From the Desert to the Sea

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Monday.
Got up after about 5 hrs sleep - wanted to let Justin catch up (you known how teenagers need their 12 hours) - but we decided to try and get done what we could today and head to Antofagasta. We have the main flights and hotels reserved, (to Bolivia, etc), but kept open schedules to see how things go. Anyway we finally left the hotel, setting our bags to the side, and grabbed a taxi and my list of addresses, now 20 years old, and hit the streets to look up old friends.
The streets of Calama are mostly all paved now, and much has changed, but one thing that hasn´t changed is the number of dogs that roam the streets. It´s like driving thru an obstacle course. We had 3 places to hit, and I fully expected to find out that the people had long-since moved away. But as I approached the house/corner store, there stood a woman appearing exactly as she did 20 years ago. I had taught and baptized some of the family, and they still lived there. Marizol had married and moved a couple doors down. When we got there, it was a wonderful surprise for them. As is the Chilean custom (americans could learn from this), they immediately broke out some juice and offered us something to drink. Very hospitable. She has 3 children now, and all is going well. Her grandmother passed away a few years ago (was about 90 I think) and strong til the end.

We only had little time to get to the tour at the Chuquiquemata mine, so we begged off and hit the other 2 addresses, but they´d long since moved.

The mine tour was very interesting, but fell a little short of what they used to be able to do. We to a taxi to Chuqui, which is about a 10 minute drive. A taxi is not the vehicle to take if you want to save a few pesos, because colectivos go there every minute or so, and they are exactly like a taxi except you share it with others. Taxi man told us a colectivo is 2 mil pesos each anyway, and we were in a hurry. He overcharged us about triple, all the while talking about how he has dedicated his life to spreading the true word of God. Anyway, the ride back was by collectivo, and less than one mil pesos, or about a buck sixty. No big deal.

The mine. Incredible. Largest in the world (yes, even compared to Kennecott). They haul 600 Thousand tons of stuff out EVERY DAY. 24/7. Of the 600, a third is ore. Of the 200 thousand (yes, thousand) tons of ore, about 2,000 tons of copper is smelted. Half sent to China, the rest to Europe and others. There is at least 65 years left worth of copper there. They´ve already taken the cleaner stuff from near the surface, and the lower stuff (half mile down) is more sulfuric, and the harmful chemicals have leached into the surrounding soil. They´ve already moved 2,000 houses from the Chuqui down to the nearby Calama. The rest will be gone in a year or so - thus turning chuqui into a non-residential city. Good for calama tho, it´s booming. When I was there, there used to be a stake center in chuqui, I think. Now, all gone.
The bummer is that we couldn´t go into the smelting area, which I thought was the best part of the tour. The stopped doing that last year. Anyway, we got a few cool pictures and a rock from the copper mine for Gabbie´s collection.


Arriving back at the hotel around 3:15, we decided to jam to Antofagasta. A plane is about $65 and a half hour, but didn´t leave til 6:30. The next bus?... it would leave at 3:30, we were told, and would take 2.5 hours, still arriving before the plane would have. So Justin went up to grab the newly washed laundry, stuff the bags, and come down, while I checked out. Hotel dude couldn´t find the papers right away, so I ran up to help Justin, then signed out at 3:35. We were told the bus made one stop on the way out of town at 3:40. We grabbed a taxi to beat it there. We got there, paid the 7 mil pesos (About $6.35 per person americano), hustled to the depot..... and waited. 3:40.... 3:45.... at 4:00 it finally came. Seems we could have caught it at the first terminal, which was only two blocks from the hotel. Well, at least we could catch some sleep, since the vista was to be nothing but brown dirt. No plants, nothing. The sunset is kinda cool though. I asked if we go directly to Anto, or any stops. No, directamente, they said. What they meant, was, directly to Anto after stopping at 5 small towns, plus several railroad crossings. Still, it was okay, even though a bit stuffy. The guy behind us spent 10 minutes grunting over our seats, trying to close the window, eliminating the only air in the place. Heaven forbid we get the temperature down into the 70s. They get used to Calama and like it that way I guess.

