Proud to be an American

While watching Olympic cycling, Manuel asked me if I was prouder to be Danish or American. My instant reaction was "Ameri… well, it depends on the situation." I spent a few hours considering it and had to correct my response. "While I'm very proud to claim Danish heritage, I am most truly proud to be a(n) (North) American." Because while our country has many obvious flaws, it is an amazing nation. I was raised in the United States, and living abroad has strengthened both my love for my patria (homeland) and the conviction of my defense of our shortcomings. When I first introduce myself as American, I always worry what the label may imply to others. But I have also realized since being here that no single stereotype of the United States can ever describe the entire country. And it is largely because of that diversity - all of its goods and bads - that I love about it. So yes, the next time someone asks me, whether in reference to international athletics or otherwise, whether I am proud to be an American, I will respond with a resounding affirmative. 

Creepy Crawlies (and Other Friends)

Okay, so this post is super old. But I really like it, so I wanted to publish it. I'll give updates at the end.

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Blurry iPhone photo.

     Ever since we've moved to "the country" Manuel and I have made a lot of new friends. Every time I see a new… animal, I am often torn between fascination and disgust. I usually run to grab Man's iPhone, to document the experience with a blurry picture because I don't want to get close enough to take a good one. And they are usually in some dimly lit corner. 

     I was somewhat weaned into living with a ton of insects because we have an on-again-off-again relationship with a colony of ants that want to live in our kitchen. I really irrationally hate little ants because of the time they were living in my parents' pantry and I unwittingly ate a few who had snuck into my teddy grahams. They taste really bad. And once you've accidentally eaten them you start to notice their smell, too. These ants, however, are not so bad; they are about half the size of the normal little ants you would expect. Really, they're tiny. We call them "olmigas enanas" which literally translates to "dwarf ants" except that I find the word dwarf to be way funnier in Spanish. And the dwarf ants are pretty funny. 

    In the not funny category I would put cockroaches. We don't have a lot of these, but I do see maybe one a day. I've heard that cockroaches are notoriously hard to kill, but ours somehow are not. At first I actually refused to kill them, and every time I saw one I'd put a cup over it until Manuel came home to smash it. One of Manuel's friends tried to be understanding to my irrational behavior. "Even a cockroach is a life…" he said, verbally patting me on the shoulder. "But, no," I had to explain, "it's not that. I just don't want to get cockroach on my shoe." One day when I tried to direct Manuel to an upside-down cup in the kitchen he refused, tough love style. "Just put your shoe on it," he insisted. And I did. And now I can kill cockroaches independently. 

A leaf bug. We've also seen stick bugs. 

My first araña pollito! iPhone (nighttime) photo quality!

     We started moving into the big leagues one night when we were gushing over the garden. "Oh, don't step on that spider," Manuel cautioned me. It was not a spider, it was like a rabbit. Okay, it wasn't that big, but it was about the width of the short side of the iPhone that I dared inch almost near it. And Man said it was probably a baby. Manuel had warned me about the giant spiders, but they are supposed to have a very peaceful nature. He also told me always to close the windows at night in case one might come in the house and scare me. But he was careful to say that scare was the worst thing they would do. They are called "araña pollito" and some Chileans keep them as pets. I haven't been lucky enough to see a grown-up one, but it is #2 on my most wanted list of things to see. 

     I do see a lot of scorpions. In my house. The first one I noticed was dead in the corner of the living room and I swept it up with the dust and the dog hair. Ody found the second one behind the couch and brought it out to play with it. It was dead, and I swept it up as well. Manuel says they are not dangerous, but he basically says that about all the crawly things that scare me. On average, I find 1-2 per week in the living room, and it really weirds me out. Where are they coming from? Except one night I saw one crawl in through the crack under the dining area door. I put a cup over it.

