It Takes Two to Tango

Buenos Aires--

I decided to celebrate my last week in Santiago...by going to Buenos Aires! I arrived yesterday morning, hit the ground running, dropped off my backpack at the Hostal Portal del Sur...and took off determined to find some action...

I generally don't like to travel alone unless it's to New York City. The Big Apple is so vibrant, it actually immunizes the solo traveler against both boredom and loneliness. The city itself provides sufficient company. But, Buenos Aires screams, "tango!" , and as the saying goes, it takes at least two...

After a lightning tour of the Plaza de Mayo, I decided I was in no mood to be alone. I headed back to the hostel in search of traveling companions. The hostel was packed, so there were quite a few prospects...I listened to the accents...German...pass. Chilean...oh, no. Aussie...maybe, but keep looking...Brazilian...I usually have a blast with them, but this week, my head still hurting from a year of constant banging against the language barrier, I was determined to speak English, by golly.

And then, like music to my ears, I hear it...the language of Milton and Shakespeare...wafting from the stairwell...English spoken in an accent as elegant and refined as the Queen's herself.

And that is how I met Anabelle and Jane, two delightful nineteen-year-old English maidens on their 'gap year', whose Princess Diana-like manners were the happy result of a decade spent in boarding school.

Soon, we had a plan: First, we must see a Tango show. Since they only spoke Portuguese, it was left to me to make the reservation. "Would you like to take a Tango lesson before the show?", Lucas (the hostel's resident travel agent) asked in Spanish. "No thank you, just the show, please" I responded, also in Spanish. Apparently, I still need to work on my accent, because when we arrived at the theater later that evening, the man who took our names at the door ushered us to a dance studio mumbling,"Lesson now. Show later."

And that is how we met Miguel, the cutest Tango instructor in Argentina, and maybe even the world. And FOR ONCE, going stag actually worked in my favor! Since I had no partner, Miguel simply had to dance with me for a whole hour...sigh.

Here I am learning the basic step: slide front...right...back...back...cross...back...left...close


..

After the lesson, we walked up a couple of flights to the dinner-theater. The meal did not disappoint (this was Argentina, of course we had steak), and neither did the show...It was a cheese-fest, true, but after one year of Husserl and Hegel, I was in the mood for cheese...

Here's Miguel, doing his thing:



A final picture of our charming dance instructor and his lovely partner.

Hungarian Despedida: 3 June, 2008

Santiago, Chile--

As my dear friend Liz once told me (very wisely), there are really very few people in the world who are authentically interesting...I am so blessed with having met at least six of them here in Chile!

To those people with whom I spent my every day, thinking until our brains hurt, laughing about curvas peligrosas, decoding the Chilean language, surviving Transantiago, and sometimes (probably too often) not doing anything at all...To Anna, Bulcsu, and Matyas, who very nearly 'hungarianized' me this past year; to Pawel and Kamila, my 'compatriots' (since I am part Polish, after all!); to La Srta. Veronica Marconi...Los voy a echar de menoooooosssss....cachai?

My Father, Victor Puyat

I'm supposed to be studying and not posting, but I can't help it...I just read my sister Myra's Father's Day tribute to our dad, Victor Puyat...and I am ROFL! If you want to check it out, visit her blog at http://thismerrywidow.blogspot.com/

I just have to add my own two cents....

My father is an artist who does not have an artist's temperament and works as a businessman. When I was a child, he read hundreds of bed-time stories to me, made up silly games (i.e. "horsie-horsie" and "magic-finger", which I have taught to three-year-olds the world over, and which they all love!), and taught me how to make chapati. When I was a little older, he showed me how to make a poached egg in a microwave. He also tried to teach me how to drive and play tennis, but that didn't work out so well. I have to admit that many of my likes and interests as well as almost all my personal quirks have their genesis in watching VGP do the things he likes to do...Following are just a few things that I owe to my dad:

1. Persisting interest in all things Indian. When I was fifteen, he invited me to tag-along on a 3-week business trip to India. We saw the Taj Mahal, a couple of tigers, lots of cows, visited several pharmaceutical factories and ate kamayan with local employees, sampled lethal Indian-Schezuan cuisine in Bombay, hob-nobbed with the Tatas (Indian business moguls), went to the desert in a bus with no seats or air-conditioning (it was like sitting in a mobile Turbo Broiler)...the beginning of a life-long connection....
2. My love for maps, globes, atlases, and a general interest in geography. My dad is a geography freak, he loves devices that tell him where he is (he had a compass on his watch for a time). When I'm bored, I study maps of the different continents and am honestly entertained. This actually came in really useful when I returned from Europe to the U.S. and had to find a job pronto--I started private tutoring, and one of the subjects I had to teach was 5th grade geography. Honestly, I rocked.
3. My itchy feet. When I say I want to see the world, I literally mean the whole world- not just the nice parts. Growing up, I listened enthralled and with envy to my dad's accounts of his visits to exotic locations: Brazil, Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, Pakistan, China...the more remote, the more impressed I was.
4. My ability to retain a rather large number of random facts. My dad is a big reader, but the only novel I actually recall seeing him read was "Chesapeake" by James Michener (which he made me read when I was 8, just to see how long it would take me...) What I do remember is the stacks of Time, Life, Newsweek, The Economist, National Geographic, Fortune, etc., in the basement and the hundreds of geography, history, economics, travel, and business books that lined the shelves of our upstairs hallway, almost every single one of which has my fingerprints on them... To this day, I read practically anything. Every random fact I know, I owe indirectly to him.
5. Daily prayer. My dad does mental prayer every day and he usually snores while doing it. But, I have learned a lot from that "It's better to pray while asleep and snoring than not to pray at all" attitude. It's actually been a really good example for me. Quite encouraging.
6. Life-long attraction to quiet men. I'm a chatterbox, but I utterly abhor men who talk too much. One time, not too long ago, I was having a quiet dinner alone at home with my dad, and I asked him something that I then considered to be pretty serious. As I waited for a reaction, he silently finished his food, stood up, took his dirty dishes to the sink and... walked away without saying a word! Go figure-I thought he just hadn't heard what I said. A month later, we were again having dinner alone in the kitchen, when he said "You know, about what you said..." Wahahaha! Lesson: Never assume that a person's silence indicates that they are neither thinking, listening, or...feeling. This, in particular, has been a helpful life lesson.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! There is no one quite like you.


"Thank you, India...thank you providence..."

Hiatus

It's the second-to-the-last week of school, and it's been truly horrible. I've been cooped-up in a cold classroom for most of the week for make-up classes and last-minute doctoral presentations. Next week will be even worse. Since I actually have no time to procrastinate this weekend, and because nothing of interest to the general public is happening to me anyway at the moment, I won't be posting for a while. But this will all soon be over, and then... no more school EVER AGAIN. Promise.

"We're broke but we're happy, we're poor but we're kind..."

'Tia Consuelo' and the Consul General during flag raising
ceremony on the embassy lawn.

Santiago, Chile--

Yes, there are Filipinos in Chile. Around 70, in fact (not including the embassy staff of 12). And I think I met most of them at the embassy last Sunday, where the Philippine community in Santiago got together for a pre-celebration of July 12 Independence Day.

The celebration began at noon with flag raising and a short greeting by Her Excellency, Tita Baby Puyat-Reyes (here, "Tia Consuelo"). The embassy is a modest, two-story house in Las Condes, the San Lorenzo/ Urdaneta of Santiago. We stood on the lawn and sang "Lupang Hinirang". It was actually pretty impressive--with no practice whatsoever, everyone automatically started in the correct key! And sang in tune! And hit the the high note ("...ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo)! May harmony pa! I think the neighbors were impressed.

Following the flag-raising, Sunday mass was con-celebrated by three Filipino priests in the embassy living room. The language switching was obviously confusing to the foreign spouses in the room: The ordo was in English, songs in Spanish, English, and Tagalog, the homily in English, Spanish, and Taglish. Again, the singing, with no previous practice, was pretty good! There was a song leader and a guitarist, and everyone sang along--they knew the lyrics of the extended-version Papuri Sa Diyos! And the harmony to Sa 'Yo Lamang! Wow, ang galing! If I sound overly impressed, remember that I lived almost 8 years in Ohio, where people like to sing loud and off-key and church music tends to be mortifying rather than inspiring.



The luncheon that followed the mass was typically labo-labo and abundant: puto at dinuguan, pancit, mechado, kaldereta, lumpian sariwa, adobo, barbecue, atbp. The only thing missing was green mango and bagoong.

