Plastic bags.

I try to be as ecologically conscious as I can. I walk to work instead of take a bus or metro (which is still better then driving.) I've begun to give more thought to where my food is from, although in Chile it's probably from here. There's not nearly as much importing as there is in the U.S.

The easiest thing of all, I use reusable bags. At the supermarket, dry cleaner (admittedly not so green), anywhere I may have to take something away in a bag, I put it in a reusable bag. But here baggers hate putting things in reusable bag. Usually at the end of a check stand, at a take-away restaurant, there is a long argument between me and the person who insists on using these bags.

"Oh, it's OK. Can you use this? Thank you."

"But the inside of your bag will get dirty."

"That's fine. Can you use it?"

"But what if the bag makes [insert product] dirty."

"No, no. That's fine. Just please use the bag."

"I'm going to put the plastic bag in the bag to keep your bag [or the product] safe."

By this time a line is starting to grow behind me so I just smile, say "thank you!" and tip the person 100 CHP (about $.20, which is considered a decent tip). If I don't take the bag, the bagger doesn't even look disappointed for losing a tip (even though I tip anyways), (s)he looks hurt. It's amazing.

One person at the nearby bread, pastry store happily says "Oh! An eco-logical bag! How good of you." as she piles my salad/bread/whatever into the bag. Everyone else just looks at me like I'm from Mars. But that's OK. I'm used to it.

Lauren

The IVA

This has to be filed under the "Things I don't like about Chile" category. The IVA, or incredibly high book tax. Books here are very heavily taxed with, what I'm told, is a 19% mark up. This means a normal, soft-cover bestseller will be between $28-$30.


Some hard cover books or books not easily found can be incredibly expensive, getting up to the $60-$80 range. This is anti-intellectualism at it's worst. Some people defend the IVA because the money from these taxes are supposed to go into a fund that pays for natural disaster repairs, like after the earthquake. No one wants to do without that right?


But there has to be an alternative to this. What about sin taxes? Cigarettes and booze are pretty popular. Why not levy taxes on those items? They'd probably make more money because people buy more of those things on a regular basis.


Instead what results is that many people buy their books from photocopies sold on the street, or worse, don't read at all. A tragedy. I've been dying to buy this coffee table book with images from the communist revolution in Chile in the 1960s for months now, but can't bear to pay the $45 or so dollars it would cost, although in fairness coffee table books are usually pretty expensive.


It's amazing to think that two books shipped from the U.S. in a $40 flat-rate box are actually cheaper than buying two books in the bookstore.


Can't the government reallocate some of the money it's making hand-over-fist from those copper mines up north?

Cuico vs. Flaite

One of the first things I learned on my return to Chile is that there are two Chiles. The upper class Chile (cuico) and what is considered the lower class (flaite). Other friends had mentioned that there were two Chiles in Santiago before, but only recently was I exposed to how deep these references run.


I was at lunch with two very good male friends when I said that I was going out with someone later that night. One replied "Just make sure he's ... people like us" half in jest because it's a typical thing you hear, but also half serious.


The two Chile's are divided by who lives on what side of the roundabout that is at the center of the city, known as the "belly button of Chile." If you live on the east side, closest the Andes, you're cuico. Where you went to college, what color your eyes are, what color your hair is, what color your skin is, what you drive, even where you went to high school indicates which of these groups you belong to. (I happily live on the flaite side of town, which I can testify, isn't that bad.)


If you have ojos claros, from the north, live on the east side of Baquedano you're 100% cuico. People from the south, dark eyed, dark hair, went the poorer schools, dark skin (this seems to be an international discriminating factor) you can be (but are not necessarily) considered flaite. Flaite is almost synonymous with the word ghetto.


You can also tell someone's class by their last name. Hearing certain names, instantly you can know what class the person comes from.


There are of course gray areas, but the lines separating class are still very closely follow these distinctions.


On my ride home I watched a Chilean film "Machuca" about two kids who tried to defy these lines during the transition to the Pinochet regime. One kid from the ritzy Vitacura (nicknamed "strawberry face" because of his red hair and freckles) befriends one of the fliate kids in his class. This mixing of classes is seen as socialist and (spoiler alert) the kids from the bad part of town are taken out of school after Pinochet comes to power.


I've embedded the trailer for "Machuca" below.


Lauren

Heading .. home?

Someone wants to move to Chile. ..


Home. I'm not someone who considers "where you hang your hat" or "where you leave your things" home. That being said, I'm not quite sure where I'd call home. Los Angeles, where I grew up? Long Beach, the first city I lived in as an adult? Chile ? In visiting the latter two I realized how much I missed these places.


I'm tired of living the gypsy life.  Living out of two suitcases filled with clothes, books, and snacks is can be hard (and messy!). But I still love life in Chile, I love the adventure, traveling, new people. But I am also prone to homesickness. On that note, I'm headed back to Santiago with a bit of ambivalence. I'm excited for more exploration, adventures, and experience ... and I want all my family/friends/accoutrement's to come with me. I guess you can't have the best of both worlds.


Right now, I guess I would say Chile is home, and I'm headed back there after a wonderful three, almost four, weeks of visiting family and friends in Los Angeles.


I'll check back in when I'm back in Santiago.

Initial thoughts part II.

This time last year I was writing a very similar blog post. I was setting off to live in Santiago, Chile with a friend. This year, however, I'm embarking on my own adventure and moving back alone after already spending a year there.


I moved back to Santiago in September of last year. Initially I left only to only to visit friends on a 10-day trip and ended up scoring an amazing job as editor in chief of an English-language magazine. In the three months between when I moved back to Chile and now, when I'm leaving Los Angeles after visiting my family, I realized I missed blogging. I missed having a platform to share my daily experiences, thoughts, and photos with friends and family. I missed sharing Santiago.


This blog, however, will be different from Chillin' in Chile. Like Chillin' I aim to use this space to share my thoughts, experiences, observations, reflections, photos, everything with my family, friends, and anyone who's interested. But, unlike last time, it's just me writing these posts. No dialog or discussion posts, like I had when I was writing with Aneya (unless I can get some of my expat friends to share their thoughts on here, too).


This time I'm not moving to a city I've never been to. I know Santiago quite a bit better than I did, and I've discovered there are things I love and hate about living there.


Among the things I love about Santiago:
--Speaking Spanish every day
--The warm people
--The Andes
--Walking through two beautiful parks to get to work every(ish) morning.
--The busy downtown


The things I don't love, I'll have to write about another time.


Thanks for reading and I'm eager to hear feedback on what you all think.




Lauren