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Yesterday, the 33 miners trapped in the San José mine for the past 17 days were found, amazingly all alive. Nothing else was on the news all day as the Chileans celebrated and rejoiced in the simple message written in clear, red letters by the miners and sent back to the surface: Estamos bien en el refugio los 33 (We are alright in the shelter, all 33 of us). This news was made official in the early afternoon as my family and I were eating lunch and in the evening the first images from inside the mine were shown on the news. The camera moved along the narrow earthen corridor drilled in search of the miners and then in the distance, circles of light appeared—the lights from the miners’ helmets. They bobbed and flashed in the darkness and then a man’s face slowly moved into focus in front of the camera. His face floated in an odd, disconnected way because of the darkness and the low quality of the image but it was proof that the miners were truly, incredibly, alive. It will be several more months before a tunnel is finished to actually remove the miners from the collapsed mine, but all of Chile celebrated yesterday with the families and friends of the miners.

            I shared in the relief and happiness of the country but for the past week my heart has not been here in Chile. My heart has been home—home which is family and friends, home with Karen and with Popeye, and with all those who loved them.

            I’m going to end this with a letter to my grandpa but I also want to say thank you to all of you, my friends and family who enrich my life beyond measure.

. . . . . . .

Dear Popeye,

           

I’m writing to thank you and to tell you I love you.

Thank you for my mother, for your fifth daughter, and for raising her so that she could raise me with love and patience and humor. Thank you for my education, at Hyla and at Middlebury. Thank you for sharing your stories of your time in Japan, your time in Washington D.C., and your incredible contributions to history. Thank you for Arizona and the dry, dusty heat and the saguaros stretching for miles. Thank you for Snowmass and the aspen trees and the amazing feeling of floating through powder down the Big Burn. Thank you for the newspaper clippings sent over the years, of anything you saw that made you think of me. Thank you for oatmeal raisin cookies. Thank you for making me say, “yes,” instead of “yeah.” Thank you for your harmonica, for the songs that enchanted me as a child and then your great-grandchildren years later. And of course the same harmonica that turned you into the Pied Piper on your horse, with the cows curiously gathering around you. But most of all, thank you for the ranch.

By bringing our family to the ranch every year, you built us into the close-knit family that we are today. You gave us the Bighorn Mountains, rocky and densely covered with trees, transforming into brilliant, chalky, red rock in North and South Red Canyon. You gave us the golden grasses on Chocolate Drop and the land beyond, the folded, rolling, beautiful land that stretches out until it is lost in the hazy join between earth and sky. You gave us this amazing place to gather each year and to grow together and to watch a new generation enter the world. The ranch will be forever imbued with memories of you and Gam. Memories of you, wearing your beat-up old felt cowboy hat, zipping around on the golf cart. The year of the fire, you drove that golf cart right up to the top of hill by the garden and sat taking pictures. Memories of the first ride up North Red, always the first because it was your favorite and even after you stopped riding we continued to ride there our first morning. Creatures of habit, just like the horses. Memories of Stanley Camp, the pool, Storybook, and the corral, of cocktail parties, and bingo, and softball games, and dances.

The last time I saw you, you danced. Remember? When my mom jokingly suggested we go dancing, you started to push yourself out of your wheelchair, ready to dance like I remember you dancing at your 90^th birthday party, and with Gam at your 60^th wedding anniversary, and at all the weddings. But this last time you danced with your arms only, hilariously, endearingly, amazingly. I will always remember that last dance and how we laughed.

The truth is, the only way I can thank you for all you gave me and our family is with all my love, from my heart. Thank you and I love you. Rest now. 

Disculpe, or, How to Spot a Chilean

Today, as I was waiting on the steps in front of a Poseidon fountain in the Plaza Aníbal Pinto, a Chilean woman came up to me and asked me for directions. Actually she asked me where she could catch the micro to Portales. Now, I’m fairly certain I don’t look like a Chilean. There just aren’t that many Chileans with freckles. There isn’t really one Chilean look though, because it’s a country of immigrants, many from Italy, Germany or England. In my first week here I asked a man for directions who I thought was Chilean but he answered me in unaccented English and didn’t know where I needed to go. So it’s not as easy as one might expect to pick out the foreigners from the natives. Since I’m not blonde, I blend in a little more easily than some other gringas but still, I really don’t think I look Chilean. So I was pleasantly surprised to have the woman ask me for help. Unfortunately, I have no idea where you catch a micro to Portales so my cover was blown. 

