Daniel's Despedida

It was the day of my fellow volunteer Daniel’s despedida (going-away party) and I was running ridiculously late. The entire staff of Domingo Savio was scheduled to meet at the Puente Alto metro stop at around noon so we could take a bus to the countryside together and begin the daylong festivities in Daniel's honor. But on that particular morning I had hit the snooze button one too many times and, on top of that, I had underestimated the amount of time it would take me to buy and prepare my salad for our pot-luck lunch. I literally ran to the grocery store to pick up my salad ingredients before hopping on the metro, panicked that my coworkers might leave without me. I arrived at the appointed metro stop about 45 minutes late but, in true Chilean fashion, I was actually one of the first few people to arrive. I love that I never have to worry about being late in this country.

Once we were all together, we flagged down a bus and headed out to my coworker, Tía Amparo’s, countryside home. About 20 minutes later the bus driver dropped us off on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere where a single pickup truck awaited our group of ten people. We all giddily scrambled into the back of the pickup truck like kids (even though there were several open seats inside the truck), the wind whipping through our hair as Tía Amparo’s daughter drove us to their home.

Us riding in the back of the pickup

We arrived about ten minutes later at a simple wooden dwelling situated in a large field of unruly grass, flanked by a scenic mountain landscape and guarded by a friendly pack of dogs. Rosy-cheeked with rambunctiousness, despite the crisp fall air, we unloaded our five days supply-worth of food from the van and began preparing lunch.

As I set to cutting and chopping the ingredients for my salad, Tía Olga, my boss, began washing and cutting up pieces of chicken for the grill. After she was done, Tía Olga asked my fellow volunteers Suemedha and Elliot if they would juice her some lemons for pisco sours (a pisco sour is a Chilean drink made with lemons, powdered sugar and pisco—a fiery tequila-esque liquor made from grapes). Suemedha and Elliot dutifully followed orders, cutting and juicing the lemons.

At one point I looked up from my chopping and asked them, “Hey, did you guys wash those cutting boards off before you started chopping the lemons?” They told me that they, in fact, had not washed the cutting boards smeared with raw chicken juice.

My lip turned up in disgust, I asked Tía Olga, “Did you wash the cutting boards?”

“No,” she said.

“But what about the salmonella?” I said, horrified.

She responded with a dismissive wave of her hand, “Only eggs have salmonella, Carmen. Plus, I washed the chicken beforehand, so it is fine, and the lemon will kill any bacteria that’s left.”

I bit my tongue, not wanting to publicly contradict my boss and/or cause a scene with my obviously different food service standards, but I stayed away from the pisco sours just in case. (No one got sick in the end, so decide for yourself who was right.)

Suemedha juicing the infamous salmonella lemons

For lunch we ate some typical Chilean side dishes along with some smoky asado, or barbeque. Chileans cook the hell out of their meat, but somehow it seems to come out tasting great every time. Chileans also eat their barbeque in waves. First come the chorizo, or spicy sausage, which they put inside a mini-baguette to make a choripan, then comes the chicken and last comes the beef or pork—the crowning glory. Even though asados last for hours, you always have something to fill your plate in between courses of meat. In true Chilean style, we also had plenty to drink—namely a white wine punch made with canned peaches, which sounds very innocent, but can be dangerous when it comes out of a bowl that seems to miraculously refill itself.

The tíos tending to chorizo and chicken on the grill

The tías drinking white wine punch

At D-Sav we eat lunch together every day, but for some reason this lunch was different. This day the jokes were a bit dirtier, the smiles a bit wider, the air a bit cleaner and the ambiance a bit warmer, despite the cold. As I looked across at my jovial coworkers wholeheartedly enjoying the simple act of sharing food and drink together on a beautiful day, I took in the moment, hoping it was one I would remember forever.

The tíos goofing around after dinner

After lunch, we dispersed across the grounds of the ranch to pass the time, but with the onset of dusk, the stark, rural cold brought everyone back into the cozy house, where Amparo was preparing a dessert I specially requested—sopaipillas pasadas. Sopaipillas are disks of fried dough that generally have a touch of pumpkin in them, and they can either be topped with savory items like salsas and other condiments, or they can be pasadas, which means they are soaked in a dark syrup infused with rich Winter spices until they get deliciously soggy. Although I could literally feel my arteries clogging after eating so much rich food for hours on end, I still ate my entire bowl of dessert, unbuttoning my top jeans button to make room for it.

Tía Amparo holding a plate of her homemade sopaipillas

We finished up the day by singing karaoke—a surprisingly popular Chilean pastime. We sang every kind of song you could think of, from tear-jerking Chilean folk ballads to Latin pop classics to the basest of reggaeton songs (one of which talked about women who liked to be whipped—did I mention that political correctness is not always top of mind in Chile?). When it started getting late, we said our goodbyes and made our way back to our respective parts of the city, our stomachs full and our cheeks sore from smiling.

Me singing karaoke

Everyone singing!

Learning about other cultures is not always glamorous. On the one hand you make all kinds of unforseen "mistakes" and on the other hand they do things that befuddle, annoy and sometimes even offend you. But other times cultural differences push you to appreciate the stuff of life with new eyes. Daniel's despedida is a perfect example of this. My Chilean coworkers didn't just buy Daniel a cake and have everyone come in to wish him well before getting back to their computers. They made a big show of their love and appreciation for him, both by scheduling a mini staff vacation in his honor and, later, by coordinating a song-and-dance performance for him, put on by the kids. They don’t hide their passion and enthusiasm for the people and things they value, they glorify their existence with zest.

I don't know how the whole bon voyage extravaganza made Daniel feel, but I know it made me realize how familial my relationships with my coworkers have become and how much I admire their Joie de vivre.