MeMag - Me Magazine

Last evening the doorbell rang. A spotted rather round geekish looking boy in a shirt and tie was visiting E15. Not her usual taste in men. A few minutes later he left, carrying her PC with him. It seems that the girl is using him to have a lot of things fixed in her computer. I told her “if you owe him a favor, couldn’t you have let him kiss you a little or something instead? Why did you have to give him the computer of all things? Why? Why? Whyyy?” With it gone, my internet connection is gone too. I guess it’s back to hectic internet cafés and bad coffees.

The flies are back in the living room and this time I haven’t been able to chase them out. There are about eight of them and they seem to be working together. I think they are using our living room as a mating ground. They just hang in mid-air and occasionally sort of bump into each other. It doesn’t look very arousing, but of course it is a great deal more exciting than my sex life.

For a few days I’ve been feeling a bit poorly. Something seems to be slightly wrong with my sense of balance and I feel like I’m constantly onboard a boat, bobbing lazily up and down on a calm water surface. I also have a big purple and yellow spot on my arm. It keeps feeding my imagination with various medical horror scenarios; skin cancer or Borreliosis maybe. Or maybe something worse. Something new and unrecorded by science. Maybe I will die and have a disease named after me. Not the legacy I had originally hoped for, but probably better than being forgotten altogether.

After Spanish class today, I went shopping for a new garlic press for M. A week ago I was trying to use the one she has and noticed that it was broken. A piece was missing. I made a command decision and threw the thing into the garbage bin. Two days later I found the missing part. The new press doesn’t look anything like the old one, but at least it will be easier to admit my misdeed after the new one is in place. In the evening when M came home, it was lying on the kitchen table in plain sight. She moved around it for a while while burning her evening bread, but made a point of not asking. (M doesn’t toast bread, she sets it on fire on the gas stove leaving half of it white and untoasted and the other half completely charred). Maybe I should let the garlic press lie there until tomorrow and see what happens.

In the afternoon when I came home, all of the leftover pizza, about seven big pieces, was gone. There was one slice left. It was sitting on the kitchen counter, dry, uncovered and with teethmarks on the side. In her room, E15 was making moaning sounds. I asked if anything was wrong and she quickly stopped. She usually makes the same noises when she wants attention and M has told me that if she starts making them while she is alone with me, it would be a sign of trust and acceptance. Still, this time it was probably just the pizza.

I decided to ask her if she wanted to watch Wallace & Gromit with me and she looked sceptically at the DVD not knowing what it was. She said well… ok, but that she wanted to finish watching the cartoons first. It is a 24 hour cartoon channel. I got the message. Five hours later when M came home, the poor girl was still watching the cartoons, probably in living fear of having to sit through a movie with her estranging father.

Except to our trip to the family reunion, she has been at home all day alone for about five days now. She doesn’t go out or even get out of her nightie until shortly before M is to return home. Then the girl spends a half hour trying on different outfits in order to look her best for when her mom returns. Maybe she is afraid of what M would say if she knew that the girl was spending the entire day in bed eating. It must be boring to be E15 these days. No one around except a silent father who makes her nervous. Not even a computer for company. Even the flies are having a better time than she has.

Today we went to the big family reunion party. M said “we’ll be leaving at 1 o’clock so my sister will pick us up at 12 or 12:30.” I wonder what life is like on planet M. When I awoke, M was very busy doing housework. She was in a great mood and we had breakfast together. I’m not used to the idea of having cheesecake for breakfast, but since I made the thing I was happy to see that someone wanted to try it. All throughout the morning I kept feeling tiny earthquake tremors that M said was all in my imagnation. Maybe she is right. I seem to be the only one who can fell the small ones. Either people here are so used to them that they no longer notice, or I’m simply having problems with my equilibrium.

M has been very nice and easy going for the past couple of days. We are getting along quite well. Last night, as one of the neighbors were playing Take On Me by aha at a very high volume, we had a long conversation during which she was extremely funny and bright, making all those little priceless M-comments that only she can. I have started to realize that the reason why her English is so… different is that she probably learnt it all from song lyrics. She constantly uses lines from songs when she wants to say something. When we argue she can say things like “the problem with you is that you want it all and you want it now, like Freddie Mercury.”

After surviving M’s sister’s attempt at breaking the speed record on the road to their cousin’s house, I needed a drink. The woman managed to change lanes at least 200 times, never once slowing down, looking in the mirror or using her turn signal. I will ask E15 to use the seat belt in the back the next time she goes for a ride in auntie’s car. I should also probably buy the girl a helmet.

The family gathering supposedly included 100 relatives, but it didn’t seem like there were quite that many. Most of them wanted to talk to me and ask me the eternal question, “are you planning to travel to the south?” I’m getting quite good at discussing the south in Spanish. Overwhelmed by their number and inquisitiveness, as well as the drive getting there, I went through a few different traditional types of punch with either strawberries and wine or peach and wine. Then a few glasses of red wine for good measure.

By the time dinner was ready, I was already tipsy and too stuffed from the appetizers to eat anything. I put some of the bones from M’s chicken on my plate to avoid being asked by everyone every two minutes why I wasn’t eating. For some reason a great number of M’s family seems to speak Swedish. It was explained to me that this person and that person had lived in Sweden, but I never got a clear picture of why.

I had brought my camera and wanted to pass some of the time photographing around the huge garden and swimming pool, but the alcohol made it impossible to focus my eyes clearly on anything. I shot a few pictures that all probably have someone walking in front of the lens. Then I realized that I had forgotten to bring more film. So once more I was in a bad mood for the remainder of the day.

I spent the rest of the time at the party talking to a couple of old hippie relatives of M. For hours I talked to one of them in Spanish and he seemed to understand everything I said. I felt proud. Afterwards, a few comments he made to M about what we had talked about revealed that he had in fact only been nodding and smiling all along as I dished out sentence after sentence of drunken gibberish.

The next day we went to the feria (market) as usual on Sundays, and I bought my usual stack of cheap DVDs. Most of them turned out to only be in Spanish so I gave them to E15 instead. I now have an archive consisting mostly of concert videos. I need to stock up on entertainment for our trip to the beach next week. The girls will be sunbathing all day and all evening and I will most likely end up sitting by myself in an empty summer house with no tv or internet for company. What horror.

Two of M’s friends came over for a Sunday lunch and I was happy to have someone to feed all the rest of the cheesecake and (phenomenal) raspberry ice cream to. I also made pizza. After eating it was explained to me that the real reason why they had come was that one of them is studying English at an online college and that she wanted me to do one of her tests for her. M had already agreed to me doing it, so I went ahead and completed the test for her. I don’t really see the point to that, but what the hell. It was only a few multiple choice questions and they were very easy. Maybe I should have her do my Spanish tests for me.

As I was listening to the dinner table chatter, I suddenly got the impression that they were making an appointment on my behalf for next week. I am to go with the English student’s boyfriend to a kind of semi-nudie bar. This is apparently a new phenomena here in Chile. There are these coffee lunch places with dark curtains. The coffe and food is really bad but the waitresses are… wait for it… scantily dressed! Not nude or in the process of taking their clothes off or anything. They are just wearing short skirts or something like that. Highly immoral. M and I walked past one of those places about a month ago. A small child was running in through the door and the mother was frantically chasing her, trying to prevent the horror of her going inside.

For some reason, the girls seemed very excited about the fact that we are going. All except E15 who said that if I went, she would never forgive me. If that isn’t a sign that she cares, then I don’t know what is. The girl and I have an unspoken pact of mutual respect going. I play my guitar and she waits until I’m finished before putting on her music. I in turn wait until she is finished listening to that before I put on some of my music. Then her again for a while. It goes on like that throughout the afternoons. We don’t speak but we allow each other some space. Things are becoming nice and balanced around me. Equilibrium.

