Santiago, week one

I’ve been in Chile more than one week and so much has happened that I thought I would start a blog again. I could have written several entries about the past week—I feel as if I have been here for a month.

Well, let’s get a review of my arrival and first week in Santiago. While waiting out a 3.5 hour delay in the Atlanta airport, I met three of the other teachers in my program who were on the same flight, and on the same taxi reservation. We grabbed a beer and some food and discussed the upcoming life-changing adventure. The flight down to Santiago was not particularly pleasant, as we had no personal screens and the least amount of leg room I had ever seen on an international flight. When we finally arrived, it was close to noon, and a few hours later than we were supposed to get there. Luckily, our taxi reservations were still there and we headed off to the hostel.

My first glimpse of Santiago revealed a seemingly wealthy city with good roads and new cars. When you are in the ‘centro’ you might feel like you are in Europe, not Latin America. Sure, the outskirts are poverty-stricken with some people living in shacks, but it is not even remotely on the same scale as Guatemala City, for example. I have a hard time designating Chile as ‘third-world.’ However, in talking with the two Chileans who own this hostel, I learned the rich European atmosphere is kind of a façade. Yes, Chile is the wealthiest nation in South America, but has a huge income disparity. The rich are very rich, and the poor are very poor. The middle class is scarce. In Santiago, even the well dressed businessmen walking down the streets are usually quite poor—but they don’t look it. The government has a lot of money, but it just is not distributed. Many people hate la presidenta Michelle Bachelet. According to one person, she was elected just because she was a woman, and not because she would be a good president. She has ties to Pinochet’s regime, and there is currently a war going on between the Mapuche Indians and the government in the North, so I have been told.

My first week in Santiago was great. About 13 other Americans and 3 English ladies are living in this hostel. Naturally we all became pretty good friends pretty quickly and have done virtually everything together. Of course small social groups have formed, but pretty much everyone is very cool and we all get along. The English ladies have dubbed me “Mountain Man” for obvious reasons. But what made them laugh the most was the fact that I own, wear, and am a vocal proponent of zip-off pants that are magically transformed into shorts. I am very different from many of the people here. BUT there seems to be a plurality of people from the Northwest, including a girl who went to UM (now lives in Seattle), and whose sister works with my cousin’s wife at a middle school in Helena. When two people from Montana meet, wherever you are in the world, there will ALWAYS be a connection. So I can talk about anything with them. The other day we Seattleites even made a toast to the phrase ‘the mountain is out.’ No one else understood the significance of that phrase, but we all knew. It is geography that attracted us northwesterners here. Apparently in rugged Patagonia, the vast majority of all tourists they get are from California, Washington, and Alaska—hardly an accurate representation of the population of the US.

After only a week, I know the metro system (which is quite nice) and can orient myself in the city. Overall, it’s European in appearance but with some very Latin neighborhoods and culture. Dogs run free throughout the city and there are constantly dozens of couples making out, very intensely I might add, in the park. So in that respect, this is South America.

The other day, I had the chance to visit my campus in Melipilla. I am excited about going there. This town is South America. It cannot be more different from Santiago—the buildings are colorful, the air is clean, and palm trees line the streets. The campus is actually situated on top of a mall. It’s the top floor of this normal American-style mall and the views are amazing. It is the highest building in town and every class has floor to ceiling windows. We showed up at this place and these two girls, about our age, met us and gave us a tour. They were SO nice and will likely help us with anything, ie. Housing?? They also spoke slowly enough for us to understand pretty much everything they said, which brings me to another point: Spanish. Chilean Spanish is certainly difficult to understand. They don’t seem to think the letter ‘s’ needs to be pronounced, and they speak rapid-fire with a smattering of Chilenismos. My Spanish seems to vary—sometimes I can understand pretty much everything and can hold a decent conversation, while other times I can’t even spit out a word. It will get better, especially in Melipilla, where Angie and I will be the ONLY gringos in the town. Oh, and I found out my name means, “money” in Chilean slang. Yo tengo las lucas!

That is a pretty large post, but not even nearly enough to get a feel for my first week. Yesterday I got back from a weekend at the beach, which I will maybe write more about later.