Santiago Nighttime Photo Safari

Since I (mostly) work from the depto. (apartment), barring any editorial emergencies that require in-person care, or any short-term spiriting aways to work on translations from the comfort of someone else's home, freezing cold and bleak days often find me in my casucha (small and poorly constructed house, and I'm being facetious) for most of the day. I might go to the gym, or take out the recycling, but I might just as easily stay bundled up and secreted away in my sixth-floor paradise, though two seventy-something women yesterday counseled me to get out there and party like a rockstar so to better meet my Romeo. But they also thought I was twenty, so what do they know? (truth, at seventy-something, much more than me!)

But sometimes, despite my best intentions to stay happily ensconced in the land of coffee then tea then herbal tea and then coffee again, I am sometimes called outside by things that just need to be photographed, and which I am powerless against.

Like for example, I accidentally went on this processional walk the other day, on the night of St. Peter and St. Paul. Hey, there was a giant religious statue (Jesus, I believe) on a litter (if he's standing, is it still a litter?), and a powerful sound system praying right below my window. I couldn't just let them slip away. So out I went, partially because I wanted to see and partially because I wanted to show you. And also because since I didn't grow up in a particularly religious country, and the only real exposure to somewhat alien religious practices was saying "Gut Shabbos" to the passing rebbe (rabbi) on Saturday mornings where I grew up in Brooklyn. So this outpouring of emotion and belief and little lit candles held in paper shades that reminded me of Chinese-food boxes really struck me.



I also hoofed it back in the rain to find out for a woman who'd poked her head outside the door if they were giving communion. I was told by one of the sisters of the order to tell her, "not to worry," meaning she didn't have to come out and get wet (and wade through throngs of people) to receive it. Everyone blessed me, everywhere I went. Depite the giant raindrops, it all felt very cozy.

But that's not the only thing I hear whispering "sáqueme una foto, aylincita." (Take my picture, leeny!)

When there isn't a loud and shuffly processional happening right outside your door, sometimes the light is fading over the mountains on one of those days I like to call "comp days." or días compensatorías This is what we get for suffering through days of pittaPATTApittaPATTAPATTA rain the soaks the streets, the religious devotees, everyone, in what is surely filthy and probably acid rain. After that, the sun comes up one day and shows that the snow line has fallen, so we can no longer see where there isn't any on the Andes, our splendid backdrop. In the words of a good friend (from back when we lived in Portland), "the mountains are out!"

And with any luck at all, the light is just right as the sun starts to drop in the sky and I run off to my sunset spot (which I share with a whole bunch of other people, some of whom where fumandose un pito (smoking a joint) when I was there yesterday, but I couldn't be bothered to care, because look at what I saw to the east.



And then, just minutes later, to the west (the coastal range, notice that even that's snow-topped).



With thanks to Nikon, my first ever non-auto focusing lens, everyone who ever challenged me to get over my fear of manual camera settings and my long-dead father, who would have come with me and shown me a thing or two.

US loses at soccer, and it's all my fault

Here's a blog entry in which the author (per usual) vastly overestimates her importance in the world.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is a bilingual list of exactly how important sports are to me:

not at all
not a whit
barely
un comino
un pucho
un carajo
(where the last three in Spanish basically mean a cumin seed, a cigarette butt, and a damn, in descending order of politeness).

But I have recently determined that I am important to sports. For my ninth (tenth? I forget)-grade boyfriend (who I recently spied on facebook and seems to be having a good life, and why not, there are enough of those to go around), I chose the (I think) football pool choices one year, based squarely on uniform colors, and for which I'm sure he was soundly laughed off the school yard, because I really like purple and am not a big fan of yellow, but he ended up doing comparatively well.

And then there was Ecuador. Oh, the famous 1996 Jefferson Perez win of the racewalking event in the Summer Olympics. Surely you have it etched in your sports-loving memory. Well, I do, because he happened to be from Cuenca, Ecuador, which is where I was living at the time, and it was Ecuador's first ever Olympic medal. And we watched replay after replay of Mr. Perez swing-hippedly breaking the finish ribbon. And listened to a soundbyte in which he proclaimed his favorite food to be noodle soup.

Next on the list was Chile's 2004 gold medal in tennis for Gonzalez and Massú, also won while I was in-country. At this point I vaguely considered renting myself out to other unsung nations for their Olympic-medal-winning glory. But then I thought about how much I like living in Chile and also of the possible mobstyle repercussions if the home team favorite didn't win, and I decided not to switch teams, as it were.

Which is why I owe the United States Soccer team a giant apology, because I am so sure that it is my fault that they squandered a 2-0 lead over Brazil, Brazil! a nation I never would have chosen, yellow and green! oh! my aching eyes. But since I don't live in the United States, the soccer team was sure to lose, and for this I almost apologize. I can't help it if I am important to sports, though sports are not important to me.

My powers are somewhat unpredictable and it doesn't seem like I have any control over them. Also, before inviting me to your country, consider the fact that as I landed in New Orleans a few years ago, the biggest natural disaster to ever hit the United States was brewing. And I haven't been to Honduras in years, but if all the countries I've been to are headed for a coup, a bunch of you might want to duck and cover, I'm just saying. And sorry I couldn't make your sports teams win. But at least I haven't brought a natural disaster.

Just mirth, a short attention span and lotsalotsa words.

Important architectural icon in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile knocked down by local priest

In a move that is only as colossally stupid as the most colossally stupid and disrespectful move could be, this beautiful Chilean sight will be seen no more.


(photo: bearshapedsphere)

Today's La Tercera reports that the entry to this centuries-old church in San Pedro de Atacama was destroyed so they could pull a tow truck into the church grounds to repair the bell tower that was cracked in the 2007 Tocopilla earthquake. Those of you hoping to catch this iconic shot will now be treated to this sight instead:


(photo, La Tercera)

The church is perhaps the most well-known construction in the whole adorable desert outpost town in the Atacama, the jumping-off point for the Geysers at El Tatio, Valle de La Luna, Laguna Chaxa, Laguna Cejar, Lincancabur Volcano, the Altiplanic Lakes, Pukara de Quitor and scores of other attractions. It is one of (probably) the two most visited places in Chile, with the other being Torres del Paine national park.

Apparently the work was proposed to the Consejo de Monumentos Nacionales (National Monument Advisory Board), and rejected, because the proposal did not include adequate engineering studies to ensure that the bell tower would not collapse during the repairs. The head of the parish decided to go ahead with the works, regardless, and in the process had the original 17th-century wall around the church knocked down so that a tow truck could come closer to the church. Story here (in Spanish).

Do I really need to say I'm disgusted? Do I need to tell you how sad I think it is that a country that has so little historically-preserved architecture dating back a few centuries could do something so unequivocably stupid? Maybe that idea they had to knock a hole in the Andes to let the pollution escape to the coast is next on the list. Or we could cut up the Torres and sell them as souveniers.

And for what it's worth, the truck could have come in through another part of the wall, they didn't have to knock down the principal entry.