     I always tell people that the hardest vocabulary to memorize, in my opinion, is food, plants, and animals.  Food is hard because it changes from country to country. A tortilla in Mexico is flat, in El Salvador it's puffy (and arguably the best tortilla) and in Chile it's really just a big piece of bread. Plants are hard because they can get so specific. I know the words for grass (pasto), flower (flor), and tree (arbol), but after that it gets complicated. But I'm learning; a few weeks ago, I learned that a weeping willow is a "sauce llorón." Literally, a crying willow. Animals are difficult for the same reason. Spanish 101 gives you cat, dog, bird, and insect, but it's not very descriptive. (Side note: dog names are actually not very hard. Like labrador? Labrador. And English bulldog? Bulldog inglés. Except you pronounce it bool-doeg.) So when I'm whining to Manuel about some new pest, it's usually "Manuel! There's an… uhh… insect. In the bathroom." But again, I'm learning. 

     This lack of vocabulary was also mildly embarrassing when we went on a nature hike with his kids. "Mira! Una lagartija!" ("Look! A something!") They would point. I wasn't sure whether to look for a squirrel or a deer. Except that they don't have squirrels here and they actually would probably be really excited about one of those. I haven't seen any slugs, either, but Manuel says they exist. A lagartija is a lizard, and while it's still pretty basic vocabulary, it's better than pointing and shouting "a snake with legs!" Because then they would think that you're dumb, not realizing that you are just bad at Spanish. 

    I LOVE the lagartijas. In early January, I was really excited to see a little brown lizard skittering down the hill where the pool filter is. Two months later they are still pretty neat, but I've become somewhat desensitized to them. AND THEN. I was moving the garbage cans the other day when I heard a skittering. On the wall/fence there was the most beautiful lizard I have ever seen in real life and maybe even in pictures, too. It was medium-sized, with an green head that blended to an ocean blue tail, all speckled with black. I was completely transfixed. It was the best garbage day experience ever. And now, if I go out to the wall/fence at the right time of day (when the sun is shining on it) sometimes I see the little guy. He is really amazing and ranks #1 on my most wanted list of things to see. 

It's a little hard to see, but the lagartija is on the wooden fence, the fourth log down. 

     Manuel has a hawk friend. When we are barbecuing the hawk likes to sit in the trees nearby and Man throws meat for it. The first time Manuel did this I totally did not believe him that the hawk would eat it, but it did. It came down to where the meat was, picked it up, and flew way. We also have a family of quails that likes to graze in our front yard. And the other day a hummingbird flew into the kitchen. Manuel has a video of it. Manuel is like a brown St. Francis. He is always rescuing animals. Once he found a butterfly drowning in the pool. He saved it and held it in his hand until it dried out, unfolded its wings and flew away. We found out later that it was a super special type of butterfly, both sacred and endangered or something like that. 

The hawk drinking from the pool.

     We also have bunnies, but when you live in the campo, you stop thinking of them as cute little Peter Rabbits. The eat Manuel's lawn (it's his, he cares for it) and leave poop everywhere. And Bauzá is basically no good as a rabbit hunter. He sleeps inside all night and even if we put him out during dinner he mostly just sits on the porch and barks at nothing. I know I've said it before, but living in the country is a really special experience. Especially since I get to experience so much of it from the comfort of the indoors and can let Manuel handle the squirmy, hairy, and dirty stuff. 

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Updates:

Since the writing of this post, I have seen a grown araña pollito. It was awesome, and huge. But also I have found a ton inside the house. It may have to do with the weather getting colder. I've stopped seeing the cockroaches and scorpions, so that's nice. In other news, I'm still selling cookies. Manuel is bringing them to work and selling a few dozen a day, and I'm baking basically every spare minute. It's good, I'm making a little extra money, and getting a ton of compliments about being an amazing cook, which helps the ego. And the cookies are being sold so fast that we haven't been able to eat more than one or two a day, so that's good for us, too.

A grown araña pollito. It is upside-down, not the photo.

A teenage araña pollito that I found in Manuel's gym bag.

