La Zorra!: Claudio and Mauricio

The brothers were hard at work playing PlayStation. It was Barcelona versus Atletico Bilbao.

“Pass me the ball.”

“Not yet.

“Pass me the ball, you idiot!”

“No, look. I’ve got it!

“SEE. You lost it!”

“It wasn’t my fault! I wouldn’t have lost it if you’d let me be Ronaldinho!”

“But I’m better with him, so shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“No, YOU shut up!”

The videogame referee blew his whistle and the game ended tied, 0-0. “Next game?” Mauricio asked.

“Let’s go,” Claudio answered.

I’d like to say that I think it’s really disgraceful that I haven’t written about Claudio and Mauricio sooner. They have been my friends and guides throughout my time in Chile; things just wouldn’t be the same without my two host brothers.

Claudio is the oldest of the two—he turned 23 a week after I turned 21. As the man of the house, Claudio is probably the most serious member of the family (though the reader should keep in mind that the rest of the family does not offer a whole lot of competition). Up until about a year ago he was a student of civil engineering at a Chilean university. Unfortunately, he flunked out, and for a while he was very depressed. In fact, it was that depression that motivated my Chilean family to host a foreign student to try to break him out of his funk. I’m the second one they’ve hosted. Funny how things like that work out.

Since then, Claudio has landed a good job working as a flight attendant for LAN, the Chilean national air carrier. Incidentally, I can attest from personal experience that LAN defies any negative stereotypes you may have of Latin American airlines: it’s a joy to fly on LAN. His LAN experience also means that he speaks the most English out of any of the members of my family, though it is just enough to get by on the plane. Unlike many other countries, in Chile it is generally not a good idea to assume that most people speak a little English. Outside of international business and the tourist industry, many people, including taxi drivers, don’t know much more than “hello”, “goodbye”, “thank you”, and a couple of swear words.

Since I’ve been here, Claudio has always seemed upbeat. He is particularly patient with the language barrier, and he’s also not a bad cook. When I sent his photo via instant messenger to a female friend of mine at Stanford, she replied, “Oh my gosh, he’s GORGEOUS.” Then, after a considerable pause, she added, “Oh yeah, and you look good too, Dave.” Sadly for my friend, for the last few years Claudio has been dating a girl named Soledad. Soledad, or “Sole” (pronounced SOL-ay) for short, is incredibly nice but has the distracting habit of always wearing very low-cut shirts wherever she goes, which I have only slowly gotten used to. My first weekend in Santiago she tried valiantly to teach me how to salsa dance. It was a lost cause, but at least her feet have healed well from me having stepped on them so much.

When Claudio gets home from work, he immediately changes out of his uniform and into something more comfortable, usually athletic shorts and a soccer jersey. His favorite local team is Universidad Catolica, but he’s also a fan of Manchester United and has several other replica and knock-off jerseys from various Argentine and European clubs. When he’s not with Sole, he unwinds by watching The Simpsons (brilliantly dubbed in Spanish), by playing video game soccer, or by doing something goofy like chasing the dog around the apartment with a whicker chair. He looks kind of like a lion-tamer playing hide-and-go-seek, lumbering about with a huge grin on his face. For whatever reason, the dog seems to enjoy it—it literally bounces off the walls.

When I say then, that the younger brother, Mauricio, is the more laid-back of the two, keep it in perspective. As I mentioned in a previous post, until recently the 19-year-old Mauricio had a mop of curly hair that gave him a slight resemblance to pop singer Justin Timberlake. Within the last week he has buzzed his hair down short, but it hasn’t really succeeded in making him look tougher. He always has a happy-go-lucky grin on his face. He’s just a really nice guy. Like his brother though, this nice-ness has its limits. Neither of them will let me win in videogame soccer. I am ashamed to say that I am personally responsible for the Chilean national team having repeatedly obliterated the US squad by scores like 5-0, 7-1, and 6-0. “Vamos… vamos Chilenos!”

