Se Vende

(With one month left of our adventure, we are starting to think about packing to come home, and are selling some of our less-treasured Chilean aquisitions).

FOR SALE:
Hyundai Santamo: Minivan-esque, seats 6 Americans or 8 Chileans. Minor scratch on side due to concrete "attack post" in the Jumbo parking lot. MPG unknown as owner can’t make the gallon/liter and mi/km conversion at the same time. Comes with emergency sustenance stored between the seats and radio that plays only 1980’s American music.

Iron: Makes excellent door stop, clothes dryer, hair straightener or Panini press. Comes with ironing board which doubles as extra counter space, buffet table, ballet bar, or diving board.

Hair Dryer: Used mostly for blowing dust bunnies out of sight and warming dinner. While operating, need to hold unit in one hand and plug in socket with the other, leaving no free hand for, oh, say, a brush. Interested parties are advised to act fast before I hurl it off the balcony.

Bunk Beds: Great for adhering stickers to the ceiling and Barbie suicides. Warning: slats tend to break under stress requiring top bunk occupant to be bajapeso (lightweight) or bottom bunkmate may have midnight visitor.

Unused Spanish Vocabulary Books: Good intentions included.

Pilates Video: Unopened.
Yoga Book: Unread.
Weights: Unused.
Exercise Band: Unstretched.

Bathroom Scale: 50% discount as it seems to go only in one direction.

Wanted to trade: Wonderful Chilean experience for my “real” life. Comes complete with friends that we don’t want to leave behind, viajes (travels) that will not be forgotten, and a small piece of my heart. Available in approximately 30 days.

Sisma

Googling Hernando

Who out there has ever “Googled” themselves? Come on now, be honest. We’ve all done it at least once. I, for one, do it weekly to see if I’ve accomplished something unawares or been discovered. So far, nothing.

I’ve been trying to find out who Hernando de Aguirre (the namesake of the street where we live) was. I was hoping that maybe he was a great warrior, the first president of the country, or an inventor who discovered something great like “scrubby bubbles”. But apparently, he only discovered a street.

And a dirty street it is. Living in a small apartment means our dirt has less room to spread out. So when Ximena, our cuinado came for the first time last week, she had quite a chore ahead of her. Thank heavens for those bubbles.

With all the joy a clean house brings, I took the day off with a visiting friend, Jenni, and went to Isla Negra to visit the house of Pablo Neruda, a Nobel Prize winning poet and a national treasure (albeit a dead one). He collected everything from bottles and seashells, to ship figureheads and masks, and even a life-size papier-mache horse. A very accomplished man, but I’d hate to have to dust his house.

To make things easier on myself, I plan on investing in the table-bed seen here. Someone had the brilliant idea to combine my two favorite pastimes while confining the space you need to clean when done. Someone intelligent thought of that one. Maybe it was Hernando.

By this point in my life, I was hoping to discover my purpose that would make me Google-worthy. This week I am feeling particularly gloomy about my failure on this front. I make less money than my cuinado, have never invented anything, and cannot papier-mache a horse. But, I’ve discovered that getting old is better than the alternative, and as long as I have time, I have hope.

Sisma

Opus

Last night I watched “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, that fabulous Richard Dryfus movie, and cried. But I didn’t cry because it was sad. I cried because I watched it in Spanish... and understood.

Opus is a latin word for “work”. And while I’ve worked hard to learn Spanish, the past two weeks in Peru did more to accelerate my skills than anything else I’ve tried. Our hosts in both Cusco and Piura spoke clearly, slowly, and beautifully without uttering a single “cachai”, “harto”, or “super bueno”. I really heard the language for the first time.

From Cusco we traveled to Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley of the Incas. One look at the valley and any doubt one might have about God’s existence is extinguished. Definitely one of His better works.

Piura is in the north and hosts the country’s Opus Dei university where Ciervo was asked to teach. The girls attended the local Opus Dei all-girls school. I spent my time touring the city with the Dean of Engineering, cooking with Keika, their cuinado (nana/maid), and roaming the local markets on my own. It didn’t take much work to fall in love with the little town.

Now that we’re back, we are busy opus-ing again. Ciervo opuses every day convincing Universidad Catolica that he’s at home working while actually bike riding up Farllones (think Flagstaff) with Victor and simultaneously holding a conference call via cell phone with Panama. The girls opus everyday religiously and I am so proud of their commitment (which has nothing to do with me duct-taping them to the chairs in the Opus quadratum).

Mr. Holland worked for 30 years on his Opus, and I’m realizing that it may take me 30 years of work before I am bi-lingual. But I am recommitted, feeling it would be my greatest achievement. My Magnum Opus. So, I embark on my final weeks here with a renewed commitment to fill my brain with as many dichos y modismos (saying and expressions) that I can without crying. How super bueno is that?!

Sisma