Last Chile Post

The below post is the last one I will be doing from Chile. I meant to post it last week, but it didn't work for some reason. If you were not already aware, I have to suddenly leave Chile because my mother has just been diagnosed with some rather serious colon cancer. I learned this Thursday afternoon, and I will be heading home Monday night. She has started blogging about it, at www.mukilteomusings.blogspot.com.

Thanks to all who read and enjoyed my blog.

-Lucas

Two sides of Chile

The Two sides of Chile

When my family visited a couple weeks ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to show them the Chile I know, but also to experience the other richer side. We dined at nice restaurants where a meal cost more than $6 (not something you can find in Melilpilla), and the last two days of their trip, we spent in a luxury hotel in Las Condes, Santiago. We even came across people who could speak English. That, I was truly not used to. I am not going to talk about their trip; you can read it in my mom’s blog at www.mukilteomusings.blogspot.com. Anyway, the last morning in the hotel, I had to leave for Melipilla to go back to work. This was a very depressing time of course. It was pouring rain, and I had to leave this amazing hotel at 6:30am to go back to my cold house and my job. But everything was fine and I quickly got back to the routine. Then just last week, I was reminded of the incredible economic diversity of this country. Carlos came into my house with his usual emphatic “Hey Lucas, ho are jyu?!” Then he yelled, “Vamos a tomar vino!” Well, ok, I couldn’t really say no to that.

So we hopped in his pickup and went to “El bajo”, which is a rural area about 2 minutes from my house, where the people are poor. It was absolutely dumping rain and the streets were flooded—some of them with several inches of muddy water. He took me to his friend’s uncle’s farm. Arturo is an old Chilean cowboy, without any teeth I can see, and who is rather difficult to understand. In fact, most of the time Carlos had to translate to and from toothless old Chilean cowboy Spanish—because Arturo could not understand me either. I assume he had probably never even seen a non native Spanish speaker before. We tromped through his muddy farm into a shack where he had a fire going. We all sat down around the fire and made mulled wine, drank mate, and ate pork sandwiches. It was great. We talked about many things, including Indians, and Carlos kept asking me if there are still Sioux around. I gave my standard speech on North American Indians—how yes they are still alive, and no they do not live in teepees and attack the white people. But trying to elicit sympathy for them is tough, as Carlos’ friends kept on telling me how poor and violent the Mapuche Indians are in Chile. “Why can’t they just better themselves?” is a phrase I have heard more than once here. I usually just nod and try not to say anything, because I am not usually up for trying to explain 500 years of complex history and anthropology in Spanish. As I watched the rain pour and sipped my mate and drank my nice hot spiced wine in this shack with an old cowboy, I suddenly realized how incredibly different this is from Las Condes in Santiago, and even from my own home 3 blocks away. This would be way way out of my mom’s comfort zone, I thought. But it was like camping, and that hot wine sure was good.

A few days later, when the sun and mountains were out, I returned to “El Bajo” on my bike to find some chicha for a birthday barbecue I was going to have. Again, chicha is more or less grape cider. I arrived at one home that had a crude sign saying “Se vende chicha.” I hesitated, not really wanting to just walk into someone’s house, but then someone saw me and I said I wanted to buy some chicha. I’m sure they had never had a gringo on a bicycle before. This ancient woman came out to greet me and took me inside her chicha hut. It was just a dusty shack, but it had posters all over the wall of Che, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Allende (I think), Jesus, and numerous other liberal figures. I thought that was pretty cool. She poured me nearly 3 liters of chicha into a random plastic pop bottle she had. This cost me a grand total of $2000CP, or about $5 USD. She wondered where I was from and what in god’s name I was doing here. Nice old lady, I thought. I cheerfully took my chicha (or as a friend later called it, “peasant juice”) and then biked on home.

Oh, Latin America.

I don’t think I’ve really described the actual city of Melipilla where I spend about 90% of my time. First of all, Melipilla is REAL Chile. It feels like Latin America here, and is pretty much a different world from cosmopolitan Santiago. The main plaza is usually quite lively, often with Ranchera music blasting from a man who sells the cd’s for “solo mil pesos!” Ranchera would be Latin America’s equivalent of country. It’s pretty much the same music you hear on the am radio stations of the eastern half of the state of Washington. This gives the place a very stereotypical ambiance and is a great reminder that I am far, far away from Mukilteo. Loud diesel busses and enormous semi trucks speed through the one way streets only mere feet from people’s homes—including my own. In the US, trucks would never ever be allowed in quiet residential areas—they would likely have to take a special truck route. Not so in Melipilla, and for the nervous gringo bike rider sans helmet, it can be utterly terrifying. Being passed by a dump truck doing 40 on a city street is not the most pleasant experience.

