Kiwi

Other than classes re-starting, life hasn't been particularly exciting lately. I just wanted to share my news of the day: I've decided that kiwi is my favorite fruit. For now, at least. I eat SO MUCH kiwi here, because it is cheap and in season and delicious.

Today, I found some siamese-twin-and-triplet kiwi:

Growing up, we always ate kiwi in these nice little slices that Mom would prepare, but here I've learned to eat it with a spoon, which is much easier (no peeling) and more fun, I think. Just cut off the top and you're all set.

The siamese-triplet-kiwi awaiting its consumption:

Mmm. More news on my life outside the kitchen coming later...

Things aren't that different here.

First things first: I have some good news. The strike is over! I think. Basically, what I’ve heard is that the administration has finally responded to the students’ demands, so the students have agreed (or will do so, on Monday, when all is official) to return to classes. I can’t remember if I’ve explained the strike rationale yet, so I’ll just recap quickly. This whole business started a little over a month ago, when individual departments started going on strike. Strikes happen when the students want to see change in some area related to their education. In this case, the strike was based on tuition prices…apparently, the University of Conce has much higher prices than the average Chilean university, and the prices are continually going up. A lot of the students at the U have scholarships, but the scholarships are usually for a fixed amount, so when prices rise, the students need to pay more for their education. This is money that a lot of people just don’t have. Therefore, a strike begins. Students protest, demonstrate, take over the buildings at the U, do some disruptive things (breaking windows or school furniture, grafitti) and some peaceful ones (a march for equality in education) until they get a response.

Side note: The ultimate goal of many students/ people in Chile is free university education for all. Coming from the US, this seems absolutely ridiculous to me…I grew up knowing that college was expensive and that it was a privilege to be able to go. However, Chile has a history that includes a period of time in which university education was free (before the military dictatorship, I think, when the government was led by the socialist party). Therefore, the idea is not crazy, but rational to many Chileans, and they don’t understand why their current politicians and school administrators benefited from free university education while people now need to pay for their education.

Okay, that wasn’t a short recap. Anyway, on to my main message for the day: things in Chile are not that different. I’ve been thinking recently about the world, and about people’s experiences abroad, and my experience here, and have come to the conclusion that Chile is not all that different, in a day-to-day-living sense, from the US. I decided to compile lists of similarities and differences between life in Chile and life in the US, to sum things up.

Differences:

Handwriting > People have different types of handwriting wherever you are, but I have found that handwriting is very different here. Someone once told me that people here learn to write in print and cursive simultaneously…maybe this is why it’s so different? Anyway, the number ‘1’ always has the little flag/line thing, and the number ‘9’ is often written with the stem on the left side, like a backwards nine…that really got me for awhile.

Greetings > As a woman, I kiss everyone on the cheek upon meeting, or whenever I’m greeting them. Men kiss women but shake hands with other men. The program directors demonstrated this at orientation, which was funny.

Seasons > We’re in the Southern Hemisphere, so it’s spring here! I like that, although I would love to eat a fall-in-Vermont apple about now…Related to this, we had daylight savings time last week, to spring forward! With daylight savings, I guess the hemispheres twist in opposite directions (I was living in the same time zone as VT before, but now I’m an hour ahead, and when they fall back, we’ll be two hours apart).

Living at home > Most people live at home while they’re attending the university. Almost everyone has asked me if I miss my family, and I always say ‘no’…followed by an explanation of how I’m used to living away from home. A lot of people think it’s crazy that my family will let me travel by myself when I’m only twenty. This is probably because they’re not just used to living at home while they’re in school, but generally until they get married. It’s economically more sensible to live at home. Also, personal independence/ self-reliance is a theme that is much more stressed in the States than in Chile.

College apps > All Chilean students take a standardized test during their senior year of high school. Depending on their scores, they know where they can go to school and what careers they can pursue. That’s it. No essays, no interviews, no letters of recommendation. I like that. One thing I don’t like: You decide on a career when you enter, and it’s a set track. If you decide you don’t like it after the first year, you’ve got to start over with another career. General credits don’t really exist (indecisiveness is a bad trait in this situation). However, there is a benefit of this: You can decide to go to med school at age 18 if you score well enough. If only US med schools did this…

Notebooks > Generally don’t contain lined paper like in the US; they are full of graph paper. I like this too.

