How to alienate a gring@.

Following Abeja's lead, I'm going to make a list of a few things that alienate a gring@- of the American variety. I'm sure there are plenty, but here's a small list that came to my mind:

1) Walk slowly on the sidewalks. Gringos always complain about Chileans walking slow and blocking their way. I find it annoying sometimes (when I'm in a hurry), but I'm a pretty slow walker, so I'm probably one of the people who other gringos find annoying ;)

2) Charge gringos "the gring@ price." Especially if they've lived in Chile for a while.

3) Provide HORRIBLE customer service. If the gring@ complains, tell them to go somewhere else to buy what they need. hehehehe

4) Make racist or classist remarks.

5) Be unfriendly.

6) Misunderstand them or make it clear you didn't listen to them when you respond to what they've said. -- Like for example, when a gringa/o lets you know they are vegetarian and that they don't eat red meat, chicken, turkey, fish, or any type of animal cadaver, offer them the vegetarian plate, chicken with rice. ;)

7) Tirales pa' la cola. Make plans with them and then don't arrive. Actually this one alienates lots of punctual Chileans too.

Those are a few ideas that came to my mind offhand. There are plenty more.

How to alienate/win over a Chilean

I must say, you guys had some hilarious comments on how to alienate Chileans. Sooooo true. First, a few ways to alienate a Chilean:

• Tell them you're vegan or vegetarian, hopefully at a barbecue.
• When you want them to pass you the bottle of Coke, ask them to pass you the azúcar con agua, color caramelo (the caramel-colored watery sugar.)
• Tell them you don't really like tennis, and that Massu and Gonzalez aren't that good anyway.
• When you go out with your friends, instead of ordering a beer or a pisco sour, order mineral water. All night.

Now several ways to win them over:

• Tell them you love Chile and speak positively about their country. Obviously! hehehe
• Use lots of chilenismos. I LOVE language, and eat up new expressions. (I've taken a six-month break from my Chilenis blog, though I've started again-sort of.) I don't know that there's anything more flattering and humorous for Chileans than to see their culture spread to foreigners. Instead of "Esta wea es para el pico" "Ehsta whea ehs paa el piicou". Oh, and if you really want to blow them away, teach them a chilenismo they don't know. I find the word "lumami" is a bit uncommon here. Some, but not all, Chileans know it.
• Ask your suegra (or other Chilean friends who like to cook) for their recipes, onda porotos grandos, pastel de choclo, pescado al vapor, etc. Talk about cooking with older Chilean women, and let them know how the recipes they gave you worked out.
• If speaking with a chileno "culto" (~highbrow), mention the poets Vicente Huidobro, Pablo de Rokha, Gabriela Mistral's prose (vs her poetry), the movie Tony Manero, etc. They'll be surprised you didn't choose to talk about Pablo Neruda. Or tell them about a Chilean literary figure that they've never heard about like Teresa Wilms Montt.
• With some types of Chilean women, who tend to ignore you on purpose, ignore back. It really irks them and makes them interested in you. Obviously, if they are ignoring you on purpose, they probably will never be a fun friend to have. Fun Chileans usually don't ignore you, and may be interested in what you are like, since you're a foreigner.
• Converse as they do, focusing as much on the speaker as on the topic of conversation. Be sure to tease (webear) the speaker as much as possible.

Other posts on "how to alienate a Chilean":
Don't call me gringa
Cachando Chile
Annje
La Gringuita Diaries
NY Gringa Expat
Abby's Line

Immigrant Visa: DCF from Chile

Or how to get a green card for your Chilean spouse, through the U.S. Embassy in Chile.

Caveat Lector: these are some pointers on how to go about the visa process. What worked for me or someone else may or may not work for you. The information I provide can change and its best to be in contact with the embassy if you are thinking of doing DCF to make sure the rules haven't changed. Getting my spouse's visa was a little like playing "Calvinball", from Calvin & Hobbes. Or like being the protagonist of Dr. Seuss's "Oh! The Places You'll Go!", complete with a total downer. But as Dr. Seuss says, success is 98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.

