The dream of the 90s: it's alive in Chile

There are a handful of ways in which I feel like Chile is about 10-15 years behind the U.S., and it wouldn't take them long to catch up: cycling, recycling, spaying and Internet using.

Recycling. Do you remember bringing your pop cans, bottles and glass to the recycling centers in the late 80s? Do you remember returnable Coke bottles? Recycling isn't a thing that is done systematically in Chile, but there are signs that Viña (at least) is moving towards having a system. Currently, one can bring their plastic bottles to various locations, such as a park along Avda Libertad, and deposit bottles.

Cycling. I haven't seen anyone wear a bicycle helmet yet, which is about where casual bikers were in the 90s (in Duluth, at least). I've seen bikers ride on the bike path along one of the highways and the string of beaches, but for the most part they ride on the sidewalks. Chileans are good at defensive driving (they have to be!) but in this case I think it is probably safer for the bikes to not be in the street. 

Except there is that thing where parking on the sidewalk is common...

Spaying and neutering. There are too many stray dogs. They need Bob Barker.

Internet using. I haven't seen one of these for awhile! 

Computer access is hard to come by, but when you do find it, it's cheap. Not free, but definitely inexpensive. 

Not much is done online (or through the mail, for that matter) from what I gather. For example, people go to the places of business to pay utility bills. We've used the Internet to do our apartment searching and make travel plans, but not many transactions are available online. As far as I can tell. 

Good thing I'm not a nerd

If I were the kind of person to sit down and calculate something like this, I would know that from this day forward I will have known Dan longer than I haven't known him. He has now been part of over half my life.

If I were home, I would take him to the place we met -The Normandy. That is to say, that is where (because our orchestra was stranded in a terrible snow storm -thanks, Minnesota. I actually mean it) he finally had no choice but to talk to me.

Instead, we're connecting the way we usually do these days. FaceTime. Thanks, Apple!

But, since I would never actually sit down and figure out how many days I have been alive and how many days I've known Dan, this is purely hypothetical anyway.

28 days later: Intercambio de trabajo

"I'm so impressed! They have kids who are two...three...years old and they're already speaking (Spanish)!"

Home away from home, away from home

We are working at one of the Charlie Brown Sala Cuna and Jardín Infantíl houses in Viña del Mar. Preschools and daycares in the area buy residential houses and convert them. (Actually, there are quite a few businesses in residential areas, which is pretty cool, but it's not always easy to tell if a place is a business or someone's residence). I work in the pre-kinder room with a teacher, two assistants, and about 16 four year olds. When I'm "assisting," it's mostly in Spanish, so I'm not actually that useful. For example, I can't say that it is not okay to tell another child that she's ugly. I can't say that they have to stop throwing their toys across the patio because someone will get hurt. I can help them play with play dough, put puzzles together, do origami projects, etc.  (Oh! I can easily ignore the whining! I don't understand most of it! Usually a hug or a kiss will fix the situation, and if not, they know to go to another tia. That part is AWESOME.)

I have worked with preschoolers for over ten years, but have never worked in an actual preschool. I don't have much to compare, but there are three differences that stand out for me right away.  1) It's okay (expected?) for teachers to hug and kiss the kids in Chile, and 2) the teachers are making all their worksheets (worksheets? for preschoolers??) by hand (that might be unique to this school, though) and 3) books are not part of routine.  More on books later.

"She's from another planet. Here is a picture of her."

It didn't take the kids long to bond with me, and it did not take them long to figure out that I don't speak Spanish very well. When they realized that I'm not playing around, and actually do speak another language, several of the kids asked me (privately) Why do you speak English? What language does your dad speak? The first time one of the kids asked me "why do speak English?" another child answered "because she's from another planet."

This week, when the kids talk about my speaking English, they are starting to say "because she's from another country" or "because she's from the United States." So, at least I'm human this week. Progress!

I don't have a good sense yet of what the directors or the teachers would like to see happen by having native English speakers around, but I can say that at this point, we're creating a positive introduction to a new language.

I hope.

28 days later: taking pride in the pain

Today, I have been in Chile for one month. Between spending a day in Santiago, ten days in the south, and eighteen days living and working in Viña del Mar, I can honestly say that I know Spanish now than I did before I left. 

