Reports From the New Window (and Unexpected Cultural Commentary)

My bedroom window faces a house situated "across the street" (these phrases mean nothing in Valpo..it's pure alleyways, terrifying staircases and precipitous streets) but up the hill a little further. I've spent the majority of my first week in the new house settling in, working, and gazing lovingly at the seafoam green walls and the plants in my windowsill. During my frequent PonderGazeFests, I noticed a couple boys hanging out on the balcony of this house, stringing what looked like wire from their balcony to some unknown location in the distance. 

The next day, the boys were back at it. Except this time, I noticed that the wire was in fact a string, which was attached to a kite. Which they were flying.

And then an hour late, still flying a kite.

And then for the next seven hours...still flying a kite.

Sheesh, I thought. Flying a kite is fun but not THAT fun.

Or is it? I must make mention of the last time I flew a kite. It was this summer in Tennessee. My mother suggested we take the kite with us on the boat, so we could fly it as we cruised the lake. Cool, I said, more in an effort to please her. Who flies kites, anyway? I'm not against activities that are deemed "childish" by any means -- I spend a large part of my life trying to consciously incorporate play and childlike wonder into my days -- but a kite? Pssh.

Once we got going on the boat, out came the kite -- a bizarre purple octopus with plenty of tentacles to put on display in the airborne mating ritual. I stood toward the back, tasked with  getting it waytheheckupthere. The wispy, purple octopus that had lain quiet and neatly folded in its packaging only moments before was now a wild animal, tormented and struggling and whipping against the gusts and curls and updrafts as it fought its way higher.

I let out more string. I watched it fly higher. I let out more string. Higher still. And then came the point when I realized...holy crap, this is THRILLING.

I never wanted to stop flying that kite. I don't know WHY flying a kite is so fun. But there is something entrancing, mesmerizing and otherwise holy about the endeavor.

Some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as Octokite roamed free: Oh my god, look at how high it is! This is so cool! Wow, it's beautiful. It's a dancing octopus in the sky. LOOK, IT'S EVEN HIGHER NOW!! This string is really tight, I wonder how high I can get it. What if it goes into outer space? What is the Octokite seeing up there? When it comes down, will it have PTSD? Can you use a kite more than once? Why is this so goddamn fun? SERIOUSLY LOOK HOW HIGH UP THIS THING IS.

Look at that freakin' kite!

We took turns holding Octokite as it struggled to free itself from our grip. We held fast. It continued following us as we zoomed across the lake. Finally, we reeled it in, and the unwavering black smile of the octopus was still there, a silent witness to the joys and secrets of the stratospheric experience, tentacles weathered but accounted for.

So, back to the boys across the street. They've been flying kites everyday, for hours each day, without fail. Even as I reflected upon my newfound-but-forgotten appreciation for kite-flying, I continue to ask myself -- What the hell with so much kite flying?

I mentioned the borderline obsessive past time of the Chilean youth to my boyfriend the other day. He responded casually--as though it were common knowledge, come on, you gringa--that September is Kite Month in Chile. Everyone flies kites, or volantines, during September. It's classically breezy in September! Come on. Go fly a kite. Or volantin in this case.

September also coincides with another important tradition in Chile -- the fiestas patrias, or patriotic holidays. Two important events occurs during September, apart from the historically-perfect kite flying weather: the anniversary of the famous coup of September 11th, 1973, in which former socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown (giving way to the Pinochet regime), and September 18th, Independence Day (Chile broke from Spain on this day in 1810).

Between the breezes, the political history and the patriotism, the month of September is burbling with activity. Most Americans are familiar with stores decorating well in advance for the 4th of July, or Christmas, or Fall In General or what have you, but our celebrations tend to be limited to observing the day itself, and then perhaps additional celebrations the following weekend once work has ended for the week.

Not here. Daily operations came to a grinding halt at 7pm on Tuesday, September 17th. The majority of the city has been closed since. It's Saturday, September 21st, as a reminder -- that's four days of public quiet, shuttered storefronts and very minimal pedestrians on the streets of Valparaiso. That's some serious reverence.

