A Thick Cloud: Smoking in Chile

Forty-percent* of Chileans smoke cigarettes. This rate is declining every year, but still Chile has the fifth highest rate of smokers in the world, just after Greece, Bosnia, Russia and Bulgaria. Compared to seventeen-percent of people in the US, it seems like a lot.

Walking down the busy streets of Santiago, it is very likely that someone behind or in front of you will be smoking. In your apartment, there’s a good chance that one of your two immediate next door neighbors will smoke. And during those hot summer nights, you better believe the neighbor below you will be smoking out their bedroom window and directly into yours. Cigarette butts dot every sidewalk, waiting to be swept by city employees. Thankfully, smoking inside restaurants was banned a few years ago, but out on the restaurant patios you can still see and smell guests smoking.

If you’re like me, raised in the 90s, it’s hard to imagine so many smokers until you see it. Smoking cigarettes publicly was already effectively vilified before I reached adolescence. I remember being aghast when one of our neighbors left a pack of cigarettes on our kitchen counter, right at my eye-level. How could someone so nice do something so awful as smoke? While I’ve become slightly less judgmental and moral righteous, now I tend to wonder, “How could someone so smart do something so awful as smoke?” But of course, it has little to do with intelligence and has everything to do with society and addiction.

These days I don’t think I have many, if any, friends from the US who smoke cigarettes regularly. I think it’s generally considered an expensive and inconvenient [and embarrassing?] habit to continue. Companies fund cessation programs, campuses ban it, and people complain if you do it too close to them. Those who can quit, already have. Thus, in the grand American tradition of, “just use willpower to make yourself better” you might be considered weak-willed or unstable if you are still addicted. This is obviously not a very productive or helpful attitude, but it is common where I grew up.

Here in Chile, nearly all of my friends smoke, especially the women. Chilean women are less likely to smoke than Chilean men, but the rate of female smokers here is still the third-highest in the world. Women in smoking in public might even be considered by some to be a symbol of liberation from machisimo culture. I don’t mind the smoke or that they do it, but it’s still mildly surprising to me. How do you explain, “No, I don’t mind if you smoke, but I am surprised that you want to smoke 5 cigarettes tonight .” Some things are best left unsaid, especially as a foreigner.  They are educated professionals (grown-ass adults), they clearly know the health impacts… the graphic pictures of mouth and lung disease are on the cigarettes boxes! Yet, there doesn’t seem to be any motivation to stop or do it less.**

I am hopeful that Chile is gradually moving away from smoking and away from being the “smoker’s corner” of South America. Living here still requires tolerating the thick cloud and those who didn’t get benevolently brainwashed as kids.  As I have seen in my short years here, social change can happen surprisingly fast in this small country, and once they decide to kick the habit it won’t take long at all.

 

 

*There are lots of different studies on this.  Many put the rate over 40%, while some are as low as 34%. I encourage the reader to do their own research on this if the exact rate is important to them.

**Lest I be thought hypocritical, I should mention that every few months when I’m out, I might split a cigarette with someone for a small rush. My doctor once told me this is an acceptable, “negligible” amount (it works out to 0.008 cigarettes daily). In contrast, daily smoking is not negligible.

The Cake Run

A curious phenomena occurs near the corner of calles Bandera and Catedral, in Santiago de Chile.

This historic street corner, dating back to the 1500s, and before that to the Incan Empire, has become the heart of Peruvian and Colombian Chile. These days, among the historic buildings and ancient streets are international call centers and money changers. Per minute rates to Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil, and currency exchange rates are advertised everywhere. On the weekends and evenings, groups of immigrants gather waiting to call home. There are a few small grocery stores and a strange, dark mall called “Caracol Peruano” filled with travel agencies and hair salons. [It’s called caracol, which means “snail,” because the several floors of storefronts inside are on a gradually spiraling ramp, like the inside of a snail’s shell.] Further along calle Bandera are authentic Peruvian restaurants, used-clothing stores, and “café” strip clubs featuring Colombian women.

On Friday and Saturday summer nights the corner is lined with grocery cart food stands. Some with ceviche, raw fish and seafood cooked in acidic lemon juice, others outfitted with a small propane tank to cook fried chicken. Imagine a boiling vat of grease suspended next to a propane tank, plus a tray of crunchy, glistening chicken, all in a grocery cart; fried chicken on-wheels.