I used the phrase "the confidence that comes with an immersion experience" in my leave of absence request to describe why I wanted to live in South America to improve my conversational language abilities.

Yeah. Confidence. Um...when does the confidence part kick in exactly?

"Lo me dice" 
Coming up with words to get the essential points across has been relatively easy. Recall a few verbs and nouns, fill in the blanks with hand gestures or drawings (iPhone apps come in handy when you can't find a pen), and off you go. I probably have a few more words in my active, easy-to-recall vocabulary, but it is a rare and beautiful moment when I can say exactly what I want to say.

Also, the more I learn, the stuff I've known for a long time disappears for awhile. For example, I have said "tengo que + cualquier verbo" to say "I have to + whatever verb" since I was 13. Try to say that in the past tense "tuve que pensar" and all of a sudden I have to stop and think about what I'm saying again. 

"Me entiendes?"
Understanding what is being said is the hard part. It's definitely getting better, but I know I'm missing a LOT.

• Hearing the accent is a lot harder than I expected. Not only is it spoken at break-neck speed, certain consonants are dropped. (For example: Ss are dropped. So, "dos mil" sounds like "doh mil" and "hasta luego" sounds like "hata lugo".) I'm having a harder time parsing out the syllables or consonants than usual. For example, I can usually spell the Spanish words I hear in Minnesota. I can't do that here! That should get better the longer I'm here, the more words I know, and the more Chilean telenovelas I watch with subtitles (in Spanish) on.
• Also: people here can't understand my Spanish accent (which, granted, is terrible) so it goes both ways.
• My ability to comprehend for long periods of time is...getting better. At first, I was constantly translating. If someone was giving directions or instructions, I would stop and translate the first part, and by the time I was ready to listen again I had missed the second and third parts. I can comprehend longer chunks now than I could a month ago, but I am still missing a LOT.
• My brain gets full very quickly, and I hit a point (mid-afternoon usually) when there isn't any more room for Spanish words. Yesterday, for example, I ordered an empanada. I'm not sure what he told me to do (brain=full) but I ended up going to another counter to pay for it (why? I don't know!) and couldn't understand any part of what they were telling me when I got back to the empanada stand. I finally just started handing them things (like, my receipt) and they gave me the empanada.  

A library patron told me once that he (and a lot of recent immigrants) was scared to ask the librarians any questions about tutors at the library and Homework Help because he didn't know what we were going to say. I took it to mean that he didn't know if we were going to be kind or not. Now I wonder if he meant that he literally didn't know what we might say. It is extraordinarily easy to not ask the question when you know that the likelihood of your being able to understand the response is not high because you don't quite know the language yet. 

I hope that being able to recognize more words and understand more of what is being said will translate into my being able to say more things. That's how this works, right? Passive vocabulary begets active vocabulary? 

Getting to intermediate
If a person's command of a language was presented on a scale of 1-10 (1 being "my name is..."), I got through levels 1 and 2 easily, and a long time ago. Getting to 3 takes a bit more effort, but getting to 4 is a giant leap, and where most people abandon ship (myself included).  I would say I'm somewhere between 2.5 and 3.25, stumbling towards and striving for 4. 

I am encountering some of the same road blocks that stopped me in my tracks in the past, but I do have new motivation to work through them. You know how English is a common language for people from differents parts of the world? Spanish is one of those languages, too, and I want to be able to communicate with people from around the world. I don't want to point and grunt and draw pictures the rest of my life in order to speak with people.  Also, I'm here for another three months, so in a way don't really have a choice but to work through the stumbling blocks.

The plan
I meet with a tutor each week, and will through June. She's Ecuadorian (easier for me to hear her accent) but has lived in Chile for a very long time. 

I'm doing some exercises to train myself to more easily hear the Chilean accent, watching Chilean movies with Spanish subtitles turned on, and listening to a Chilean podcast. 

I went to church with Alicia this Sunday. Church is GREAT for learning a language! Preachers slow down when they are making a point, AND you have the words to the music right in front of you. Brilliant.

I'll keep talking with people. I think I've had extended conversations with every security guard in the complex we are -still temporarily- living in, and have spoken with a few guards in the park near my school. Security guards are among the best people to chat with! I connected with friends of a friend of a friend in Viña (they are so great about insisting that we speak in Spanish) and have a few more connections to make yet. This is not the time to be shy.

