MeMag - Me Magazine

From the Bellavista neighborhood

From the Bellavista neighborhood

Here we have a lovely plate of Lomo a lo Pobre. As you can see, I couldn’t stop myself and ate a small piece before settling down in my excitement to take the photo. “Lomo” is a grilled Sirloin Steak. The Spanish word for a beefsteak is bistec, so you will often find this listed as Bistec a lo Pobre or Bife a lo Pobre.

And here the cheaper and therefore more popular Churrasco a Lo Pobre. Churrasco is a general term in Spanish, referring to a piece of grilled meat, but in Chile it signifies thin slices of beef. Whereas the Lomo above is a great big steak of high quality, the cheaper Churrasco seems to be mostly carved from Lomo leftovers or from less expensive meats. It is usually rubbery and tasteless.

There are endless varieties in the a lo Pobre genre. You can find chicken a lo Pobre and everything else a lo Pobre. Sometimes there is no meat at all and only the french fries, onion and eggs. The old restaurant La Casa Roja in Santiago even serves Pobre a lo Pobre, whatever that is.

In any case, a lo Pobre basically translates to “the poor mans…” and there are some constants. There are always bright yellow french fries. There is always an abundance of lightly cooked onion, and there are always two fried eggs on top. No more, no less. Observe also the bowl of Pebre, the bread and the compulsory ketchup bottle.

The green glass contains melon juice, a common beverage option in Santiago’s many faded vintage diners where this kind of a meal is always on the menu, usually served by tired looking waitresses in old fashioned uniforms.

This downtown statue beckoned me to photograph it. I couldn’t see anything whatsoever in the camera because of the strong sunlight but it still turned out OK. Just luck really

This looked a lot better in the camera but oh well…

I have found a new neighborhood which I will begin exploring. It’s right around this corner…

Susy has continued to pester me in order to get me to call E17 and find some sort of father-daughter activity that we could do together. I have felt that using the phone in this manner is a really bad idea. First of all I can hardly hear who I’m talking to on it. Secondly I hate speaking on the telephone. It always makes me feel insecure and nervous. Were I to call her, I have maintained, I would be presenting myself from the worst possible angle, as a madly stuttering idiot unable to understand the simplest things. This is of course fairly close to the truth but still not necessarily the way I wish to present myself.

And what would we possibly be able to do together? Go to a restaurant maybe? Or a concert? What do people do? One thing is certain, we have absolutely nothing to talk about. A few weeks ago there was a moment when we were suddenly deserted alone together in the same room and it was extremely awkward. I had nothing to say. I tried to think of something… anything. But there was only silence. I’m not so much nervous anymore as fed up with these endless uncomfortable moments.

I did write her to ask if she wanted to do something one day, but she didn’t answer. Nor has she answered anything else I have written except for a postcard I got a year ago. Such is life. I still feel that the written version was more fair to her than a sudden unexpected phone call, cornering her and pressuring her to say yes to doing something with me one day.

Nevertheless Susy’s nagging has persisted. And on New Year’s Eve I finally picked up the phone to call her. And it was every bit as disastrous as I had anticipated. I called because I was in a good mood and felt that it wouldn’t perhaps be so bad after all. But it was. I was completely unable to articulate what I wanted and she isn’t exactly the most helpful person in the world on the telephone. I wished her a happy new year and she asked what for? It wasn’t midnight yet. True. I had no answer to that. I knew that she wouldn’t be available at midnight but I failed to explain this. Susy had told me that E17 would be eagerly awaiting my call but the impression I got was that I was really wasting her time.

I then lapsed into mild new year psychosis. I turned off my phone and threw it in a corner. Later I spent the rest of the evening in bed sorting photos until dawn. A perfect evening for me in fact. My mood improved. I was happy that I didn’t have to go to any parties and hug everyone. Susy had an equally successful night. She went to a protest concerning some hunger striking indigenous women and then spent the rest of the night in jail. She was happy.

