|
|
On Saturday we had plans to go trekking in the Andes Mountains, but it was rescheduled to Sunday because of the weather. Ben and I decided to take the opportunity to go to San Antonio to see his family. Prior to leaving Dr. del Prado gave me advice for interacting with Chilean families. She told me that I have to greet everyone individually when I come in and when I leave. In Chile people greet one another by touching their right cheek to the other person’s right cheek and making a kissing noise. I’m glad that Dr. del Prado told me this because in my family we greet everyone by saying hello and waving to the group as a whole.
Ben and I arrived to his mother’s house at 11:30 and she had dinner waiting for us. It was a bean soup, called “porotos” and fried empanadas with ham, cheese, and tomato. The empanadas were the BEST empanadas I had on the entire trip and believe me; I’ve eaten MANY empanadas in the last few weeks. Ben is the only one in his immediate family who speaks English. I was able to speak a little to Ben’s mother, Myriam, in Spanish. She was very sweet and she spoke slowly so I could understand. Ben translated anything I was unsure of. He said that I knew more Spanish than he thought I did. The reason being that I’ve never had to speak Spanish in front of him because he speaks perfect English! The next morning we had a traditional Chilean breakfast of a roll with butter, mozzarella cheese, and ham or salami and headed out to see Ben’s sister. San Antonio is very different than Santiago. People live in houses rather than apartments and everything is close by. Ben’s mom asked us to go to the store to get yogurt and I got all bundled up to only walk two minutes to the store! We got to Ben’s sister, Leyla’s house where I met her, her husband, and their four year old daughter, Dominga. Dominga sang me a song about the colors in English. It’s safe to say that I was very impressed! :-) Then we met the rest of Ben’s family for lunch. I met Ben’s dad, Marcus, his other two sisters, Jessica and Miriam, his other two nieces, Emilia and Florence, and his younger brother Luciano. We had “Charquican” for lunch, which is another traditional Chilean meal. It consists of beef, potatoes, corn, carrots, and peas with a fried egg on top. It was delicious. Then we had empanadas. They were the classic flavor, pino, which is beef, hardboiled egg, onion, and black olives. There were also different salads like celery and onion. One thing I noticed is that people in Chile will call anything a salad. For example celery salad is chopped celery with vinegar and onion salad is chopped onions with vinegar. I was very surprised when one day at ECELA they had a lunch with salad and the salad was a cut up tomato! After lunch we went with Ben’s dad and brother to his grandma’s house. It was a short drive down the street and when we walked in Ben’s cousins, aunts, and uncle were gathered around the TV watching the Chile soccer match. Soccer is a huge part of Chilean culture. Ben said that every Saturday his family gets together at his grandma’s house like they did that day, usually for either breakfast or lunch. That happens in big families. Lastly, Ben’s father took us for a ride to the beach. Rather than sand the beach had big stones as a result of an earthquake and tsunami a few years ago (February 27th, 2010). People do not swim there, but I would love to come back to enjoy a walk there in the summer! When it was time to leave we returned to Ben’s mother’s house to get our things and Ben’s mother gave me two silver bracelets as a gift. She said that she never had a daughter and she wanted me to have something made out of silver because it is much less expensive in Chile than it is in the United States. I was touched by her kind gesture! Overall I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet Ben’s parents and the way they embraced me despite the language barrier. I can’t wait to come back to Chile again soon and hopefully next time I will be able to speak more Spanish! ¡Chao!
2 Comments
Dr. Patti
6/28/2019 02:24:02 pm
Kelly - I loved reading about the opportunities you had to interact with Ben's family and see places outside of Santiago. How wonderful! I am also excited to hear you are planning to visit again. :)
Reply
Solicitar un préstamo ahora
1/23/2024 03:19:04 pm
Buenos días señor / señora,
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Author¡Hola! My name is Kelly and I am an undergraduate student studying elementary education at Buffalo State. This is the first time I will be traveling outside the United States and Canada. I am very excited about the opportunity to learn more about Chilean culture, work with English language learners, improve my Spanish skills, and conduct research! I hope you’ll enjoy reading about my Chilean adventures! ArchivesCategories |