POV

Sometimes these things just write themselves. Here I am, around midnight in my apartment, trawling around on the internet, while outside of my window in Plaza Italia, I can hear a group of people singing and playing and dancing a cueca, a famous dance here in Chile. And of the two options, I'd rather be here, on my computer, than down in the plaza, watching and listening to real actual Chileans doing a real actual Chilean dance. Maybe I should feel guilty for this, but I am simply not interested in Chile right now.

This thought is somewhat comforting, in a roundabout way. From what I remember of my semester in Spain, my feelings about the country described a downward-arcing parabola. First, the ecxitement of being in a new place, then the process of the place growing more and more familiar until one is sick of it, and then a new, considered appreciation of the country.

I'd like to think that I'm currently heading towards the zenith of this cultural parabola, which means that, eventually, I should come out of it with a new appreciation of this place and people. The fact that gives me pause, though, is that my arrival here didn't give me excitement so much as anxiety, concerning money, housing and language acquisition. However, I now have a job, and an apartment (though I'll be moving into a new one shortly), and as for language, well, I don't think I've improved all that much, but I'm not as worried about learning it, simply because worrying about it so much has me exhausted. A fact that makes me think that I am following that parabola along its course, and that perhaps I'll come out higher than I am right now.

Make no mistake, I am, at the moment, sick of Santiago. It's big, and loud, like any other city, and simply doesn't have much that makes it unique. More specifically, the neighborhoods and buildings that are specific to the city--the older colonial buildings and neighborhoods--are being either neglected or transformed to look like the rest of downtown, which resembles any other major city, anywhere else. Hell, even the Christmas decorations feature snowflakes here, and it's summer this side of equator. I've talked to many people about this , actually: the fact that Chileans have something of an inferiority complex, continually saying that Peruvians speak better than them, or that Argentina has come culture. Because of this anxiety, which is, in part, attributable to the fact that Chile is isolated from the rest of the continent by the Andes mountains, this country seems particularly eager to accept the customs and fashions and habits that are readily available from other parts of the world, an eagerness met most easily by, of course, the United States.

And what's the last thing an American wants to see when he travels? America! Why else would we leave the damn place?

I could continue, but think I'd better not. I'll end by saying that I am, indeed, sick of Santiago, but I think I'm sick of it in the way that everyone else here is, what with the traffic and the noise and the pollution. And maybe, if I can dislike Chile like a Chilean, I can like it, too. Eventually.