Calliope's Odyssey

Going home...

homersmuse — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:29:00 GMT

Time's up! Tomorrow I head back to the US of A and my love affair with South America will have to take a hiatus (though hopefully not a very long one).

Although I'm sad that my year studying abroad has come to an end, I think I'm ready to go home. I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends, summer, smog-free air, eating brats, and drinking beer on the union terrace.

Now I'll try to answer the question on everyone's mind: what did I like better, Ecuador or Chile?

Tonight I was actually pondering this question as I walked down Providencia. You know, Chile really made up lost ground in the last month or so. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely loved Chile. I just have a strong bias towards Ecuador since my time there really couldn't have been more perfect.

I went to the botellería (liquor store) to buy a goodbye present for Tía Inés. I chose a bottle of Misiones de Rengo Carmenere. She always teases me and calls me "la gótica" (gothic) because supposedly my mouth is always stained purple from drinking red wine. I thought it was a fitting gift.

Anyway, I realized that the owner of the liquor store was watching the Ecuador vs. Chile soccer game. What a crazy coincidence, right?

I almost screamed ¡VIVA ECUADOR! in the middle of the store. En serio.

I smiled to myself and the owner asked me if I liked fútbol. I responded "me gusta Ecuador" and explained that I lived there for five months. He asked me how long I had been in Chile. Four months. He waved me away and told me to give it another month.

I just looked to see the outcome on ESPN's website. I guess Chile won, 3 to 2.

Ok, now for the other question that I'm sure everyone will ask me when I get back: have I changed as a person this year?

Obvio. But I don't want to get into the clichés of how study abroad has changed my life.

One thing that has surprised me is that my interest in traveling in my country has grown, along with my interest in American culture. Before coming to South America, I had the somewhat immature mentality that there was nothing to see in the US. However, recently I realized that I had seen more of Ecuador and Chile than I had seen in my own country, which is a shame. Although there are many things that I dislike about American culture, it still fascinates me, just as South American culture does.

Next on my agenda: the great American roadtrip.

What will I miss?

La vida tranquila, empanadas, my crazy Panamanian house, sacraficing my pride for good coffee at Chilean Starbucks, pisco sours, Liguria, ¿cachai?...the list could go on forever.

Oh, and speaking Spanglish! And even better than Spanglish, combining Ecuadorian and Chilean slang to confuse my Spanish speaking friends. Here's an example. Chileans add the word "po" to the end of everything (i.e. "sí po"). It means absolutely nothing. Ecuadorians do the same with "ffff", which also has no significance. So being the slang-savy Spanish speaker that I am, I say "sí poffff". Everyone thinks I'm crazy.

Any regrets?

Not starting an online travel journal sooner.

Thanks for reading Calliope's Odyssey! I assure you that it will be resumed at a later date, hopefully not too far into the future.

¡Qué te vaya súper bien pofff!

Thousands of Zombies in Chilean Society.

homersmuse — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:53:00 GMT

I recently had the opportunity to tour Villa Grimaldi, which was once a torture camp during the early years of Pinochet's dictatorship. Our guide, Pedro Matta, was imprisoned and tortured there as a 23 year-old politically active college student. Hearing his first-hand experiences in Villa Grimaldi was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

One thing that has surprised me about Chileans is that they don't really talk about Pinochet's dictatorship. My guess is that the topic is hush-hush because the people are ashamed that such a brutal dictatorship is part of their country's recent past and as Chileans they wish to not be automatically associated with it. In some sense, it's a little like how I always brace myself for anti-Americanism and Bush-bashing whenever I admit being American, though I don't support our president.

The only Chileans I've been able to converse with about the dictatorship are young conservatives from my university. The conversation usually goes a little like this:

Me: "Chile is really modern and economically stable compared to many of the other countries I've traveled in in Latin America."

Chilean classmate: "That's because of Pinochet's economic programs."

Though this is, in part, true, I'm always taken aback by how matter-of-fact their response is. Pinochet resorted to medieval forms of torture to achieve progress. Yet another example of what my Latin American history professor refers to as the great Latin American paradox...

In any case, Pedro Matta is the first Chilean I've met who holds this viewpoint and is willing to share it. My first impression of him was that he reminded me of a Chilean version of my father. Though a few years younger, Pedro was of about the same stature and had the same thick mustache and eyebrows. He was politically active as a college student, as my dad and his friends were in mass campus protests against the Vietnam War. However, immeadiately when Pedro began to speak, the difference between him and my dad became apparent. I could sense that something terrible had happened to Pedro in his lifetime simply by listening to the way he spoke and watching the manner in which he carried himself.

