Takeoffs: Dog Sweaters and Daft Punk

There’s a fat pug in a Christmas sweater outside my window.

Oh, also, the Andes Mountains take up almost the entire view. But the dog is still a highlight.

My room in my casita in Ñuñoa, Santiago.

(dog not shown)

In fact, most of the stray dogs in Santiago have sweaters on—the good Chileans want to keep them warm during the wintertime. Unlike in India, where the many strays have essentially all mated with one another and now look like clones of the same yellow lab mutt, Santiago dogs have character. They are fluffy and fat, or what look like purebred German shepherds, or skinny salchichas (for people like my Dad and Kyle who can’t speak a lick of Spanish despite having lived in states like California and Texas with almost majority Latino populations, that means sausages). And the sweaters. It’s the first time I’ve ever not been annoyed by accessories for animals. (Although that excludes all of Waffles’ fashion statements.)

But I digress. This probably isn’t the most direct way to introduce you all to Santiago, but when I went to India, a professor asked us what was the first difference we noticed when we got off the plane. And this is the first element of Chilean society that I noticed when I stepped off the bus in front of la Casa SIT in el Centro de Santiago. Before actually meeting our homestay families and moving in, we spent two and a half days in Algarrobo, an empty beach town (“Meet me in Montauk”-esque), learning about all the different ways we could get robbed or raped or made fun of or killed during our stay here. (Speaking of, if I die here, it will probably be due to the araña de rincón. This reclusive spider lives in closets—like, in your clothes—and its poisonous, fatal bites leave large craters in your skin. I’m looking at my closet right now and I feel as though one is probably laying eggs in my winter coat as we speak.) Also, we were on a beach, so it was okay. We spent our free time taking short jogs along hidden trails to see the sunrise and sunset, tasting our first pisco sours, and beginning the short descent into obesity by eating empanadas and donuts and jamón y queso. One late afternoon, we visited the beach home of poet Pablo Neruda en la Isla Negra. To put the beauty of this home in perspective, we were essentially in Big Sur on a clear day at sunset. The wooden house, filled with ships in bottles, sea shells, poetry, childhood stuffed animals, and indigenous idols, overlooked gardens of succulents and ice plant and cypress trees, lazily strewn along the seaside cliffs. I wish I had the words to describe this pristine beauty more effectively—especially in Spanish, because “Que lindo” is really all I’ve got—but, if you can’t get all the way to Chile, just head out to Big Sur and you may understand it.

The calm of Algarrobo dissipated as soon as we arrived in Santiago. We were ushered into the living room at la Casa SIT (the headquarters of my study abroad program), where our host mothers greeted us with screams and kisses. (This is one of those countries where people kiss each other on the cheek just to say hello.) After struggling to fit my luggage into my host mother Gloria’s car, we walked from her small home in Ñuñoa to pick her two children, Bruno (8) and Elisa (6), up from school. Gloria separated from her husband about 5 and a half years ago, and now works lengthy hours in an architectural firm about 40 minutes outside of Santiago. In fact, this was the first day all year that Gloria has gone herself to pick up her kids from school—she normally doesn’t get home from work until after 7 pm every day. And her kids. Well, let’s just say that being an only child has not prepared me well for the experience of an 8-year-old boy with ADHD and a little sister who enjoys copying her brother’s behavior. I woke up this morning to quite a few tantrums, and have had trouble deciding whether I need to discipline them or not when they begin to physically attack each other in public. Hopefully I’ll get used to the craziness of this lifestyle soon. If not, I’ve got headphones. Plus, Gloria’s boyfriend of 4 years, Osvaldo, is one of the best cooks I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, so I can always drown my sorrows in food.

And so my stay in Santiago begins. We started classes today–or, at least, we divided into our skill levels, and I think for the first time ever I was put in the slow kids’ group for Spanish class. I still haven’t started my homework, and I know that soon all of the assignments will start to pile up. For now, though, I’m enjoying learning how to use my Bip! card for the subway, and finding coffee that isn’t Nescafe, and slowly understanding this rapid Chilean Spanish that likes to ignore the letter “s.” I’ve already walked through a protest, talked to a carabinero, been to Walmart (Líder), survived my first temblor and terremoto, and sang karaoke to a group of Chileans.

To many more adventures over the next three and a half months.

P.S. Song that I hate the most right now: “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk. I thought it was cute when my host siblings woke up to it on my first morning. And then they proceeded to play it about twenty times a day.