Here, in the shade of a construction site, women sell cake by the slice. The cakes are displayed on cloth-covered boards on upturned crates and boxes. There is always one big, round yellow bunt cake. It’s huge, with a diameter of at least 24 inches.  Sometimes there are huge tres leches and pineapple cakes, also sold by the slice. Calls of “torta rica, bizcocho, bizcocho” fill the air in one continuous, melodic intonation. The last “o” of bizcochoooooooo is drawn out, as if instead of selling cake they were calling the name of someone lost in a vast forest or perhaps lost among all the traffic and pedestrians.

It is here that some days, if you’re lucky, you’ll see the cake run.

One day you’ll be walking by, lost in thought, when suddenly, without warning, the melody will stop and women will pick up their large cakes and run.

Have you ever seen someone trying to sprint with a cake? It’s hilarious and nerve-wracking.

Five-feet tall with two-foot cake boards, the women quickly and nimbly navigate the crowded sidewalk while balancing the cakes. Their accomplices trail with their boxes and stools, tablecloths flapping. At a lookout’s signal they run to the nearest refuge, sometimes hiding in a call center phone booth, other times running a whole block to evade the police. Within moments no trace remains of their business.

It’s like some strange relay race game from the US, like running with an egg balanced on a spoon. The first time I saw the cake run they whipped past me from behind – four women silently competing in race with much more serious consequences than a broken egg. I nearly knocked over a cake, and was still wide-eyed as the next runner passed me carrying a chair and shouting an apology.

They run because selling food without a permit is illegal, and Santiago police focus a lot of effort on checking street vendor permits. [Aside: Targeting street vendors, who tend to be poor and/or immigrants seems like easy pickings, apparently unlike traffic violations such as blocking intersections… *hint hint* to all the Chilean police who read my blog.] After police pass, the women return from hiding, setup their boxes, and the lookouts are re-posted. The call is resumed, “torta rica, bizcocho bizcochooo.” They continue selling, ever-ready for the next cake run.

To “Go Gringo”

What would you think “the gringo way” means in Chile? Would you guess that it means not wearing any underwear?

One of the more mysterious phrases I hear in Chile is “andar a lo gringo” which is roughly, “to go the gringo way.” This common expression means to go without wearing any underwear, it’s what in the US we would call “going commando” or “free-balling.” I have no idea how this phrase came to be, but it is an odd thing to hear associated with my country.

This phrase leads to being asked some funny questions. Chileans want to know, “Do people go not wear their underwear a lot in the US?” “How often would you say people typically wear underwear?” Or my favorite, “Why don’t gringos wear underwear?”

See this for a great story about the phrase andar a lo gringo in action.

 

 

Date Night in Santiago, Chile

Looking for a place to go for a date in Santiago? Here’s Carlos and my list of favorite dates and a window into our daily lives. We tend to prefer dates that are not far from where we live in the comuna Santiago Centro or Providencia and are not too expensive. We save the fancy restaurants for special occasions, and I’ll save them for a later post.

The Quintessential Inexpensive Romantic Date: If you’re looking for romance, nothing beats a quiet evening walk holding hands around the beautiful fountain at Plaza de la Aviación towards near metro station Salvador. The synchronized show of colored lights and jets is mesmerizing, and naturally lends itself to moments of contemplative, peaceful existence with your loved one or new date. Nearby, you can stop in for a coffee or desert at one of several cafés.

Art and Ice Cream Date: The Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts in Parque Forestal is a great place for an artsy date. There are always interesting exhibits, occasional events with live music, and admission is usually free or a very small fee (less than 1 USD). After visiting the museum, you can go to the nearby Rosa’s Emporium which has some of the creamiest, most delicious ice creams I’ve ever tasted.

Spicy-Like-Our-Love Date: Indian food at New Horizon near Santa Lucia is an inexpensive, delicious option for a date. The menu is limited, but everything on it is fantastic. The food can get spicy, but they are happy to accommodate mild palates, and the delicious mango lassi offsets the heat. It’s a good place to discuss sad topics; any wet eyes can easily be attributed to the spice! Most Indian options in Santiago are pretty expensive, and this is a tasty alternative. It’s a small place which draws a large crowd, so depending on when you go, there might be a wait.