But that's not all. The public rest might have started on Tuesday at 7pm, but the celebrating started at the beginning of the month. There has been an unusual (almost worrying, really) amount  of asado scents wafting in the breeze, frequent gatherings overheard from neighbors, more dissonance than usual in public spaces, a huge amount of patriotic decorations littering the steeets, and plenty of excuses to get really drunk and really full.

Wait -- did you think that was all? Not only does September herald important political and patriotic observances, it also means SPRING IS COMING! It's the societal thaw; September is here, winter is over, let's get this crap started right by celebrating for a full month.

Jorge and I were wandering the streets on the 18th, discovering new areas and views near our new neighborhood, and we crossed an uncountable number of asados taking place on the sidewalks. It's probably not a surprise to anyone that during our walk we decided to go home and have our own asado because, like, we totally can do that whenever we want now, and as we headed back to the Homestead, we crossed what appeared to be a very heated kite-flying competition. It made us stop in our tracks -- the kites were so, so, so high, just tiny squares of Chilean-flag decorated paper. One climbed higher, the other dipped sharply, then the first one lost its lead while the second soared upward on a fierce gust. Grown men hooted and hollered in the streets -- one grandpa exited his house, wearing white socks in the gritty Valpo streets, carrying a grandbaby in his arms as he cheered on the unseen kite-fliers.

A poor representation of the kite excitement.

(Kitecitement)

The dog watches the spectacle, unamused.

As a foreign observer/peripheral participant in these happenings, I must say that I admire the dedication to patriotic celebrations. It's no secret here that the Pinochet dictatorship left an indelible mark on Chilean history and society. What the older generations lived through - and those that are still around to talk about it -- betray the fact that the wound is still there, healing but still aching. 40 years have passed since the coup, but this is a tender scar on the surface of daily life.. Conversations about living through the dictatorship with those of my parent's age is always fascinating, educational and extremely sad. 

The volantines, at least to my wandering and dreamy eye, serve as a potent and visible reminder of the freedoms post-Pinochet. The citizens are able to soar free, at least compared to prior times, and there is now far more energy, far more breathless hopefulness, than in recent history. Just as children and grown men crowd around to see how high the kite might go, who might win, will the cord break, will it get caught in a tree, will the octopus suffer PTSD, I feel that Chileans are able to turn that breathless, hopeful eye toward the future when before that was only a wild, and potentially dangerous, fantasy. Armed with memory, respect and forward motion, Chile is a symbolic volantin that has the potential to soar high, higher than what was believed even 30 or 40 years ago. 

Once again, I must remind you readers that I am by no means a political expert, nor an apt judge of economic/governmental/cultural conditions. I'm just a writer living in Valpo, inhaling culture and sights and experiences and exhaling personal perspective. 

And beyond that, I'm sincerely curious to know how long it will be before these boys get sick of flying these kites everyday for multiple hours (seriously, don't they go to school or something?!). 

My beloved Valpo! You're so picturesque n' stuff. 

Read more about the Chilean 9/11 Anniversary here: Chile's 9/11: Survivors recall horrors of Pinochet coup, 40 years on

An article highlighting the various current-day opinions on Pinochet's reign: Chile still split over Gen Augusto Pinochet legacy

The Art of the Asado

Asados (BBQ's) are a big deal in Chile. On any given day there is sure to be at least one asado going on somewhere, within some circle of friends. I resisted them at first - being a definitive "not meat eater", I felt the asado to be useful only as far as a social gathering tactic. When I first got here I shirked the call to the asado - I was busy establishing my routine here, testing the waters as a bonafide self-employed entrepreneur of sorts, but furthermore, I couldn't stand the thought of standing around with a bunch of people celebrating and reveling in the slow-cooked flesh of animals.

