Lost in Chile

Earlier this year, a friend offered me the use of any one of her eight houses in Chile. Her husband had begun investing in property there some 13 or so years ago and had developed his holdings to include vineyards, beachfront property, livestock and farmlands.

Our plans with them remained vague throughout the weeks prior to leaving. Nancy and Ed would be in Chile for part of the time we were there and we would spend some of our holiday with them. Before they arrived, and after they left, it was just Ernie and me, and our decision as to which of their houses we might visit. This was a lot looser than any other trip I’d gone on - many “maybes” and “ifs”. I boarded the plane with a few extra pounds of blind faith in my carry-on and headed 5000 miles southward.

Fourteen hours after we left Boston, in the sun of a new morning, we dragged our travel-abused bodies off the plane in Santiago. Just beyond the exit gate we spied a pudgy grey-haired man in jeans holding a sign that read “Ernie and Ellen” – a most welcoming sight.

Alfonso, our greeter, introduced himself as one of the managers of the winery. He piled our bags into the back of his dust-covered white SUV and, while telling us about his country and work there, drove two hours south to the city of Curico. Chile is in the early stages of re-building its infrastructure from the damage of last year’s devastating earthquake and we traveled down its only major highway – Ruta 5. Two right turns at the end of the trip placed us at the impressive gates of La Pancora, the first of our friends’ houses we would stay at. The large wrought iron doors swung open, and we followed the driveway some hundreds of feet to the door of an elegant country estate. Rosita, the child-sized housekeeper was there to greet us with a warm hug and cool drinks. After exploring the house and grounds, Ernie and I fell on our bed for a much-needed nap.

The next day, after Rosita served us a Chilean breakfast of ham, white bread, white cheese and fruit, topped off by a cup of instant Nescafe, we decided to head out. We had the use of a huge diesel SUV, a GPS, and a map of the area with an “X” Alfonso had drawn, showing our location in the village of Rauca. Rosita speaks no English, so it was a challenge to get the particulars of our address from her. I had noticed a shipping box with our hosts’ name on it and an address. I showed the box to Rosita, and pointed at the writing. “La Pancora?” I questioned.

She nodded, smiled and said “Si, si.” I grabbed a paper and copied the address.

We packed some basic provisions – fruit, water and a handful of nuts, and drove off, two left turns bringing us out to the main road. “I don’t want to drive on the highway”, Ernie informed me. Ernie has great confidence in his innate sense of direction, as well as his superior (to mine) map-reading skills. He glanced down at the map and figured out a parallel route to Curico proper, winding its way through earthquake-ravaged villages and farmland.

After a touristically perfect day of driving, stopping for photo ops, and buying some road food, we decided it was time to head back. “I just want to be there before dark,” I announced. Ernie, to my astonishment, agreed.

I punched the address into the GPS. On the screen I read “Unknown destination”.

“Hmm. That’s odd. I tried again with the same results. Ernie said not to worry, we had the map with Alfonso’s large black “X”.

So, we drove back by dead reckoning and the compass reading on the GPS. We saw familiar signs and storefronts we had passed earlier in the day and were both sure we would see the first of the right turns Alfonso had taken. We didn’t.

As the sky darkened, after many wrong turns, we realized that we needed some help. Neither of us speaks any Spanish, and in the rural areas we were driving, English was not an option. We stopped a few younger people who looked as if they might help us, showed them the written address and the map, and received confused looks. Romeral, the address I’d written, was not near the “X” mark, it seemed. Several people indicated with gestures and miming, that we needed to turn around and go back, following roads we had traveled earlier.

Meandering in the dark, unsure of our destination, we eventually stopped at a gas station for some much-needed help. When the attendant proved as useless as our previous advisors, we somehow managed to ask for directions to the nearest police station. He pointed, and in Spanglish, directed us just up the road. Breathing relief, we found the comisaria, parked and went in. It was, by now, 10:30 and the officers were turning out the lights, ready to close the building. Recognizing our distress and cluelessness, four or five of them tried with good humor to understand our predicament. They had no more comprehension of English than we had of Chilean Spanish.