Filipinos in Chile...are still Filipinos, unchanged and identifiable despite many years away from the homeland. There were a few children running around who I thought were speaking some obscure dialect until I realized they were in fact talking 'Spagalog' (Spanish and Tagalog). I met Lisa, a mestiza-Filipina who I mistook for a European until she opened her mouth and immediately revealed an unmistakable colegiala accent. I chatted with Michael, an English engineer married to a Cebuana, who reminisced about his 16 years in Manila with unmistakable nostalgia--oh, the traffic, the corruption, and the 1,001 ridiculous situations expats in the Philippines often find themselves in... In the kitchen, I gossiped with some of the embassy staff about the my pet Chilean peeve: boring food. We agreed that the manner in which seafood is treated here is tantamount to sacrilege. They told me where I could buy patis. And when I asked one lady how she liked living here, her answer echoed my own unspoken one: "Malungkot dito. At ang mahal pa." Which pretty much sums up my thoughts on this least Latino of Latino countries.

I went home that day grateful that I grew up in a country rich in those things that truly enrich life: music, laughter, good food, camaraderie, good times. Alanis' song could be our unofficial anthem:

I'm broke but I'm happy
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah!

Yeah, especially, poor. And short!


with Tia Consuelo, Pawel, and Kamila, who being Polish,
felt 'double-gringo' that day.

O Filipino, Where Art Thou?

above: Israeli and Filipino flags on the shores of the Dead Sea. Did you know that there are 37, 155 Filipinos working in Israel, mostly as caregivers and domestic helpers? I had no clue.

(In keeping with the upcoming 110th anniversary of Philippine independence, my theme of the week will be: Random Thoughts on Anything Filipino. )

Santiago, Chile--

Seriously, there are Filipinos everywhere. I lived for a year (2001-2002) in Liechtenstein, a tiny principality that lies on the border of Switzerland and Austria. My guess is that at any given moment during the Philippine workday, there are more people in Mall of Asia than in the whole of Liechtenstein, which has just over 33,000 people. I often wondered if I was the only Filipino in Liechtenstein. Then, one day, I discovered the 'others': I was taking the bus through the capital 'city' of Vaduz (about the size Legaspi Village and half of Salcedo Village put together) when out of the corner of my eye, in the distance, I spotted something that looked like the Filipino flag. Intrigued, I jumped off the bus and walked towards the object in question. And there was our flag- hanging in the window of a modest imbiss (eatery/ turo-turo counter) at whose counter stood a little Filipino woman selling lumpia, pork barbecue, apple strudel and Italian gelati (even European-ized Filipinos don't particularly care if their food 'matches' or not). Since I had to catch the train to Zurich, I only stayed long enough to buy barbecue and to get her back-story: She was a 30-year-old 'old maid' from Bohol when she began corresponding with a Swiss man living in Liechtenstein. He came to the Philippines, paid for her family's new roof (which was- of course- blown off in a typhoon), proposed marriage, and then took her away from it all. Now, they had a little brood of Filipino-Swiss-Liechtensteiner kinder. I'll say it again: If I can find Filipinos in Liechtenstein, I can find Filipinos anywhere.

I was recently surprised when I checked the latest census and found out that the population of the Philippines is at now 92,000,000. When I left the country in 1998, the number was around 75,000,000. Is EVERYONE except me having a dozen kids these days??? This new statistic makes the Philippines the 12th most populated country in the world. It's an impressive number, but even then, probably an undercount because I'm sure this number does not include all of the members of the Philippines diaspora (that is, the approximately 11,000,000 Filipino overseas workers and immigrants). I mean, I am an overseas Filipino, and I don't remember ever being counted. Since I officially left the country in 1998, I have not participated in any census, paid Philippine taxes, or voted. I'm pretty sure they've lost track of me by now. But clearly, I am Filipino. I never refer to myself as "American" even if I have a blue passport and ticked the box that said "U.S. citizen" when I mailed in my last census card. I am an 'uncounted' Filipino, and we are legion.