The Go-To Date: One of our favorite places for a date in Santiago is the Peruvian D’leite Sanguchero, or as we like to call it, “Fake Súper Gordo.”  Súper Gordo is a more established restaurant nearby with similar dishes and much higher prices. At first, we considered it a knock-off of Súper Gordo, but now we vastly prefer D’leite as our go-to date restaurant. We’ve been there several times and have always received excellent service and really good food. They have two menus, a Peruvian-Chinese fusion menu and a classic Peruvian menu. We like their aji de gallina, ceviche, lomo saltado, and especially their Peruvian tallaríns saltados. A word of caution: a line does start to form late on weekends, mostly of Peruvians, which I think speaks to it’s popularity and authenticity.

The Weekend Warrior Date: By necessity, we tend to cram all of our grocery shopping to one marathon day on the weekends. We do our produce shopping at the sprawling, open air market La Vega, where we found a delicious Saturday or Sunday date gem. Luck Thai in La Vega Chica (local 199) is the perfect pre or post grocery shopping lunch. The portions are big enough that we leave with leftovers to get us through the weekend. Spaghetti Pad See-Eiw is our favorite dish, plus their magical fruit and herb juice blend that I think they just call “Thai juice.”

A Date for the Insatiable: When you are your partner are so hungry and in the mood for a burger, you should go to Donde Guidos. Imagine if there was a “Pimp my Ride” show for hamburgers… these hamburgers come with toppings like fried eggs, french fries, and your choice of delicious sauces. The flavors here are amazing, but be forewarned, this is not the kind of place you should take a first date if you think either of you might be self-conscious with messy food. These burgers are a force to be reckoned with, and here in Chile, are usually  dealt with with a fork and knife. This Peruvian sandwich place has several locations in El Centro, and will leave even the most insatiable very satisfied.

Brunch Date/Homesick Date: The Shamrock  near metro Salvador has English speaking employees, mimosas, and amazing American/English brunches. This is where I go when I am craving familiarity: waffles, pancakes, and waiters that speak English. It leads to conversations that only happen while living abroad like, “Oh you’re from Minnesota, I’m from New York! We have so much in common!” Their evening menu of craft foreign beers and juicy burgers is also fantastic. We love going there with a group of friends to watch non-Chilean sporting events, but their brunch is really what makes me feel at home.

Let’s Just Get a Drink Date – Bar the Clinic  in Bella Vista is the most obvious place in Santiago to just get a drink and talk. There is usually a groupon for two beers and some fries, which sometimes is all it takes to reconnect and hear your spouse tell you a crazy story you can’t believe you’ve never heard, like about that time he accidentally joined a cult. This place can get a bit crazy on weekends, so if you actually want to have a conversation there go on a weekday. Speaking a foreign language makes one extremely aware of which bars and restaurants are noisy.

The Stressful Day at Work Date: 2 pizzas + movie + cuddles = date night success. For this type of date, I wholeheartedly recommend Más Pizza. Their pizzas are excellent, we always choose the Española and the Ricotta Bacon. The main benefit of Más Pizza is that you can place the order online without having to talk to anyone on the phone, which still is not common in Santiago. As a gringa, there are just days where I don’t feel up to the challenge of talking on the phone in Spanish. I’m not sure what Carlos’ excuse is, but he prefers ordering online, too!

Girls Night Out Date: Bar Minga near Manuel Montt is my favorite place for getting a beer with my girlfriends. We usually split one of their thin crust pizzas and enjoy their very large schops and mojitos while catching up on each other’s lives. This would also be great for a date!

The Healthy Date: For the health-conscious couple, it doesn’t get better than lunch or dinner El Naturista! This vegetarian restaurant offers a wide array of healthy inspired options, from quiches, salads, and delicious soups. They also have a lot of creamy, cheesy options, but no meat. Their orange juice tastes like pure sunlight to me. Note that it’s only open for dinner on weekdays.

The Bright and Early Date: Sometimes, the only time you can find to go on a date is in the morning before work. Something about slowly waking up over a hot meal and starting the day together is just so romantic. The paila breakfast promotion at Domino is where I would take someone I liked before heading to work. For $2.500 you get a hot egg scramble with toast, fresh juice, and tea or coffee. They also make it to go, if you need to take one to work.

 

That’s all! I’ll try to add more as I think of them. Note: I’m not a reviewer, and I don’t receive any benefits from any of these restaurants for writing any of this this.

