Silence Is Golden in Castro, Chiloé

For lunch today, the hotel receptionist recommended a small restaurant near Castro's town square.

I made my way there and easily found the place, but it was mobbed, every table taken. There was a small round table for three out on the patio, but it had the remains of someone else's lunch still on it. One of the waiters motioned me over there anyway, mumbling something about clearing it, but I sat in front of a pile of dirty dishes for at least ten minutes before someone came to clear them away and take my order.

Meanwhile, a young man came in, carrying a yellow plastic bag. He hovered near my table, which put me on guard, but the waiters all greeted him as if he were a regular there. Next thing I knew, he said something to me that I had to ask him to repeat.

"¿Puedo almorzar en su mesa?" Can I eat lunch at your table?

Surely, I hadn't heard him right. In four years, I had never been asked to share a table at a restaurant in Chile. Most Chileans would be too polite, too embarrassed, or too timid to ever do so, but this young man was flaunting tradition. I nodded my assent and he sat down.

I had just spent yesterday touring around with another guest from my same hotel who had been Chatty Charlie. After that, I wasn't looking forward to a gabby lunch companion today, but I needn't have worried. Except for ordering, "Hector" was silent, scarfing down bread and double-dipping it into the spicy pebre. I tried not to think about any floating germs, as I tried to eat the pebre around the edges of the bowl.

In the end, we did talk a little. He was a Socialist from Santiago, here for work, who was curious about my political views. I think we were both surprised when we found some common ground. We raised our voices, but only so that we could hear each other over the guitar player to my right and the loudspeakers that blared Latin jazz on the other side.

He finished before I did and, as he left, he reached into his yellow bag and laid two apples in front of me. "From my tree," he said.

Silence is golden, but meeting new people is priceless.

Welcome Back

Back in Chile and the cupboard is bare, so I went to Lider on Sunday afternoon to get a few essentials.

The place was swarming, but I managed to snag a head of broccoli and a packet of chicken before heading to the coffee aisle where their shelves were as bare as mine. Sitting there were 3 or 4 lonely bags of coffee. None of them my brand. There was Starbucks and Juan Valdez. Cha-ching!

Scrunched way in the back, I spotted one bag of something else. Some brand I'd never heard of, but was "Colombian." I grabbed it and was off to the body products aisle, looking for my brand of deodorant. I'd say that this was essential, especially since it's supposed to be 85º here today and higher tomorrow.

I use roll-on in the "powder" scent, Rexona. There was Rexona "powder," in a spray, but no roll-on to be had. There was another brand whose label had the same coloring and style. In my state of exhaustion, I nearly reached for it before I realized that it was not Rexona. At the last moment, I pulled back, feeling smug, and thinking, "Sneaky of them."

A stocker was nearby, so I stopped him to ask, "Where is the Rexona roll-on?"

I heard the dreaded words. "No me queda." We're out of it.

Sighing, I left Lider with only my chicken, broccoli, and packet of coffee. It was later that evening when I realized that the coffee I'd bought wasn't decaf. In my fog of jet lag, I had bought regular coffee which I no longer drink. Too tired to go out again in search of decaf, I resigned myself to drinking instant decaf, from my reserve tin, the next morning.

The following day, I went to a different Lider in another part of town. Same result, no decaf. in fact, no bags of coffee at all, and no Rexona roll-on, either.

Across the street, at a pharmacy, I found my Rexona. Happy that it hadn't been discontinued, I picked up two and stood in line to pay as person after person went ahead of me. Obviously, still jet lagged, I had forgotten that you need to pull a number from the ever-present red plastic dispenser by the door before they will wait on you. I sometimes wonder if I were the only person in the store, would I still have to pull a number?

It's a rhetorical question, of course, but the answer is "Probably."

Am I Culturally Chilean Yet?

I recently ran across an article called 20 Signs You're Culturally Chilean, written by Elyssa Garrett and posted on Matador Network.


It lists twenty things that are uniquely Chilean. I found myself laughing out loud as I read through the list. At least half of them apply to me, particularly Nº.s 1, 2, 5, 6, 7... You get the idea.


Nº. 16, regarding Chilean wine, I absolutely claim. Not sure whether to be proud of that or embarrassed by it.

Planet Zero

I don't know about you, but I don't buy things from people who call to solicit me over the phone. That's exactly what I explained to the young lady. The particular number that showed up on my caller ID was really no valid number at all, just a bunch of zeros strung together. Someone had already phoned me from Planet Zero a dozen times yesterday.

I know it's a call center and I know that a different person is probably dialing each time. I often just ignore it or silence the phone. Sometimes I answer, but don't say anything. This unfortunate woman happened to be the one on the line when I finally decided to answer and tell them, once and for all, to stop calling me!

When she started in rapid-fire Spanish, I told her immediately, "No, no, no," but she just kept on rolling as if she couldn't hear me. I might have raised my voice at that point and yelled something like, "Take my number off this list and don't ever call me again," before I looked at the phone and realized that she'd hung up on me mid-sentence.

At least I think that's what I said to her, but sometimes I don't speak Spanish as well as I think I do, especially if I'm agitated. Either way, it did no good. They've already phoned me twice this morning and it's not even ten o'clock.

Rather than getting upset today, I think I'll have a little fun instead. The next time they ring, I'll start out like this, "`Hello." In the most Englishy-English voice I can muster.

If she doesn't hang up immediately (it's always a she and sometimes Chileans are afraid to speak with foreigners), I will continue.

"Hello, hello?" In a whispery, calm voice.

If she starts her speech, I will listen politely for a few seconds before interrupting her.

"Oh, Darling, I really wish I could understand you." Super sympathetic. "Might you be able to explain this to me in French? In Russian? How about Cantonese?" Pause between each of these.

Stop and see if she's still there. If she continues, I will continue too. "Really, Swahihi would do. Any of those? I just can't make you out at all."

Surely, she will have hung up by this time, but if not, I plan to read to her from a volume of Shakespeare or the dictionary or Green Eggs and Ham, whichever is handy at the time. I hope she's not a literature lover.