It’s expected that when living in a new culture there will be differences from what you’re used to. These differences are sometimes emphasized when you can’t understand the explanation of why something is the way it is. I thought I’d take a couple minutes to share some of my favorite cultural encounters in Chile thus far.
Okay, let’s start with the food. They eat mayo on everything, literally everything. They put it on pasta, rice, potatoes, salad (which is shredded lettuce with lemon juice). For once which is the evening snack meal here my host mom will take a soda cracker and put butter and mayo on it and chow down, she loves it. She doesn’t like to eat pan batita, similar to French bread in the US, because she thinks it will make her fat, where do you think all that mayo goes? The other weekend we were out and about and she pulled out my little brother’s baby bottle, filled it with water and then took out the mayo jar...I just about died until I realized they keep formula in the old mayo jars but I wouldn’t have put it past them to feed the baby mayo milk.
They also love hotdogs here, in all different ways. A typical food here in Chile is the completo, a hotdog with diced tomato, mayonnaise (of course) and guacamole or avocado. I went to my first asado with my host family last weekend; it’s the Chilean version of a BBQ. Some of the best food I’ve had here so far, including some fantastic hotdog/sausage served as an appetizer because it took hours to cook the meat for lunch, we ate almuerzo at 5. At my house they dice up hotdogs and serve them with rice, corn and peas for Sunday lunch. The other day my host mom sent one to school with me for lunch and when I opened the tupperware I literally thought it was a carrot, nope it was some kind of hotdog in a red-orange casing but the meat was gray…I bought a muffin.
Empanadas are also very popular in Chile. We’ve decided the idea is similar to a calzone, the outside is a baked dough and you can find pretty much anything on the inside but the most common combination is ground beef with enough onions that you need to brush your teeth at least 5 times to be able to have a conversation with someone less than 4 feet away from you and then half a hard boiled egg and a giant black olive. Haven’t quite experienced why everyone raves about them but definitely don’t buy one off some guy selling them out of an old milk crate on the side of the road, a guy in my program learned that the hard way this week.
In the “world foods” section at the supermarket you’ll find marshmallows, pretzels, nutella, German cookies and if you’re lucky, expensive peanut butter. You will not, however, find chocolate chips. Baking isn’t nearly as much of a pastime here as it is back home so when my friend Anna and I decided to bake monster cookies at my house last weekend it turned out to be quite the adventure. We used some chopped up bars of chocolate for our chips. There were no measuring spoons to be found in my kitchen so we kind of eyeballed everything using a coffee mug. My host family also doesn’t own a mixing bowl so we used what we fondly refer to as the cauldron, it’s an old old old painted ceramic soup pot, I think. Also turns out we don’t have a cookie sheet so we tried to use this weird broiler pan. And to top off the experience my nanny informed me that we never use the oven, it’s more of a storage device but we decided to try anyway. It didn’t go so well since you just light the oven and then have no control over the temperature. The bottom of the cookies burnt almost instantly and then stuck hardcore to the pan. So Anna and I just left the rest of the cookie dough in the fridge when we left for the Chilean orchestra. The dough obviously has oatmeal in it so I guess my host mom took it to be some kind of breakfast food because she served a giant bowl of it to me the next morning for breakfast. I laugh every time I think about it.
When you hit the streets of Viña there are three things you will see within your first step: stray dogs, micro buses and PDA. There are dogs everywhere. I’ve seen a couple boxers which make me miss Ruby. Some of the stray dogs wear sweaters, others have scarves, others just have matted fur and fleas. There are old ladies that carry around bags of dog food to feed them and then yell at them to get. The micro buses are one of the many forms of public transportation here. They are the craziest drivers, don’t run out in front of one because it will not stop, they’re always on a mission. They are also what we would call coach buses back home. Don’t get me wrong, they’re old, creaky and dirty but they all have those comfy fancy coach seats. I haven’t seen a single “school bus” yet. And people don’t exit the buses in Link fashion like in St. Joe, it’s chaos. And oh the affection of Chilean pololos. It is customary to give a kiss on the cheek as a greeting whether you’re just meeting someone or saying good morning to your parents. It is also customary to be walking behind a couple (whether 15 or 50) and have them stop in the middle of the sidewalk to make-out. The benches in the plaza are full of people getting ready to make babies. When in Chile I guess.
But perhaps my favorite thing about Chile that I don’t quite understand but amuses me nonetheless is the old man that is sometimes in my kitchen. He is always dressed in a tweed suit and has a very kind, well-aged face. I walked into the kitchen one night to find him sitting at the small table there that is usually used to store groceries, we eat at the table in the family room. He was just sitting there drinking his Nescafe. He looked at me and I said hola and smiled and he just kept looking. My host mom was standing at the kitchen sink but didn’t offer any explanation to who he was. There have been nights when I’ve heard the sound of a TV coming from behind a door in the kitchen, a door I’ve never been through nor been told what lies behind it. He appears at the table every few days with a piece of toast or a bowl of soup but is never anywhere in the house besides the kitchen. I tried to introduce myself a couple days ago but he just looked at me. It’s like I’m living in some kind of bizarre ghost movie or something but I’ve had two friends over that have seen him so I swear I’m not going crazy! The whole situation just makes me laugh.
Our group went to historical Valparaíso this week for a little field trip. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. We took a boat tour around the port, Chile’s most important. We came within reaching distance of a family of sea lions and had a beautiful view of the many hills that Valpo is built upon (45 in all). We walked around the major plazas downtown, took some really touristy pictures and then began our ascent towards Pablo Neruda’s house La Sebastiana. The trek included a ride on one of the famous ascensores, wandering through narrow cobblestone streets full of graffiti and packed with vibrantly colorful houses and a serious calf workout walking up the hills. We had amazing view after view of the ocean, the best of which was from Pablo Neruda’s bedroom in La Sebastiana, breathtaking. I will definitely be returning to Valparaíso soon.
Cariñas,
Mackenzie
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