Bus seats > Are too small. Chileans are short. This is obvious when the part of the seat that’s supposed to go over my shoulders is where my shoulders are…

Books > Are expensive. I recently passed a bookstore where a copy of The Shock Doctrine in Spanish cost close to $50! Ay… On this note, students don’t buy textbooks. They take them out of the library, copy the pages they need, and return them. Oh, the glory of lax copyright laws…

E-mails > Always include a greeting (“How are you?” etc) before the business. They also close with something nice. I’m so much more used to the bare-bones, get-your-info kind of e-mails, but I’m learning to communicate correctly…

Vegetables > The idea of eating raw cauliflower is unheard of. Raw carrots are slightly more acceptable, but in general, vegetables are cooked.


Similarities:

Hot water > Exists. Gloriously.

Showers > Besides being complete with hot water and Dove soap (lots of American brands exist here), people sing in them. Just like in the dorms. My bedroom is next to the bathroom, so when people (specifically, the guys in my pension) shower when I’m around, I get to enjoy the musical stylings of Sergio and Erick.

Water > is fine to drink. This is so convenient! I don’t have to worry about bottled water, getting sick from the water, etc. Drink it straight out of the tap.

Food > is basically the same. Although eaten in different quantities at different times, and although bread is a main course, the types of food are generally the same.

Toilets > flush. They’re the same size and shape as those in the States. No squatting here. Usually, however, the paper cannot be flushed (although in my house it can? I don’t know why, but I like it, so I’m not asking any questions…). Also, if you plan on going to the bathroom in public, you need to bring your own paper. And hand sani. Soap is sometimes present but often not. Paper towels are very rare.

Clothing > is more or less the same. Traditional clothing for the Fiestas Patrias was different, but people don’t wear that on an everyday basis. One clothing thing I like: brightly colored pants! They’re really common here. Unfortunately, I think that Chilean clothing companies don’t make pants in ‘tall’, and if they did, they would probably still be short…

Honeymoons > happen. And the word ‘honeymoon’ translates directly, into ‘luna de miel’ in Spanish. I want to learn about the etymology of that word…what’s up with the honey and the moon?

Superstitions > The number 13 is unlucky. Don’t open your umbrella indoors here either. I don’t know how they feel about walking under ladders…

TV > Reality TV, the Simpsons, etc…

Radio > contains a lot of music in English.

Houses > People sleep in beds, have glass in the windows, use refrigerators and washing machines (dryers are less common).

French fries > are really popular.


Here ends my post for the night. Tomorrow I’m off to Linares, a smaller city about 2.5 hours from Conce. I’m going with Julie, the friend who went to Valpo with me, to investigate rural tourism. Should be interesting (I hope!).

Peace and love to all,

Tiernan

I bought peanut butter...

...and it is so good!

I went a whole ten weeks without eating a single morsel of peanut butter, which is usually part of my daily diet. I had sort of made a resolution that I wouldn't eat it while in Chile. The Chileans don't eat it, it's in the "foreign foods" section, and I thought I would feel cool if I could say "Oh, yeah, peanut butter isn't that hard to find in Chile, but I didn't buy any while I was there..." (note: why did I think this sounded particularly cool? anyway...) Honestly, I didn't really think about it that much.

Yesterday, I decided that I should just go ahead and buy some. Since I'm now cooking for myself, my meat/ protein intake is down, and it would be fun to share something so "American" with my host family. So I bought it. And in less than 30 hours I've eaten about half of the jar (note: jar is small, because it's a "foreign food"... but still). Must be my body's/ my appetite's evolutionary reaction to scarcity. Anyway, if I don't want to die from a heart attack, I think my peanut-butter-buying days are over. I can learn to eat it appropriately when I return to the States...

Cooking!

As a Middlebury student in Chile, the program allows for us to choose one of two options for eating with our host families: we can eat all of our meals in the house, or we can just eat breakfast and once (the nighttime breakfast). I ate all of my meals in the pension during August and September, but then realized that it would be a better option to arrange my own lunch, for few reasons:

(1) The amount of starch in a Chilean lunch. That plus two meals of bread = bad news. The importance of whole grains is definitely overlooked here.
(2) I already eat lunch out of the house a few days a week at the clinic or with a professor…then there’s a second plate awaiting me at home.
(3) There is a magnificent, crazy, bustling market in Conce on Saturday mornings. I want an opportunity to eat all that fresh, cheap produce!
(4) I don’t get to cook at Midd. I have time here, and there is no Proctor to persuade me otherwise…
(5) Eating out is cheap and interesting! I should take advantage of living in an inexpensive city.

