Week 27: Peruvian Harold and Maude

30 Sec. Update: For the past week I have been relaxing in Lima and hanging out with an 80-year-old Peruvian women (the mother of a close friend of my family). I have been staying in her guest room, helping her run errands, and just taking it easy. It has been a lot like a visit to Grandma's house; this whole week, I slept in late and was fed really well. All the rest is good before my final push. After my week here, I am heading due north to Ecuador and Columbia where I am planning on wrapping up my trip. I haven't bought my ticket yet, but I plan to come home mid-March, which feels like it is just around the corner.

A little bit of Chilean nostalgia: After only being way from Los Alamos for 2 months, I am already nostalgic and missing my life in Chile. The little thing are what I miss most, such as my host mom's homemade bread and trips to Isla Morguilla. These are the types of things that I forgot to mention in phone calls home and I didn't have space to write about on my blog, but they are what I am nostalgic for.

Top 10 Things that I Miss from Chile

1. Tia Iris' pan casero: There is nothing quite like the smell of fresh made bread or eating a piece straight from the oven. Making enough bread for ten people is a serious process, so there was always an opportunity to help knead the dough or watch the bread as it rose.
   
   

2. Onces: I wrote about “onces” or late night snack on an earlier blog post. Onces was always my favorite time of the day; there was never a time when I felt more like part of the family. The hours of conversation were marked only by the passing cups of coffee and tea.

3. Class 5C: Before I began teaching my host-teacher warned me that the students in class 5C were “pocos retardos.” Not really knowing what that meant, I just assumed that they were special education students. In the end I figured out it was a mixed bag of students with learning disabilities, students who were held back a year or two, and random students that the school didn't have space for in the other classes. Regardless of how they ended up in that class, 5C quickly won over my heart. They had more energy and enthusiasm than any of my classes and at least every other class ended with two of the students wrestling on the floor.
   
   

4. Sound of rain on the corrugated tin roofs: On nights it rained, there was no more cozy a place that being bundled up in bed and listening to the sound of the rain land on the roofs.

5. Choripan and Chorillana: Two of my favorite Chilean junk foods. Choripan is grilled sausage on bread coated in salsa, hot sauce, and pickled onions & carrots. Chorillana is french fries covered with cheese, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, sausage, steak, and olives. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. Hmm...maybe it was good that I left Chile after all.

6. Isla Morguilla: One of Los Alamos' hidden gems. Each time I went out to Isla Morguilla I always thought about two things: first, that it is not actually an island and second, that it is overwhelming beautiful. Watching the waves crash thirty feet in the air and waiting there as the sun sets never gets old.
   
   

7. $2 boxes of Chilean wine: You pay at least $50 a bottle for this stuff in the United States. Life is good.

8. Tio Lucho's Asado: I'm realizing that a lot of my favorites are connected to food. Eating a slice of steak straight off my host-fathers grilling fork is the next closest thing to heaven. Some of my happiest moments in Los Alamos were sitting on stool watching my host-father grill meat and patiently waiting until he offered me a piece.

9. TurBus: Chile's luxury bus line. Being able to hop on a first-class overnight bus and end up at your destination 500 miles away is a pretty great thing. I have started writing business plans in my head to make a pitch for a TurBus line that runs up and down the East Coast. Anyone know where I can get some startup money?

10. El Campo: Chile's culture is rooted in the campo and my experiences there were also rooted in the campo. Shopping trips to buy cattle, fishing for crawdads, illicit collection of fire wood, horseback riding, hunting for mushrooms, and random errands with my host-teacher's husband. I will never forget my many trips to the campo.
    

Top 10 Things that I Don't Miss from Chile

1. Chilean health superstitions: Don't drink water before you got to bed or you'll catch a cold. Always eat bananas after you go running or you will get cramps. You must drink a cup of wine when you eat seafood or you'll get sick to your stomach. If you don't where leather shoes in the winter, you'll catch a cold. Don't go outside after being in a hot room or your muscles will freeze in twisted positions. I never got to the bottom of all of the health superstitions, but all Chileans believe them and anytime I tried to point out how illogical they were, they just looked at me as if I was stupid.
   
   

2. Having to put toilet paper in the trash can: While I eventually got use to this practice, I know that I will enjoy that first flush with the toilet bowl stuffed with TP. I also won't miss having to take toilet paper everywhere I go. Those few times I forgot left me with some uncomfortable memories.
   
   

3. The strikes: Chileans love to strike. During my months in Chile, the public workers went on strike, the teachers went on strike, and even the lumber industry went on strike. Sometimes they get what they were striking for. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes you are on strike for over a month of classes. Strikes stopped being like a vacation after the first week.

4. Inadequate grocery stores: One week the other volunteers and I tried to make our host-family an “American Meal.” We had grand plans to make Cesear salad, lasagna, and apple pie, but limited by what we could find in the grocery store, we had to settle for tuna melts. The grocery stores simply lacked a lot of the basic American foodstuffs. A little bit of ethnic food would be nice too.

5. All the mayonnaise: Chileans put mayonnaise on just about everything. Mayonnaise on rice, mayonnaise on hot dogs, mayonnaise on steak, mayonnaise on french fries, and on anything else that didn't have enough fat already. They even make homemade mayonnaise.
   
   

6. Kiti and Mac's all-night barking: Kiti and Mac were the names of our host-family's dogs and the window in my room faced their doghouses. On the nights that all the dogs in town had a barking competition, I didn't get much sleep.

7. No central heating: Arriving in the middle of the Chilean winter without central heating made for a freezing first night. That night I remember thinking that I wasn't going to survive my time in Chile. It's funny how easily you take things like central heating for granted. Wearing a knit cap and long underwear while sleeping became a must. Many nights I would be able to see my own breath in my room before I went to bed.

8. Chilean time: The bell schedule at my school was not automated, so many days classes would start a half hour late and ten minutes early. Trying to lesson plan on Chilean time was impossible at times.
   
   

9. No breakfast and big lunch: I grew up under the mantra that “Breakfast was the most important meal of the day.” A piece of bread and a cup of coffee just wasn't enough for me. I wanted bacon, fresh fruit, omelettes, and yogurt. On the other hand, lunch, which was served around 2 PM, was usually twice as much food as I normally eat for dinner. I would be starving all morning, unable to eat that much food for lunch, and then hungry again in the evening. I never quite got used to the portions of Chilean meals.

10. All the ironing: Chileans dress to impress and the only person that doesn't iron every article of their clothing is the town drunk. And that is because he forgot. Coming out of college when the only time I ironed my clothes was at graduation, this was frustrating at times. There would be many mornings when I was running late and I would try to sneak out of the house with slightly wrinkled pants and host-mom would turn me back.

Bringing Chile Home: I miss my Chile. My time there was so rich. Every moment was full of laughter and humility as I tried to live a normal life in a foreign place. I am a little worried about when I return to California. I have so much to look forward to in the coming years, but I am unsure if it will compare to my experiences here. I understand why expatriates leave our country never to come back. We have it pretty good in the US of A, but life here feels less sheltered, less comfortable, less safe, less expensive, and most of all less predictable. I am still figuring out the kind of life that I want to live, but I know that it is going to look a lot more like my life here.