Letters from America

Sacramento to Santiago

December 12, 1999.

As our plane lands at Pudahuel airport many passengers break out in applause, a custom I have not seen elsewhere. It reflects an explosion of joy and pride among people returning to their beloved homeland, rather than merely relief at surviving the trip.

Being part of a small school of fish which must swim among the big barracuda in the international seas can make one glad to be in home waters once again.

The airport is situated to the Northwest of Santiago, a disappointing 20-minute ride past dusty "futbol" (soccer) fields and decaying, old-style block apartment buildings built 30 to 40 years ago; then through an older sector of colonial Santiago, which is beginning to be rehabilitated; then over the "Panamericana" (Panamerican highway, which is actually highway 5!), through the crowded heart of the city, to the residential areas East and Northeast.

To the North are the newer industrial parks and to the South are the estates or "parcelas" of the well-to-do and the barrios of the poor. This is an international city of some 5 million people, set like Sacramento in a central valley between the coastal range and the high mountains to the East. All the rich variety of big city life scrolls by our windows and impacts our senses.

I am using a Spanish (international) word processor software and keyboard, which is disconcerting, because its dictionary claims almost every English word is misspelled, and the keys are slightly altered to accommodate foreign characters. Why isn't there just one keyboard in this new world order, in which many are to become one? Still, here is the familiar Word program in Spanish, and beside me is an Internet connection that I can fire up. I am grateful for the Black Knight of Microsoft, who subdued the Dragon of Apple.

And we are not particularly isolated here. As I write this, I am interrupted by a Fax from the USC Department of Neurobiology; it is my daughter's final exam, nine pages, to be completed in two hours, and re-faxed back tomorrow. She is still en route, in Miami now, and won't arrive until 10:30 a.m. tomorrow. Is that cool or what?

But I'm glad it is not I who will deplane after an 18-hour trip with a 5-hour time loss, and take that exam!

It is a Santiago December of long Summer days. We are still dulled by jet lag and the 5-hour time difference. Daylight saving time is in effect, and it is "Spring forward and Fall back" here also, but the clock difference is therefore 5 hours in January, and 3 hours in July. So we sleep at odd hours for a while as we adjust to the season and the clock.

The Eastern half of Santiago is quite spectacular, with well-kept, tree-shaded boulevards and parks, against a backdrop of harsh Andes mountains, still snow-splashed by a late Spring storms this year, with the daunting El Plomo glacier directly to the East.

We rent an apartment for a week or so, while I rustle up a car to use during the next two or three months. Unlike California, where sales tax is charged to the buyer every time a car is sold or resold, here a value added tax is only charged once, when a new car is sold. It is a hefty tax, usually about 17 percent, but it is only charged once. Therefore, it is reasonable to buy a good used car and sell it when we leave. (An idea for a California ballot proposition?) This year, in recession, automobile prices are more attractive than in Sacramento.

These Southerners are of the opinion that they live in America too and, of course, they are right. We share a common landmass, and heritage. A fusion of Indigenous American and European cultures is typical, where Sino, Pacific Island and Afro-American cultural infusions are evident to varying degrees.

In the January evening sky, we share Orion and the December Zodiac; yet when looking in the direction of Winter cold, we see the Bears and the North Star, and they see the Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds. Here the sun also rises in the East, of course, but Winter rises in the South. On most maps, they are down, we are up. (I think again that I shall become rich here one day by selling upside down maps.)

We beckon with the hand up, they with the hand down. South of the Equator, bad weather and drain water circle in opposite directions from ours, and their Winter is our Summer. Such contrasts are myriad, and unfortunately, seem metaphoric for our respective political and economic circumstances during the century just passed.

During that century, many have expectantly awaited change here, with about as much encouragement as those awaiting the Second Coming. I have been anticipating "Latin" American modernization since 1946 when my parents lived in a small mining town in Chihuahua, Mexico.

I do not pretend to know all of our sister Americas; but we have lived in Chile several months annually for 25 years, and can confirm reports of steady and dramatic progress, at least as measured by the social and economic parameters which we in the USA feel are significant. Rather than recite the statistical evidence, which is readily corruptible and available from any respected international source like the UN and the US State Department, I hope in these letters to convey a little of the flavor of life here, outlining that which enriches our lives during recurring visits.

We are generally here from mid-December to mid-February. We home-school during that period, and have always found California public schools to be gracious and tolerant of our needs. The South Hemisphere school year is just finished when we arrive; we attend graduation ceremonies, and late Spring weddings. Santiago is geographically situated like Sacramento, at about the same latitude South as we are North.