Greetings from Chile!!

I have been here about a week and a half and already so much has happened that this summary is inevitably going to leave out much of what I have done, felt, and observed. But first let me say that Chile is absolutely beautiful!! As we flew into Santiago the sun was just rising over the Andes, which spread out beneath the plane in a vast and incredible expanse of peaks, valleys, trees and snow. I have always loved the view from the flight westward into Seattle as the plane passes over the Cascades but I must say the flight over the Andes puts the Cascades to shame. I was already falling in love with this country as the sun spilled over the mountains and the plane landed in foggy, smoggy, chilly Santiago.

            The next three days passed quickly in orientation activities in Santiago and on the 1^st, we traveled to Valparaíso, my home for the next five months. My days since then have been filled with getting to know my host family, exploring the city, attending some classes, attempting to attend other classes to which no one showed up and I later found out don’t start until this upcoming week, and generally getting settled into my new life and my new city. And of course, speaking Spanish.

            I’m getting to know Valparaíso little by little, day by day. And happily, my chances of getting lost when I leave my house are diminishing daily. At first the city seemed vast and confusing, full of narrow, steep, twisty streets. To make things more confusing, the same street might change names three or four or more times as it passes through different sections of the city. Calle Pratt becomes Esmeralda, which then transforms into O’Higgins. Not content with three names, O’Higgins turns into Avenida Brasil before finally agreeing to stick with the name Yungay for the rest of it’s streetly life. It’s no wonder then that I would breathe a sigh of relief any time I managed to exit the micro bus at the right street and arrive to where I needed to be. But my host mom keeps telling me that as I get to know the city, it will become más y más chiquita, that is, smaller and smaller (Doesn’t the Spanish sound nicer, though?). And it’s true. Even after less than two weeks, the city feels manageable and the prospect of finding my way around to new places is exciting rather than daunting.

            Valparaíso is, to my eyes, a very beautiful and unique city. It is built around a bay and the flat downtown near the water quickly rises up in all directions in numerous cerros, or hill neighborhoods. Most of the buildings are old and beautiful. The houses are generally tall and narrow and very brightly painted. The effect of all the cerros and their red, yellow, green, pink, and blue houses spreading out and rising in all directions is quite arresting.

The city is known for having a system of ascensores or funiculares, open-air elevators that were originally built to ease the journey to the tops of the hill neighborhoods. Over 100 were built originally in the early 1900s, but now only about 10 remain in use, mainly as tourist attractions. On Sunday, I was just such a tourist and rode up in Ascensor Polanco with two friends from my program and our tour guide, my friend Dan’s host dad, Osvaldo. The view from the top was great, with the entire city spread out before us. Osvaldo was an excellent tour guide, telling us the history of each neighborhood we walked through and eagerly taking our picture at each stop.

Some pictures:

The view of Cerro Polanco from the top of Ascensor Polanco

The mountains that warm my little Pacific Northwest heart. The closest mountains are part of the Cordillera de la Costa and behind those you can see Cerro Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Andes

One last note before I say buenas noches. This blog is called “Colorín Colorado” because this is what my host dad has started to call me. The saying “y colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado…lo guardo en zapato rojo y mañana te cuento otro” is the ending to many Spanish fairy tales or children’s stories. It’s sort of the equivalent to our “and they all lived happily ever after” but with more whimsy and nonsense. My name with a Spanish pronunciation sounds a lot like colorín so my host dad has happily nicknamed me this and since this blog will be a way for me to share my Chilean stories with you all, I felt it was appropriate.

And now, este cuento se ha acabado. Come back, maybe not tomorrow, as the Spanish says, but soon, and I will tell you another.