Barrio Lastarria

Life is not an emergency... You can only hear your life sing - when you still. - Ann Voskamp

Street Art in Barrio Lastarria 

Sometimes, you wake up unable to breathe through a stuffy nose, and the first thing you see when you open your eyes is the poster of a gigantic, scary-looking animated soccer player on your bedroom wall and the first thing you think is, I am not home. 

And that just sucks. But it happens. This particular morning fell near the end of the nearly week-long vacation from classes in honor of Fiestas Patrias (Independence day, although literally, country parties.) There was food and fairs and family and all in all a pleasant time, but the fact remains that relaxing in a country you've lived in for less than a month can be exhausting. Suddenly all the time that had been filled up by seminars and school visits and homework loomed before me and the morning I was greeted by the soccer player, the prospect of filling all that time was terrifying.    

So I got up. I got myself some breakfast, I opened my devotional and I read Ann Voskamp's invitation to still. Still, as a transitive verb: an action. Stilling and resting, I realized, is not a waste of my time in Chile. It is as much a worthwhile action as anything I do here. And (had I forgotten?) rest is an ultimate divine promise (Isaiah 11:10), so probably a good thing to do every day. 

So I'm thankful for all the things here that force me to rest. Like the cup of tea I drink with almost every meal, so I have to stay still long enough to finish it. And the hour-long commute which begins my day, a peaceful time for thought even pressed up against all the bodies on the metro. And the dense articles packed with unfamiliar Spanish vocabulary, so I have to read slow. 

After my morning of rest, I succeeded in filling my day. I met some friends and headed to the centro for some planned spontaneity, which happens to be one of my favorite things. On the top of our list was Barrio Lastarria, described as a "bohemian neighborhood." We slipped off the main streets full of loud busses and rushing city-dwellers, (which constantly remind me that I am so not a city-dweller) into an enclave of quiet corners with strange street art and black table umbrellas outside quaint restaurants. 

We lingered over a splurge dinner of fancy pizza and cheesecake, and I was grateful for the chance to get to know a new and lovely part of the city. It felt a little more like home. And it definitely felt like a nice rest.

We also got ice cream. Really. Good. Ice Cream.

Thanks for the photos, Katherine Congleton.

Poblacion La Victoria

Tus sueños son tus derechos - Your dreams are your rights

La lectura es la puerta a la cultura - Reading is the doorway to culture. 

- Bulletin boards in the Municipal School of La Victoria 

I have two things to share today. One is the story of our first school visit, and the other is a cookie recipe, because you asked for it. 

First, La Victoria. On Friday morning we drove away from the apartment complexes, shopping centers and universities of Santiago Central, and as we entered the neighborhood of Poblacion La Victoria, I could feel myself relaxing. Outside of the van window I could see the colorful rows of tin-roofed houses, little tiendas covered with fabric canopies, and murals on every wall I knew from El Salvador. In short, my Latin American home. 

We spent the week listening to lectures on the political and economic aspects of Chilean education, and though I absolutely appreciate the opportunity to learn those things, by this point I desperately needed to be inside a school. Just get me some cafeteria tables and chalk, please. 

Most municipal schools in Chile are extremely poor quality, but this school is special. It's not a magnet school, it's not part of any special initiative. It just belongs to a community that cares about educating its children and uses its resources wisely. We heard the vision of the school from its director, watched students perform Chile's national dance at an assembly and I met some awesome nine-year-old girls who sang Adele with me. And we left (although I would have been happy to have stayed there for the rest of the semester) with new hope. 

And of course, cookies. A realization: The drinking age here is 18. Do you know what that means? It means I can bake cookies with rum in them. Happy 21st birthday to my friend Katherine. 

Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies - Chilean Style

1 cup + 1 tablespoon butter

1 cup granulated sugar (you will not find this next to flour in the store. Let's not be ridiculous. It will be next to the tea, obviously) 

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

1/2 cup packed brown sugar (disregard the packed part, because Chilean brown sugar is utterly unpackable) 

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (Or broken-up hershey bars, if that's what you can find) 

2 tablespoons rum (You really can just pick some up at the mini-market, and no one will bat an eye)

Actually just go ahead and disregard all those measurements, because some of them will end up in grams and others will go completely out the window, because there are no teaspoons in your apartment. 