Though it was extremely eerie to physically stand in the site of unspeakable human rights violations, I was impressed by the beauty of Villa Grimaldi. It was originally the estate of a wealthy family and though Pinochet tore down the buildings, ancient trees and stunning rose gardens still remain. Pedro told us about how upon seeing the rose garden, the officers decided to keep in intact. Ironically, this well-maintained garden was where the male guards took the female prisoners to rape them.

In the corner of Villa Grimaldi, there is a replica of the red, three story tower that stood during its prison camp days. It was used as a watchtower and the site of the most brutal torture. Pedro told us that the vast majority of the prisoners who were taken to the tower were disappeared. However, he does have one friend who was fortunate enough to survive.

The tower is located next to Villa Grimaldi's swimming pool. Pedro's friend told him that many nights she could hear the male and female guards having pool parties. The audacity of the guards to party while they weren't torturing the prisoners amazes me, as well as the fact that this is one of Pedro's friend's clearest memories. The capacity of the human mind to block out pain and focus on something trivial, such as the splashing and laughter of a pool party, is astounding.

One night a prisoner on the floor above Pedro's friend urinated while knocked unconscious. It leaked through the cracks in the floor. A breeze carried the smells of the garden into the tower as this happened. The scent of roses was stronger than the stench of the human excretement that rained down on her.

Pedro showed us a small hut where prisoners were locked up for extended periods of time, sometimes for weeks. The hut was about the size of a public bathroom stall. Not only was the closterphobia of being locked in the hut torture in itself, but its central location in Villa Grimaldi forced the prisoner to hear others being tortured. Pedro told us that through hearing the screams of fellow prisoners, most of whom were friends, he has been able to condition himself to fall asleep in any situation, however unpleasant it may me.

Of all the atrocities Pedro told us about, the stories of psychological torture had the greatest impact on me. One night after a torture session that left his hands permanently disfigured, Pedro was taken to a room where other victims were being held. A man offered him a cigarrette to ameliorate his pain. While they smoked and Pedro wondered what sort of outside connections this guy had to get cigarrettes, they exchanged stories. The man's wife had been tortured in front of him in an effort to get him to tell them names. When he refused, the guards began to torture his infant child. He still did nothing.

The man wanted to know what Pedro would have done in that situation. Pedro said that he didn't know. Tears began to run down his face when he told us that he still doesn't know. He asked us to think about what we would have done.

In my culture, the idea of a heroic man saving his wife and children from harm's way is a romantic cliché. Consequently, my first instinct was that I would have given up names. However, that would mean that others would suffered what I had suffered. More children would be tortured. This question has run through my head many times since my visit to Villa Grimaldi. Like Pedro, I still have no idea what I would have done.

Through this story in particular, I have been able to better comprehend the way the brutality of Pinochet's dictatorship has affected Chilean society as a whole. This type of human rights violation is not unique to Chile; many other Latin American countries suffered in the same way. The difference is that while in Argentina the majority of the imprisoned were disappeared, in Chile many more prisoners were released back into society.

Maybe the parents of the tortured infant told him what happened when he was old enough to understand. Or maybe not. In any case, the children, parents, and friends of the tortured have in turn have become victims of torture. Pedro refers to himself as a zombie, and says that thousands of zombies like him exist within Chilean society.

Happy Meat is Good to Eat!

homersmuse — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:05:00 GMT

After yet another bland meal in the Casa Holanda, I have been hopelessly reminiscing about the weekend trip I took to Buenos Aires a couple of weeks ago. I just can't stop fantisizing about all of the culinary delights that the city has to offer. Sometimes I feel like a contestant on Survivor; always craving what I can't have.

Ok, I admit that I'm exaggerating as usual. The food in Santiago is very tasty as well, it's just that Buenos Aires is the kind of city where you go into a bakery just to look at the pasteries.

I will now take you on a culinary tour of Buenos Aires while my mouth waters and I ponder whether I can afford another trip there in the near future.

