Poetic Musings of a Reluctant Chilena

I'm in the kind of mood that makes me appreciate the tiny things I see every day. The fact is that my life doesn't feel terribly different here. I don't feel constantly immersed in a culture strange and foreign. I don't feel as if my outlook is being radically transformed, I don't awaken each morning with stunning revelations of intercultural understanding. I am resigned to quiet contentment. It may sound cynical, it may be disappointing to admit it, but as I mentioned some time ago in an earlier post, life in Chile is still just...life. And so I return to the minuscule, I ground myself in the chance happenings that make me think or smile in the midst of my daily routine.

---

The flock of tiny schoolchildren,
identically dressed in their colorful smocks,
herded by their uniformed teachers
down a busy city sidewalk.
Their entire world a preschool wonder
of giggles and questions,
toddling legs struggle to keep up with busy minds
and there are not enough hands to hold.

---

The tiny blip of a hummingbird
flitting between the flowers that grow
at the foot of the daunting staircase
leading up to the castle where I have a history class.

---

On one deceptively fall day
there was woodsmoke in the air
and a little girl was practicing her spelling on the funicular.

---

Bookshelves, stacks of words
Even the doors are artwork
her Brazilian accent
sings in our ears
lilts around the Spanish, out of place
little plates appear tiling the mesita
milk coffee chocolate marmalade
sing on our tongues
escondidas en our little sanctuary
surrounded by the skeleton frame of a room,
worn studs exposed,
a hidden structure revealed--
our garden retreat
once.

---

There's a quiet old man on the metro
who always wears a tweed suit jacket
and reads the same little paperback:
Historia de Chile.

---

We walk to the end of the muelle, the pier
Clink 100 pesos into the binoculars
to watch the lobos del mar
Sea wolves. We call them sea lions.
They're not looking too wolfish today,
and not very lionish either.
More like blubbery lumps of bliss
sunning themselves on a gently bobbing buoy.

Life in the Subjunctive

Ask any Spanish student to name the very best thing about her chosen language of study and chances are the subjunctive mood will be the first concept on the list.

The sarcastic humor of the previous statement will be lost on anyone except the serious Spanish student, who likely has many a vivid memory of hours spent poring over Dr. Mitchell's homework, consulting desperately with other Spanish nerds, and rifling through grammar textbooks...only to end up frustrated, confused, and on the verge of mental collapse over one impossible question: "Should I use the subjunctive here or not???"

Allow me to explain, with the aid of Professor William H. Fletcher of the U.S. Naval Academy (yaaay, Internet): "Spanish has a special class of verb forms, called the 'subjunctive', which are used to discuss potential or hypothetical events, or events portrayed subjectively. This subjunctive 'mood' (i,.e. mode of looking at things) contrasts with the 'indicative' mood, which presents information as actual, objective fact."

All of this to say simply that the subjunctive mood is not simply an inanimate linguistic tool, but a living reflection of a broader philosophy that permeates everything here. One example that I have found especially interesting lately falls within the realm of government and politics. Chile is not quite twenty years into a new era of democracy that began with the fall of military dictator Augusto Pinochet after the 1989 presidential election. Today, after their brief foray into authoritarianism, Chile is widely considered the most stable democracy in Latin America. And yet, in some ways their sense of political stability seems slightly off, at least to me.

In a conversation about history and politics with my host dad, he casually mentioned that the length of a presidential term here had been changed from 6 years to 4 years in 2005 (there are no consecutive terms here as in the States--one shot is all you get). Now, compared to some of the recent changes to term limits in other Latin American countries (think Venezuela), this might seem like a step in the right direction. But I tend to agree with Emma Sepulveda, of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario in Argentina, that "[having shorter term limits] can also prove to be a huge mistake if an elected official serves only a short period of time while doing a good job," as President Michelle Bachelet has done in the last three years.

No one here seems to think that this change to the Constitution is a big deal. And maybe it isn't; I'm sure my understanding is woefully limited. But the idea is mildly unsettling--or at the very least, thought-provoking--for a girl from a country where politics have USUALLY played out in the indicative tense (with a few notable exceptions...). Stability, adherence to long-established electoral rules, peaceful transfer of power. Very predictable. But how can you have stability if the rules keep changing?

