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What I Have Learned

  I decided to make this section because I've learned some things, strange and some not so strange.  You would probably have to have some knowledge of spanish or have had to have lived here at some time to fully understand these statements as they are almost inside jokes....but enjoy them anyway.  I will add more from time to time.  

    Section 1:  es muy rico!

      The first thing I have learned is no matter what, every type of food "es muuuuyy rico." (or very rich).  This was ok to hear at first, but when after one hears it for every food one starts to get curious.  There's this stuff called manjar which is like a carmely dip maybe for apples and such.  I asked them what is manjar, meaning i wanted to know what was in it(caramel..etc), but all they could tell me was that it is muuuuyyy rico. I then specifically asked whats in it and they repeated the same phrase....so now I have to take their word for it....and maybe they really don't know..maybe its like soilent green.  hahha, i sure hope not, but why dont they know?  I asked Mary if she had the same experience and sure enough her family tells her that everything is very rich as well.   hmmmmmmm maybe a conspiracy...i don't know, but i'm sure that if i took a spoonful of niebal sand and asked how it tasted I hope they would'nt say its rico...cuz its not.   Example below.  

You probably can't see it but she's holding a spoonful of niebla sand.....which I'm sure no es muy rico.  And just the other day I happened to be walking around the streets of Valdivia looking for shirts and whatnot when I saw a 5 year old daughter and mother walking together.  The girl took a drink of a carton of milk and said(i kid you not) "Es muy rico".    I guess they start them young there to say everything they eat es muy rico.  I do agree that all the food here is more pure than what we have in the states, but not everything in chile can be rich!

  Section 2:  The ya Phenomenon...or pronounced in english as "ja."

  This I quickly noticed as it is probably used as much as ok in English.  It basically means yea, yes, definately...or any affirmation, or even comfirmation meaning I understand.  Here if you don't say something such as ya, they may think you didn't understand them and will continue to ask you if you did understand....which can get annoying.  So now I'm learning to be more assertive I guess.  When they ask me a question I cannot simply say si or no as in english.  If its a question that requires a yes or no answer I've found that I must respond in a certain way. 

  Example:  Do you like apples?  

                  Yes

   (this would be perfectly understood in english and we would not have to say: "yes, I like apples."

but here's how it the same question would need to be answered in a spanish conversation.  

                 Do you like apples?

                 Yes, I like them.     

     Also if one decides to only say yes or no they must say it very strongly...with affirmation.  Now that you have a little background in this phenomenon I will delve into it a little deeper.  I've heard entire conversations that consisted of almost ya's.  One person will ask a question and the other says ya. Then the first says ya again to confirm that you understood.  Sometimes the phone will ring and my sister carola would pick up the phone and this is exactly what she'd say.  "si,  ya.....ya.....ya....ya...ya..." and then she would promptly hang up.  For a native this is nothing...but to me and other extranjeros(foreigners) we simply find it funny to hear that word uttered so many times.  Its almost like a tick....like they don't know they're doing it, and i've sorta found this to be true b/c I ordered something, they asked me a question and I said ya without noticing I said it.  They even make songs out of it.  I heard a convo that ended with a bunch of ya's and then the maid walked off humming a song of ya's....i mean what the ya is going on here!?!?!  Anyone prepare yourself to be ja'wed to death if you come to chile.  

If you wanna hear what ya sounds like click here.

Section 3:  no entiende.....he doesn't understand.

  Since I've been here I can't remember all the times i've heard no entiende.   At first it was ok, but now it's getting to being somewhat annoying.  When someone goes to another country they can't possibly understand everything that is said.  Just the other day I was walking with Rocio and we ran into her friend.  Her friend decided to hang with us.  So as we were walking they were talking and I was trying to listen a little bit but wasnt really paying full attention.  Then her friend uttered el no entiende?  he doesnt understand?  and then i got mad....because theres a discrepancy here.  Not paying attention is far from not understanding.  If i was walking along with jaime my real sister and we saw someone who i'd never met i would'nt really say much because i dont know that person or what they're talking about....That was exactly what I was doing in the situation with rocio and her friend.  Plus i have to take breaks from the language or my head would explode so i cant listen all the time.  Well after that they kept on talking...(i decided to let it go this time)....Then they were trying to teach me what que lata(what a shame..sorta)  means, and as they were explaining it they were not giving me time to repond because here they talk so darn fast....it dont get the chance to put my 2 cents in.  Its like listening to the micromachines guy talk.  He holds the world record for speaking fast.  I just got madder and madder as they kept going on because I knew all along what que lata meant, but i needed time to explain what it meant to me.  In a sense I got the feeling i was being made fun of and i hate that....so i got even more mad....then i finally told them" i know what it means, and i hate it when people say i dont understand because a lot of the time i do understand more than one would think but i need time to think of a good response and me being the perfectionist that i am it takes even longer.   You shoulda seen their faces....they held off for awhile but then started asking me if i knew this or that part of the city,.  again i had to pause and then they started to giggle.  I said obviously i dont know the names of the places i've been in the city.  do you think i live here?  lol.   and then i added that i've been lots of places but just dont know the names...after awhile we went to a restaurant to get a bite to eat.  We finally got to sit down and know each other and then I felt comfortable with them.  whew....I just don't think its right for them to think I should understand everything and know the names of every part of the city in 2 weeks.  What am I, an encyclopedia?!?  Is my name Compton's, or Encarta?!