From my latest adventurous trip to the Sunday market

From the ordinary Sunday market where you can always find useful items like empty Sprite bottles

At the Feria Artesania, - a market for handicraft

I know one person in Santiago besides M’s friends. Naturally I ran into her on the street one of the first couple of days I was here: My former Spanish teacher. She was supposed to call me when she had some free time, but never did. Or so I thought. Christmas Eve I ran into her on the street again! Only a few million people live here after all, and she assured me that she had called me several times without getting through. I have no problem believing that since my telephone doesn’t actually work except when there is a full moon and Aquarius is in the second house of the rising sun and you are leaning out the window while wearing an antenna hat, crudely made out of aluminium baking foil.

Another person I accidentally ran into was C, Susy’s ex. This I instantly knew spelled trouble. We talked briefly as he was waiting or someone who arrived maybe a minute or two afterwards. I tried not to volunteer any information about Susy and this made me feel like I was appearing to avoid the issue. I did finally mention that I was renting a room in her flat and it probably sounded like I was her new lover because I said it towards the end of our conversation while kind of averting my eyes in awkwardness. “Oh and by the way… er… I’m living with your girlfriend now. Gotta go. Chao”.

Knowing that it would cause a strong reaction, I didn’t mention to Susy that I had run into C. It is after all none of her business as he was just as much a friend of mine as she was before I moved in here as a tenant. And why worry her. I will not pick any sides and start fighting against any of my old friends because they are having relationship problems.

What I did do was to mention the chance meeting to M as an example of how absurdly small the world is. I also said that I didn’t want Susy to know. As she as a woman and women have a pathological need to spread gossip, she immediately called Susy and let her know. M has after all no respect for me or loyalty towards me whatsoever. At least not when I’m battling against a female.

And Susy is now upset with me for not having mentioned to her that I had met him. She doesn’t want him to know anything about her new life, yet she quizzes me on his. As a woman she naturally uses her vulnerability as a weapon in the argument. There are casual words of his violence towards her dropped in between her sentences of how she doesn’t mind that I retain him as a friend. Women will after all always use their femininity to get what they want. Even feminists. She apparently felt betrayed by me because I hadn’t reported the meeting to her, as she didn’t want to “live in fear” of him. How not knowing of the existence of something should have you live in fear of it, is beyond me, but anyway.

The point is that I DON’T CARE about their problems. All kinds of couples end up as enemies and then you’re supposed to choose a side. This does not interest me. I don’t care who said and did what against the other. I didn’t get any of the sex and affection and I won’t have any of their marital problems either. I simply do not care. What is annoying is when these women start cackling and whipping up a storm of melodrama. I don’t even have any strong need to hang out with C. We are not close friends. I just want to be able to walk down the street and accidentally meet one of the few people I know without having to fear the consequences.

Handmade glass at the Feria Artesania

El Chanta Clause is whipping his sweating plastic reindeer across Sanhattan. The Chileans love the cheesy sides of Christmas. They jump at the opportunity to cover their yards and windows with the most hideous twinkling light displays one could possibly imagine. But the actual Christmas celebrations they seem to tackle with Stoic serenity and a minimum of excitability. For instance I asked Susy’s boyfriend what he had given his daughter for Christmas and he shrugged his shoulders and said “nothing. We had dinner together”.

Although Susy insisted that I should, I refused to invite myself to M and E17’s Christmas party. In light of how the atmosphere has been lately, I had no intention of going if I was not wanted. Finally on Christmas eve, as I was making myself the traditional Christmas pizza, the phone rang and a friendly sounding M invited me to spend the evening with them.

I loaded my mountain of gifts into a taxi and rode across town. At their house a very serious looking E17 opened the door explaining that her mother was busy in some sort of new ageish ritual or meditation or whatever. She then returned to her room and I sat quietly waiting in the hall until M finally came down ready for us to leave for the supermarket.

On the phone she had assured me that everything would remain open, something I thought odd since they live in the suburbs and even here in the heart of the city, or one of it’s outer chambers at least, everything had begun closing down by the time I had gotten ready to leave by taxi.