Claudio and Mauricio both treat me like a brother, which has its drawbacks as well as its benefits. One of the drawbacks is that they will occasionally poke fun at me (especially Claudio). They both make it a point to continually remind me of “the night when grandma got David drunk,” when their grandmother liberally refilled my glass with fresh pisco sours all night. It’s all meant in good fun, but at first I wasn’t quite quick enough with the language to make witty comebacks. “You know Claudio,” I told him once, “the trouble is that in my house, I’M the big brother. I’m supposed to be doing the teasing. Why don’t you just tease Mauricio instead?”

Claudio pondered my statement for a moment, then grinned and answered, “Nope. You’re both little brothers to me.”

I’ve gotten better though. While channel surfing Claudio and I ran across one of the old “Conan the Barbarian” movies on TV. In the scene we watched, Conan rescued a young boy who was dangling over the edge of a cliff on a giant stone hand.

“Claudio,” I asked, “why is there a giant stone hand?”

“Well,” he answered, “its real. We’ve got a bunch of them in Chile, up in the north.”

“Oh really?” I asked. “Conan lived in Chile?”

“Of course,” he said smiling.

“This movie is the sequel, then?” I replied. “Conan of the Atacama? Conan of Antofagasta?”

Okay, maybe you have to be Chilean to get it. But trust me, it was REALLY funny at the time.

As I mentioned before, there are also benefits to being treated as a brother. I get to go out on weekends with them to pubs and discotheques in Santiago that the other students in the program haven’t even heard of. They’ve introduced me to most of their close friends, and I now count Felipe, a Chilean film and television student, as one of the good friends that I’ve met since I’ve been here.

The one moment that stands out in my mind the most was my first weekend in Santiago. Still reeling from jetlag and frantically hoping my knowledge of Spanish would catch up to what everyone else was saying to me, I went out with Claudio, Mauricio, 6 or 7 of their Chilean friends, and two visiting Spaniards. After spending a couple of hours hanging out and meeting each other, we all drove out to one of their favorite discotheques on the northern end of the city. Everyone but Mauricio and me had gotten in when I go to the front door. They asked for my ID, and I presented my International Student ID Card.

“No good,” they told us. “We need to see a passport.”

Claudio and Mauricio spent the next 10 minutes arguing with the bouncers on my behalf. “It says right here his birthday was in 1984.” “What university student isn’t 18?” “You can’t expect him to take a US passport into a crowded disco.” “You let the Spaniards in!”

It became clear that they were going to let everyone in but me. Finally, Claudio had had enough. “Okay, that’s it. We’re all leaving. Give us our money back. We’re leaving. Give us our money back.”

“You don’t all have to go,” the stunned bouncers answered. “Just him.”

“No,” said Claudio. “We’re all going.”

We walked back out into the parking lot, everyone consoling me and cursing the bouncers. “I’m sorry that I kept us from getting in,” I told Mauricio.

“Don’t worry about it!” he said. “It’s not your fault at. They were a bunch of huevones.”

We left and went to another disco. They let me in without even asking for my ID. Sole tried to teach me how to dance and Mauricio introduced me to couple of pretty Chilean girls. One of them gave me the universal drunk-girl salute to foreigners. “Oh my gosh, I just LOVE your accent. It’s so cute!” she said. “Englishmen always sound so nasty. Americans sound much better.”

Who knew?

As we staggered out into the parking lot at 5AM, Claudio and Mauricio were giving me lessons in Chilean Spanish and dirty slang. “And if you want to say something went really great, you say it was ‘la zorra’!”

Gracias, hermanos. Todo paso a la zorra.

Todos Arriba, Vina

After Valparaiso, we went to the coastal resort town of Vina del Mar, one of the premier vacation destinations in all of South America. High-rise condos line the main beach where bathing beauties from all over Latin America sun themselves and work on their tans.

