we`re down with emily and the people of chile

Hello all you riceandchile fans.

Amy, Noah, Moriah and I have entered Sarice`s (nee Emily) virtual and real Chilean world. Watching Emily fluently walk us through Chilean culture is teriffic. She can really speak the language and is clearly one popular gringa. Chilean people are enthralled with an American who speaks the language. And she really leans into the conversations with a lot of hand gestures and pauses and feeling and appropriate accents. Although ordering for five of us from a spanish only restaurant is a workout for her, Chile is a real difficult place when she is not around as English speaking Chileans are a rare comodity (imagine me driving with Noah and Moriah and getting stopped by the policia for going the wrong way on a one way - `criminal defenso abagoda` did not go over like I thought it might).

Chile is a real interesting country - sparsely populated, not a lot of roads, excellent food, and amazing natural beauty. After three days in the touristy paradise of Pucon (hiking, hot springs and volcano climbing), we will be having lunch with Emily`s Osorno family tomorrow. Should be great.

Quick story. So Emily, Moriah, Noah and I showed up late and underdressed at 6:45 am for the snow-capped volcano hike this morning. The imposing guide leader asked if our trip was arranged by a certain fancy hotel, which it was. And when Emily, in shorts, tried to smooth it over with her Spanish charm, the guide replied, `We like the people at your hotel to explain to the guests that they are climbing a volcano, not spending a day at the bitch`. We assumed he meant beach and let it pass. We all got over it as all of the guides were soon loving the spanish speaking Gringa. We had a SPECTACULAR 4200 foot climb up an 8000 foot volcano. It was real difficult going up, but down involved being supplied with apendages for our pants and sliding 1 1/4 miles on the snow on our butts.

I must move and not hog the blog. If given a guest pass again I will talk to you all again.

Thats all now from

Padre de riceandchile

¡fotos!

now THAT is what i call an asado.

Las Mujeres: la mamá de javier, mi tía, la gringa, Eli, la sofi (la cumpleanera), yani, y la Kami

Nico and I both got our hair cut. His used to be a lot longer. We both feel a little naked.

Notas sobre un país ancho

More weird things chilean:

- Supermarkets. I´ve aleady commented on the fact that everything related to food is ridiculous in Chile, but it all still amazes me. There are SO many supermarkets in Osorno. And they are all HUGE with ridiculously big ugly signs. They have weird english names: Bigger, Lider, Jumbo. I have many times walked into a supermarket to get food but gotten overwhelmed by all the aisles and kiosks and people and abandoned ship. The worst part about it, is that the tremendous size does not amount to any sort of variety. There are large quantities of everything, but only in one brand and one flavor. Por ejemplo there will literally be HUNDREDS of cans of coffee, but only Nestea instant coffee because it is the only kind of coffee that chileans drink. There is nothing whole grain, tons of alcohol, but only sugary concentrated juices. Renato has promised me that somewhere there is real OJ, but I´ve searched everytime I´ve gone into a supermarket and found nothing.
- Terms of endearment. Every woman is Negrita (litte dark skinned one) according to her husband and having dark skin is not a prerequisite for such a nick name. Every husband is referred to as Viejo (old man), except for Javier whose wife pretty much excusively calls him Guatón (refers to his tummy). Strangers are called Huevón (somewhere between buddy, and asshole) or Flaco. If you are every mildly chubby, almost everyone will call you Gordito. Other women call me Niñita (little girl), Fea (ugly, but with love) or Gringita. Mamita is a term that I have been called many times by men drivng by when I run in the afternoon, the guy I met in Valdivia, but also by friendly older women. Confusing?
- Facebook. According to the national newspaper, proportionally, more chileans are connected to facebook than anywhere else in the world. Facebook membership in chile has expanded 2000% since last year. This explains why I already have tons of chilean friends on facebook and have already been tagged in a variety of pictures. Weird.
- Mañosa. I eat every dish my Tía cooks, even if it involves meat. I always clear my plate of every crumb. I have finally given in and come to every meal, and always tell her that everything I eat is absoultely delicious. Still, not a meal goes by where I am not referred to as la gringa mañosa. Mañosa means finicky, and is one of chileans´ favorite words. Samantha tells me that its meant with cariño (affection), but it still drives me crazy. Last night I ate and enjoyed a ton of asado de cerdo (pork grilled over a fire). I don´t think it will sway their opinions on my title of mañosa.