We got to Antofagasta around 6:45 and immediately I had total memory flashbacks of living there. The entire city lies along the ocean, and the air is a pleasant temperature year-round, the smell of the sea permeating all. We grabbed a taxi, asked if he knew the Gran Via area, and headed out expecting to pass by 3 or 4 addresses, expecting nothing. First house was the famous casa de Monica. We ate lunch there as missionaries every day. She´s from Canada, and was probably the only thing that saved me from totally wasting away. (In Calama I had dropped from about 165 pounds to 135 or so). but her cooking was awesome and gave me the chance to adjust.

148 Angamos. we passed by a home improvement store that was about 3x the size of home depot, plus some supermarkets. None of these were there before. I knocked on the door. A very helpful man directed me 2 doors down. The lady there was helpful as well, and as I said "mujer, canada, missionaries," she explained I was at 148 Angamos and needed to go to 0148 Angamos, (she was north, I needed south, basically). So there we went. Deja Vu all over again. I rang the bell at the gate on the street. "¿diga?" came the call from the voice box.
"Estoy buscando la casa de Monica¨" I said.
"quien busca" the voice said, meaning "who are you looking for..."
again I said "Estoy buscando la Monica" - she must not have heard me
"¿quien busca? Sheesh... doesn´t this thing work? I pushed the button and repeated.
The voice asked the same thing again, somewhat impatiently. Ahhhhh.... Not "who are you looking for," but the voice was saying "who is looking", or "who is asking"... Heh. my bad.
"Un Elder de 20 años atras" I said. A missionary from 20 years ago. Come in, she said, and his the buzzer for the gate.

After I jiggled the gate a half dozen times, listening to and not understanding her instructions, she finally came out. And there it was - all coming back to me. Monica. Waffles on P-day with real maple syrup. Homemade stew and bread. Fresh fish. Yummy.

I was pretty happy and so babbled on in spanish, reverting back to my skills of when I had first arrived there - meaning I basically trashed the language. Finally I said, in spanish, Oh, you speak english. She said: that´s what I´ve been trying to tell you. Huh. I guess while I was babbling I was completely not hearing the English either. Nice.
I called to Justin, and he came up from the cab. She remembered me instantly: Ah, the misionaro mañoso (picky eater). Yep, that was me.

After talking a bit, she called her son over from a few doors down. I went out and grabbed our bags, telling the taxi we´d end our trip a bit early. The son, wife and grandkids came over. Cute. Cool. Intelligent, and obviously adored by Monica. Her husband, Mario, came in a bit later. He is a professor of language (french) at the University - recently retired and directing languages at the local school. Monica is working for the Air Force, teaching english to the pilots in training, as they need to know it in order to fly F-15s, etc. Cool.
Well, we better get going, I said - not wanting to turn an unannounced drop-in into an inconvenience for them. Why don´t you stay for dinner?, she asked. And so we did.

Half hour later we were eating "bifsteak," potatoes and a wonderful chilean dish called crema de choclo - I can´t think of how to decribe it, Justin says it´s like creamed corn but creamier. Close enough, and way good.

Man, was it wonderful. Mario had gotten baptized about 15 years ago. He´d spent 5 years with the missionaries at his house daily for lunch, a hard nut to crack. The mission presidents knew them well also. My pres, president Glazier, will be VERY excited to hear his conversion, and that he´s served as a bishop, secretary to the mission, and other active callings. Awesome.

9:45 and we finally despedired ourselves. We´ll have to catch the others tomorrow. Oh - and my papito, where I lived, is still around. He´d gone to Santiago to work in the Temple, but recently returned. I´ll have to go to the mission office tomorrow to ask around. I love that guy, and have a picture I brought to give him. Wish me luck.

One last thing. I´d forgotten how exceptional Chilean courtesy is. Not just the welcome, but the respect and seriousness given to their jobs or responsibilities. Hotels, restaraunts, everything. More on that later.

One last note about Spanish / English words. I was talking to the hotel reception last night, in Calama, asking about flights, asking if the various airlines had info counters or whatever at the airport. I didn´t know how they said counter, so I asked, Saying in spanish, "do they have a place for information, a little space, like, well, like you have here" and I tapped the counter. "what do you call this thing here?" I asked. They said "counter" - but like count air. Ahh. counter... I told myself from now on I will just say the english word and bet it´ll be right. But later that night with Mario, I did it again. I asked the spanish word for hobby, without saying the word hobby I described it, as the thing you do for pleasure, in free time, a thing you like. the answer? That´s right - in spanish it is called "hobby".
Chow.