We arrived on Thursday night starving and crabby. Our flight was delayed about 2 hours due to fog and the mystery meat sandwich that LAN gave us just didn't do it for me. My buddy Jasper who lives in Bs.As. took us to a little hole in the wall place to watch Tonolec perform (an Argentine duo that fuses Indigenous and electronic music- check them out!). All I can say is CHEESE! Although it's definitely possible to find good cheese in Santiago, it's a rare commodity for someone like me who shops at the normal grocery stores. Being a Wisconsin native, I know my cheese and I miss it terribly. In conclusion, lesson #1: if you've been in South America for a while and haven't had your fill of cheese, you'll find it in Bs.As.

Now I'm not much of a meat-eater. However, during one weekend alone in Bs.As., I probably ate more meat than I have all semester in Santiago. After hearing so much about Argentine beef, I prepared myself for a let down. No way. This stuff melts in your mouth. I'm not sure why it tastes so different from beef in the US; maybe they treat the animals better? The best part is that at the parrillas if you ask nicely and use the magic word, the waiter will have the chefs show you the different cuts of meat so you know what to order. We ate at a parrilla called Don Julio, and they had coolers upon coolers of meat that the chef eagerly showed off for us. The second best part is the prices. You will be floored by how cheap steak is in Bs.As., especially if you're from the US.

One thing that surprised me was how popular Italian food is in Buenos Aires. It is everywhere, and it was good every time we had it. After a long night out on the town, Jasper took us to Kentucky, which is a pizza joint that's open 24 hours (a.k.a. Bs.As. drunk food). The pizza was good, of course, but the interesting part was that they include a piece of faina, which is a type of pie made of chick peas. I had never heard of it. All I can say about that is "rico" (yum, for you non-Spanglish speakers out there).

While I was expecting to taste different types of wine in Buenos Aires, we actually found about about a micro-brewery in Palermo Soho called Antares. We each ordered 2 different types of beer and they were all delicious. Once again, we Wisco kids know our beer and we were impressed. The food was good too; we got to taste BBQ sauce for the first time in months!

It is official. I have falled in love with Buenos Aires. Now don't even get me started on the shopping...

Gallery: Buenos Aires

homersmuse — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:56:00 GMT

Gallery: La Serena

homersmuse — Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:26:00 GMT

Rod Stewart is to Easter Island as Tom Jones is to El Conti.

homersmuse — Wed, 30 May 2007 17:01:00 GMT

My week long trip to Easter Island began with the appropriate apparel: adventure clothes. You know...extra-heavy-duty-gortex hiking boots, fannypacks, cowboy hats, and camoufloge bandanas, all of which feature super-duper-quick-dry technology. My travel buddies, Ellen and Liz, and I don't tend to sport this sort of attire, so we felt slightly out of place at our gate, where the vast majority of our fellow travelers looked like they were about to go on an African Safari or climb Mount Everest. As we scarfed down Dunkin' Doughnuts, we pondered whether we were going to be required to parachute out of the plane and someone failed to inform us about it.

Fortunately for us, the closest we got to jumping from the plane was disembarking right on the runway rather than at a gate, since Easter Island's airport is so tiny that it doesn't have gates. As a traditional Polynesian greeting, we were given lei flower necklaces by Edith, a native of the island and the owner of Hotel Taura'a, where we would be staying. Although the "real coffee" that Hotel Taura'a advertised turned out to be Folger's (I admit it, I'm a coffee snob), we loved our stay there. As young travelers, normally we stay in hostels, but we decided to splurge on this occasion. Edith and her Australian husband Bill were overjoyed to have a more youthful feel at their hotel for once and proceeded to tell us their life stories, offer us parental advice on life in general, and spoil us with all kinds of attention.

Once we got settled in we asked ourselves, "what should we do?" This may seem like an absurd question for three young gringas who have just landed in the most remote inhabited place on earth. However, we were celebrating our three month anniversary of arriving in Santiago, population seven million. The island's only town, Hanga Roa, felt as though it had a population of about seven hundred. Culture shock! Luckily, Bill sensed our distress and gave us some ideas for a walking tour around town.

We followed Bill's advice and got a bite to eat, admired the ocean views, visited the town cemetary, went to the museum, and, most importantly, saw our first moai head statues. Our first instinct upon seeing the moai was to wonder "are those real?" Again, a seemingly ridiculous question, but the statues were not only enormous, but interspersed throughout the town. It just seemed odd that the town of Hanga Roa was allowed to overlap with the site of these historic icons.