We were there in the height of the summer tourist season to see the Vina del Mar music festival, a weeklong affair that attracts the greatest artists in Latin music and from around the world; everyone from Julio Iglesias to Pearl Jam has played there at one point. To say that the festival is a big deal would be an understatement—it’s the ONLY thing on television for the entire week. This year there was particular interest in the selection of the Reina (Queen) del Festival. The crown ended up going to a blonde Argentine bombshell who had undergone… uh… extensive silicon injections to certain parts of her anatomy. When she won, she coyly removed her bikini top for the small army photographers present. The next day, she was on the cover of every tabloid holding her a left breast that was (literally) the size of her head. She was later spotted with Nicolas Massu, the Chilean tennis player and national hero who won 2 gold medals at Athens. The press made much of the fact that they went home together awfully early (about 3:30AM). Suspiciously early, in fact. Rumors continue to swirl.

The night we attended the festival was Chilean night. The main acts included Alberto Plaza, an aging but still handsome singer of romantic ballads; Congreso, an intellectual band fronted by a Sigmund Freud look-alike that blends rock, jazz, and indigenous, music; Los Hermanos Bustos, a group of older men in cowboy hats who play Mexican-style ranchera music, and Lucybell, a decent but unspectacular rock group with a rabid local fan base. There were also several other acts from all over the world that played everything from modern pop to traditional folcloricos. There were two acts that were the highlights in my mind. The first were Los Hermanos Bustos, who completely rocked out. It may seem strange that music based so heavily around the accordion can rock so hard, but trust me, it can. Everyone (yes, me included) was dancing in the aisles, and when the masters of ceremonies finally made Los Hermanos leave the stage, the audience roared and swore with disapproval.

The other highlight was a Spaniard who appeared in the international competition. He only sang one song, and I don’t even remember his name. His act, though, was priceless. He was obviously a good-looking guy, but by the way he moved it was clear that he thought he was god’s gift to sexy. He thrust his suit jacket over his shoulders, then whipped it off and twirled it through the air, revealing a tight white tank-top underneath. Before the song was over, he literally ripped off the tank top in a blaze of passion. Women in the audience squealed, and as I looked around I could see that lots of people were trying hard just to keep themselves from laughing. But I couldn’t help but cheer him on. At the very least, he dances better than I do.

Valparaiso, mi amor

The coastal port city Valparaiso is Chile’s second largest city and, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful places in the world. The closest comparison I have for Valparaiso would be San Francisco, but the San Francisco of 50 years ago or more. Like San Francisco, the city hugs the hills at the edge of the sea, with weather-beaten buildings slung at absurd angles on the slopes. But the city is more than just beautiful. It has a depth, a magic, and a mystery of the kind that San Francisco used to have but is gradually losing to glass condominiums and boutique coffee shops. In Valparaiso, chips of green, red, and blue paint flake off of the aging walls, stray dogs roam the thoroughfares, and everywhere there are cobblestone side streets and shadowy alleys. The city seems to breathe sweet and briny from both its proud civic buildings and its ancient brothels built for generation after generation of Chilean lonely sailors on shore leave.

Our main stop was a curious house named “La Sebastiana” in the scattered hillside neighborhood of Cerro Bellavista: one of the three surviving houses of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda was an outspoken socialist, an ambassador to France, a presidential candidate, a Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most important poets of the twentieth century. He also has a reputation as a hopeless romantic, so I have a little extra sympathy for him. On my birthday my Chilean family gave me “Versos del Capitan”, a collection of love poems that Neruda wrote to his mistress while living in Italy. I read part of one of them to my host mother. She squealed and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s BEAUTIFUL! I have to go tell Katya.” She then grabbed the book out of my hands and ran to the next room to call her best friend.

“I wish a man would say that to ME!” Katya told her.

“I know, me too!” replied Marcela. “I had to hear it from DAVID!”

Neruda’s house is decorated with the memorabilia of a lifetime of travels around the world, and reflects the poet’s own unique, and sometimes bizarre, sensibility. He built the floors intentionally squeaky to remind him of the sea. He mixed and matched tiles and paint colors in every room. His favorite chair, which he called La Nube (The Cloud) has been carefully preserved. Looming over his bedroom is a life-sized, black and white photo of Walt Whitman, his favorite English-language poet. “What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman…” I whispered to myself. A favorite line from an Allen Ginsberg poem.