When we got to the supermarket it was of course closed, as was everything else. Even the video store that sell the good expensive ice cream was closed so we bought dessert at a gas station and headed back home to cook emergency leftovers. M of course blamed the security guard at the supermarket for not letting us in. It wasn’t our fault for being late.

It slowly dawned on me that I was supposed to do all the cooking. As I started peeling potatoes M quietly turned off all the downstairs lights except for in the kitchen and crept back up to her TV. Which was just as well since I managed to tear down half of the kitchen counter, drop a plate and a glass on the floor, break her gas stove igniter and cut my fingers twice which involved a bit of a red spill. I also banged my head several times on the cupboards. It’s like a Hobbit kitchen.

In Chile by the way, there is no word for “cupboard” or “kitchen shelves”. Every piece of furniture in the kitchen is known as “the furniture” which makes it a bit impractical to for instance call out and ask where the matches for the stove are.

Nevertheless I managed, to my own amazement, to produce a rather spectacular meal, aided by a very nice salad M had made. The teenager was rustled from her budoir and we all sat down to eat like a semi-normal family. Which I enjoyed very much. Afterwards we had to kill some time as E17 refused to open gifts before the traditional 12PM dateline was crossed. It’s not Nochebuena until after midnight. We spent the time watching a badly dubbed version of Sound of Music, which I think added another layer of comedy to an already ludicrous production.

The gift opening went by peacefully. I think E17 was a bit disappointed to not get any laptop computer even though she had made such efforts to make it clear that she needs one. The following day we would meet and talk briefly again. “I want a laptop”, she would say. “Your dad is poor now”, I responded. Which is pretty damn close to the truth. Each time I see her or her mother I feel more and more like one of those plastic reindeer. Whipped, useless, out of place.

Photos: not the Christmas dinner I made but the barbecue at M’s parents’ house the subsequent day

Things here do not work. The toilets refusing to flush properly seem curiously symbolic. In every office, restaurant or bar in this city, there is a turd quietly floating with poise and confidence, secure in the knowledge that it can never be repressed by mankind. Long after you and I are gone and forgotten, it will continue it’s peaceful bobbing at the surface, undisturbed by any floods of flushing water or verbal denouncements.

Much the same way, my life is nearly motionless. And all concentrated shit straight through. I have been sick for a while and now that I was getting better I seem to be sick again. I’m in my room, scared to answer the door or the telephone. When I left the house of my Norwegian friend the other day, some oldish woman there suddenly planted a kiss straight on my lips, which I frankly found a bit inappropriate. Now she keeps sending me text messages and calling. I will never answer the telephone again. It doesn’t work very well anyway. The only calls that are coming through are from this woman. Who gave her my number and why? Who is she? What did I do to encourage her? It’s not like I’ve ever talked to her or anything.

The internet connection in the apartment has been gone a week now. Once it returned briefly, only this time with a password. So this is most likely the end of my free web ride. Nearly all modern cafés here boasts of having WiFi, but it doesn’t actually work. Santiago is the third world dressed up to look cosmopolitan. But it’s all crap underneath. bad plumbing, bad wiring, bad everything. I wish they could just take down their WiFi signs and write “nothing whatsoever works here… our toilets don’t even flush but at least we have low prices. Deal with it”. Everyone would have been fine with that. But oh no… they all have to pretend to be advanced and hi tech.

Having to go to 5 internet cafés, drink coffee in each one only to learn that they don’t really have internet there after all is getting slightly annoying. Furthermore nobody seems to mind that it doesn’t work. They have wireless internet and seem proud of that. It cannot be used to access the actual web, but it is impressive nevertheless.

The mail doesn’t work either. I have yet to see a single mail carrier anywhere in the city. There are shiny well ordered post offices here and there, but they don’t appear to do anything besides selling stamps. My mother has sent me a ton of letters. She is a compulsive letter writer. But only one has arrived. The package I sent to M’s address before I left, with my dictionary and other important things in it, still hasn’t arrived. The mail slots downstairs behind the concierge, remain empty. Every day.