Doing things for myself

This weekend was my first attempt at being an entrepreneur. I can report that my attempt went much better than expected.

Banana bread, cookies, minicheesecakes. The napkins at the bottom had samples.

It was a long holiday weekend in Chile, to I decided to take the opportunity to test my recipes. On Saturday after work I made 3 banana breads (each sliced into 6 pieces), 48 walnut-chocolate chip cookies, and 12 mini cheesecakes. On Sunday morning, I packed my goods into a Rubbermaid container and took a bus into Valparaíso. Let me tell you, cakes and cookies are an easy sell. Compared to my summer selling Cutco, this was incredibly refreshing. I simply wandered down the streets that tourists frequent, offering samples. Surprisingly enough, the other street vendors were incredibly supportive and most of them purchased something and offered feedback.

There are three reasons why I would say my experience went far beyond my expectations. First, I sold out my products within about 3 hours. My arms were a bit sore from lugging the box around, but I sold everything! Secondly, there was an artisan fair going on in the street above my hostel. When Manuel came to pick me up, we walked through and bought a few things. He happened to know someone who was working at one of the booths. Through her, we got the contact of the lady who organized the event; she said that if I send her some info and photos of my products I may be able to have a stand at the next fair. Awesome, right? Okay, thirdly, one guy who bought a cookie owns a cafe and said his cookie vendor has recently proven to be unreliable. So I stopped by the cafe and he ordered three dozen cookies on the spot. I have to check in with him later this week to see how sales went.

Boyfriend making box.

Our days off work happened to coincide this week, so Manuel and I promised to spend Monday together working on the house. On the wise suggestion of my father, I had drawn some plans to make drawers for our concrete kitchen cabinets. Manuel borrowed a few tools and we sat down to the work. We used precut melamine, and the result was heavy and beautiful. The only problem was that when we tried to fit the drawer into the rails, the box we had made was about 2 mm too large. Manuel tried to engineer in to fit properly, but was not really successful. So our first try at kitchen renovations didn't quite pan out, but we got awfully close, and are ready to try again the next time we have a free moment together.

I told Manuel during our cabinet-making that the activity of this weekend was very close to the vision that I have for my life. Not only am I doing things for myself, but I'm doing them well and enjoying it.

One day in a hostel (a pair of missing glasses, three wives, four names, and five host families)

This all happened about a week ago, but I think it's been the day most worthy of a blog post since I started working in the hostel.

Every morning when I arrive at work (around 7:30, I'll explain my transportation situation some other day) I help the night shift receptionist count the cash register and make sure breakfast is ready to go. Usually a little before 9, either the lady owner of the hostel (Karin) or the sort of manager-of-everything guy (Jorge) arrives to serve breakfast to the guests. Between 9 and 11 we are in the kitchen making food, and I occasionally run back to the reception to do a check-out or help someone. On the morning of this story, I was in the kitchen and Evelyn, who doesn't actually work here but is friends with the owners and does a lot of her work (in tourism) out of our office, was hanging out in the reception and taking care of little things while I was busy.

Shortly after 9 I happened to be in the reception while Evelyn was taking a call. An older man came in looking like he had a question. I offered to help him but he looked at Evelyn and indicated he would wait until she was free. I made my way back to the kitchen as the two of them were going off to solve whatever his problem was. Probably about half an hour later I came back to the reception to find Evelyn rummaging around in the desk area. "You haven't seen a pair of glasses, have you?" she asked. Actually, I had, and I handed them to her. If the old man had asked the gringa, he would have been given his lost glasses much more quickly.

Breakfast passed quickly, as it always does (my entire shift usually flys by), and again I was at my desk trying to make myself busy. Another older man (probably in his early 60s) came in and sat down on the couch in front of me to use the wifi. Now that I had an audience, I redoubled my efforts to appear to be working. Suddenly, he looked up from his computer. "Can I tell you a dumb story?" he asked me, in English because he was American (from Bellingham, actually, and we talked about that, too.) I offered to listen, both because I was interested and because entertaining the guests is my job and talking to him would fulfill my need to be doing something.