My turn, yet again. It´s nice here; we´re at the hotel in Antofagasta, we have the computers to ourselves, we´re full of good food (or, as they say here, we´re "satisfecho"(satisfied)... which, if you think about it, makes a whole lot more sense)... I´m a little tired though, and yet still here I sit, typing away, and it´s almost tomorrow. Sheesh.

Dad pretty much told everything, so I´ll fill in the gaps and give my impression of what we did. Last night, in the haunted room in Calama (we decided to film the mirror, as proof... but it probably burned the tape or something, who knows), I hopped out the window to check out the little roof walkway thing out there. It was kind of scary, looking out into this fenced-in courtyard and out into the streets, watching the slavering packs of dogs roaming about. An idea struck me: we still had a sandwich leftover from the flight the previous day, a perfect snack for some hungry perros. My mistake was bringing it up to my dad before I actually threw the sandwich down. I saw it as an act of kindness, feeding some hungry dogs some good food. Dad, however, thought it was more along the lines of throwing trash out of the second story into a street where a policeman was just waiting to arrest me. I went on to clearly explain my point of view: it wasn´t trash, but food, and since we didn´t want to eat it, we might as well give it to someone (or something) who did. After I had finished my cohesive and well-thought-out thesis, I expected a fair analysis and response. All I got, however, was the short statement "You´re joining the debate team next year to get rid of this argumentative streak" and the sandwich snatched from my hands. I thought about saying "this wasn´t much of a debate", but I figured that wouldn´t help my cause any.

Earlier that night, we were typing our previous blog, and due to the circumstances couldn´t say anything about it... but we´re miles away now, so it´s okay. There was a teenage girl at the computer next to us who, through no fault of her own, had probably never used MSN Messenger before. It seemed like her first time, and a friend was apparently showing her many emoticons that were pretty funny. It took us a long long time to type our post because she was continually pounding the keyboard with vicious intent, rocking back and forth in breathless convulsions of laughter. She tried in vain to cover her laughter; flecks of spittle escaped her hand and sprayed the computer monitor. Additionally, strange, almost goose-in-a-trap-ish snorts and bellows ("and honks," Dad says) echoed off the walls and pounded repeatedly in our ears. These bouts of hilarity erupted every few minutes, constantly distracting and even embarrassing us as we tried to type.

Like Dad said, today was a lot of fun. We didn´t do quite as much as we have other days, but we saw a lot. The mine was awesome to see... huge doesn´t begin to describe it. And visiting with the people was way cool too. At the first place (Marisol I think her name was), we were served this pineapple juice stuff... I thought it was especially tasty. We didn´t really eat much today until the dinner at Monica´s, which was one of the best meals I´ve had so far in Chile. I love this Chilean bread: all toasty and warm, crispy on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside. Yum.

Well, I guess that´s pretty much everything. It´s weird to think that we´ve only been gone for about a week, and we have 10 more days... we´re not even half done! I love being here, but I think by the time I get home I´ll feel like I´ve been gone for years.

Anyway... I´m picking up Spanish pretty quick, although I still can´t say much without getting the previously mentioned blank stare of utter incomprehension. But hey... at least I´m learning. I hope I get credit for this in school.

One last thing: along with taking the kissing to the States, I´m going to try and instill some Chilean courtesy in us Americans. That actually goes along with the kissing. Like mi padre said, everyone here takes their job seriously, and they always offer drinks or a snack when you come into their home. It´s really not necessary, but it´s a great gesture of hospitality... and after being in the hot sun, a cool drink is really nice. And as for kissing, between guys and girls and girls to each other, and hugs and handshakes between men... I don´t like it just because it´s a kiss, because it´s more than that; it´s a really cool sign of friendship. That´s something I´d like to take home with me when I go.

Adios, mis amigos y mi familia, mis queridos,

Justin

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Photos

Pescado
My tasty fish dinner in Antofagasta: shrimp, mussels, clams, salmon.

Chuquiquemata
The mine of Chuquiquemata - largest copper mine in the world.

Huge trucks
Justin read for a hard days work.

600,000 tons a day
It´s amazing how big these trucks are, especially when you look down into the mine and can barely make them out.

Monica and Mario
20 years ago, Dad ate lunch here every day. Monica still cooks awesome American food.

Comments

[Petrea]

Hi
Thanks for writing what you've been doing. I love to read the information. It makes it seem like we are there too. We'll call you soon. Love, Petrea, Gabbie, Miranda, and Reagan