I'm going to branch out (eventually) and go to some Toastmasters meetings that my tutor runs, and will also try to set up a language swap with someone who wants to learn English who will speak in Spanish with me. 

Take pride in your pain

At any rate, overcoming the language barrier is hard, tiring work. As I was leaving my lesson today, I ran into Ricardo. He asked me how the Spanish was coming along, and I told him that it was a good lesson, but my brain hurt.

His response was "take pride in your pain. You are working hard, and it should hurt."

I splurged on two books to make learning verb tenses fun.
I chose one because it is written by a Chilean about the
2010 earthquake in Santiago.
I chose the other because John Green.

28 days later: missing Minnesota?

As of yesterday, I have not been in Minnesota for one month, which is the longest period of time that I have spent out of state to date). A week before I left Dirk asked me what I would miss about Minnesota (besides the people). My answer then was "um..." and my answer to today is "nothing, but..."

"Nothing, but" I miss my bike.
I don't want to am not capable of biking up the hills of Viña or Valparaíso, but I do wish I could explore the city by bike at some point. I see a few bikers (no helmets, grrr) but no bike lanes or paths, although they do have bike racks on the metro. Minneapolis/St Paul is really good for both biking enthusiasts and casual bikers, and has a biking culture and infrastructure that I really love (from the casual biker perspective).

Plus, there is only one hill in the Twin Cities that I had to walk up.

"Nothing, but" I do miss Target.
It's not actually Target that I miss, but the know-how of knowing where to go to get something, knowing how to get there and back in under three hours, and being able to understand the answers to any questions I might have along the way.

"Nothing, but" I do miss beer.
I am enjoying discovering new (inexpensive!) wines, and this is the part of the world to do that. Wine is not local craft beer. Other parts of the US have craft brews, but I really do miss the Minnesota craft brew scene.

Nothing. The best part of Minnesota is my people.

And my cat.

Iglesia San Francisco de Castro

 

 

 

 

 

Iglesia San Francisco. Built in 1912.
Purple and yellow color scheme would not
have been my first choice.

We visited the Iglesia San Francisco de Castro when we were in Chiloé. This church, along with several others in the archipelago, is part of the UNESCO World Heritage List for good reason. The all-local-wood interior and simple stained glass is gorgeous (and a difference from the marble churches I'm used to seeing throughout Europe and America), and the churches represent a blend of Jesuit/Franciscan tradition and local Chiloean building materials and techniques.

 

The tallest building in Castro.
It's the law.

 

Original door

What the fork?

Jesuits dolls
found in almost every museum

Cerro Bellavista y La Sebastiana

The first stop in Valparaíso was to Cerro Bellavista and La Sebastiana (a house of poet Pablo Neruda). 

The plan was to take an
ascensor up part of the hill.

The first impressions I had of Cerro Bellavista were not exactly pleasurable. It was a hot day, which didn't help the odors around the metro stop. The streets were crowded, smelly, noisy, and not easy to identify on a map at first because the street names were painted to the side of the buildings, but had faded from several of the buildings.

After I got my bearings it was easier to get a sense of where we were headed.  And it doesn't take long to know that when in Valpo, you're heading up.

After the long walk up a hill (a switchback, good for pedestrians and drivers, requires drivers to honk as they go around those very

It was closed.

steep, blind corners) we found La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda's houses.

Now, he was a guy who knew what he loved, what he wanted, and how to design a house to suit him. He loved to host parties and friends (and create individual menus for each guest), so the first two floors were party and gathering spaces. He kept fantastic conversation pieces (such as taxidermy, cow-shaped punch bowls, antique rocking horses), a well-stocked built-in bar next to the kitchen and a large dining space. He also named everything in his house -- his chair was called La Nube (the cloud), and his fireplace was called...(erg, I forget. something fun though.)

He wrote every morning in a room with a wonderful view of Valpo, surrounded by things that he considered his inspirations, including (but not limited to) a portrait of Walt Whitman and a sink he found in Paris.

Cerro Bellavista.
Honk when you come flying
around those corners!

He didn't attach the sink to a water supply -- just hung it on the wall.

