Touching Base

Another fortnight of struggling to find my own feet here in Chile!

Sleep

Living on the nosiest corner in Santiago continues to be a struggle. Trying to find a good pocket of sleep each night is difficult. The days and nights are increasingly becoming hotter, resulting in the necessity to sleep with the window open each night. Though it must be said that the 9pm sunsets can be quite pretty.

We have a stand alone fan in the bedroom each night, providing a long drone hum to harmonise with the street noise throughout the night. I have learned to synchronise my window movements in the evening with the lighting of a cigarette from the apartments below, to the arrival of the garbage trucks after midnight. Ear putty, a sleeping mask, dehydration and exhaustion ensure I am getting some kind of rest each night. Side note: Ear putty is near impossible to buy here. I've heard rumours of them being in some chemists, but I have visited plenty and they either don't stock them, or don't have them in stock. If anybody wants to send me a care package - include ear putty!

Work

I teach classes of English on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning, for an 8:30 start. I awake early and battle the metro each day to get to my allocated classes on time.

Wednesdays and Fridays I teach a class in the local telecommunications company. There is only one student, but the class is unreliable. As written in my previous blog, my first class with her was cancelled upon arrival to the wrong building. History repeated itself yesterday when I arrived to the correct address at 8:22, and the concierge told me she had cancelled the class the day before. Sure enough, at 8:28 the Institute I work for called me to inform me the class was cancelled, and so is the next. So far, from 5 classes booked I have taught two, two were cancelled without notice and one cancelled with anticipation. The two classes I have taught were fine, except getting there proved to be a little complicated for an uncoordinated being like myself. I slipped over on the dry footpath my walk to work this week, scratching my knee badly along with my palms, other knee and toes. What makes the situation all the more embarrassing is that everyone who walked past me just gave me strange looks and kept on walking past! I'm sure I made a great impression attending class with mud all over my hands, feet and blood pouring from my knees.

No problems now, I've bought new, ultra-safe gladiator style sandals to tackle the mean streets of Santiago!

Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach a class at a Department store. With 4 students in the class all about my age it is a really fun place to be at. Further more, although I take the metro there, it is only a 25 minute walk home so it's nice to be outside and enjoy the city while everyone is in their offices. This class is paid for partially by a government subsidy, so attendance is taken with a computer and a fingerprint scanner. I feel very fancy operating such technology.

All this work equals a grand total of 6 hours of work each week, if the classes take place. With ambiguity still if I will get paid for my time even when the lessons don't take place, and seriously small amount of hours when it was implied I would have additional classes within the institute in the evenings, I've decided it is time to look elsewhere for work. International schools finalise their recruiting for teaching staff for 2015 in November. I've submitted a few applications, but the most important from this exercise is finding what further qualifications might assist me in securing full-time work for 2016. Fingers crossed that what ever is supposed to happen will happen.

Daily Life

I've finally been given access to the apartment building I'm living in, again with the fancy fingerprinting technology. I feel very fancy fingerprinting myself and being granted access to doors I previously had to ask, then ask again the concierge to open for me.

Acquiring a bank account here as a foreigner is a near impossible feat. All banks require that I present a bill with my name and current address along with a series of payslips before granting me the privilege to put my money in their precious vaults. Since I work on an hourly rate, I don't have payslips as such, and since I don't own anything here, I don't have bills so no one would accept me. Very annoying, as my place of work keep asking me for my bank details and won't accept Rubén's details. Finally, Rubén's bank accepted me on the condition that Rubén sponsored me. I am now the proud owner of a 'family card' bank account where I can keep all my millions from the 6 hours of work I do each week!

I also saw a taxi transporting a ridiculous amount of oranges.

That is all.

Football

Football fans are the main reason why I have never attended a football match in a stadium in Chile. As you can see from my video out the window football fans are a little fanatic. Rubén's football team, nicknamed 'The Blues' only travel on the blue public transport buses. This was a group of the supporters making their way to support their team one day BEFORE the match was to be played. The noise is a combination of the building work, and the chanting and banging from INSIDE the bus as heard from our 7th storey apartment.

It looks exciting now, but typically, after the match, the TV was littered with images of fans throwing objects at each other, causing chaos, police beating them with batons etc etc.

I can honestly say though that I have now watched a game of football in Santiago. Rubén and I have watched a few matches of the 12th Homeless World Cup, held this year just minutes from our apartment.

Watching Chile vs Mexico play was a nice way to spend the evening when the sun goes down and the evenings are cooler. Free to watch, the tournament runs for one week with 40 countries participating in this event.

Television

Outside of football, I'm convinced the national past time of Chileans is TV. With the millions of channels available on cable, and the many locally made TV talk shows, soap operas and reality shows the local Chilean is never without something to watch. The smoky skyline is scattered with the subscription TV satellite dish, a necessity for all homes rich and poor. Again, I refer to the view immediately outside of my bedroom window for evidence,

Surely this mismatched roof is held together with the 6+ satellite dishes

These dwellers of sky scrapers are happy to sacrifice their already tiny balconies for their precious TV receptors.

When one dish just won't do

 But I can't see why anyone would one. After all, TV just doesn't seem right. It spreads a lot of lies about what food should be.

For example, my cravings for KFC are constantly dampened when promotions like these interrupt my viewing of the latest The Big Bang Theory.

Soup and rice? Where are the damn chips?

No... it's not good.

Or being told that the a particular brand of beer is the 'perfect compliment' to a hotdog. Honestly, this country is mad about hotdogs!

Just no.

Oh, and the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory always looks like this:

And you're never quite sure when a show is on.

Tuesdays at 9pm in Lima, is 11pm in Santiago. This will inevitably change when Perú enter summer time.