Heat. That word just about sums up my day yesterday. I kept moving sluggishly around the apartment, trying to find a little corner somewhere where there might be a draft to cool me down. For a while I settled at the dining table downstairs and got some work done. But the sun soon figured out my scheme and moved to the other side of the building, having left the first side at a permanent oven temperature for the remainder of the day.

E15 was on a similar quest for coolness, trying everything from the small fan which everyone gets to use except me, to making trip after trip to the freezer to get ice cubes and leftover ice cream. “I am hot, I am hot,” she mumbled to herself. Finally, probably suffering from heat exhaustion, she started doing the dishes. Maybe it was just a mirage. It seems so implausible now, thinking back on it.

We only talked twice during the day. Once when I said there was plenty of Quiche left if she wanted to heat herself a slice. She asked what setting she was to use for the oven. Afterwards she must have changed her mind because she called her mother instead and asked her how to cook hamburgers. The other mini-conversation we had was when she asked to borrow one of my DVDs and I said yes, but that the quality wasn’t very good.

I did manage to make one trip outside to buy a few things I needed to make the raspberry ice cream I had promised E15 tomorrow. Then I managed to kill an hour in the kitchen making a cheesecake instead. I only screwed it up slightly. But the thought of starting on the long process of making ice cream today seemed too much. If I can find plenty of readymade ice cubes somewhere, I can use them and a bit of salt to make the freezing process quicker. Seven hours is just too long to stay awake in this temperature.

The next morning I wanted to leave E15 one of my notes saying that I was in class and so on, but it seemed a pointless rutine. I could have used the note as an excuse to make her a little cute drawing, but I couldn’t think of anything funny. Also, I had confirmed that I don’t know how to draw the previous evening when I made about seven self-portrait attempts, all of which looked like they were drawn by a duck with a pen taped to it’s beak. I find it terribly depressing that I cannot draw. I used to draw pretty good when I was a kid, but then of course the people you compared yourself to were children. I just never improved much as I grew older. Thinking about this got me in a bad mood and I left the apartment a half hour early so that I wouldn’t have to think of anything to say to any awaking teenagers.

Being early for class, I spent the time at the lovely Esso On The Run Café yet again, with another completely undrinkable cup of coffee. And by that I don’t mean that I’m too much of a snob to drink coffee at a gas station… but when it’s so nasty and hot that you are actually in pain while sipping, it’s time to throw in the caffeine towel.

My nice teacher had promised me a slice of her Quiche today and she kept her promise. Another entry in the culinary jealousy war between all my female friends here. This specimen didn’t look or taste anything like a Quiche at all, but it was very good. And freshly made. Last week she told me that they would be having Quiche for dinner the evening before my class and that she would bring me a leftover slice. But it seemed that she had made it before class in the morning instead. I hope it wasn’t just to keep her promise to me.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Spent another day with E15 without any real conversation. She has been a bit quiet and serious the last few days. No smiles or jumping around. Maybe it’s just the heat. So while she was in her room all day, I was in the kitchen, cooking various things for later consumption. No one will eat it of course. But who cares. We constantly stock enough food to open a small restaurant. Maybe that’s what I should do. Preferably one with an air conditioning system.

Today I was enjoying a very quiet friendly Spanish class with my normal teacher when M rang me on my cell phone. She was worried. E15 did not answer the phone. I told M to try calling again after a while and not to worry. The girl had been sleeping when I left. A couple of minutes later a very worried M called me again. She said that she would have to leave work to go home and check what was wrong. I said that in that case it was better that I go, since I only had one hour of class left and would make it home faster.

I explained the situation to my teacher who was very understanding. Then I left and tried to decide if I should take a taxi or the bus. The taxi would be a good deal faster, but the driver might drive me all over the city to extract extra money from me. The bus would be a safer bet.

Riding home, the traffic seemed to stand still. It was all going a lot slower than usual, or so it felt. Even though I thought the idea of rushing home like that had seemed silly at first, my head was now filling up with horror scenarios. I had thought it was odd that E15 hadn’t moved when I was finished taking my noisy shower. I can see her sleeping each morning as I walk into the bathroom and usually she has shifted into a different position when I emerge. This morning she hadn’t. Maybe she had died during the night. Maybe it was a delayed sudden infant death syndrome. Just 15 years too late.

I exited the bus and walked with quick steps the last distance. The apartment was quiet. No computer typing. No singing. It was 2pm. Climbing the stairs I could see E15 lying in the exact same position she had been in hours before. Fear. I walked into the room and stood over her. Was she breathing? Not that I could see. I stood there silently for a while not knowing what to do. Then I said hello? No answer. Again. She took a long deep breath like people who have drowned do after being brought back to life. Then she turned and asked what was going on?

I tried to explain everything. And she was understandably annoyed. Then I called M and told her that her baby was alive. M then talked to the girl and gave her a full angry lecture. A tired, confused and frustrated E15 tried to defend herself, saying that she had been asleep and hadn’t heard any phone. I felt extremely stupid. She really had done absolutely nothing wrong. She is a teenager. It is her summer vacation. She stays up late and sleeps in. Besides, while they were arguing on their cells, the bedroom phone rang and I picked it up but I could not hear anybody. Maybe it doesn’t work.

A while later M called back apologizing very deeply to me. She admitted to being an atadosa (Chilenism), -someone who creates conflicts out of nothing and overcomplicates things. She also said that we were to use some of her unused lunch coupons, whatever that is, to order pizza and enjoy ourselves. E15 would come downstairs shortly and ask me what topping I wanted, and then make the call and the payment with the coupons.

The pizzas, two for the price of one on Mondays, arrived shortly after and E15 and I were both grinning and humming. She ate in her room and I downstairs. My first delivered pizza in about five years. I was in the middle of baking bread, my second go at the recipe from my Spanish teacher’s father. It went really well this time. Damn near perfect.

In the evening, M bought us tickets to the undubbed version of Narnia at the local cinema. We happen to live very close to the most modern movie theatre in Chile. On our way there the girls were joking about the incident that morning. “Poor little old woman,” E15 said. “Every day a little crazier.”

I really enjoyed the cinema interior design, with popcorn stands, ushers and wall-to-wall carpeting and colored lights a lot more than the movie. I am the only person in the worls who things surround sound ruins the viewing experience. It fights with the picture for attention. Film is primarily a visual medium and I prefer my movies with a balanced mono mix rather than these exaggerated incredibly loud soundtracks.

That night I slept uneasily due to the heat and an earthquake tremor which for a short while made the bed and darkness around me move like liquid. Half asleep, I was gently rocked from side to side, feeling hot and seasick. The next day was quiet with no apparent cryb death insidents or panic phone calls. Having survived a dentist appointment early in the morning which she had dreaded for weeks, a happy E15 prepared pizza leftovers in the new electric oven and then worried greatly when some melted cheese dripped from the slices onto the bottom of the oven. I knew someting was up since I heard a sound like a wounded baby wookie from the kitchen.

She then called M, I later learned, and asked what she should do. “He’ll be really angry. It is his new toy.” M said that probably there was no reason to worry. After being exposed to pizza smells for a while, I also ventured down into the kitchen to heat pizza. E15 came down with a strange look on her face. She stood silently for a while beside me and then quietly pointed to the drops of melted cheese inside the oven. I was delighted and said that melted, almost burned drops of cheese like that was the best thing about pizza. She shook her head at my insanity and left, looking relieved as if she had been snatched from the jaws of death.

I sat in my room feeling dizzy and worked for a while on the web design job I should have finished long ago. Earlier in the morning while E15 had been away to be worked on by the dentist, I had been outside for a walk in the sun. Since this was the hottest day so far during my stay here, I had collapsed in a chair at my favorite café, drinking freshly made and very cold raspberry juice. Still I had become overheated by the long walk in the sun. Now during the afternoon, the heat of my stuffy room was becoming unbearable.