¿Cortaste tu pelo?

Sooo it was time for a haircut. Every shower I battled with my curls to get out all the knots and was consequently going through about a pound of conditioner a week. As I was explaining to my host mother, everything activity is an adventure for me here. Showering, buying food, getting around, making friends, and every other activity necesary for daily life. It always involves more maneuvering than I originally expect, and of course a whole lot of translation. Well my haircut was no different. On a rather bland tuesday, I decided I was up for the adventure.

I started my investigation at lunch. I inquired how much I should pay for a haircut. They told me about 5 or 6 lucas (1 luca = 1,000 chilean pesos, 6 lucas = about ten dollars). This seemed expensive for Chile. Well, we only pay like $1500 pesos, explained my host mom. I was getting a little worn out of stuff like this. I had been explaining the price differences from Chile to the US, and my family had started to get the picture. I could buy whatever I wanted. Well, I have never been one to pay top price for a haircut, in whatever currency. I informed my family I was not interested in a fancy haircut, I just wanted it a little shorter. 1500 pesos would do me just fine. Perhaps, this was my first mistake.

After work I walked towards Calle Patricia Lynch, where I was informed there are a variety of peluquerias. The first one looked just as good as any other. It looked pretty sketchy (or in spanish, flighter) but that somehow didn´t deter me. I was assigned a cross-dressing hairdresser and I was so excited about it. I told him to just cut it a little so it was less messy, and to put in layers. Exactly the instructions I always give when I got to Choices. Dominic and I get along great. When I was modest about my spanish skills, he assured me that at least he could understand me. Thanks, buddy. We chatted about how ugly Osorno is, how homosexuality doesn't bother either of us, and how he really prefers straight hair to curly hair. Fifteen minutes later, I realized that my hair had gone through a drastic change. Its pretty much just curls all around my head, none of which fall more than an inch away from my scalp. Im pretty much always in a delicate emotional state here, and the whole affair threw me for a bit of a loop. It was quite a dramatic change, that I was not anticipating. In my state of panic, I bought a variety of hair supplies on my way home.

Now all I wanted, was for someone to tell me that I looked great. Unfortunately, my host family usually takes the making fun of my route, so I was no hopeful. Just as I expected, they thought the whole situation was hysterical. They now refer to me as a little boy and keep asking me jokingly if I cut my hair. The people in the office also found the whole thing funny, and reprimanded me for chosing such a sketchy location. But in general, they were more encouraging. Three days later, its growing on me. Danielle helped me realize some of the benefits of short hair (less shampoo and generally less maintenance, feeling really badass, attracting lots of bisexuals, etc) and of course it will grow back soon anyway. I´m still in the process of purchasing lots of new acessories that I never before found useful, since a ponytail is out of the question. Im still generally pretty surprised everytime I look in the mirror. I just hope my mother doesn´t kill me when she arrives on Tuesday. Im sure that Moriah will hate it, but then again they are both very critical of every one of my fashion decisions (not that this was a concious decision...), so it shouldn´t get to me too much. Pictures to follow...

el alemán y su mapa

I haven`t written in a few days because I´ve been staring at my computer a lot at work this week, but that doesn`t mean I didn`t have a traveling weekend full of ridiculous stories. Anyway I´m actually at work now, but kind of pissed at the office so I´m going to start being productive after I write about my weekend.