 

Didn’t Make the Cut:

La Mexicana is an excellent restaurant, but last I heard, they moved their location and haven’t reopened. We tried to go for Cinco de Mayo and they had a new location posted on their door. We went to that new location, but there wasn’t any restaurant there. I may add it later if we can ever find it again!

Bar Mamut. We used to stop into this chain weekly for happy hour and a long conversation, but they discontinued the best thing on their menu (nachos) and the last few times we went, service did not match their prices.

Wasabi, near Manuel Montt. This was our favorite sushi restaurant in Santiago for many months, we used to go there very frequently  until we became very, very ill after eating some bad tuna there. We both ended up in the hospital on IVs together. Suffering together was romantic, but ultimately expensive. Our friends still swear by it, so I am including it here but with a big BUYER BEWARE.

Too Much Sushi, in el centro. We like this sushi restaurant for ordering-in. After the Wasabi experience, we haven’t eaten any sushi, but this certainly gets honorable mention.

 

On Your Birthday in Chile

One thing I love about Chile is the long birthday hugs. In my experience in the US, when it is your birthday, one can reliably expect hugs from your family and close friends. In a professional context, you’re most likely to receive birthday wishes. “Happy Birthday!” “Thank you very much!” “What are your plans to celebrate?” It’s all very nice and pleasant and hopefully they take you out to lunch.

In 2014, I started working at a Chilean company. During my first month a young guy in the office had a birthday and I got a big surprise. Across the room, Carlos went to say, “happy birthday.” He gave him a hug, which didn’t seem odd, but as I watched, my surprise grew. Carlos gave him “several Mississippis” worth of pure man-love. I remember thinking, wow, how long will this hug go on for? and they are really closer that I thought! At first, I thought it might be a quirk of Carlos’ style of affectionate friendship, or a kind of joke. Maybe they were seeing how long they could keep the hug going without stopping.

Long hugs between heterosexual men are practically unheard of where I grew up in the northeastern United States. I struggle to think of any instances that I’ve seen, if at all, excluding every time that Carlos has hugged my male family members and I got to watch them squirm.

At work, I said feliz cumpleaños to the birthday guy and realized as he opened his arms that I was expected to greet or saludar him with a hug. We hugged, but I found myself pulling away from him automatically after one second. He was a friend, but my tolerance for hugs with a man who was not in my family nor involved with me romantically was very short. Not surprisingly, a wikihow article on “How to Hug a Girl” states that “embraces longer than a few seconds are meant for significant others or close family members” and recommend 1-2 seconds for casual hugging. Long hugs felt too intimate to me, as if hugging another man for too long was somehow committing an infidelity. Maybe if he was in the depths of sorrow it would feel right, but he wasn’t, and I felt uncomfortable. I quickly pulled away as he was still hugging me, and immediately felt guilty. He had expected a longer hug. I suddenly knew that Carlos’ hug was not a joke and that I was probably being rude, or at best cold and awkward. Now I understand that in Chile, you wouldn’t even hug your frenemy like that on their birthday!

During the day, everyone in the office stopped by to give the birthday guy a big, long hug, men included. I watched with fascination at my desk as a parade of men and women of all ages gave him firm embraces and enthusiastic congratulations. One by one, they congratulated him for living another year with the same level of gusto that I would expect if he had just announced the birth of his first child or as if he had just returned from several years at war. They enveloped him in love verbally and physically, so much that I started to wonder if he was especially beloved at the company. But, when the next birthday came, I realized that it was simply how things are done.

Now receiving and giving long hugs feel normal. A year and half later, I look forward to those birthday hugs. They’re one of the best parts of my birthday and other people’s birthdays. It’s my chance to show the people that I work with how much they mean to me and that I care about them. I give big, strong hugs with abandon, and my only complaint is that they don’t seem to last long enough.

Protest Nights

“Did you see that?” “What?” I pointed out the window as we left work.

Three police in full riot gear had just walked by. It was only 6:30, but all the shops had already closed hours early. The hatches were battened, metal protection covering every doorway and storefront. Near the fountain, about 15 police in full riot gear stood attentive, quietly chatting. It was eerily deserted, everyone who worked in our area had known to go home early. The few who remained rushed home before the storm.

I didn’t know there were going to be big protests today, but this morning I did notice the smell of tires burning and extra policemen stationed in pairs at strategic corners.

