A day in the life of a santiaguina...

8:00 - 9:00:
I wake up and eat breakfast with my host mother. Contrary to what people in the campo claimed, meal size does not decrease in the big city and I still eat at the rate of 250 lb. man. A typical breakfast is this: coffee or tea. Ham, egg, and cheese sandwich. Crackers or bread with kiwi or apricot mermelada, (or butter but who wants that with those other choices.) Some type of fruit like peaches, cantalope, or honeydew, (I have been eating peaches at every meal for two straight weeks because Eliana, my host mother, bought a huge tub of them.)

9:00 - 10, 10:30, 11:
Transantiago time! The new transportation system in Santiago really sounded like a great idea: regular buses, scheduled bus times and routes, no crowds or lines. Too bad none of that actually worked. Public transportation is actually worse than it was before, and although it is incredibly frustrating, it is also good to know that it is not only because I am foreign that I do not understand it. And after this, I am more than greatful for the ever faithful and on-time-to-a-tee Milwaukee transportation system.

11:30 - late afternoon:
I go to two or three classes, depending on the day. I am taking a really entertaining Theology class, an Introduction to Literature, and a Mexican history and culture class. I am also required to take a Spanish for Foreigners and a Chilean Politics. These I have found to be the most valuable. Not only does it help me to actually understand what is going on in my other classes, we also have talked about the history of Chile and its recent demonstrations: one over the death of the former dictator Pinochet, another the riot of the Pingüinos, or poor kids, that have realized that they can protest for a better education. Also, we discuss many other topics in Latin America and the world, besides what´s happening in Chile.

?... Whenever I get home:
After another ride back in two metro lines and one Transantiago bus, I study, read, or go for a run. For me, this part of the day is where I can completely relax without having to pay 100% attention to what is being said, written, or shown and where my brain unwinds.

9:00 - 10:00:
I eat dinner with my family, which usually includes my uncle who is recooperating from cancer and staying with us. As we have eaten so many delicious things, (Eliana is an amazing cook) no meal has been without a side of tomatoes, bread, and avocado. There is always some type of fruit juice (last night we had grape juice, without any other enhancers and it was one of the best drinks I have had in my life.) Fruits, vegetables and bread are really the staple of the Chilean diet, and I can see why because they are all used in such different and intriguing ways. I am completely fascinated by their use of the lemon. My favorite salad has been avocado, potato, carrot, cheese, tuna mixed with bits of onion, all doused with lemon and salt. The worst thing I can say about the food is that it is a pity it has not caught on in the U.S.

After dinner:
I go back to studying or watching a teleseries here that is new called Papi Ricki. It is corny, of course, but oh so entertaining. There aren´t as many shows here, so everyone of all ages and almost every house watches this show. I pass out at around 12 every night after what is a usually tiring mentally and physically long day, not in a bad way, but because I am learning so many new things each and every hour. It is the type of rewarding sleep that comes after really working hard all day, or doing something that requires a lot of energy, and I am grateful for it.



Now that I am here in the city, I usually find myself missing life in the campo. At first, it was a relief just to be able to take a hot shower again, and Santiago reminded me so much of Milwaukee that I felt almost like I was back in the U.S. But now that I am here, I realize how much I value my experience in rural Chile, and how much it has taught me. These people may not have had a lot of things that people in America are accustomed to, even demand. They looked older than their years from working hard physical labor, from not using sunscreen or Pantene Pro-V, or from dressing in hand-me-downs or from second-hand stores. My mother and sister do not know how to drive a car, and are expected to do ¨women´s work¨ around the house. My brother and father work long hours, spending only dinner with their family and only having Sundays off. My parents go into town to shop and visit with friends one night a week. Their house was plain and simple, without modern appliances, a near-empty fridge, without even a functioning indoor oven, without doors to some of the rooms, without carpeting and air conditioning.

But they were so alive, so welcoming and so friendly. My parents, aunts, uncles and even neighbors called me, a stranger who barely could speak Spanish and who they just met, hijita, which literally translated is daughter. Their life is lived in such a way that they can hitchhike without fear of being abducted and leave their doors unlocked without fear of being robbed. Both sides of their extended family live all around the neighborhood or in town, or in the town nearby, and in my family there were five living generations of people. Even neighbors who are not blood-related know each other as well as if they were. I spent as much time living in the houses of my aunts, uncles, grandmother, great-grandmother, and neighbors as I did with my parents. Here, family is alive and strong, and central to the life of any singular person.

Life was not perfect in the campo, but it wasn´t horrible either. I know that there were ways we as Americans could say here, this is how your life could be better. You save up your money, send your kids to college, then hopefully through them, can raise their standard of living. They won´t have to plow with their own two hands, or ever milk a cow, pick a berry, or grind corn using ancient methods again. You could spend much more time together, take vacations, buy a new house, own a new car. You could become civilized, globalized, connected to other parts of the world, more than just your own tiny 500-person town.

But what´s the tradeoff? My neighbors in the U.S. know me, but not well, and many of them don´t even know my name. Hitchiking in the U.S. is practically like asking to be killed. I have never gone to bed in my home or my college home without locking the front door. Ever. There are constant stories in the news of kidnappings, murders, robberies and other brutalities. My family is my one exception. I am so grateful and lucky to have them all around me, and to know them so well and love them so much, but we are deifnitely the exception. Most other people in the U.S. and world do not even know the ages and names of their cousins, don´t visit them regularly, and have no idea what they´re like and who they are.

Our two societies are so different, yet in past times, everything was more like the Chilean campo. People are always saying that there is more violence in today´s world than in the past, and less respect and love for one´s neighbor, and for life in general. But as a whole, the world is supposedly improving because people are raising their standard of living. So, in terms of the free world, are we trading a harder life for a more violent one? Do we live better because we live easier, or do we live better when we aren´t ruled by fear? Do most financially successful people only elevate the means to having a better life, or do they actually have one? I think there are a variety of complex answers to these questions, but I believe it is something that my generation and generations of the future will have to address.

In short, my experience in the campo has profoundly affected how I view my life in the city, and in the U.S. as well. There are new things that I have never thought of that I think of now because I spent a few days with a family that is stuck in the past century, but is quickly becoming caught up.

You can call me cultured, but not a camper...

The last part is unfortunately true, but the first part I am happy about, because now that I have been to a wine-tasting shindig and can call myself ¨cultured.¨ It might have been in a rural Chilean town, but hey, wine is wine, and people that drink wine know what they´re doing, and are cultured. Ladies and gentlemen, at the ripe old age of 20 years old, I can now proudly state that I am that person.

This weekend there was a Wine Festival (El Festival de la Vindima, if you prefer) in Curicó, Chile, about 2 hours from Santiago. We left early Friday and got there at about 10 in the morning. The festival didn´t start until 6, so we killed time by visiting a vineyard for absolutely free. One girl among us is Puerto Rican, therefore fluent in Spanish, and I have no idea how she pulled that, but this is one of the main reasons why I must know Spanish.

So we visited the vineyard in the middle of nowhere (yet again) and saw the giant truckloads of grapes be shoved into a machine that magically pulls off their stems. They then get sucked into two huge vats that squeeze all the juice out of the grapes, one by compressing them with wood and another by compressing them with air. This concoction gets moved into more huge vats that are dated, and get yeast poured in so they can ferment. Basically, thats how you make wine.

That night, we went back into town and paid a muderously cheap rate for as much vino as we could drink. $3 for a obligatory glass cup, and $1 for every glass afterwards. Every vendor around that area was there, except for the vineyard we visited, which was about 12-15 different companies. Although I probably could have sampled more, I stuck to three glasses of different wines (Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot) some delicious Alfredo pasta, and some chocolate covered bananas. It was fantastic.

The next day, we ventured south about 1 1/2 hours more to camp near this place called Siete Tazas (Seven Cups). It is a series of beautiful waterfalls located in one of Chile´s numerous national parks. The waterfalls were just as stunning as they sound; some flow into one another, and some are solidly spilling into a rounded lagoon which does remind you of a teacup. We came back to our campsite and had some more wine and grub, and sat around an illegal campfire that we didn´t get caught for. Because there weren´t as many tents as there was people, two other girls and I slept in the hostel next to it, (this is a good time to point out I have never been camping, and even though I would, I didn´t feel the diehard need to like some people did.)

This trip was planned last minute, but I am so glad it turned out as well as if it were planned weeks in advance. I really recommend Chilean wine (especially from Concha y Toro and Miguel Torres) if it is an option. If not, just come to Chile, I´m sure if you´re reading this I miss you and hey, you´ll get some delicious (and cheap) Chilean wine.

Viña del Mar y Valparaíso

The beautiful thing about the Chilean school schedule I worked out for myself is that I have a three day weekend. That is why I found myself boarding a bus on Friday morning with 6 other people, heading towards the coastal cities of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. We were on the road for no more than an hour when the terrain turned from desert-like hills to a very colorful, almost plastic looking town, strung up on hills that bordered the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean. (disclaimer - none of these pictures are mine, but because I still have no access to them, this will give you an idea of what it was like)

We passed through the city what we later learned was in fact Valaparaíso and ended the ride in Viña, by comparison a much quieter city that was a lazy but upscale beach town. Luckily we had a good recommendation of a modest priced hostel from students who went the weekend before, so we had no problems finding a place to stay. The Monaldi Hotel had 4 long floors of rooms, communal bathrooms not as bad as it sounds, but there was an unbelievably strange type of soap. The flavor of the soap was, how do I put this, placenta. Obviously that must have two diverse meanings.), and free breakfast at for $16 U.S. dollars a night.

That first day was just spent soaking in the sun, and exploring the tiny downtown of Viña. It could have been a city anywhere in the world, but it was still beach, and beach is beach.

The second day was the real adventure. We had planned to take a bus to the adjoining city of Valparaíso early the next morning so we could see all there is to see in as much time as possible. We got there around 11:30 and ended up talking to one of the tourist guides that set up near the harbor. His name was Michael something, and he was a German living in South America. He offered to give us a tour of the city for merely $4 U.S. per person, and although we were questioning his motives at first, we decided that there was nowhere he could lead us that all 6 of us couldn´t handle. That decision turned out to make our day.

All through the neighborhoods and streets of Valaparaíso are giant elevators, or forniculas, that carry people up and down hills, therefore making it so much easier on the legs. We started on south side of the city and made our way north. All day we walked through pathways that lead to beautifully built buildings, in blue, pink, purple and green. We went to places of history, like the Naval Museum, the first fire station built in Chile, the port where all these battleships still are. We saw local artesans who made unbelievable works of art through their chosen craft; jewelry, purses, musical instruments, clothes. I bought a beautiful brown necklace made of some type of seeds and two leather bracelets with designs imprinted on them. We walked through traditional paseos, or boardwalks, like Avenida Italiana and Avenida Atkinson that winded and weaved through neighborhoods with mansions and pools, and some with shacks and dirt roads. We were always climbing up or down somewhere; nothing was flat.

As we talked to our guide, he lead us to people he knew, restaurants he´d eaten at, and generally made conversations with anyone. Adam, one of the people who I went with, had heard about an old prison that was changed into a cultural center, and our guide said he knew of it and of an actor who worked there. The prison was at the top of one particular hill, which the fornicula we rode in to get there was said to be a huge feat of engineering because of the steepness of the incline.

While walking around inside the prison, it was eerie to think that criminals had once been housed in a place that seemed to to bursting with kids playing on a playground, a group of drummers beating a rhythm on the steps, an exercise yard that had been converted into soccer fields. Our guide led us to a theater that the actor, who called himself Papito, was renovating with other theater students. We took a tour of the place, saw photos of his play which was about being in prison since he evidently had spent 20 years there, and sat and talked for awhile of what life in prison was like. We never found out what Papito was in prison for, but it could have been anything from criminal activity or murder, to simply being an artist and being stifled by a dictatorship. The man was a character, calling everyone ¨chorizo/a¨ which means sausage, and although he looked tough and mean, he wore a French buret and a purple scarf with flowers on it.

We ended the night at a restaurant that overlooked the entire city, and an Irish bar because it was Saint Patrick´s day. The bar was surprisingly Irish, with a live band that played live Irish music and green beer. We got back to Viña not too late, and got up the next morning for church. Spanish Mass is something I haven´t gotten tired of because of the necesity of paying close attention to what is going on.

After church, we spent the day at another small beach town next to Viña called Reñaca, which was favored because its scenery was supposedly prettier. It was indeed gorgeous, complete with a giant working clock made of flowers. We stayed until after dinner at a seafood restaurant where I split a meal of meat, shrimp, potatoes, and mixed vegetables with two other guys. We came back to Santiago at around 10:30 p.m. and waited for about 2 1/2 hours for a bus that could take us home. If you haven´t heard, Santiago is trying out a new system of transportation called Transantiago, which is just a regulated bus system. Unfortunately it hasn´t been implemented well enough, and there is big chunks of time when buses just do not come, or are so crowded that you are crushed against someone else, crushed against someone else, hanging for dear life because the door can´t close because of the amount of people. We ended up spliting a taxi ride after we got sick of waiting, and alls well that ends well, because now we are back in school dreaming of the beach.