He started off on his story. "I married my first wife when we were very young," he told me. She was 16 and he was 21. They met in Japan where her family were missionaries and he was visiting. He brought her back to the United States and supported her while she went to college in the Dakotas or Chicago or something. The phone rang. "Pardon me," I interrupted. I attended the phone and then indicated for him to continue his story. "Oh," he was recalled to the past. "In her junior year of college she went to study abroad in Ecuador," he told me. When she came back from her studies, she informed him that she had fallen in love with a native in South America. 'Well, okay,' he told her, with some bitterness, but in the end he let her go.

At this point another man entered the reception and sat down on the couch. "Do you have somewhere I can plug this in?" he asked me. He was Australian and didn't have a plug converter. I fished around in the desk area for a converter and we worked out his charger situation. He again sat on the couch to wait. "Did that guy find his glasses?" he asked. "Yes, they were here in the reception," I told him. "He woke me up at the crack of dawn looking for them," he said (mind you, by my count it had been about 9 am). "Well, he thought maybe they'd fallen out of his bed," I tried to explain, we have mostly bunk beds. "Yes, but he thought they'd fallen up?" the man countered. The old guy was sleeping in the bed below him.

"I'd like to stay another night," continued the Australian. "Okay, sure. What's your name?" I asked so I could change his reservation. "I'm Paul," he said. After a pause he continued, "But I may be called Martin in the computer." I found him and changed the reservation. "Why are you called Martin if your name is Paul?" I asked. The situation was actually the reverse.

"When I was born, my parents named me Martin Paul." You should be imagining this in a British/Australian accent. He was a Brit moved to Australia: Mahten Pawl. "They brought me to my grandfather and said 'Here is your grandson, we've called Martin Paul' but my grandfather said 'No, Martin is a pouf's name, we'll call him Paul'. So I've never really been called Martin." I smiled. He was silent for a moment. "And my last name isn't really Wheeler, either," he continued. ("It's not?") "My stepdad" (from whom I assume he takes his surname) "was Danish. His name was Ag, but he changed it to Wheeler to be more... modern." He also told me about how the lady who gave him his visa in Australia wrote his names backwards on the forms. "That's caused a lot of trouble."

The Australian accompanied us for a while before leaving again with his charged phone. I asked the American to continue his story. "So she left with the guy from Ecuador," and our protagonist continued with his life. "So anyway, one day I have this funny feeling. I have a feeling that something is wrong." He called his ex-wife's sister. "'It's so weird that you called,' she said to me. My ex-wife was in Ecuador. A week before their wedding her fiancé was driving home from his bachelor party with some friends. They were drunk, the road was icy, and the car went over the side of a cliff; all four of them died." So the ex-wife was stuck in Ecuador with no money and staying with a family (her would-be future in-laws) that was becoming increasingly resentful of her. "So I paid for her ticket back home. You know, we kept in touch and stuff, but we never got back together. She ended up marrying this other guy."

A guy from Spain came in some time during the story. He, too, needed to charge his phone and sat on the couch waiting. He, too, wanted to extend his reservation. Somehow, we got to talking about the United States and he mentioned he had gone there on exchange during high school. "During high school!" I commented, "That's young!" "Well yeah, I guess so," he said. "I stayed in a host family. I mean, like, 5 host families," he corrected himself. ("Five?") So he told his story. His first 'family', he told me, was just a single man. I frowned, not a good start. "He treated me like a slave. Every day I would get home from school and he would tell me 'Do this thing,' or 'Clean over there.'" So he requested a change. "The next family..." he trailed off. It turns out they were just bad all around. The mother and her boyfriend robbed a bank (or a minimarket or something). "Then it was just me and the two daughters." I think he said they were in high school, too. "Then the older daughter did the same thing." She and her boyfriend broke in somewhere or did something illegal. "And then it was just me and the younger daughter. She just cried all day." So he changed families again. "The next family was Mexican. They were really nice." But they spoke in Spanish and that just wouldn't do. He was supposed to be studying English. So he was moved again. This time to a family that lived outside of town. "It was too far," he explained. "The fifth family was Mormon," he said. "They were kind of weird, but..." he was tired of moving. So that was where he finished his stay.