Also, he did what he wanted when he wanted to do it - particularly with regards to napping. If he invited someone over, but all of a sudden wanted to take a nap he did. If he went to some one's house and wanted to take a nap, he did. 


I did find myself thinking about what I want out of my next house. I don't want a house like Pablo's (although, the vertical space is intriguing, I love that each room was a different color (some stripes, some solids) and I would absolutely take a stone mural of Patagonia in my entryway), but I do want a house that is suited to both Dan and I, the things we love, and the lifestyle, habits and routines we want. Our current house isn't totally off, but it isn't on either.

The question is whether we will be patient enough to find the right space for us or not.

La Sebastiana

View of Valpo from La Sebastiana

Chile quiere Antarctica

Don´t be shy, Chile. Do you want Antarctica?

Post Office for Magallanes Region and Antarctica

The flag of Chile on the right.
The flag of Chilean Antarctica on the left.

The piece of the Antarctic pie claimed by Chile.
Nevermind that it overlaps with the pieces
claimed by Argentina and Great Britain

Of course, I say Go For It, Chile! But...why?

Is it the tourism?
Antarctica is a unique vacation destination, in that there-aren´t-cruises-to-the-moon-so-why-not-Antarctica kind of way.* I mean, you´ve got the driest desert on earth, the Andes mountains, miles of coast along the Pacific Ocean, Patagonia, and some of the best vinyards in the world. But, yes, you should add Antarctica in your vacation destination options for the revenue it could generate for two months each year.

Is it the 'someone said we couldn´t' thing?
Oh, that pesky Antarctic Treaty that ensured the continent would remain politically neutral? The fact that this treaty was signed during the height of the Cold War and the arms race really adds salt to the wound, eh? The Antarctic Treaty nations will be able to vote on the future of Antarctica in the year 2048, so when/if the time comes that the continent can be mined (or something), you´ll be ready.

Is it the science thing?
Probably.

Meanwhile, enjoy having a small town there! (Villa Las Estrella).

*I did meet some travelers (from Wayzata, of all places) who were just returning from an amazing excursion to Antarctica, complete with whale sightings, penguin spotting, ship-breaking storms in the Drake Passage, and hobnobbing with descendants of Shackleton. Every time they set foot on land, they had to go through a decontamination process to leave as little of a footprint behind as possible. I have to admit that after talking with them, I understand the appeal of visiting such a pristine, practically uncontaminated, exotic in its own way place. My husband has wanted to go for a very long time, and spend time on McMurdo Station. 

My love, it´s yours. I will stay home with the cat. :)

Puerto Natales, I hardly knew ye

Puerto Natales

Puerto Natales was a stopover place for us on our way to and from Torres del Paine, so we basically only slept there. And yet, the town gave us plenty to talk about in just a short amount of time.

Con Cuidado
On our way out of Punta Arenas, one of the [BUS COMPANY] bus assistants made Alicia and I put our seat belts on - only us. So many mothers, so many people looking out for our safety.  

Trash Sticks
Every yard has one. They are basically poles in the ground with easy-to-access wiffle ball scoops on top. Quite practical for a part of the world that might actually get as much snow as Minnesota does - no need to shovel those babies out every. two. days. (I'm not certain how I managed to neglect taking a picture of these - check out Alicia's post about them for a pic.)

First Chilean meal
...that wasn't purchased at UniMarc, or prepared by me. It was delicious, but it tasted like walleye with a side of tomato and onion salad. Reminded me of Minnesotan cuisine, actually.

Congrio, Ensalada Chilena

Funny signs

Typos are so easy to do, but this one just cracked us up.

Thutch a nithe club

A love of ancient sloths

Puerto Natales is very close to La Cueva del Milodón, which is an important site for the geology, archaeology and paleontology of the Patagonia area. (And I do wish we had had time to explore the site). One of the caves holds a model of a mylodon, where well-preserved remains were discovered over 100 years ago.

El Milodón

Gnome on the street sign? Nope.
That's El Milodón.

We'll get there...somehow...

Our first attempts at public transportation were in Punta Arenas, on our way to the Museo Nao Victoria. We did not have a bus route map, a map of the part of the city where the museum is located, or a strong command of the Spanish language. But we figured it out with help from people along the way.