Half of all 14 million Chileans live here within 100 km (60 miles) of one another, even though the country is several thousand km long (roughly comparable to the West coast of North America from Baja California to Alaska, with corresponding geologic and climatic features). Families tend to be close, maintaining frequent contact, although the remarkable economic developments here have caused greater and greater dispersion of Chileans throughout South America and the world. Christmas is, traditionally, a time of frequent gatherings for families and old friends, reminiscent of our Thanksgiving.

Santiago is served by a 20-year-old privatized Metro, built by the French, and is continually being expanded; one can imagine being in Paris, except that this Metro is new and clean. Fares are low, and it is packed during rush hours, before 10 a.m. and after 5 p.m.

With reason: the city is congested and smoggy. Many stores and offices still close for a two-hour lunch between 2 and 4 p.m. The surface streets are crowded then, as well as in rush hours, with many rather ugly, boxy yellow busses. Black and yellow taxis, generally operated by their owners, are everywhere. Some taxis, with placards on the rooftops, are "colectivos" running a fast bus-like route, for two or three times bus fare. Like many cities outside the USA, Santiago is almost always crowded; whether driving a car, or walking a street, one must be prepared to get "close."

I require at least 5 days and 5 pounds of added weight to adjust to the 5-hour time change, and to visit friends and relatives, ingesting the great food served at "bienvenidas", or welcomes (likewise at "despedidas" or goodbyes in February, when we again rent the apartment in Santiago just before we leave for home).

So 5 to 7 days after arrival, we have acquired some sort of car, reacquainted ourselves with the glorious maze of streets and street names, and jumped into the local traffic. Over the years, roads and traffic customs have improved greatly; nonetheless there are certain aspects of driving which must be re-learned each time, so it is slow and cautious at first.

Tomorrow, our older daughter will arrive, and take her neuro exam, and then it's adios Santiago, adios congestion, adios smog, adios "amigos y parientes"; visit us in Con Con, the small beach town north of Viña del Mar where we stay.

Our only problem will be to capture our 11-year-old daughter, who disappeared with her cousins to the farm, and doesn't want to leave. She has little freedom in Sacramento, where we practice spastic hands-on parenting. She goes to a magnet-type San Juan District school, so her schoolmates live far from us and she has few neighborhood friends her age.

This is why she and her college-age sister both feel lost or abused when they cannot go to Chile as usual, each year. So she will stay on the farm, with no home school, until Christmas; who could deny her that?

Not I.

Christmas and New Year in Summer

Jan 2, 2000.

While we are acclimating in Santiago, we rent an apartment in one of many high-rise, 15-20 story residential buildings in Eastern Santiago. They are seismically very sound, by necessity, with both above and underground parking, surrounded by enclosed green areas. In keeping with local demands, each apartment has a balcony where greenery is grown, so that the whole face of a typical building is decorated with plants and flowers, a very attractive feature of this area.

Shopping here is as varied as in the States. There are still little corner stores and stands almost everywhere, where one pays extra for convenience. Many shopping malls include familiar names like McDonalds, Home Depot, Sears, Penny's, Hush Puppies, as well as local shops and department stores, and European specialty shops like Gacelle or Dior.

This year, while Christmas shopping, I buy a light beige, Italian all-wool gabardine suit for less than $200, thanks to the recession which is lacerating all the world excepting for the USA. For now, the US dollar is strong here, and the North American Mall Shopper can be quite comfortable.

On the other hand, some stores are almost too big. At the "Lider" store, we go for groceries to stock up for the holidays. The underground parking covers at least a block; the salt is 100 meters from the butter. There are 97 check-out stands, with 93 operating! But the prices are right, so that many people come periodically to shop, even from surrounding towns; some arrive by the busload!

We buy several weeks of groceries, two mattresses, and a TV, swearing "Never Again!"-which was just self deception, as we probably will go at least once every three weeks to the Lider in Viña del Mar, a coastal resort town near our house.

On the 18th of December, we leave the city and head for the coast, picking up fruit and cheese and lunch on the way.

We are unconcerned about the water; in the early 70s, water-borne infection or infestation was common, but since then public water systems have been made safely potable, one of the many public health achievements of the past 25 years. We had always restricted our older daughter, as a toddler, to bottled water, until we found her drinking from a decorative fountain near the grocery store.

Except for a nasty Rotavirus infection our younger daughter picked up from a swimming pool 7 years ago, we have had no trouble for 20 years. During the ongoing multi-year world wide Cholera outbreak, there have been no outbreaks here, by contrast with other south American countries.

Our beach town has a rural aspect, but is tourist-filled in Summer. There are few North Americans. The beaches are modest, not perfectly groomed, nor, I suspect, perfectly sterile. We don't encourage drinking of surf water on purpose. The water temperature is about like Monterey, a little cold but exhilarating.