Melipilla’s economy, I believe, is largely supported by what I like to call ‘random shit’ stores. Imagine a world where most people do their shopping at the 99 cent store. Melipilla is completely full of these, and I love it. What do I mean by ‘random shit?’ Well, where in the US (Wal mart excluded) could you go to get an ice tray (not a packet of them, just one), a clothes hook, a wooden spoon, a bucket, a garbage can, a door mat, a cheap plastic dish rack, and maybe a dust pan? I remember in Missoula it took me three weeks to find an ice tray, but here I can get one in ten minutes for like 25 cents and have my choice of 5 or 6 places to do it.

Oh yes, and the babies. This city of almost 100,000 is going to triple in size in the next 50 years I believe. Much like dogs, the city is infested with babies. Yes, I said infested and yes I compared them to dogs. In the US, you just don't see babies that much, and when you do, you notice. They are even cute. It can be an enjoyable experience to see a baby in the states. Not here. I have never seen so many babies in my life and of course whenever you get on a bus or metro there are at least 4 or 5 moms who board with their babies and all of their large bulky baby supplies. They cry too. And the mothers are often younger than I am--I swear half of my students are parents and it's pretty hit or miss if there is a dad in the picture. I do believe it was precisely this scenario that was meant to be prevented when man invented this thing called a condom. Way to go Catholicism.

Just on the edge of town is a large hill—I’m hesitant to call it a mountain, but it’s a good little trek to the top. I of course love hiking so this ‘mountain’ needed to be conquered. One day I rode my bike to the base of it to do some recon. I was trying to find a way to hike up. There is a cemetery that borders the mountain, so I figured I would go through it and find an exit on the other side. With my bike, I was awkwardly maneuvering through this pretentious and over-the-top Catholic cemetery.

Side note: I decided I really do not like Latin American cemeteries. The ‘graves’—well I’ll call them tombs--are enormous expensive shrines. I guess mausoleum is the correct word. If your family has money, congratulations, you can waste it all on an extravagant statement of wealth. The person is dead in case you forgot, and whatever your beliefs on the afterlife are, the truth is, grandma Sanchez is not coming back to admire her new post mortem mansion. Oh yeah and if you’re poor, you get a stick in the ground shaped like a cross and a shabby white fence. Again, way to go Catholicism.

Back to my adventure. So I made my way to the back of the cemetery and saw a door with what I thought was a convenient exit. I opened the door and started pushing my bike through, when I looked up and saw a young girl and her ferocious looking dog staring me down. Instantly the girl started yelling “Mama, mama!” The dog did not look to be accepting of my presence either. I took this terrified cry to mommy as my cue to leave. Fortunately, I found another exit, but when I opened the door I noticed a man defecating on the wall. Not gonna go out this way either. The cemetery is built right next to kind of a big dumping ground that is dirty and smells, and really is more or less a giant outdoor toilet. I decided not to bother this man so I went around and found the road that does go up to the top.

Angie and I decided to go and climb this hill—together-- because frankly it is not located in the best part of town. The trek is not terribly far, but is a nice little day hike. We followed a dirt road that switchbacks to the very pretty radio towers at the top. This would provide excellent views of the Andes, coast range, and maybe even the ocean, however, it was hazy, very very hazy and we couldn’t actually see anything.

I went to summit this again yesterday. This time I went by myself and attempted a different route. I crossed the large outdoor toilet, saying “hola” to the owner of the dump. He lives in a shack and I hoped he would not mind me crossing his land, since I did see spent shotgun shells on the ground. I tried to go straight up the mountain more or less bushwhacking. I started following what looked like a trail, but was actually a dirt bike track. I startled some birds coming around a bend and they really freaked out. They started squawking and then circling me. I watched this, confused, until one of them started into a dive bomb towards my face. “Oh my god,” I thought. “I am being attacked by birds.” I started running back down the mountain, all the while I heard the man in the shack (the same one who was defecating the previous time) laughing at me. Luckily, the birds left and I was able to continue up the mountain, but not without shame. I figured I should carry a weapon in case of bird or dog attack, since the only tracks I saw were from dogs. Any dogs that lived out here were surely tough and probably not used to trespassers. I found a nice pointy skull piercing rock. This made me feel better. I was not attacked on the way up, which was good. Sadly, the view was not much better this time. Still pretty hazy. On my way back down I could see three guys at the bottom who were so obviously drunk. “Oh no”, I thought, “They are going to try to talk to me. Hopefully they are too drunk to rob me.” When I got down to the bottom, sure enough they were there nearly passed out in the 11:30am sun. I said a cheerful “hola” but that of course was not good enough. They beckoned me to come “oye, gringo!” But I ignored them and kept going. Thankfully they were too drunk to harass me. When I got down I felt like I had been in a video game. To go up this mountain, one has to avoid obstacles. The defecating man, little girl and her dog, crazy birds, theoretical rabid wild dogs, outdoor toilet, and the three drunk men were all no match for me. Satisfied, I dropped my weapon at the edge of the cemetery where I can easily find it for the next time.