I return to my room, driven into exile by the countless coffees I had to drink in order to access the non-working WiFi. Trembling with coffee nerves I sit on my bed, the bed itself also shaking each time the elevator behind the wall goes by. Outside there are fat old women who want my body and beggars who are convinced that since I am blond, I must be a vacationing billionaire. They will not let me be. With my stomach I spend half the day in the bathroom, in the dark since the lights don’t work. Just as well that I cannot face whatever’s floating down there eye to eye.

The exciting life indoors, here represented by one of the many colorful shirts I have bought here. This one was almost $3

Cool spurs at the Feria Artesania, - a market for handicraft where spent a good deal on hand knitted sweaters, hats and a fabulous belt that a gentleman is making for me right now

Since I have no direct dialogue with M and E17, I often use Susy, who know them both very well, as a sounding board. That is, she asks me things about my relationship with the girls and sort of speaks for them. She claims to always know exactly what they want and think, but sometimes I think that she is pretty far off and doesn’t know them well at all.

A few times she has brought up E17’s different university options and what they roughly cost. I had no idea people paid that much for a regular university degree here. A sum has been mentioned as an example, $10.000 a year for attendance, and then books and all the rest of it. Well… the sum keeps changing each time, but that was one of them. And in addition an absurdly high tuition at the start of the year, on top of the annual costs. It could actually be that all these poor Chileans I have met really make a good deal of money, only that they have to save everything they ever make in order to send their countless kids to college.

I told Susy more or less what I have said in college discussions before they suddenly became a reality: I don’t have any money and I don’t own anything valuable. Susy became a bit aggitated and insisted that I had no choice. I would have to pay for this somehow. Apparently the teenager will suffer some horrible faith involving abuse and poverty if she doesn’t get a higher degree from a good university. Maybe even death. I remain skeptical. In any case, I mentioned that as far as I know right now, there is no way I can suddenly raise any huge sums of cash by march. Only then, as she repeated that it didn’t matter because I had to do this, did it begin to dawn on me that people her expect me to cough up a ton of money. This of course will not magically happen. There is no money. Once this trip is over, I am broke and with no steady income.

I now suddenly have the feeling that whatever progress I have made in my relationship with my daughter, will abruptly end in a couple of months when they notice to their surprise and horror that no large sums of money are coming their way. I have mentioned that E17 can come and live with me and study for free at the university in Norway, but this is apparently not an option. They want it their way. But they won’t get it. Quite frankly, if all contact I will ever have with these women is when they want money for something, it may be the time to cut the umbilical chord.

I feel that people around me are using a lot of poetic words when they talk of how I should sacrifice my entire life for my daughter like a real father should. But wouldn’t that be a real father who has access to things like love and respect and the experience of seeing his child grow up, pass on his knowledge and so on. Not a father who is just a cash machine when needed. Sometimes I wonder why I shouldn’t contribute to the educations of my friends’ children instead, who I in some cases know a good deal better than my own kid. But I suppose this is how it works: The sperm donor is, after having completed his initial task, allowed to see his child briefly every week as long as there is money coming in to the women’s nest.

After dinner at a friends house, M suddenly offered to drive me home. We hadn’t arrived together. In the car I knew what she was silently thinking about. We hardly spoke but when I asked how E17 was (she hadn’t showed up that evening), M said that she was worried about the university and the high costs. I could feel the hints between the lines there. A while later she suddenly said that E17 had told her that I had promised to pay for her entire education here. We have never talked about anything like that besides me offering to let her stay with me in Norway should she so wish. We have never ever talked about anything in fact. So we couldn’t possibly have had a serious discussion about her future.

This is slowly all turning negative. I feel that the girls will all turn against me if I don’t cough up the money and their behavior is making me think of this entire fatherhood concept as a burden. If I don’t pay I may never hear or see from any of them again. And in every story ever told about me, I will be the monster who ruined their lives.

I’m also reminded of how much of a failure I am as a citizen. Unable to support myself, much less a family. Currently, being well insured, I am worth a lot more to them dead than alive it seems. But I have no immediate plans of self-sacrifice.