ismos

so there's a lot of slang here, so much so that i felt compelled to buy a book on chilean "modismos" before i got here. it's safe to say that there's more than 200 phrases or sayings here in chile that any other spanish speaker might be only able to take a guess at. not to speak negatively at all about these interesting/different sayings, but it's been suggested that due to chile's relatively isolated geography (the andes separate it from argentina on the eastern edges and to the north is the atacama- the driest desert in the world) language has developed without the influence of other south american spanish-speaking countries.

so what you end up with is words like:

• ¿cachai? meaning "get it?" or "did you hear?"(also used as a verb- cachar- meaning to have sex- apparently comes from the english "to catch"- like fishing? or "he's a catch!")
  

• sí po' or no po' = yes or no, yes of course, no of course not

• huevón (pronounced weon). this is scott's favorite. its closest equivalent is "dude" and depending on stress and intonation can be "buddy" or "a%*hole" so take caution

• bacán which i have seen used in situations as "cool" or "neat" but i think in many more contexts means "poser"... might need some clarification on this but i use it anyway and people don't think i'm weird... i think

aside from entirely new, chilean specific words, you have two other issues. number 1 is words that don't sound like "spanish" because they are missing too many letters to sound like anything you're used to. examples are "fósforos" (matches) which sounds like "fawforo"; "pesado" (heavy) which sounds like "pe-ah-o"; "se-i" for "seis"; "discu" for "disculpa-me/nos" (excuse me/us) and "más o menos" (more or less) which sounds like "ma or men-o" and is really a descriptor for just about anything that has an amount.

issue number 2 is when you are in situations where a chilean pulls a spanish word out you know you know but in reality it means something entirely different here. situation- walking down the street with scott. we hear some huevón yelling at us but not sure what he's saying. finally we hear him say "flaco- tienes el tiempo?" (hey skinny- you have the time?). now, scott isn't sure at this point whether to be flattered or apprehensive. keeping "flaco" in our heads we hurried home to consult the survival book. "flaco" in chilean means "buddy" or "pal". i suppose there are worse things to be called....

in third grade they teach you that head in spanish is "cabeza", eyes are "ojos", hair is "pelo", teeth are "dientes"... no no no! not in chilean.... cabeza is coco or mate, ojos are pepas, pelo is chasca, mechaso or peluca, dientes are chocleros or alcachoferos (choclo means corn and here it is rather difficult to chew, no wonder why it's associated with teeth). it's like re-learning everything! so issue 2 can be bifurcated in this way: you don't know what you think you do and you don't know anything at all.

friends and family

Since I have been in Santiago there have been a several exciting developments in the lives of our friends, mostly in the form of engagements and babies-to-be. I've always felt like I wasn't old enough, or something, for these kinds of things to happen to my closest friends. The realization has hit while I've been here, I am old enough now! I'm 25 for goodness sake. It's been interesting to meet that reality while also living in a foreign country, where I am meeting new people/making new friends.
Scott (usually a bit more sentimental than I, although I am impressing myself with this post) and I have been really happy to have been kept in the loop with what all is happening in your lives! We miss you (ok he's not here right now but trust me he does) and hope all of you who can possibly make it down here (friends AND family), get down here ASAP! Also, we updated the settings on the blog so even those who don't have a google account can comment!

Love you guys!

i want to ride my bicycle, i want to ride my bike

I got a bicycle! Well actually this is old news, what? I've been busy... When we got our place, I realized that I wasn't really terribly excited about walking a solid 25 minutes each way to school, sometimes twice a day= 2 hours of walking. We got the bike at Persa Bio Bio which is like a perma-flea market in South Central Santiago. I was convinced I was going to be able to buy a second-hand bike because it's well-known that you could go to Bio Bio and buy things that have essentially been stolen from tourists, gringos and other Chileans. *At some point before I leave here I want to walk up to a street vendor selling clothing items, nail clippers and electronics and say in perfect Chilean Spanish "hey, that's mine! where'd you find it?" (as I retrieve the item from the laid-out blanket).

Anyway, I didn't see too many stolen bikes, only brand-new ones. Thinking I would be disappointed with prices, I was happy to find a vendor who made his own bikes, charging about 50 mil ($87). So Scott and I walked and rode it home, stopping on San Diego Street (the street that specializes in bikes) to look for helmets and a bike for Scott. On the way, we spotted an oil-soaked wooden-shelf object that we thought we would use for clothes. We tried to find a nicer shelf for sale at Bio Bio but felt we were being gringoed so we refused to buy. So I rode my bike and Scott carried this heavy thing like, way too far. After he traveled 6 blocks with it we became reaquainted with reality. Would we really use this? Scott asked what I would use it for. I offered, maybe socks? I asked him the same.... silence. We burst into laughter. It was pretty hilarious. So we left the POS on the side of the road and then he happily rode the bike home while I checked out the bike lanes on foot.

Financially the bike will pay for itself in a little more than 2 months (it would have cost me 5,500 CP a week, at least). Also, some of the areas I have to transport myself through at night (11PM) aren't necessarily the best. Being on a bike will definitely get me home more quickly. I've been really happy with the bike lane situation also; I don't have to travel very far before I find one for myself. The other day a pedestrian hit me and I fell off my bike (totally her fault... I was in the road, not in the crosswalk and she wasn't looking). I was completely annoyed, yelling in her direction in English. Anyway that experience reinforced my gratitude for bike lanes. It's kind of unnerving when even pedestrians can be dangerous.

