Tsuris

Ugh.

so today we started the registration process for classes and its absolute hell. imagine searching through courses for two universities of over 25,000 students each. and everything is in spanish. and most classes dont have descriptions. or professors. or timetables. and half of the classes aren't even listed yet. and won't be until two weeks into the semester. and there's no information online. so its old-school catalogs. and you have to get passes approved from some classes. which means walking to the actual building (and each university has a million campuses all across the city) and having some secretary fill something out. and classes start on monday.

pain. so much pain. so much.

but to make it better...here is a full-grown man dressed as a full-grown Tellytubby chasing someone down the street. As my profe said, "Bienvenidos a Chile."

Carreteando

Graffiti is everywhere in Santiago, a recent addition to the city since the era of the dictatorship. The thinking during Pinochet's reign was that a clean city signified that everything was running smoothly. Which also meant censorship and authoritarian control of public space. So, in a way, graffiti is not a blemish on the city--it is an expression of freedom.

We just finished our first week of classes/orientation with CIEE and I'm getting ready for the next one. We meet every day from 10 AM to 6 PM in a conference center right across the street from Palacio La Moneda, the main government building where the coup went down in 1973. Every day we have several lectures from local professors and we usually watch a movie/documentary or take a tour of the area. We've covered everything from torture techniques employed during Pinochet's reign to the development of the Chilean film industry (if anyone wants a great Chilean movie, check out Machuca).

Highlights of the week:

•Visiting one of Pablo Neruda's three homes, La Chascona. It's named after the Mapuche word for curly, a reference to the unruly hair of his mistress and second wife, Matilde, for whom Neruda wrote Los versos del capitán (Look out for Rosario, the codename he gave Matilde) .The boat-themed house was as eccentric as Neruda was himself--with three bars (one for friends, one for him and Matilde and one for poets), a man-made river running in between the buildings connected by winding staircases, and art from all over the world, including original pieces by Diego Rivera and Picasso made just for Neruda.

•My first empanada on the street. Delicious.

•Finding REAL coffee for once. Most of the coffee here is instant (my mother even warned me my father would refuse to visit just based on that fact), but luckily we found one cafe that actually sells real coffee. Though I hate to admit that I'm getting used to instant. Which is really really sad after Guatemala.

•Manjar. It's the Chilean version of dulce de leche but so much better. And I eat it like it's my job.

Friday night we all went to a big dinner together to meet our arrieros--literally shepherds--who are local uni students who are going to help us with the transition. During our dinner a local artist played Chilean folk music for us.
Afterwards Maggie and I decided to go out so we made our way to Barrio Bellavista, a very popular bar/shopping neighborhood in the heart of the city. It was about 12 at that point, but things were barely even getting started. We wandered into a random discoteque called Tu Tu Tanga, met two Chileans who invited us to dance (mostly reggaeton) before making our escape to sit in a central plaza and drink tea until 3:30 AM. It was still absolutely packed when we caught a cab home and made friends with the cabbie, who proceeded to radio his other taxista friends to ask about good places for us to go dancing. We retired to Maggie's twin bed and woke the next morning to have instant coffee (of course) and bread with manjar (of course).
It took me a good hour to get home (DAMN transportation). But the day was beautiful and I decided to go for a run to check out the neighborhood. It's a really nice residential area, if not kind of bland, and I'm still really trying to figure out who decided that it would be a good idea to put 50 little parks all within two blocks of each other. Anyway, I ran up towards the cordillera of the Andes--that still gets me every time, that the mountains are a constant backdrop here.

I met up with Maggie again a few hours later to go to her host brother's 25th birthday party. We made sushi (for some reason the Chileans LOVE sushi) and drank pisco sours and danced salsa and talked the night away entirely in Spanish. We were the only gringas there and it just felt so much better than walking around in a pack of 40. That was kind of how I had imagined this trip to be, so it gives me hope for the next few months that it really is possible to make Chilean friends and to avoid constantly being in a massive group of gringos. We got back to Maggie's house and crashed at around 4.

Breakfast was: instant coffee and bread with manjar. Then Maggie's host sister took us out to Los Dominicos, a little artisan village in the city. It was a lovely excursion. I feel like Maggie's host family is adopting me as their second host daughter just because of how much time I spent there this weekend. So now I have two Chilean families.

So lesson of the story: I'm feeling much more confident about my time here. I'm beginning to see Santiago in a new light and I can't wait for real life to get started...

Llegar a gustar con el tiempo

With time, I grow to like Santiago more and more.

When I woke up this morning after a rainy night, the cordillera of the Andes was blanketed with snow and the mountaintops were bright and clearly visible from my casa chilena. Despite my 8-AM-wake-up-call, despite my growing frustration with my seemingly endless commute, despite my weariness of the Spanish language, despite missing the familiarity and ease with which I am used to navigating the States, despite all of that, the Andes reassured me that all is not lost.

