mi hogar chilena

Thursday:
Woke up and headed to a delicious breakfast on the top floor of the hotel. From up there, we had a fantastic view of the city and the surrounding mountains. I was surprised at the lack of skyscrapers for a city of this size (approx 5 million people); however, then I remembered that Santiago is a city of earthquakes. According to the director of our program, Santiago experiences earthquakes every single day (but most are very subtle). I haven't felt any trembles yet, but will likely feel something in the next five months.

For Thursday's orientation with CIEE (the study abroad program I'm here with), we went to a meeting room in the Sheraton (oh yes - more American chains infesting Chile...as far as hotels go, so far I've seen a Sheraton, a Radisson and a Ritz Carlton. Ay, dios mio.)

During our session, we learned about safety in the city and in our host family houses. The first tip was that we should try to dress like the Chileans so that we blend in as much as we can. From what I've observed so far, this means wearing black, black and more black (and the occasional grey/brown/dark purple/blue). Leila - you'd be at the height of fashion. They also dress very conservatively, which is quite a nice change from the scantily clad styles of the US.

For lunch, we ate at the Sheraton and had a surprisingly delicious meal (while hotel food in the US is typically bland and unappetizing, our meal was flavorful and scrumptious). We has salad, salmon, rice and squash, along with an interesting apple dessert. The dessert looked like potatoes au gratin, but it was just layers of apple with custard in between and a pie crust on the bottom. Deliciosa.

After lunch, we were notified of our host family assignments. I was assigned to Clara Victoria Martinez, a single woman (widow, I think) who lives in Las Condes, a very nice neighborhood northeast of central Santiago. At first I was a little disappointed because the picture only showed Victoria and her sister (a widow as well) and most of my friends were assigned to families with brothers and sisters. However, things turned out just beautifully (to be explained later).

After the excitement of finding out about our families, we were briefed on things to expect in our new families. We learned that although Chile is a fairly patriarchal society with machismo prevalence, the home is under the mother's rule. Chilean mothers are extremely caring and want to make sure that every need is satisfied (and they often satisfy above and beyond). Brigitta told us that we shouldn't be surprised if we come home from school to find our rooms completely spotless, with all of our clothes and desk accessories organized perfectly. I must say that I can't argue with that...

After our orientation, two of my friends and I decided to take advantage of the free gym passes that our hotel offered to us. We walked six blocks from our hotel (receiving catcalls along the way, despite our grungy workout attire) to the SportLife - an incredibly modern gym complete with personal televisions on each treadmill and spin classes and all. The only strange thing was the giant dry erase board in the middle of the room listing all of the machines. Apparently, you're supposed to sign in your name and the time of your workout before you get on a machine. I guess this is supposed to prevent people from hogging the machines, but one lady abused this system. My friend (redhead- obviously a foreigner) didn't realize that she was supposed to sign in. So she just started working out on an elliptical next to 4 empty ellipticals and this lady walks into the gym, signs her name for the machine that my friend is using, and tells my friend that she has to move! Silly silly...

For dinner that night, I went out with a group of 6 girls. Our program director pointed us in the direction of a street with many restaurants, and we just chose the one that looked the cutest. We made the mistake of going to dinner at 7:30 and walked into a completely empty restaurant (dinner down here doesn't start til 9 or 10 at the earliest). If only we could get an early bird special for eating dinner at 7:30! The restaurant turned out to be a very quaint Italian restaurant, decorated with American movie posters (Godfather, etc). We shared a pizza and Caesar salad. To my surprise, the salad was actually a true salad- with big pieces of lettuce (rather than shreds) and with real Caesar dressing (instead of lemon juice/oil/vinegar). The pizza was good too, but had very thin crust. After dinner, we wanted to go dancing again, but it was only 9:00 or so -- way too early for the clubs down here. We got ice cream to pass some time and then chatted with the hotel security guards to get directions to a local dance club. Unfortunately, they didn't know of anything close, so we followed another group of friends to a bar (which turned out to be an Irish pub). We got there at 12:30 and assumed that we were again way too early for anything to be happening. However, after sitting there for 2 hours, we just realized that either a) nobody in Chile goes to an Irish pub or b) not many people go out on a Thursday night. Sigh...hopefully we'll learn the ways of this city soon.

Friday:
Met with the CIEE group once again to sign a "language commitment" - agreeing that we wouldn't talk in English to the other American students in our group. It was easy to sign that paper once they reminded us of our aspirations to become fluent and feel comfortable with the language; however, it will be hard to put into action. Pero voy a tratar.

Lunch = chicken + spinach + rice + strawberry juice (they have every juice imaginable down here). Then met with our tutors to have our first lesson for our Chilean immersion class- Contemporary Chile. We talked about our first impressions of Santiago and expectations for the class. I'm excited about the readings and lessons because I'm dying to understand the history of everything in this city.

Friday afternoon, it was time to say goodbye to the hotel and my American friends and time to say hello to my host family! Waiting for them to arrive was incredible nervewracking; however, when I was greeted with a squeal and a giant warm hug, i knew that everything would be just wonderful.

Clara Victoria Martinez (Victoria) is the principal of an elementary school and the mother of three. She has one son (Jorge) and two daughters (Marcela and another woman who lives in Spain). I think that Victoria is a widow because she lives with her sister - Vecita in a lovely apartment in Las Condes - a very nice comuna (neighborhood) of the city. Her daughter Marcela is married to Rodrigo and they have two sons - Felipe (20ish) and Rodrigo (1 year, 4 months). They live in the next neighborhood over (Providencia) and they spend a lot of time with Victoria.
Thus, Victoria arrived at the hotel with Felipe, her cute grandson who spends a lot of time with his grandmother (fortunately, you're supposed to say hello and goodbye to everyone with a kiss on the cheek...). I should have known that even though I was living with two single women, I'd still be spending time with an extended family. Latin Americans put a very strong emphasis on family and it is very common for an extended family to live within ten minutes of each other.

So in the car ride to las Condes, I learn this family history and I'm concentrating as hard as I can to memorize all of these names. However, once I get into the apartment, I receive an in-depth family introduction as Victoria shows me alll of the pictures of her son and daughters and grandsons and other relatives. Then Vecita, Victoria, Felipe and I chat and chat and chat. They've all memorized every detail of the letter I wrote to my hypothetical host family when I applied to the study abroad program (I mention that I have a dog and they automatically respond "si - Sawyer!") and they ask me endless questions about my interests.

Then I give them a gift that I brought from home - an assortment of Southern goodies that I got at Cracker Barrel (a bottle of Coke, pecan pralines, assorted flavors of hard candy sticks, fried apples and a mix to make apple crisp). They love the flavor of the pralines (Que rico!) and are tickled by the flavors of the candies (Que es Root Beer? Cerveza? Que es Tutti Frutti?). And then they are just confused by the idea of an apple crisp. I reassure them that we will make it together and then they'll understand.

At 5, Felipe leaves to get a haircut and I'm introduced to the first family tradition. Whenever someone leaves the house, Victoria and Vecita go to the balcony and wave goodbye as the person drives away. But they don't just wave once - they wave when the person walks out of the apartment building, while they're getting in the car AND while they're driving away. Quite funny considering my story about waving goodbye to my own family at the airport.

Once Pedro left, I started unpacking and arranging things in my new room (where I was welcomed with chocolate covered almonds and a sign that says "Bienvenidos a tu hogar chilena") It has an adorable bright orange bedspread and a big armoir for all of my stuff. And surprisingly, I have my own bathroom (this is better than college!). However, the entire house is absolutely freezing (due to lack of central heating - very rare in Santiago). But it's no problem...now I don't even have to take off my jacket when I come inside!

Finished packing around 6 and Victoria insisted that I eat something for once (pronnounced like the number 11 in spanish: ohn-say) Once is kind of like afternoon tea in the UK - it's eaten between lunch and dinner as a snack/tea/coffee/desert break. While eating a delicious torta of dulce de leche, we chatted some more. I learned some very interesting things: 1) the vans that go to the ski resorts depart from the parking lot across the street from my apartment. AMAZING. 2) although chile grows lots and lots of fruit, the best quality stuff is exported. Although they can get better prices by selling their stuff to other countries, it's a shame that they don't get to enjoy the finest quality fruits that they produce. 3) this family doesn't like Michelle Bachelet. I didn't catch exactly why - I think it's for economic reasons....but hopefully I'll figure out why with more conversations... 4) I learned some new Chilean modismos (slang). Al tiro = right now, immediately. Cachai? = did you understand what i meant? Cache = I understood.It was exhausting trying to understand everything and trying to communicate my ideas in Spanish, but it seems to be getting easier with every conversation.

Helped Victoria prepare dinner a bit and she gave me a pina colada drink to celebrate my arrival.
Around 9, Marcela and her family arrived for dinner. We had so much food - a torta vegetariana which was basically layers of the following: flour tortillas, mayonaise, corn, lettuce and tuna. Strange, yet surprisingly good. We also had shredded carrots + lettuce with lemon juice, potatoes, spinach and a shredded cabbage-mix thing. All of it was absolutely delicious and very flavorful (Shannon- unlike Argentina, they actually season things here! So I don't have to complain about things being bland). At dinner, we celebrated my arrival once again with champagne and white wine. Holy cow do these Chileans drink a lot! Even Roro (little 1 year old Rodrigo) was reaching for his mom's champagne glass!)

After dinner, we played with Roro as he showed us how he could walk across the living room from one person to another (well..half the time it was walking, the other half he was just stumbling and collapsing from onto one couch to another). Roro also amused us by playing with his English-speaking toy - one of those toys that talk when you throw them against the ground. His was an (American) football that said "touch down" "come on!" "ugh" and "i'm open!" Everyone wanted me to explain what the toy was saying and what the words meant.

Around midnight, everyone went home and I went straight to bed (exhausted from all the food/wine/spanish speaking and listening).

Saturday:
As soon as I woke up, Vecita began preparing breakfast for me. She put out cereal, a ham and cheese sandwich, fruit and the last piece of a dulce de leche tort (which they reserved for me from someone's birthday party. She told me that as soon as I eat that piece, she's going to make an entire new cake as my welcome cake! I keep trying to tell her that I don't need it, but she won't listen!). I only ate the cereal and a pear (although I mentioned before that the fruit isn't of the best quality here, the pears here are enormous and delicious!!) and Vecita wanted me to eat the rest of the food too! I didn't want to be rude but I had to say no...otherwise I'm going to come home weighing 300 pounds.

After breakfast, I went to the supermarket with Victoria. On our way, I got a tour of the area and discovered that everything I need is right next door. There are 5 pharmacies within 3 blocks, a dozen different cafes, a few restaurants, and assorted other shops. The supermarket was very nice and organized, and they even had free samples of crackers with hunks of cream cheese on top (promoting American style cream cheese! How funny...)

Felipe came over for lunch and we had lunch of lomo (red meat), mashed potatoes, and shredded carrots and lettuce. As a result of our free sample in the super market, Victoria served us an appetizer of cream cheese covered in soy sauce and sesame seeds, served with saltines. Once again, a strange, but surprisingly good combination that I never would have dreamed of.

Spent the afternoon trying to learn the map of Santiago and figuring out my schedule for the next few weeks. Then asked Victoria if she knew of a local gym where I could get a membership for my time here. She told me that there was a Curves right next door (yes, Nana, a Curves! You need to come test this one out!) but I tried to explain to her that I was looking for somewhere a little bit different. She didn't know of anywhere else so we looked in the phone book and found one nearby. I was planning to walk there on my own, but she insisted on taking me herself. As we walked, Marcela called and Victoria explained what we were doing and then Marcela exclaimed that her gym was the best in town and told us that she'd drive us there. So then Marcela picks us up off the street and drives us to where else but the exact gym I went to on Thursday night. Too funny.

After showing me the gym, Marcela took us on a driving tour of the city. Saw La Universidad de Chile and La Catolica (my new schools), the parks where all the protests occur, the American embassy and the government building.

Marcela is absolutely adorable - she talks super fast and acts like my second host mom. She loves my blue eyes and always asks me to pronounce things in English for her. She works as an event planner for big hotels, so she pointed out every single hotel that she's worked at (the Ritz Carlton, the Sheraton, the Hyatt and more). Too funny.

And now it is time for me to help Victoria with dinner. Sorry for the length of this...a lot happens in three days!

Un besito,

Lindsay