Acid Rain and the Three Sandras

Unlike John Denver, I might hesitate before claiming to be a country boy i.e. when the sun comes up back home in Collegeville the cakes are far from the griddle because I am still asleep. That being said, I also think this weekend in Chile’s capitol proved it’s very safe to say that I am even further away from being a city slicker.

In terms of its population and density, Santiago is about twice the size of Chicago. It also seems to be impossible to get around unless you really know exactly how to get to where you’re going. For example, although my host mother goes there about once or twice a month for her job, she had to call a friend who lived in the city (and who also used to be a cab driver) to drive out and meet us at the exit and escort us through the labyrinth of often unnamed streets that is Santiago.

My first encounter with Santiago involved our plane touching down at the airport over three(!) weeks ago. In fact, at first we didn’t think we had actually landed, as the landing was soft and it was so foggy/cloudy that we could barely see the ground from our window. A couple of weeks before I left for Chile, I was skimming some words from Isabel Allende—a Chilean author who describes Santiago as a city so contaminated that precipitation falls in the form of acid rain that has absorbed the cities pollution. At the time, I merely thought her description was a literary exaggeration to create a dramatic effect. Now I see that Santiago is smokier than a thousand forest fires. But all hyperbole aside, the air in the city is visibly contaminated, as seen by the pictures below (although they downplay the extent of the smog because the sun pierces it during the day). What compounds the problem in Santiago is the presence of thermal inversion, where cold air is held down, concentrating the pollution and smog within the city during winter months (August being one of them). All the pollution thus (un)naturally creates a tangible stench within the city confines, odors that can either be avoided if you’re wealthy enough to dine at finer restaurants or added to on your own inconspicuously.  

Now this all sounds like an indictment on Chile’s capitol, which it is not meant to be. My personal gripes have nothing to do with the wonderful people that live there. For starters, my host mother’s friend and her daughter gave up their beds in their tiny apartment to accommodate us three (both of their names also happen to be Sandra, bringing the count now to three including my own host mother). And to be sure, the Chileans I spent the evening with were fantastic as well. My host brother and I went to what I guess we can call a house party, or some sort of gathering of adolescents which involved anything from talking about Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother to playing instruments on Rockband. This game proved to be hilarious as an apparently tone-deaf chilena who also didn’t know English was given the microphone when we played Bohemian Rhapsody, a song to which both qualities are necessary. Needless to say, her friends made her sing it again and we all agreed it had been a while since we’d laughed so hard.

All that being said, I still prefer to be outside of the hustle and bustle from under the smog. Even my host mother admitted Santiago is exhausting for her, and we all simultaneously exhaled sighs of relief as we exited the city limits and came upon views of Viña sweet Viña. it's not the hills of Collegeville, but it's home for now.

JJ

La Serena

Most of the time, I prefer to be organized when it comes to planning something like say, a weekend trip to a city 400 kilometers north of where I live. But that was far from the case as we gringos boarded an overnight bus to La Serena, Chile, last Wednesday night—the 14th, for you few keeping track. I hope this is one of, if not the only, entry where it’s more chronological and journal sounding, but if you make it to the end you may read about our possible encounter with the best soccer player in the world today. Again, I will try to make this as less of a diary entry as possible. So,

Dear diary!

We wanted to go somewhere this weekend as we had four days of it. Thursday was the feast of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption in Chile. Coupled with the fact that we don’t have classes on Fridays in the first place, our long weekend was in place. You might ask How can you learn or study in Chile if you get long weekends all the time? And if you are a certain duo of parents back home in central MN you might also be asking yourself something like Why are we helping finance our son abroad if he just gallivants around the country on weekends? I can’t answer either of questions, but I can tell you about this weekend that easily was the most random one yet here in Chile.

‘Plans’ started to move faster than I would have preferred. A friend of mine bought some of us bus tickets the night before, this before we even had lodging for the weekend in La Serena. We attempted to reserve a cabin, but that fell through a mere four hours prior to boarding the bus, for reasons still unknown. Thus commenced what some in our group (surely not I) affectionately call gringo shitstorm. At this point, there were 17 of us from CSB/SJU with tickets on a bus for six hours north with a return on Sunday, yet still no place to sleep those three nights. A flurry of Facebook messaging ensued, continuing for over two hours before I finally just reserved a room at a hostel with 6 beds in it and said first come first serve. After a while, everyone seemingly had places to stay. But after our previous cabin debacle, everyone was wary of reserving a place to stay over the internet. But hey, it was the eve of the Assumption, why not make a few assumptions ourselves??

