First Impressions of Chile

Our first week in the southern hemisphere has come to an end. Our days have been packed full and we've hardly had time to sit down, relax, and collect our thoughts about Chile. Tonight Andrew and I are staying in and together we will do our best to give you our cultural impressions of a country that is extremely different than the US.

First off I'd like to say that there are stray dogs everywhere and it's the saddest thing. There's clearly no Bob Barker to help control the pet population. A ton of the dogs are german shepherd mixes and really good looking dogs. Stray cats are harder to come by, I think mostly owing to the fact that the dogs have got to be eating something...

Now I, Stretta, will make my debut to the blogisphere. The culture and social structure is very different from that of the states. In Chile there is not much social mobility. We have discussed many times in class that no matter what skills you possess money is the ultimate deciding factor as to how far you will make it in life. Kids who grow up in family with wealth can afford to send their kids to better schools giving their children a better probability of passing the entrance exam for an accredited university. Without an equivalent to a bachelors degree, you are up shit's creek without a paddle. Many of the impoverished people, unlike in the states, are concentrated in the suburbs. The rich center around the middle of the city which creates an interesting dichotomy when walking around the streets of La Serena and Coquimbo. The main roads in the city are littered with vendors selling underwear, trinkets, and many useless objects, but this is "their place" in life as our guide says. It is interesting to see people bombard you with everything they have but nothing you need. It is even more entertaining to see them attack Matt, because he shys away and yells for me, which is also hilarious because I only speak very broken spanish. We certainly stick out as a bunch of goons. Which leads me to our next subject.

The inhabitants of Chile are very very very very short. We have only seen one person in our stay that was as tall as us. So needless to say we stick out just a bit. Everywhere we go people stare shamelessly at us as if we are a zoo attraction. We are the "Gringos." We were told not to get offended because they call everyone that is not Latin American a gringo. I don't believe I will ever get used to the fact that most people are just blatantly staring at you every moment you are in public. Many of the Chilean guys our age have some bent up tension towards us because we are so stunningly beautiful and their women love us more than them. Not really though, there is a stigma that men have machismo. Machismo is the overly masculine characterisitics that men feel is a neccesity to portray. Weird. So many times I have encountered 5'5'' Chilean guys that have choice words. Kindof hilarious because I have to bend over to hear what they are saying to me. I don't think that makes them happy either. But they do love our American women so as long as we around girls there isn't too much hatred displayed. We have friends and they want yall to know that....Now I am going to pass the computer to our expert blogger Dave for a somewhat hilarious story about how messed up Latin American politics are.

So Latin American politics are pretty much like a drunken, five foot two inch soap opera. So there are three players in our little play: Chile, Peru, and asshole Bolivia. Some time in the last two hundred years the three countries had a big war over rights to watching pretty sunsets on the beach. Stupid Bolivia lost the war and lost all rights to awesome spring break parties on the beach. At this point Chile and Peru make a deal that they won't give Bolivia any land ever without eachother's consent. Chile makes this agreement and then realizes, "Oh shit! We don't have any way to get energy," which is true. So recently Chile has sucked it up and gone to their rich little brother Bolivia and said we'll give you access to the sea if you set us up with some of your gas. Bolivia is a friendly little guy and says alright that sounds good. The problem is now Peru doesn't want to give up the land. So Chile is left buying everything from their short compadres, the Chinese, and Bolivia still has no where to spend their vacations. Crazy Latin Americans.

This weekend we're heading inland to the Elqui Valley where we will be visting an observatory and a Pisco distillery. Should be a fun weekend! We'll have updates on Sunday night.