By this time his phone was charged up and he excused himself. The American was still hanging out using his computer. "So you never got back together? Even after you paid for her return ticket?" I probed. "Well, no," he said. "She ended up getting together with this guy who was half-Peruvian." This third husband's mother had gone on exchange to Peru and come back pregnant, not knowing who the father was. "So they got married and they had two kids. And then one day he told her he was gay." The protagonist had fallen out of contact with his ex-wife before all this happened, but then happened to be in the area where he knew she lived. "I called up a mutual friend and got her contact info. She invited me out to coffee and was telling me all about the past few years. Then she said to me, 'You know what? I haven't had sex for X months. Do you want to go to a motel?'" But he was married and refused her offer. "I mean, it was with a little bit of spite on my part," he said. "She missed her chance," I offered. "Yeah. So anyway we keep in touch and stuff, but her husband is strangely jealous of me. He's gay, and there's nothing between the two of us, but he's still jealous."

The American had kids with his second wife, but somehow it didn't work out. "My third wife was really pretty," he went on. He showed me a picture and she really was gorgeous. She was Russian and there was a really big age difference between them. This marraige didn't last, either, but ended amicably. "In the end she wanted someone more mature," he said, partly as a joke. She ended up marrying an Italian. Now he lives on a farm in Mendoza that he bought for his daughter who is an agriculturalist. He says he really loves it. The three guys stayed in the hostel for a few more nights each, so I got to keep checking in with them. The Australian continued travelling, he didn't have definite plans. The Spaniard returned to Spain and the American went home to Mendoza. I went home to Mantagua and came back to work the next morning.

Chilean Spanish, Part 1

In less than two weeks I will celebrate my second anniversary of the day I arrived in Chile. I have had innumerable adventures here, and to commemorate the occasion, I've decided to write a two-part recap of all the grammar I've learned in the past two years. Oh, that sounded a lot more interesting in my head... Well, for those of you who like language, enjoy, for those of you who like adventures, please be patient. I'll serve some up right after this brief lesson.

I have heard that Chilean Spanish is the most difficult version of the language to understand and learn. I'm not sure that difficult is an accurate classification for what it is. It is, however, very unique to the region. During my semester at La Católica, the university I attended in Valparaíso, I took a grammar class with a professor who loved language. At the beginning of the semester, he told us about the 7(?) regions of distinct Spanish styles in the world. We were asked us to try to identify some of the qualities that make Chilean Spanish different. One of the first things most of the students in my class noticed is that Chileans drop letters and syllables. When asking how you are, a Mexican will say "¿Cómo estas?". A Chilean will ask you, rapidly, "¿Cómo ehtai?", dropping the first s and changing the conjugation. The other day I was out with friends, and one asked how long it would be before our food arrived. "¿Cúanto emora ma o meno?" he asked, leaving out the seemingly unimportant d in demora, and the s's in mas and menos. Two years ago, I don't think I would have understood the question, but you learn to hear the letters that are implied in Chilean speech.

Another characteristic of the Chilean dialect that becomes apparent almost immediately, is their favorite word: weon. We spent an entire day in class laughing about this word that is so Chilean. It originally comes from the the word "huevo" ("way-voh") which literally means egg, but in the slang means something more foul. Let's just say it, it means testicle, or nut sack as I like to say. In all Spanish, by adding an "-n" to the end of a noun and emphasizing the last syllable, the word comes to mean "big 'noun'". This process is essentially the opposite of adding a "-cita" or an "-ita" that English speakers might be more familiar with. Perrito is the diminutive of perro, "dog" becomes "little dog(gy)", and similarly, by adding an "-n" to huevo, we get huevon. Big nut sack. You can imagine this as an insult on the street. Now remember the first thing we learned about Chileans: they love to drop syllables. Huevon became hueon (properly spelled güeon, I believe our teacher told us), and years of instant messaging shortened the spelling to weon (pronounced way-own). Now, knowing the development of the word is fascinating for those who like language, but the fun that is "weon" hasn't even started yet.

