free writing: memories from rural chile : because no one has heard the whole story
I studied abroad during the spring semester in 2008 through SIT's Chile: Economic Development and Globalization program. This particular study abroad program is structured as such: the first two months are spent preparing students for the third and final month, in which they independently research a topic of their choice. We took classes that focused on Chile's supposed "economic miracle," we spent hours learning vocabulary specific to Chile, we went on field trips that highlighted the problems associated with all policies fundamentally "Friedmanesque." After a short field trip to the rural town of Maria Pinto, I decided to learn more about the Chilean federal grant program that provides impovrished people with the start-up capital necessary to open small businesses in economically stagnant area. This program, called FOSIS, aims to spur small business growth while at the same time offering the poor a shot at solidarity and dignity, as opposed to perpetually living off of government handouts. What a great program, I thought to myself upon writing my project proposal. The Chilean govt is investing in the poor! What if we had a system like that in the States? Everybody talks about the need for Welfare reform. What if we gave money to low-income households to start up small businesses? I laughed at the idea. Wal-Mart would never have that. Then again, Chile is still heavily privatized and big-business. The only way to know for sure would be to get down on the ground and start sniffing out what's really happening with this program. Since FOSIS is such a huge nation-wide program with a multitude of regional offices, I decided to focus on how FOSIS has affected women in Maria Pinto. I was trying to see if there was a connection between attaining the FOSIS grant and a feeling of empowerment that didn't exist in these women beforehand. Economic development <--> Womens empowerment? Double bonus!
So with this gung-ho attitude, I left my wireless internet, TV, central heating, and educated Chilean mother to board a bus for Maria Pinto. Of course, this included walking 6 blocks to the metro, taking the metro 1.5 hours to Estacion Central, and making my way through the maze of shopping mall slash bus stop slash train station to find the dusty sign pointing me to "RURAL." It took me three tries to figure out that I needed to go up the escalator. I was proud of myself when I figured it out, even though I knew everyone in the area was internally laughing at me. (When you live in a foreign country, you're constantly being watched as you do stick out like a sore thumb..especially if you haven't had a suntan in about 2 years). The bus did not come on time. The bus parking spot did not even have a sign; I had to ask a bus driver headed to Temuco. I sat and sat and sat some more. I listened to my Ipod, read, itched from nervousness, questioned the Temucano's knowledge of the bus station, and at last it came. It was dingy, old, yellow, and squeaky. And I couldn't have been happier to see it. After a few minutes, we were off to my new adventure.
When we arrived to Maria Pinto, I entered a world vastly different from the world I encountered upon boarding the bus. How in the world, I kept thinking, is this place only a 1.5 hours bus ride away from the sparkling Santiago I left this morning? There's the municipality (Chileans say "muni"), which is nice. It is a ranch-style building with a square cut-out in the middle for town functions. Along with the mayor's office, it also holds the town health clinic. Outside of the muni, there is a grocery store with nothing healthy inside (mostly canned goods and overpriced cookies/crackers), a fruit store, a thrift store made out of makeshift boards (the only clothes store in the town), and a few houses. Some of the houses were pretty darn nice. Others were merely shacks. I walked up and down the main road several times and saw no more than a few houses. Confused, I decided to stick to the plan and contact my on-site advisor, a functionary of the muni. I went to his office and sat in the waiting area for what seemed like forever. I saw women enter and leave with diapers. I watched as ticket after ticket, number after number was called (Chileans have a ticket/numbering system for everything from the welfare office to buying shampoo at the pharmacy). Finally, he had a minute to meet me, welcome me to Maria Pinto, and discuss my project. This lasted a whopping 20 minutes. I asked if he could put me in contact with some women who had received the grant so I could interview them. He warmly agreed and said he will help more when he doesn't have a full waiting room. I told him I'd come back tomorrow for the list of women and their addresses.
