Almost alliterative: Comida, Concierto y Quintay

Okay, it is finally time to discuss food in Chile. Prior to arriving, I was a little concerned because the majority of what I'd heard about food in Chile was meat, fried stuff, sweet stuff, more meat, and sugary juice. I also heard about the abundance of bread and avocado (palta en español) which didn't concern me so much...hehe. Anyway, I have been totally pleased to discover a wealth of fresh fruits and vegetables and I am lucky to live with a family that both cooks a lot and cooks healthfully. Yes, Chileans love their mayonnaise and oil and there are definitely a lot of extremely unhealthy (but muy sabrosos) options, but I feel like I eat more fruits and vegetables here than I normally do (i.e. at school) because they're just so fresh and commonplace. The classic Chilean salad is tomato (tomate) and onion (cebolla) tossed with a little oil and salt (big on salt here too) and we also have lettuce (lechuga), often with palta, too.

Cecilia and Hector (my host parents) go to a local feria (fair) every Saturday to stock up on produce and I finally went with them last week. It's this insane block of land with people selling melons, grapes, beans, palta, bananas, apples, citrus fruits, spices, all types of vegetables, etc. The apartment is always stocked with plenty of fresh fruit and I usually have a banana or apple with breakfast (which is always toast with marmalade and hot tea) or bring something with me on my way. Like in a lot of my classmates' homes, dessert is almost always fruit or some sort of fruit-based dish. My favorite so far has been the pears that Cecilia soaks in a caramel made of wine, sugar, and water. ¡Que rico!

Almuerzo (lunch) is the main meal of the day and, traditionally, people go home to almorzar even though more and more contemporary work schedules do not allow this. Cecilia is an amazing cook and is always in the kitchen preparing things for later, including various bean-based dishes (porteros granados are a basic white bean that go with basically everything), cazuela, arroz (rice, but when Cecilia says she's making rice she means she's making it with diced red bell pepper and chopped carrots), a dish made of pureed zucchini (zapallo italiano) and cheese which is the only time I've ever loved zucchini, and seasoned chicken or meat. So on a typical day we have breakfast, almuerzo, and then usually some sort of tea-time around 6 with tea and something small like pan con palta (bread with avocado, love it), and then the "once" (ohn-say, as in Spanish for eleven) around 9 or whenever Hector gets home from work. Once is usually a smaller amount of what we had for almuerzo or maybe a little sandwich or more pan con palta if I'm not that hungry. Yes, I eat avocado pretty much every day and that very well maybe a big reason why I'm so happy here. Me encanta comer palta (I love to eat avocado) and that's not changing anytime soon!

Left: Toasting pan in our tostador, which heats on a burner. This was one of the first times I did it by myself, which is why the bread is more charbroiled than toasted. Right: My true love, the lovely palta, getting ready to go on my toast. Mmm.

Empanadas are also traditional Chilean comida and you can find them pretty much everywhere...the ones from the panaderia near Casa SIT are extremely delish (queso? Check. Pino? Check. Pino, btw, means that the filling is meat, onion, and usually egg and an olive) and I am planning to hit up Empanadas Famosas in Valpo which actually is famous for its, well, empanadas. Helado (ice cream) is also bountiful here and I take advantage pretty much every time I can...my main Spanish prof, Arturo, eventually noticed that all of my examples in class (as in, "Elizabeth, give an example that uses subjunctive/conditional/preterite) involved ice cream. The best helado that I've had so far is at a cafe/restaurant in central Vina that is a little pricey but the "small" scoop is the size of a triple at any normal Baskin-Robbins, so I'm not complaining! Here's a photo of my helado experience before the concert that I will explain later:

What I simply must describe, however, are completos. A completo italiano (allegedly named so for the colors)—which is the basic complete—is a hot dog with a load of palta, diced tomatoes (a.k.a. salsa Americana) and mayonnaise. Told you they liked their mayonnaise here. A completo completo (this is not a typo) has all of the above and what I believe was described to be sauerkraut but I'm not totally sure because I've never actually seen anyone order it. At first I thought that I would hate the completos, but OH MY GOODNESS they can be amazing. I usually order mine without mayo or with just "un poquito" but the Chilean definitition of "very little" is what we'd consider "a sizeable amount" so I usually skip it altogether. Here's a photo of a recent completo experience:

No, I did not eat the whole thing...halfway through I was defeated but satisfied. Oh completos.

Finally, today I got to observe/help Cecilia and Mami Luz (my host grandmother) cook Sunday almuerzo for the family (including Cecilia and Hector's son Christián, his wife Prisilla, their baby Julieta, Cecilia's sister Teresa and Teresa's teenage son Sebastián). We made a very traditional Chilean dish, pastel de choclo (corn cake, but not really cake like we'd think of it). It was a lengthy but worthwhile process. Check it out:

Left to right: The choclo (corn) goes from what Jimmy cracked to a sort of cornmeal-esque food that we put onthe bottom of individual dishes. In the middle of the third photo is the pino, which is the ground beef sauteed with onion and garlic.