When I saw a computer, I figured I could look up the name of the Vineyard, as much as I remembered it, “Apal…..”, and find its location. I pointed at the old desktop model and said “Google?” That, they understood, and indicated that there was no hook up to the internet. Grasping for anything that might help, I said “Vineyard – Americano”.

“Ah” said one of the young officers, grinning widely. “La Pancora!”

“Si, si,” I exclaimed. “La Pancora”. One of our now relieved-looking saviors motioned that we follow his van in our car, Red lights flashing, our police escort drove off with us in his dust. For about ten minutes, we followed the van down windy dirt roads and found ourselves in a parking lot beside another police station. It seems we were being handed over to tail a different police van assigned to this second station, in La Pancora’s district.

Again, we sped through the dark night, following blinking red lights. This time, the ride was longer and passed through more remote areas. It occurred to me, just for a moment, that this might NOT be the best thing to do in a foreign country. Ernie and I agreed we had no choice, and, taking deep breaths to bolster blind faith, we continued on.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the gates of La Pancora. The welcoming sign, “Apaltagua”, the name of the wines produced there, hovered above our heads. As we pulled up to the gates, the police turned in front of our car, not allowing us entry. It wasn’t until we used the beeper to open the gate, that they accepted our legitimacy as lost travelers and not, as they might have imagined, thieves in the night.

Lights came on in the main house, and out stepped Rosita with her sleepy teen-aged daughter. They hugged us and talked to the police while we stood awkwardly by, not knowing if we should offer our escorts a tip, a drink or just a simple, “gracias”. After a half an hour or more of rapid Spanish palaver, when the policia were assured that all was well, they got back in their van and disappeared into the black starry night. Within minutes, Rosita and Sofia left as well, and we spent our second Chilean night, safe, sound and exhausted.

“Tomorrow, I’ll figure out where we are.” I promised Ernie, as we melted into sleep.

Charades

Last night I played make-believe. My husband and I had a dinner meeting with our friend and financial advisor, Dana. We’ve known him socially for some years and professionally for almost as long.

Dana wanted to discuss our investments as well as update us on other money matters and market trends. We chatted about our families for a short while and then he plunged into his passion – economics.

I know less than nothing about the world of money, finance and Ben Bernanke’s latest prognostications. But, here I was, sitting across from our fiscal guru who had charts and spreadsheets sharing table surface with steamed dumplings and bowls of white rice. Not wanting to embarrass myself, whenever Dana checked on my understanding, I assured him that I was keeping up with the conversation. I wasn’t. I was, however, smart enough to make a few comments that sounded as if I was participating.

Over many years, I’ve learned the skill of actively listening. When others are talking, I grab onto a few key phrases and twist them into a reflective question or comment. People nod, smile and believe that I’m part of the discussion at hand. Sometimes, they even remark on my acuity.

There are things I do know a lot about. I “get” cooking, education, literature, and cat psychology, but I’m the first to admit that I’m quite ignorant in many areas – obviously, economics, but as well, acoustics, football, classical music, long-term care options and an array of other topics pertinent to my place in life.

When I was just out of college, my brother helped me buy stereo components. In the 70’s, having a Thorens turntable and KLH speakers indicated superior knowledge of the finer points necessary to appreciate Bob Dylan and Thelonious Monk. In reality, I couldn’t tell the difference between those components and the RCA portable stereo my parents had given me in High School. My self-important boyfriends from Harvard and MIT, however, were wildly impressed when I invited them to my apartment to get drunk, make out and listen to Procul Harum. I smiled as I accepted their compliments on my super cool set-up.

My family put high value on academic and intellectual achievements. When we convened for holidays with aunts, uncles and cousins, the conversations would make reference to current political and cultural events. We children were expected to recognize key players in politics, important works of literature and have a passing familiarity with pop culture icons and trends.

As we sat around the table giving thanks each November, or recounting the story of our people fleeing Egypt at a seder, we were engaged in conversation. And, there was a nerve-wracking awareness that we cousins were being judged by some of our elders. Did we join the palaver at the table? Were our contributions appropriately on target? The pressure, especially on my cousins, the children of the Grand Inquisitor, Aunt Isabel, was palpable.