M came home early, again bringing gifts for everyone. I got a really nice t-shirt. They were three for 1000 pesos, M explained, ruining the illusion of an overwhelming purchase. Why didn’t I get three then, I wondered. 1000 pesos in only $2. I myself had paid a whopping 8000 for my two t-shirts when I was out walking. Allthough extremely cool, hardly a bargain by comparison.

In the evening M and I went for a walk to get some cool air. We met one of her friends at a sidewalk restaurant where we sat for a long time while they talked and I understood very little. I was extremely bored and our table was just on the edge of the main street in in this borough. Buses and cars where roaring by inches from me. M has a strange taste in restaurants. She decided to test my patience yet again by pointing out to her friend that I was always acting like a little child and that she was forced to behave towards me like a mother. I cannot articulate how furious I get at this. What the hell is it with this woman and maternal instincts? It will end in a big fight soon, I’m sure. If she can’t treat me like an adult I’m taking my toys and leaving.

Another Spanish class with the other, completely insane teacher. She was especially frisky today, singing as she prepared for our class. I think it is probably impossible for someone to be that much off-key without trying to on purpose. She always sings. She arrives singing, she sings as she answers the 58 billion phone calls that eat into the time I have paid for. And she sings as she waits for me to come up with the answer to various questions in the textbook.

“I sing very badly,” she says and laughs. Then she continues squaking in her loud hideous voice. It is impossible to think and yet I have to keep a steady flow of words coming or else she will stop me and spend five minutes explaining something I already know but is unable to think of under the circumstances. Towards the end of the class today I probably sounded like I was speaking in tongues, dishing out random words and noises here and there just to keep her listening and quiet.

Not that she was listening. She never is. Today she fell asleep, started to keel over and then awoke in mid-air waving her arms. Seconds later she was out again, just as her insanely LOUD cell phone rang yet again. She screamed. After the phone call she stood up in order to try and stay awake. And fell asleep standing up. Just for a second. She staggered towards the wall and pretended to casually lean against it. She then made a run for the bathroom. Probably to put some cold water on her face. She just told me during our last class that she had fallen asleep in class the previous week and had to pretend to go to the bathroom in order to get out.

Finally she was awake. The micro-naps seemed to have made her somewhat amorous. She stood over me, close beside my chair and started caressing my arm as part of some verbal excercise. I was supposed to answer her questions in Spanish and the question now was “am I touching you?” “Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. The question was answered but she continued to touch me. I didn’t know what to do. “Am I allowed to touch you?” she continued. “No,” I said. “Please don’t.” “En Español,” she smiled. I couldn’t think of a Spanish phrase for leave me the fuck alone you insane old cow.

Finally she stopped and started hitting me instead. Not very hard, just enough to annoy the hell out of me. Again and again she poked my arm. I didn’t know what to do. I was completely frozen. All I could think about was that I wanted to run out and wash my arm where she had touched me. “Am I hitting you, dear?” I didn’t answer. I don’t know why my real teacher leaves me in the clutches of this other woman, her boss all the time. Every week she doesn’t show up for one of our appointments and I have to endure this other woman. I think this will be my last week. It’s amazing how two hours in a classroom can make me feel ten years older and like I have worked for several days straight.

Arriving home, exchausted, it was time for a very special event. Today was to be father-daughter day. Or part of today anyway. My evil scheme of having E15 go with me to buy the new monitor had worked. She didn’t even try to get out of our appointment like I had thought she might try to. If she had, I would have said that I wouldn’t go alone because I couldn’t figure out how to get the big box home in a taxi by myself. The minute the taxi driver smells gringo, he will go for the throat and drive you somewhere else.

E15 and I walked quietly towards the bus stop. Once in a while we sort of had a dialogue. I tried saying something, realized time after time in Spanish mid-sentence that I didn’t know how to finish it, and landed clumsily on some word that didn’t really belong in there. As usual, she was fighting hard not to laugh. That girl really enjoys to see me suffer. From time to time however, she did understand what I said. Not that she said much herself. But it was the first time she and I have gone somewhere together. I felt great.

The store functioned more like a bank than a shop. We were directed to one of many desks in an office landscape where we sat down wile a woman took our order and asked all kinds of complicated questions about personal id numbers and whatnot. I didn’t understand anything but E15 took over and handled everything. We then walked to another part of the store where I paid using my Visa card. More questions. Several documents received large official looking stamps. Then we went over to yet another area where we were handed the monitor and another collection of stamps.

After a complicated taxi trip back home with E15 explaining exactly which streets to go by, we took the monitor out of the box and plugged it in. Father-daughter day was then over. There was chatting to be done. M came home from work a little later as her old cheerful self, bringing smiles and gifts for everyone. I got a tiny pocket tripod which was a lot nicer than any such devices I have used before. A good day after all. Even though I had been somewhat harassed by an insane women maybe fifteen years older than me.

E15 returned during the night. This morning there was an empty beer can by the sink in the bathroom when I awoke. The girls were both asleep. Sice we had planned to go to the market, I put on the radio downstairs as a low and friendly alarm clock. Oasis, 102.1FM. It’s an oldie station with some nice tunes every now and then. A bit too heavy on John Lennon and things like that for my taste. The Beatles are very popular here. The drunk teenagers on the benches outside our apartment squall through most of their backlog on a good night.

When M awoke, she still wasn’t talking to me. I had breakfast by myself and the girls had theirs in bed. Finally I went into M’s room, smiled and asked if they were ready for a jolly fun-filled day at the market. Apparently they both were, since they made themselves ready to leave. M said that we would take a taxi because we were meeting her friend there and a taxi would be quicker. When we left, M mumbled that she didn’t have enough for bus fare. “What happened to the taxi?” I asked. “Taxi? We are not taking a taxi!” Ok fine. E15 commented that it was bad form to arrive at a flea market in a taxi. Which was a very good point really. They both acted like I was the worlds biggest idiot for suggesting something like that. I must be because that entire episode seemed completely surreal to me.

At the market I bought several movies as usual. M had forgotten her money so I paid for hers too. Again she seemed annoyed. Afterwards she appeared to have money after all. The others were all having a kind of homemade peach juice which is served by street vendors at the market. M couldn’t understand why I didn’t want any. The first time we had been to the market, I had said that the stuff looked good, but she told me that it was too unsafe to drink and that I would become terribly ill. In a way I enjoy these little bizarre moments.

I kept track of the time since our friend from the embassy, probably one of the worlds greatest cooks, was to arrive at our apartment to give me a lesson in preparing the perfect Quiche and a few other things, such as Pebre, -a very spicy local relish. It was only 25 minutes until she was to arrive and we were a busride and a walk away from the apartment. And we were going to go shopping for Coriander and Chili on the way. M said we had plenty of time. I thought it would be a bad idea that the woman who was to travel at her own expense from another part of town all the way over to spend the entire afternoon teaching me how to cook would have to stand outside and wait, so I went home in advance of the others.

Arriving at the apartment 3 minutes early I sat down and rested while I waited. 25 minutes later the woman arrived, with M! I’m sure they had planned to meet up along the way. M had talked to the lady on the phone before I left them, but she never mention any new arrangements to me.

We cooked for hours, or rather she did. I mostly took notes and chopped a few vegetables. That woman knows everything about preparing food. I learnt things like the difference in putting the flour in the refrigerator before use and not. How to use different parts of spring onion for different parts of the meal. And the correct order of mixing spices, cream and eggs to avoid the spices clotting together into lumps. I wrote and I wrote, page after page. I learnt how to tell if a Quiche is cooked in the middle without punching a hole in it. And how to use salt to extract the excess water and bitterness from an Aubergine before cooking it. And more.

