Chile Bound

Since I'm meant to move to Chile in the next few months lots of people have been suggesting some great reading material for me to check out before I leave. The first thing I'm gonna be checking out is a trilogy by Eduardo Galeano called Memory of Fire, which is a history of Latin America starting from the around the 15th century and going through the mid-1980's. I reckon that will pretty much get me up to speed on my history lessons for the region. While looking for these books I saw that Galeano had a recent book called Voices of Time, it's written as small vignettes, very beautiful ones at that, anyways here's one of them..

The Voyage
Oriol Vall, who works with newborns at a hospital in Barcelona, says that the first human gesture is the embrace. After coming into the world, at the beginning of their days, babies wave their arms as if seeking someone.

Other doctors, who work with people who have already lived their lives, say that the aged, at the end of their days, die trying to raise their arms.

And that's it, that's all, no matter how hard we strive or how many words we pile on. Everything comes down to this: between two flutterings, with no more explanation, the voyage occurs.