Section 4:  It could be arsenic

  After spending an entire month here I realized that I played the ultimate game of trust.  Basically I came here hoping to live with a good family and have a happy ending with everything that may pass me.   This is where The Ultimate Game of Trust game show has started.  I remember my oldest sister carola showing e the campus and all the buildings...but for all I know it could have been an underground cult camp like that guy in texas...don't remember his name....dave something i think.....the religious dude.....I furthered this thought process by remembering some slang carola had taught me....I never used it but what if I did and it was a bad word and I said it to a teacher or the dean of the school....thankfully I never have used it, but how would I trully know....it could be like in Something about Mary....when warren is looking for his baseball.  they tell him to say something else and then he asks people if they've seen something else which i wont mention instead of his baseball which is what he really wants....but he is mentally retarded and wouldn't know any better.  This is the case here as I generally couldn't know any better.  Which brings me to the bonus round of my game of jeopardy.   I believe the category is food.  Yes, that's it.  Everytime they call me to lunch and dinner I don't really ask what it is.  I mean i know the soup is soup but what's in it?  I don't know....I just chow down.  What's in this salad?  I don't care....I just eat it.   Same goes with any plate of food.  mmmmm food give me it.....it's the cookie to my cookie monster....give it too me.  it could be soilent green....it could even be arsenic!  But if it really was, would I be sitting here writing this?  Or maybe it's a little bit of arsenic.....and i, like the black pirate in that movie "A Princess Bride" am building up an acute tolerance to it.  Well I don't wanna find out.....and keep the food coming....

Section 5:  The life of Riley and Jared Time.

     After spending a little more than a month here I've become well more adjusted to Chilean living.  Much more relaxed it is than the hustle and bustle of the united states, and that suits me just fine, as many of you already know.  I've already found out that if something can't be done today, no worry, it can be done tomorrow or the next day.  I've returned library books a day or two late with no problem; borrowed money and paid it back a week later;  and much more.  But this is a trend that has always been mine.  I never buy a video game system when it first arrives because it doesn't interest me.  I know its the latest and greatest hardware, but I don't buy systems for hardware...I buy them for the games they produce.  I bought a Nintendo 64 two years after it first debuted simply because I loved the game Goldeneye so much.  This list could go on and on so I will stop right there but you can see that I'm usually behind the trend....or slower to adapt to new things.  Its things like this which may be looked upon as strange in the US are quite normal here, because Chile is on Jared Time, slow like a turtle.   That's why its nice to be here.  It feels very relaxing, and sometimes I even feel like I should slow down a bit.  Imagine that if you can.  Haha.  As for you that don't know the life of Riley, my sister says its a book(i think) about a man who I suppose doesn't have much to do...stays up late, sleeps in.  I too, get to stay up late and sleep in because my classes here start at 10am everyday from Monday to Thursday.  Now of course I don't stay up too late because I usually fall asleep from boredom because everyone else here has early classes or work, but on the weekends all of this changes as everyone is up and they all want to go out to a bar or restaurant or a friends house.  I also like Riley don't have much to do, because I only have 3 classes and only one right now is very demanding.  Literature would be this class and boy do I ever have to read for it, and I can't get away with not reading because we have quizzes after every reading.  Yuck...and they're pop quizzes usually.  Anyways I now know another reason why people, gringos, like to quedar-themselves...I love spanglish...quedar means to stay or remain.   I'm gonna be in for a real shock when I actually have to come back!

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