The result was two different types of Quiche with two different types of condiment to go with it. We didn’t have time for the cookies with spicy Merken seasoning or the special bread she had talked about. We just had time to try the result before she had to rush off home to help some other people with something. The woman is like a super hero.

E15 giggled at hearing me speak Norwegian with the embassy woman. It probably reassured her to know that I do know how to speak full sentences. Just not in any language she can understand. She had a portion of my homemade coffee ice cream, which pleased me. I told her that the next one I was going to make would be raspberry, her favourite.

After dinner, M experimented with not talking to me again, but she gave up when I didn’t seem to even notice. Soon she was talking, which was good for her since she needed to borrow my tube of super glue and I don’t think she is that talented a mime.

M had decided that we needed to get up at ten for our trip downtown. My built in alarm clock awoke me at 9:59 and I had my shower and then a quick breakfast with M before we left. During this I was informed that our lunch with her friend was to be at 7pm in “the afternoon.” I have long ago given up trying to understand the logic of M’ish timekeeping.

I found the downtown trip incredibly boring, but didn’t say so since the trip seemed to be planned for my benefit. In any case it was good to see something new, even though it was only a few normal residential streets that I haven’t visited before. Nice, but perhaps not worth days of planning and map reading. I asked if M wanted to come with me to the supermarket on our way home, which she agreed to do. She didn’t seem happy about doing something that she herself hadn’t arranged, but I explained that I needed to buy the ingredients today for my cooking lesson tomorrow.

At the supermarked, M was clearly annoyed that my shopping list was in Norwegian. She wanted to guide me around, but since I know this particular store better than she does, she started walking off in completely wrong directions time after time, expecting me to follow her. I said that I needed the dairy section and the vegetables and that they were on the other side of the supermarket. After that she seemed to keep her distance from me. She didn’t say anything when spoken to. Finally she announced that she was leaving me there and going home. She marched off leaving me standing there like a living questionmark.

Since I had a lot to carry, I took a taxi home. My first solo expedition in a taxi. When we were halfway there, the driver, who looked like he had been cast to act in a pirate movie, pretended that the meter didn’t work. The meter had stopped on 1000 pesos and he asked me how much I wanted to pay for the entire trip. I said 2000 pesos ($4) and he agreed. I think it came out as less than I would have payed with a working meter. In any case, a Norwegian taxi driver wouldn’t even piss on you for 2000 pesos, so compared to what I’m used to, I found it very reasonable.

At home, M continued to give me the cold silent treatment. The girls had lunch and I wasn’t invited. I thought I’d go and sit down at the table anyway, but by the time I had realized that they were eating, the meal was over. E15 returned to her room to do some more wall painting while M did the dishes with swift angry hand movements. I stayed in my room and watched the rest of His Girl Friday with Cary Grant instead.

At 7pm we were supposed to go to the café with M’s friend, but by 6:45 M still hadn’t started anything that resembled preparations to leave. So I asked her if we were going or not and she mumbled that she would call and find out. I waited but there was no explanation as to the outcome of the phone call. At around 8pm, M appeared on the steps fully dressed saying “do you want to come? We are leaving right now.” I needed two minutes to put my shoes on and brush my teeth which seemed to annoy her also.

She walked fast away from the apartment and I hurried along behind her. During the trip downtown, she didn’t speak to me. Instead she used various hand signals to point out which direction I was to walk in. Still… I was in a good mood and enjoyed the long bus ride in the orange evening light. No need for me to act angry even though she is. I did however decide not to talk too much to her, thereby forcing her into conversation.

We met up with her friend who turned out to be two friends and not one. Which was twice as nice. We walked around a book market for a while where you could also take free metaphysics lessions. Very useful. After that you could have someone else read the books for you and then just read their minds instead. M’s friend Susy bought me two comic books to aid me in my efforts to learn Spanish. I recognized the neighborhood we were walking through as St. Lúcia, the area where I have wanted to visit with my camera. Many a time M has said “why don’t you go there and take some photos!” Now when I mentioned it, she said “you want to come here for photos? Hah! Good luck. You’ll be killed for sure!”

After our dinner we enjoyed a wonderful meal in a great restaurant where everyone had fun drawing on the paper tablecloths. The meal was phenomenal and there was a pretty good photo exhibit inside. Then we walked around for a while until they had found a café they agreed on for coffee. By then I had started to feel very stuffed and tired. And drunk from the wine. But I had a good time. M’s friends are very nice and know about as much English as I know Spanish, which put us on a comfortable equal level when it comes to conversation. I feel that I have experienced more of the real Chile during the two times I have met them than I have in two months by myself or with M.

On the bus home, M stopped talking to me again and used the pointing again whenever she wanted to convey a message. The apartment was dark and empty when we came home, which M apparently knew since she went straight for the extra lock on the door before trying the regular one. Again E15 seems to be spending the night away, but I don’t know where. I settled down in my room to what sounded like M crying in the room next to mine.

Carlos, one of M’s two friends, at the restaurant

Small photos: 1.Free lessons in metaphysics 2.Drawing on the tablecloth 3.Susy at the restaurant

Having been hopelessly late for classes the day before, I made a strong effort to make it on time. So strong an effort in fact, that I arrived an hour early. I had forgotten to set my alarm clock an hour back. I am a confused man. Sleep is a precious commodity to waste. Nevertheless it gave me a chance to explore the lovely Esso On The Run Café up the street, where a big staff of smiling servile employees made me a cup of warm water described as a Cappuchino Vienes. This is a normal Chilean Cappuchino with whipped cream, as opposed to a Cappuchino Italiano which is a real one. I even had the chance to try out one of my prepared Spanish sentences; “¿Puedo fumar aquí?” (may I smoke here?). “¡Por supuesto!” (Of course!) It is only a gas station after all.

Before I had left the apartment, I had made E15 one of my notes with a silly drawing and a message saying when I would return and that if she wanted, I could make her hamburgers for lunch. When I arrived home however, she had already cooked and eaten what looked like a five course meal. Oddly, the extra lock on the door was locked. We only ever use that when no one is going to be home. When I arrived, the girl emitted a long shriek and ran into the kitchen where she started to do the dishes, quickly before anyone would have the chance to complain about the mess.

She was in a great mood today. Her computer screen died just as she was chatting with someone important and she found this terribly amusing. I was unable to fix it and declared it dead. She tried hitting it a few times and it came back to life for a while and then died again. E15 found a blue umbrella instead and danced around with it until it broke too. This she also found hysterical. Then she produced a can of paint, a roller and lots of paper to cover the carpet. She proceded to paint the walls of her room. I offered to build her an abacus to replace the computer but apparently that wouldn’t do at all.

Later when M came home, we all had hamburgers together in the living room and everything was perfect. But things are of course never perfect for long.

The next day I was back in my kitchen, trying to bake bread from a recipe penned by my Spanish teacher’s father, who for years has devoted much of his spare time to the developement of the perfect bread. He could of course just have gone to Europe where we have countless varieties of proper bread, not just the same white bread baked into numerous silly shapes like they have here. Nevertheless, his recipe seemed interesting.

I made the usual trip to the supermarket where I bought yeast and regular flour. The normal flour here has baking powder added to it, which of course is nothing short of silly. I also had two long phone conversations with my teacher, discussing temperatures and other fine baking points. And the result: I completely screwed everything up as usual. I don’t know what happened. The dough went into the garbage bin like most of the things I make. I wanted to keep going, but I had already run out of ingredients.

M has for several days reminded me that this would be the day when she would go with me to take photos, -to interpret for me and to kick the crap out of anyone who might start any trouble. “I will carry my sword”, she had said. She takes the job of protecting me quite seriously. But when today finally came around, she suddenly announced that she would be going to another concert instead. Of course she turned it all around and said that she had changed her plans since I wasn’t interested in going with her for photography. I thought we had a deal about that, but apparently not.