We met with lines of police the whole way home. They blocked our usual path and rerouted us, the red lights of one of their pockmarked armored vans illuminating the gray evening. It’s one thing to have a policeman give you a detour. It’s another to have that detour enforced with a long, stern-faced line of armor and fierce dogs. In a flash, I had the sick feeling of recognition, as if I was witnessing a ghost of the not too-distant past. People rushing to their homes before nightfall, the military in the street, the violence in the night. This is new to me, but Chile knows it well.

I’m safe, you know. I am so safe and cozy in our apartment, far above the Molotov cocktails, tear gas, and burning banks and pharmacies. We will get home early on protest nights, as if adhering to the curfew that hasn’t existed since the dictatorship. I will sit in pajamas, reading the live twitter feed of my city burning. It will just be a hassle to us, like subway construction or a traffic jam. But I know Chile is fighting for her future out there in the streets. In a place where people were afraid for a long time that they might say the wrong thing to the wrong person, now the students scream for change. They march for education, for social justice, economic equality and anarchy.

Chile has come a long way, but some nights those days don’t seem quite as far away at all.

The Weirdest Wedding Dress Shopping Experience that Simply Happened to Take Place in Chile…

But it probably could have happened anywhere else in the world… right?

My mom, my two sisters, and I decided to go wedding dress shopping together in Santiago. I did not have any expectation of finding a dress, but I wanted us to have the experience (and oh what an experience it was). Carlos and I are flying in shortly before the US wedding and we’re probably going to miss a lot of typical wedding things, like engagement parties and food tastings. That’s not a big deal to me, but I thought the ladies could have a little bit of wedding fun since we were all together for once.

I did not have high expectations but I kept an open mind. I knew Chilean dresses are generally not my style (more princess than elegant) and generally low quality for a lot of money, relative to NY. But, with the wedding less than 9 months away, I certainly wouldn’t have said “no” to a Chilean dress I liked.

I had read on a gringa blog that she thought Punto Clave made the best dresses in Chile. We went to the one in el Centro, because it was close and I didn’t want to trek out to Las Condes for cuico price markup. Maybe that was my first mistake.

We entered the shop. I approached a sales lady and asked if we needed a reservation to try on wedding dresses. No, you can do it now, but she looked annoyed. She told me I could look through the catalog and pick them out. The catalog was surprisingly short. We had fun looking through the dress pictures, which by the hairstyles looked to be from 2001. Very few appealed to me, but I chose three or four to try on.

She told me, “Look, I don’t have that one in stock, but I have one similar.” Okay. At least it’s a starting point.

She asked me casually when the wedding was. “August” I replied.

“Oh you still have tons of time, you’re really early” she said with raised eyebrows. I had a feeling the question was not so offhanded. My heart sank. She didn’t think this was serious. Who possibly shops for a wedding dress seriously 9 months in advance? I made sure my diamond ring was showing.

I gently said, “Actually, in the US where we’re from, I’m very behind.” She was unconvinced. She was the epitome of the Chilean phrase mala onda or bad vibes. Other people we talked to along the way, like a wedding planner we met, tried to address my mom about the wedding instead of me. I remembered that a lot Chileans don’t really consider me an adult or the possibility that I could be running my own show, even at 25.

This all seemed to go along with the strange creeping suspicion that a lot Chileans don’t take Carlos and my engagement seriously, which I think has to do with the prevalence of promise rings and since we weren’t together for 5+ years before getting engaged. There’s a world of difference between a polola (girlfriend) and novia (fiance) in my mind (e.g. one of those you’ve asked to spend your whole life with you) but they seem to conflate the two, especially when they’ve been with their boyfriend or girlfriends longer than I’ve been with Carlos.

The sales lady brought us into a cold, large, curtained off section of a room that was filled with huge mirrors. There was a bench for my family to sit on. She brought a very worn, graying dress that, in my mother’s words, she “wouldn’t even buy at a secondhand shop.”

“Take off your clothes” she told me brusquely. She used the imperative form of the very take off. Chileans use this all the time without it being rude, but in the context of taking off my clothing, I was acutely aware of the fact that it was an order.

