The Kelefors

by Adela Kelemen

Have you ever been new? From a different continent!? Well being new for some people is REALLY hard. Like me. But here, in Santiago, it was easier than I thought it would be. The people in Santiago are very kind.

The kids in my class were so excited that a new girl from California was here. And my teachers were also very warm and loving. The kids at my school have so much personality. I was invited to one of the girls’ birthday party and everyone was acting crazy and funny, unlike at school where they all acted disciplined and serious. Well, mostly serious.

But I did not just notice this at school. One of the women on our apartment floor who, when we first met her, was also very kind to us. She told us about how she had only been here for about 3 months in our apartment building. Also,the people who we rented from before (in our temporary apartment that we stayed in for our first 4 weeks) were like her. They were also very kind to us and they even invited us to their house for dinner.

One thing I really like about my new school is it has so many opportunities to do things we enjoy. I signed up for a cooking class, glass painting class and I joined the swim team for my school. We also did this project about the Chilean colonial times that we presented to the second graders. I was in this group that studied the art from the colonial times. We studied the art of the pottery and what the symbols and colors meant on the flag. It was really fun. I just hope I can do something like that again.

At school, I also learned a few new games that some kids play.  There is one game that is like hot potato, were you pass around a jacket or book or whatever someone has. But instead of stopping when the music ends, someone is in the middle of the circle and they slowly stand up and raise their arms to clap. When the person in the middle claps, the person who is holding the thing that everyone is passing around is out. All the people I have met so far have been so kind and welcoming and I hope it stays that way.

Matt’s thoughts on being new: Yeah, it’s different here. We eat at 10pm instead of 7pm. We greet people with a kiss on the cheek rather than a handshake. Etc. Etc. But, we still eat and we still greet. So, what’s really new? Paying for the kids to go to school. That’s new… and pretty weird. Being expected to conduct my work in a different language. That’s new… and pretty daunting. And of course, there are new friends to make… and that’s pretty great.

Dylan’s thoughts on being new: In my own life being new feels good. At school, on my first day I arrived at the campus and went to find the middle school principal James Tucker. There was an assembly that day and he showed me to my home room teacher. She is very nice and greeted me warmly. Then we walked together to find a few kids that where to be my “mentors.” When we found them, they introduced themselves, and then showed me to the group of seats in the auditorium where my new class was sitting just as the assembly was starting. The point of all this is that I had made new friends instantly and I think that it will be a great experience even though I am a different kid in a new school.

Jeannette’s thoughts on being new: I grew up frequently being the “new kid” in class. Now I’m getting schooled in how Chilean parents — namely the mamas — support their children and socialize with one another in a private school context. Dylan and Adela haven’t been in private school since they graduated from pre-school. Last week I went to a gathering of ten moms from Dylan’s 7th grade section, hosted by one of the room mothers. We started at 9pm. We left just before midnight. On a school night. We drank champagne and ate gourmet food. Did I mention it was a school night? And while I had the gist on most topics of conversation, I definitely got lost plenty of times. Feeling a bit like the new kid again.

 

by Dylan Kelemen

Santiago has a subway and bus system just like a lot of other big cities around the world. But, the Santiago metro/bus system is huge. You can go from the farthest northern part of the city to the farthest southern part of the city on one metro train, or travel to other towns by bus.

There are currently five active metro lines covering 64 miles of track and including 108 stops, and they are building Line #6. Almost everywhere I go, I see multiple buses and each bus stop often has five or six bus lines that run through it.

Tons of people use the metro system, crowding buses and trains everywhere. The metro line alone has 2.4 million riders per day. In the eastern most part of the city where I have soccer practice on Tuesday and Thursday, buses fill up so much that you wouldn’t think that any more people could fit. But people eager to get to their destination are aggressive and keep pushing.

The metro system is super fast and reliable, getting you where you need to go at almost any time of day. Interestingly, the fare is dependent on the time you travel. The cost is higher during rush hours (6:00am to 8:00am, and 5:30pm to 8:00pm).

In our neighborhood, we have a small metro stop that is a 5-minute walk from our house. There are also buses running along the big streets going into the city center where you can catch the metro at various larger stops. We mostly choose to walk, bike, or take public transit instead of paying for a cab because the taxis cost more than the fare and they get tangled up in traffic during rush hour. I’m lucky to have a school bus that is door-to-door. But some kids have to take a bus to the metro, and then another bus just to get to a school bus stop.

Tomorrow is our first day of school . . . and more on that next week from Adela.

Thoughts on getting around from Adela: One thing I noticed immediately at the metro station was how crowded it was. People pushing eachother, trying to get to the door, it’s a mad house. It’s the same with the buses. One time I was trying to get on the bus every one was pushing and pulling. The woman next to us said, “They are like animals!” and I have to say, “She has a point.”