My unprofessional guess is that the word started only as an insult, but grew to hold its other meanings. Just like a high school boy might call his friend "douchebag", Chileans sometimes call their friends weon. I've been told to be careful, that if I say weon to someone that I don't know very well they might take offense, but I've found that Chileans usually just find it hilarious to hear the word coming out of a gringa's mouth. So weon can either refer to a person you do not like, or someone you like a lot. In addition to its sort of pronoun usage, weon also has a regular noun form. Chileans use "wea" to refer to anything. Especially if that thing is particularly frustrating or foul. And it can be used to give an implication of frustration to an otherwise normal sentence. For example, "¿Qúe wea pasó aqui?" one might ask, "What (thing) happened here?" with the "wea" implying that whatever happened was not pleasant.

Add to the pronoun and noun an adjective, this time in the original form, "weon". Chileans are in love with the following sentence: "Oye weon, conozco este weon que es muy weon." In English, "Hey weon, I know this weon who is really weon." Or maybe, "Hey man, I know this jerk who is really lame." It's the same word three times in one sentence, each time with a different meaning. You can also say "aweonado".

Finally, weon has its own verb, "wevear". This verb is awesome. If a couple of friends are walking around town, not really doing anything, they are weveando. If someone is making drama at a party and won't settle down, he is weveando. If you ditch your friends or forget to call them back, they may say that you "wevea mucho."

I think Manuel and I really hit it off in the beginning because he is pretty easy to understand. He doesn't have a lot of the verbal tics that most Chileans can't seem to avoid; in fact, when we first met I didn't believe that he actually was Chilean. What is really funny to me, though, is how his speech changes when he hangs out with his friends. All of a sudden he starts dropping the "weon"s just as much as anybody. If you are planning to come to Chile, learning how to understand "weon" is probably one of the first things you will want to figure out. After all, you don't want to be the one being called big nut sack gringo behind your back.

City Living

When Manuel and I first met, he lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the center of Viña. I have to note that the first time I saw the apartment I would eventually share, he had not bothered to tidy it. It really cracked me up, and now that I think of it, maybe helped set the tone for the rest of our relationship. At that time, I lived 12ish blocks away, also in basically downtown, but on a slightly quieter street and in a smaller building. As we spent more time together more of my stuff ended up living at his place until I basically did, too. On July 26, 2010 my suitcases rolled out of this apartment on my way to the plane that would take me home.

In January 2011 I came back to school a week late in order to prolong my visit down south. In January we lived in the same 13th floor apartment, but this time, I had no other apartment 12 blocks away to go "home" to. This was home for one month. Viña Park is a modern building, and the first time we drove up to it together I was really impressed. It has a water feature in the lobby and at least two concierges on duty at all times. The square footage (square meters) of our one-bedroom was small, but well designed. We never felt cramped except when it came to shoe storage. It just seemed natural living in an economical space in a big city. And we had a view of the ocean.

In July 2011 my suitcases were packed to stay. And one of my suitcases was actually a kennel. And the kennel contained a dog. Bauzá is pretty close to a perfect apartment dog. He's really mellow, likes to sleep a lot, and needed very little encouragement to understand that the balcony was to serve as a backyard in emergent situations. Still, he's bigger than perhaps the ideal apartment dog, and we felt it. The economical apartment began to feel small. So when the family who rented Manuel's house in the country decided they had to move and the house was left empty, we began to consider a change.