Brown 1 stick and 1 tablespoon butter. Once you ask your host mom where the matches are so you can light the stove, there's no screwing this part up. Brown butter is delicious in any language. 

Cream the other stick of butter and the granulated sugar until creamy. Add what you think is vanilla, and discover that what you have actually bought is Cola de mono, extract of a Chilean Christmas drink, according to Wikipedia. Not sure why I didn't read the label more carefully. Figure, whatever, they already have rum in them. You will find vanilla in a closet that is nowhere near the kitchen and you had no idea contained food. You're going to want to add that too. Beat until incorporated.

Add the slightly cooled brown butter and the brown sugar and mix on medium speed (or, without the luxury of an electric mixer, with your hands) for about 2 minutes. Add the egg and egg yolk and mix until fluffy and incorporated. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda. Look up how to say baking soda in Spanish and search through a box of spices, because apparently baking soda is not a household item here. Your search will be fruitless; substitute baking powder. Add all at once to the butter mixture and mix until incorporated. 

After failing to keep the fact that you are putting alcohol in cookies from your host parents, who are making potato salad in the kitchen all this time, ask your host dad to open the bottle of rum for you. Remember, there's no tablespoon, so when you add some, just go for it. Say, Why is the rum gone? to yourself in Captain Jack Sparrow's voice. (Don't worry, parents, its not actually gone, I wasn't that liberal) Fold in the chocolate chunks. 

Cover bowl and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Try to figure out where to find a cookie sheet. I'll tell you. It's inside the oven. Preheat to 375. Just kidding, that would be way to simple. Don't worry about converting to Celsius because the oven doesn't even have temperatures on it. Just let your host mom do it. 

Put your cookies on too low a level in the oven, it will take them about 5 minutes to burn up and fill the entire apartment with smoke. Take two will work better. One pan down.

At this point, your host family will inform you that you're going over to your host grandmother's apartment, but to just bring the cookie dough because her oven is better. Once this summer I had a dream where the whole time I was trying to make lemon bars and I kept running into problems and bringing them with me. This was exactly like that in real life. 

Successfully bake the rest of the cookies in your grandma's oven. There's no consistent baking time, just watch them and try not to burn anything else. They will be flat, spongy and stuck together because you will be given a metal bowl in which to cool them. But don't worry, your host family will rave about the wonderful "North American Cookies" and your fellow students will just be excited about the rum. 

Original Recipe: Bakergirl

Spanish language success of the week: Finally learned how to say crafts: manuelitas. "Little manual labor." Also a tour guide told me my Spanish was impeccable. I can assure you that's not true, but I liked the sound of it. 

Photo credit: Kendra Layton

Villa Grinaldi

It's like America, but South! - Ellie Fredricksen

I have learned that every country has a story. And I cannot hear one of these stories without being changed, or without seeing my own country with new eyes. A week ago, I had no idea what Chile is like. Now that I know a week's worth of history, I am both shaken and hungry to learn more. I believe I have a responsibility to share the stories I learn, and if you're interested, that's something I would love to do sometime over coffee. For now I will just say that the phrase: US-supported military dictatorships in Latin America during the Cold War takes on entirely new meaning after visiting Villa Grinaldi, a detention and torture site from the Pinochet era. 

My favorite mural, that I see on my way to school.
Of Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet and educator. 

It's new and invigorating to be learning these things in a community of people who all care passionately about educational policy, each with incredibly unique experiences behind that passion. I was surprised to discover that not only do I already have a general awareness of the two main candidates in the upcoming presidential elections, I genuinely care who wins. (I was happy to join in last night when my host family started chanting: Bachelet! Bachelet!) And I can tell you that I certainly DID NOT participate in a march last Thursday demanding free and quality education. And SIT Study Abroad assumes no responsibility.  