The newspaper article says it's possible that the case will be presented to the Consejo de Defensa del Estado (CDE), State Defense Advisory Board. Grrr. I wonder if they'd like me to testify how much I loved that entryway. A picture's worth a thousand words, don'tcha know.



I've got 2,000 right here. And another few hundred thousand on my hard drive.

What's in a pichanga? Chilean food analogies that make you go hmmm.

In addition to word surgery, I do alot of other things with words. Mostly collect them into a word maelstrom, that I can choose from when I wish, but which I don't really know the etymology of or how they might be related to other words.

Then I find out, and laugh and say aha!

Like how a Chilean fillingless tamale-like thing and a bow tie have the same name in Chile. Humita. The first one, comes from the Quechua huminta, which explains why this snack or something similar is seen all over the Andes ) and the second one because it's squinched down in the middle like the first one. Except I couldn't find a picture that showed the squinch, and the last time I ate a humita I was really, really sick and I'm pretty sure it had a pigfull of lard in it and this girl doesn't eat lard (without knowing), and she also doesn't eat bowties, but sometimes they do look darn tasty, like these, which here we call, strangely corbatitas, even though they look like bowties, not tie-ties. I suggest a name change.


photo by: jankrutisch, creative commons license on Flickr.

The other (food-related) thing that I recently found out is also the name of something else is pichanga. Pichanga is a snackfood you (and I mean you, because I do not) eat, while hanging out with friends, drinking a beer, etc. It's cubed salami or other embutido (cold cuts, here's a pretty picture, it actually means funneled) along with pickled veggies and onions. I've never eaten it becuase of the meat cubes, but I'm sure it's delicious, and it looks nothing but appetizing as it's spooned into a plastic bag at the grocery store and sold by weight. People have their favorite places to buy pichanga, and I'm sure it's tasty, but I can't help but think that it developed as a way to dispose of the embutido ends when no more slices could be sliced.

A pinchaga, I recently learned, is also the name of an informal pick-up soccer game. Why do they call it pichanga, I asked? And I was told, "you know, you got your fatty, your skinny, your big guy, your shrimp, it's a bit al lote (random). I just hope if I ever play in a pichanga I get to be the pickled carrots, because I really don't want to be an embutido end.

In other news, while ensuring (or trying to ensure) that I wasn't spreading misinformation either about Chilean food or informal Chilean soccer matches, I also learned that some people call the business in the front/party in the rear mullet-style haircut a "changa" from pichanga (after the soccer match, as the soccer players might have them). In another food-related haircut name, I have always called the mullet a chocopanda, so named for the gents that get on and off the bus with their cardboard and styrofoam boxes of icecream selling it to people even in the coldest weather (like last night, below freezing, icecream guys still out). Chocopanda is the brand of icecream they sell, and the mullet is often sighted on these vendedores ambulantes (travelling salesmen).

And if you, like me, try not to eat animal fat, then read the label on that bad boy before you bite into it. Mmmm, Grasa animal, perfect with mora crema (blackberries and cream, a popular flavor).

Identity Theft, or who wants to be Eileen?

One of the many hoops that the Chilean government has us gringos jumping through, like trained seals (or are those dolphins?) is going to Registro Civil to get a "certificado de antecedentes." This is a perforated form that they give to you at low cost (anyone know how much these days, I seem to recall 800ish pesos) that certifies that you have not been convicted of a criminal act here in Chile. The last time I had to get one, it was to turn my residencia sujeto a contrato (limited residency, subject to my work contract) to residencia definitiva (definitive (not permanent) residency).

And as I walked down the street, pastel blue and white form in hand, someone offered to buy it from me. Certificado? Certificado? he said. What? Certificado! Se compra! (I'll buy it). Really? How much? A ver, (let's see) he said. He offered me 10,000 pesos, and I assume he had a bottle of liquid paper (say: correctór) or similar in his pocket, with which he would change the name, and presumably the RUT (national ID number). While I feel for people who want jobs, despite having transgressed in the past, fraud is not one of the experiences I'm looking to collect before my next birthday.

So I said no.

And this got me thinking about identity theft. I mean, this wasn't exactly identity theft, so much as it was identity borrowing. And maybe not even really borrowing, since all of my identifying information would be erased. So then I was thinking about identity borrowing, which brings me to medical care.

What do you do if you have a situation that requires medical care, but you have neither ISAPRE (private health insurance) nor FONASA (state health insurance)? Well, if your doctor is complicit and so is your buddy, you use that person's carnet (national ID card) to buy a bono (copay coupon). You return your friend's carnet, present the bono to the centro de atención médica (clinic), see the doc, and everyone is happy. Oh, except for the people who monitor fraud, and probably public health.

Who would do such a thing? Who doesn't have medical insurance? People in the informal economy, that's who. Or people who are cesante (unemployed). I bet if you asked around, you'd find that someone you know has done it. I'm not naming any names, but I'm telling you, it's out there.

All of this came to my mind recently because my US-based credit card company has recently employed new identity protection, because my 12-letter caps and lowercase password with numbers in it wasn't enough. Now they had me select from a set of questions that they will ask me when I log in.

I'm all for other people not using my credit card, but the questions seemed singularly crafted to alienate me, their user.

The entire first page of questions were ones I could not answer.

Pet's name (don't have a pet)
Favorite TV show (don't have a TV)
Father's profession (idem)
First car (oy!)
Husband's name (seriously?)
Anniversary (what?)
How you like your hamburgers cooked (okay, this one might be hyperbole)

I was starting to feel like some kind of a non-tv watching, non-animal-loving, anticar, fatherless misanthrope when I saw that there was a second page of questions, where I was asked things like shoesize (yay! I wear shoes!), date eldest sibling was born (yay! I have a sibling!), etc. I felt somewhat better about myself but worried about the shoeless and siblingfree. I've been told I'm overly empathetic. What say you?

And lest you think that Chile is not concerned about identity theft, I will tell you that when I pay bills online (or transfer money), I am asked not only for my password, but also the coordinates on a little plastic card that I was issued a few years ago. In what can only be described as a you-sunk-my-battleship precision (with apologies to anyone who never played this peace-mongering game) , I type the numbers into the dialog box and money disappears from my bank account. Win-win, so long as I don't lose the card. Though I bet that guy who offered to buy my certificado de antecedentes could hook me up.

Con todo respeto

Con todo respeto (with all due respect) is what you say to someone in Chile when you are trying to bring them down a notch in frustration, in anger, in hating you. In a place where people don't often yell at each other in anger, when someone does, you know you've got to look in your bag of tricks (with a nod to Felix the cat) and find that one phrase that you can use to defuse the situation before it blows up in your face (did you know you can also say diffuse the situation? I don't want it to have a romantic light, just not to go kaplow like a poorly-installed oven, so I shall spell it defuse.)