I spent the rest of the day being examined by anyone who came through the muni plaza. "Gringi, are you lost?" "The bus is coming in 5 minutes, you should wait over there." When I'd smile, and inform them that I'm a student studying the effects of FOSIS on the women entrepreneurs in Maria Pinto, I received a lot of confused looks and nods. "Ok, Gringi. That's very nice."
I came back to my advisor's office every day and every day he was swamped. Or just not there. "He won't be in today," the receptionist would say. She wasn't sure about tomorrow either.
Since it was obvious he wasn't going to fulfill his promise to hook me up with interviews, I decided to seek out subjects on my own. I started going to every event held in the muni plaza, from the opening of the first triage unit in the health center to the bi-centennial of the town. Making my presence known in the town was crucial to breaking their feelings of uneasiness about an outsider coming in to talk to them about a government program. Strolling around the plaza, I introduced myself to various ladies. When the conversation turned to why I was in town, I'd explain my project. If I asked whether or not we could set up a time to talk about FOSIS, I was turned down every time. "Why can't we just talk now?" " "I can't; I never got FOSIS money so I don't know what I'd say." Every day, I'd leave feeling more and more isolated and as though I had an impossible task in front of me before I even got to my research: to get these people to talk to me! I was pretty sure I made a mistake by coming there, and I missed my study abroad groupmates. For some reason, call it Burress stubborness, I kept coming back to the center of town for events. My curiosity wouldn't let me give up. I had to know about this program.
Two whole weeks had passed, and I was still without any interviews except one with a FOSIS official from the national headquarters in Santiago. Out of pure luck, I met a passionate older chatterbox of a woman named Elvira. She had her two preteen grandchildren with her, who were shocked that I let them play with my Ipod and spent the rest of the night fighting over who got to play with it next. Elvira proceeded to tell me that FOSIS is a farse. "I've applied for that damn thing 3 years in a row, and I never got any money. They give all the government money to drug addicts and thieves. If I was the whore of a Pinochetista, who had all his illegitimate children, maybe I too would get FOSIS money! Bastards!" I had no idea what to say. This was certaintly not the image of FOSIS with which I began my research. I realized that there were layers upon layers of reasons as to why no one wanted to talk about FOSIS with me initially. First of all, no one knew who applied and who got it. Chilean culture tries to avoid awkward situations that may involve offending someone or flaunting your fortunes. Also, no one who was denied felt comfortable speaking out against the govt in case that affected next year's application process. Everyone except Elivra, of course. After being denied 3 times, her patience with the muni had run dry. She invited me over for an interview the following day. I was IN!
I realize that now in the story I've failed to mention that I commuted to Maria Pinto from Stgo after the first week. Every day, I walked the six blocks to the metro, rode it all the way to Estacion Central, and hoped the bus driver felt like working that day. The day that I was to interview Elvira, the bus arrived surprisingly on time. As we were approaching Maria Pinto, however, it made a turn that I did not recognize. All of a sudden, we ended up at an elementary school. Kids flooded the bus. One by one, the bus driver dropped them off at their individual homes. As you can imagine, in a rural area this took forever. By the time we made it to the center of town, I was very upset about the fact I was 2 hours late. Plus I still had to grab a taxi that would take me to her home. I flagged down the one driver, but he had a full car every time he passed. Finally he returned to pick me up, and I asked him to take me to this place. "Site 76," wherever that may be. He did not recognize the address, but eventually we made it. I showed up filled with anxiety. What if she had something else to do and she left? I'd be stranded here! When I walked up to her door, she flung it open with a huge grin and gave me a big, motherly hug. I was so relieved to hear that she was not angry that I was late. She admitted that she never knows what time it is, and neither does anyone else in the country.