While the official count of Filipinos in the United States is at 2.3 million, this is clearly a gross undercount. Based on their review of immigrant and non-immigrant visas issued, the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines approximates this number to be closer to 3 million. But even this must be way off mark. In the last eight years, more than 80,000 Filipinos (myself being one of them) have legally immigrated to the United States. Many of these have changed their immigration status through marriage or naturalization and therefore cease to be included in the official Filipino count. They and their offspring are counted as Americans. And what of the thousands of 'overstaying tourists' who come to America every year? Some counts put the number of ethnic Filipinos in the U.S. at closer to four million. If this is true, then that makes us the second largest Asian group next to the Chinese, which is incredible for a country that is only 298,170 sq. km. large (compared to China, which has 9.6 million sq. km.).

Is this diaspora a bad thing for our people, necessarily? Economically, it is something we presently simply cannot do without. Overseas Filipinos are rightfully considered heroes, because it is their hard-earned money that puts food on the table and keeps the economy afloat. Admittedly, there are serious social problems that arise from families being separated for extended periods of time. Only time will tell whether the benefits outweigh the cost.

I am, however, of the firm opinion that the diaspora ultimately benefits the world as a whole. The more of the world I see, the more I am convinced that we are a benefit to every society in which we are to be found. We do work others won't do- work that is necessary- with a smile. Filipino nurses take care of the sick and the dying in all parts of the West, housekeepers and maids make homes a warm place to come home to, laborers build roads and facilities. We generally don't cause much trouble, don't ask for too much, are easy-going and hard-working, and we genuinely like other people. We certainly have our faults-- over-tolerance, pettiness, passive-aggresiveness, DISORDER--but these faults often disappear as soon as we are taken out of our chaotic natural habitat and placed in a more structured environment. The truth is, Filipinos are capable of flourishing in practically any environment, and often, they influence it for the better. A professor of mine told me that a priest studying in Israel once mentioned to him that in his parish, there had been an unusually high number of conversions of entire families from Judaism to Catholicism. I knew before he told me what all these families had in common: a zealous Filipina maid or nanny.

It has often been said - and we Filipinos don't think about it often enough - that our country has a special role to play in the plan of Divine Providence. Some 500 years ago, the Philippines, the only Christian country in Asia, served as a geographically strategic barrier against the north-ward spread of Islam. Now, over a million of our countrymen are living in the Islamic world and their presence has resulted in many small but significant blessings. Let us take the case of Saudi Arabia. Despite the fact that Saudi Arabian law prohibits public ceremonies of any religion other than Islam and that the possession of bibles, crucifixes, and rosaries is not allowed, King Abdullah, last November, became the first reigning Saudi monarch to visit the Vatican. One of the main topics treated during the visit was the opening of the first Catholic church in Saudi Arabia to meet the spiritual needs of the more than 1 million Catholics in the country, most of whom are- surprise, surprise- overseas Filipino workers.

Despite the many challenges population growth places on our resources and our government's ability to manage them properly, it cannot be denied that it has also brought with it an 'explosion of blessings'.

Comida Chilena-Filipina, part 1

left Seafood Chowder featuring clams, mussels, sea abalone, shrimp, squid, etc. Okay, I did like some dishes...

Santiago, Chile--

It's common knowledge among those who know me in Santiago that I consider the most disappointing aspect of Chilean culture to be its cuisine. Chilean food isn't bad. It's just, shall we say, unremarkable. Ingredients are joined together indiscriminately with no thought whatsoever given to complementarity or contrast. The natural texture of foods is not respected. Salads are shredded, and meat, seafood, and vegetables chronically overcooked and arbitrarily (according to my humble palate) seasoned. I simply don't see the point in adding palta (avocado) to anything and everything. Food-wise, I've been pretty miserable this past year. It's a challenge to prepare anything distinctly Filipino because patis, bagoong, and coconut cream are nowhere to be found. So, lately, I've been amusing myself trying out Filipino recipes using local ingredients.

My must successful Chilean-Filipino recipe is a version of adobo. A few days ago, I made chicken-pork adobo for the despedida of my beloved Hungarian friends Anna and Bulcsu. I spiced it up with a mild paprika because I did not have any black peppercorns. The paprika added a touch of sweetness and spice as well as an attractive brick color to the sauce. Intrigued, I repeated the recipe, this time using merken, a traditional Mapuche chili powder of dried, smoked hot peppers, cilantro, and garlic. The result was, I think, a truly interesting and delicious variation of the traditional recipe.


