Put a Croc in it!

Right now I must vent. I have a bone to pick with Chilean women (and some men, for that matter). After moving to Providencia, which is primarily a middle-upper class neighborhood, I noticed right off that I was getting stink eye whenever I wore my red maryjane Crocs- even to the market. At first, I thought it was just paranoia baggage from so many people poking fun of them in the past, but realized that it was in fact the shoes getting me the disapproving once-overs. I really don’t care whether people like my shoes- I dealt with Lili constantly insisting I kill them- I just find it ironic that in such a fashionably backward city, people are so critical of one plain ol’ pair of Crocs. Seriously! Perhaps I failed to mention it, but the mullet has made a forceful comeback here, as well as the “raton” (as in New Kids on the Block rat tail) and women accessorize with camel toes =(. I’m no fashionista, but clothes I see in department stores and donned by women here look a helluva lot like the Mervyn’s Sunday ads from 1998. Some I might go so far as to compare to K-mart ads, so I don’t know what the issue with cheap clothes is. Granted, they are plastic, but they really are so practical and comfortable, and have more weight and durability than flip-flops, so it’s not like I’m running around barefoot. Unless I have a crush on the produce guy, I feel no urge to do myself up for basic errands especially if I’m in a hurry. For some reason they aren’t acceptable for public display but I say Croc that! I’ll continue to wear them, with a big proud crocky smile.

Getting Some Ass

There’s not a whole lot of anything exciting to report but I do have a funny story from one my intermediate classes- specifically my favorite one that I mentioned before. In our last class on Thursday we had a pretty grueling lesson and since they were all really good sports I decided to slow things down the last 15 minutes, then it ended up being Profe Carol’s informal Chilenismo lesson. I told them about the new slang my roommates and friends were teaching me and asked them to teach me new ones, which they were thrilled to do.
They are pretty curious about what I do outside of the class and recently started probing for more details. “Carol, do you have a Chilean pololo yet?” (pololo being boyfriend); “Who do you live with?”; “Have you tried Piscolas? Piscoblancas?” (cocktails). We were going back and forth with the English and Spanish lessons and talking about cool things in Santiago when one of my students raised his hand and asked “Carol, did you get any ass in Chile yet?” As you can imagine, I was COMPLETELY caught off guard and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume I heard him incorrectly before going off about how inappropriate the question/suggestion was. So, I asked him to repeat himself. Again, “Have you had any ass since you got here?” Still thinking that there must be some misunderstanding I asked him to spell it. Sure enough: A-S-S. Confused and in denial that anyone in this class would be so disrespectful, I was ready to point to my butt to confirm what he was talking about when he continued with “you know, like the churrasco sandwiches. You can have ass Italiano (meat, tomato, mayo and avocado sandwich) or ass completo (meat, mayo and other goodies) and it’s really good. They have it here in the cafeteria.” I then realized that “ass” is an actual term used for a cut of beef and there really are ass sandwiches to be had in Santiago. I assured them I would go get some ass the next time I ate on campus. Naturally, I was in hysterics for a couple minutes after that and when I explained to them the English phrase “getting some ass” they were totally rolling and understood why my mind was nowhere near sandwiches and why I looked so pissed when asked about getting any.

Bienvenidos sobrina nueva

I just got word last night that Kathy, Dave and Elliot welcomed little Elli-Kay into their world and am really excited! A little sad that I can’t meet her just yet (and snuggle snuggle snuggle her), but soon enough- as long as she’s not walking or talking before I get back I’ll be ok. Bless her heart; I predict she’s turned Dave into a softy overnight . . . ok maybe not, but in time. Tim reported that Kathy had it “easy” and baby is fine, so seems all is well in the recently-enlarged Willis-Strahl household. The news came in handy for lessons at Duoc as we’re reviewing information about families, so my students got the low down on Kathy’s delivery (well, not ‘the low-down’, but you know what I mean!).
Classes at EscualaBellavista started on Monday but not as smoothly as I would like. Last week, when I happened upon the school, I stayed a bit to take a placement test and expected that it would actually be taken into account when assigning me to a class. No. The focus of my first class was basic introductions . . . “hola, me llamo. . .”. Sheesh, I was asking for cervezas the first day here, so I was definitely beyond all of this. After addressing it to the school director, and specifying EXACTLY what kind of grammar assistance I need/want, he assigned me to another class that would start the next day. Well, then I was stuck trying to understand verb conjugations in the past and future tense (precisely what I told him-the day before- I knew nothing of and needed to learn) and was completely lost since they sound completely different than present tense. A third assignment ended up being pretty near-perfect and the instructors are both really cool, so it was finally a productive day yesterday (just call me Goldie talks). I’m going to try and figure out some kind of compensation for losing two days because they failed to place me more accurately. I only have two schools for reference but my experience is that Chilean schools are pretty unorganized and a little too laid back, but “when in Chile . . .” Cousin Craig gave me some advice for learning Spanish more efficiently and I’ve been trying to hold to it- one bit being to think in Spanish as well as always speak it- with Gringos or Chilenos and to practice speaking while biting down on a pencil/pen placed on molars. The pencil trick I’ve yet to try, but thinking and speaking as much as possible in Spanish yes. I feel like my 12 year old self, walking home from school practicing my German aloud, ignoring weird stares from passersby- only now I’m 29 and the passersby can actually understand what I’m muttering so it’s pretty funny. I tend to tone it down, the closer I get to my building since my neighbors all walk a lot. Don’t want them to think I have turrets or something. I thought that just living here and studying on my own was heavy duty immersion (and it is, actually), but taking classes is really jump-starting something in my brain. Too exciting! Geeky, I know, but you all know how much I like English being optional. Although yesterday being the trying day that it was, coming home to an English speaker would have been better than a cocktail. As I mentioned before, Rafael MUTTERS his Chilean, so I must stay incredibly focused when talking with him. I spent the entire day (minus one and a half hours) speaking Spanish- to my students/ my teachers/ faculty at Duoc, then came home to beers with Rafael and was SO frustrated at not being able to express myself and only understanding about half of what he says. It all worked out and actually was glad to understand that he has co-workers who want private lessons and much to my delight they are willing to pay a lot of money. Hello piggy bank. I had a good long chat with Shannon in Seattle afterward and it got all the English out of my system- we are both excitedly making plans around her pending visit in July during my semester break. Although I will probably pay a visit to Seattle and Utah to see new babies and participate in Samara’s non-bachelorette party, I am staying here until December or longer. Before I left, five months seemed a sufficient amount of time, but in reality I think it will be at that point when I’m actually establishing myself. So, for anyone interested in paying a visit to the deep south, I am here and rearing to host.