After seeing the house we walked down the hill to eat lunch, taking a winding path through an informal outdoor museum of murals painted on walls and the sides of buildings, el Museo al Aire. The museum route was only recently restored. Many of the streets of Valparaiso are so steep that there is no trash pick-up service, and it has only been in the last couple of years that the city has finally made an effort to clean up the route along the murals. “Valparaiso is a city where one walks with their eyes both in the heavens and in the earth,” a local told me. It was a romantic way of telling me to watch out for dog poop. Small packs of stray dogs roamed lazily about the city, sniffing for the tourists who may be willing to share some bread or an extra scrap of carne.

We ate in a rotating restaurant at the top of one of the city’s high-rise hotels. As with our trip to Concepcion, the Bings paid our tab—fortunate because this place looked pricey. From the top we could see for miles around—the sea, the hills, the rubble-strewn parking lot next door that had been a market until the last big earthquake, and the rusting hulks of shipwrecks along the breakwater dissolving into the salt and spray.

“Y el tiempo se escurrio y sus ojos se le llenaron de amaneceres. Y del mar se enamoro y su cuerpo se enrraizo en el muelle.”
- Fher Gonzales

A Discourse on Gringos

It has come to my attention that not everyone reading this will be familiar with a term that I have used several times already in the course of writing these entries: “gringo”. The word “gringo” is ubiquitous in Latin America. Its meaning is somewhat flexible, though it is usually translated as “North American”, “European”, “white-skinned English speaker”, “foreigner” or sometimes just “American”. Canadians can be gringos, as can Brits, Irishmen, Aussies, and New Zealanders. Sometimes even a German or a Swede can qualify. But Americans are the quintessential gringos. I read somewhere that the term dates back to the Mexican-American War, when Mexicans angry at the US occupying army used to chant, “Green go home!” in reference to the American soldiers’ green uniforms. I suspect, however, that this explanation may be just a myth, mostly because I think that American soldiers during the Mexican-American War wore blue uniforms, not green.

If you look the word up in a Spanish-English dictionary, you will likely be told that, though not vulgar, “gringo” is usually used disparagingly. Indeed, there is some truth to this definition. If a Latin American is speaking formally about people from the USA, they will use the word “americano” (“American”) or more often “estadounidense” (roughly “United-States-ian”). A disparaging comment, like an anti-Bush slogan for instance, is much more likely to include the word “yanqui” (“yankee”) or “gringo”.

This connotation, however, only tells half the story. Simply put, disparaging remarks are treated differently here. My friends and I are called gringos all the time; my host mother will introduce me to her friends as her “gringo son”, and my host brothers ask if I’m working on finding a “polola gringa” (a gringa girlfriend). But it goes farther than that. A good friend of mine, who, I should mention, is in excellent physical shape, has acquired the nickname “chancha” from her host family. Chancha, by they way, means “pig”, with all of the negative implications that that term has in English. They even bought her a placemat with a cute little drawing of a pig on it. When my host family is not calling me gringo, they’re calling me “flaco”, which means “scrawny” or “too skinny”, as opposed to “delgado”, which means skinny, but in a good way.

A lot of you probably already know the wonders of “gringo”, so I apologize for such a dry entry. I just want to clear up any confusion; I don’t want any of my friends or family thinking that I pass every day here being bombarded by insults and racial slurs. Speaking of insults, there’s another word that Chileans will sometimes use 2 or 3 times in the same sentence. The word is “huevon”, the great Chilean contribution to the vast pantheon of Spanish vulgarity. I could never do “huevon” justice in a format like this. Ask me about it when I get back.

Cajon del Maipo

I stood up, cinched up the straps on my backpack and walked to the door of the subway train. “Bellavista de Florida,” said the voice on the intercom. “End of the line.”

The green line of the Santiago metro runs north south across the most of the city. I took the train from the center of Santiago going south, covering a social distance far greater than the actual distance in kilometers. Immediately south of the city center the streets fan out at angles into block after block of industrial factories and rusting warehouses, some of the oldest showing their crumbling, earthquake-shattered brick frames to the yellowing sun.