Adobo a lo Chileno



1/2 kilo cubed pork loin
1/2 kilo chicken thighs and legs
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup white, mild vinegar
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 large head garlic, minced
1 large yellow onion, chopped roughly
10 bay leaves
1 tablespoon merken
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
fresh oregano, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Marinate the chicken and pork in the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, bay leaves, and half the garlic and onion for 30 min.
Add water, and boil meat in marinade at medium heat for 20 minutes or until tender.
In a separate frying pan, saute remaining garlic and onion in oil. Add merken. Remove chicken and pork from the marinade and fry until edges are crispy.
Meanwhile, thicken remaining marinade with mixture of two tablespoons of cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup of cold water. Increase heat and boil until the consistency of gravy is attained.
When meat is ready, transfer to serving platter.
Pour sauce over meat, and serve excess in gravy bowl.
Garnish with finely chopped fresh oregano (optional). Serve with plain, steamed, white Jasmine rice.

The merken does wonders for the adobo. It adds a layer of smokiness, depth of color, and mild spiciness to an otherwise delicious but not very complex dish. I loved it!

Chile 101

(left The Free Willy Society deep in thought: Pawel, Kamila, Margaret, Matita, and Anna during a riveting Common Seminar)

Santiago, Chile--

I first arrived on Chilean ground on March 28, 2007. My purpose was to write my doctoral dissertation in Philosophy at the new home of the International Academy of Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Three weeks from today, I will be leaving to return to the United States and start a new job and life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The dissertation is in progress but far from finished. While I may have missed my personally established deadline, I'm happy to have a reason to come back for my dissertation defense and final exam. I have only touched the tip of the iceberg with respect to discovering what Chile has to offer, and knowing I will one day come back makes it a lot easier to leave.

While Chile will always have a special place in my heart, I am so totally ready to get the heck out of here! Let me tell you why: I am primarily a city girl, and unfortunately, the city in which I live (Santiago, the only real city in Chile) lacks precisely that one thing that I love about urban-dwelling: vitality. I am half-dead in Santiago. Maybe it has something to do with the pollution and resulting lack of oxygen in the air. My asthma has never been worse. Maybe it's the cold. Few places have central heating. I suffocate and shiver all winter long. And winter is LONG. Santiago is a city that more or less functions well. Services are readily available, traffic is manageable, public transportation is generally reliable. But it is a city that does not smile. I have often thought that the reason its pedestrians walk so SLOWLY is because they bear the weight of some unseen burden on their collective shoulders. (Then again, it could be that they are just oxygen-deprived and frozen, like me.)

On the positive side, even this city-lover will acknowledge that Chile may very well be the most beautiful country in the world in terms of natural beauty. It has everything: mountains, deserts, 'altiplano', lakes, volcanoes, rivers, islands, and sea, sea, and sea...I have seen only a fraction of what the country has to offer, but this fraction has left me breathless...the rough shores of Isla Negra, the unique foliage of Araucania and the Lake District, the amazing Antofagasta sunset, the moonscape of the valleys of the Atacama desert, the eerie loveliness of the island of Chiloe, the snow-capped grandeur of the Andes...everywhere, the Andes...the beauty of this country is engraved in my memory.

So, come to Chile! Just don't come looking for a party or a gastronomic adventure. Come to see what God can make when He really wants to show off.

Memory Loss

right, doggie in the window, Calama, 24 May 2008

Santiago, Chile--

I decided to start this blog because it started to bother me that most of the e-mails I receive from old friends and colleagues invariably begin with: "OMG, where ARE you?!" I thought of writing a 'memoir' of the past 10 years and sending a mass e-mail, but I never got around to it, because even if I remember that I've done a number of interesting things in the past decade, the truly interesting details escape me. My memory is shot.

I first came to suspect that my memory was no longer what it used to be when I signed up for Facebook last year and couldn't remember how the heck I knew half the people who sent me friend requests. Other symptoms soon followed: losing my keys ten times a day, forgetting my own birthday, not realizing I've told the same story to the same person about half a dozen times already, getting on the very same train I take everyday- but in the wrong direction. The worst thing is that I've begun to the forget the details surrounding the key events of my past. About six years ago, I threw out the diary I had kept in my 20's for fear that somebody would actually read it when I died. I will regret this forever!

So, I'm starting this blog two months before my 37th birthday because I would like to keep a better account of the second half of my life. But more importantly, I would like to provide family and friends so dispersed and far away some portal into my daily thoughts-- since you are all always in them.