My eyes widened. It was clear she meant then and there. This lady was ordering me to strip in front of my modest family and her in this large room, surrounded by mirrors. I don’t remember ever having much modesty myself; a combination of proactive self-love and luck has made me comfortable in my skin, but at that moment I was embarrassed. It was just so unexpected! Well, here we go. This is happening. My family, who didn’t understand the sales lady, were not ready to see me drop my shorts and giggled and exclaimed, “oh, you’re changing here?!” I stood pale under the fluorescent lights in my bra and panties, so glad that I had the good sense to wear conservative underwear. Not to be overly dramatic since I chose to undress voluntarily, but I suddenly gained insight into why nudity is used by oppressors as a tool of subjugation.

I tried on the Miss. Havisham dress, and we pointed out it’s positive aspects. It looked nice, and reminded me of a 1890s saloon girl costume.  It was heavy, but the tulle felt cheap. I swished around a bit, thanked her, and asked about the next dress.

“You can only try on one dress unless you put a deposit down to show us that you’re going to buy a dress from us.”

I couldn’t believe it. I even asked again later to make sure I heard her right. Yep. They require a large deposit indicating that you are actually going to buy a dress in order to even try on the second dress.

How ridiculous. Then, she told me the price of that dress, $1400 dollars. That could just be the gringa price, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were charging Chileans $1000 for what should be a $200 dress when it’s new. You’ve got to be kidding me, lady.

We left laughing. I understand that the store is not in a nice area of town and that they probably get ladies trying on dresses without serious marriage plans, but it was still so preposterous. The next place we went to was on the same block and treated us better so I don’t think location is much of an excuse.

The next place we went to, Casa Blanca, was lovely and more of what I would guess is a typical wedding dress shopping experience. We had three gracious, fawning attendants who helped me into each dress, pinned and unpinned the bustle, brought me a pair of heels to use, searched the warehouse for dresses my size (as many as I wanted!), guarded my modesty, and offered sage advice. The bar had been lowered considerably by the previous place, but the Casa Blanca staff definitely exceeded my expectations. The lady at Casa Blanca told me that Chilean ladies are just as modest trying on dresses as I was, if not more, which made me feel like the other lady’s order to strip was absolutely not “just a Chilean thing.” In the end, the nicest, dress I tried on with an 8 foot train and intricate detail work was quoted at $1000, which further reinforces the idea that Punto Clave in el Centro is simply insane.

Overall, our wedding dress trip was a resounding success. My mom and sisters got to see me in several dresses and give input. I got a better idea of what I like and don’t like and got to have a little taste of wedding magic. It was everything I had hoped for, plus, we had an experience that we won’t forget soon.

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Battening Down the Hatches

It is so tranquil in our little apartment. We have lived here since January, 2014 and all our needs are fulfilled. It’s heat efficient and tight as a ship. We are enclosed together like notes in a sealed glass bottle, bobbing along in the dark ocean. We have a bedroom, an office, and a bathroom fan that sometimes rattles. We have a red, white, and black woven rug with Mapuche patterns. Thick curtains keep out the cold, custom made by a bodega owner for our antiquated curtain track system. In the same big space as the living room, we have what we call our “kitchen for one.” After a comical few months we learned to gracefully use the tiny space simultaneously, our spatial awareness merged, the four-armed Ganesh of cooking and dish-washing.

This is not a bad place to ride out any chaos that might come our way.

Exactly forty-one years ago, Chile experienced a military coup. The dictatorship lasted 17 years, until 1990, and was marked by terrible human rights violations. I suggest taking time to watch a documentary or two about it if you don’t already know what went down. It is heavy stuff, but important. I think most people don’t realize that the US installed a dictatorship in Chile that murdered and tortured thousands of people. Since it happened so recently, it still affects attitudes and daily life. The generations who lived through it are almost all still alive. Tonight and tomorrow night there will likely be riots to commemorate the anniversary of the coup.

Protests are fairly common here. Chilean labor protests tend to be god-awful noisy (drum lines, vuvuzelas, megaphones, whistles, horns) but peaceful. As they blow their whistles and beat their drums*, I wish them all the success in the world… and soon! Occasionally there are human rights or Mapuche pride marches, and those sometimes end with broken windows, graffiti, burning ATMs, and riot gear.

But the protests tonight and tomorrow are different. We will not venture out of the house in the evening unless there’s an emergency. Restaurants won’t deliver food. Businesses will close and take measures to avoid damage. Tomorrow I’ll leave work early to get whatever groceries we’ll need for dinner before the city shuts down.