The other interesting factor is that political participation by registered voters in Chile falls more and more every year, especially among younger generations. No one's tried to reach out to them. And they don't seem to care, which is surprising to me considering the history of Chilean politics (though apathy is obviously not a uniquely Chilean phenomenon). Once they got Pinochet out of there, it seems that a lot of people simply lost interest. Is the prevailing attitude complacency, or just a natural reaction for a people who experienced years of a living under a government that was completely out of their control? For whatever reason, Chileans seem comfortable, even satisfied, to live with a measure of uncertainty--in their politics and otherwise. By choosing not to participate, it seems to me, young Chileans are just asking to live in the subjunctive mood.

Now that I've properly introduced my unhealthy relationship with grammar and its questionable parallels to politics, I'll leave you with a mish-mash of experiences from my week. I apologize for the list format that I've been using lately, but eh well.

• I saw two naturally redheaded Chileans in the space of two days. Practically unheard of. O'Higgins lives!!
  
• I was THIS close to bringing home the tiniest, fuzziest, bluest-eyed baby Husky this week. Toddling around the sidewalk on a street near my apartment, it was an unwitting player in its owners' attempt to sell it. They almost had me. Dumb maternal instinct.
• I finally put some $$ on my student-rate metro card and took the metro home from class on Friday. Ahhhhhh. It was tranquil and spacious, and gave me a close-up view of the port and the ocean as we coasted along beside the coast. Nice.
• On Friday afternoon, I went out with my new friend Daniela, whom I met through the lovely Laurel (she studied at PUCV last summer). Daniela studies law at PUCV and her family lives nearby in a smaller city between here and Santiago. We went to a restaurant with practically nothing but ice cream on the menu. I think we will be good friends.
• This is why restaurants specializing in ice cream are really your best bet here: 1) Inevitably, I choose cute little restaurants with delicious offerings of fresh juices, sandwiches, and cheap lunch specials written on blackboards outside and sit down...to discover that only one of those options is actually available. 2) A vegetarian sandwich in Chile = a green bean sandwich. Really, guys? A green bean sandwich?
• I bought a cheapish plane ticket to Buenos Aires, where I'll be spending Easter weekend with my first cousin Sarah (studying in BA) and my friend Rachel from PUCV.
• This is the pigeon who lives outside my window and serenades me with strange clucks. I'm really freaked out that he or she might one day fly inside, but I refuse to keep the window closed and miss the few lingering days of summer weather.

Chile, El Bonito

Today was one of those magical days when just about everything finally seemed to go my way . Everyone, it seemed, was in a stellar mood, and tiny acts of beauty were noted all around. Is it that things were actually different, or was it merely some small shift in my perception? I can't say for sure, but I think--at least for the moment--that Chile and I have put aside our differences and begun our love affair once more.

A random collection of experiences, notes, and thoughts gathered over the last few week or so...

--I exchanged more than three words with Mari, our nana, today. It is still really strange for me that we have household help, and so I feel awkward sometimes not really knowing how to relate to her. Like, I sometimes try to sneak and wash my own dishes when she's here...and she inevitably sneaks up on me and whisks them out of my hands to do it herself. It's a real blow to assertive American self-sufficiency. She brings me lunch on a tray. She makes my bed twice a week. She knows what my underwear looks like. It's weird, right? And mostly our conversations go like this (a translation): Mari-"Are you ready for lunch?" Kelsey-"Yes, absolutely, thank you." Mari-"Ya." Kelsey-"Thank you so much for lunch, it was delicious." Mari-"Ya." A little later... Mari-"Ya, ok, I'm going now. Take care. Chao!" Though "ya" still figured quite prominently in today's conversation, we actually spoke a little more because we both left the house at the same time to run some errands in different parts of Viña. I feel this is a step in the right direction.

--At lunch on Sunday a tumbler of fresh strawberry juice appeared by my place at the table.