While wandering among the moai, we deviated from the path and down to the tide pools where we discovered a little cave. While we were inspecting it, we suddenly heard a voice and realized that we were being watched by an unkempt middle-aged man holding a piece of moldy bread. "¿Qué están haciendo en mi isla?" (what are you doing on my island?), he inquired. I mumbled something about traveling as we speed-walked away. After our initial freak-out session about this incident, we joked about making a "Scary Movie: Easter Island" in which "Moldy Bread" would be the villain. However, I couldn't help wondering whether the Polynesian greeting and hospitality was simply a tourist scam. I wanted to know how the Rapa Nui people actually did feel about tourists.

My doubts were expunged from my memory once we discovered this trendy little Asian inspired restaurant down the road from our hotel. We frequented the restaurant for the rest of the week for its food, cocktails, and live traditional Rapa Nui music, not to mention its handsome bartender! After a performance, Kunki, a brave member of the band, approached our table. About 30 seconds later, the remaining members of the band, the bartender, and 2 rather intoxicated middle-aged men had descended upon us.

Hold that image for a second. Have I mentioned yet that Rapa Nui people are the most beautiful people in the world? Actually, to put it more blatantly, they are hot. I send my apologies to the people of Brazil and Buenos Aires, but it's true. I just wanted to make sure that you could accurately invision our astonished reaction to being surrounded by such good-looking men, instruments in hand. Minus the two old drunk guys, of course!

Ok, so to pick up where I left off, the members of the band picked up their instruments and started to serenade us with Rapa Nui songs. I am one to find this sort of move a bit cheesy, but the male voice in Rapa Nui music is so soft and alluring that it almost won me over. Abruptly, I tumbled out of my trance when I realized that they had switched into a song in English. And not just any song in English, but "The Color of my Heart" by Rod Stewart! Even the bartender and the two drunks joined in! To make it even better, most of them didn't speak English and were just reciting the lyrics phonetically. My friends and I managed to mask our bewilderment until we returned to our hotel room.

The great advantage of befriending these guys is that we didn't have to take ridiculously overpriced tours of the island; they showed us around for free. The next day Kunki, his brother, and his friend Ricky took us hiking up a volcanoe (inactive, don't worry). The greens, browns, and whites of reed islands were scattered throughout the ocean-blue water that had collected in the volcanoe's crater, giving it the illusion of a satellite photo of Earth.

Before splitting up for a few hours of rest, Ricky invited us to come over later for an asado (cookout) at his family's home. We headed over later that night, and within approximately 5 minutes I felt as though I had know these people forever. Rapa Nui families are huge; Edith is one of 22 siblings. Consequently, many of the people at Ricky's asado were related to Edith in some way and were excited to find out that we were staying at her hotel. Rather than displaying the anti-Americanism that I have encountered so often while traveling, they were curious about our culture, as well as our travels. Most of them had only visited mainland Chile a handful of times throughout their lives. The picture they painted the South American continent, which they referred to as "el conti," was almost romantic. To them, life as we know it in mainland America is as exotic, mysterious, and far-removed as we perceive life on Easter Island.

After we finished our cuba libres, we received our next lesson on Rapa Nui culture: these people know how to party. Ricky's family accompanied us to Topatangi, a bar popular with all ages because of its live music. And when I say all ages, I mean all ages. Men and women old enough to be my grandparents danced alongside kids in their early teens. Not dancing is not an option at Topatangi, so by 3 am Liz, Ellen, and I were too exhausted to make it to the real party. We headed back to the hotel to pass out while our new Rapa Nui family headed to the discoteca. My conclusion stands that if the Rapa Nui can outparty kids from the University of Wisconsin, they can outparty anyone.

Although we were con caña (a little hungover) the following morning, we had promised Torea, the bartender from our restaurant, that we would go boating with him. We naively got into Torea's fishing boat with our cameras, towels, and wallets, despite his warnings that we were going to get wet. How bad could it be? Five minutes later I was more soaked than I have ever been in my life. Luckily, the guys had brought a cooler and we threw our stuff in there. As the towers of water surrounding us grew taller, our concern increased that we were going to either a.) throw up or b.) get thrown from the boat. So Ellen, Liz, and I reacted in the best way we knew how to: grasping onto one another for dear life and screaming at the top of our lungs, on top of our constant, histerical laughter. The guys were used to boating in the ocean, of course, so they found our reaction quite amusing. We were not so amused when we realized that they were sitting in the best positions and were completely dry. The good news is that we made it out in one piece. The better news is that they caught two beautiful tuna, which Torea cooked for us over an open flame on Anakena beach later that afternoon. The bad news is that Ellen's camera was completely destroyed from the salt water...

