storm quickly gained the name of the "Snowpocalypse." Atlanta's few major highways were all closed due to dangerous and icy conditions, and after being stuck on the roads for more than 24 hours, people abandoned their cars and literally started walking along the side of the highway to seek shelter. The city was compared to a scene from the hit TV show, "Walking Dead."

I was at home visiting and happened to be with my mother in a local grocery store, where we saw two women start to catfight over what was left of the milk in the dairy isle. When the first slap was thrown, my own fearful mother quickly grabbed my hand and we left. A store worker ended up breaking the two women up, but no one else said anything because everyone was in the same boat. They were all desperate for milk.

Though the weather conditions in Georgia were bad at that time and everyone had to stay in due to the major traffic jam on the roads, I knew eventually it would clear up. It scared me to think how crazy some people could get over minor things when they thought the world was going to end, or more specifically, their world. This mob mentality seems to be prevalent even in some of the nicest, hospitable, small Southern towns like Dacula, Georgia.