Then we put a layer of the pino on top of the choclo, then a piece of cooked chicken, hardboiled egg, and olives, and then covered it all with more choclo and a sprinkle of table sugar. Then they were baked for about 20 minutes and came out deliciously golden brown. Naturally, I was too mesmerized by the glistening goodness to take an "after" photo," but it was basically the same as the third photo above except cooked. As every Chilean and his/her madre would say,¡ que rico!
In addition to food, I must share two fabulous experiences that I had this weekend: a free concert in Valpo that featured crucial Chilean groups like Inti-Illimani and Sol y Lluvia and then a day trip to Quintay with two friends.

The concert was called "La Democracia: Fin a la Exclusión" and turned out to be some sort of activism-based event with some speakers and a lot of chanting of "¡legalización! ¡legalización!" (legalization, i.e. of marijuana). Very interesting. It's also a memorable experience to be surrounded by tons of people, mostly around my age, who jump up and down like (inebriated) pogo sticks during specific songs and shout political phrases that have to do with the former dictatorship during others. Some of the most famous songs played by these groups (like "Adios General" by Sol y Lluvia) were written during and about the dictatorship, so I guess it's tradition to still shout the relevant phrases now. Even though the lyrics are about a specific point in time, the mobilizing effect is still very strong when it comes to new issues that interest Chilean youth. All in all, a concierto y experiencia to remember!

Concierto para la democracia; fist-pumping and political passion; a typical taken-by-Elizabeth shot of me with Celeste @ the concert.
Thanks to the recommendation of one fabulous Michelle Stoler (I hope we actually meet someday!), I set off for the nearby beach area/former port of Quintay with mis amigos Adam and Celeste. We arrived not really knowing what to expect, but what we got were absolutely breathtaking views and some delicious seafood (eaten in a restaurant with aforementioned breathtaking view...¡que bacán!). Words can't even express how beautiful this place is, so I'll let some photos do the talking.

View of the water in Quintay when we arrived; Celeste and Adam; view of gorgeous water!

A completely candid, unposed shot of me on the rocks; beautiful water (duh); more beautiful water

The sign said not to ascend the stairs up to the peak with the lighthouse, so naturally we did and got a totally different vista of the water. I have about 239812875 (give or take) of this day so it's hard to select just a few...:)
One week from today we all leave for the North/South excursions (I'm in the South group, to Temuco) so I hope to really soak up this next week with a lot of free time in Viña and Valpo. Right now it's almost 5:30 and I'm avoiding doing my last bit of tarea, working on my ISP stuff, and walking to a pharmacy to buy more minutes for my cell phone. Prisilla and Julieta are still here though, so it's legit if I'd rather hang out with them, right? Right. ¡Hasta pronto!