After plans to go hiking with a friend fell through, I decided at the last minute to hop on a bus to Puerto Varas. Puerto Varas is the Lake George that I thought I was visiting when I went to Puerto Octay (the one with the empty hostel). Its on the same lake but on the other side, and LOADED with tourists. All I wanted to do this weekend was to do a little hiking. My plan was to arrive in Puerto Varas on saturday afternoon and find a hiking activity for Sunday. As predicted, there was an extensive tourist info center (they have on in every city in Chile) that was full of books of guided adventure tours. After a frustrating 45 minutes looking through books to find that no one was answering the phone, and all the tours were foolishly expensive, I decided to find my hostel. The hostel was the answer to all my prayers. It was cute and colorful and the woman at the desk talked to me in spanish even though I know she spoke english. Little did I know that it would also be the source of all of my entertainment for the weekend. After settling down in my colorful bed, I asked the woman at the desk for advice for a day of hiking. She informed me there was a German guy named Marcos who used to be a guide, and he would know exactly what to do.

She pointed me outside where there was a punkish looking guy (think Teddy Lyttle, circa 7th grade) dressed in all black with a bandana around his neck, drinking a beer. You used to be a guide? I asked. What? It was quite common for people to not understand me and my accent sometimes, so I continued on to the next question. Do you have any ideas of what I should do tomorrow? Sure, he told me. Canyoning. Canyoning is some silly outdoor adventure thing where you pay a company a lot of money and then you put on a wet suit and slide down waterfalls. OR something like that. I was not interested in this activity, but it seemed to be all he could offer. Instead of useful information, he offered me a beer and I obviously accepted. One beer and a half hour later, we were buddies. Him and his friends seem to have just graduated from college, and had bumming around Puerto Varas for over a month. He said I spoke spanish well, and I understood him without a problem (this always makes me like someone). After we finished out beers, he invited me to spend the afternoon with his friends.

Hey, do you want to hang out with us for the afternoon?

Uhhh what are you going to do?

SKATEBOARD.

Uhhh, I totally would, but unfortunately I didn´t bring mine.

Oh well we have extras.

Yeah but I don`t know how.

But we´ll teach you!

Uhh, I think I´m going to go lay on the beach.

Hahaha. I thanked him for the beer, and went to do some more research about where to find a nice walking trail. I found a map and some information on where to hike and spent the afternoon laying on the beach and bumming around town. I ran into my friend who had picked up some more skateboarding buddies. We picked up some supplies at the supermarket (more beer) and went back to the hostel. As I was hanging out and enjoying their company, I considered why I had been told that he was a german tour guide, when he seemed to be neither german, nor have any information about the area. As I was considering this, I heard my friend say that Marcos was on his way back to the hostel. Marcos? ¿Cómo te llamas tú? I asked him. Javier. Hahha. I lost myself in my typical bought of giggles and they all looked at my like I was insane. I explained the mix up and they joined me in my laughter. You can´t complain, he argued, I offered you a beer!

Later, a tall germanic look man named Marcos showed up, and was the answer to my dreams. He immidiately took control of my handy red notebook and drew me a serious of maps with options for trails to take (wonderfull reminiscint of a map a man from Alabama drew me to help me and Jacob and Seth find a castle in the golan heights-- informative, but not to scale). He gave me directions on how to get there, landmarks along the way, and time estimates for each section. The next morning I woke up bright and early and took the hour long bus ride to Petrohue upon his suggestion. This led me to another lake that was more isolated than the first, and surrounded by beautiful mountains and volcanoes. I spent the day walking a few trails between two volcanoes, and then wandering around the beautiful beach (where I took my first chilean butt picture with the self-timer on my camera, now don`t know how to explain it to my chilean friends when I show them my pictures). I felt like I was mostly all alone all day, but much to my surprise when I returned to Petrohue in the afternoon I found it also to be bustling with english-speaking tourists. I stopped on the way back at the Saltos of Petrohue which were overpriced and overrun with tourists, but very beautiful. Another very successful weekend....

