Oddballs
In Chile
By Terri
Anderson
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September 2007
 I
get the feeling that the Chileans think we’re a bit odd. We’re tallish,
blondish, and have chosen to live in a country where we know no one.
But one of the major factors is that at the age of 36 and 32 respectively,
Gary and I are not married, we don’t have kids, and I don’t make jam.
The not-married
terminology puts me in my place regularly. In the UK, this problem
is common too. None of us know what to call our men in English, once
we are in our thirties. Boyfriend is childish; partner is businesslike
or androgynous, lover a bit optimistic…
Here, I called
Gary my novio (boyfriend) for a while but the Chilean word is more
appropriately pololo. Even to my untrained ears that sounds
childish, and I still have no idea where it comes from. Maybe it’s
subtle onomatopoeia for something dirty. As Gary and I are of advanced
years and live together, everyone assumes he is my marido – my husband.
In fact I referred awkwardly to my pololo once, and after a short
silence around the table, a woman asked me incredulously “does Gary know?”
Since then I have
given up on accuracy and referred to my 'long-term but not formalised bit
of fluff with whom I live' as my marido. Of course as one
would expect in a Latin country, it’s easier for the blokes. They
refer to their women as literally my woman - mi mujer. Even
less flattering is esposa which means both wife and handcuffs.
Really. Look it up.
Not only are
we old and unmarried, we don’t have children. (That’s still far too grownup
a conversation to have). Like most of my western friends, I have
spent the best part of my adult life doing everything to avoid pregnancy
(save of course abstinence). I look at the young mothers, and
feel sorry that they haven’t had the choices I have had. Education
of girls and women, though now increasing at an impressive rate, has in
the past been what we consider third world. In 2004 the age of consent
was raised from 12 to 14, still low by western standards, and education
is still catching up. Abortion remains illegal, while divorce was
legalised in 2004 -and rumour has it that the day dawned with queues of
women stretching around the block. So to find that they, in turn,
are bemused and even pitying us for our state, has been a shock.
Here, we’ll be talking to a bloke not much older than us when a five year
old girl will appear. Gary will compliment the man on his lovely
daughter. The man will proudly correct us that it is his granddaughter.
It’s definitely a cultural difference.
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Generally the
very first thing that happens when I meet a group of local women is they
ask me “how many children do you have?” When I tell them none, they
ask, bemused and pitying, why not. Having lived in the UK for the
best part of the last ten years, I am accustomed to English manners and
still find the directness in this regard a bit uncomfortable. Until
recently, this blunt questioning left me at a loss while Gary chuckled
away at my discomfort. It took a few months of this for me to formulate
what I thought was the perfect answer. “Because,” I’d say, leaning
in conspiratorially, “Gary is impotent.”
It took roughly
two weeks for Gary to hear this back through the town grapevine.
I thought it was hilarious. He didn't.
I suspect there
is an element of Latin/Catholic thinking, that every child is a blessing.
However it’s even stronger than I have found in Europe and seems that no
matter what the situation – unmarried teenage mothers, for example – all
is forgiven when a baby arrives and the families crowd around to welcome
the new arrival into their lives. I wonder if the Pinochet era, with
the thousands of disappeareds, made the Chileans even more family-oriented.
I think the
neighbours feel sorry for Gary for his sub-standard mujer.
All the local women make jam and gift it to their neighbours. With
the first couple of jars, this was welcome, though I was aware that I would
have to do something else to return the favour, and whipped up a chalet-girl
yoghurt cake. Now, with nine jars of homemade jam in the fridge,
I am hopelessly indebted in the neighbour-favour black market. One
of the women asked me directly, “didn’t you make any jam this year Terri?”
Er, no. Must have slipped my mind.
But I do chop
wood. I have always loved cutting firewood, since I was a kid.
On more than one occasion now, the neighbours have been passing, glanced
in at the property of the weird gringos, and there’s the mujer,
not making jam and babies in the kitchen, but out in the cold wielding
an axe. Most just do a doubletake, while two have felt sufficiently
close to us to bring it up in conversation. One said to Gary, “It’s
strange that you let your mujer cut wood.” The other said
to me “Does Gary make you cut this wood?”
I guess it
adds to their conviction that these gringos are very, very strange
and perhaps a little uncivilised. Who am I to say?
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