After several hours of coffee and ranting about the FOSIS system, she introduced me to every one of her neighbor ladies who have applied at some point or another for the FOSIS grant. No one in the area had received it. Instantly, I had 5 interviews set up for "whenever." The next day, I went to a neighbor lady's house. My initial reaction was shock and pity. This beautiful woman of 30 had five children, the oldest of which was a new mother at 14. Her youngest was 2. Her husband worked in the Italian tomato company's fields picking tomatoes. He has been suffering from double pneumonia for the past 3 weeks. She married him when she was 15. There was a trashbag over the hole that was supposed to be a window. We were coming on winter in Chile. She had no food to offer us, no toilet, and everyone in the family slept in the same bed. Her chairs were broken, so I sat on the floor and played with her babies. Instead of focusing on what she didn't have, I tried to think outside the box and look at what was there: the love between a mother and a child, kids greeting their dad as he returns from work, moms worrying about their children's education. We had a great time that night, laughing at the funny things kids say and helping the girls with their English homework. She told me that she has applied several times, the muni knows her financial situation, and yet she still has not received any funding. When asked whether or not the muni offered a reason as to why she did not get the grant, she shook her head.
She is just one of the several ladies I interviewed. Their stories were unique in what they aspired to and similar in what was keeping them from achieving their goals of economic independence.
They saw me, the young American, as the answer to their prayers. "This is the gringi whose going to help us get the FOSIS money we deserve" was how I was introduced to one woman. The amount of pressure I felt from that introduction scared the hell out of me. How was I supposed to do such a feat? I was just a student! This was supposed to be just a project! I didn't sign up to be the one responsible for whether or not these women will be able to feed their kids!
To thank me for what they thought was me fighting for them in the muni, I was given all sorts of gifts I didn't deserve. Fresh eggs (hens don't lay eggs when the weather changes, so this was a huge gift because it's like their week's worth of food), coffee, tea, cookies. I couldn't handle it. "Thank you, Gringi" were words that haunted my long commute. Eventually, I had to explain that I can only help by writing this paper with the hopes that it'll get published and someone important will read it. Luckily, la Mama's friend at La Moneda passed it to la Presidenta. I don't know what happened after that, but at least it got that far without getting published.
Anyway. I would come home from these interviews strung out with anger towards the system that was preventing them from attaining the self-worth associated with earning one's own money. They were super talented, too. I didn't understand. Until I met the ladies who did receive the grant. They all lived in big houses near the muni and were buddy-buddy with my shady advisor.
My research was complete. May was over. I wrote my paper. I presented it to the class. I got an A. I boarded the plane for the US. I got credit for the paper at Mt Holyoke.
And I can't shake these feelings that I abandoned them. Here I am struggling with a Peace Corps essay while they struggle to feed their kids. I haven't been able to write a Peace Corps essay about this experience because, as you can see, there are so many layers to my "cross-cultural experience" that I can't possibly fit in 500 words. Garh.
At least their story is out of my head as much as it can be for 1:23 in the morning. There's always more to tell. It'll never be finished, even if I continued writing for the rest of my life. It'll only be finished if someone tackles the systematic political corruption that has plagued Chile's "politically stable" government since at least 1973.
So with this gung-ho attitude, I left my wireless internet, TV, central heating, and educated Chilean mother to board a bus for Maria Pinto. Of course, this included walking 6 blocks to the metro, taking the metro 1.5 hours to Estacion Central, and making my way through the maze of shopping mall slash bus stop slash train station to find the dusty sign pointing me to "RURAL." It took me three tries to figure out that I needed to go up the escalator. I was proud of myself when I figured it out, even though I knew everyone in the area was internally laughing at me. (When you live in a foreign country, you're constantly being watched as you do stick out like a sore thumb..especially if you haven't had a suntan in about 2 years). The bus did not come on time. The bus parking spot did not even have a sign; I had to ask a bus driver headed to Temuco. I sat and sat and sat some more. I listened to my Ipod, read, itched from nervousness, questioned the Temucano's knowledge of the bus station, and at last it came. It was dingy, old, yellow, and squeaky. And I couldn't have been happier to see it. After a few minutes, we were off to my new adventure.