It was here, in the bosom of my family that I learned to “fake-it”. I’d prepare myself by reading headlines in the New York Times, scanning the Week in Review”, and latching onto names of dignitaries – Haile Selassie, Dag Hammerskjold, and the two Rudolfs, Bing and Nureyev. I learned to pepper my responses with these bits of disparate information, knowing that I had no ability to connect them to anything. My family thought I was brilliant. Of course, I was not AS brilliant as my brother who, with the aid of a near-photographic memory, performed even better at this charade than I.

My skill, if one can call it that, enabled me to impress employers, chatter with people who seemed important and superior to me and pretend my way into a comfortable place in America’s intellectual capital, Cambridge.

One evening, when I was probably a little drunk or high, I confessed my fraudulence to a boyfriend, who, though brilliantly academic, was a bit of a slacker himself. Although I never credited Ihor with a whole lot of wisdom, he shared his own secret with me. “I do that, too. I’ve actually read that believing you are not as smart as others is characteristic of many really talented people. Welcome to my world.”

Whoa. This was a wholly new concept! I had always, in my deepest corners, thought I was smart, but doubted it often enough to undermine my confidence. This guy, now an internationally renowned stem-cell biologist, was telling me other people lived this way. I had a lot to consider.

As I got older, I became more confident in what I actually know and more comfortable admitting holes in the data banks of my brain. I don’t have that gnawing feeling of being a charlatan as often as I used to. But last night, over a plate of House-special tofu, I reconnected with the younger me at my aunt’s table, spouting generalities, filled with factoids and wishing my elders would value me for the person I really knew was inside.

Porches

I’ve never lived in a house with a porch. Porches, in my childhood, were déclassé. Porches, wrapping around the fronts of houses were awfully close to stoops – those architectural extensions of front steps that hung off the facades of inner city homes. In 1950s suburbia we had patios or decks to extend our lives into the great, green outdoors.

My parent’s generation, trying to slough off their mittel-European, or even worse, Eastern European roots, rejected much of what reminded them of the Old World. Arriving in the United States, cities, with available and more importantly, cheap, slum housing, was where they planted themselves into American soil. Brooklyn, and the Bronx provided first homes to many of my parent’s cohort. And, for the majority, as soon as they were financially able, moving to suburbia was the goal. These freshly minted Americans who had grown up playing handball and hopscotch near the stoops their parents watched from, wanted more for their own children.

New construction filled the pastoral outreaches of New York. Ranch houses, split-levels and faux Colonials peppered the landscapes of burgeoning communities. What they provided in the way of modernity and convenience, they lacked, in many cases, in charm. Elegant front porches, picturesque picket fences, gazebos and arbors made way for two car garages and shiny black driveways. There wasn’t a stoop to be seen.

Reading - especially the children’s classics - was the way I navigated childhood. My daydreaming took me to visit Laura Ingalls Wilder in the late 19^th century Midwest and Anne in her farmhouse, Green Gables. I imagined myself sitting on their porches, swinging my legs and eating fresh-picked strawberries, served by motherly, aproned women.

My reality, in New Rochelle, involved shlepping old beach chairs out to the top of the driveway and hanging around (or not) with my parents, as their friends, with ice coffee in hand, stopped by. The adults loved it – we kids were bored to distraction.

A few years after we moved into our house, when my father had saved enough money to make some improvements, it was decided that we should build a deck off the BACK of the house. We lived on hilly land and a patio would have meant major earth-moving at an expense greater than my father had budgeted. A distant cousin, who had some experience in construction came and attached a simple wooden deck just outside the kitchen door. To access it from the yard, we had to climb up 9 stairs on a flimsy, ladder-like staircase.

Mom and Dad acquired some inexpensive outdoor furniture and a barbecue grill. They were delighted. I however, ignored the whole structure. I was scared of stairs that had no back and this deck did not look at all like my dreams of a sunny porch with morning glories entwined around the columns. I avoided it – it’s relentless sun and lack of coziness contradicted my fantasies. I went back to my books and the porches of Prince Edward Island and Iowa. I even fantasized about sitting with Francie on her stoop under a Brooklyn tree. My parents could not understand why I never liked to hang out on the deck they were so proud of providing for their children. Wooden decks do not become cozy havens of security and dreams in most cases, do not cross generational lines.