The 1980s time warp

Another Storysack meeting this morning at DD1's school and happily Maria-Luz, the aptly-named and truly inspirational teacher was back leading the session with her infectious enthusiasm, this time on how to make a short animated film. I was suitably impressed... and reassured that the school does in fact possess some modern technology and is applying this towards enhancing positive learning. Phew... so we are in the twenty-first century here after all. Often one could be forgiven for thinking travelling this close to the edge of the world involves some kind of time-travel backwards of around thirty years or so, a suspicion which is reinforced by the relentless soundtrack of the early 1980s played in every shop, taxi, hairdresser's, children's party or similar public situation. Especially of the US variety (think Foreigner, Journey, the Bangles, Cyndi Lauper, Hall and Oates etc and you begin to get the idea). Either that or someone has meticulously and rather eerily tried to recreate the 1980s, like a kind of audio version of The Truman Show... Apparently according to some sources this obsession with the music of 1980s is due to what was going on in Chile at the time, ie a slow but determined reaction to the years of repression due to the presence of the military regime and a reawakening or stirring of the senses amongst those who had suffered and put up with so much. Sometimes it is hard to conceive of this happening during our lifetimes as recently as the latter part of the twentieth century, while back in the free Western world some of us were yet to enter adolescence while the same music formed part of the background. But shocking or not it is true and it explains a lot about Chile and its people today...

Talking of time travel, we are about to go back to the future as it were tomorrow as DD1's school breaks up for its two-week-long winter holiday today. Thus we will have a taste of the European summer in July as opposed to snow-based activities on offer in the Andes. Just as we were beginning to get used to the winter too...