Our final day in Hanga Roa we rented a jeep with two members of the band, Ivan and Rod (Tico is his real name, but coincidentally, he actually looked a lot like Rod Stewart, hence the nickname). On the way to our first destination, a volcanoe that is home to hundreds of moai, Ivan and Rod started to sing Rapa Nui songs. They quickly moved on to...you guessed it! Rod Stewart's "The Color of my Heart". Ellen, Liz, and I aren't really fans of Rod Stewart and didn't even know the words, so the Rapa Nui boys taught us the words and made us sing along. I decided that their fascination with Rod Stewart is as inexplicable as continental Chile's fascination with Tom Jones.

We arrived to the volcanoe and wandered among the moai, which were about 4 times my height. Several never completed moai were still carved into the rock on the side of the volcanoe. We climbed to the top of the volcanoe to see the only female moai, and then sat down to take in the view. We continued on to several moai sites that we had not yet visited, followed by the beach, and then to a cave. Since we didn't have a flashlight, we had to feel our way through. After several minutes of trying not to hit my head or trip, a weak light came into view. Finally, we came across an opening in the side of a cliff on the waterfront. The twilight gave the water a shimmery silver color. As we sat in awe of the expanse of the ocean that separates Easter Island from the rest of the world, I asked myself if I could tolerate life on an island thousands of miles away from any other civilization.

As the restaurant began to clear out later that night, Torea gave us a round of drinks on the house and sat down to visit with us. He gave us the lowdown of what life is really like on the island. Most people don't study past high school, unless they go to mainland for a couple years to go to college. He doesn't feel inferior since he never went to college, because he possesses other types of intelligence unique to the island. They fish, play music, dance, and give impromptu tours for people like us. Most days they wake up without a plan and just see where the day takes them. The ultimate vida tranquila.

We returned to our hotel room and as we were getting ready for bed, we heard a knock on our door. The whole band was there, wanting to give us a sendoff. Of course they wanted to sing and -surprise surprise- we got to hear their rendition of Rod Stewart once again. We didn't want to wake up the other guests at the hotel, so we took the jeep down to the waterfront to see the moai one last time. The statues seemed even more immense with a night backdrop, and we danced around crazily in front of them as Manu played the ukelele.

Our flight left in the early afternoon the next day. We ran into Ivan and Rod at the airport. It turned out that Ivan's girlfriend was leaving for "el conti" on the same flight as us. We asked when she would be back and he shrugged his shoulders and said he had no idea. It was then that I realized that I couldn't live on Easter Island. Torea told us that many people who go to the mainland to study don't like life on the continent. While I felt closterphobic from the immense stretch of ocean that binds the island on all sides, undoubtedly the Rapa Nui feel overwhelmed by the expanse of land when they travel to the mainland.

It was about 8pm when we returned to Santiago, and the first thing I noticed when I stepped outside of the airport was a faint dishsoap-like scent in the air. Apparently it had been a particularly smoggy week. Like I realized that I could never live on Easter Island forever, I knew that Santiago wasn't really for me either. At this point, all I really did know was that Easter Island was quite the impressionable adventure. Sans adventure clothes.

Ranting About the Infamous Transantiago

homersmuse — Fri, 25 May 2007 01:35:00 GMT

Maybe you've heard of Transantiago. It's a new citywide bus/metro system that has recently been put into place. It has had so many flukes that supposedly it even made the national news in the US of A! I won't bore you with the details, but here is a firsthand account from yours truly to give you an idea what it's like.

I have Quechua class at 8:30 am two days a week, which means that I communte to my university during hora punta (rush hour). I naively signed up for such an early class back when I had no idea what Transantiago meant. I am not (emphasis on "not") a morning person, so after reading this you'll be able to imagine what my mood is like when I finally arrive to school after a delightful morning misadventure on the metro.

I enter the Tobalaba metro stop at approximately 8:00 am. It is very rare and close to never that I drag myself out of bed early enough to make my own breakfast, so I pick up a bite to eat at Castaño. Muffins con chips de chocolate, berlines, and other pastries from Castaño are the equivalent to Egg-McMuffins and McHashbrowns in the US. Everyone stops at Castaño on their way to school, work, or for the young and rambunctious, on the way home from a long night at the disco. As a creature of habit, I order my usual: a muffin con chips de chocolate and apple juice.