Last night I was in barrio paris londres, which is where these two streets join in a cobblestoney glimmery little neighborhood that has a strange history. For one thing, is it where one of the detention/torture centers in Santiago was, which is now a monument of sorts. During the día del patromonio, Margaret and I went there and took a tour with one of the people who'd been detained and tortured there during the dictatorship. I don't believe much in bad vibes, but wow did being in this building sure give me the creeps. And when you walk outside there are dozens of little plaques on the street to commemorate those executed at the location. On the día del patromonio there was a red carnation on each plaque.



Paris Londres also used to be famous for prostitution as little as just a couple of years ago, but that seems to have died down a little. Downtown Santiago is a clever little warren of streets that serve a particular purpose, with 10 de julio being where carparts are found, and Tenderini is where you go if you need a blender replacement piece. I guess Paris Londres used to be prostitution, but the streets were clear last night. Perhaps because of the rain. Or a little something we like to call gentrification.

What Paris Londres is not for, apparently, is giant parties, as I had attended one, and on my way out (early, because I'm like that), my friends and I were standing in the rain outside and having a bit of a talking to with the neighbors who were yelling at us for having done a series of things we hadn't done, including ringing all the buzzers, the situation was escalating, angry words and jabbing fingers abounding when J pulled out "con todo respeto" and all was quiet. Con todo respeto caballero, no fue nosotros. (With all due respect, it wasn't us!). And the neighbor calmed down and went inside.

And then the police showed up, opened the unlocked front gate and set to yelling at the revelers (I suppose). I can only imagine that no amount of respeto was going to diffuse his ire at the situation, having (I'm sure) preferred to tool around in the van in the glimmery night than deal with pissed off neighbors and loud parties where only detention and prostitution belong. Or something.

Travel Lit, my guilty pleasure

I have a secret. Well, more of a secret addiction. Perhaps you won't even be surprised. I will read nearly any travel book, eschewing opportunities to go out, ride a bike, sleep, occasionally even eat. It's a genre I love, and I don't know if it's because I love the books, want to imagine myself on the trips, or am cocky enough to believe that one day I might write one. I have read some true doozies, including one about a woman who randomly fell in love with a Masai on a trip with her boyfriend, and moved back to eat putrid goat meat and fight against strong cultural taboos, like her husband's desire for multiple wives. This last one I would not say was a great book, so much as it was a train wreck that I could not look away from, and so I did not. (The book is called the White Masai, if you were wondering).

I asked on a couple of times on twitter and the like who people like to read, and got almost no response, so I just wrote this article on the basis (mostly) of books I'd read myself, including one which I distinctly remembered having read on Dec. 23rd, 1992, which if you don't already wonder about my ability to remember very specific life events will surely make you raise an eyebrow. And yet I routinely miss people's birthdays. Maybe it's part of my misanthropic charm. It's charming, right?

And now I present to you, in lieu of a truly strange story about falling in love with a Masai warrior and moving to a pre-electric village (that's what they call them these days) to fall terribly ill and nearly die on several occasions, a story I recently had "printed" about 9 travel books that make you say "better them than me"

Today's story? Volcanoes. And for some of those, I'm thinking "better them than me" as well. Some things are called once-in-a-lifetime for a reason. I'm just saying.

Enjoy!

Another ode, this time to the oven, with an ounce of fear

Oh the oven. The source of so much heat in these winter months, the ability to burn cookies with its two (count 'em, two) settings, which are turbo and nuclear. The oven is so much fun. And the oven is dangerous.

I was once at a mountain hut in Landmannalaguar, Iceland, a million years ago, and after I volunteered to vacuum the place with the diesel vacuum, I was invited to a breakfast of rice pudding, pickled trout on brown bread and a bunch of other things I only vaguely knew what they were. It was the staff breakfast. A horsewoman was there, from Norway, talking sadly about how she'd bring some Icelandic horses back to Norway, and they'd never be able to see their homeland again, since Icelandic law would prohibit it. It seemed poignant, but maybe not tearworthy, since I wasn't sure the horses would notice the difference. The Norweigian was almost crying.

And there was this moment, before breakfast started, that I was instructed to heat up water for tea (I think). I had the kettle, the stove and all the ganas (desire) in the world, but I just couldn't make it happen. I'd never seen the clickety-do-da sparkerthingame that you use to generate the spark to light the flame. Call me new-fangled, but my stoves have always had either a pilot light or an electric start. A Gulliver of a man, making me feel ever Lilliputian (no easy feat) came over and knocked me out of the way, wondering what kind of a housewife I'd make. What kind indeed. And he demonstrated the clickety-do-da sparkerthingame and the water was heated.

When I moved to Chile and met my first stove, I realized that I would have to channel my own grandmother, or perhaps her mother, or maybe the giant Icelandic guy to light the thing. Turn on gas, quick like a bunny strike a match (or use the clicker), thrust hand close to swirling gas and quickly retract hand. I've gotten it to a science, it no longer feels strange, and I hardly even fear the stove, though when the hose that connects the stove to the municpal gas caught on fire once, I did have a bit of a fright. Don't worry, I went straight to the flea market (Bio Bio) and bought a new one.

And then we have M. M was a gringa who lived here in Chile for a couple of years, working on a government project and on deflecting a lot of male attention for all the pretty she exuded. One day, after a rousing gringa dinner at "Como Agua Para Chocolate" the night before in Bellavista, she decided to heat up her leftovers in the oven. Something happened. We don't know if the oven had a slow leak, or had been on for a long time before the match hit, but poor M had the fright of her life when the oven blew up in her face.

Fast forward a couple of hours and another friend and I were at the Clínica Santa María assessing the damage. The burn bloomed like a flower over the hours we were there, and many a salve and unguent was applied to hopefully make her healing faster. She'd been burned on both arms, the side of her neck, her lips, eyebrows, eyelashes, and a star near her eye where she must have squinched it shut as the fireball came close to her face. Think about how much an inadvertent kitchen burn hurts. Now multiply it. Poor M.

When the giant horrible fear of OMG she is well and truly screwed had passed, the hospital-visiting friend and I went outside for a breather, and to panic a little over the could-have-beens if the situation had been worse. As it was, it was mostly "only" second-degree burns, and did not look like they would be disfiguring.

And these are the stories I think of every single time I light a match, turn on the oven and thrust my hand into its depths, hoping for the wghoo of the flame catching, and not a giant cartoon-like blam as the thing explodes in my face. And I also think about poor M, who is just as beautiful as before, but will probably never eat another seafood fajita as long as she lives. And if you're asking why she didn't just heat the food in the microwave, well, don't.

And if you'd rather read something haha/funny instead of how horrible/funny today go visit Cachando Chile for the comedienne Eileen Shea's (hey! she's my tocaya!) first impressions of Chile.

A tale of tech, winter and pantyhose for your arms.

I could start today by talking about two stupid electrical snafus I've had. There's the one where I unplugged the (functioning) washing machine to plug in my hair dryer (what!? it's cold) and now had to start the whole cycle again, because I don't know what it was up to, and I tried whispering, "pick up where you left off" like my precious MacBook does when three months after I started watching the nature DVD I was loaned (thanks Danilo!), I put it back in and the computer asks me if I'd like to start from there. Yes, please! No amount of whispering would help, for what it's worth. Very rinsed clothes, I'm going to have soon.

