All dieciochada, huevon

We just came back from Maitencillo on Monday, and already I wish we were still there. Last weekend was Chile’s bicentenario, the two-hundredth anniversary of its independence, and after so much build-up it has come and gone and is now a fresh memory. The media has been broadcasting something about the bicentenario every day since I’ve been here, whether it’s been speculation about a bicentenario pardon for crimes from Pinochet’s dictatorship or tying some political comment to the nationalistic spirit that the bicentenario represents, and everyone else has been telling me about the many festivities involved. Now, I can finally offer my own version.

Earlier last week, Santiago was already buzzing with fiestas patrias talk and activities. Fiestas patrias is the lead-up to and celebration around the dieciocho, the day of Chile’s independence. It’s like July 4^th in that there are flags everywhere, but it is a lot more frenzied and so much more fun. For many people, it is the biggest holiday they celebrate – bigger than Easter, New Year’s, even Christmas. I asked my host sister about it, and she said that she prefers it to Christmas because everyone is happy on the dieciocho, whereas Christmas always comes with a bit of sadness if loved ones and the whole family aren’t together. I always thought the holiday blues were inherently linked to the winter cold, but the fact that Christmas happens during summer here goes to show just how powerful the Church and marketers must be to make bittersweet a universal Christmas feeling.

On Monday, I had lunch with my tandem partner, a Chilean that I was paired with through La Catolica’s language-exchange program. Every week we meet to talk over lunch, half in English and half in Spanish. Since no one in my Chilean family is my age, I’ve quickly come to rely on her to keep me up to date with life in Santiago, as seen through a college student’s eyes.  It was from her that I learned that everyone goes to la fonda, a traditional Chilean party held in a large outdoors tent, and that most people prefer to travel outside of Santiago for fiestas patrias. She would be going to Algarrobo, a small seaside town, for the weekend. That night, a group of students from the university organized an asado, the mouth-watering South American barbeque, so after class we had smoky choripanes, a sausage sandwich, with chicha de manzana for dinner and learned to dance cueca. Chica is a sweet drink made from fermented fruit and is typically served during fiestas patrias, and cueca is a traditional dance in which the woman tries to “escape” from the man’s flirtations while dancing and both twirling panuelos, white handkerchiefs. The university sponsored school and university-wide events the rest of the week.

Wednesday was Mexico’s Independence Day in addition to the lead-up to the dieciocho, and a few friends from the program and I went to Barrio Bellavista to celebrate. A slightly gritty, artsy neighborhood, Bellavista is popular for its nightlife and many outdoor cafes where people sit chatting late into the madrugada. We went dancing and were unexpectedly treated to a break for cueca and a lesson for foreigners in the middle of the discoteca, and when we left the streets were still full of people talking with friends and walking around.

Classes at La Catolica ended midday Thursday, and that night was the opening of the light show at La Moneda, a series of projections specially designed for the bicentenario. Some friends and I had planned to meet each other downtown so we could watch the show together, but as soon as I went to the metro station I saw how impossible that would be. Families, couples, old people and young people were all crammed together in the metro cars, all clearly headed to be a part of the historic show. At the final station, the metro turned into one giant swarm of people. I followed the stream of people and was quickly swept into an unstoppable side current of people all pushing towards La Moneda. Between people pushing and leaning every which way and the thousands of people around me all standing their tallest to see, I didn’t see that much and was confused most of the time: I saw some light beams and stars projected onto surrounding skyscrapers, what looked like a fountain of light, and some random dancing cartoons. The light show seemed more like a production than anything particularly historical, and with the odd choice of dramatic echoing music, I felt like I was in a giant government-sponsored mosh pit in Magic Kingdom. The show ended with fireworks and the best part of the night, that wasn’t planned at all: from every side street came the rumble of people cheering, and all of a sudden this giant mass in the center of the city all came together to cheer, “Chi Chi Chi, Le Le Le, VIVA CHILE!!”

While I was very happy to find my friends in the midst of thousands of people after the show, spending the weekend in Maitencillo was by far my favorite part of fiestas patrias and one of my most memorable experiences in Chile so far. A Chilean friend was nice enough to invite me along to Maintencillo with her group of friends, and even though I wasn’t sure what to expect, I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. We drove to Maintencillo, a small town along the coast an hour and a half away from Santiago, and the car-ride was a rare luxury after relying on mostly the metro and buses to travel both within and outside of Santiago these past two months. The drive was absolutely beautiful: first we went through lush green gentle hills, and then with sunset they became larger and darker until it seemed like we were driving into an endless wall of hills. Just when I asked if we were supposed to be going to the beach, I saw the ocean peeking out the tops of the hills in the distance, purple and shining with the last of the day. It’s unreal – in the US we have special scenic routes; in Chile every route just happens to be scenic.