But as time wore on, and countless invites to asados had come and gone, I decided to go to one. It's a cultural thing, I told myself. If you don't go to one, it's as bad as not trying the coshari in Egypt, or the pupusas in El Salvador. I just needed to go to one to try it, to say I did it, and to participate in one of the few scraps of "true Chilean culture" in these parts. As I look back on it, I was probably more afraid of the potential of the asado ending up an addiction as both coshari and pupusas have since become, but the moral conundrum still weighed heavily on me. I just don't like to eat a lot of meat (excluding seafood), and I certainly never purchase or prepare it myself. However, when I'm around it, I'll try it. And if it's good, I'll eat a lot of it.

And here we see the inherent Conflict of the Asado: these Chileans really, really, really know how to cook meat. I am by no means a well-educated consumer of meat products, but holy crap hell god pants, this meat is GOOD. I am a believer of the idea that Chilean food is mostly tasteless, bland, and otherwise uninspired - but this belief does not extend to the food at an asado. Chileans cook exclusively with carbon - charcoal - and the art of the asado is as much a social gathering as  a richly delicious food journey.

Asado in the sun.

It took us awhile to acclimate to the pace and procedure of the asado. There were several important cultural differences, which I will explain below:

1. The Asado Never Starts On Time. If the asado is pegged to begin at 8pm, plan to eat around 11pm. Chilean time is much the same as time anywhere else in Latin America: severely lax, and more of a suggestion than any sort of binding commitment.

2. The Food Preparation is as Important as the Consumption. I got in trouble once with one of my Chilean friends when he told me to be at the asado by 7:30pm and I asked, "Well, is that when we're eating?" The process of preparing the grill, cutting the meat, arranging the kebabs (if there are any) and engaging in all of the social activities around this process is as important as eventually eating the food. My American friends and I all shared this same outlook: in America, you show up when the food is ready, not hours before you eat. I suppose the act of cooking and preparing the meal is regarded far differently down here, and I can't say I haven't come to appreciate and perhaps prefer this approach. Preparing a meal to be enjoyed by your family tends to be a solitary and laborious process in the States - why is that? Think of Thanksgiving, or July 4th, or any birthday gathering you've had recently, and how was it prepared? Most likely by one or two people laboring quietly for hours before the event begins, where the start time of the party signals the beginning of the eating. We've since learned down here that you never go to an asado hungry, because you will be starving for hours sometimes, waiting for the first slab of meat to be ready.

3. Plates are Not Necessary. One of the other big differences between Chilean and American BBQ's is the fact that the meat is consumed literally fresh off the grill, piece by piece. Once one steak or lomo is ready, it gets sliced up and everyone grabs a piece with their fingers. No utensils necessary. And then when the next piece is ready, the same thing happens. The eating takes place around the parilla, or grill; in fact, this was another hard lesson we had to learn. Luckily, one of our culturally-aware Chilean friends Ignacio was sensitive to this difference of eating behavior and brought pieces of meat to us when it became apparent that we Americans were waiting for some sort of procession to a dinner table or clearly-defined "Eating Time" during our first asado.

Because we are now medio-chileno (half-Chilean), we held an asado for Amanda's 24th birthday this weekend. By this point, we're all pretty skilled in the preparation for and execution of a Chilean asado, so it went off without a hitch. There was plenty of filete, lomo, salmon and papas (potatoes - not fathers) to go around.

Some friends on the terraza,

while we prepared the parilla and food.

It was a beautiful day for a birthday asado.

Happy birthday, Amanda!

And then afterward, per the tradition 

of all males in every part of the world,

we watched sports. Soccer, in this case.

The viewership was just as raucous and noisy

as if we were watching a Browns game back home.

I can say without hesitation that I am now a firm and perhaps lifelong fan of the asado. This is something of an embarrassing confession, especially given the fact that I've spent so many years eating little to zero meat. But at the end of it all, I regard my participation in the asado de carne (meat BBQ) as a cultural journey - I will enjoy it while I'm around it, though I do not plan to continue the frequent and all-too-delicious meat consumption permanently. The art of the asado, however, will stay with me. Friends and family back home: get the charcoal ready, because when I get back you can bet on frequent vegetarian asados, complete with group preparation, unclear start times and a whole lot of fun in the sun.