Terremoto: Drinking an Earthquake

In my lifetime, I have lived through two major earthquakes; the first in 1985, and the second in 2010. During the first, I was certain that the earth was moving because a giant was walking towards the city. I remember…

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Back in Santiago

I’ve recently returned to my hometown Santiago, Chile after being away for a couple of years. Being away has made me realize some things that I once took for granted. First: the Andes. See above. They are huge! Majestic mountains that can…

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Oh, the bread of Chile

Bread, you rise from flour, water and fire. […] How simple you are, bread, and how profound! Fragment, Oda al Pan, Pablo Neruda, in Odas Elementales   Today I woke up wishing I could eat avocado on a toasted marraqueta. …

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Thelonious: Jazz and food, improvised

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the best of the 20th Century. For Santiaguinos (people from Santiago), Thelonious is also the name of a restaurant and music venue that combines live jazz and…

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Chile – Macarena Quezada

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Macarena Quezada enjoys travelling almost as much as she loves food.  She moves around as often as she can.  As a new mom, she’s now waiting for her baby to be old enough to travel by her side. And yes, it’s Macarena like the song, but no, she’s not named after the song. It’s the name of the virgin in the south of Spain.

I was born in…..Santiago, Chile. I have spent most of my life in….Santiago, and now I live in….Singapore.  I have also lived in the US and Spain. My favourite local film is….Kiltro.  It’s a  very low budget action movie about  street gangs in Santiago.  There are a lot of references to Robert Rodriguez, and Asian films of the 80s where the hero follows a quest to find himself. Not a movie, but a must-see from Chile is Sábados Gigantes, the longest-running TV show in the world, according to the Guiness Book of Records.  Don Francisco is the host and the variety show is still the same as it’s always been.  I like watching a section where people form the public sing and there is a guy with a black ghost costume and a trumpet who decides whether the singer wins money or not.  It’s been on the air since 1962. My favourite books or novels from my country are….Diamela Eltit has a very interesting voice and I enjoy her books very much.  Everyone loves Pablo Neruda, but I must say I prefer Gabriela Mistral, a very strong woman, with bad luck in love, who also won the Nobel Prize and has very strong poems.  “Death Sonnets” has always been my favorite poem, and it reminds me of my grandmother who used to recite her work during my bedtime. When I need a reminder of home, I listen to…..Juana Fe.  Please google them. My favourite time of the year is….December.  My birthday, my daughter’s birthday, Christmas, summertime, new year at the beach, pool parties and lots of barbeques.  And Christmas cookies.  My all time local hero is…..Condorito.  You don’t get more Chilean than Condorito, a  cartoon who has been in my life since I can remember. My favourite local word is…..“po”. Every phrase ends with this word, and it sounds so funny.  For example:  “Hello, po”, “how have you been, po”, “long time no see, po”, get the idea?   You will always know someone is from Chile because of it… What I love most about Chile is….the geography (deserts, forests, mountains, beaches, fiords…) and the variety of the food. Seafood, pisco sour, wine, empanadas…Oh, so many things!

Manquehue: Place of Condors

November 2007. My boyfriend’s first birthday since we first got together. I wanted to plan something different, something special. We were still college students at the time, so money was not a resource that we had. What was availabe, then?…

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Chile – Sara Joiko

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Sara Joiko is a sociologist dedicated to education issues in Chile and the world.

I was born in…..Santiago, the capital city of Chile, I have spent most of my life in….Santiago, and now I live in…..Singapore. My favourite local films are…..Machuca (2004) and El Chacotero Sentimental (The Sentimental Teaser, 1999). The first film is the story of two boys from different social backgrounds during the last period of Salvador Allende’s socialist government and before General Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship on the early 70s. The second is a comedy about a real Chilean radio DJ who has a programme where anonymous listeners reveal their love stories, complete with mix-ups, disputes and passion. When I need a reminder of home, I listen to…..Radio Zero, where I can listen to the new groups and discussions about trending topics in Chile, covering different areas such as art festivals, politics, entertainment, gossip, etc. My favourite time of the year is…..Spring, from September until December. Perfect weather. It also matches with the celebration of our national day, one of the biggest festivities of Chile. We call it September 18. If you are in Chile at this time, wherever you are, north, central, south, you will have a good time. Food, dance, music, and meeting up with family and friends – it’s the perfect formula for this festivity. My all time local hero is…..Gabriela Mistral, the Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. My favourite local phrase is…..“Oh! lo pase la raja” meaning “What a great time”. My favourite words to live by are…..seize every minute to the fullestWhat I love most about my home country is….EVERYTHING.