Settling In

I've started out with a bit of philosophizing here. There are pictures (and fewer words) below... :-)

Wherever you go, there you are. It's an old adage, but the more I travel the more truth I see in it. People everywhere eat and sleep, love each other and have difficulties and traumas, work and play and struggle with things. Wherever you go, people are people and it is the person looking at them who determines what is seen.

Grace added here that she thinks it is interesting to see how our individual worlds tend to be quite small. We center our world on our own experience, struggles, challenges, needs and desires. Even though they are similar in theme, these experiences, struggle and challenges are also individual and separate. It is an interesting paradox that our similarities are also the walls of our differences.

I think it can be useful to think of the world as a mirror, reflecting back to us what we think of ourselves. The mirror is always somewhat distorted of course. When we move to a new place we have a chance to look through a different mirror, with different distortions. These differences can point out where our assumptions about the world are perhaps not correct, or as universal as we may believe.

Some of the differences seem small, but point to larger expectations. It is difficult here, for instance, to find peanut butter in a jar large enough to make more than about three peanut butter sandwiches. I've also had twitches of frustration over spice packages apparently intended for Liliputian households. I expect there to be more...

Having to look for baking soda in a pharmacy rather than a grocery store is another small assumption breaker that has recently come to my attention. Baking Soda? In a pharmacy? I would never have thought to question baking soda's rightful (and possibly righteous) placement on the shelves of a grocery store. How many things do we think are in their rightful place, when it is really just an arbitrary habit of culture?

On a topic of slightly more import, there are also assumptions about what can be expected in life. In Canada holidays that include flights to far away places are pretty common. So is the idea of being able to retire at some point and live on savings and a pension. These things are definitely not taken for granted here and are much less widely available.

I had an opportunity today to see a demonstration of dancing and music by a group of Mapuche people (Mapuche is the name of the First Nations group in the South of Chile). A story told by one of the speakers (and translated for me by Grace) told of meeting a Mapuche man from the far south of Chile. This Mapuche man owned ten hectares of land, but only farmed one of the hectares. When asked why he didn't make use of the other nine hectares he replied "because I already have enough". This is another contrast - both with the European descendants living in Chile and with European and Asian descendants in all of the Americas. We tend to look for how we can get more from whatever we have, rather than being happy with what is "enough". We want bigger peanut butter jars and spice packages...

Here is a little taste of the performance. The trumpet-like sound is coming from an interesting instrument made from a curled tube (I'm not sure of what material), and a cow's horn as the flared trumpet end. You can just see part of the tube, wrapped in red, white and blue yarn, being played by the man standing in the front left of the picture. It looks difficult to play.

On to what has been happening in the past few weeks...

After, I'm told, one of the wettest Augusts on record, spring is coming to Concepcion. I've been saying that spring is coming pretty much ever since I got here, but now it's really coming. :-)

Actually, winter here doesn't seem very different from spring in Vanderhoof, so I'm not very good at judging the differences in the seasons yet. However, flowers are springing up all over the place now, tree blossoms are in full bloom and the weather seems to be tending toward warmer and sunnier. I'll take those as signs of spring.

The last few weeks have mainly contained settling in activities. I can't say that I have a regular routine, but things have fallen into a bit more of a pattern. I alternate daily, and sometimes multiple times within the day between thinking that I'm never going to be able to speak Spanish, and thinking that perhaps there is some hope. I have also been trying to convince my memory that forgetting words directly after learning them is highly counter productive and holding onto them would be a better idea. So far my memory continues to be reluctant to agree on this point, but we are in ongoing negotiations.

Some other activities:

Cooking
I've found that I don't mind cooking - even enjoy it sometimes - when I have time to do it.

Along with the ordinary things, I have experimented with making Kimchi. I thought it turned out quite well, but it didn't turn out to be one of Grace's favorites. I didn't have any Korean red pepper, but the Merken - hot ground chili - from Chile seems to work quite well.

I've also been experimenting with bread making using the slow rise technique. Apparently, letting the yeast work for a longer time improves both the texture of the bread and the nutrition and breaks down the gluten better. I've been making whole grain loaves. They are quite firm and a bit heavy, but they are quite tasty. This loaf contains big chunks of garlic and is really nice dipped in a bit of oil and chili mixed together, and it went well with the thick curried squash soup.

This is also artichoke season, so I've been learning about eating and enjoying artichokes. I had never eaten one, except the kind you find in a jar looking kind of yellow and shriveled. I was also surprised to discover that artichokes are basically really big thistles and the part we eat is the blossom. Who knew?

There seems to be quite a lot of really good wine in Chile, and it has been accompanying dinners fairly often...

Before one can cook food, one has to find the food. Exploring the various open markets - ferias - in the area has been kind of fun. So far we have visited two regular ones and yesterday we went to a big exposition type of affair that featured booths from artisans and food producers from all over the region.

These pictures are from the Vega Monumental, a large market that is open every day:

Lots of people

and flowers

and seaweed. This is called cochayuyo. Grace says this is good and we now have some to try. I'm skeptical... especially because the recipe for soup she recently showed me started with the writer saying that her usual family response to seeing this on the table is "No!". I think I may agree, but I'm game to give it a try anyway. Grace says I'm going to love it, and if not I have to lie.

I thought I had taken some better pictures of the produce that is available. It's pretty impressive, though I don't seem to have the pictures. Lots of vegetables and fruit of all kinds in great mounds stretching off into the distance.

We went on a drive to Bulnes, a nearby town, for Grace's work. This was one of the many very wet days.

This is a kind of fun little restaurant and shop near Bulnes, called Te Cuida, where we stopped for a moment and got some honey

I was impressed with the ovens

And there was the opera (Lucia of Lammermore). It was really well done actually, I thought at least. It is very impressive the way that a single singer can fill an entire theater with his or her voice, over the sound of the orchestra.

Of course, it is all about the drama and the lovers died in the end. This is Lucia, directly after she killed her newly wedded (and unwanted) husband and just before she killed herself.

This is Edgardo, (Sergio Jarlaz) lamenting, shortly before he kills himself.

and, finally, we've been on some nice hikes. Here are a few pictures from our trip to Laraquete, a small town beside el Rio Las Cruces. It is a beautiful little river - creek really, that winds down out of the mountains and is famous for stones that are formed so that when looked at in cross section (so to speak) :-) a cross is visible.

This is the only place in the world, apparently, where this sort of crystal formation can be found.

Some pictures from the hike:

Like so many places in Chile, very small homes

A small but quite cute church

Bread for sale

Hauling firewood

Some parts of the trail seem quite jungle like, but only in the steep parts of the river canyon. Most of the land has been forested, and reforested, with planted pines and eucalyptus for the forest industry.

Grace of the jungle

and Todd of the trail :-) We made walking sticks from some sticks we found cut along the trail.

The red flower is Quintral and it has medicinal properties. The Mapuche people use it to improve memory and to help with headaches. It also has, apparently, anticarcinogenic properties and is a good antioxidant, among other things.