E15 was also away during the day for a barbecue at a friends house. All of her friends seem to have gardens and swimming pools. They are all rich and beautiful and have lovely names. Good for them. As M was leaving for the cocert, E15 suddenly came home. She asked me if I wanted to use the computer or if she should turn it off. I didn’t understand what she meant by that but a few seconds later, they girls left together. So they were both going to the cocert. I never know what is going on. It’s not important. I just hate being so confused all the time.

Tomorrow there is a schedule as well. M says we have to get up early. For a while I wondered why we had to set our alarm clocks to go to a party late in the evening, but now it suddenly seems that the party is next Saturday and not this one. Instead we are going somewhere downtown tomorrow. M told me everything, but there were so many different versions that now I have no idea what we are going to do. I hope it doesn’t involve a lot of museums and culture and stuff like that. Maybe it’s best not to know. More information would only serve to make me more confused.

Another non-day. After a comeback as a Spanish student, I went shopping for groceries as usual. I then went home, threw out some of the food I cooked some days ago which no one has touched and then went shopping again for the things I forgot the first time. After that I spent around seven hours, making what I hope and expect will be the world’s most spectacular ice cream.

As the sun set I just finished and decided to go for a walk with the small digital camera. This lead to nothing except the usual looks and giggles from some young girls and a long conversation, through which I only smiled and nodded and said “mmm”, with a mentally handicapped and probably drunk woman with bad teeth. I didn’t want to give up and leave before I had gotten my photo, but eventually she won and I hurried off.

As I was coming home, I saw E15 from a distance approaching the apartment. She rang the doorbell and since nobody answered she just stood there looking expressionless. She has keys but for some reason she doesn’t ever use the one for the downstairs gate. M doesn’t use hers either. Perhaps because the gate is a bit tricky to open. I walked over, unlocked the gate (or cage really). She said hello and more or less ran up the steps. It seemed like she wanted to get away from me. I didn’t say anything.

M came home at midnight like she said she would. She actually said 11pm, but when you filter that number through an M filter, it comes out as midnight. She brought me a nice bag of cherries and said that maybe I wanted to cook them or something. Then she complained that I cook too much stuff that nobody eats. This is true. In reality I have been living here mostly by myself this week. And I don’t have much of an appetite. Still, I don’t know why she bought me cherries since there are plenty of cherries in the refrigerator, slowly going bad, that I have already prepared. No one has touched them.

She then went upstairs to have a conversation with E15 who didn’t want to be disturbed and asked her to leave. M went to bed. E15 was supposed to stay another night at her friend’s house. Maybe they had an argument or something. I will never know.

Once there was a man who was left in charge of a teenage daughter he didn’t really know. At first everything went well. He was studying his Spanish while she slept peacefully in her mother’s bed. When finally she awoke, he realized that he would have nothing to say to her and that it would be another day of tense silence. He evacuated the house and went out to a café for lunch instead. Only he wasn’t hungry and the long walk down there in the scorching sun had left him dizzy and dry.

He sat down at the only table with a chair in the shade and when the waiter came over asking a lot of things he couldn’t make heads or tales of, he heard himself say “a beer please.” The waiter brought him the tallest and strongest homemade beer in the land, as smooth as peach juice and as potent as vodka. He drank it and became completely shit-faced. The words in his Spanish notebook no longer made any sense. So he staggered on home and hid in the kitchen so the innocent child would not see his horrible drunken state.

Later in the day, E15 spent some time in the kitchen by herself, making her own meal. Afterwards the place looked like some historic battlescene. The eastern front maybe. I decided that I was just too tired to clean it all up. So when M came home, I quietly mentioned that it would perhaps be an idea to teach the child to clean up a little after herself. M was in full agreement and ordered E15 to come down. At first she just answered no, but after a few rounds of M’s serious voice, she came down.

M decided to give the girl both barrels and complained about all kinds of things the girl does. I thought she made it sound like I had complained about E15’s behavior towards me, which I haven’t. Now it suddenly seemed like I had gone to M to complain about all kinds of aspects of the girl’s behavior. It became a bit silly when M complained that E15 treats me disrespectfully by never telling me where she is going and when she is coming back. I had a hard time staying serious through that since E15 first of all never travels much further than M’s room to watch tv. Also, if she goes out, she usually tells me where she is going and when she will be back. It’s M herself who never lets me know anything.

The next morning E15 was to leave for a day at a friend’s house. Even though I had been told about this before, she came up to me and told me where she was going and when she was expecting to come back. She looked really nervous as if expecting me to say no and order her back to her room. M says that there has been instances when E15 has asked her for permission to do something and she has received the answer “ask your father.” The girl always say that she is afraid to in case I say no. There are two surprising sides to that; First that she still asks her mother for permission before doing mundane things like going over to a classmate’s house during the day, and secondly that she accepts me as a parent with the right to say no. If my father had shown up for the first time when I was almost sixteen, I wouldn’t have taken any orders from him.

Having the house to myself I actually managed to do almost two hours of web design work and then went shopping for the things needed to make the hamburgers M had brought home the night before. I had assumed that these were for E15 to consume and thought I’d better add some coleslaw and hamburger bread and stuff and make them nice and tall. More interesting than just meat on toast anyway. Maybe E15 would bring her friend back to the apartment. They could eat together here in her room.

When E15 did show up I stood for a while in the kitchen trying to construct the necessary sentences in my mind and build up courage to go upstairs to deliver them. “Are you girls hungry? We have hamburgers if you want.” Before I had a chance to deliver my lines, they came back down, ready to leave the apartment. E15 said that she was going and would be back the next day. She had told her mother. Her mother, however, never told me.

And where is M? She told me yesterday that she would go and meet a friend after work but that she would be home early. She also said the friend would not bring his girlfriend since he wanted to talk to M alone. M then asked me if I wanted to join them. Obviously I said no since she had just told me that they wanted to be alone. “Well.. do as you like”, M said, like I was the most unfriendly antisocial individual on the face of the earth. Which of course I am.

Saturday. No plans. No duties. I had decided to not tag along to any of M’s social events, which gave her an excuse to stay home as well rather than to go alone. I took a quick trip down to the post office and then went hunting for strawberries to satisfy my unconsumated urge from the previous day. I found a fruit vender who seemed very insulted by the fact that I only wanted half a kilo. Afterwards I headed back home to attempt to make pizza, something I haven’t done in maybe seven or eight years.

While I was struggling to get the dough to behave, one of M’s intellectual hippie friends came over to do some sort of healing or massage on her. Afterwards M came into the kitchen saying “before he leaves he needs to put some magnets on you.” Hell no, I thought and refused to come out. There will be no new age witchcraft rituals performed on this body. Allthough I did let M stand on a chair behind me and do a short sharp handmovement which made my spine produce a little percussion concert of popping sounds. Afterwards I was so much taller that I could no longer see my entire face in the hallway mirror. Just the chin. It felt good.

As we were about ready to eat, M remebered that she had to go to a meeting at some charitable foundation of which she is a board member. This gave me an opportunity to hault the pizza baking procedure while I figured out how the hell I was going to cook three different pizzas in one tiny countertop oven and have them all ready at the same time.

A short while later, an angry M returned saying that she was the only one who had shown up. The phone rang and M let the caller have it, saying that she had been there but that she had better things to do than to wait around for the rest of them. A little later, another call. it seemed like the others had all misunderstood and showed up at the meeting an hour late. Morons. More calls. Finally M began to see a pattern. For some reason all the others had the misguided idea that the meeting was at eight and not seven. Could it be that she was the one who was wrong?