--My friend Sarah and I have determined that the best type of relationship for us to have while in Chile is what we like to call "the micro romance." Te explico. Let me explain. A good lookin' guy gets on the micro, which is inevitably packed with people like so many sardines, preventing actual conversation or contact. He catches your eye, probably stunned by your pasty skin and trying to figure out if you are a gringa or maybe just some fairer-complexioned Chilean descendant of Bernardo O'Higgins. You, in turn, are mesmerized by his brown eyes and mullet with rattail, or his snazzy sailor uniform (yay for port cities). You exchange a few shy gazes until suddenly your stop comes up and you buzz the driver and crawl over ten people to freedom, leaving the good lookin' guy to wonder. Short, sweet, harmless, and entertaining. That's the micro romance.

--The aforementioned Bernardo O'Higgins, considered the father of Chile, was a political and military hero of Chilean independence. He was also the illegitimate son of an Irishman who worked for the Spanish Empire (don't ask me how that happened) and a Chilean noblewoman. So my Celtic heritage has something of an "in" here...however scandalous it may be.

--A week ago on Thursday I went out with a group of friends, invited by my orientation leader, Anaiza, to El Huevo, an infamous nightclub in Valpo (Laurel Strozier knows absolutely nothing about this place, Dr. Mitchell...absolutely nothing). For hours we wandered up and down the four maze-like floors of this place, ears reeling from the blasting music, which ranged from salsa to rock to pop, etc. Worst/best of all was the reggaeton room, which may have actually had sweat sprinklers judging from the disgusting appearances of everyone dancing there (including us). I went to bed at 4:30 (I'll just pretend my parents and grandparents aren't reading this) and THEN got up and made it to my 8:15 class. So there.

--For the past three weeks, my host family has been tip-toeing around the smoking issue. Afraid to offend me with their habit, they practically hang out the window in the kitchen to smoke, then spray copious amounts of air freshener around the apartment. Sometimes they'll sneak a ciggie while I'm in the shower, but I always know because the smoke seeps in through the bathroom window, completely ruining their clever plan.

--One of the guys who works the funicular (the bald, fierce-looking one) finally asked me where I was from one day this week. When I said the States, he seemed surprised: "I thought you were chilena!" Yessss, I had him fooled. This morning I arrived at the funicular at same time as an older woman. Fierce bald man turned to her and said, "This girl's from South Carolina." She got really excited because she had lived in Los Angeles for a time. Er...I explained to her that LA was on the other side of the country from where I lived, but no matter. I had a friend on the funicular. Her name was Teresa, she was on her way to Santiago for a family funeral, she had an extra pair of shoes with her for walking in the city, she had worked at Neiman Marcus in LA and it was such a wonderful time, she loved the United States because they judged you based on what you did with your life and not what you looked like or how you dressed...We chatted for the few minutes it took to descend from the cerro and walk to the corner, then parted ways.

--I successfully got my student pass for the metro today. I had all the documents I needed (including the official letter from PUCV that I spilled coffee on), I didn't have to wait too long, no one laughed at me, etc. In my excitement, I forgot to actually go and add some metro fare to the card, but whatever.

--My Chilean mom has been very concerned that I've taken a couple of cold showers here (not a huge deal to me, but obviously an affront to her) because the gas water heater wasn't turned on, and I didn't know how to do it yet and didn't want to accidentally detonate the apartment. So a couple of nights ago she ordered my brother to take me to the kitchen and teach me how to light the water heater. Patiently and seriously he laid out the steps for me: open the gas valve, light the match, turn the knob to let the gas flow, light the pilot, press and hold the knob for at least 15 seconds, turn to desired heat. "Now you do it and I'll watch," he instructed. I giggled. "Really?" I inquired. "Yes," came the reply. Feeling silly, I dutifully performed the steps--perfectly, I might add. "Good. Now do it again," he said. Really?? Again I completed the task successfully. We went to report my success to Alvaro and Maria Elena, and the hilarious secret was revealed--my host dad can't turn on the water heater by himself. Sometimes he wakes up my brother at five in the morning to do it for him. We all laughed at him, and then I made him come to the kitchen to learn how. He tried it two or three times--no luck. I demonstrated to him that even the newly-arrived gringa could do it. We went through approximately thirty billion matches, instructing and proving our skills (honestly, I was starting to feel a little wasteful...but still highly amused). He sighed in mock despair until he finally gave up, stomping back to his room in mock frustration like a small boy...but this evening Papa Alvaro announced proudly to all of us that he had successfully lighted the water heater this morning, all by himself!