It was really hard to leave the view and the convenience and the beautiful building, but in the end, I think we told ourselves that it was the best thing for the dog, and that we'd probably love it as much as he would. Circumstances caused me miss the first part of our country living, but like clockwork I was on a plane to be back in time for New Year's Eve again.

In January 2012, I began to realize the beauty of country living. Bauzá absolutely loves it. He taught himself to leap the fence in order that he can patrol the perimeter of our parcela. It wasn't until we had overnight guests from Santiago who reveled in the silence that I also realized it is incredibly quiet and we have as much privacy as we could want. And you know, we don't have a lobby with a water feature, but we have a clear blue swimming pool.

Other city dwellers also recognize the novelty of spending time in the country, and we've been able to pay for our home improvement projects by renting the house for a week here and a weekend there. This week is one of those weeks. Maria has a big house, also in the center of the city, located almost exactly between my two apartments of 2010.

She has a surprising number of bedrooms for the location, so we and the four dogs we somehow now have are staying with her for the time. We are back in the city, and it has really put the parcela into perspective. On the 13th floor, busses and traffic were almost reduced to white noise. On the second floor of a house built literally right against its neighbors, this is not so. As I put myself and the indoor dogs to bed tonight, I heard dance music from my window and cueca music coming in from the window down the hall. The neighborhood's garbage is collected at night, and car horns know no hour. I think Bau and Ody are content to spend a week barking at the passersby we never get in Mantagua. But I don't think any of us will regret it when we pack up and go home.

Easter Bread

Do you ever have something that sticks with you? It's in your brain and you keep kind of mulling it over without realizing it until you have a revelation. The other day, Manuel were at the supermarket buying insecticide (see my future post about creepy-crawlies). We were passing the bakery section and Manuel asked if we shouldn't get a pan de pascua. He indicated a brown lumpy loaf of something and I declined; it didn't seem very appetizing. I remember this very clearly because we later had an argument upon arriving home and finding we had no food. You didn't suggest that we buy food, I tried to explain, you only offered me a brown loaf. In Spanish, pan means bread, and pascua is usually translated to Easter. For some reason, whenever I hear "pascua", my initial thought is of Easter Island, and not of the religious holiday. I thought it was quite amusing when I found out that the name is translated literally: Isla de Pascua. When I saw the lump loaf, I thought it must be some traditional food of the isolated Pacific islanders.

I got here on December 30th, so the remnants of Christmas had been hanging around. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Manuel's mom Maria has a Christmas tree that she decorates every year. It was still up, so I took a picture of it to show April. The strange thing I noticed is that they called it an arbol de pascua. And when speaking of Christmas gifts, they say regalo de pascua. So I'm beginning to believe that "pascua" does not only mean Easter, but has some larger meaning encompassing more than one religious holiday. I was in Maria's kitchen this afternoon washing dishes and thinking about the silly lump loaf with its chunks of nuts and fruit. Maybe it was a Christmas bread, I thought. And then it came to me. Pan de pascua is fruitcake.

Nightmares

I've been in Chile for less than two weeks now, and already the experience has provided some good stories. Today is the second time the electricity has been cut and the water stopped flowing. To have the two things happen concurrently makes this one slightly more uncomfortable than the previous incidents. I can't help but think how my mother would disapprove if she knew I was brushing my teeth like Scarlett O'Hara might: by candlelight and with still water. I like to think I'm a strong lady, but I've never much liked sleeping in a house alone. With Manuel gone, walking through the dark isolated building is not the adventure it might be if he was here. To amplify the nightmares already forming in what remains of my childlike fear of the dark, the packs of stray dogs outside are barking nonstop. No, not barking, howling incessantly. If old musclebox Bauza wasn't here, I might use Scarlett's refrain: it is not to be borne. But I will bear it. My fluttering heart will eventually find peace as I drift to sleep with the comfort of b's snores. Sometime in the night I will hear the inevitable chirp signaling that the power has come back, and in the morning I will wake up to a new day.