Thursday September 18, 2008
Today was Fiestas Patrias, and we went to the Cantelori family’s house and had a wonderful dinner. We got to house at around 3ish and stayed until around 11:30. We had a tremendous amount of meat, which made my hick self really happy. You have to give credit to the Chileans; vegetarians are a lost cause in this society. Today we also met the local drug dealer and gangbanger. He is actually an American ex patriot. We talked to him for a while and he ended up offering us whatever we needed. I think he meant more drugs, but he also gave us some warnings about the neighborhood. He then gave us his number if we ever needed anything and he also said that he told all of his “people” to look after us. If was interesting to encounter what would be classified as an American “gangster” in Chile. We ended up talking to him for a little bit, and although we live very different lifestyles he was supportive of what we were doing. We do live in a shady neighborhood and it is weird having the protection in the area from a drug dealer.

Saturday September 20, 2008
Brian, Michelle, Sarah (a friend of Michelle’s who works in the south of Chile) and I went to Oliver’s families for the day after Fiestas Patrias. Oliver is a younger guy who works in the Pastoral with us at school. His family lives in the Campo, or the country. They taught us the Cueca, which is the typical Chilean dance. It was very comical seeing four fairly tall Gringos dancing with a bunch of Chileans. They were all very patient with us and walked us through the steps teaching us how to do the dance. The dance could be compared to a strutting of a rooster in which, the male tries to attract the attention of the female. Of course the female plays hard to get, but we did kind of get down the basics. Their abuela or grandmother was phenomenal and busted out the guitar for the Cueca. She has apparently been playing since she was 15, so I guess 57 years of practice and you would get pretty good at it. We then went to the rodeo, which was pretty fun to see. Oliver told us that we needed to come out to the country to truly experience Chile and it’s culture and not just the commercial festival that is in Santiago. It was fun to meet his family and to experience a “typical” Chilean festival. The rodeo had typical bareback riding and some of the typical games. In the end, Michelle really wanted to ride a horse, Oliver talked to one of his cousins, who was a cowboy and got her a horse. It was cool how inclusive everyone we met was. One might think that the cowboys would be offended for having a Gringa ride during their festival, but instead they were very accepting and welcoming. I got to try some different foods and what not from the country. One that I tried was charqui or what we call jerky. It was actually horse jerky, and it tasted like it sounded. It was like eating meaty hay. Everything besides that was delicious, but that was a little weird for me.