I thought I was so above the idea of culture shock, I thought I had this down, but I was overconfident. I've definitely been up and down in the week that I've been here, sometimes exhilarated by the newness of it all, sometimes exhausted by it, sometimes ready to take a year off and move to Latin America, sometimes ready to hop a flight back to the States right now. But being surrounded by the beautiful Andes is a constant, and it's the constant that's keeping me sane.

Today we visited one of Pablo Neruda's houses in Barrio Bella Vista, a neat, funkier part of Santiago. Afterwards we wandered for a bit through the artisan markets and cafes, finding ourselves in front of one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen. Just as the sun was dipping below the frosty tips of the Andes, the sky a bright orange and pink, I realized that I can really come to love Santiago. It might take me more time than I had anticipated, but it will come...

September 11

There is a main thoroughfare in Santiago called September 11 Avenue. It's not the September 11th you would expect. In fact, my host mother told me the U.S. stole the date.

On Sept. 11, 1973, Salvador Allende and his popularly-elected socialist government was overthrown in a golpe de estado (o sea, coup) and what followed were 15 years of the oppressive and violent dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Or at least that's how we were taught it in the States...

We spent the day (our first day of our Chile Contemporáneo class with CIEE) learning about the basic recent history of Chile from the coup to today. We began with a lecture from a Universidad de Católica profe on the Transition to Democracy, followed by a tour around La Moneda, the central government building where the coup all went down, followed by a documentary on the coup itself. (Obviously we had time for a cafecito and a few galletitas in between.) It was a great basic introduction, especially since I knew next to nothing except that Allende=socialist hero to the working masses and Pinochet=terrorist and asesino (an obviously limited and far far far too simplistic breakdown). It was fascinating to hear more about the political and social context behind the coup and I can't wait to learn more, especially about the involvement of the CIA (big surprise there that the U.S. dirtied its hands in the messy affair).

Our lecturer threw in some of his personal commentary while telling us about the coup, including that he had met Pinochet on several occasions and that the man himself was not exactly intelligent or bright at all. He didn't even know about the coup until it was already in progress. Pinochet was more of a puppet than a grand orchestrator. The profe told us that Pinochet barely knew how to hold conversations and had to read off of teleprompters every time he gave a speech. It's always surprising to learn about the personalities of characters who have become so canonized--whether negatively or positively--in popular culture. Even the infamous masterminds of human rights violations on such huge scales have their human faults.

After wandering the streets of Santiago in search of a librería to buy notebooks since I am here to study after all, I hopped on the metro (¡ya que soy experta!) to get home. Marta, my host mother, was off to her weekly Bible group (she has a photo of the Pope above her bed) but she made sure to make me a full dinner (I'm still getting used to the whole mothering thing...it's quite odd to me still). I sat down to a lonely table since the kids were all busy, but I was quickly joined by Miguel, my host father who is usually pretty quiet. And thus began one of the most interesting discussions I've ever had in my life.

I mentioned I spent the day learning about the coup and about the transition to democracy. To which Miguel responded: "¿Qué democracia?" To which I responded (in my head): "Uh oh...here we go...."

I'd heard tell of study abroad students living with upper-middle class families who supported Pinochet, but little did I know I'd be one of them. But before jumping to any conclusions I decided to investigate further. Besides, what do I know of Pinochet? I've really only had today's brief introduction. So Miguel definitely knows more than I do so I may as well hear what he has to say.

It turns out that Miguel, who grew up in Iquique, a saltpeter mining town in the North, despite his working class upbringing, is a clear supporter of La Derecha, the more conservative political line--literally The Right. I asked what he thought of the 3,000 dead and missing persons during Pinochet's reign and he said he didn't know anything about numbers or statistics but that he did know that there were dead people on both sides. He blamed a lot of deaths on the "terroristas" of La Izquierda (the left). I couldn't help but compare his statement to the denials of the Holocaust--which I know was completely unfair of me and it's a totally separate affair but still, I guess that's the lefty in me coming out. Anyway, so it turns out Miguel moved to Santiago in 1969, one year before Allende was elected to the presidency. Allende actually lived only a few blocks away from where we live now in Las Condes (oddly enough his home has been converted into a nursing home, not a museum as expected). Miguel saw the planes overhead on Sept. 11 as they headed to Allende's house and shot down at it.

He also showed me a book that was published by the Pinochet government about the "real" events that took place on that day. It was like holding a piece of history--a piece of pure propaganda that belongs in a museum as a historical relic and not on a bookshelf in an educated urban household. So that's my prejudice coming out again...

So I tried to understand him better...I asked him about more current affairs, like Los Pingüinos, a group of student protesters as young as 14 who have been fighting for better public education. They have completely interrupted daily life here, shutting down the universities for as much as a month and a half at a time. The recent scandal is that a 14-year-old girl threw a jug of water in the face of the Minister of Education. Miguel's response: the state of public education is a mess, it's true, but the solution is a stronger hand at home. Chile, he says, has lost its values and the fault lies with the parents at home. What these children need, he says, is someone to spank them and teach them right from wrong. I told him I believe that violence is never justified. He said that hitting a child once so that they learn is not violence. So that was quite a point of contention...He also blamed a lot of the protests on the delinquency of today's youth--they are always drinking and smoking, he says. This is going to be an interesting 5 months, I'm thinking all the while...