When we finally arrived in Maintencillo, the streets were full of cars trying to get to their cabañas, and small groups of young people walked along the beach and between small restaurants and empanada stands. Apparently Maintencillo is a hotspot for people in their 20s during the dieciocho weekend – the rest of the winter it is mainly deserted, but during the dieciocho it is so popular that you have to make reservations for one of the many small beachside cabins months in advance. The many neighboring seaside towns are all popular sites for people from Santiago, in particular for the young, and each has its own special draw. My friend said that she had gone to Algarrobo the year before, but that this year would be absolutely nightmarish, as 12,000 high school students were planning on going. Maintencillo is more secluded, but even so, so many people went that some people without cabañas resorted to sleeping in their cars. I’ve only heard of such dramatic rushes to beaches in high season in South America…an otherwise-deserted town can go from empty to overflowing to empty again in a matter of days.

By day, we enjoyed lazy mornings waking up to wonderful asados of steaks, veggies, and fresh fish. It seems like every Chilean innately knows how to make a mean asado. Fast forward through conversations on the patio and enjoying the beach, and in the evenings we were doing shivery dances in our winter coats around the bonfire to keep warm. It was so strange – the day would tempt us with perfect, gorgeous beach weather, and all of a sudden the night would remind us that, yes, it really still is winter. We didn’t go into the ocean because it was freezing; even in summer, most of the ocean along Chile is cold because of the Humboldt Current that brings cold water north from the Antarctic. Every set of cabañas played its own music day and night, much to the annoyance of some friends who lived by people who sang karaoke all 24 hours, and whether I was taking an afternoon nap or going to bed, I would fall asleep to the beating of the neighbors’ blasting music. I also saw possibly the most beautiful moon I’ve ever seen in my life. It was surreal, circled by a perfect white cloud ring against the dark sky, and later I watched it turn orange and set into the sea. Now I know that the “clouds” were actually ice crystals, which sounds even more mysterious.

Typical traditions for fiestas patrias, other than spending time with family and friends, include having asado, empanadas, and chicha, and going to the fondas. According to my Chilean dad, the fonda is a very cultural event. That’s why I was so surprised when many of my new friends told me that their least favorite part of the celebration is going to the fonda: the music is hard to dance to and they usually play bad cumbia, you have to buy a ticket just to enter, and it is so crowded that you spend most of the time losing and looking for your friends. They go just to go since it’s part of the dieciocho and following that logic, all their friends also go. Still, I was very excited to see a fonda for myself on the dieciocho after hearing about how “traditional” it is, and it was strange but interesting and not what I had expected. We parked in a large field around 1 am and walked through dusty shrubs to a large round wooden building. Inside, the center was constructed with branches, so we had a huge ceiling of leaves and a dirt floor. The music was barely audible, and it felt like everyone was standing around talking in a large round barn. We quickly left, but later I found out that some people stayed at the fonda until 8 in the morning! The fonda we went to was more of a “dance” type fonda – there are other kinds, such as those held during the day that are popular with families with children and across generations, where people buy typical foods and drinks and play Chilean games. There are fondas with the Chilean rodeo, fondas for toddlers, gay fondas, and in Santiago, even a Michael Jackson fonda.

One night, my friends sat me down for a lesson in chilenismos, the popular idioms and sayings used only in Chile. After hearing words like jugo, fruit juice, and paja, straw, tossed around in confusing contexts, the lesson helped me keep up with their conversations. I also found out that they all speak English extremely, extremely well, in addition to other languages like Italian and French, and sprinklings of Spanglish and Italian are a normal part of their everyday conversations. It’s unsettling – almost all of the Chilean college students I’ve met here speak English really well, and most of them did not go through an international high school system. It’s one thing to have perfect or almost-perfect English after studying at an international or British high school and going through years of school in only English, but more than a few people have told me, “Oh, well, we had some English classes in colegio, and I only listen to English music and watch English TV”. Can you imagine? Study a language in high school through classes and nothing more, and come out fluent? Knowing my public high school, that would be unthinkable.

In other news, we had a 5.3 magnitude earthquake yesterday, and I didn’t feel a thing! My host sister said she was at work on the tenth floor, and she felt the swaying for all three minutes. There have been several tremors since I’ve been here, but each time I’ve either have no idea it’s happening, or someone vacuuming on the floor below would have been more noticeable. Buildings here are constructed to be flexible, so a well-made skyscraper will sway from side to side. The lower floors take the most damage since they have to support the buildings, and the top floors move freely. The tallest building in Santiago constructed so far has 30 floors, and it’s designed so that during an earthquake, the top floor moves 1 meter to each side…an entire METER!