The second snafu involves an aha moment where I suddenly understand why Mac laptops come with that stupid magnetic cord that breaks and frays and costs $75 to replace (and takes two weeks to arrive if you don't give your mother very specific mailing instructions, and sometimes even if you do (love the mother unit, also live in a family were we make fun a little.)) Today I had my computer plugged into the external speakers, playing a little Julieta Venegas and the like while I did my five-songs cleaning routine. When ooooof! I snagged the the non-magnetic cord that connects to the speakers, and my computer fell from coffee table to floor in a sad little whumph. Shook a whole bunch of crap out of the keyboard and turned off. NOOOOOO. We're up and running again, but I'm thinking I just shouldn't touch anything else electric for the rest of the day.

Which brings me to the actual point. Cold. We have it. Winter took her time, but here she is, in full force, with grey skies, a low smog ceiling, spitty filthy rain and a precipitous temperature drop. Santiago is not so lovely in the winter. But! Sopaipillas pasadas! (I wrote about them here. I actually don't like them, but have come to understand that they are one of the truly great things about winter, and also when they put the open barbecue pan with legs (a brasero) under the table or let you grill vegetables on it, like we did at a recent day at the parcela (country house, kind of).



Or maybe the best thing about winter is that it's T's birthday, and she went all gringa on us and made these excellent cupcakes, also at the parcela, and I did not pose the picture, the backyardigans hat came from another guest who I'd guess bought them at one of those birthday stores, like cumpleaños ely. (what? you don't have special stores just for birthday products? philistines).

So... the cupcakes.



But a close second (third? what am I up to here?) about great winter traditions has got to be the camiseta. If Pablo Neruda were alive today, and were female, certainly he'd have written an ode to them. In French it's a chemisette. In Rebecca (a faraway gringa who I'll get to see in Chicago later this northern summer)'s words, "They're like pantyhose for your arms." They're just that. Packed flat in a package that looks like it should hold heavy denier tights, it unfurls to hold a tiny one-size-fits-most long-sleeved shirt in any of a number of colors, sometimes with cute detailing on the sleeves or througout. This you wear as your first layer, and just like long underwear (but imminently less breathable), it keeps your torso toasty.

I recently introduced Still Life to camisetas, and yesterday at the gym when we were stretching on our matching shirtyshirts we waxed elaborate on what a lifesaver they are. And then we exchanged baked goods, because Sunday found us both playing "I'm baking, but I'm also heating up this frigid cuchitríl (hovel) that I call home." Which actually might trump the camiseta. But just barely. Mmmm, banana bread.

Having trouble picturing the camiseta? Go here. Having trouble picturing it being cold right now? I offer you my couch to spend a frigid night on. Bring your own camiseta.

Abortion "clinic" raided in Santiago

There will be no puppies, nor rainbows, nor butterflies today. It's not that I didn't have a great weekend amid the rain and the work-a-day Sunday which is kind of lame, but I'm sure I deserved it in negative comptime I've accrued in the past several weeks, and what kind of a boss would I be if I didn't make myself work?

But I'm rotten with sad right now, and it's all because of this. An illegal abortion clinic was raided in a building I go to frequently. I have a friend that lives in the building, and in fact, probably used to live on the same floor as the "clinic."

Think about what I just said: an illegal abortion clinic (see? no puppies). Illegal. Against the law. Underground, undercover, untested, unobserved, uninvestigated, unregulated, uninspected. Where women went to have a "doctor" against whom they have no recourse, terminate their unwanted pregnancies.

What could cause a woman to do something so stupid? When you choose the doctor at which to get your yearly well-visit, do you choose the cheapest? the dirtiest? the most clandestine? You do not. You ask your friends and you investigate and you look at what works with your insurance, and you go out and just get it done.

But what about this? A person operating under "minimal conditions" according to the article. Who did he think he was? A mercenary? a feminist? Or just someone taking advantage of women who don't have any other choice?

I'm sick with anger and frustration at the situation, at the fact that the clinic had to exist in the first place, that the police investigated the situation for months, that they raided it, and that it's shut down now.

And then just for fun, I did a quick google search and found out that here in Santiago I can have a number of drugs delivered to my home (or sent to me, if I don't live in the Metro Region) to terminate my unwanted (and in my case nonexistent) pregnancy up to nine weeks of gestation, though the pills may work until later in the pregnancy, but with increased side-effects. One one site, the person advertising the meds offers that he/she has "bastante conocimiento en el tema" (abundant knowlege on the topic).

Well, isn't that reassuring.

WHAT?! This is a medical procedure. Keeping abortion illegal forces women to make choices they shouldn't have to, like taking a potentially dangerous medication on their own, waiting for its effects, or going down to a basement apartment in Plaza Italia, and finding that the clinic that was supposed to solucionar el problema (solve the problem) has been police-line-taped shut.

This situation isn't new, and it's not limited to Chile. It's just that my eyes just got opened a touch wider to what's going on around me. And I'm not shutting them again.

Chile has one of the highest abortion rates in Latin America, according to this news piece, which also gives information for a phone number that women can call to get information about "safe abortions," a hotline staffed by Red Salud Mujeres Chile. (Women's Health Network, Chile). I haven't called, so I don't know what kind of advice they're offering, but unless it involves a trip over the border, the actions that women are being told to take are illegal and criminal (can be prosecuted).

And I'm ready to get flamed, so go ahead. I stand by my convictions that education, family planning and actual availability of Plan B (la píldora día después) would markedly reduce the number of abortions women seek, and that when they choose to do so, it should be under medical advice from doctors at licensed, inspected clinics in the light of day, and not in a basement apartment just steps from the Baquedano metro.

Your turn.

Hold your tongue, or you could "meter la pata" (put your foot in your mouth)

Living in a fishbowl, like we do, where we are people who stand out in any visually discernible way, for being tall, for being gringas, for being the guy with the three greyhounds in their tiny vests that look like saddles (I love this guy), we get used to people looking at us.

And then people talk to us sometimes, purposely letting us know that we've walked into a place where we are not the same. Oye, gringa! (like that). And Sara just tweeted (@sarainchile) that she was spoken about as though she was not there, her commenters saying, "Look! a gringa! what the heck is she doing here?" (in Spanish) As Sara points out, she understood the comment. I thought a nice response would have been the very polite third person question "Why the heck don't you ask her?" Frustrating, to be sure.

So this is the class of commentary we usually talk about. Someone said this to me (knowing it might offend), someone said that near me (not knowing I would understand). This particular horse, already dead and buried, is not coming home to roost today (pardon the crossed barnyard analogies, it's been almost a week since I was in the country, though I'm likely to pop in on the awesome city/country bazaar at Huerto Hada Verde tomorrow, maybe you should, too). Chickens, yes. Horses, no. Oh, and by the way, stalkmenot. Thanks.