Fresh and well-prepared seafood is plentiful even at the height of the tourist season. Chilean cooking reflects a strong French, German and indigenous influence.

A particularly popular local food is the "empanada," a hot meat pie. Note the relationship between "pasty" and pastel, Spanish for pie. Introduced more than 200 years ago by Welsh miners, the pasty remains hot inside for a number of hours, thus provided underground miners with a hot lunch.

Santa Claus tends to appear on Christmas Eve here; Christmas is a family holiday, made more so by the fact that there is only one major metropolitan area, so that families tend to keep in touch, allowing for continuous inter-generational communion. However, Santa in his polar garb is a bit debilitated at 32 degrees Centigrade and at 40 C (104 F) he is frankly delusional. Decorations are modest as a rule, consisting mainly of a plastic tree, decorated in traditional style much like our own. Few people are so compulsive or patriotic as to crawl over their roof installing lights in the summer heat, although they might like to do so. (When I was PG I at Gorgas Hospital in the Panama Canal Zone years ago, that masochistic act was confined to a few Norteamericanos, to the amazement and delight of Panamanians.)

Christmas day, therefore, is a time to once again visit with friends and relatives. Shopping still tends to be done in the last few days before December 24th; however it is metastasizing towards November, partly due to a longstanding Chilean admiration for all things done in the USA, and partly to the affluence of Chileans, whose per capita income is 4th highest in this hemisphere.

New Years, on the other hand, is celebrated extravagantly; it is the Mardi Gras of Chileans, who gather in large numbers to celebrate as if it were the last night ever, a Latinized ritualistic Armageddon. Leaving our disappointed 11-year old with her grandmother, we go to an upscale beach community to the North (Marbella) for New Years. The typical New Years begins with a family gathering at home or at church, then comes the watching of fireworks, before repairing to a big after-midnight meal, followed by dancing until well into the new year's first day. This year the schedule is altered somewhat, in view of the significance of the year 2000 midnight moment, so we eat before midnight.

In addition to Chileans, our party includes a substantial group of lively French vintners, all dressed in cream white suits and red ties, a number of Argentines and Brazilians, because the South American East coast is muggy and hot in summer, and a 20-member group from, of all places, Sacramento. We are acquainted with a number of that Sacramento contingent, and were aware that they would be there; but to my surprise, among them is Tom Elliot, sometime surgeon from Davis, whom I have known for 30 years. I would confess to more years than that, but Tom is delicate about the mystery of his age.

Chileans tend to look outward at the world rather than inward at themselves, and are very aware of other cultures. Consistent with that was the international scene, spiced by a continuous and very participatory floor show from Brazil, and introduced by an extraordinary fireworks show. Needless to say, January 1st was rather quiet.

We have a rustic cottage with a detached apartment for visiting relatives or friends, in a pretty, tree-shaded setting, about two blocks down to the beach. A picturesque but dusty dirt road fronts the buildings. Around the corner is a seasonal store, for purchase of day-fresh fruit or French bread, groceries and housekeeping supplies. The store owner had a big ugly cyst on his face which I was able to remove in my kitchen a few years ago, so we are treated with some deference.

Enrique, the man who cut down a 100-foot eucalyptus for us, and rents horses, also visits each year to review his medical condition; we talk for a while, I examine and advise him; he is as healthy as a horse. Well, not his own horses, which are rather rachitic but nonetheless are fun for the children to ride.

The wife of the fisherman, who is a wonderful cook, works for us while managing to "borrow" enough food during our stay to last her family several months. A few years ago she enlisted her ex-husband to take me out on his boat one night, trailing a 1000-hook line which delivered a decent catch by morning.

The gardener greets us, the man to whom I gave my Tommy Hilfinger shirt last year (the shirt Liliana gave me, the shirt she will never forgive me for giving away). The grounds are immaculate; I worship him the way my wife worships her cook.

After opening the house, re-stocking and completing repairs, another week has gone by. Christmas comes on time. Afterward the beach calls, but home schooling takes precedence, for at least 4 hours each morning, until we feel we have done about twice that required; compulsively, I want to finish the math book for the year. One-on-one, it is fairly easy to accomplish. I am actually anxious to finish home school too, as then I, myself, will be free to go off on some sort of adventure and leave my family responsibilities at the seashore.

Guests begin to come and go, like the morning fog, like South American Christmases come and go, quietly, somewhat muted by summer, and by this relatively less commercial culture.

I like Christmas that way. Everyone else in my family prefers a good old fashioned California Cornucopia Christmas. But you can't have everything in this life; or probably in the next either. Enough is enough. And this Christmas and New Years 2000 in Con Con is more than enough. It is good to be "home" again, in a millennium which seemed illusory just a few years ago.

lufboro@jps.net