By the end of the line, the neighborhood changes again. Bellavista de Florida, more commonly just “La Florida” is the heart of Santiago’s new suburban sprawl, with modest, colorfully painted houses both new and old ringed by tree-lined streets, construction sites, and dusty vacant lots where the children play soccer. As is true in all but the very best neighborhoods in Santiago, graffiti occupies almost every inch of available wall-space.
Although some street gangs in the dirt-poor poblaciones (slums) in the southwest of the city have recognizable graffiti tags, as a general rule Chilean graffiti is not as tied to gang activity as it is in the US. Much of it is political; a common slogan is painted in large letters and taking up entire walls is “Bachelet para todos”. Michelle Bachelet, the Minister of Defense for the current Socialist government, has nearly secured the nomination for the presidency of the center-left Concertacion coalition, and very likely will be Chile’s first female president. But the most popular political slogans by far are anti-Bush slogans. “No a APEC [the Asian Pacific Economic Conference, held in Chile, which Bush attended in December], No a Bush,” they say. Other popular ones include “Bush asesino” (Bush is a murderer) and “No a la Guerra” (No more war). Another is “Chile no se vende.” Chile is not for sale.

From La Florida I rode a bus to the little town of San Jose del Maipo. This little Andian pueblo is only a little more than hour away, and winter travelers know it as a stop along the road to some of Chile’s best ski slopes. I was traveling with my friend Matt, another Stanford student who studied in Chile during the fall and then spent the last couple of months hitchhiking his way around Patagonia, traveling from the Argentine city of Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, back to Santiago, a distance of about 4000 kilometers. Our plans were nowhere near as ambitious; we were going to spend a night in the Andes and to meet a friend Matt came to know on a previous trip through the Cajon del Maipo.

The Chilean we were going to meet was a 62-year-old artist named Lalo. Matt stumbled across his cabin in the middle of the wilderness on a previous trip to the Cajon del Maipo and struck up a conversation with him. It soon became apparent that the man who tends the rural stretches of the village water canal was no ordinary campesino. One obvious sign was the fact that Lalo speaks at least four languages. An eminently nice guy, Lalo is most easily described as a uniquely Chilean type of hippie. After graduating from university in Chile, he lived in various cities throughout Europe. After the military coup in 1973, he expected that he would never go back to his native land, and for a long time he set up shop for himself in Barcelona. He eventually had to come back, however, when his father became terminally ill. After his father died, Lalo found himself unable to bear the stress and bustle of Santiago, and almost by chance took up an opportunity to manage some land in the Cajon del Maipo. He’s been living there ever since.

Words, of course, don’t do justice to the beauty of Cajon del Maipo. The branch of the canyon we hiked was sunny and scorching hot. Families taking a weekend break from Santiago played in the cool of the river, a tributary of the Maipo River that eventually runs south of Santiago and to the sea. Alamo and sycamore trees grew close to the water, thorny bushes and cacti clung to the steep hillsides of the canyon, and wild raspberries ripened in the thickets along the trail. Along the riverbank the rocks looked like row upon row of lazily stacked dice, cubes and corners jutting out at all angles. The sides of the canyon towered above the valley, showing the long scars of ancient waterfalls now dry in the summer heat. As night fell Matt, Lalo and I sat under the trees sipping hot tea and quietly looking at the stars. In the west the smog and skyglow of Santiago spilled over the ridges and clouded a corner of the sky like a bag of flour spilled on the kitchen floor. In the east, the great clouds of southern stars drifted coolly from horizon to horizon.

The next day as I was walking back to the bus stop in San Jose del Maipo, I began to think about how much I’m going to miss this place when I’m gone. I passed an artisan’s fair in the town’s small plaza de armas, with vendors selling silver jewelry, wool blankets, and ice-cold Coca-Cola. I’ll miss the people trying to sell me something everywhere, the ability to buy ice cream off the street. I’ll miss the cracked sidewalks, the crumbling plaster, and the garishly colorful houses painted green, sunflower yellow, and fading, powdery red. I’ll miss the ancient churches, quiet and serene.