Ayway, today I'll talk about that class of comments that someone makes, upon which they "meter la pata" literally, stick in their paw, or as we'd say in English, put their foot in their mouth. These are the "when's the baby due?" questions to a woman who is not pregnant, the "how old is your grandson" when it's the person's son, or "Where's your dad going?" when it turns out the "dad" in question is the person's romantic partner.

Whoops. Metiste la pata (you put your foot in your mouth). We have another, more colorful term here in Chile, which roughly translates to "you screwed up" but it involves the excretory system. And since I've already recently (as mamaj likes to point out) used the word crap on the blog (which! I had never! done before!), I will say that the word is a very harsh approximation of you having done that. "Cagaste!"

I think that's enough background for me to tell the story at hand.

The other day, I was on my way back from a meeting/lunch at a production company that does really beautiful work (and where they had a place to lock up my bike), and pedalling home. I was warm, happy, full, cycling freely down Eliodoro Yañez, a street that flows to the west (downtown), and then turns towards the city's main artery (the Alameda/Providencia/Las Condes, streets change names here, pesky but true). I noticed a guy on a moto (motorcycle) in the lane to the right of me (I ride the left lane here to make the turn without crossing lanes), and we came to the back of the stopped traffic at the same time.

He got off the moto for a second, to fix his shoelaces or pants or something, and when he was bending down, his cellphone fell out of his pocket. I said to him "Yo te lo recojo" (fig: got it). And he said to me, still bent over "Gracias compadre."

Compadre. You're reading that right. Spanish is not a very overinclusive language, if I want to say someone was my male teacher, he's a profesor, the female, my profesora. The motoboy (though not actually a motoboy, as this is a messenger company of some sort, and even less was he a taxiboy, which I could explain but it's too early in the day to talk about prostitution, but this has something to do with the Gus Von Sant movie "My Own Private Idaho") called me compadre. There is no mistaking that this is a word of and for men.

screeeeech. What? I handed him the phone and said, "Weón, si soy mujer." (fig: dude, I'm female.) He looked up at me and said, "ah, de veras" (hey, that's true). And he smiled, and shrugged his shoulders and held the cell phone in his hand for another second. He looked like he was about to say something else to me, and le di filo (I cut him off, another great Chilean expression).

The next word was the complete and utter end to the conversation. I said to him...

Cagaste.

And I pedalled off, looking down at my right calf, which was exposed, as I'd rolled up my pant leg to the knee to keep my pants out of the chain. I looked down at my pink-trimmed sock and my pink swooshed Brooks Addiction sneakers (love these for overpronation). And I looked at my somewhat overmuscled calf again, and I said to myself: Compadre. Maybe I've been hitting the gym a little too hard lately.

And then I thought the most Chilean of disbelief/I don't agree expressions, and this I thought outloud.

Sssaaaah. (Naaaaah) And then I pedalled home, with manspeed.

The famous Chilean traffic taco

Yesterday as I was biking up from my apartment to where I was meeting the lovely Emily for lunch, I got stuck in the mother of all tacos. Which makes it sound much tastier and crunchier than it was. Write it down kids, today's Chilean word is taco. A taco is one of about three things (that I can think of at the moment). A high-heeled shoe, a small pad of paper or a traffic jam. It can also, strangely, mean burrito, but that's a culinary problem, not a linguistic one.

Doing the math (as they say) will reveal that I was not stuck in a food creation, a high-heeled shoe, or a pad of paper (though clearly I'd have chosen the food). Instead, I was in a traffic jam. My particular traffic jam, with the slowly creeping autos 'n buses and things was caused by a micro atravesada, or a bus for some reason diagonally blocking two lanes of traffic on Compañia. But before I knew the cause, I let my mind wander over all the things that might be causing the taco at hand, but I did not let my mind wander too much because one cannot depend on anything in this world, and especially motorists' careful attention-paying to just another cyclist.

So here's what I came up with:

Accidents. There are serious traffic accidents here, but usually on the highway. With the exception of the carelessly mowed-down pedestrian, or cyclist, we don't see alot of these. When we do, they inevitably cause

Rubbernecking. Accidents, interesting events, attractive women, these can all cause drivers to lose their inertia, their ability to step on the gas and go. The same as in other countries, I'd imagine.

Motorcades, ambulances, police cars. Sirens sound, and people stop, or try to get out of the way. It's surprising how little you actually hear sirens around here, and I like to think it's because no one needs emergency care, but I think it's more likely that most people take a taxi to the hospital, because they figure it's quicker.

Protests, or the police "presence" that accompanies them. Sometimes protesters will take over the streets, not letting traffic flow. Or sometimes the caribineros (polite) or pacos (impolite, both words for police) are attending to the protesters. Maybe you wonder what that looks like. Here are a couple of photos from the teacher's protest recently (about purloined bonuses, if you were wondering).

First, the teachers (and the ubiquitous street dog that decided to join in on the fun)



Then, your helpful neighborhood policemen.



Later, even the dogs get bored and take a liedown.



If it's not an accident, and it's not rubbernecking or a protest, traffic in Santiago may be caused by slow-moving vehicles, like this one:



or sometimes even by the dogs themselves (but not these, these are well-taken care of housedogs who have never set foot outside without their amos (as in owners, not as in Amos and Andy) being tugged along by their leashes (the dogs', not the amos')



The strange thing about the Chilean taco is that for the most part, people don't honk. Or they might tap their horn, but there's no exaggerated unstoppable horn-leaning. That we save for when we drive around town like lunatics with flags streaming out of the back window of the car screaming Chi-Chi-Chi, le-le-le, Viva Chile! Like last night when Chile beat Bolivia 4-0 in an important soccer game that brings Chile one step closer to the World Cup.

And if we're in it (gasp), and if we win it, the streets will be paralyzed. Good thing the pacos have riot gear.

On early birds, late owls and word surgery. A long linguistic journey.

You know how the early bird catches the worm? No, this is not another post on how happy worms are, or are not, or even how fresh they are (thanks richard for that image). I want to talk about the bird itself. You see, in English, we have this early bird, and in addition to other things (like waking up the neighborhood), he catches the worm. This, we understand, is some kind of prize for having awakened early, and from an early age we are taught to prize this behavior, and are even told, upon retrieving the plastic piece of crap hidden at the bottom of the cereal box before our later-rising siblings, that we have shown ourselves to be the early bird. Worms, plastic crap, it's all the same to me. Don't really have much of a use for any of it, though if I had a garden I'd be all over the worms. Or something.

So the early bird, and his opposite, the late owl. It works for us. We're confident that there's a bird somewhere, all metaphor and simile and tiny beating wings that awakens early. And his counterpart, the owl. It's a tidy story. But I've always wondered what kind of bird the early bird was.

But since I now live in Chile, the land of answers and not one, but two names for figs (and owls, but I'll get to that later) I no longer have to worry about what kind of bird it is. Because in Chile we don't have early birds and late owls, we have alondras and lechuzas.