I stopped the pizza making again while she went back for her meeting and a round of apologizing. By now E15 was beginning to be desperate, running around upstairs moaning. Since everyone here eats big lunches instead of dinners, a big meal after ten at night is very unusual. I have mentioned to Chileans that we eat small lunches in Europe and big dinners instead. They all seem horrified. People here are taught that if you eat anything heavy in the evening you will not sleep at all during the night. It is something everyone believes, like Europeans believe that you cannot go swimming for at least an hour after a meal.

I had expected the dinner to be a pizzaster, but it turned out rather well. E15 consumed her usual abnormal ammounts and did the little humming while she eats-thing that she does whenever something tastes really good. We even talked a bit. Sort of. The only thing she disliked was having to look at my bottle of strawberry juice. She is famous for her hatred of these fruits. After a while all of the food and socializing became a bit too much for the girl and she put a lampshade on her head and stood quietly in a corner for a while, looking very much like a tall thin lamp.

The next morning M and I had a large breakfast. M always sets out a plate for E15 even though she never shows up for breakfasts. Just so that she will see it afterwards and not feel left out. She is a very jealous child. If M and I are talking and there is laughter, she will make up an excuse to call for her mother in order to ask or complain about something.

When she awoke she was in one of her better moods and hung around the kitchen with M and me, being very sweet and relaxed. When she heard that M and I were going to the market, she looked at me with dismay. “Why do you like the market”, she wanted to know. “I hate the market.” She seems to have fully accepted that she and I are very much alike and is quite surprised whenever she learns of something that I like and she doesn’t. I had the exact same reaction of disbelief when M told me that the kid likes soccer. My genes? Interested in sports? How could this be? It all made more sense to me when I understood that it was the players and not the game itself that caught her attention. Not that I see how sweaty, spitting men with fat thighs can be sexy.

I told E15 that she needed to see the market through a window of humor. Colorful towels with naively drawn bikini poses of Pamela Anderson is funny. As are second hand t-shirts from a jesuit athletic team. I asked her to come and even said pleeease. She came. Her idea was to find some new movies. Of course because of the election, this was the day when the all of the DVD vendors had decided to go and vote instead of showing up at the market. Disappointment.

I the empty DVD seller street, E15 found a part of a smashed stereo system with some interesting moving parts instead. She decided to bring it home and made M carry it for her. I have never seen her do much of anything except sitting at the computer, but M insists that the girl is very good at building and repairing things. Apparenty she made the lamp in my room. Put together the electrical insides and everything and then bent the steel wire into shape to fasten the lampshade to the bulb.

Late in the evening I finally got my strawberries and sweet whipped cream. Because of E15’s fanatical hatred of these berries, I tried to prepare my dessert discretely, closing the door to the kitchen so as not to make too much cream-whipping noise. Afterwards I hid in my room devouring my secret stash of forbidden fruit. Nevertheless… a while later E15 announced that she was hungry and headed towards the refrigerator downstairs.

By then I was back in the kitchen persuading M to have the rest of the strawberries in order to improve my conscience by having an accomplice. I placed myself between E15 and the remaining fruit as she entered the kitchen, but it was no good. She can smell those things from far away. She quickly ran out again complaining about the offensive strawberry smell in the kitchen. She then dramatically said that we didn’t love her since we had decided to pig out without her on the only fruit she hates. She grabbed the rest of the leftover pizza and headed towards her room, refusing to eat with us boring old people. M said “you see… this is the strawberry effect at work.”

Women here want me. I may have mentioned this before. I have days when they all stare at me like anorectics at a banquet. They all want to land themselves what they believe to be a rich gringo. Most of them are embarrassingly young too, -between 18 and 22 maybe. Not that I’m able to tell people’s age in this country. I don’t think anyone is. Young girls are always seen holding hands with their mothers which signals that they are unavailable. Girls out by themselves, especially after dark seem to be fair game here. Men will honk their car horns as they pass by or lean out the window yelling things. Even young boys around nine or ten are seasoned flirters. Usually when children address you here, they refer to you as tio (uncle), but if I’m out with E15, they will talk to me and call me father-in-law instead.

If a woman here is not married by 30, she will often invent an abusive ex-husband and a divorce. Or claim to be a widow. The shame of not having married at a young age is too great. Whenever I’m out at night with my camera, these girls will stare intensely at me. If they are two together, they will sometimes say hello and then giggle. It all makes me a bit uncomfortable. Partly I have so low self-esteem that my first thought is that they are ridiculing me. And partly I am reminded of my shyness and unability to ever talk to a woman I was truly interested in. I would have loved to be happily in love once in my life. It would be a bit pathetic to start running after girls half my age now. I’m more interested in getting my family to function. And still, whenever some young woman of unobtainable beauty actually stares deeply into my eyes, I cannot help thinking about what could have been.

I feel very relieved to have a few days off from my unproductive Spanish studies. It’s not just the classes themselves. I enjoy the company of my female teachers and how they shower me with hugs and kisses and run their fingers through my hair as I try to conjugate irregular verbs. No… it’s the noise and stress of the city that gets to me. After I have been to the school bathroom to clean the lipstick off my forehead, I have to head out into the madness, do my shopping and start on the long trip home. M says that a great number of Santiago’s residents are insane due to a life under a constant barrage of noise and stress and fear. And I continue to notice the effects of the city on myself. Yesterday I once more had the strong urge to kick someone’s face in. I kept waiting for someone to start something on the bus so that I could use them to vent some anger.

But for the moment everything is quiet. I don’t have to go downtown if I don’t want to. I started the day by sitting on the terrace drinking coffee, writing on my laptop and listening to some music. In these past seven weeks or so here, I think it was only the second time I’ve just sat on the terrace relaxing. M was away at work and E15 was sleeping the day away like teenagers do. I soon returned to the kitchen where I prepared another completely failed batch of vanilla cream for the pie. I had to go shopping twice to replenish our ever dwindling supply of eggs and milk. I explained to the guy in the shop downstairs that I was having an egg emergency in the kitchen. He looked worried. Not many people go through 24 eggs in just as many hours.

I built up the courage to ask E15 if she wanted a pasta lunch. She nodded enthusiastically. The poor girl had been peeking into the kitchen earlier as I was running the loud new hand mixer, but only dared to stretch an arm inside, grab a piece of bread and take off with it. I later learned that the word pasta in Chile only refers to toothpaste and shoe polish. I hope the poor girl wasn’t too disappointed when she received noodles with tomato sauce instead of Colgate Total.

After a day of over six hours in the kitchen I had prepared yet another batch of vanilla cream. This one seemed ok, but after I had poured it into my pie shell and left it in the refrigerator for a while it was starting to become clear that it had no intention of becoming completely solid. It could still make a great looking pie but when you cut into it, it is going to be like punching a hole in a dike. But I had passed the point of no return at this point. The cream was in the pie shell. I had crossed my culinary Rubicon. And now I needed jelly for a covering.

I met up with M at one of the bigger shopping centers where I bought drinkable water for the jelly and also about eight bags of additional groceries we don’t need. I wanted strawberries but M insisted I get them at another place along the way instead. Naturally it turned out that they only sell strawberries in big crates there and always have, so no berries for me. Before I had left M had urged me to ask E15 if I could bring her anything. Again I relied on a chat window to get my message across. She wanted chocolate and Coca Cola. Coming home, M tried to make the girl approach me directly and ask where the chocolate was, but she refused. While I sat upstairs, an argument over me was brewing in the kitchen downstairs.

She eventually found the chocolate herself and snuck of to bed to consume it. Feeling brave, I went to her and asked if she had tried finding her house on Google Earth. She had never heard of this so I asked her to come with me, which she reluctantly did. I showed her a nice satellite view of her apartment and also how to download the software needed for adding placemarks on the maps. This was absorbed with the usual cool indifference, but I could tell that she was really fascinated. She spent some time bookmarking her school and house and so on while I was back in the kitchen, discovering that my instant jelly wasn’t the least bit instant. After two days of cooking I have managed to produce a great looking pie that is 98% liquid. I may be a gringo sex god, but I sure as hell can’t cook.

