maipo

yesterday i went for a hike in the maipo valley - a beautiful valley that ends with a glacier covered mountain peak. the area is very rich in mineral deposits, which gave a rich array of hues to the mountains and rocks that had fallen from them. the valley was strewn with boulders from the receding glacier and numerous rock falls. i went with a group of mostly americans (one girl from england) who where either intercambios or had graduated recently and were teaching english down here at an english institute for adults. getting there was a bit of an adventure in itself. we met at the metro and then found two collectivos (group taxis with a fixed fare) to carry us to our destination "cascadas de animas (waterfall of souls). when we arrived there we were told that our guide would be here in an hour and it would be about $10 per person. and that we couldn't go anywhere without the guide. balking at the obvious extortion, we caught the next bus to san gabriel, where we were told by our collectivo driver that all the gringos go and that it was free. free sounded good. we got off at a random corner that our driver assured us was san gabriel. after asking a few of the amused looking inhabitants, we were directed down a road that would take us to "some paths to climb." one of our members had a guidebook and found our location on the map. we seemed to be near a place called "banos de morales" which had hiking trails, hot springs etc. so off we went, trekking up the dusty mountain road, our eight gringo selves. after about twenty minutes we hit a snack shack with a bathroom and we decided to check our progress. there we learned we were about 20 km from banos de morales. at that point we decided hitchhiking would be our best option. four of us got in the cab of one nice young couple's truck, but they said the other four would have to wait, because riding in the bed of the truck op these unpaved roads would be too dangerous. i was in the cab, and the couple was from santiago, headed to the banos morales for the weekend. about half way there we were passed by another truck - whose bed was filled with our compatriots, blowing and bouncing dustily in the wind. we all got there in one piece, albeit some pieces dustier than others. then we began our hike - which was pretty much straight up until we crested the valley.  the first five minutes separated us into the fast and slow hikers. the fast hikers made it to the lake before we had to turn around to go catch our bus. going back down was a totally different challenge - i ended up running/bouncing down about a third of it. when we had the breath we exchanged stories about our travels  and experiences. dave, a practicing buddhist who grew up in vermont, had been traveling bolivia, peru and argentina for two months before coming to work as an english teacher here in santiago. he told us about the "hostel scene," five day machu picchu hikes and sketchy bolivian street food. danielle told us about moroccan whiskey (sweet spearmint tea - b/c they don't drink alcohol there) and spain (where she has studied for the last year). i managed to rip the seat of my linen pants when attempting to wash my hands in the lake. fortunately my scarf covered the 11 inch rip nicely. the bus back was dusty and crowded and quite entertaining. dave and i switched ipods and is now hooked on architecture in helsinki. our fellow passengers were quite enamored with us. they ordered their grandchildren out of the back seats so we could all sit together, sang us a chilean folk song, gave us  a liter of coca-cola and showed us where to get off for the metro. then they all said goodbye as we disembarked and waved farewell out of the window as they pulled out.

no soy un nugget ("i am not a nugget")

so two of the guinea pigs had babies. and they're pretty much adorable. and totally edible.... i will be sure to let you all know how that meal goes down. on a related note, we had chicken again today, because a cat got into the hen house.... 

i met today with the teacher i'll be teaching english classes with for the rest of the semester. she is young, sweet and eager to teach. i think it will be a really good experience. the school is called st. francis of asisi and it was really funny to see little monks with bald pates cut out of construction paper on the front of all the elementary classroom doors. i'll be helping to teach the lessons to classes of 40 4th graders, and especially helping with pronunciation. kind of intense to be "the example" on how to pronounce a language. 

i got my bip escolar yesterday (yay for 25 cent fares because i'm smart and po). on a whim i got off the bus about halfway to try to find a bookstore that sold pocketsize maps of the city. mission accomplished and now i no longer have to pull out my comically large full sized map when i need to check a street, which should come with a giant sign on the back that says "i'm lost! please take advantage of me!" i also walked the rest of the way (about a mile and a half, i think) to my destination, which was very pleasant. there is a sense of accomplishment that comes from recognizing your way around a city that was previously a jumble of similar looking streets and indecipherable systems. as i noted my progress in my now discreet pocket map, i thought about other cities i'd like to conquer. and how to travel to them since i'm going to be pretty broke for the next few years. any suggestions would be welcome : )