During this time, military personnel line the streets fully armed, especially in the poor neighborhoods. Hundreds get arrested or injured and a few years back an officer was killed. Protesters throw chains in the transformers and the power invariably goes out. Cars are burned on the street and the air is thick with the smell of smoldering tires. People even throw rocks at the armored police trucks. I thought that was largely symbolic, but the other day I saw one of the trucks covered in hundreds of dents. It was pot marked from a cloud of rocks as thick as machine gun fire, probably accumulated over the years. I imagine you’d have to have a pretty good arm to make such deep holes in the thick armor. Chileans should get these guys playing baseball.

This year has been unusually violent for Chile. We don’t know why, but it seems the anarchist movement is gaining momentum since we’ve been here. It has been present for a long time, punctuating the years with violent reminders of their cause, but lately there has been more damage. Two days ago a bomb went off in a metro station, wounding seven. Yesterday a bomb went off in a supermarket in Viña, wounding one. Since they happened this week, they are thought to be connected to the September 11th protests. Yet, they are just two bombs of several, including one that burned the thick wooden door of a nearby church. In total, this year thirty bombs have been planted but a lot of them failed to detonate. There have been injuries but thankfully no fatalities. With the uptick in bombing, I wonder if this year’s protests will be more intense.

The Chilean people suffered terrible injustices and still face terrible economic inequality. The indigenous Mapuche people are still fighting for their land and rights after hundreds of years. These are not easy problems to solve, but are probably impossible to solve with violence. Even though the turmoil scares me, I am hopeful that Chile will be better for it someday and will emerge reforged by fires of burning tires. If the storm rages outside, we’ll be cozy here with our books and our candles, our tablets fully charged, our thick curtains drawn to keep in the warmth and peace.

 

 

*Amazingly, street dogs seem to be completely immune to this noise and can be frequently seen sleeping in front of the labor protests, unaffected just a few feet away. I have to cross the street or cover my ears from the extremely loud whistles, horns, and drums. I am totally baffled by the fact that dogs decide to sleep near these very loud events.

Chileans Own the Moon

Did you know Chileans own the moon? Nor did I, the first time Carlos told me.

I thought it was a joke. “What, you didn’t know that?” he said, smiling but serious.

“No, I did not.” I grinned, thinking he was trolling me. Last time we talked about remote Chilean territories I learned that Chile owns a big chunk of icy Antarctica…but this was ridiculous. Probably payback for the countless times I told him “facts” about the US.

He continued, “A Chilean claimed it ages ago, before the lunar landing”

I was doubtful. How is that even possible? He legally claimed it first.

What about the US flag that’s there? He allowed them to put it there, of course.

Are you insane? If anyone owns the moon now, it is the US. Just like a US citizen to assume that.

Carlos was absolutely not kidding. Ask any Chilean, “Who owns the moon?” and they will invariably tell you Chileans. It’s common knowledge here.

In the 1950s Jenaro Gajardo Vera, a Chilean lawyer and poet, was rejected for membership in the hoity-toity Social Club of Talca on the basis of his fortune not being big enough. Soon after, he realized that a very considerable asset was still unclaimed right there in the night sky. He completed all the Chilean legal procedures to add it to his possessions so he could join the social club and simultaneous protest their discriminatory rules.

The notarized document read, “Jenaro Gajardo Vera, a lawyer … joining his possession that of his predecessors, Earth’s only satellite with a diameter of 3,475 kilometers, called Moon, and whose boundaries are to be spherical, North, South, East and West, outer space. … September 25, 1954.”

It is said that the Chilean IRS (Sii) tax collectors visited Gajardo to collect the taxes on the lunar property. Hilariously, Gajardo acknowledged the debt but demanded that in accordance with the law they would have to visit the property to assess the taxes on it. The inspectors never returned.

It get’s better. There are several claims, which I have definitely not been able to verify, that President Nixon sent a telegram through the embassy to Gajardo to ask his permission before landing on the moon. I think this is Carlos’ favorite part of the story to tell. The way he tells it, it’s a telephone call. “Hello? Am I speaking with Mr. Gajardo? Yes, hello, this is President Nixon in Washington. They tell me you’re the guy who owns the moon. I was wondering if you’d mind if our boys land there and take a look around.”