--I spent way too much money at a used bookstore near my house today, stocking up on some books by a Chilean author as part of my continuing desperate search for an interesting and feasible thesis topic. But here I made two new Chilean friends, the owner Maria and her husband, who were super nice and chatted with me for a while. This relationship is both helpful for the exchange student and highly dangerous for the enthusiastic--yet flat broke--bibliophile.

--Sometimes there are buskers on the micro. On my way to the beach one day last weekend, a couple of guys got on, cranked up their old-school boombox, and broke in socially-conscious rap: "El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!" ("The people, united, will never be defeated!")

--The people who are most worried about you getting a liberal arts degrees in the humanities, other than your grandparents, are Chileans. Every Chilean student I talk to is majoring in some form of engineering. The educational system here seems much more geared to very practical, technical career paths. There is little dabbling in various subjects; paradigms are rigidly structured and tightly scheduled. Also, during the Pinochet years, studying philosophy or sociology or psychology meant you were a subversive communist. Hence, the system was redesigned to exclude those subjects, a phenomenon which may still carry over to some extent today, though that is just speculation on my part. In any case, a typical conversation about my academic aspirations goes something like this: Chilean-"What are you studying?" Kelsey-"Spanish language and literature." Chilean-"No, but in the United States, what are you studying?" Kelsey-"Spanish language and literature." Chilean-"Oh...but...why??"

--Speaking of school, my host family was floored to come home one night this week and find me immersed in studying. "What are you doing? No carrete (the Chilean word for going out with friends)??" they each gasped in turn as they walked by my room (for the record, my uncharacteristic spurt of experiencing the night life has been solely in the name of social networking, aka desperately trying to meet people...and so far it has actually been pretty disappointing). "There must be alterior motives for your studying," joked Alvaro, "Are we expecting a call from your parents or something??" Haha, guys. Nope. This is just your introduction to my REAL life: the thrilling life of a self-described nerd who routinely organizes homework parties with her friends for fun on the weekends...

--I made the mistake of buying some dessert to have on hand when people came over last night for a little get-together: an alfajor is "a traditional cookie that is found in some regions of Spain and in countries of Latin America including South America, Central America and Mexico. Its basic form consists of two round sweet biscuits joined together with dulce de leche or jam and covered with powdered sugar or chocolate." Uh-oh. Keep me away from the panaderia.

--In Chile, there is a tradition of hazing new university freshmen during "la semana de los mechoneos." Basically, it's a really lovely custom where they cut the new students' hair (girls and boys), dress them in old clothes, cover them with paint and/or fish guts, and send them to the streets to beg for money to finance parties. Ah, bonding. Thank God I'm not a Chilean freshman.

--And finally, this is our toaster:


There is so much more. But to truly live my beautiful existence, you would just have to visit me.

Ya.

Etymology

"There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile. According to a theory proposed by 18th century Spanish chronicler Diego de Rosales, the Incas of Peru called the valley of the Aconcagua 'Chili' by corruption of the name of a Picunche tribal chief ('cacique') called Tili, who ruled the area at the time of the Incan conquest in the 15th century. Another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Other theories say Chile may derive its name from the indigenous Mapuche word chilli, which may mean 'where the land ends,' or 'the deepest point of the Earth,' or 'sea gulls;' or from the Quechua chin, 'cold,' or the Aymara tchili, meaning 'snow.' Another meaning attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of a bird call. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas and the few survivors of Diego de Almagro's first Spanish expedition south from Peru in 1535-36 called themselves the 'men of Chilli.' Ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile)