Crossing my Fingers this Works...

So if I can remember all I promised to write about the other day...I decided to do it all in WordPad and copy to the blog, though now that I think of it, I realize I could have written it at home and saved myself some plata, but oh well, next time...

So I started to plan my upcoming week-long vacation to the north. Originally, they had told us that we´d get two weeks between the ILP and the start of classes at La Chile (Universidad de Chile), but now I see how much I have to cram into a week, and it just isn´t right. Especially considering how much it costs to get up there, and if I want to see Peru and Bolivia, it´ll have to be two separate trips (I also get a week-long vacation in the middle of September for Fiestas Patrias and the protests in honor of the anniversary of the military coup on September 11, 1973). And then there´s the fact that I didn´t bring camping equiptment because someone told me I could find it cheap down here. And of course there´s traveling companions. I think that´s getting worked out though.

If you haven´t noticed, I don´t really take the time to edit these posts, so apologies if they´re not entirely coherent.

So I went to the nasty suburban Las Condes two times this past weekend. First, on Saturday, because Lelia and I were looking for someplace to hang out, and Sonia (my host mom) told us of this amazing place at Parque Arauco, which has this amazing cosmopolitan feel because there are all kinds of restaurants with international cuisine and there´s lots of "movimiento" at night because everyone comes out to party when the movies get out (around 1am)...yeah, it all sounded good, and we agreed that it seemed like the kind of place we had to "conocer" here (get to know). Except that it turned out to be nothing but a mall, complete with T.G.I.Friday´s, Benihana´s, Starbucks, multiplex movie theater...ICK. I wouln´t even go there if it was in the States. But at least now I know.

As my Lonely Planet guide says of the Las Condes comuna: It´s where any Santiaguino with aspirations wants to live. All the top-notch hotels are stranded out there (they always speak of the Hyatt, the Hyatt!), and it has such a sterile and impersonal feel, with all these soulless highrises where all the rich people live, so you have to see it to know what the hype is all about.

So Saturday night was a waste of taxi fare both ways (yeah, as in any suburb, you have to have a car to get around, especially at night), but I somehow got tricked into going to Las Condes again, since I thought I was meeting a friend to go to this park, San Cristobol, which provides a good view of the city from a hilltop...but no. We were apparently en route to another mall in Las Condes! Argh. But despite it all, I ended up finding some cute shoes and many kinds of multi-colored, bright tights and leg-warmers. So my new Chilean style might be confused with Punky Brewster. But I like it. It´s different. The mullet is yet to come, but just you wait. It is HOT!!! En serio.

Oh yeah, and after the trip to the malls (yeah, we hit up two), we went to my friend´s house in Las Condes (possibly the biggest apartment complex that is not a public housing project that I have ever seen, including a pool, tennis room, ping pong, etc) for "las onces," which is a snack/tea time that most Chileans consume between lunch (2ish) and dinner (10ish), at 7pm. It was really nice, with this merangue cake that makes your teeth want to fall out, as well as the addictive bread (mmmm, made with animal fat!) that comes with every meal, and tea/coffee (coffee here = Nescafé, with very few exeptions) . I´ll have to tell you about the origins (oral legend) of "las onces" another time.

Ah, but that reminds me of what you should know of the food here. The food economy is run by Nestlé corporation. That means that every last food has as its first, second, or third (mostly the second) incredient as azúcar. Ick. Yeah, and that includes the soy milk Sonia buys me. And most of the food has lots of salt. And it´s not that I´m knocking Chilean food, it´s just that I´m damning the MAN for ruining the public health in this way.

¿Qué más? There´s the "nanas," which have caught my attention. Pretty much every family in Providencia and Las Condes or is just wealthy has a "nana," or "niña" who comes and does all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and childcare the family can´t handle. I just didn´t grow up with that, so I find it very weird. All the nanas wear these uniform-like aprons over their dresses, even when they´re out with the children or gardening. It´s like a caste marking. There´s one in my house, too. Her name is María. For reals. But I talked to her today, and she loves talking about it. She´s convinced that all the Peruvians are taking the jobs, because they get paid significantly more than Chilean nanas, and she also told me about how she was fired once and just kicked out on the street "like a dog." Also about how she hasn´t been paid in a year. And Sonia re-hired her recently because she needed help for having me here! Actually, I need to remember to repeat things back to her to make sure I understand correctly, because I think she may have been talking about Sonia firing her before...Weird. She also talked a bit about what it was like to live under the dictadura (Pinochet), how you couldn´t even leave the house and about how may people were killed/disappeared in those years. Interesting that she just opened up about this, because many Chileans apparently do not like to speak of those years, as they were so traumatized by them. Then she started saying things like that all that´s happening now (the US´s 9-11 and fears in Chile about international terrorism, thanks to its government´s support for many US policies) is predicted by the word of God, and it´s all doomsday. Yikes. I guess I haven´t read Revelations lately, but I think I´m missing something.

I just got the cold everyone´s had, so I stayed home from class today. Dr. Weil (my medical hero) (from the book Natural Health, Natural Medicine) recommends nasal douching!!! So I did that, and I think I´m going to keep doing that because it´s good to clear out all the smog. It´s weird, but you should try it.

I can´t believe I forgot to talk about the caso de Spiniak! It´s the biggest scandal in Chile, so you must know. Here´s a brief rundown. So this super-rich guy named Spiniak had this deal going on where he would take in all these young men (and I think there were young women involved, but of course it´s more scandalous if it invoves HOMOSEXUALITY) from the streets and take care of them and, well, use them sexually. So he´d have these parties and all these important politicians and prominent businessmen would come and get some. Well, he got busted, and it´s all the press can talk about.

The press. So there are about a million national newspapers, and half of them are tabloids. Very humerous, if it wasn´t so sad. The common wisdom is that it at least gets folks reading. Too bad it´s only basura.

Yesterday, our "monitores," who are Chilean students whose job it is to help the gringos adapt to Chile (there are five gringos to a monitor/tutor, and they are super bacán/cool), took four groups to the vinyard Concha y Toro, which is the biggest and most famous Chilean wine-maker. It was just like Napa, only thankfully there weren´t huge clusters of vineyards, so the local ecology hasn´t been as destroyed as that of Napa valley. Very beautiful, though the point was obviously to get us drunk so we would buy lots of wine. Don´t worry, though, I am not an exception to this. You will get to sample the champagne and other wine I bought while slightly curada. Geez, they gave us more wine yesterday than I have drank (alcohol-wise) in the past month. It was mighty tasty and interesting.

Yeah, I realize that drinking wears down the immune system, and I have only myself to blame for being sick today.

We are required, as part of the ILP, to get the hell out of Santiago this weekend. Not so bad. So a group of us is going to La Serena, which is north of here--I think it´s a 6 hour bus ride, to be taken at night. We don´t have class on Monday, so we get to enjoy a long weekend. La Serena is where they have the clearest skies in northern Chile, as well as some of the best astronomical observatories in the Americas. I am really looking forward to it. They also, of course, have the museum of Gabriela Mistral (Nobel Prize-winning poet), as well as a factory producing Pisco, which is the most important beverage in Chile! (It´s a very sweet brandy, and there´s constant rivalry between Perú and Chile over where it originated.) I´ll tell you how it goes.