i'm loving my new family. the only problem is i only know about half of their names, because the 93 yr old aunt calls everyone "hijita" (diminuative of daughter) and the mom and the maid refer to the aunt as "la tia" or "abuelita" ("the aunt" "grandmother") and the mom refers to the maid as "senora." the husband calls the wife "corazon" or "amorcita" (my "heart" or "little love") so i know neither the aunt or the maid's name, and i wrote down the mom's name somewhere... the husband's name is william (billy for short) and he works up north during the week as an agronomist, so i only see him on the weekends (which is why i know his name, he is talked about in the 3rd person). and artur is the 3 yr old. he gets reprimanded enough that i picked his up too. he is pretty adorable, but have 8 younger siblings makes me less than susceptible to the charms of a 3 yr old. he knows this. he can sense my rebellion to the authority of his winsome smile alternated with menacing frown. i will NOT give you my cookies. NO. MINE. okay. the only reason you got the cookies was because your mom came in, and i cannot politely override her unspoken assumption that i will give you my cookies because you are 3 and you don't know any better than just to take them. but i am soooo on to you. i saw that gleam of victory in your eye. it's on. i am going to hide my cookies way better next time.

the maid is great - she's a wonderful cook - i almost never have to put salt on anything and i always clean my plate. its all very fresh and well-seasoned (whereas i think the only spice chileans are really familiar with is salt). she also is a marathon talker. i think she utilizes circular breathing during our "conversations" because i can get in a word about every 10 minutes. which is fine, because sometimes i totally lose the thread of comprehension and the entires plot-line takes a dive for about thirty seconds until i pick up some context again - oh so we went from the time you got robbed at knifepoint which is where that scar came from to the new chinese herbal remedy for something that you heard about on the discovery channel - i have no idea how that happened, but you are smiling, so i'll smile too...  she's super sweet though - always making sure i have enough to eat - she doesn't want me to lose my "watita" (little belly) on her watch. i'm going running again tomorrow morning...

new pad.

roosters do not say "cock-a-doodle-doo" in chile. i don't know who invented that well enunciated phrase to come out of the rooster's beak for children's books, but i doubt he or she was ever awakened by one. at four in the morning the sound a rooster makes is that it is being stepped on. by something heavy. heavy enough to expel out all air in a harsh an raucous cacophony that sounds nothing, i repeat, nothing like "cock-a-doodle-doo." i think i'm going to put my free ear plugs from delta airlines to work, as this will be a daily occurrence for me now. the tradeoff being fresh eggs every morning. this i can live with :) they live in the backyard, their pens almost completely shrouded in greenery, as well as those of their neighbors, the guinea pigs (to whom i apparently shouldn't get too attached). my new house is pretty much amazing. inside and out it looks almost like it was lifted directly out of some decorating magazine from the seventies. pictures will be posted soon. even the appliances in the kitchen are from that time period. the peruvian couple i am living with is super sweet - they have really welcomed me in as part of the family, including letting them know when i'll be home, and calling if i'll be late, so they won't worry. they only have one child, a three year old boy, who is rather jealous of the attention i'm getting, but i think we'll get along fine. the house belongs to the father's 93 year old aunt (hence the decor) and they have a maid that keeps everything on its doily. 

for those of you who don't know - chile is a bit at odds with all of it's neighbors, who are jealous/have had many physical and or political disputes regarding territorial lines and rights. therefore living with a peruvian family will be a bit of a sticking point for some things. the chilean attitude towards peruvians is much like many american's attitudes towards mexicans - that they are "small, dark and ugly" as one student told me the other day. obviously this is a stereotype, and certainly not true in the case of the family i am staying with. i can already feel a bit of the tension though - when i was telling him what classes i was taking, when i got to "chilean culture" the father said "well you won't learn too much there" with a wry grin. later when i was talking to him about biology, he asked me why i had come to chile to study and that peru was actually much more ecologically diverse and better for field study "it is poorer though" he added. 

next level of immersion

i'm moving today. i'll be living with a peruvian family in las condes (a very nice area) - apparently they wanted me from the beginning, but they had family guests up to this point. so off i go - i still know almost nothing about them, except they don't speak any english. and out comes my crutch. i've basically been speaking english at mireya's, so i'm going to have to take a deep breath and really kick into espanol gear in my brain.  i think the trickiest part will actually be reorienting myself to getting places, as i'm going to have to learn whole new areas of the micro (bus) system, which brings out whole new levels of self-doubt that i never knew i had. i took a couple new buses to get to a friend's house yesterday and my thought process is this: check my note, yes, this is for sure the bus i am looking for. check it again. yes. oh! that's the bus. isn't it?! yes. for sure, yes, get on! (sit down) did i get on the right bus? (look for confirmation somewhere inside) begin double checking landmarks as i go. okay. i'm on the right bus for sure. now where do i get off? ok. i know where that is. try to gauge how close i am. realize i have no idea. glue face to window and check sign name at every street. silently curse the old man who has fallen asleep at the window, blocking the majority of my view. for 30 minutes. feel doubt as to whether i've missed the stop and am now looping back around the entire route. there's the stop! i knew it. now what bus am i looking for....   

