We are having our third four-day weekend in a row but this one wasn't for a Jewish holiday so everybody else had it off too. We were told that many people leave for the weekend but Renee had a Bat Mitzvah, it was Halloween, and we were tired so we looked for adventures locally.
Contrary to your expectation, October 31st is a holiday called the National Day of Evangelical Churches. The country is made up of about 70% Catholics and 15% Protestants or Evangelicals and then a mishmash of everything else including Morman, Jehovah Witnesses, Jewish, and Muslim. Three years ago I guess that the Protestant lobby got large enough to push for their own national holiday that pleases all the kids in the country as they started to adopt more American Halloween customs. Unlike the Evangelicals, the Catholic Church in Chile has 5 holidays per year, the Corpus Christi in June, St. Peter and Paul on June 29, Assumption of the Virgin on August 15, All Saints' Day on 1 November and December 8 is Immaculate Conception Day.
October 31, 1517 was the day that Martin Luther officially started the Protestant Reformation with the publication of The Ninety-Five Theses. The churches here hold marches and outdoor presentations and some do different types of social service while I guess everybody else gets ready for All Saints Day the next day or puts finishing touches on their costumes. We had our American friends over for a brunch and hung out.
Although the stores are trying to push the Halloween thing, it has definitely not caught on to the level of the States (better that way). It was actually quite the experience.
Una araña, Pepita Mediaslargas, and an American kid
The kids quickly learned that there are economies of scale in living in an apartment building. Our apartment building is in a residential area so we actually started out "dulce o truco"ing at houses but we quickly learned that it was feast or famine. Probably every fifth house was giving out candy and there was no way to tell that they were because there was no porch light on (if there was it was behind a big fence or gate), the gates/fences/dogs were pretty uninviting, and because nobody decorates their houses. When they did give out candy it was by the handful so there was quite a bounty to be had although hard candies were favored over small chocolate bars. At our first stop, a nana gave out the candy - that solves the "who stays at home and gives out the candy" problem. The grown-ups (and dogs) were more dressed up than the kids in many cases and everybody was having fun.
I need a dog
We passed some grandmas who gave us hints about which houses were giving out candy. Rob wasn't with us at the time and I only got some of what they said but I nodded in appreciation. There were also kids on bicycles directing "dulce o truco"s to the key houses by shouting out like town criers "aqui hay dulces!" Inside the apartment building probably only 10 of the 50 or so apartments gave out candy but one was a couple where the guy was originally from Chicago. They were the only house/apartment that we saw decorated except for our own measly pumpkin.
Our $11 measly, rotten pumpkin
The 14th floor got into the spirit!
The bounty (they are trading as I blog)
Dia de Todos los Santos or All Saints Day is celebrated November 1st and is traditionally when Chileans have the day off of work and visit cemeteries. It is mostly a Catholic tradition meant to cover all of the feasts for saints for the whole year. The public transit system has special maps out on how to get to all of the cemeteries tomorrow - including the Jewish one - go figure....We plan to just hang out although I am tempted to hit one of the Catholic cemeteries just to see what it is about. I don't think that I can persuade anybody to go with me though! I think that they are still freaked-out by La Recoleta in Buenos Aires.
We decided to just hang out in Santiago for yet another long weekend but this one for two non-Jewish religious holidays (more in a future post). Saturday, we headed downtown to check out Mercado Central and La Vega and Sunday we branched out to learn something about Peruvian culture.
Mercado Central currently is basically a fish market with about thirty seafood restaurants. We showed up at lunchtime (3:00) and the place was packed with tourists, Chileans, and fish. Renee was looking for the guys throwing the fish like at Pike’s Market but these guys were too serious about their wares to be throwing them around for tourists! The building, opened in 1872, was originally built to house the Palace of Arts but quickly became the main central market for everything but then morphed into a fish market later.
Mercado Central
Quite the selection - couldn't identify half of them
The most intriguing were the picoroco (Austromegabalanus psittacus) or giant barnacles, They were still moving on display.
We headed across the "river" to La Vega, the produce market, where I had gone about a month ago with a friend. River is in quotes because it is basically a ditch through town that most of the time carries just a small stream of "chocolate milk" that I think is sediment.
La Vega
Of course, Renee gravitated towards the cats on potatoes
We got back in time to watch Notre Dame overpower Navy (56-14)
So given that we are in Chile for the year I figured we might as well get to know something about their neighbor to the north and a huge contributor to the immigrant population, Peru. My friend Deidre and her husband were Marynoll missionaries in Peru for almost four years. She suggested checking out the Peruvian celebration of the Señor de los Milagros de Nazarenas (Lord of Miracles) and I, of course, said "why not!" Jonathan was game to go with me and he was rewarded with an adventure complete with lingering smells of incense. According to wikipedia, it is a festival and procession to honor a mural of Jesus that survived several earthquakes in Lima. Apparently, where ever there is a large Peruvian immigrant population there is a mass and procession for this including San Francisco.
