Made in Chile Pt. 3

I realise that this third instalment has been a long time coming, however, between a bout of pneumonia (they say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, this is demonstrably false – pneumonia makes you weaker than Ed Miliband’s PMQ’s performance: nasal, docile and pale) and a wee sojourn to the Atacama Desert with fellow St Andrean, Monty Collyer, ‘time’s winged chariot’ has rather passed me by.

I am hurtling towards the end of my time in Chile. I leave in just over a month to teach penguins English in Ushuaia, Argentina which is famous for being the most southerly city in the world.

Charles Darwin, on his Beagle expedition in 1834, sailed through Ushuaia and, on meeting the natives, remarked that they were, ‘miserable, degraded savages’. I am expecting a similar reaction to me from the Argentines, as it is the land mass closest to the Falklands. Due to Kirchner and Cameron’s continuing mutually beneficial, jingoistic and bellicose remarks designed to distract from the ruinous state of their economies, I am planning on abiding by Basil Fawlty’s maxim: ‘Don’t mention the war’.

The reaction in Chile is somewhat different. I had the bizarre experience last weekend of finding myself utterly surrounded by twenty drunk Chileans in a club, all of whom were chanting ‘gringo, gringo!’ at me. ‘Gringo’ is the slang employed by Chileans to denote anyone with blond hair and light skin. Due to my perennial lobster-tinge and fair hair I am the quintessential ‘gringo’, which accords me a minor celebrity status.

Generally conversation follows a similar track:  you swap football teams, remark how well Alexis Sanchez (Barcelona player, God-like figure in Chile) is playing, point to a pretty girl and give a knowing wink. And repeat. Again and again. 

Whilst cult-like experiences of those above are reasonably rare, being a ‘gringo’ gets you rather similar treatment to that of my best friend at Oxford, who happens to be the tennis captain. He gets free champagne every time he goes into a certain club, and is therefore immensely popular for about 15 minutes; but his popularity wanes in direct correlation with the amount of champagne left in the bottle.

I touched upon salsa dancing in my last article: I can now say with no qualms that I would rather be water-boarded than submit myself to this torture again. 

Despite its undoubted transformational abilities to turn a relatively plain girl into a Beyoncé-esque hip- thrusting goddess, the very same powers morph any British person into a piece of corrugated iron, shuffling stiffly, tersely and dreaming of the Lizard – where if anything, the ability to dance is seen as a weakness, as it shows you aren’t suitably tanked and haven’t pre-gamed hard enough.

Unlike Abigail Lovell’s more cloistered  Parisian existence, I live in a house with Chilean natives and 20 foreigners from all over the world; a party is similar to a day at the UN but with more water volleyball and, if my experience from last summer taught me anything, a similar amount of alcohol. Home it may not be, but the convivial atmosphere has certainly warded off any vestiges of homesickness. Homesickness is not a dull, gnawing knot in the depths of you stomach; it is a sudden, violent thrash of pining for (so far): a Cadbury’s crème egg, a pint of St Andrews Ale at the Jigger, certain people who I shall not embarrass and Private Eye.

Instead, one just has to find replacements: these come in the form of ‘Mochaccino’ (Mocha AND Cappuccino – it blew my mind too) ice cream, piscola (see here) and The Clinic. 

As peculiar as it may sound, the ‘Bubble’ mentality still reigns on a year abroad; by this I mean the life you really take ownership of, the life you have slowly constructed on your year abroad, and therefore guard it jealously – something Facebook photos can only ever give a brief snapshot of. 

My parents are currently flying half way across the world, either through parental duty or more likely because they want to visit this fascinating country. Naturally, a ‘Café Con Piernas’ is the only thing that will perk them up after the long-haul flight.

written by James Penn, understand writer.