First off, "DCF" or "Direct Consular Filing" is slang, and not used by the embassy or immigration. It means to file your petition directly to the U.S. embassy in the country you are living rather than going through USCIS. I believe they call it an "immigrant visa petition". DCF is used on the visa forums however, so its a good term to know.

The visa I petitioned for for my husband was CR1, which is a 10 year residency visa with a condition that must be taken off two years after entering the States. The condition is for people who get permanent residency before they've been married for 2 years. (in the case of DCF, they'll be entering the country on a CR1 visa). Read more here.

That said. First you must qualify to apply. At the embassy, V was told that to qualify for direct consular filing in Chile, I (the U.S. Citizen) had to have any (chilean) visa that's not a tourist visa and have lived in Chile for six months with said visa. I wonder if you can have a student visa, though?)

If you are doing DCF from Chile, for a spouse start here.
You go to the embassy with the listed documents filled out and you turn in the petition for your foreign spouse.

If they accept your petition, they'll give you some forms, like for example:

• forms for your spouse's medical examination
• the DS-230 (more biographical information, the applicant (the foreign spouse) must fill this out)
• I-864
  
• perhaps something else that I've since forgotten?
  

Then we got a letter in the mail saying that our visa interview was in a month or so. My husband went to the doctor a couple weeks before the interview. The morning before the interview in the embassy, he had to stop by the doctor's office and pick up the results of his tests to bring with him to the embassy.

His visa was approved.

I turned in the I-130 on September 9th, and soon after (2-4 weeks?) I received a letter in the mail with the date for the final interview, which was November 4th. I accompanied V to the interview, but that wasn't necessary. At the interview, we were told the visa was approved, and V's passport arrived the following week. So, once my petition was accepted, it was a fast process.

Also, V has six months to enter the U.S. on his CR1 visa from the date of approval, which means, you should bear in mind when you want to arrive in the States before petitioning the visa.

Helpful resources:
U.S. Embassy Chile: Immigration Visas
British Expats: USA: Marriage-Based Visas
Visa Journey : wikis are good, term definitions as well, there's tons of information on visa journey. I registered and tried to post a couple times and it never worked. So I posted on britishexpats and got answers to my questions there. They answered quickly and were super helpful.

A couple useful glossaries:
Here's a glossary of Immigration Terms and Abbreviations.
Here's a second Immigration Glossary.

Forms you may need:
Check USCIS website for most updated version.

Forms for the petition:
I-130
G-325A

For the final interview
I-864
I-864A (for household members of your "domicile")
DS-230
Medical forms filled out by doctor

FAQs - I'll do a future post that will answer the following questions:
What is domicile and how do I show that the USA is my country of domicile?
How do I sponsor my spouse? (using the I-864)

On the British Expat forums one man compares going through the visa process to planning a wedding, because your whole future depends on the outcome of ONE event. He calls these people working on immigrant visa paperwork "immigrant zombies" and compares them to bridezillas. hahhahaha. Touché. I definitely had my "immigrant zombie" moments!

Hope this is useful for some of you out there. I'm not an expert. If you want expert advice hire an immigration lawyer. They run $3000-$5000 per case, at least that is what I was quoted. I didn't end up hiring one; our case was too simple to pay $3000.

You can check out visa journey and britexpats for free. That's what I did.

And I was worried how we would surf when living in Minnesota...silly me

hahahahaahhaha Is Duluth, Minnesota the new Surf City, U.S.A?
Surfing the Big Lake

Lake Superior:





And perhaps we can apply this strategy to the Mississippi:

"A falta de pan, buenas son las tortas,"

Elvis told me.

On Saturday, V and I went to La Boca in Con-Con to surf for a few hours. We got there earlier than usual (like 10:30am) because V'd been told the surf shop would start opening earlier as summer approaches. It was still closed upon our arrival and after a few unanswered phone calls to the employees, we decided to walk down the beach and check out our rental options. We stopped by the next surf shop and they wanted to charge 7.000 pesos for each board. We had about 12.000 pesos between the two of us, so that didn't fly. (The other surf shop charges us 5.000 for each board.)