Thoughts on getting around from Jeannette: Adela, Dylan and I left the house during the pre-dawn rush hour to get them to Santiago College for Day Two of their evaluations. We walked from our apartment three blocks to catch a crowded bus 14-blocks to the metro line. One stop east and directions from a few people got us to the the first and only stop in Providencia of the express bus to Lo Barnechea (where the school is located). So far so good. But it was a bit of a mad house at the stop once the next bus arrived as men and women jockeyed for a seat to avoid standing for the 30-minute ride. As I considered how best to ensure the children and I could safely board the bus I caught a woman’s eye and asked if people were always so aggressive. She nodded in disgust and replied, “They are animals!” The ride turned out to be fine, albeit crowded. The same woman chatted with me along the ride and made sure we wouldn’t miss our stop. When I thanked her for her friendliness and help she remarked, “A kind gesture never costs a thing.” So true. Later that day we took a different bus back to Providencia. We weren’t traveling during rush hour and were glad to have seats. And we enjoyed the talent of two guitarists who boarded the bus to earn some cash entertaining riders with really great jams from various artists, Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd among them. When authorities boarded the bus to check that everyone had paid their fare the vibe completely changed. It was hard to track everyone’s comments — Chileans speak fast and cut off lots of word endings — but most folks voiced their annoyance that the fare check imposed a delay half a block from where most of them (and we) would disembark. Others defended the musicians from hopping on the bus without paying a fare because they were simply working to earn a living. And some defended the officials who were also only just doing their job. I’d venture to say that nearly everyone but us commented in one way or another. People were not at all shy voicing their opinions — though I couldn’t really gauge how peoples’ comments rated on the civility meter. Between the physical contest boarding our outbound bus and the verbal ping-pong on our inbound bus, we definitely got some insights into the Chilean commuting experience. And it made signing up for the private school bus service for the kids an easy and straight-forward choice.

Thoughts on getting around from Matt: We don’t have a car and we probably won’t need one. That, I think, is a good thing.

 

by Matt Kelemen

On the day after the Copa América final, I was driving. Returning a car to a friend and navigating the streets of a still-unfamiliar city. All was quiet, as most Santiagiños recovered at home from a night of revelry and emotional release. On the radio, two sports jocks discussed the victory. Not the armchair quarterbacking you often hear on AM radio in the States, with callers offering fervent opinions about the coach’s decision to put in the lefty to face a hot hitter or whether the point guard should have hit the open three rather than making that extra pass. Rather, they were discussing the perceived significance of La Roja’s first win of a major tournament… and boy was it ever significant. Chileans needed this, they said, as a salve to so many wounds inflicted on the people of this long strip of land at the bottom of the world. If it’s not an earthquake, it’s a volcano erupting. If it’s not an eruption, it’s political corruption and broken promises to reform the schools (their words, not mine). But now, all that was washed away in a moment of national pride. Eleven men in red shirts had outlasted eleven men in sky blue and white shirts. Alexis Sanchez planted the winning penalty past a helpless Argentinean keeper, wheeled off toward the corner flag, and stripped off his shirt to start a long and cathartic celebration of a whole country.

As a loyal fan of a few sports teams, I get it. I remember feeling utter joy when the Orioles won the World Series when I was thirteen years old, or when the US national team beat Ghana in the last World Cup. It’s what real Warriors fans must have felt when their team broke a 40-year streak without a championship. Or Red Sox fans celebrating a World Series victory after so much heartbreak. Curses broken. Ignominious records wiped out. The title of “longest-time-without-a-win” handed off to some other unfortunate group of fans.

But this had a different quality to it (or perhaps a just a different magnitude). A perceived sense of possibility, a wondering about “now that we’ve done this, what else can we do? Have we turned some kind of corner? Can we bottle this euphoria and optimism and use it to attack our social and economic malaise?” Absurd, right? After all, it’s just a game. And you can look at a number of ways in which the tournament was stacked in Chile’s favor: Brazil’s best player sent off in dubious circumstances. Chile’s talisman given leniency by a judge after drunkenly wrecking his sports car in the middle of the tournament! No small number of home-cooked refereeing decisions.

Not to mention that all of those other problems persist. The economy is stuttering. Both the Bachelet government and opposition political parties have been hit with corruption scandals that have weakened their ability to lead. And, most interesting to me, an ambitious education reform agenda is facing serious and organized opposition. It is beyond absurd to think that success on the soccer pitch will in any way translate into progress on these fronts.

Yet, it’s intriguing to think about how such an event can affect collective psychology. From what I’ve learned so far, there is a deep-seated cautiousness, even pessimism, among Chileans. It is central to their identity, known as “Chilenidad.” So, here they were, on sports radio, in newspaper features, in casual conversation, talking about the match lifting sprits and creating new possibilities. One Sunday article pictured a young boy wearing the national team jersey and asked in bold letters, “What will it be like to have a generation that knows about winning?”

We are now a month into our time in Chile, and a month away from that special night when Chile won the Copa América. As we go forward, I’ll be looking for other hints of optimism about the future. But I won’t be holding my breath for any fundamental changes to Chilenidad… at least not until the next major fútbol tournament.

Dylan’s thoughts on Chilenidad: I saw my first sub-12 game between Católica and Magallanes. The field was tucked away off a dirt road with no name. Parents and teammates were cheering on their team from the sidelines in the freezing cold. The kids and the parents constantly yell at the ref, hoping to get their way on EVERY call. The game was different from my soccer experiences in the US. It was more physical, goals were celebrated excessively, and the whole game was faster.

Jeannette’s thoughts on Chilenidad: This past week confirmed for me that bureaucracy is a pillar of Chilenidad. When we went to a notary last week to get our lease agreement signed and stamped, the office was PACKED with people lined up to get various documents notarized: car sales, apartment rentals, house purchases, employment offers, business contracts . . . the list goes on. Curiously though, despite our wait, all our official documents, our fees, and the help of our property manager, we never actually SAW the notary – he or she signed and stamped our documents and we merrily went on our way.

Adela’s thoughts on Chilenidad: Chileans are kind. Chileans are funny. They welcome you into their homes and say, “Mi casa es tu casa.” I visited a couple of schools. In one interview, where it was just me and no one else from my family, I was talking to the interviewer and we laughed together, we smiled together, we asked questions about each other, and I didn’t have to hold anything back from her. I knew that I could trust her. You don’t get very many of those sensations when you first meet somebody, but for me, I felt so many things like that in just this past month. I hope that Chile and Chileans never change.