La Serena translates into calmness or tranquility, adjectives we earnestly sought to emulate as we grumbled exhaustedly through the streets of the town with the same name at 5:30 in the morning. In an effort to do so, we thought it was best to attempt to yell directions to one another over the din of the ten or so street dogs that had steadily joined our group and were now barking at the top of their lungs. After an hour or two of getting lost and going in circles (if you’ve ever seen Balto, you’ll understand why I wanted to start scratching tree bark off at this point) we finally found the hostel where the rest of the group would stay. We then wandered around for a few more hours before noon, when our small group of six was able to check into our hostel, Hostel Andes (the mountain range, not the owner of Woody and Buzz). After a nap and a bite to eat, we were informed that the other group had already commenced consumption activities usually reserved for later in the evening. Feeling thoroughly left out, we decided to nap again to make ourselves feel better, followed by dinner, card games, and an early night.

The following day started off as no more exciting. But we made plans to go to the Mamalluca observatory in nearby Vicuña later that night, and after a wonderful home cooked meal of spaghetti with a hint of sauce (our one packet failed to go as far as hoped) we were on our way. After our rickety drive, we were soon taking turns looking through large telescopes at various planets moons, stars, constellations etc. What was almost more impressive were the shots my friend Craig was getting with his camera that made mine look like a Kodak disposable (he said with pride). Since Vicuña is in the boonies there is little to no light pollution, leaving ample photo opportunities that awed us as well as an Australian couple nearby who by nights end I concluded surely had found some local cannabis stash. Either that or everything I said that night must have been hilarious (I’m sticking to the latter though). Following this was a presentation in the planetarium about our expanding universe, in which our presenter ended by zooming out further and further from the earth into universes and galaxies we will most likely never know. We could not have felt more insignificant as human beings after this night.

 The next day (17^th) we were up early for a tour of Valle de Elqui, an area near the observatory that is known for its vineyards that produce the grapes used in the Chilean alcoholic drink, pisco. Our driver to the brewery was also our tour guide, and while we were in the drinking and party room of the man who founded the place, he explained that the trap door in the middle of the room was used when the wives of the party-goers would stomp over to this building, knowing their spouses to be there. But after hearing her knock, the men would hide the sought after husband(s) in the trap door before the front one was unlocked, then proceed to convince the wife that her husband must still be out in the field. This left many of us, Bennies and Johnnies both, shocked and anxious to add such a secret room to our future houses. What made this whole day much more of an adventure was that there was a man on our same tour who looked exactly like Lionel Messi, but seeing as we never asked we will never know. But, I’ll still tell my children I met the best soccer player in the world when in Chile.

If you stuck this one through to the end, I’m sorry to have made your Monday worse.

And if you’ve ever watched the Red Green show, I’m pullin for ya, we’re all in this together.

Have a good week.

JJ 

Mama chilena

I feel it would be a disservice to go into detail about any Chilean adventures I have had so far without first describing the family that I have come to claim as my own in the short amount of time I have been here.

Here in Viña I share a two-story rowhouse with my host mother, Sandra who is 47, and her fourteen year old son, Elías. And while some might say there's a small chance I'm biased on the matter, I think it's safe to say I got pretty damn lucky when it came to host family placement, particularly when I think about how incredible my host mother is. This isn't to say she's the only reason I'm thankful for where I was placed. To be sure, the fact that I'm two blocks from the bus stop is an enormous advantage and one that I know my surgically repaired and recovering knee thanks the karma gods for. Also, I credit my host brother for giving up 'only son' status to share the affection and food that Sandra freely imparts. Going on fifteen and having a foreigner live in the next room for four months can be a dubious and angsty combination, and I thank him for slowing down his adolescent speech as well as even laughing at my jokes that are awful in either language (another side note about my good luck: Elías loves basketball. I could not have planned this, people). But polytheism and puberty aside, my host mom is simply wonderful.

Sandra Díaz has her degree in Physical Education, which demonstrates yet another stroke of good luck as she has shown me exercises I can do that won't put stress on my knee. But after teaching for a few years she decided to pursue a career in banking. Having worked her way up the banking ladder, she is now the executive of a branch of Itaú, a bank with various locations throughout Chile, including here in Viña. Having divorced Elías' father a year or two ago (said ex is now on his third family), I am reminded each day of just how hard she works for her and her son(s!): Every day of the week she is up early to make us breakfast before we each leave for our school/work. She then returns at 2 to make us lunch, only to go back to work right after and not return until after 6. Such work ethic I think is only rivaled by my own mother who has been known to work 10-12+ hours regularly because she "had some work she wanted to finish up first (clearly her definition of 'some work' differs from that of the rest of humanity). And after all of this, Sandra still finds time to clean the house, wash every dish by hand after every meal, make our beds (though I try my hardest) and do the laundry.