Voy grande o voy a casa

Oh wow, time truly does fly when you're having fun...and also amazing experiences that run the gamut from just hanging out in bars with friends to visiting La Victoria and La Sebastiana (Pablo Neruda's house in Valpo). I intended to write about food in my next post, but that will have to wait because I want to provide pictures too and I haven't been remembering to snap photos before devouring the culinary goodness that I find here! Next time, no worries.
We finished our seminar series this past week, which is nearly impossible to believe because it is sort of the first tangible marker in the passage of time here. Now we have more free time in the next week and a half or so as we wrap up Spanish classes before half the group (13 students) heads North to Arica and the other half (myself included) heads South to Temuco for our indigenous village study excursions (two weeks). We are also all planning our independent study projects (ISP) which will be conducted from May 5 to June 5. Even though a huge reason for choosing this country and this program for my study abroad experience was my interest in gender studies and women and politics, I have actually decided to explore a different topic for my ISP. During my first couple weeks here I found myself totally fascinated by the issues with political mobilization of Chilean youth and voting patterns, so I have decided to research this for my ISP. More specifically, I want to interview and possibly survey university students about political disillusionment, what political participation means to them, and so forth. I will continue to live with my fabulous, love-them-to-bits host family in Viña and do my research at two nearby universities and possible la Universidad de Chile in Santiago via day trips. It's fun to see the variety of subjects that interest my fellow students here—indigenous rights, public health, women's rights...it's all there. Que bacán.
When we went to La Victoria, we visited the house of André Jarlán, a Catholic priest from France who lived and worked in La Victoria in the 1970s and 80s. After a protest in 1984, he was assassinated via a gunshot through his bedroom window that killed him while he was reading the Bible. To maintain the memory of his life and work, his supporters established La Escuela de La Victoria. In the house, we saw his room where he died and it is truly a moving experience to stand there and see where the bullet hit his armoire, the desk where he was sitting, the bed whose sheets have not been changed since his death, etc.
This past week we studied the dictatorship and its human rights abuses more closely. Given my past study of this era in Chile's history, I was very interested in what the program had planned for us this week—sometimes it was emotionally intense, but all of it is worthwhile. We had our Tuesday seminar with Jose Cademartari, who was the economy minister for President Salvador Allende before being exiled during the dictatorship. To be in the same room with someone who literally worked for Allende and dealt with the golpe estado (coup of September 11, 1973) is indescribable. On Thursday, for our last seminar, we were with a human rights lawyer who patiently answered all of our broad questions about the dictatorship as well as other human rights issues in Chile like sexual health education (i.e. the lack thereof) in schools.
Then Friday (yesterday) we had our last day excursion to Santiago, where we first met with two women who are part of la Agrupación de familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos. One (whose name I unfortunately cannot remember) is the daughter of a desparecido ("disappeared") and subsequently grew up not knowing the whereabouts of her father (or if he was even still alive). The other woman, Gabriela, spoke very openly about her experience as a 21-year old wife whose husband disappeared. At first, these women seem like any other kind and outgoing Chilean that I've met here. Gabriela is 55, smokes (also, like many Chileans that I've met here—but this is another story for another day), and has dyed her hair a shade of pinkish-red that is not natural to any human I've ever met. But when she put on the tag with the photo of her husband that she made all those years ago, it's like you're talking to a 21-year old who just wants to know where the hell the government took her husband. These women are very accustomed to speaking openly about their experiences the history of the era and at times it was easy to momentarily forget that they really did—and do—live this horror every day of their lives.
Our next stop was the cemetery with a memorial to those who "disappeared" during the dictatorship. It's hard to really describe the feeling of sitting there, staring at this huge wall of names, realizing that each one represents a life that probably ended abruptly and painfully. Like seeing the Vietnam memorial wall with all the names, it's hard to take in and hard to describe.
Finally, we went to el Parque por la Paz ex Villa Grimaldi. Villa Grimaldi was one of the torture centers that were used during the dictatorship. Now it is a peace garden and memorial to remember and educate about the egregious abuse of human rights that took place there. We had the honor of being accompanied throughout the day by a survivor of Villa Grimaldi who now works with Proyecto Puerto, one of the community work activities that a group of SIT students do (I'm with T.A.F., a different one). I feel bad—I forget her name too! Lo siento.
I thought that the first two parts of the day were hard, but this was definitely the most emotionally draining and overwhelming. A day later, I still cannot completely believe that I stood next to the swimming pool that they used to fill with snakes and then put los detenidos ("the detained") in to torture them. Most if not all of the buildings were demolished right after the dictatorship ended and in their place there are memorial gardens and artwork. But it was still a completely inexpressible experience to walk on the grounds knowing that we were standing was where our friend and guide was tortured with her fellow detenidos. It was hard just to be there—I honestly don't know where she finds the strength to talk so openly about her experience there and take students like us to the actual location. Incredible. I guess I could say that a theme of the past couple weeks, from La Victoria to yesterday, has been "touching history"--it's amazing to move past books and lectures and really be there.
After such a draining day, I was exhausted and didn't carretear (go out, as in parties/clubs/bars/restaurants/anything else) last night and instead slept for an amazing and totally necessary 11 hours. Last weekend, however, I legitimately left the house on Saturday night around 9 and returned from a series of bars and a club (El Huevo, a.k.a the most gigantic and insane club you will ever see in your entire vida) after 5 on Sunday morning. Holy cow. It was extremely divertido/fun though J
Before I close with a few pictures of last couple weeks, I want to say MUCHAS GRACIAS to some people that totally made my life with some fabulous items received via el correo/the mail. First I received a totally awesome letter from the amazing Judy B. (a.k.a the Jim to my Pam, the cookie dough to my ice cream) complete with a tear-out from an old YM magazine that brought back some serious memories of butterfly hair clips and glitter gel. Then I got my Easter basket box from mi madre and proceeded to share Jelly Belly jellybeans with everyone at Casa SIT and then return home to read every single page of the issue of People with the Oscar coverage. THEN I got my Easter basket box from Aunt Peggy & Uncle Steve with more yummy dulces (I am eating a milk chocolate bunny ear right now, no lie) AND THE NEWEST JODI PICOULT BOOK which I am alternating reading with a contemporary Chilean novel that I bought here. To receive these tokens of home is awesome—love to everyone, everywhere—¡nos vemos!

PS: The title of this post is the result of some very entertaining conversations with my compañeros about "what if we tried to say current English phrases in Spanish"—hence, voy grande o voy a casa (I go big or go home!).

Sunset at Reñaca At La Sebastiana, l-r: Juliane, Erika, Brooke, Angela, me.


View of Valpo from Pablo Neruda's bedroom. With mi amiga Emily at the restaurant at the end of our excursion yesterday. You can sort of see the pitcher (on the right) that held an interesting beverage that apparently was beer with ice cream mixed in--I tried it and lived to tell the tale. The tale is that I won't be trying it again, but many others liked it!