So I have learned of a tragic history and a politically tense struggle for change, but I have also met a people who love their country and are serious about celebrating it. Independence day is still more than a week away, but I have already attended two festive asados (barbecues). And learned that an asado means a piece of meat as big as my plate, that is like, ridiculously delicious. I'm also loving family culture here. Along with my immediate host family I have two host Grandmas, a host Grandpa, host aunts, uncles and cousins. All of whom greet me warmly with a besito whenever we see each other.  

There's certainly a lot more to learn in the next few months, and I welcome more weeks like this one, that are packed to the brim with new experiences. But I also remind myself to slow down and just live here. Much like my meal last night, this a marathon, not a sprint.   

Spanish language success of the week: explaining to my host family what a hipster (eepster) is. Luckily I had an example - Uncle Felipe. 

Copyright note: I am currently in possession of a malfunctioning camera, and several lovely friends who are documenting this experience like bosses. Credits for this post (and likely more to come) go to Carolina Bybee and Ali Sadler. 

Poema #1

So, I wrote a poem on my commute, because I do that. And now I have a blog, so here it is:

First Days in Santiago

It is morning.
The beginning of September and the end of winter,
as if, when I wasn't looking,
someone shook up the seasons in my carry-on bag
and dumped me out with them into the vast gray chill.
I don't mind too much,
for the cups of tea are plentiful,
and where I come from the winters are whiter.
In this country you must go south for ice.

But this morning,
it is clear enough to see the mountains from my window
while I eat breakfast.
An orange,
half a sphere of sunshine on a red square plate.

If you want to keep your distance, they tell me,
speak in the formal tongue.
So I address the city like this:
peering into its trembling center
from a few familiar corners.
A little patience, there is time.
We will get to know each other.

I board the bus, count stops, get lost.
Learn to orient myself to the Andes.
Those giants that press the country
thin against the sea.
Breathe in: the smell of smoke and bread.
On a clear morning, you can see the mountains.
And you will be alright.

Santiago, Region Metropolitana, Chile

Comparison is the thief of joy. - Theodore Roosevelt 

I'm on the lookout for anclas in Chile!
Found this one outside Pablo Neruda's House

When I climbed into my Chilean host mom's car (her name is Macarena, as in Hey, Macarena!), accompanied by her mother, Lorena and another student from my program Lorena is hosting, for the forty-minute drive from the city center to our neighborhood, Lorena told me that both she and her daughter had hosted more than thirty North American students. When I jokingly asked if she was going to compare us to her past students, she shook her head adamantly, but Macarena piped in, "I'm going to compare them! I want her to be good!"

But comparison, that dirty ladron, has snuck into my experience irrespective of Maca's friendly threat. At times its been comforting, like when I gave a skype tour of my room and my sister told me it looked exactly like her room when she studied abroad. At others, in the rollercoaster of high-lows that has been the past six days, it's been seriously detrimental. 

I arrived here with a familiar fear at my side, that by not looking for opportunities in the right places, I would fail to make the most of this experience. But this time its been steeped in the conviction that everyone else's experience, for whatever reason, is as of yet just a little bit better than mine. 

So I have to remind myself that from the other side of my Facebook wall, my experience probably looks awesome, better than someone else's. I'm going to share some aspects of my current life that are Facebook-friendly, not because I don't want you to know about the moments of fear and self-doubt (Like a lonely night I spent crocheting in my room, which caused my host dad to comment, "You're like 80, aren't you going to go out?") but because I'm choosing to focus on the positive. Because I am blessed by spots of delight and discovery in this new place, just like everybody else. 

Going for a run along the beach of the Pacific Ocean.

Explaining the difference between LJ's and JP's in Spanish while walking in Santiago central.

Enjoying at times bread spread with avocado or dulce de leche, empanadas, sushi and taco bell.

Teaching my host brother Vincente to tie his shoes.

Celebrating Vincente's 9th birthday, an all-day affair that involved a whole host of relatives, sitting around drinking red wine and cup after cup of coffee and tea, and eating second helpings of cake off Avenger-themed plates. Chileans know how to celebrate. 

Singing Revelation Song in Spanish at a wonderful C&MA church I found just a 20-minute walk from my house (Praise God for the internet!) 

So, when you think of me in Chile, think of the joy I'm experiencing with the challenge, and don't forget to wish Vincente a very happy birthday.