So we continued walking down the beach, towards what looked like it could be an open-air rental shop, set up between two SUVs. As we approach, we don't see any boards or wetsuits, and are about to change direction when a guy sitting on one of the SUVs starts waving at us. I ask V who it is and he hasn't a clue. Walking towards the guy, V gets a better look at his jeep and recognizing the vehicle, says, "It's Elvis." "No way!!" We only know one Elvis in Chile and he's from Pichilemu, our first surf instructor. We chat with Elvis a little. He was there with several Pichilemu students participating in a surf competition. He asked if we came to surf, and we replied that we had, but that the surf shop hadn't opened yet, so we were chilling meanwhile. "My biggest board is a 6'9 he tells me, do you want to borrow it?" To which I replied, bueno!

The board was featherlight, absolutely gorgeous, perfectly waxed, sleak, and didn't have one nick. I put my wetsuit on and grabbed the board. Wading into the ocean I remembered the last time I rented a board from Elvis in Pichilemu, when I came out of the water, there was a huge gouge in it, that I couldn't remember causing. And that board was a bit of a beater, this one was a freaking Mercedes of surfboards. I pushed that thought aside and studied the waves to figure out which one to surf. They were freaking huge, so I decided to mostly surf the espuma (foam?). (This is what is created when the waves break.) The first three times I try to catch the espuma, I crash as I'm still getting used to the shorter, narrower board, a far cry from the tanks I am used to surfing on. Finally, I get used to the board and absolutely fall in love with it. I was even able to surf a few medium-sized waves (rather than just espuma). The board was so easy to maneuver and responded really well to my movements. My thoughts changed from "I hope I don't gouge the board" to "Estos culiados me van a tener que sacar del mar, porque me enamoré y no salgo más." And then I went to ride a bigger wave and don't stand up quick enough or something. I feel myself losing control. The next thing I know I've nose-dived the board into the ocean bottom and the ocean is spinning me around like a piece of clothing in a washing machine. When I surface, I grab the really expensive board that was lent to me, to look it over for gouges. I didn't find any, thank god, and duly returned the board with a smile a mile long, after surfing one last wave. V and I then talked of going to Pichilemu this summer, and said goodbye to Elvis and crew.

The rental shop was open for business and we rented a couple of tanks to surf on and enjoyed ourselves all the same.

Afinando el español

To find the perfect definition/translation English-Spanish/Spanish-English:

1) I look it up in wordreference, and see if there are any discussions about it, i.e. "cream of tartar", or squirrel/chipmunk (ardilla listada). And at this link, borgonyon explains "Estoy de acuerdo con fenix, se le puede llamar "ardillita" en el mismo sentido que llamamos "chinos" a todos los asiáticos, más como un nombre genérico." Beautiful! ;)

2) If I want to know whether the word is Chilean or not (I've lost all perspective), I look in up in the DRAE.

3) If it's a new word or something I don't understand well, often I'll look it up in the drae, or click on the "Spanish definition" in word reference. Often, a word that is more commonly used in Spanish will have a crappy English translation, or it will have one translation when there are really like 5. This is where it's good to read the definition in Spanish.

4) Also, if there are different translations for the same word like "rebuscado" can be translated as "far-fetched", "round-about", "overcomplicated", etc., obviously it's good to understand the different meanings related to different contexts, especially when the different words are in the non-native language. Again, I'll often look up the Spanish definition of each of these words.

5) If it's a complicated thing, a concept, a medical condition, or something that might benefit from a look at wikipedia, I go there next. For instance to have another look at the squirrel/chipmunk difference, here are some links to wikipedia (this was actually more complicated than I'd imagined because there are a ton of different squirrel articles in wikipedia.):

Tree squirrel - this is the squirrel I see in Minnesota. Once I look it up in English, I then click on "Español" to see what the wikipedistas have decided is the translation. Interestingly, there is no link to Español for this one.

Squirrel (in general) - This one doesn't have the Español link either, but it does have one in Esperanto and another in Gallego.

Eastern Gray Squirrel - I believe this one inhabits Minnesota as well. Finally, I find an article with a link to the Spanish article on the sciurus carolinesis (ardilla).

Then, the moment of truth as I look up chipmunk in wikipedia. I click on the Spanish link and find tamias minimus, also called the "ardilla rayada".