I know what lechuzas look like, as I was lucky enough to see one perched on a post along a long descent towards the beach Matanzas, which is famous as a kitesurfing location and is not far from the mouth of the Rio Rapel, which dumps into the ocean in a splendid open maw. The lechuza was a tiny owl, smooth-headed and silent, perched stock still atop his post, as if to say, mosey on, nothing to see here (and there wasn't, as dusk was upon us, and the light was fading fast.) The other word for an owl in Spanish is buho, which has feathers pointing up in the area where you'd expect the ears to be. It's also the brand of a lot of school supplies here in Chile, and somewhat of a pain to say. I always remembered it by remembering this artist, who I briefly went to college with and ran into on I-5 pumping gas into his car, headed southbound, and I was headed back north from Los Angeles one fall when I was living in San Francisco. The gas station is on the median strip, and if he's now getting hits from this blog, I can assure you he is saying what? who? (no pun intended).

Lechuza was a harder word for me to get my brain around. Every time it came up, I needed to build it from scratch, like a physics formula from my hyper over sciencified high-school (humanities people, I'm all about the words!). But at least a lechuza is easy to build, if you have some lettuce (lechuga) and some hake (merluza, a kind of fish) handy. You glue them together, trim off the excess, and poof, a lechuza! As they do tend to lay in wait for their preferred rodent prey, you have lots of time for this word art project, especially if you notice their weird round-headed silhouette first.

Visit this guy's flickr page if you want to see what I mean by the smooth head. Seriously dude, where are your little earlets?

What what of the alondra? Remember her? In English we are satisfied to just have an early bird, and not know her name. Remember? worms! plastic crap! I had to come home and ask Dr. Google, who also doubles as a wildlife biologist. Imagine my surprise when I learned that an alondra is none other than... a lark. (see picture here).

See, the Chileans have it all wrong. Not early, happy! Larks are happy! Happy as a lark. Oh no, but they have happy worms (remember that?). So I guess that alondras can wake up early if they must. Maybe all the little girls with this as a first name are early risers and get the plastic crap right out of their breakfast cereal box while their unfortunately-named siblings slumber on.

And because you were wondering, the way I will remember the word alondra until it crystallizes in my brain (which I think it's on the verge of doing, I just heard something go click) is that I will start with the word for swallow, (golondrina), lose the g and switch some vowels around and drop the ending.

What? you don't do word surgery? Well then I just don't know what kind of animal you are.

And then she flew away.

First impressions in Chile: Pucha! I don't speak cellphone!

Because Margaret asked, and because I am a simple marionette that responds to such requests, minus the weird chin joints and freaky strings and a giant T above my head, I will now write, as requested, something that I remember from my first days in Chile. I highly suggest that out-of-country bloggers write their first impressions of their home country, and tell me, so I can link to you. If you're in Chile, Margaret will link to you, too.

Go forth and blather!

Me: First, you can go here and read musings about the early linguistic challenges in general. But here's a very particular thing that happened to me on my first day that represented a unique linguistic challenge, where the problem was more "I don't speak cellphone" than "I don't speak Chilean."

I had arrived in Chile, been picked up by my future employer and deposited down at my hostel on Cienfuegos in Barrio Brasil, the same neighborhood in which I now live. Later in the day, I took a (very) long walk up to my future office, over Cerro Santa Lucia and up into the easternmost reaches of Providencia. While I was meeting everyone in the office, it came up that they would like to have a way to get in touch with me, and that the best way (for them) would be for me to get a cellphone, specifically one from the company Bell South (now Movistar, and the change happened while I was away one summer and when I came back, I kept on reading my phone as saying Moviestar. And I wondered when I'd become so popular).

Ever the overachiever, I went to Movistar right that day, my first in Chile, to purchase a phone. I decided on a pay-as-you-go, a term I'd vaguely heard in the United States before (this was 2004, and I had held a cellphone once at this late juncture in time, and had never owned one). This, I discerned was a "pre-pago" (pre-paid) phone. Fair enough. So I talked to the sales rep, chose the cheapest phone and then began to quiz him on issues that might come up with the phone. Since I had never had a cellphone in the states, I didn't get that the price might be different to call from one company to the next, or to a landline. I also didn't know how to say landline in Spanish.

Well, he explained, you're Bell South. If you call someone from Bell South it costs this much (insert crazy high price here) If the other person has a phone from Entel, it costs this much (insert even wickedly higher price, something like 50 cents a minute), if you call someone from (name of other company, no longer remember what it would have been), it will also cost that. I had seen these other companies, so I knew what he was talking about. But, he said, if you call a (sounded like) "refija," it only costs this much. Wow! I want to call a "refija," I thought to myself. But what's that? He hunted down an office phone, yanked its cord out of the wall and showed it to me. I wrote down in my little notebook "refija=office phone." He looked at my scribbles, grabbed my pen and put in a tiny d in between the e and the f. "Red fija," or "fixed web." Oh! a landline. I scribbled out "office phone" and wrote in "land line." "Lan lean-ay, he said." Right, I said, "lan lean-ay."

Later came the issue of voice mail, which I also didn't know how to say in Spanish. So I started my elaborate scenario. Okay. So I buy the phone, I charge it, and I make friends, and they call me. But me? I don't answer the phone. What happens?

It rings, he said. Then you get a llamada perdida. (which I translated as "lost call" for months until I was told that in English we say "missed call")

No, I said. It rings and rings, and my friend's don't hang up.

Why don't they hang up? He asked.

Because they want to tell me something, I said.

and I paused, hoping he'd figure out what I was getting at. But there was silence.

So I tried, Is there like a voice, a lady, something in my phone so my friends can say something and later I can hear it?

Buzón de voz? he said.

Bingo! Voice mail.

I later found out that Chileans pretty much never leave voice mail, preferring to let you know that they called by the "llamada perdida" message you get on your phone. This was part of our disconnect. Part linguistic, and part cultural.

We had a long game of charades and circumlocution the guy and I, and I later realized that that was probably the hardest he'd ever had to work for his paltry commission. At the time I didn't realize how scarce really good, patient customer service is here in Chile (or anywhere, really), but I had to say, it made me feel like an absolute Moviestar.

Until someone stole my phone out of my backpack as I walked down the street and I had a whiny fit, and called the person who had it, and claimed to have just paid about 20 bucks for it, and wanted me to pay her the same to get it back. It was experiencing technical difficulties by that point, and first I recommended that she go out and find a rubberband to hold the crappy battery in place, since it often slipped from its contacts and the phone lost power. Then I beseeched her to please return it to me, out of the goodness of her heart (and because I suspected it was she that had stolen it, and had never actually paid the 10,000 CLP) and she demanded the cash again. And then I suggested she do something very impolite with the telephone, and hung up.

Because by that point my Spanish had really improved.

Postscript, because now I see how this is done:

And read these other participants too, if you will! (and still gunning for non-Chile entries if anyone is willing!)