But don't let the professional attire or her refusal to let us do any domestic chore fool you, my host mom is anything but strict or harsh; she loves to have a good time and makes sure I do as well. For starters, I was the first student from our group to be picked up and thus, scared shitless, an idiom I use very metaphorically here as airline food would have made my first meeting with Sandra go Southwest™. But she was very careful in slowing down her rapid chilean spanish so a gringo could get a clue. One of the first things she did when we reached her house was to pour me a glass of Pisco, Chile's signature drink, claiming that it would loosen me up and my spanish would be better. Now I can't objectively claim that it worked, but let's just say we then proceeded to have a two hour conversation completely in spanish. I may have to bring a few bottles of Pisco back to the states as they could make my sister Michaela's students bilingual in no time! Other ways in which she insists I enjoy myself here are recommending which bars/clubs/cafes to go to and wondering what went wrong if I come home before 3am on the weekends.

My host mom is also incredibly selfless. As it is winter-turning-spring here in Chile and no one has installed heat, temps indoors can range anywhere between 40-60 at night. Knowing what I was used to back home, I found the only space heater in the house placed inside the door to my room. Along these same lines, during my first full day in Chile we went to the mall to get more blankets for my bed. The store had electric blankets for sale, and while Sandra thought they were a little dangerous, she bought one saying, "We'll have Elías test it. If he lives, we'll get another." Around the rest of the house is no different. If there's a food I say I like when she asks me, it's on the table the next night for dinner. If she sees me tapping or moving at all to the song on the radio, not only will she turn it up, but it's invariably played again sometime soon. The list truly does go on and on, with more added every day. And with each new act of kindness, I'm reminded of my own mother back home and the similar ways in which she both cares for me and stimulates my growth independently.

Overall, I believe the following anecdote describes my host mother as well as our relationship pretty well: Last night, I was late in meeting some friends who were going to take a taxi to the house of another friend who lived further away. Having told the friends I was supposed to meet they should just go and not wait, Sandra insisted upon driving yours truly as well as friends Mike and Craig to our friends house. So as I finish my latest blog post, I'll leave you with an image I'll never forget: Sandra saying what roughly translated to "don't worry boys, I'm the queen of orange lights!" before inserting a CD with "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" as the leading track and speeding off through traffic.

JJ  

Hola!

This whole blog thing is new to me, so I'll just dive right in. This Fall semester I am studying abroad in Viña del Mar, Chile, a city about the size of St. Paul, MN. I arrived August 2nd at the house I'm living in until the end of November. I'll be attending the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (from now on, UAI) here in Viña with an admittedly loose academic schedule with an emphasis on cultural exposure and overall fun to be had (their slogan, word for word I swear).

During past adventures, traveling, family vacations etc. my siblings and I were all encouraged to keep journals, diaries or what have you in order to not only remember our experiences but to possibly return to those places and both repeat fond memories and create new ones. Now, I'm not entirely sure to which degree of diligence my siblings maintained in their record keeping, but speaking cordially for myself, my own was all but a crapshoot. I found that jotting down everything from what I ate to every little detail of each day never helped later when I would go back through what I wrote.

So for this here blog thingamawhatsit, each week I instead intend to expound upon some interesting event, person, place, or cultural custom that is important to my life here in Viña. Examples of some topics that already come to mind include my chilean house, my host family, the mall, and UAI. My hope in doing this is to not only make this a more interesting and concentrated read, but to also make it easier on myself and anyone else reading this after my journey is over. It will also be easier and much more enjoyable to write and therefore read something much more interesting once a week rather than force myself to eke out a few thoughts each day, some of which are bound to be somewhat monotonous and unhelpful in understanding life down here in Chile. Another thing I hope will prove to be advantageous is that the timing of these blogs (although I hope to write consistently once a week) will most likely not be produced chronologically i.e. something that happens one night this week might get written about for another week or two. This will further relieve pressure on both writer and reader in this situation.

But I think the manual for this blog has gone on long enough. If you come back to read each week you're either very very  bored or actually give a hoot about me/my travels, although it's more likely to a combination of the two. So happy reading, and I'll see you all in December!

Adios!

Jota Jota