Also shot earlier: The view from the terrace at night

E15 never did return in the evening as planned. I was never told what happened, but apparently the airline made some mistake and the kids were stranded in Argentina instead of going straight from Brazil to Chile. I would have loved to know how that happened. Not even the right country. In any case, the travel agency put them up in a fancy hotel in Buenos Aires. They were then supposed to arrive here at eight or nine in the morning. Which of course they didn’t. Their departure from Argentina was pushed back to mid-day and then to around three in the afternoon.

By that time I had decided that I better go to my pre-paid Spanish classes instead of going to the airport with M. Once I was sitting in the classroom, I regretted this decision and phoned M to let her know that I was returning to the apartment. But by then she had already left and it was too late. I told my teacher that I was a burned-out wreck and no longer able to learn anything. So I’m taking most of next week off.

After classes I went shopping for more cooking ingredients. Since M has planned four straight days of various social events with her friends, I won’t be able to make anything that anyone will actually have a chance to eat, but I have decided to go ahed anyway, just to do something. Since I’m no longer to do any sensible photography or even write much, I need to do something creative if I am to remain sane.

By the time the girls returned from the airport, I was already busy in the kitchen trying to make a pie using unfamiliar local ingredients. As soon as E15 walked through the door I found myself back to my old inhibited self, unable to speak or do much of anything except to nod hello. She gave me a gift which completely melted my heart; a carton of Camel cigarettes without filters. Somehow she knew of my many treks around the city trying to obtain such a product. I can’t think of a more moving gift from a fifteen year old girl to her father than a silent hug and a carton of cigarettes.

Afterwards the girls were sitting at the living room table talking. I couldn’t bring myself to join them. I wanted to ask all kinds of things about her trip but for some reason I couldn’t. I was slowly slipping into another depression. E15 announced that speaking English in the apartment was now prohibited. I would never learn if everybody continues to speak English to me, she said. And she is right. Except for making a fool of myself in various stores, I don’t speak a word of Spanish outside of class. I made some shy mumbling attempts at a few sentences, but it was no good. Every week I find that I have forgotten much of what I have learned the previous weeks. The past days I haven’t been able to form any meaningful sentences at all, and now, having to perform in front of the women, I had a bad case of stage fright. Soon the family gathering at the table was over and I had missed it. My opportunities all disappear before me. I hesitate and the moment is gone. For the rest of the evening I was to remain silent.

I badly screwed up the piebaking and realized that I had to start over. But there was no time since we were going to M’s favourite Sushi restaurant to meet two of her friends. All the way there, the girls walked in front, side by side and I trailed behind. There was no room anywhere to walk three people side-by-side. Again I was feeling like a useless attachment. By the time we got to the restaurant I was in an even worse mood. I hate restaurants. They all have stiff waiters who stand impatiently by your side as you frantically try to decipher the menu. Today I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t deal with the pressure and said that I wasn’t hungry. Which was true anyway.

When we first sat down we were handed some damp wash clothes that we were supposed to clean our hands with before getting them dirty again by handling the filthy menus. Everyone ordered things I couldn’t identify. Since I wasn’t supposed to speak any English, I didn’t want to ask what anything was. All through their meals I sat staring at the table, painfully aware that I was acting antisocial and making them uncomfortable. But I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. As usual M made various attempts at making me order something. Each time I felt that everyone were staring at me like I was in front of an exam board. I merely have to eat dinner with my family and friends and yet I am as nervous as if I was about to parachute out of an airplane. M kept asking me if I was absolutely sure I didn’t want anything. I only shook my head and tried to produce something resembling a smile. Finally E15 came to my rescue and said “leave him alone”. Which she did.

They ate for a long time, talking about people I don’t know and places I have never been. Most of it I didn’t understand anyway. God, how I hate restaurant visits. Quiet cafés in the daytime are nice, provided I don’t have to share a meal with anyone. E15 looked bored too, even though her mother had told me that she loved going to the Sushi place. Eventually she just laid her head down on the table and stayed that way for most of the last half hour. We were both far away in our seperate depressive worlds. Again I wanted to say something to her, but it was useless.

On the way home the Metro was so crowded that we almost didn’t make it off. We were apparently going home by a different route and this involved a bus which was also extremely crowded. The driver smiled and said hello to me as if he knew me. Nobody else, just me. Do I have any busdriver friends here? More people packed into the bus at each stop. The bus driver asked people to go towards the back but M ignored it. She tried to talk me out of doing like the driver said because a couple of the people at the back of the bus were drunk. Not scary looking or threatning or anything, just in a slightly festive mood. I honestly don’t know why she wants to go out at night when she is this terrified of people.

Back home I went shopping for more eggs at 11pm, intent on having another attempt at getting the pie right. I was beginning to feel obsessed by the idea of getting that one thing right before the day ended. So as M went to sleep and E15 planted herself in front of the computer with her new Metalica DVD, I started on another batch of cream filling. This time, I somehow forgot to stir the pot and burned it all. I was standing right next to it. I must have just zoomed out. It happened earlier today as well, when the subway suddenly seemed to skip a few stops. It was really weird since I was paying close attention, counting each station and scouting out the window for the next one. Two of them were just missing. Sometimes moments just slip away.

For mood purposes, shot earlier: the view from the stairs as we go up to the apartment, -a small shed by the parking lot. Probably used by janitors and parking attendants as a restroom

Yesterday was another crap day. I was in a good mood until after my Spanish class when I went to the new bakery I have discovered to buy bread. It looked like it could perhaps be closed since a trolley of bread was standing in the doorway blocking half of the entrance. Still, there is a little kiosk just inside the door where they sell cigarettes and I remembered that I needed to buy some. I stood outside for a short while until I saw some other people going in and buying cigarettes. So I went inside where a short man came towards me, waving his hands and saying that they were closed. The other people were served. Just not me. Typical. Almost every day I am to be punished because of American foreign policy and the fact that I am blond and look like one of them. I have never caused turmoil in any Latin American countries. But on days like these I am tempted to start.

I then went to buy the electric oven like I had planned. At the store they only had another model than the one I wanted. Almost the same, but a slightly different model. I asked about the other one but the moron clerk insisted that it didn’t exist. I tried to explain to him that his very shop had it on it’s web site, but he just kept repeating that there was no such oven. So I went to the competitor where they did have it, but only one unit which was a demonstration piece. So I went home in a foul mood yet again.

At home I tried to make Japanese tomato soup from my teacher’s recipe, but it turned out as a thick porrige of vegetables rather than soup. I tried to fix it by taking the extra veggies out and only using the water they had been boiled in. It finally turned out as soup but it tasted mostly garlic and onion. I had used several tomatoes but they were mostly water. I have tried to obtain tomato puré here but it doesn’t exist. Each supermarket typically has four different tomato sections located in completely different parts of the store. One with fresh tomatoes of various types, one with canned tomatoes and tomato juice, one with ketchups in all kinds of varieties and then a huge section of readymade tomato sauces for spaghetti. But no concentrated purés.

Today I was in a half coma all day, and yet I managed to find my way back to the enormous shopping center where M had taken me once before. There I discovered that the two stores that sold domestic appliances were just different outlets of the same exact department stores I had visited yesterday. I made my way past the usual stinky perfume floor just inside the entrance. I think department stores force their customers to go through these perfume sections in order to gas any sensibility out of them. You get to the end of it where the escalators to the other floors are, and you are so groggy that you are likely to buy anything.