Read more...
Margaret at Cachando Chile: First Impressions of Santiago Chile (Santiago, 1991)

Clare at Clare Says: First Impressions (of Chile) (Rancagua, 1996)

Vicki at Futalandia: Chile September 2006- First Impressions (Santiago and Chile’s deep south, 2006)

Lydia at Just Smile and Nod: First Impressions of Chile (Santiago and Valparaíso)

Emily at Don’t Call Me Gringa: First Impressions (arrived in Santiago, June 2005)

Abby at Abby’s Line: Thoughts on my First Day in Chile (Santiago, January 2007)

Sarah at whatsarahsays (Santiago, August 2007 (I think))

Still live at stilllifeinsouthamerica (Santiago, 2009)

Slang: thy name is Chilensis

Well then, since we've been talking about animals and things and how they're classified and what it all means in English vs. Spanish (or at least Chilean Spanish, which this website (which Abby mentioned, and which I had just recently added to my blogroll) can help you with, it's worth turning our attention to Margaret's comment on the issue.

Aburrido como ostra. Bored as an oyster. Bored out of my mind, I guess I'd say in English. Margaret wonders how we know that oysters are bored. I suppose they're just sitting there, anchored to the bottom with some kind of promordial slime, opening and closing their shells (gah! must I think of the mystery phalanges again, I seriously am never going to get over having eaten that mariscal), and waiting for the next tasty bite to come along. Sounds leisurely. But I guess all that opening and closing gets boring. So there we have it, bored. You know, like an oyster.

At another point I talked about things being "like eggplant" and I took that to mean that they didn't like the taste of eggplants themselves but I was later told that was a skirting way of saying it's like (pardon me, PG-13 moment coming), balls. As in testicles. Okay, I don't know what eggplant they sell in your country, but here... Anyway, yet another digression in which I refer to my own blog yet again. In Chile this is called being "autoreferente" and it is a despisable characteristic. Go ahead! Despise away. But please do it from a distance, as I am very sensitive, and do not enjoy being pelted with rocks, even if they are small.

So today, after a long and autoreferente (hey, but I refer to other people, too!) introduction, including being bored as an oyster and someting being like eggplant, we can curiously ponder the following animal-based Chilean expressions (yes, I know, eggplants are not animals, but maybe we could use the Mr. Potatohead feet and facial features and pretend). Though even I have to admit that Mr. Eggplanthead doesn't have much of a ring to it.

Patos malos (bad doobies. People to avoid. Flaites, if you will. Translation: bad ducks

Hacer una vaca (put money in the kitty. Literally: make a cow, and oh dear, I've talked about this before, too.
bicho raro (strange person, literally: unusual bug, and for the record, I love this expression)
gamba (here can be used to mean foot, though in other countries means shrimp, is the name of our 100 peso coin (worth about 15 cents)

oh heck, let's throw in some non-animal, yet still food and drink-related ones

Me importa un comino (Couldn't care less, literally: it's as important to me as a single cumin seed)
Vale callampas (it's worthless, literally: it's worth mushrooms)

Ni chicha ni limoná (neither here nor there, literally: neither fermented cider nor lemonade)

Oh worldy and wise commenters and soon-to-be commenters alike. I beseech thee. Broaden all of our horizons with more food/drink/animal/plant/fungus related Chilean slang.

Stockpile? Whatever for! Better to go to the store 8 days a week!

If you, as a foreigner were to visit the average American home, you would be astounded at the quantity of stuff they have, well, stuffed, everywhere. I'm not talking about clothes and papers and books, things accumulated within a lifetime. I'm talking about consumables. I thought of this yesterday when the bathroom lightbulb blew at 9:30 at night, and I didn't even stop to think whether I had extras. I just knew I didn't. I wouldn't say that makes me better than anyone else, just less prepared. And then I thought about why.

Costco and BJ's and Sam's Club memberships abound in the United States, and people are drawn to them like gulls to a trashheap. They buy, say, all their paper goods or a flat of ketchup, congratulate themselves on having made a good purchase, and drive their stuff back to their house, where they unload it to find, d'oh! I already have a flat of ketchup. Or not.

I don't doubt that buying things in large quantities makes sense when you have a big home, a car, a membership to one of these buying clubs and many people that live in your house using diapers or cleaning products or what have you. It's also not particularly uncomfortable, I suppose to have your pantry chock full of canned items that can be opened, inverted, heated and eaten. When I was growing up we had so many of these canned items (mostly tomato products and canned beans, if memory serves) that we took to writing the dates on the tops of the cans so we would remember when they'd been purchased, and try to (vaguely) eat them in order. Or at least within a few years of when they'd been purchased.

But I still have to wonder, what's with the bomb shelter mentality? Is it because our parents, or our parents' parents lived through the depression, when food was scarce (and disposable diapers not yet invented)? Is it because it makes us nervous to have empty storage space in our homes? Storage space that could be filled with multiple repeats of whatever it is we bought last week?

Whatever the case is, that has taken Americans and their overstocked larders by storm, I can guarantee that it has not yet caught on here in Chile. Sure, we'll get six packets of tomato sauce bundled together, offering a free "yapa" of pasta to accompany them, and this will incite "bulk" purchasing, but we have nothing like what's going on several countries (I count nine, but that's because I skirted Belize on my trip, how 'bout you?) to the north.

In fact, when I went to buy my refrigerator here (refrigerators only seldom coming included in your Chilean apartment, and generally only if the apartment is advertised as having a "cocina equipada," which should mean they have a stove as well), I was hesitating over which size to get. And the woman at the store asked, well, how many people are you? At the time, we were two, and so I was pointed to a fridge maybe one-third to half the size of the fridge I had just bought for my (then) rented house in DC. In Chile they just don't stockpile food. By assimilation, I now behave in the same fashion, and in fact, if I tell you I have no food in my house, I really mean that all I have is some rice and dried mushrooms, and baking supplies (but probably no eggs). There might also be some tapioca balls for an ill-conceived foray into making homemade bubble tea.

This failure to stockpile food and other consumables is why I found myself at what I like to call "the bad supermarket" near my house at nearly 10:00 last night, looking to buy a lightbulb to replace the one that had just sparked its last spark in my bathroom a few minutes before. In addition to remembering why I call it the bad supermarket, I puzzled over why what I consider to be one of the greatest supermarket inventions ever, does not exist in the United States.

In the lightbulb aisle at supermarkets (and Home Depot-like stores like Easy and Sodimac/Home Center), there is a lighbulb tester, a little socket where you stick the lightbulb in flip a switch, and determine if your lightbulb is dandy or a dud. In the US we usually hold them up to our ears and shake them to hear if the filament is loose, but sometimes still end up with a no-glower. I thought about why we don't have these in the United States, and then I realized what thousands of dollars in legal education have told me is true. We are a litigious society. Some bozo would stick his finger in the socket, flip the switch, shock himself, fall on somebody's grandmother, break her leg, which leads to her not picking up her grandson at daycare, which leads to him being onsite when a sinkhole opens and swallows the daycare center, and the whole thing is because nobody had to hold a lightbulb up to his ear and shake it.