Un comentario sobre el machismo chileno

Ok so I´m not going to lie. I was terrified of Chilean machismo. Yes, partially because I am traveling all alone as a woman, but mostly because I was afraid it would just be too much of a shock to my system. I was afraid that angry feminist me was going to come to the surface. I read travel books galore that warned me to be careful, but promised that Chile wasn´t as machista as most of the other countries in Latin America. Still, I was frightened. I was coming from Wesleyan. Chileans probably wouldn`t take to well to an angry gringa. Well, it turns out to not be so terrible. Only occasionally does the angry feminist me come out.

First off, Chilean woman are pretty tough. The president of Chile is a woman, and she seems pretty tough. Supposedly the number of women that participate in economic activity outside the home is still pretty low, but I have a feeling that that is changing with the next generation. Women in general do better in school than men (surprise, surprise), and are entering the workforce in greater numbers. As I learned from the loca I met in Valdivia, the angry jealous thing can be a definite reality. And they love their control. My office is basically controled by a group of bossy women (there is a boss of every componente, and they all happen to be women). The director is also a woman and although I love her, she can only be described as a raging bitch. She is always bossing everyone around. Last week at lunch she nearly slapped out waiter because her salad wasn`t as big as mine, and because her empanadas de queso were cold.

Although the women in my office don`t mess around, they don`t stray much outside of their place as women. They hang out together, are all adorable and feminine, and never talk about sports. Last week when we moved all of our stuff to our new office, none of them lifted a finger. I made up for their lack of effort by insisting on lifting desks and chairs up and down flights of stairs. This was clearly an unexpected move, and I had to sustain a whole strain of "look at the Cereza" jokes, along with none of the men actually beleiving that I was capable of helping. Are you sure you´re okay? SÍ, I insisted, No soy niña.

As I´ve mentioned before, chilean men never hesitate to show a woman attention on the streets. Most days it doesn´t bother me, but from time to time the angry feminist me wants to knock a few heads together. The thing is that every man I´ve ever met has treated me with immense respect, and the cat-calls have never advanced to anything more. This might have to do with the threat of the tough women. The cat-calls make sense only because chile is oozing with sex in everyawy. Heterosexual sex, obviously. Homophobia is around I´m sure, but i haven´t run into any myself. Its more that homosexuality exists merely as a joke, a possibilty on television and in books, and not as a part of everyday reality. But anyway wherever you go, there are heterosexual couples. In the supermarket, in restaurants, and definitely making out in parks. One reason it sometimes feels strange to be alone is because everyone else is always holding hands. All the couples I have met seem to be desperately in love. Plus, abortion is illegal and there are tons of babies. So if you get pregnant, you´re stuck with motherhood. Its still social unacceptable to be a single mother, so you`re also stuck with a husband. I think its pretty unusual that most of the people in my office are in their upper 20s and older and don`t have children.

I have heard time and time again the joke that the woman who is the one that needs to take control of her husband. But thats the thing-- is it real, or is it a joke? I saw an apron yesterday that said: "¡Aqui mando yo! ¿Y qué hago ahora mi amor?" (translation: I´m in charge here! What do I do next, dear?). I´m assuming this was meant for a woman, and it kind of describes the tension that I´ve seen. Its sort of a facade of control, but the men still pull all the strings. For example, the señor of my household absolutely does not eat unless his wife serves him. This is partially due to his incapability to do anything at all, but thats another story. His daughter often makes jokes about bossing around her husband, but makes his lunch for him everyday and it seems to be a no-brainer that she stays home, while he goes to work.

Traveling as a woman has been continually surprising to everyone, but no one as given me any trouble. I have not been held back from anything I wanted to do, and I mostly don`t feel threatened. Chile is certainly not Wesleyan, but its not too bad. Still, there are definitely places that would make me angrier. Actually I felt perpetually more threatened traveling alone in Israel, especially in Arab neighborhoods where women are mostly confined to the home. In general the concern (if there is concern at all...) seems to be focused on gender equality, and not too much on challenging gender roles. This is clearly not too surprising. Anyway this is one month in, so these are just initial observations. After 3 months more, I should have a more complete picture.