So when I paid up for October, I talked to Marta, paid a bit less, and decided to go it on my own…last night, I cooked my first pasta and steamed some veggies in the microwave. I’m getting really good at steaming veggies in the microwave, and it’s only day two. If anyone has ideas for easy, nutritious, meals that don’t require an oven, please let me know!

Today was my first real lunch: whole-grain pasta with a bit of oil, salt, and pepper, steamed zapallo (Chilean squash) with brown sugar, steamed cauliflower with lemon juice, and a little bit of beet...pretty decent.

The best part is that I ate it on the roof…have I mentioned this roof thing yet? There is an overhang over the front door, which apparently is safe to sit/stand on. It’s been my favorite place in the house for awhile now for reading, eating, sitting, etc—it has wonderful mid-day sun.

Love and sunshine,

Tiernan


P.S. I’m forgetting how to spell in English. There are a lot of words that are very similar between the two languages; however, they are usually spelled slightly differently. Example of the day: construction. In Spanish, it’s “construcción,” and when I was trying to write it in English earlier I wanted to write “construcion”… Oh, my, the transition back to Middlebury will be fun…

P.P.S. I was surprised by three cakes on my birthday last week! The first in my Bible study, the second at my house, and the third at my house house, in Wisconsin (my mom bought a cake so that she and my brother could celebrate my birthday (ie: so they could eat a delicious cake). They made me blow the candles out on Skype!).

Surprised Tiernan:

The whole fam:

P.P.P.S. My ‘family’ in the pension sang to me in Spanish…and then in English. It was great.

Being blonde.

Before arriving in Chile, I realized I would stick out here. Chilean people are, on average, far shorter than Americans, and I am rather tall for an American female. In addition to this, I am also blonde. There are blondes in Chile, but they are rare. Very rare. And usually not all that blonde, with more of a light-brown hair color. So I arrived in Chile armed with this knowledge and the stories of friends, who told me they were whistled at/cat-called every day while they were in Chile. Surprisingly, my situation has not been like this…maybe Concepción isn’t as big on harassing its women, or maybe wearing down vests and my glasses has helped...in any case, I have gotten some attention, but not an overwhelming amount. The most common are comments from construction workers and honks from taxi/bus drivers. Chilean taxis and buses have their normal horns and a horn that sounds like a cat-call, which is the one I hear almost every day—it is more funny than bothersome. I’ve had other experiences as well: One time, a guy started singing to me as I passed (I read this on Allie’s blog from last year and didn’t believe it, but it really does happen). His song was something along the lines of “If I could come back to my bed and find you there…” Thanks but no thanks. Another time, a school bus full of kids passed me, all waving to me and shouting “Hola!” and “Hello!” That was cute. On that note, the “Hello” is a pretty common tactic to try to get my attention. Although a number of people have asked if I’m from Germany (there’s a pretty big German population in Chile, and I am the perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan), most people assume I speak English. I usually pretend I don’t.

Anyway, this weekend, my friend Amy came to visit from Valdivia, and yesterday we decided to go to Tomé, a town about an hour north of Conce. I had heard that there were a lot of pretty beaches in Tomé, but had never been to visit them. It was a sunny, wonderful day, so we boarded a bus to go see the sea.

We arrived in the center of town and walked towards the ocean, arriving at a kind of fish-pier area, where the entire male population (which was the entire population, thanks to it being a fish pier) felt obligated to whistle, tried to get my attention by calling me the Chilean equivalent of “blondie” and the like. Ugh. Needless to say, we got on our way and spent some time on a more deserted part of the beach, which was lovely.

When we headed back to the town, I thought I was set. Normally in the city, comments on my appearance are at a minimum. Not so in Tomé. Almost every single man, whether he was alone or accompanied (by friends, a child, his wife/girlfriend), said something to me, whistled at me under his breath, tried to stroke my arm, etc. I was SO relieved to get on the bus to go back to Conce. I enjoyed seeing Tomé, but I have never felt like such an abused foreigner before.

After exploring more of Conce, Amy and I decided to make a cake. We went to the grocery store to buy our ingredients (ie. box of cake mix and eggs), but when we got home, we realized that the oven in my pension doesn’t work! We baked the cake in the microwave instead. Amy is brilliant. It worked well (we cooked it in about four parts), and it was a lot of fun.

I’m hoping classes start again this week so I don’t need to start working solo with my professors. I talked to Jeff Stevenson, the director of our program, this past week (he came to Conce to eat lunch with Noah and I!) and he’s trying to work things out…

Hope all of you are well and enjoying the fall! Spring is wonderful, but I think my internal clock’s a little confused…

Love,

Tiernan