the only thing that makes me smile when i think about transantiago at the moment is that soon (fingers crossed) i will be getting a student discount on my bip card, which is like 75% off, which will be amazing, since my biggest expense right now is definitely transportation. why did i not get this before, you might be asking... well, because i was a bit illegal. yes - i had my visa and everything, but what no one told me was that i had to register myself with the international police and then get fingerprinted and get an official chilean id, called a cedula. now that i have completed the kafka-esque task of threading my way through the chilean bureaucracy (about 7 hours of line-waiting and attempting to explain my ignorance in spanish) i will soon be rewarded with my cedula, with which i can apply for a "bip escolar." yay. 

chor-y-pan! chor-y-pan!

so i had my first asado wednesday. "asar" is "to roast" so it basically a chilean barbeque. after making our first recycled paper in my paper arts class (awesome, i know), i waited almost 40 minutes for my bus home. its moments like these that have ruined my romantic notion of public transportation - its kind of like communism - looks good on paper, just impossible to get right in reality. i got home and showered of the effects of the wait and walk in the santiago summer sun before running back out into it so go to the asado, which was nominally starting at 2 (which means 4 in chilean time). i got off at the banquedano metro stop and walked across the river  (which is a brown trickle right now in the dry season) down a little street that would take me through bellavista - the bohemian neighborhood - to the foot of cerro san cristobal. one thing i love about chileans is that they love surrounding themselves with nature, people and animals. apartments have trees escaping out the window, all the neighborhoods have vines, bushes and trees nearly blocking the view of every house and street animals have full reign. there are stray dogs and cats everywhere, but you don't see anyone treat them unkindly. and there are parks everywhere. cerro (a large hill) san cristobal is the largest of these, and from the top, on a morning after a heavy rain (to clear the smog) has the most amazing view of the city. i'm planning on hiking up there one winter morning before i leave.

so after hiking up half the mountain, i finally reached the picnic site, where i could smell the chorrizos roasting, will the bread toasting over the cooler coals. chorrizo is chilean sausage and comes in links and is very tasty (and i normally am not a sausage fan), very flavorful without being overly salty or fatty. combined with the toasty bread, it makes "chor-y-pan" which my dutch friend was chanting excitedly to herself before we were served. the group i was with was several of the same people from bowling and some new intercambios and chileans. i meet several australians and a few more germans and some more peeps from california and new york. the asado was fun and relaxed, and i actually felt very comfortable speaking spanish for the first time in a while. i walked back to the metro with a few of my new friends and i headed to a sushi dinner with danielle and some of her friends from her university. and yes. the sushi here is delicious.

new friends and, um, characters.

i miss nestle break and bake chocolate chip cookies. i went to a meeting yesterday at san joaquin about the intercambio party that UC's "comision de acogida" (welcome committee) puts on as a tandem welcome to exchange students and an information fair for interested chileans. apparently i was the first norteamericana to ever show up to one of these meetings - even though the majority of intercambios are from the States. way to represent, guys. anyway - so each country has a stand, where they serve some traditional/unique foods, play some music, traditional dress, dance, photos, etc. The director's example of traditional american food was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. i suppose mcdonald's doesn't count because it is everywhere. but back to the cookies - they give us some money for the food, and i am definitely going to try and hunt down stuff for real chocolate chip cookies. there is something about the flour here - it just doesn't set the same. i'll be sending out an email to the rest of the usa kids, so hopefully  can get some help on encompassing our entire nation in a booth. yeah. 

i had lunch with jenifer (a chilena) and gabriel (brazileno) - jenifer showed us the best cheap place to eat on campus - the engineering cafeteria. they are both geography majors and jenifer had studied in brazil, so she and gabriel were kind of language buddies - he helped her with her portuguese and she helped him with his spanish (although he spoke very well). she told us about hiking up the volcano at Pucon, which one of my friends did this weekend. I really want to go - and hopefully i can get a group together soon. We talked about the relative dangers of different major cities - Santiago, Brooklyn, Rio - gabriel said anything feels safe after growing up in Rio, and we all had a good laugh after i tried to explain the trifunctionality of my pepper spray (pepper, tear gas and UV tracer for later identification). after i walked with them to their classes, i still had about 2 hours until the next item on my list - bowling, at 5:30.  i brainstormed for the america stand - which was surprisingly difficult, because so much of american culture has spread so quickly throughout the world it was hard to think of unique things to offer that had not yet been globalized. i found myself focused mostly on southern things - sweet iced (mint) tea, sweet potato casserole, southern rock, folk and bluegrass (with fiddles, washboards and broomstick basses), new orleans jazz. traditional dress had me a bit stumped - um, jeans? i guess native american in general, cowboy hats, Converse sneakers? Polo? GAP? Sport were a bit easier - football, lacrosse, baseball and oh! NASCAR.