Then I asked him about the newspaper El Mecurio that we get every morning with our pancito and tecito and manjarcito (and as you can tell, everything is "cito," which is a diminutive suffix). He said that it leans more to the right so all of the Izquierdistas say it tells lies. And La Nacion, the newspaper of the left, I ask? Lies, Miguel says. And besides, the Izquierdistas don't even know how to read! WHAT?!?! I couldn't contain my surprise at that comment. Absurd.

When he made a comment about how "los negros" in the States are the cause of all urban problems because they are constantly smoking and drinking, I knew it was time to end the conversation for the night. I corrected him gently and then excused myself from the dinner table. Frustrating conversation overall, but also very very enlightening. I'm glad I put myself out there and ventured to argue with him on some points while still allowing him room to explain his views. I also learned it's much more difficult to hold an argument in a non-native language...

Luckily I found a different topic of conversation with Carmen Gloria, my host sister, who showed me photos of the two Yorkies as puppies and told me about her preparation to become an elementary school teacher. Much lighter fare.

So tomorrow I'm off for another lesson in Contemporary Chile...I hope it's as interesting as tonight has been...

El comienzo...

So I arrived in Santiago de Chile last Wednesday, which would make this already my fifth day in Chile. ¡No se puede creer! I'm all moved in to my new home for the next five and a half months with my familia chilena and everything seems to be moving so fast.

But to back up a bit, I arrived here after only three days back in the States with my familia estadounidense. Everything has been such a whirlwind of travel and change and Spanish and I'm still not quite used to the idea that I'm no longer in Central America, not to mention the U.S. To be honest, I really miss Guatemala and I've been told on several occasions that I have a Central American accent in Spanish.

But I know that very very soon that will be replaced with a castellano chileno. I've already picked up a ton of local slang and it's been surprisingly easy to incorporate it into my daily vocabulary. I'm also having a great time speaking in Spanish with my family. By the end of this trip I'm determined to have improved my fluency by leaps and bounds. I'm already dreaming and thinking in Spanish, making it quite difficult to compose this blog without a bit of Spanglish. I apologize in advance for any confusion and feel free to make use of my best friend, wordreference.com, if you need translation.

So anyway, I met up with the 43 other students in my program and after some basic introductions to Chile and a night out at a salsateca, we moved in with our host families. Mine consists of two parents (the father, Miguel, is a retired banker, the mother, Marta, a stay-at-home-mom as is customary in the machista culture here), two brothers (Jose Miguel, a 26-year-old lawyer-to-be, and Juan Pablo, a 19-year-old student) and a sister (Carmen Gloria, a 23-year-old education student). All the kids live at home since most people in Chile live at home until marriage. They live in Las Condes, an upper-middle class part of town, in a one-story house. It's small but comfortable. The only downside is that very few people in Chile have central heating so the calefont (radiator-type heater) is the most popular location in the house. It's definitely winter here.

I spent the weekend just kind of getting used to the house, eating with the family and reading a ton and exploring the metro and the neighborhood. Some things I'll have to get accustomed to: my 45-minute commute to school every day, eating some variety of bread with almost every meal, dinner at 9:30 PM and just in general living with a family again. It's been two years since I've lived in an actual house with rules and customs and parents.

One thing I won't need any time to get used to: la once. It's the Chilean version of tea time and it's basically tea or coffee with bread and tons of spreads and cheese and cookies or some other sweet. As many of you know, I could live on a diet of bread, cheese, chocolate and wine. (The wine in Chile, by the way, really is as incredible as they say....and you can find it for $2 a bottle in the supermarket!). So la once is a new favorite of mine...

Walking through Santiago is a surprising experience since the city is far more spaced out and far more homogeneous than I expected. The people of Chile are very European in look and style (imagine all black outfits and all black hair and all grim stares straight ahead). It's quite a change from Guatemala City where everything is color and warmth and "Buenas tardes," but Santiago is not all that different from the streets of New York. They even call Las Condes "Sanhattan."

There are cafes (and sadly Starbuckses) on every corner and an abundance of banks and pharmacies for some unknown reason. The buildings are definitely skyscraper height but they are further apart so there is a lot of awkward unused space in between. In my neighborhood there are three little parks and playgrounds within a few blocks of each other. It will be quite interesting to view this experience in Santiago through the lens of my Urban Studies background, and I'm always thinking in terms of the use of public space and private space and people and design. We have yet to sign up for classes, but I'm definitely interested in examining the city further, so I'll be looking for that in my studies.

I'm also planning on taking a Salsa class. I'll keep you updated...