Inside the cathedral - there must have been 2000 people
It was a bit crowded, the incense got a bit overwhelming, and the prospect of 2000 people taking communion was a bit overwhelming so we headed outside where we were met with the bustle of Plaza de Armas. The best part for me was that as we exited the mass, the Carabineros (policeman) band was playing excerpts from Jesus Christ Superstar. Jonathan enjoyed the street performers with Deidre's daughter.
The singers and instruments
A miner "mime" with Frances
A vendor with his wares of saint cards, rosaries, and other saint chachkies (no hot dogs though)
Jonathan and I went off to get a bite of Peruvian food for lunch while the "masses" took communion and, according to Deidre, were overcome with emotion as the procession went through the church. It was at the Cathedral of Santiago which was beautiful and apparently had been rebuilt several times due to earthquakes (I am still bracing myself).
Obviously picture worthy (with a lot of incense)
The band that apparently led the procession (we didn't wait around for it to start)
This time we got back in time for Colo-Colo vs. Universidad de Chile game (2-2 tie)
Renee's favorite class this year is drama which is taught in English. She just shared this "lip-dub" with me - I think I understand why she likes the class. All three 6th grade classes were involved in putting this together. You can catch Renee at around minute 2:00 and 3:10 - she is the one with the "pineapple" hair-do. They will be showing this to parents for their graduation this year. You can get a good look at the school as well as typical 12-year olds at Instituto Hebreo.
I will officially concede that Rob has better things to do than blog so, in honor of my parents' trip to Buenos Aires, I'll publish his contribution from the day we spent on a "This was Papa's life in Buenos Aires when he was a kid" tour.
The patio of the former "boys school," before Saint Andrew's became co-ed
When he was thirteen, Rob's family moved "back" to Buenos Aires (he was born in the States) to a suburb called La Lucila. He attended a Scottish school called Saint Andrew's and went from a typical American school in a suburb of Rochester, New York to a private British school complete with coat and tie. The kids still wear the coat and tie but their shirt tails were more often than not hanging out. I am sure that Rob's former headmaster would not be pleased. The experience at least helped him empathize with Renee's current experience of not fitting into the culture at a challenging age. Because it is a British school there are four "houses" like in Harry Potter as well as prefects and head boys and girls. Rob was in Dodds, I think.
Lucy was the "Dux Medallist" (valedictorian) of her class!
Lucy (Rob's older sister) went to the girls' school on the other side of the tracks (literally) and is still up on a plaque! The school became coed his last or second to last year in high school.
The school's shield
La Lucila, near Rob's old house. The downtown area.
Like many Latin American countries people use their father's last name as their middle name and their mother's last name as their last name. I think that formally you are called by your father's last name but it really does get confusing. So I should be Sarah Bennett Kitey not Sarah Bennett Nerenberg. Renee should be Renee Nerenberg Bennett. etc. Somebody at the Estadio needed to look me up on the computer and they couldn't find me until they looked under Sarah Bennett. I haven't used that name in a while! I was told to just stick with the name on my passport for anything official. When we first arrived we all had to get identity cards and numbers. I don't have a scanner but here is the copy of somebody else's from the the web:
Thank you Marcia
The RUN (or RUT as they more frequently call it) is used much more often than our Social Security number. You need it to sign a credit card receipt, to go to the Dr., to sign up really for anything. We also needed it to leave the country when we went to Buenos Aires. I didn't know that and thought that our US passports were enough so I didn't bring the kids' cards. After spending some time panicking at the International Police office at the airport we got through but I now carry the kids' cards with me everywhere just in case.
I have a new appreciation for women who choose not to change their maiden names. The Mom's at school all have to sign their names Sarah Bennett (Mama de Elisa) because nobody knows who belongs to who! I guess that the hyphenated last names in the States would make it easier. Meanwhile there is no chance that my original middle name (Julia) will pop up anywhere.
The last few days of their visit they tagged along with us on some of our normal activities plus a few other things. On Saturday, after the normal Estadio activities, Renee had a gymnastics meet at a lovely Estadio (Espanol) close to our house. They saw one of her routines and then decided to check out some of the downtown themselves while the rest of us endured a five hour meet. They need to figure out a better way to have these meets. There were actually 11 teams competing from as far away as Bolivia. It made it interesting but way too long.
They probably would have been happy just catching up on their New Yorkers on our balcony (there are mountains back there)
I am NOT combing out lice. Renee could not get away with her normal antenna for the gymnastics meet so I tried to creatively pull pack her hair.