So Lydia wasn't far off explaining this difference to her students, at least in relation to wikipedia. ;)

Edited Dec. 4
Ah and 6) Often I'll google expressions in both Spanish and English. Especially for my chilensis blog because sometimes the words aren't super common and appear in neither dictionaries nor wikipedia.

This is my translation method, that mostly works, except when there is no translation, like for the word "vogueing" for example. But then, at least we know there is no translation.

"Tengo el poto como colador"

Translation: "My ass is acting like a colander."

**Note: my ass isn't acting as a colander at this minute, I'm just posting this as a "travel tip"

Many of us gringos in Chilito have gotten food poisoning from time to time. It's to be expected. Whether the Augustian changes in weather screw you over, or you eat a typical Chilean delicacy sold in the street: canine shish-ka-bob, or you have fried fish at a market on a Sunday afternoon, or you ate the wrong piece of fruit, or your once (tea) the evening before consisted of quiche and beer, or you drank too much water right after arriving to Chile and before your body was acclimated, we all end up in the same place: at the porcelain throne.

It's a painful experience, your stomach & intestines seem to grow a mind of there own. Some of us experience this time and again, unfortunately. But we will get through. Hang in there. Have someone buy you some gatorade, and divide your time wisely between the bathroom and the bed. If the vomiting doesn't ease off, and your ass doesn't stop acting as a colander in a few hours, it's time to go to the emergency room. I've got the magic pill that has kept me from the emergency room at least twice now. And some of you may have it too. It's Entero Micinovo (one of the few drugs in Chile that you need a prescription for, hehehe). A WONDER DRUG to stop the "churi-churi" as Don V (the one in the middle) calls it. hehehe. It was prescribed the first time I went to the ER at the Clinica Alemana in Valpo. And if you take it when you don't have the churi-churi, you'll probably be constipated for a month.

One of the sucky consequences of food poisoning is the sensitive stomach afterward. For the next week you have to watch what you eat and your diet will resemble this:

breakfast: galletas de agua con quesillo (crackers and tasteless "cheese")
té (tea)

lunch: sopa de pollo y arroz (chicken and rice soup)

dinner: galletas de agua con quesillo
té

It's an effective way to lose 5+ pounds in one week. Though I would prefer other, less painful, dieting possibilities to this one.

**If I find the "menu" or list of food that the Clinica Alemana recommended I eat for two weeks after being sick, I will post it here, as I don't doubt it will be useful to some other poor gring@.

Edit February 13th: Okis, so I didn't find the "regimen dietetico" from the Clinica Alemana, but I did find one from Integramedica. Here goes:

bebidas sin cola, agua sin gas
té, aguas de hierbas, matico, menta manzanilla
gatorade, chamyto
galletas de agua y de chuño
pollo, pavo y arroz cocido, fideos cocidos
jaleas, compotas
manzanas y peras cocidas (el auga en que fueron preparadas)
evitar alimentos en conserva (enlatados, en cajas, en frascos)
evitar salsas
no fumar.

Anyhoo, this is just one of the realities of living in the "third world".

I've just come across my "regimen blando sin residuos" from the Clinica Alemana de Valpo:

Alimentos permitidos:
quesillo o queso fresco
carne de vacuno sin grasa (posta, lomo liso, asiento, etc.)
pollo sin grasa y sin cuero
pescado fresco cocido al horno o a la olla (merluza, congrio)
clara de huevo
fideos cocidos
arroz cocido, salado o dulce con canela
galletas de agua, soda o chuño
azúcar, en cantidad moderada
jalea
chuño o maicena en agua
aceite crudo agregado al momento de servir los alimentos
aliños; solo sal, limón, canela, óregano
bebidas: té simple, auga mineral sin gas, coca-cola sin gas, infusiones de hierba antiespasmódicas (anís, manzanilla), agua de arroz con canela

Ejemplo de Minuta:
desayuno: té puro y 4 galletas de soda con quesillo

colación: maicena en agua con canela y caramelo

almuerzo: sopa de posta con fideos cabello
pollo cocido con arroz blanco
jalea y 2 galletas de soda o agua

once: chuño en agua, 4 galletas de agua con quesillo

cena: sopa de pollo con arroz
posta molida con fideos cocidos
jalea y 2 galletas de agua