i explored the humanities library and listened to some students with a guitar playing and singing songs in english, german and spanish on one of the many grassy quads. i was waiting in line to get some ice cream from a kiosk in the student center when i was approached by a rather unusual character. he was a little taller than me, and his polo shirt was tucked into his belted khaki pants (remember, i am no longer in tuscaloosa - this is unusual dress here). pointing to my green sweater he said (in spanish) "you should had worn that for the festival yesterday" - processing, processing "oh - saint patrick's day, si" (guys: this is not an effective pick up line, for future reference). "Are you american?" he asked loudly in english, his voice had transformed, picking up an odd british accent with an oratorial lilt. he continued to converse loudly and insistently with me in english and by the time i had paid for my icecream i knew that he played bridge and spoke hebrew and french as well and was planning on going to israel this summer. [at this point, i was fairly certain this was the same guy who had struck up a conversation with my friend (also gringa) in the metro while reading his hebrew newspaper and talked her ear off until she was rescued by mireya picking her up at the station.] after awkwardly inviting me to a "cup of teeeea" (which consisted of sitting at the table right next to where we were standing) we continued our conversation. during the next 20 minutes i was told where the best place in south america is to learn spanish (santa cruz, bolivia - b/c the monks from spain taught it to them and they live in the jungle, so it remained uncorrupted), that british women are actually very sweet and romantic at their core (his english tutor was british - hence the odd accent - which, as it waned in and out, and was combined with the strange inflection of someone speaking their non native tongue, really sounded like someone mimicking a eccentric british professor, and doing a rather poor job) and that he wrote romantic poetry  - about women, and politics. and that he thought southern girls (this from a girl from georgia he had met) were very sensual and also innocent. and that poetry "was a means to communicate between two eternities." i was really glad i had both an icecream and a coke to bury my laughter into, because in combination with the loud english, awkward topics, and bad british accent i was also being graced with his very thick and animated eyebrows and wild waving hand gestures. i finally excused myself to go meet the group to go bowling and i couldn't stop laughing all the way back to the station.

bowling was fun  - i met a girl from holland who has been teaching english here for the past few years and told me that crocs started in holland as a design project based in their traditional wooden clogs. i also got to know two guys from germany and finally met some fellow southerners - a girl from georgia and one from tennessee. they seemed very excited about cooking southern food for the stand - and rochelle (from georgia) even has grits! on the way back on the metro i got dyslexic and missed my stop, so i got off at the next one, changed sides and went back. back in the right direction, i grabbed the overhead handle and settled in for the 15 minute ride, when the guy next to me shifted closer in my direction and i noticed the newspaper he was reading was in....hebrew. yeah. so. god has a sense of humor - especially since ricardo's country club is my same stop. on this ride, i was treated to another loud conversation, insistently in english, about the history of the metro - and the reason why there is no line 3 (not worth the story...), a conversation in hebrew on his cell phone, a story about a jewish taxi driver, and given the presupposition that i was neither a woman, nor an american, and i were to go to iraq and ask a single man where he was from, apparently he would respond: i don't know, i am not married. the things you can learn on the metro.

baila conmigo

well, i'm having a hard time going to sleep with the ringing in my ears. i just got back (at 4 am) from my first (and probably last) brush with santiago nightlife. a group of about 7 of moni's friends and i caught a bus down to our destination around 12:30 ( things don't really get going until about 2 here, and they go till 6 or later in the morning - we left at 3). it was loud, sweaty and festive, with several levels of dance floor and screen up of extended music videos - but i feel like to really make the most of it you should be moderately wasted, slightly deaf already and looking to score. as i was none of the above, it was fun, but not something i'll go out of my way to experience again.

classes are going well - i can understand all of my teachers, but if a student makes a comment or asks a question, i can't make out a thing. my prerequisites for full comprehension are: enunciation, minimal background noise, voice directed at me and logical transitions. this makes conversations on public transit difficult, which i suppose is why the trio of bostonians on the metro with me this morning were speaking loud enough (in heavily accented american) for the entire car to hear. i felt mixed shame and amusement as they all had their metro maps spread wide front of them and were forcefully discussing their next plan of action. i gave the more harried looking man a sympathetic smile as we came to my stop, "Universidad Catolica - that must be where all the catholics go to school" was the last comment i heard on my way out.