Estadio Espanol
La Moneda from Grandma's camera
Rob, my parents, and I went out for dinner together Saturday night at a local German restaurant for a change of pace but it had a lot of the typical Chilean food and, of course, kuchen and strudel for dessert. Renee babysat and put Elisa to bed successfully. We ran home to catch a bit of Notre Dame football streamed on-line (for the uninformed, they lost to USC)
Sunday I went with my folks to our local Farmers Market where the tomatoes and strawberries are looking better every week but I long for some Indian corn and pumpkins at this time of year. Ah well. My kids were amazed that they don't use dried corn stalks for the roofs of sukkahs here ;-)
Local Sunday morning farmers market. They all like to talk English with me.
We then headed over to the "rope" park. It is located in Parque Araucano, a large public park that is relatively close to our apartment and across the street from the big fancy mall where we went for lunch.
Cotton candy and a coffee - what could be better - my Mom was jealous of the former.
We ended the day at Pueblito Los Dominicos which is an artisan "village" close to our apartment where there is a variety of Chilean artists that range from quite beautiful to kitschy. It felt like it was developed for tourists but there were many Chileans there as well. There was also a huge cage with all sorts of birds, a lot of cats wandering around, and opera singers so everybody was kept amused. It was a lovely day and the kids each found something special to buy, thanks to the grandparents....
Los Dominicos
Opera singers entertain us at Los Dominicos
I am driving them to the airport tomorrow mid-day where they will continue onto Argentina and Bolivia. We await our next visitors, the Friedland famly in December! The bidding is open for a visitor or two in January - any takers??? It will be summer......
Well..we spent a lot of today getting lost and realizing that there has not been a lot of QC on Google maps in this area of the world. Luckily, most of the detours were somewhat interesting at least the second half of the day.
One of the biggest wineries in Chile (especially for export) is Concho y Toro. Their original vineyards were quite close to Santiago and have since been consumed by sprawl. Nonetheless, their tourist center is still close by so we took a tour complete with wine tasting for the non-designated drivers. They store some of their oak barrels still at this place and house the administrative offices but most of the winemaking takes place off-site (and at a different time of year!). ´We´ll have to hit some wineries in February/March to get the real thing.
Yes - there is a drinking age. No - we did not follow it.
We continued on to Cajon de Maipo (not "my poo" - Jonathan asked me to write that) a popular weekend day trip for Santiaguinos. It is a series of small towns following a river/river bed up into the mountains. We drove around one side of the canyon (the side where Concho y Toro is located) looking for a place to cross the canyon. What we didn´t realize is that there is a bridge every 20 km or so and we missed one early on. Luckily it was a lovely drive and luckily I had tasted two wines already and the kids didn´t realize that they were hungry until we finally got to the restaurant.
We ended up eating at Trattoria Italiana Calypso recommended by my friend Dorit (I told you you´d end up here eventually). It was beautiful and reminded us of Rob´s parents´ former tea house in Uruguay - rustic, charming, beautiful landscaping, quiet, and yummy food (Alberto and Gilly - we´ll have to take you there next visit).
I "needed" a Pisco Sout after our drive to this place
Mom insisted on a coffee picture of Rob - always at his happiest
The road through the canyon passes through many small towns and many cute restaurants. Apparently, there are also hiking trails, horseback riding, rafting, climbing, etc. throughout the area. Coming back it only took us 50 minutes confiming the fact that we took the long way there and that we need to get a very detailed map of Chile before setting off on a longer trip to the south in February.
Again, the kids had off Thursday and Friday for Jewish holidays so we headed off for some day trips from Santiago.
This village about an hour west of Santiago is known for its pottery and its one kilo empanadas (yuck). One of the first dishes Marcela cooked for us was pastel de choclo - a ground beef casserole with a sweet corn topping. Traditionally, the pastel de choclo is made in a clay pot most often made in this town although they morph their clay into many interesting forms.
The classic look of the pottery (a bowl probably used for a cazuela)
They actually had a vegetarian pastel de choclo! Usually it is with grounded beef, a hard boiled egg, an olive-with the pit, and onions)
The gang - Rob skipped this one but will join us for Friday's adventure
They are also known for these obscenely huge empanadas billed as 1 kilo. We challenged Jonathan to consume one himself. Ick.
He got through maybe a fourth
They specialize in three-legged hand-made clay “Chanchitos” or ‘little pigs’ that bring good fortune and good luck. Apparently, you are supposed to give them to friends and family as a token of goodwill and love but the kids just bought some little ones for themselves and we bought some little clay dished for serving pebre (the Chilean salsa) or for butter (my Mom’s thought).
Chanchitos
A school group learning how they make the pottery - foot powered
Renee was more fascinated with cats than pottery...
We headed home for one more gymnastics practice for Renee before a meet on Saturday at Estadio Espanol de Las Condes and then off to explore another synagogue, B'nei Israel, at the invitation of some friends for Simchat Torah (marking the conclusion of the annual reading of the torah and the start of another year and consists of a lot of dancing and singing while carrying all of the torahs and throwing and consuming treats, a lot of treats).