Which is also way of telling you that I know those energy saving lightbulbs are the shizzle, but I can't bear to look at myself under the flourescent-like glow of those creepy coiled monstrosities first thing in the morning. Which means in about a year, at say around 10 PM, one day I'll be back at the lightbulb testing aisle, buying another OSRAM 60W bulb. Because I still didn't buy any extras.

clams, worms, daisies and lettuce, a linguistic study.

I've been at it again, this time writing an article about 15 desserts you should try on the road, and wishing that any of those were right here with me in my barbie-pink apartment (so denominated by a friend). Alas, they are not, we're all yogurt and oats and things for breakfast, whenever that happens.

I come to you today to compare clams and worms, lettuce and daisies. Bear with me, we're not talking about food, though if you'd like to eat all and sundry of the aforementioned, please do not let me stop you, though I can not vouch for daisies' nonpoisonous status, margaritas notwithstanding (margarita means daisy in Spanish. It's also used to mean dimples, but I'm told you for sure shouldn't eat those). One of my favorite books as a child was How to Eat Fried Worms, which I read endlessly and with nausea, and take to mean that worms are, if not appetizing (to me), at least edible.

And back to the point.

Clams and worms.

Happy as a clam. I suppose this kind of makes sense. For one thing, a clamshell is vaguely smiley. Of course, the inside of the clam itself, as I sadly learned the other day is all jiggly mystery phalanges and valves. They're also filterers, which means they eat all the stuff that falls to the bottom. But okay, I can accept that they might be happy, in spite of all of this.

But worms?

Feliz como lombriz. Happy as a worm. Hmmm. Are worms happy because they have no real brain, live to squiggle and wiggle and aerate your soil? Because you aren't eating them like the kid in the book I just mentioned, who must eat 15 worms in 15 days to win $50 for a new motorbike? Lucky worms, $50 doesn't go very far these days. And as an aside within an aside, lombriz is one word for worm in Spanish, and gusano is another. When you do worm-composting you call them lombrices (lombricultura), and when you use them for bait or if they've infected your computer, they are gusanos. I simply could not tell you why.

I'm on board with the clams and worms, even if I do think happy as a clam is more visually appealing than the image of happy as a worm. However, /feliz como lombriz has a nice ring to it. Hmmm, stalemate.

Now, what's with the daisies and lettuce?

Fresh as a daisy, we say in English. Hmmm. Daisies are pretty, I suppose, all yellow and white and pushing up... oh wait, not that. Anyway, pretty and very he loves me/he loves me not, all yellow and white and other variations. But the foliage on a daisy smells very strong, and fresh? I just don't know. I don't see anything fresh about daisies. In fact, if you put them in a vase with other flowers, they're the last ones standing, moldy greenery notwithstanding. Oh wait! Maybe it's because they're long-lasting. Maybe we're onto something. But that's not freshness, that's appearing fresh. Like how I must appear to be younger than I am, which would explain last week's 20-something (in this case 25) hitting on me. It doesn't make me 25 (and about this I am not sad), and it doesn't make the daisy fresh. I have no word on whether or not it makes the daisy sad, but I will be sure to let you know as soon as I intuit the answer. Daisies' freshness status: in debate.

Fresquita como lechuga. Now lettuce on the other hand, that's fresh (if it's not salad-in-a-bag, pumped in there with some weird gas so it doesn't wilt or spoil). Lettuce fresh out of the ground from your friend's organic garden (where they employ lombricultura or from the verduleria (fruit and veggie shop) or the feria (fresh market) is fresh. It's crunchy and green tasting/smelling and brightens up a sandwich (in the United States anyway) and makes a great salad base (again, in the US, here in Chile lettuce only rarely makes it into restaurant salads, like the difference between words for worms, I'm not sure we know why). Lettuce surely wins the daisy-lettuce duel, with leaves to spare. (oh! I kill me).

So there you have it, clams, worms, daisies and lettuce. Now aren't you glad you can go read that article about desserts instead of thinking about this all day? Nom, as the cool kids say. (in Spanish it's ñam)

What's a polla? Chilean money-saving schemes.

I knew going into this week that I would be in arrears on a couple of things, one of them a group blog post on the dia de patromonio which I attended with Margaret/Peg and where we were schooled in many architectural details and then doused with a bucket of cold water on a sunshiney day, this in the form of the tour given by a torturee from the Pinochet era of house where he, along with many others, were held, tortured, and some killed (though obviously not him).

And that has absolutely nothing to do with what this blog post is about, which is about saving and financial planning. Sort of.

Here in Chile, if you make money doing something not on a contract, you are paid via something called boletas. Basically, I do work for you and I send you a boleta (or ask the SII website to send you one, in my case, since I have virtual boletas (boletas electrónicas), and you use that number to show where your money has gone.

Fine. It's a system that's different from the one in the states, and I get that. What is strange to me is that I will pay a flat fee (10%) of that money to SII, and then, in May of next year, I will await an automatic deposit of this same money (most of it, I think, though this is not clear to me, though I do know that they have the money in an interest-bearing account, and pay you interest on it).

I was talking about this system with a friend, and feeling annoyed at having to take 10% out of a check of money that is mine, to give it to the government, and know that it will later be returned to me. She responded, "but it's a savings account!" This is the way people see their yearly tax refund here. Okay. I guess in the states some people see it the same way. yay, refund! But I seem to always owe (except for when I owned a house), and so I never got into this mindset.

The idea that your very own money returned to you later would bring you such great joy made me think about another middle/lower middle class "savings account" operation here in Chile. It's called a polla.

The polla will be among neighbors, friends, coworkers. Ideally there are twelve of you, one for each month, and each of you has to put the same amount of money in the "pot" once a month, on payday. In the polla I was asked to join, it was 10,000 CLP, or about 18 dollars by today's exchange rate, and this seems pretty standard. Once a month, you pay this amount in, and once a year (if you have twelve people, one for each month) you get 12X that amount of money back. When I was first approached about doing the polla, I was perplexed. I'm a money saver from way back, and would be just as happy to take my 10,000 CLP and stick it in an envelope which I then open once a year, if I rolled like that (I prefer the bank option, strangely).

So I thought about it. Are my friends unable to save their own money? Possibly. But if I had to guess I'd say it's a way to show that you trust friends or coworkers and feel solidarity with a cause that "benefits" everyone. So when I rejected the offer I probably offended some deep trust that had been put in me. We know you won't rip us off, they said. We know you like us. Wrong, and wrong, I said, by rejecting the polla, and keeping my 10,000 CLP for me, me! (insert evil laughter).

Oh, and I also never "paid the floor" (pagar el piso) (thanks Peg!) with my first paycheck in the administrative part of the school I used to work at. Here you buy cake or something to share with everyone with your first monthly paycheck. Missed that, too. Poco solidaria (not a team player), I guess.

I'm beginning to think being my own boss really is the best thing for me. Fewer chances to offend, less administrative blabla and less cake. Unless it was panqueque chocolate or merengue lúcuma (two cake varieties here), in which case I guess I've just shot myself in the foot. Alas, maybe in May when I get my money back.