I’m happy to report that the past 2 weeks have been relatively calm in terms of strikes and protests! It seems that the national strike and the amount of chaos and violence that followed tired everyone out and the movement lost a bit of momentum. The amount of protests and marches also calmed down because about a week ago, a plane carrying 21 passengers, including one of Chile’s most popular television personalities (Felipe Camiroaga) and several of his t.v. crew members crashed in the sea off the Chile coast. Everyone was in shock throughout the country and very sad. They are still doing searches in the sea to find the remains of some on board. So, with that tragedy, the climate in Santiago has been much more calm as of late. However, we are waiting to see what will happen today because, as in the U.S., September 11th is a very significant day in Chilean history. On Sept. 11th, 1973, the democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d’etat organized by the Chilean military and endorsed by the United States. A military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet took control of the government and began what was to become a 17-year long dictatorship, the first years of which were especially characterized by disappearances, deaths, torture, and overall extreme oppression. Therefore, on Sept. 11th, there are always demonstrations, protests, and a greater level of disorder. Many are thinking that it will be worse this year given the education protests.
Apart from this, the past 2 weeks have been extremely busy for me at school! Last weekend we had a Fonda at Colegio Andacollo. A Fonda is basically community fair where different groups set up various food stands and there is a lot of dance, music and other entertainment. At Andacollo, the point of the Fonda is mainly to raise money for different school programs. Each class at school prepared a different type of Chilean dance to perform, and various groups and classes set up different food stands throughout the school. Speaking of food, this might be a good time to give a brief introduction to the foods that Chileans most love to eat…for those of you who think of all of Latin America eating rice, beans and lots of spicy foods, you might be surprised J
1.) Empanadas: In Chile, the most traditional empanada filling is called "pino". Pino is a seasoned mixture of ground beef, onions, raisins, black olives, and hard boiled eggs. The other most common types of empanadas are cheese empanadas. They are either fried or baked in the oven.
2.) Completos: Chileans love hotdogs. But not just any plain hotdogs. Chilean “completos” are hotdogs covered with tomato, avocado, mayo, ketchup, and mustard.
3.) Sopaipillas: sopaipillas are made from a pumpkin-based dough which is fried up and served with either mustard, ketchup, sweet syrup sauce, hot butter, or pebre.
4.) Coffee and Tea: probably 2 of the most consumed beverages in Chile, served at basically every meal. Don’t be fooled though, regular coffee hardly exists in Chile because it is too expensive. Instead, everyone uses instant coffee, the most popular brand being NesCafe.
5.) Pan y pebre: Bread is the most consumed food in Chile. By far, the two most common types of bread are hallulla and marraqueta. At lunch and tea time, bread is often served with pebre, which is a salsa made from chopped tomatoes, green onions, cilantro, garlic, hot pepper, oil and vinegar
6.) Asados (Barbeques): Chileans love meat and go crazy for barbeques. Especially on the weekends and around holidays, you will smell barbeques wherever you throughout the city.
7.) Vino Navegado: Red wine is also very popular and common in Chile given the great number of vineyards throughout the country. One drink particularly common in the winter is vino navegado which is a mulled wine made by combining red wine with cinnamon and orange.
Ok, so that is the basic synopsis of the foods that Chileans eat the most—I know, it all sounds really healthy, right? Anyways, during the Fonda at school, I worked at the stand for Pastoral (campus ministry). All day Friday, from 11am-10:30pm, we worked to prepare anticuchos (shish-kebobs) and stuff to make vino navegado and pebre. This involved peeling and cutting all of the onion and peppers, cleaning and cutting the meat (beef, pork, hot dog, and sausage), marinating everything together in huge bowls with oil, vinegar, and a seasoning mix and then assembling everything. We literally made 1000 Anticuchos!!!! As you can imagine, this was basically torture for me as a vegetarian. I wore 2 pairs of plastic gloves the whole time….yuckkk! But on the other hand, I did really enjoy getting to spend so much time with the people from pastoral and getting to know some of the parents and students who came to help. At the end of the night, we had a funny discussion trying to explain the term “slap happy” which apparently doesn’t exist in Spanish.
On Saturday, we basically spent the entire day setting up the stand and selling anticuchos. I also had to help set up for the Misa a la Chilena (Chilean Mass) during which a traditional Chilean folk music group played the Mass music and there were different traditional dances performed by Andacollo students throughout the service. It was beautiful and such an uplifting celebration! It was so enjoyable for me to get to see some of my students dance. They were all really excited and kept reminding me of the times they would be dancing during the Fonda so that I wouldn’t forget to come watch J
Another reason the Fonda weekend was important is because September finally started! In Chile they have a saying that says, “Hay que pasar Agosto,” which basically translates to, “You have to get past August.” Why? August is by far the coldest month in Chile. Despite the many Ohio and South Bend winters I have lived through, I don’t think that I have ever felt as cold as I have in Chile. This is because there is no indoor heating because it is way too expensive. Instead, Chileans use estufas, which are little gas-burning space heaters. Excluding the upper class, most Chilean families usually have about 1 per house, and it is only turned on for a little bit at night before people go to bed and in the morning. Really, estufas don’t do that much, and everyone basically knows that in winter it’s time to put on layers and layers of pants and shirts to keep warm. Throughout August, I think I was wearing about 4 layers on top, two on the bottom, at least two pairs of socks, and my jacket only came off right before getting into bed. Needless to say, my consumption of hot beverages skyrocketed! The cold is truly hard to shake because there’s no real relief from it, but that’s just part of living through the winter here, and Chilean’s understand that. How different from our world where we obsess over needing to be comfortable all the time and spend tons of money and energy to consistently live a 70 degree- life.
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