The End

Things I have learned from living in Chile:

1.     Paint makes all the difference

2.     Street vendor food will not kill you

3.     The US has had a lot of negative effects on the rest of the world

4.     Everybody should just settle down, rules are there to guide life, not reasons to ramp up your blood pressure

5.     You can wear your clothes a lot longer than you think you can

6.     Don’t assume that the noon hour makes a place safer

7.     Street signs should not be taken for granted

8.     You have to be enraged (and/or in awesome shape) to catch thieves

9.     Sweet+ savory combinations (like coleslaw with pineapple, or apple with cheese) freak Chileans out

10. ‘A man in uniform’ is a lot less attractive if your culture has experienced a military dictatorship

11. The US is disgustingly rich and has unrealistic standards of living

12. Condensed milk is a dessert staple, and hotdogs should be the national dish

13. South Americans want to be blond (if you believe their media images)

14. Making abortion illegal does NOT lead to higher maternal death rates (currently, abortion is illegal in Chile, and their maternal death rate is better than that of the USA).

15. Paid host families are not the same as volunteer families

16. English speakers have the privilege of avoiding the awkwardness of dubbed television programs

17. Chileans think salt and lemon should go on everything (even shredded lettuce)

18. It is wrong to assume that prices in all Latin American countries will be lower than the USA

19. Chileans are really friendly

20. Chileans are very homogenous racially and they will freely express curiosity and stereotypical ideas about other races (ie, Asians are all Chinese, white people are all big and rich, if someone has black heritage they will be called ‘negrito’)

21. Street maps sometimes need topographical indicators to make sense in Valpo

22. The Chilean police do not use the internet in their office

23. Vegetarians are odd and hosting one is terrifying for Chileans

24. Zumba calls for enthusiastic yelling and may result in injury

Other tidbits:

1.                    The people in the north speak flatly, while the southern Chileans speak in a singsong manner

2.                    Generally, US women want to have a gender-neutral workplace while Latinas want more specifically feminine rights that bolster their gender identity

3.                    Chile is having a representation crisis in its voting population: out of 13 million potential voters, only 6 million turned out for the last election

4.                    Chile’s economic system was created in the image of Milton Friedman’s ideology…and now it is one of the top 5 most unequal countries in the world

5.                    The Mapuche Indians (general blanket term for Chilean natives) did not surrender their independence or sign a peace treaty until the late 1800’s

6.                    The entirety of Easter Island was at one time rented out as a sheep pasture by an English company. A ghetto was built to keep the people away from the sheep

7.                    PLEASE: it is pronounced ‘Chi-lay’, not ‘Chili’ like the food!

Looking back from a cruising altitude of 10,000 feet over the southwestern US, my last few days in Chile were full. I went wandering with Emily back to Cerro Concepción, visiting a café we had blundered into on our first few days there, and we soaked up the sunshine. Saturday I was baptized in a swimming pool in Valparaíso, and got to meet the family of Mollie’s beau, Tao. Sunday Mollie and I hit up a flea market, and I brought my present bottles of pisco sour with me to church. Monday was full in an entirely unexpected way; after almost 6 months living in big foreign cities, my backpack (and all of my monetary means) was grabbed and disappeared around a corner on the back of a teenage boy. I was reminded that I shouldn’t be too complacent as a glaringly white foreigner with a nice backpack, but I really don’t regret the loss too much. My need for bus money, a way to call home, a backpack to carry my things, and hugs showed me the quality of the friends I had made, both gringo and Chileno. God also managed that I was holding my journal, the one thing that really could not have been replaced, when my bag was grabbed – so I still have it, as well as the mementos and notes tucked inside it. I also found it’s rather freeing not to have anything on you to be worth stealing, and to not need to bring a purse or something like that because everything you have fits in a jeans pocket. I am grateful.

Tuesday I spent ‘learning’ how to sunbathe (is it sunbathing if I was wearing jeans?) with girls from church. We also enjoyed some farewell empanadas. In the afternoon I went to school to meet up with Diego, my Chilean friend who has been discipling me. He has been taking me with him on his evangelizing rounds through the university patio, inviting people to a bible meeting. I don’t know that I have written about him before, but he and the group he works with, Aiglas de Jésus, have made a huge impact on my ideas about what Christians should look like. This international organization focuses on evangelization within universities, be it through posters, coffee meetings, prayer vigils, preaching from pulpits, or organizing anti-abortion events. I hope I can find or start something similar when I go back to school in Spokane. Wednesday I spent all morning with this group – first intercessory prayer for the university, then for Chile out in front of the national congress. Then I met up with Menfis, a female mentor Diego found for me, to ask life questions and tap into her wisdom. Por fin, I came home to find food and make brownies.

Thursday I spent attempting to make puppet feet at the day center where I volunteer (carpentry is not a gift of mine). I got to have a conversation with a practicing Rastrofarian about her beliefs, which was interesting but troubling (how can people ‘use’ the new testament and not believe that Jesus paid for sins???) while working. Then it was time for bible meetings and brownie-eating and saying farewell to Gustavo (my Mexican friend who also came to Christ through Diego) and Diego. We bummed on up to Gustavo’s apartment to eat and play Just Dance afterwards; the tall and lanky Diego almost took out a chandelier and we had a good laugh. After Zumba, there was another bible meeting with the Aiglas. It was in a little ramshackle church up on a hill with the wind screaming around it – it was beautiful to see the simplicity of the building and the earnestness with which this group worships. After praying for those of us heading out to other parts of the world, we pooled some pesos to buy a bit of food for supper and shared it with many smiles. That was probably the best and most important moment of my last week.

Friday was full of suitcase-squishing and time with Mollie. She came over and walked around the neighborhood with me until lunch, where we celebrated Stefy’s birthday with cake. We watched a GUTS improv show together on youtube– Gonzaga bonding at its finest – before heading out to church activities. I showed up at home around 11 pm, late for the taxi, because I had been looking for buses on the wrong side of the street! Learning and making silly mistakes up to the very end. I did note, however, the incredible difference between my conversation with the taxi driver when I arrived and the difference with the taxi driver when I left – my Spanish is SO much better!!!

In summary: I thought I might cry about leaving Chile, but so far the tears have not arrived. I don’t know if I ever accepted the place as home. I got close to a few Chileans, but the ones that I really will miss are the ones that showed me Christ more than their own personalities. For instance, I don’t think I could tell you all that much about the life and times of Diego, the young man who wasn’t afraid of offending me, or Rigo, the director who taught me to build puppets. And the most precious thing about all of these people was the Christ that was shining through. I was sad to say goodbye to my host mom, and I could tell she was tearing up…but I never succeeded in breaching the gulf between us entirely. The same for the rest of my host family. I probably understood the cat best of all of them. There are several gringas I will be calling up, and I hope to call some Aigla friends as well for their counsel. I don’t know if my lack of interpersonal fixation makes me callous, and it is true that the only love for others worthy of praise is that which is unmerited…I will take it as evidence that I have a lot of growing toward other people to do. But for now, I feel like it is time to go home.

Thanks for reading, hope to see or talk to you soon. J