As the (relatively) more official version of the story goes, the telegram from Nixon supposedly stated in Spanish: “I request on behalf of the people of the United States permission to the decrease of astronauts Aldrin, Collins and Armstrong on the lunar satellite that belongs to you.” In response, the poetic Mr. Gejardo said: “On behalf of Jefferson, Washington and the great poet Walt Whitman, I authorize the descent of Aldrin, Collins and Armstrong on the lunar satellite that belongs to me, and what interests me most happy is not only a safe landing of the astronauts, but also a happy return to their homeland. Thank you, Mr. President.”

And thus the US was allowed to land on the moon.

Years later in the 1980s, the UN Moon Treaty was ratified making all celestial bodies international property and stated that sovereign nations can’t claim the moon, sun, or stars. Chile signed the treaty, but not surprisingly, the US has not. Much later, a US man would interpret the treaty as barring countries but not individuals from owning celestial bodies. He claimed the moon and start selling plots, presumably ignoring or ignorant of the Chilean ownership. Before the treaty, before plots were sold, and before the lunar landing, a Chilean legally owned the moon. He bequeathed the moon to his hometown and so it seems Chileans still own it.

The first time Carlos told me this story, I could not handle it. I was always surprised when a Chilean confirmed it, matter-of-fact. They know not everyone might recognize it, or that people might laugh, but at the end of the day the moon is still theirs. If you’re still skeptical, ask yourself ‘why not’? Why couldn’t it be a Chilean who owns the moon?

The moral of the story is when a Chilean man tells you he can give you the moon, it might not be a metaphor.

Unexpected Adjustments

Moving to a new country, especially one as far away as Chile, there are so many little adjustments to make.

I anticipated struggling with idioms, of course. Instead of the straw that breaks the camel’s back there’s la gota que rebalsó el vaso, or the drop that overfills the vase. You have to do some serious mental-ninja work to understand figurative language or to get the jokes that are derived from shows that haven’t aired in 20 years. That’s not trivial, but it’s expected. But besides the language, there are so many other tiny adjustments that I never anticipated.

 

One thing that was weird when I arrived was that numbers in the thousands are written with commas where we put a period and vise-versa. So one thousand is written 1.000,00 instead of 1,000.00. Prices were confusing to read when I first arrived. While that has mostly passed, yesterday I couldn’t figure out why my spreadsheet formulas weren’t working until I realized that I had written something that the program didn’t recognize as a number.

 

This becomes even more complicated when dealing with the currency; every month I get paid in millions of pesos. This is like people talking about getting paid in cents, except that pesos are worth considerably less than cents. Most dealings occur in pesos, but Chileans also use the informal term lucas to describe a thousand pesos (about 2 dollars). I find lucas easier to deal in but I’ve accidentally said things like ‘I made a million lucas’ which basically puts me on par with Bill Gates. Salaries are discussed almost exclusively in monthly terms, not annually. When Carlos was job hunting in November there were some funny moments when he told me about his job offers. After the first offer I converted the big amount of pesos to dollars (divide by 1000, multiply by 2, gears grinding…) then I worriedly ask him how we’d survive on that monthly amount because I thought it was for the whole year.

 

One adjustment I’ve been making recently has been to my new laptop at work. It arrived last week and it has a Latin American keyboard so the keys are in different places. My typing skills have slowed dramatically. I’m gradually revising the linguistic-motor mappings that have been “in my fingers” since typing lessons started in third grade. This keyboard helps immensely when writing in Spanish. Before, I would switch the mode on my English keyboard and then I’d have to search around for the accents and symbols I needed. I got better at it, but sometimes upside down question marks were only found by trial and error. Now I have the opposite problem. When I switch the mode to write in English I still have to hunt in the same way. I use a Latin American keyboard during the day and a US English one at night.

 

In the same vein, I was surprised to find that in my word processing software some of the shortcuts I’ve always used are now different. Three examples: ctrl-b for bold letters is ctrl+n for negrita, underline with xtrl+s for subrayado and ctrl+g to save or guardar your work. At least ctrl+c for copy is still the same for copiar.

 

I’ve also adjusted to living on military time. I’m comfortable asking someone if I should arrive at 18 o’clock or 19 o’clock and I’ll insist that I want to be in bed before 23 o’clock for once. A part of me loves military time because it avoids ambiguity, but it was still an adjustment.

 

These things are part of the language, but I guess you never think of the differences in punctuation or keyboard shortcuts before you travel abroad. The things that I have learn extend far beyond verb forms and affection rituals. They add up and can slow you down, but there’s nothing wrong with having to go a little slower with things.