Finally I make it down to the platform, which is starting to crowd up as Santiaguinos chose their places and prepare for a vicious competition of who will make it into the next train and who will be left behind. Survival of the fittest. Elevator music plays softly in the background while Jorge Conejo, metro safety inspector, sternly glares down at us from every angle. Don Conejo's safety billboards grace us with important reminders, such as "do not jump into the path of a moving train". Obvio (duh).

The train arrives and we push our way on. A tall businessman in a grey suit discovers that his briefcase has become entangled in the straps of a young mother's diaper bag. He begins to thrash around, almost knocking several people to the ground, including myself, the young mother, her two children, an elderly couple, and a midget. I glare at this cuico (snob) until we arrive at my transfer: Baquedano.

Baquedano during rush hour might possibly be the most chaotic place on the South American continent. People charge in every direction with a sense of urgency and without a sense of organization. On a good day I make it all the way to my platform without being pummeled too severely. However, this feeling of accomplishment quickly crashes and burns once a third train passes and I am still waiting on the platform. At least I am at the front of the crowd when the next train arrives. The way that the passengers exiting the train push their way through the mass of people on the platform can only be compared to one thing: a baby pushing its way through the birth canal. Or at least that's how I imagine it as the passengers struggle through the shifting crowd until they are finally free.

I board the car and end up next to a young couple who decides to publically display their affection for one another. Just my luck. Metro P.D.A. is big in Chile. I avert my eyes and the train comes up from under the ground. Great, now I have something else to look at, I think to myself. I gasp as the Andes come into view. The smog has not set in yet and I can see the snowcaps on the mountains. It is the clearest morning I have experienced since I came to Santiago. The disarray and annoyance of the last twentyfive minutes escape me completely as I take in this rare instance of beauty in a city whose eyesores of contamination mar its potential.

I snap out of it when we reach my final destination. I move toward the doors but something is holding me back. The boyfriend of the P.D.A. couple is standing on bottom on my pantleg. Hmm, what to do? He is big and intimidating, plus I don't want to interrupt his makeout session with his girlfriend, so I yank my pantleg away, ripping off a half inch of my jeans. Oh well, they were old jeans anyway. I leap through the door just as it is about to close.

I congratulate myself on surviving the zoo of hora punta once again as I hurry to Quechua class. Gracias a Dios that I don't have to do that every day...

Una flor?

homersmuse — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:30:00 GMT

Classes at La Catolica are going ok. I've had a hard time getting excited about my classes this semester, which is weird for me because normally I'm enthusiastic about my classes at least at the beginning of the semester. My Chilean Anthropology class is so terrible that it's reached the point that it's just amusing. The other day the professor started class by showing us a slide of a flower and repeating the phrase "una flor" (a flower). This was followed by an uncomfortable silence for what felt like 5 straight minutes while he intently stared us down as we contemplated this flower. He then proceeded to tell us just how spectacular this flower was while running the computer cursor up and down the length of the flower as though he was stroking it. I never really figured out what this awkward initial 5 minutes of class had to do with anthropology.

Gallery: Easter Island

homersmuse — Fri, 18 May 2007 14:39:00 GMT

Gallery: Patagonia

homersmuse — Thu, 10 May 2007 08:53:00 GMT

Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales, Punto Arenas

Gallery: Isla Negra

homersmuse — Tue, 8 May 2007 09:16:00 GMT

Gallery: Valparaíso

homersmuse — Tue, 8 May 2007 09:07:00 GMT

Valpo, Viña, and some Isla Negra

Gallery: Chiloé

homersmuse — Tue, 8 May 2007 02:32:00 GMT

Gallery: Santiago

homersmuse — Mon, 7 May 2007 18:31:00 GMT

A Briefing from La Presidenta de la SNP.

homersmuse — Mon, 7 May 2007 18:28:00 GMT

It's true. I have been elected as the president of a secret society within Casa Holanda: La Sociedad No Panameña (Non-Panamanian Society). As you may or may not remember from my last update, I am living in a house with 75 people, 50 of whom are Panamanian. So the non-Panamanian members of the house have decided to take action and form the SNP. This was my idea, so naturally I am La Presidenta. We have a secret handshake and everything.

Don't worry, though. We members of the SNP tend to exaggerate about our strife. In general things are going very well both in my residence and in Chile as a whole. I compare every little thing to Ecuador, and although some of my friends think that it's unhealthy that I do this, I remind myself that I'm in a comparative year program and this is what I'm supposed to be doing. At this point in the semester, I still feel more of a connection with Ecuador. I think that students who study abroad tend to be parcial to the first place they go to, but who knows? Maybe Chile will pull ahead in the end...

I thought that to start this novel of an update I would walk you guys through the events of a typical day in the Casa Holanda. Here we go...

I wake up at much earlier than ideal hour (usually 9ish) to the Panamanians BLASTING reggaeton on their sound systems. For those of you who aren't familiar with popular Latin American music, reggaeton is a mix of reggae, techno, hip hop, and traditional latin dance music. Maybe you've heard of Daddy Yankee? For those of you who do know what reggaeton is, you probably think that I'm over-exaggerating because reggaeton can be ok in small doses. However, there is one reggaeton "artist" that is quite popular with the Panamanians whose voice is similar to a prepubescent middle schooler, a.k.a. not exactly the first thing I want to hear in the morning. Reggaeton is losing points with me by the day...

I go downstairs to the kitchen very excited to eat my frambuesas (raspberries) for breakfast, only to open the fridge and find that my carton of raspberries, which was almost full last time I saw it, is now almost empty. I search for a possible culprit but I am distracted by Ines, the housekeeper/housemom, who says something to me in extremely fast, heavily accented, Chilean Spanish. To give you an idea about how hard this woman's Spanish is to understand, many of the native Spanish speakers in the house don't even understand her half the time. I don't answer her question quickly enough as I haven't had my caffeine yet, and she proceeds to tell me that I haven't learned anything about Chilean Spanish this semester. Then she asks me for my last two raspberries and I've found my lead suspect. She asks if we have raspberries in the US and when I tell her that we do, she doesn't believe me at first and asks if we buy them frozen. I tell her that in Northern Wisconsin we can pick buckets of fresh, wild raspberries in the summer and that my mom makes an amazing homemade raspberry pie. She asks me if we have land in the US, which confuses me at first until I realize that she is asking if we have green spaces. She imagines that the entire surface area of the US, north to south and east to west, is covered in concrete.

I disappear until dinner, and the other gringas and I decide to throw something together for a meal. Usually we make spaghetti since it's easy. The only spaghetti sauce we can find in Santiago tastes like Chef Boyardee with a faint taste of ketchup, so we try to make it tolerable with copious amounts of whatever spices we can get our hands on. We snack while we cook, usually on avocado. While at home, avocados are almost like a delicacy, here they're part of every meal. I like to call them the "white rice of Chile". I've learned to make a mean guacamole. When we finally sit down to eat, we realize that our forks have gone missing. Undoubtedly someone else who is lacking in the fork department has snatched ours and they're hiding out in someone else's dish locker. So the three of us take turns using two forks until Lil' Liz agrees to eat spaghetti with a spoon.

After dinner we open a bottle of Chilean wine that we picked up at the grocery store for $4. We have the worst wine bottle opener in the world, so usually we have to hunt down a Panamanian boy to help us. That's one good thing about them; they're so chivalrous that they'll never refuse to help a gringa in need with a particularly stuck cork. We're technically not allowed to drink alcohol in the house, but if we give Ines a glass she'll look the other way. The other members of the SNP show up in the kitchen. They are Chilean, Colombian, Costa Rican, Mexican, English, and German. They talk about things that would considered politically incorrect in the US. I listen and think nothing of it as I watch the Panamanians concoct some sort of hot dog casserole in a wok.

So that's my life here. After living in my own apartment, it's tough getting used to the constant ruckus of dorm life again. I have a love-hate relationship with Casa Holanda, but all in all I'm glad that I live here. I've gotten to know people who I never would have met otherwise. The Panamanians are even buena gente (good people) most of the time; they're just a tough crowd to break into.

Gallery: Mendoza

homersmuse — Sun, 6 May 2007 14:58:00 GMT

Happy Meat is Good to Eat.

Gallery: Machu Picchu

homersmuse — Sun, 6 May 2007 14:36:00 GMT

Los hermanos Johnson Travel to Peru

Gallery: Arequipa

homersmuse — Wed, 2 May 2007 06:44:00 GMT

The White City.

Gallery: Cusco & Sacred Valley

homersmuse — Wed, 2 May 2007 04:49:00 GMT

Gallery: Lima

homersmuse — Wed, 2 May 2007 04:34:00 GMT