When we arrived to Maria Pinto, I entered a world vastly different from the world I encountered upon boarding the bus. How in the world, I kept thinking, is this place only a 1.5 hours bus ride away from the sparkling Santiago I left this morning? There's the municipality (Chileans say "muni"), which is nice. It is a ranch-style building with a square cut-out in the middle for town functions. Along with the mayor's office, it also holds the town health clinic. Outside of the muni, there is a grocery store with nothing healthy inside (mostly canned goods and overpriced cookies/crackers), a fruit store, a thrift store made out of makeshift boards (the only clothes store in the town), and a few houses. Some of the houses were pretty darn nice. Others were merely shacks. I walked up and down the main road several times and saw no more than a few houses. Confused, I decided to stick to the plan and contact my on-site advisor, a functionary of the muni. I went to his office and sat in the waiting area for what seemed like forever. I saw women enter and leave with diapers. I watched as ticket after ticket, number after number was called (Chileans have a ticket/numbering system for everything from the welfare office to buying shampoo at the pharmacy). Finally, he had a minute to meet me, welcome me to Maria Pinto, and discuss my project. This lasted a whopping 20 minutes. I asked if he could put me in contact with some women who had received the grant so I could interview them. He warmly agreed and said he will help more when he doesn't have a full waiting room. I told him I'd come back tomorrow for the list of women and their addresses.
I spent the rest of the day being examined by anyone who came through the muni plaza. "Gringi, are you lost?" "The bus is coming in 5 minutes, you should wait over there." When I'd smile, and inform them that I'm a student studying the effects of FOSIS on the women entrepreneurs in Maria Pinto, I received a lot of confused looks and nods. "Ok, Gringi. That's very nice."
I came back to my advisor's office every day and every day he was swamped. Or just not there. "He won't be in today," the receptionist would say. She wasn't sure about tomorrow either.
Since it was obvious he wasn't going to fulfill his promise to hook me up with interviews, I decided to seek out subjects on my own. I started going to every event held in the muni plaza, from the opening of the first triage unit in the health center to the bi-centennial of the town. Making my presence known in the town was crucial to breaking their feelings of uneasiness about an outsider coming in to talk to them about a government program. Strolling around the plaza, I introduced myself to various ladies. When the conversation turned to why I was in town, I'd explain my project. If I asked whether or not we could set up a time to talk about FOSIS, I was turned down every time. "Why can't we just talk now?" " "I can't; I never got FOSIS money so I don't know what I'd say." Every day, I'd leave feeling more and more isolated and as though I had an impossible task in front of me before I even got to my research: to get these people to talk to me! I was pretty sure I made a mistake by coming there, and I missed my study abroad groupmates. For some reason, call it Burress stubborness, I kept coming back to the center of town for events. My curiosity wouldn't let me give up. I had to know about this program.
Two whole weeks had passed, and I was still without any interviews except one with a FOSIS official from the national headquarters in Santiago. Out of pure luck, I met a passionate older chatterbox of a woman named Elvira. She had her two preteen grandchildren with her, who were shocked that I let them play with my Ipod and spent the rest of the night fighting over who got to play with it next. Elvira proceeded to tell me that FOSIS is a farse. "I've applied for that damn thing 3 years in a row, and I never got any money. They give all the government money to drug addicts and thieves. If I was the whore of a Pinochetista, who had all his illegitimate children, maybe I too would get FOSIS money! Bastards!" I had no idea what to say. This was certaintly not the image of FOSIS with which I began my research. I realized that there were layers upon layers of reasons as to why no one wanted to talk about FOSIS with me initially. First of all, no one knew who applied and who got it. Chilean culture tries to avoid awkward situations that may involve offending someone or flaunting your fortunes. Also, no one who was denied felt comfortable speaking out against the govt in case that affected next year's application process. Everyone except Elivra, of course. After being denied 3 times, her patience with the muni had run dry. She invited me over for an interview the following day. I was IN!