Still Going

The apartment and neighborhood are still peaceful and the roomies are proving to be good picks. Both Rafael and Elsa are really laid back and SUPER patient while I drag out what should be 30 second exchanges for 2-3 minutes. Elsa has a lot of Chinese friends, so she’s used to speaking slower and actually enunciating her words- something that Chileans just don’t do- so I enjoy chatting with her a lot and am happy to be able to understand most of what she says. Rafael, on the other hand, is freakin marble mouth. If I’m tired, I just nod a lot and pretend, but mostly I do try since they are both so helpful when communicating with me. It’s really amazing to me just how patient most Chileans are when engaging with me in Spanish. I sometimes give up and say “no importe”, but they always cheer me on to keep going, until we reach an understanding. It’s a little embarrassing when whatever my point was, really wasn’t anything interesting and they just spent 5-10 minutes (sometimes more) playing charades with me and sharing dictionary duty.
Those days will soon be behind me since I signed on to a Spanish class, starting next Monday. Four hours being taught, then directly on to four to six hours of teaching. I’ve been holding out on paying for classes because the lovely DUOC was supposed to provide us English teachers with 60 hours of free lessons, but nothing’s happened and I’m sick of being muted by language barriers! The school is in a really cool barrio (neighborhood) called Bella Vista, where I’ve only spent minimal time so I’m excited to be a regular for a couple weeks, gain my bearings and hopefully make some fantastic finds. I was originally in the area in search of two Asian food markets, where it was rumored I could find fish sauce, dried lemon grass and cheap coconut milk, but all I found was my new Spanish escuela. Food proved to be a good motivator to get me out roaming Santiago, because I asked around about where to find “international” food markets and they pointed me to another barrio adjacent to Bella Vista, so I walked around there for another couple hours. No markets, but great finds anyway and always good to be familiar with yet another area. Taking the metro (the underground) is fast and convenient but terrible for becoming oriented in this new city so five hours of roaming on my day off did me good.
I AM pleased to report that I found coconut milk (just not cheap-$6/can) and curry paste ($5/400g) and feasted last week on red curry. On Friday I had a couple of teacher friends over to share the Thai pleasures and we all hung out with Rafael and his buddies for a bit. Elizabeth speaks Spanish really well and acted as translator between Renee/Carol and Rafael/Rafael’s friends when all other efforts failed so I actually got to know a little about him. He has a pretty good sense of humor and knows how to let loose. He’d mentioned that he was having a party on Friday, and given that on Thursday night I came home to find three gigante trays of jell-o shots and a huge jar (2 gallon-ish) of Chilean sangria (it’s not really considered Sangria, I just can’t remember the name) I expected a whole houseful, but just the six of us. Yes, he made us help them with the shots and “sangria”. My assistance was minimal since I have classes at 8:30 on Saturday mornings but it was a good way to break in the first weekend as roommates. Turns out, though, that I could have got away with “shooting” all night, because my Saturday class was interrupted after only 15 minutes because of a bomb threat- all I heard was “calma”, “rapido” y “bomba” so I skedaddled pretty darn fast. I hung out with about 200 other people in front of the school until the end of my class time, just in case but no return to class. I did get to practice Spanish with the whole bunch of my T/TH intermediate students- they’re the ones who act as my Spanish teachers outside of the class and they love it, especially when it comes to the double Rs. . . I’ll only admit it here, but they are my favorite class. I might even go for beers with them before the semester is over!

For the most part I’m loving life here. I’m getting used to always having the door opened for me when I come home and sometimes the elevator button pushed as well. A little awkward for me but I remind myself it keeps one more person employed. This is something that Chile does well- employs people with incredibly mundane jobs. My favorite is how in many shops, you have to make three stops to make a simple purchase. I’m not talking about expensive items either- my first experience with it was when buying a bag a candy (bribery) for students. You tell one person what item you want, who writes out a notice for you to deliver to another clerk (who’s usually inconveniently across the store), who takes your money and writes yet another notice for you to take to ANOTHER person (again, across the store) from whom you finally retrieve your purchase. I try not to, but I usually get a little pissed when stuck in these circumstances, since I hate shopping as it is and their strategy just makes it worse. I do love the street food here though and cheap wine, as well as super friendly people and lots of eye candy. A lot of head turners but no incidents of whiplash to report . . . I’ll stick with just looking for now because Chilean men have a reputation for being really macho and clingy, meaning if you go out on one date they think you’re their “pollola” (girlfriend). Actually I had my own experience with this, but he waited until the second date so definitely no third. Too bad, but you all know how much I love me a clingy man. I’ve been in the market for Chilean friends to practice Spanish more and also have some local insight on what to do in Santiago and cool spots for weekend trips. So far, I’ve had some offers from people wanting to practice their English and I’ve lucked out that they’re people I’d actually like to hang out with, not just for the sake of learning Spanish. We’ll see.