No need for exact change to ride
these city buses

We hopped on the first bus we found where the driver recognized the name of the museum. I´m almost certain that the museum was not one of his regular stops, because he pulled over on the shoulder of the high way (there wasn't a parada, a bus stop, in sight), and told us to walk straight ahead along the river until we saw the museum. 

The woman at the museum gave us directions to get back to town. I think she was telling us where to catch a colectivo, but we found a parada instead. There was one bus stop on one side of the road, and we needed to go in the opposite direction. A man on his daily walk stopped to talk with us (turns out, he had been to Minnesota for his work in venetian blinds making) and confirmed that the bus coming in the opposite direction would stop for us. And it did. The driver let us cross in front of it as though we were getting on a school bus - and let us on.

As we approached where we needed to get off, I noticed that there were no cords, buttons, or anything to signal that we were going to get off the bus. Everyone else seemed to simply stand up when they needed to get off, so that's what we did. We stood up. The driver pulled over. We got off the bus.

I want to remember these first rides. In the grand scheme of things, it isn't a most significant story or a grand adventure. But they made me think about simple systems that are so obvious to people who use them every day, but not always obvious to newcomers.

• It's easy to not ask the basic questions when there is a language barrier. Actually, it's usually pretty easy to ask the question - it's being ready to understand the answer that can make asking the question difficult.  
• Figuring out how a system works with a language barrier in play means that actions are taken based on understanding anywhere from 20-50% of the information given, and filling in the gaps by interpreting hand gestures and doing some guesswork. I had fun with it that day, but it can be really, really tiring. And easy to avoid.
• The system (in this case, public transportation) was not that complicated in the end, but it wasn't always obvious. For example, it's not obvious that "standing up" is the signal one uses to get off the bus. It's a one-time and easy thing to learn, but it's not obvious. 

Generally, people want to help. And it's a great thing when they are able to go out of their way to do so.

Barco de Fernando de Magallanes

We spent our last morning in Punta Arenas visiting the Museo Nao Victoria, where we were able to explore a historically accurate replica of the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.  

The Vittoria

The Vittoria, one of five in Ferdinand Magellan's fleet (and the only one to complete the entire voyage) is an impressive boat, a gorgeous sight to see (especially since it overlooks the Strait of the Magellan), and one that I wouldn't actually want to spend a significant amount of time on - especially in the 1500s.

Relax, Carpenter. The ship won't break along the way.

The flotilla started off with 270 crewman - 18 survived. (Magellan himself was not one of them -- he died in the Philippines of a poisoned arrow after getting involved in a bit of a dispute between fighting tribes. He didn't quite fulfill his goal of sailing around the world, but he did manage to give a name to an ocean that stuck (The Pacific), and get a strait named after him. So there's that.) They carried food and water with them (but not enough, which meant that several of the men starved to death along the way) (or died of scurvy. pack your oranges, folks), lived in tight quarters (which may or may not have been a contributing factor to the several attempts at mutiny and desertion along the way), and faced extremely difficult weather patterns as they approached the spot where the two oceans met.

Do not drink and signal to the fleet

They had big challenges, and lost a lot of people along the way. One smaller (?) aspect of exploration from this time period that struck me as interesting is that the only way for the fleet to communicate with each other was with the use of lanterns. (This might be insignificant, given that I haven't found much information about it - but with limited access to the Internet, I'm not exactly digging deep here.) The placement of this particular creepy mannequin made me wonder about how easy it could have been to for 1500s-era-explorers to miscommunicate with each other.

We visited the museum based on the recommendation of some travelers we met during History Day. (The museum been open for three years - so, you know, new enough to not be in the guide books yet). The museum is privately owned, but recognized well (possibly funded?) by the Chilean government because of its role in preserving and highlighting an important part of the region's history, and for the employment the projects bring to the area.  They are currently building a replica of the HMS Beagle, and I believe it will be worth a visit in a few years.

View from the Captain's Quarters

Captain's supplies

Navigation equipment

HMS Beagle Construction

Street art of Cerros Concepción, Artilleria, y Bellavista

It's worth it to climb los cerros (the hills) of Valparaíso, because that is where the street art and murals are happening. Have a look...

...at the walls of buildings and houses

Infinity Eyes

Captain Max?

...at the drainage pipes

...and lampposts

...and at three of the many, many staircases you'll find.

Pasaje Galvez

There's always more to come!