I realize that now in the story I've failed to mention that I commuted to Maria Pinto from Stgo after the first week. Every day, I walked the six blocks to the metro, rode it all the way to Estacion Central, and hoped the bus driver felt like working that day. The day that I was to interview Elvira, the bus arrived surprisingly on time. As we were approaching Maria Pinto, however, it made a turn that I did not recognize. All of a sudden, we ended up at an elementary school. Kids flooded the bus. One by one, the bus driver dropped them off at their individual homes. As you can imagine, in a rural area this took forever. By the time we made it to the center of town, I was very upset about the fact I was 2 hours late. Plus I still had to grab a taxi that would take me to her home. I flagged down the one driver, but he had a full car every time he passed. Finally he returned to pick me up, and I asked him to take me to this place. "Site 76," wherever that may be. He did not recognize the address, but eventually we made it. I showed up filled with anxiety. What if she had something else to do and she left? I'd be stranded here! When I walked up to her door, she flung it open with a huge grin and gave me a big, motherly hug. I was so relieved to hear that she was not angry that I was late. She admitted that she never knows what time it is, and neither does anyone else in the country.
After several hours of coffee and ranting about the FOSIS system, she introduced me to every one of her neighbor ladies who have applied at some point or another for the FOSIS grant. No one in the area had received it. Instantly, I had 5 interviews set up for "whenever." The next day, I went to a neighbor lady's house. My initial reaction was shock and pity. This beautiful woman of 30 had five children, the oldest of which was a new mother at 14. Her youngest was 2. Her husband worked in the Italian tomato company's fields picking tomatoes. He has been suffering from double pneumonia for the past 3 weeks. She married him when she was 15. There was a trashbag over the hole that was supposed to be a window. We were coming on winter in Chile. She had no food to offer us, no toilet, and everyone in the family slept in the same bed. Her chairs were broken, so I sat on the floor and played with her babies. Instead of focusing on what she didn't have, I tried to think outside the box and look at what was there: the love between a mother and a child, kids greeting their dad as he returns from work, moms worrying about their children's education. We had a great time that night, laughing at the funny things kids say and helping the girls with their English homework. She told me that she has applied several times, the muni knows her financial situation, and yet she still has not received any funding. When asked whether or not the muni offered a reason as to why she did not get the grant, she shook her head.
She is just one of the several ladies I interviewed. Their stories were unique in what they aspired to and similar in what was keeping them from achieving their goals of economic independence.
They saw me, the young American, as the answer to their prayers. "This is the gringi whose going to help us get the FOSIS money we deserve" was how I was introduced to one woman. The amount of pressure I felt from that introduction scared the hell out of me. How was I supposed to do such a feat? I was just a student! This was supposed to be just a project! I didn't sign up to be the one responsible for whether or not these women will be able to feed their kids!
To thank me for what they thought was me fighting for them in the muni, I was given all sorts of gifts I didn't deserve. Fresh eggs (hens don't lay eggs when the weather changes, so this was a huge gift because it's like their week's worth of food), coffee, tea, cookies. I couldn't handle it. "Thank you, Gringi" were words that haunted my long commute. Eventually, I had to explain that I can only help by writing this paper with the hopes that it'll get published and someone important will read it. Luckily, la Mama's friend at La Moneda passed it to la Presidenta. I don't know what happened after that, but at least it got that far without getting published.
Anyway. I would come home from these interviews strung out with anger towards the system that was preventing them from attaining the self-worth associated with earning one's own money. They were super talented, too. I didn't understand. Until I met the ladies who did receive the grant. They all lived in big houses near the muni and were buddy-buddy with my shady advisor.
My research was complete. May was over. I wrote my paper. I presented it to the class. I got an A. I boarded the plane for the US. I got credit for the paper at Mt Holyoke.
And I can't shake these feelings that I abandoned them. Here I am struggling with a Peace Corps essay while they struggle to feed their kids. I haven't been able to write a Peace Corps essay about this experience because, as you can see, there are so many layers to my "cross-cultural experience" that I can't possibly fit in 500 words. Garh.
At least their story is out of my head as much as it can be for 1:23 in the morning. There's always more to tell. It'll never be finished, even if I continued writing for the rest of my life. It'll only be finished if someone tackles the systematic political corruption that has plagued Chile's "politically stable" government since at least 1973.