Fleas. Shortly after moving here, I woke up with small red bites. I freaked out because I thought I had bed bugs but then I realized I was only being eaten alive by fleas. Fleas are so common here that no one is worried about them and, apparently, they love gringa blood. Of course. In Arizona, if I had been bitten by fleas I would have been upset. Now, I feel like I am lucky because they are "only fleas."
Shoes. Apparently, I am not only taller than most Chileans but I also have bigger feet than most too. I went shoe shopping the other day. The first couple stores I went into I looked around and then asked about sizes. The salespeople literally looked at my face, down at my feet, and then back up at my face before telling me that do not carry my size. I guess they just wanted to check out just how big my feet are.
After several such encounters, I switched up my shopping strategy and I would just walk into a store and ask them if they carried my size in winter boots. I saved a lot of time this way. With the exception of the sales lady who told me they carried my size only to bring out a shoe that was a size and a half smaller. When I reminded her it was the wrong size, she told me I could "make it work." No thanks. Looks like I will be saving money on shoes here (and wearing flip flops more often).
Waiting in Lines. I am learning that any line related to any type of bureaucracy is going to take me awhile to get through. At first, this was frustrating. Really frustrating. Then I realized I can either be frustrated or I can choose to change my expectations of how long I think I should be forced to wait and deal with it. Now instead of bringing one thing off my to do list to work on, I just bring my whole to do list with me.
Side note, when I watch people wait I can usually tell just by watching their waiting style whether they are Chileans and Gringos. The Chileans are usually just chilling and waiting. The Gringos tend to be pacing, huffing, checking their watches, etc.
White Out. I did not realize people still use white out on a regular basis. The Chileans seem to love it though. I am the only student in my class that does not bring a white out pen to class with them everyday.
Clowns. Let's be honest, I never liked clowns. Scary. Obnoxious. Bothersome. Those are all words i would have used to describe them. Until I moved to Chile.
Not only do clowns line the streets here but we have a clown university. Clowns are the MCs for community events, they sell ice cream in the parks, they get on buses and try to make people smile, etc. I have never been around so many clowns in my life. They are not as scary here and the city wholly embraces their behavior. I have yet to go to a community event (ranging from political riots to crucifixions) where there is not as least one clown involved.
Clown at the burning of Judas, right before he tied my foot with a rope to get me involved in a community game.
My friend snapped this photo of clowns eating dinner in a plaza. I guess even dinner is an event worth performing.
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