All in all, Chileans have a weird concept of fresh air. In every big store here, you will see people walking up and down the isles with cans of air freshner. The keep the button pressed down and then just walk until the can is empty. You see these big cans standing everywhere. In the offices where I take classes, there is one in every room within quick reach in case the air feels stuffy. At the supermarket you try to buy food and the whole place smells like toilet freshner.

I finally did get my small electric tabletop oven. They only had the first model, but it came in a box with the name and picture of the other one. Probably another case of second class goods being shipped to South America for sale here. It took a long time hauling it all the way back to the apartment. I wasn’t able to find the same bus I had arrived on, only in the opposite direction, so I took another one to a different place that I could identify, and then the Metro from there and finally my poor tired feet the rest of the way. Another day had passed.

The house is nice and quiet now that E15 is tearing up Brazil instead of being here. Even the neighborhood seems quiet. M called her hotel today and spoke with the child for twenty minutes. The latest updates are that after swimming around in foam at a local discoteque, she had some problems with her eyes and had to go to the hospital. There she was told that she had an infection and should refrain from using the pool for the duration of her stay. E15 went straight from the hospital into the hotel pool where she had a nice long swim under water with her eyes open. The salt water took care of her infection, or so she says. Everything apparently cleared up.

She will return tomorrow evening. I was first told that the plane will land at midnight, but when I asked why we had to leave here at eight, I was told that the plane is to land at nine. I just have to wait and see what happens. I’m also wondering about the dates. Since she left on the 3rd and was supposed to be away for either ten or thirteen days, then why is she returning on the 11th? There are many things in my Chilean life that I do not understand.

Sundays have become synonymous with trips to the open air market, -a place for treasure hunting and comedy in the form of silly junk of all shapes and sizes. My goal for the day was to find some new movies, having almost exhausted my supply of celluloid entertainment.

We entered the street where all the DVD vendors are lined up one after the other. M said that we should start by looking for her usual film pusher. So even though I could glimpse interesting titles layed out on several blankets on the ground, she rushed past them and I had to almost runt to keep up with her as she zig-zagged between people in the crowded street. She did however stop whenever she herself saw something interesting along the way. This was beginning to annoy me. Finally she found her usual dealer and began looking through his stash. I waited for my turn.

Suddenly there was a whisk of fluttering motion throught the crowd like the wind had suddenly caught the many blankets all at once. A police car had appeared and every DVD vender had grabbed his blanket and taken off. It was like standing in the middle of a flock of birds suddenly taking to the air. They were all gone. This was a bit odd to me since M had told me that copying and selling movies and music in Chile is perfectly legal. The story was now revised and she said that it is very illegal, but only for tax reasons. You cannot sell copied digital entertainment in a marketplace for the sole reason that no one would be able to control if you pay taxes on your earnings or not. This does not sound logical to me since the same would also apply to any other piece of junk sold in the same market.

From the market we went by bus to visit M’s parents on the outskirts of the city. There we enjoyed a nice lunch and some rest, and then another lunch. The women took their usual dip in the pool while I talked with M’s brother. They are not on speaking terms and M seems to make sure to be on the opposite side of the estate from her sibling. Whenever they did run into each other, such as at the lunch table, various verbal poison was exchanged. M has told me that he doesn’t want anything to do with her, but my impression was quite the opposite. He remained composed at all time but M pecked at everything he said throughout lunch. Later, he came over to join the rest of us by the pool but M basically chased him off. So for the remainder of our stay I made trips back and forth to both sides of the house, attempting to divide my charming personality equally among the warring factions.

Back home I went for a quick walk to see if the bench I keep trying to photograph was free of boozing gang members. Which it was. I finally got my photo of the bench, allthough it didn’t turn out as nicely as I had expected. In the previous blurry version of the photo, the surroundings looked a lot better but the bench itself didn’t come out well. I could go back yet again, but I think I will let it go. There are other things to which I could rather dedicate my time.

Later in the evening I started on a new batch of ice cream, finally getting my revenge over the noisy neighbors and their two stupid little barking dogs by using the very loud new hand mixer for the longest time. It says in the manual that the maximum continuous running time should not exceed five minutes. It takes longer than that to whip cream or eggs. Anything you could do with a hand mixer takes longer than five minutes. Still, it didn’t burst into flames or anything.

I have high hopes for this round of ice cream. The flavor is Coffee-Cola de Mono with crushed chocolate chip cookies sprinkled on top. I completely screwed up my attempt at using condensed milk as well as cream since I couldn’t get the damn stuff whipped into anything else than liquid form. It should still be quite nice, given that I managed to stay up for most of the night, stirring the mixture every half hour to prevent lumps and ice crystals. To cook is to suffer.

The infernal red bench that refuses to turn into a perfect photograph

The homemade ice cream was completely unedible. God knows what I did wrong. The forces of evil may attempt to prevent me from having any ice cream, but I swear that I won’t be stopped. I am not one to wallow in despair in the face of culinary obstacles. I have already planned my next move towards the perfect dessert. And done the shopping.

Accompanied by a patient and supportive M, I spent two hours shopping for the perfect ingredients for another attempt at reaching frosty nirvana. I also tried to do some further upgrades to the apartment’s sad supply of cooking utensils. Good tools for the kitchen are almost impossible to find here. You can only find spatulas with impossible angles and egg-beaters with completely useless shapes. Eventually I went for a small handheld electric egg-beater and some new bowls and measuring cups. Still, I have not been able to find exotic ingredients like vanilla here. They sell car batteries at the supermarket, but not vanilla. M told me that she once saw a stick of vanilla. It was kept carefully wrapped up inside a box in a locked cabinet. She could not afford it.

After the shopping I was exhausted and had to lie down while M took apart the ventilation apparatus above the stove, cleaned the filter inside and replaced the light bulbs. She also washed a ton of clothes and vacuumed the entire apartment, apologizing in advance for the unpleasant noise which was to follow. I did nothing except to check out prices on electric ovens on some department store web pages. Electric tabletop ovens are popular here since all stoves run on gas. I have decided that I need to buy one in order to bake bread, toast sandwiches and make pizzas and pies.

We spent the evening at the embassey woman’s house where I once again over-fed on multiple courses. Since I have expressed an interest in learning some of her cooking secrets, and even gone as far as to threaten to kidnap her, she is going to spend a day with me, teaching me how to cook whatever I want. I have already decided on her amazing Quiche and Pebre, -a local speciality condiment made from tomatoes, garlic, onions, chili peppers, coriander and parsley. Everyone here prepares it completely different, but hers is by far the best.

Her exotic guestlist for the day included a traveling Palestinian musician who went out from time to time and always came back with a different garment on his head, and a very indigenous Mapuche woman who had been the nana of her children. She pointed to a plant in the garden and told me that it cured heartache and depression. I don’t know why. I insisted that I was happy.

Afterwards she announced that she was going to dance for me, since I had “arrived on the wind from far away”, or something like that. The translation was a little hazy. Finally she sang two very sad songs in Mapudungun. Again I never got a clear picture of what it was about. Something about a girl unhappily in love and how she was driven from her village. According to M, the Mapuche never sing publicly except in very special occasions. It was a nice scene, sitting under the peach tree in the garden and taking in the moon over the rooftop. Too dark by then to shoot any photos, naturally.

Back home, M was overjoyed to find an e-mail from E15 with the latest updates from Brazil. She is still sleeping on the floor even though a bed has been payed for. During their trip to the safe supervised discoteque, all the local boys had greedily grabbed at various parts of her body. She left. As she was going out an “old man” had grabbed her and she turned around and punched him. Glad to see that those Kung Fu classes weren’t a complete waste.

I finished the evening by watching a Japanese movie with M and then sitting on the terrace watching Orion over our building. For once, no drunks or barking dogs could be heard. There was a single short earthquake tremor. Everything wobbled for a second. Then it went back to being quiet.