Bien Acompañada en Valdivia

Before I was about to leave for my trip to Valdivia, a nearby city, I recieved the usual doubts from my family. You`re really going alone? Tía came to my rescue with a chilean dicho : Mejor andar sola que mal acompañada. Its better to travel alone, than with bad company. Exactly, I told your. Finally she was starting to understand. Well, it turns out I wasn`t much alone in Valvidiva. I decided to buy a ticket on the Reina Sofia, a boat that takes a six hour tour around the beautiful rivers of Valdiva, serving lunch, dinner, and stopping twice on a island and in a small town with a historic fort. I bought the cheaper tickets downstairs, and as the boat took off I was concerned that I might be in for a rather dull 6 hours. Was it really a good idea for me to come to Chile all alone?

Well I didn`t have too long to be worried because ten minutes into a voyage, a friendly young chilean came over and started talking to me. Even for friendly Chileans, he was absurdly friendly. But he wasn`t creepy and didn`t seem to be hitting on me, so I went with it. Within the first 15 mintues of conversation he took a picture of us together, invited me to sit upstairs with him and his friends, and invited me to hang out with them later that night. Hahah. I was a bit overwhelmed by his quick friendship, but I soon fell in love with him (in a friendly sort of way of course). In this initial conversation he also explained how he wanted to move to Spain where they were more open minded about things, like homosexuality. I explained that I, a Wesleyan student, was very comfortable with homosexuality. Oh, so I can show you my real self, he responded. I thought I had finally met my first openly gay chilean! How exciting! Well it turns out Andrés isn`t actually gay, just open minded. This suited me just fine. I spent all six hours on the boat with Andes and his friends. Mostly I hung around him. I had my first conversation about questioning gender with him, and it was great. He laughs too often, just like me, and we have a lot in common. He also spoke slowly and we were able to communicate with ease. His friends were also really nice. They were all from Viña del Mar (12 hrs north) on a weeklong vacation in Valdivia. They welcomed me into their table and their lives.

The boat tour itself was really nice. It was a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky. We stopped twice and two beautiful little towns and ate a huge lunch of seafood and fish. I took lots of pictures and wandered back and forth between our inside seats to the terraces on the front and back of the boat. I caused a whole ton of confusion amongst the waitresses because I moved my seat, but they didn`t seem to mind too much. By the end of the day, there was no question that I would continue on my evening with my new friends. I went back to their rented cabins and we relaxed for a while outside. We bought necessary supplies for the evening (cerveza, coke and rum) and sat down to play cards. We played the Chilean version of Uno (mostly the same as our version) and I taught everyone how to play bullshit. This was fun for me not only because its a fun drinking game, but because I got to hear them all scream "bullshit!" with their silly chilean accents. I had a really great time. I felt for the first time like a full member of the conversation, and didn`t have any trouble keeping up with stories, jokes, and conversation. Our final drinking game consisted of us picking important topics, and discussing. We had a bunch of really interesting conversations on the topics of religion, friendship, politics and sex. It was fabulous.

When we were sufficiently drunk, we heading to a nearby discoteca. I had a great time dancing and laughing with my new friends. Everything was too perfect to be true. And thats when I ran into problems... I had been dancing with Fabian, one of Andres` friends. Unfortunately, Soledad, on of the girls in the group, had a terrible crush on Fabian and didn`t take our flirtations too well. She got angry and spent a good portion of the next few hours yelling at Fabian, cursing at me (¡la gringa puta!), and complaining to Andés´ father. I left early the next morning to avoid any more confrontation. Unfortunately I didn`t get to say goodbye to my friends, but we had already traded phone numbers so I called them later in the day. I hopefully will stay with Andrés and his family (a 26 year old living at home is the status quo in chile) when I travel up north. Anyway, it looks like I had the good luck of traveling with good company in Valdivia. Chileans just loooove hanging out with a gringa.