Mi vida en Chile

Wow...it's been almost a week since I got here and I'm becoming more and more excited each day!  We've had orientation with the program everyday, and today we met with the school where I'll be teaching...but that's a whole other story!  The day after we arrived we went and toured Pablo Neruda's house.  He was a famous Chilean poet and later a diplomat.  I would highly recommend his work, it's absolutely beautiful.  He was a great poet, but a pretty weird dude.  He collected almost everything he could, and his house was full of random nick-knacks in large quantities.  For instance, he had a bar in every room of the house.  Not just a small mini-bar, oh no, this guy knew how to party.  A full liquor bar with stashes of cigarettes for his friends that smoked.  He built his house as a hide-away for him and his lover, Matilda.  The house was very complex and had hidden doors and passage ways.  It was awesome.  He had a collection of everything from Polish dolls, to paintings, to paintings of watermelons, glassware, ect.  He had a beautiful library, but a lot of it was destroyed when Pinochet began his dictatorship.  One of the first things dictatorships do is destroy information, and thus his library, many of his paintings, and much of his original, unpublished poetry was destroyed.  But the grounds were beautiful.  I have some pictures of his house, although we weren't allowed to take pictures inside his house.  

The next day we went to a small town called Pomaire, which specialized in pottery making.  The clay in the soil doesn't contain any heavy metals, like lead, so the clay is perfect for pots used to cook because the heavy metals don't contaminate the taste of the food.  We had an authentic Chilean lunch with empanadas, pasta de choclo, and Chilean salad.  It was amazing!  It was also accompanied by several liters of Coke, Fanta or a Sprite-type drink, which is mostly what Chileans drink.  Not much water is offered at the table because Chileans don't drink the tap water.  It's slightly annoying because I'm not a big soda person, but whatever.  We went to the home of Marisol, who, along with cooking a fabulous meal also makes pottery in the town.  After stuffing ourselves with deliciousness (is that even a word?) we took a tour of her pottery making factory.  It turned out not to be a factory at all, but rather quite a primitive outdoor over make of stones and scrap metal, and a hand-cranked wheel.  There are two colors of pots: one is the natural burnt orange, and the other is a dark black.  We ate pastral de choclo (a sweet, corn and beef baked dish) out of a black bowl made by Marisol.  When touring the facility, Marisol revealed to us that the way of turning the clay black is to cook it in the oven along with cow or horse poop, and the smoke dyes the pottery.  But don't worry, it all burns off, she says.  You might at well call me Andrew Zimmern with all the weird stuff I'm starting to eat.  Anyway, Marisol made pottery and was commissioned by a store called Easy, which is almost identical to our Home Depot.  She makes about $5 per pot, for one of the huge, 3 feet tall gourds that are glazed and sell in the US for at least $100.  She said that there was so much competition in the town that she couldn't charge any more if she wanted Easy to keep buying from her.  Something to think about next time we go bargain hunting...

Anyway, I learned tons about the school system I will be involved with, and honestly, it will test my patience.  I will post it all soon, once I figure it all out.  And there are no promises, because honestly, I'm not sure that will ever happen!