“Is that our bus?” I asked Matt, pointing a block down the street.

“Yup.”

“Should we run after and try to catch it?”

“Probably a good idea.”

Off we went.

It Takes Two to Tango

Today I added another class to my schedule. It was after the Stanford add deadline, but I’m sure the university won’t care. I am now officially enrolled in tango classes.

Tango, as you may know, is not actually Chilean, but Argentine. It originally started as a lower-class phenomenon that only later achieved acceptance in the Argentine upper class after it came into fashion in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. The Argentines, never to be caught without the latest fashions, quickly reappraised their view of the dance.

Incidentally, the Chilean national dance is the cueca, a very traditional dance where the partners bow, draw close, and twist away. In the cueca each partner dances with a handkerchief in their hands, accentuating their movements and in general adding an air of humble elegance to the movements. Nowadays the cueca is danced mainly at festivals and ceremonial occasions and in the more rural areas. In other words, if you walk into a Santiago discotheque and whip out your handkerchief you’re going to draw some strange looks. In these establishments you are much more likely to hear American pop, European techno, or South American salsa. My host mother, by the way, has solemnly sworn that she will teach me how to dance salsa,

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a place to learn la cueca, so tango it is. The classes are held at El Cachafaz, a small but festively decorated bar with colorful Argentine memorabilia on the walls and a modest dance floor. The proprietor of the establishment is short, pudgy old Argentine named Jorge who wears his shirt unbuttoned to just above his bellybutton, proudly displaying his graying chest-hairs. I’ve taken to calling him “Don Jorge” out of respect, for the man can still tango with the best of them. “You did great today,” he told us. “Really, you’re picking it up very fast. I’m not just saying that. I really mean it.” I’m not so sure. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

My partner Colleen and I spent the first class learning the pase basica, the basic footwork for the tango. The beginning class lasts about an hour, and we needed at least that long to master it. There are certain things in life that are easier than they look, like riding a bike. Sadly, tango is not one of these. And of course, when you have no rhythm to begin with it, that doesn’t help at all.

We stuck around to practice while the intermediate class did their thing. At about 10PM the instructor for the advanced class arrived and we suck around to watch some of it. It was like a scene out of a movie. The instructor himself spoke in a melodious Argentine accent. He was breathtakingly handsome in his tight maroon shirt and green pants, and he knew it.

“Okay, today we will work on a new set of steps,” he declared confidently. “Start with the pase basica.”

“Then move one, two, BAP!” he said with emphasis, thrusting his hips out to the side.

“One, two, BAP!”

“One, two… then look away, cross legs. Look away… cross! Look away… cross! NOW,” he paused breathlessly. Then speaking slowly, secretly…

“Your eyes meet.”

He cast a sultry gaze into the eyes of his partner and held it for a second.

“Okay!” he barked. “Good. Let’s try it.”

I rubbed my ankle, still sore from the rhythmless strain of learning the pase basica and leaned over towards Colleen. “All I want to do right now,” I said jealously, “is kick him in the shins.” We exchanged a knowing glance.

Nublada

Today was the first cloudy day since I’ve been to Santiago. As the sun began to set I climbed into the car with my host family to go to dinner with their extended family. A light drizzle was falling intermittently. The streetlights came on and cast a dull yellow glow through the trees.

The rain had washed the sky clear, and looking behind me I could see a rainbow in the east arcing its way up from the base of the mountains until it slowly faded into the dark clouds above. It was as if a valve had burst, sending color steaming and gushing from the very heart of the Andes. The snow-dusted peaks showed their ridges and valleys in silhouettes to the setting sun orange in the west. Above the city the clouds lit from gray to fire and crashed like silent waves across the darkened faces of the skyscrapers, billboards and trees. The heavens thrust themselves upon the skyline demanding to be seen, demanding hyperbole, demanding awe. “We are here!” cried the clouds as they came pouring over the towering granite of the cordillera. “Aqui somos!” Splayed out like sheet lightning frozen purple and golden, the sky glowed silent and dignified until it finally faded to rainy black. The next morning there was snow on the mountaintops.