Our Apartment

Wanted to thank everybody who has supported us here in Chile and along our journeys to get here. Some things have been tough with the language, but we've already seen quite a bit and are excited for what's next. Here are some pictures of our apartment for those of you who've asked. Thanks again for following along!

Graffiti Part Deux

As promised. Caitlin said to me in Valparaiso over the weekend that I couldn't keep taking pictures of every instance of graffiti...she's definitely right on that one as there is so much here. I'll keep collecting though and hopefully post some every so often!

Amazing Graffiti

One of the coolest things about living in Santiago is the graffiti that covers many of it's walls. While there is plenty of graffiti that looks like crap or is full of vulgarities, there is a larger proportion of the street art that is....art! Whether poetry or painting, this stuff is everywhere and it's beautiful.

More to follow!

Notes on Graffiti and Women

So just to get some unrelated tidbits out there....

Here is a picture that captures another example of the very loud support in this city for women's education and other issues. I don't know if it's just because it's Women's History Month or not, but they don't do it small here. A possible coincidence, but related nonetheless, was the extreme number of female only portapottys at the concert last night compared to ones for the men.

The other reason for this picture is to show you how common graffiti is in Santiago. This is purposely an example of some pretty standard variety. It's all over the place...nice buildings or not. I'll have a post on some of my favorites coming up shortly.

Meat at Your Market

We've been having a lot of fun exploring the many markets around Santiago. The city is very large, and the markets are just as unique as the differing neighborhoods that we've found them in. From flea markets to produce, meat, and fish, the Chileans do things big. The agricultural backbone of this country is so closely knit with the metropolitan aspects of society, that these aircraft hanger sized markets(or bigger) are interspersed throughout the city. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this is the relationship the people who sell you the food have with their product. Each vendor has put either... sweat into growing or catching the food, sweat and money into bringing it to me, or both! Either way, these people have a connection with the food that is really impressive.

At a local meat market, Cait and I were excited to get some beef to put in a stew. After asking the butcher what he recommended, he finished his snack, and with the same hand reached into the display case to point out some meats he liked for us. All throughout the shop, there were butchers working with raw mean, without gloves. In the deli, the cuts of cheese and meat were handled in the same way. In most
stores here, you interact with a salesperson who gives you a slip of paper that indicates what you've ordered. You then take that slip of paper to a nearby booth where you pay the cashier. Now with both your order slip and a receipt, you make your way back to the salesperson who get's you what you came for. There is also no option for leaving a store without a receipt so by the end of the day...well you're pockets are stuffed.

The fingerprints of our butcher...appropriately printed in blood!

Crazy Cool Few Days

It's been a bit of whirlwind but there's been a lot of action here in the last few days. The following is a Peter Gammons inspired notebook of the highlights.

Friday Night: Fun night out barhopping with some friends that culminated in an always amazing feast of wine, grapes and strawberries

Saturday-Sunday: Spent the weekend at the coastal town of Valaparaiso. This is a very old city with a ton of historical architecture and culture. It's also a vibrant shipping port with tons of seafood restaurants to capitalize on all the fresh catch. I may or may not have gotten pickpocketed on Sunday...luckily my money was not in my wallet at the time, so when the wallet was returned...well we'll never know

Sunday night: We bought three pirated DVDs for $1.70 US each and only got to watch one! We were sitting down to get started when all of a sudden, we heard incredibly loud screaming coming from outside. Sticking my head out, I was amazed to find that it was coming from all over the city. With it being Dia del Joven Combatientes and protests around town, we thought that might be the cause. After turning on the TV though, we found out that it was the entire city freaking out because Chile had just taken the lead over Peru in a World Cup Qualifying game! We watched this game for the next 90 minutes and everytime a big play began, you'd start to hear the cheering again. I can't wait to go to a game in person here becuase it was one of the most amazing sports experiences of my life. Really really cool.

Pictures to follow :)

Social Uprisings and Police Posture

I've written previously about my displeasure for the over-militarization of America's police forces. I generally think that units like LAPD's original SWAT are important, but that law enforcement would benefit from a more unarmed posture. That being said, there is a different history here in Chile that directly impacts the relationship the police have with the general public.
You may remember a guy named Augusto Pinochet that led a military coup in 1973 and continued to be Chile's dictator until 1990. Well I can only imagine that some of the Chilean police force's posture comes with that historical lesson in mind. March 29th is "Dia del Joven Combatiente" or "Day of the Young Combatants". It's a multi-day festival and protest that celebrates and mourns the death of the Vergara brothers twenty years ago. The protests tend to turn very violent and Cait received an email from the embassy a few days ago, warning foreigners of the disturbances.
With all that in mind, here are some pictures of the Carabineros de Chile(State Police) that we've been seeing around the city. In taking a picture of the graffiti above, Cait and I walked through what we
can only imagine to be the remnants of pepper spray. As soon as we saw the graffiti, announcing this year's protests, our eyes began to water, we began sneezing and I had some trouble breathing. We'd been walking through an area that was likely to see some action and had been commenting on what seemed to be an unusually heavy police presence. These fully armored Carabineros were all around us... and while their numbers were impressive... for many of these guys, the uniform you see is their daily getup. Even the private security officers you find at retail stores wear bullet proof vests every day. Maybe all of this is why Chile was ranked as the safest country in South America...