A silly little experience with Chilean street theater...

Numero 1: I began typing this blog on Saturday and didn’t finish until today, Monday. Because of the time lag there are several blog-worthy things that have happened since then, but the only one I’m going to mention for the time being (until I get a chance to dedicate more time to a real narrative) is the fact that this morning I did one of the scariest things yet since I’ve been in Chile. What might that be, you ask? Well, in my ecology class we had to present research papers to the class, explaining everything about the published experiment with PowerPoint aides and the whole nine yards. Something I’ve done a million times in classes at home and doesn’t bother me a single bit…when the whole process is happening in English. It’s kind of a completely different story, however, to get up in front of a group of my peers and

So….the weather has been pretty awesome lately, with hot sunny days and warm nights. I have a pretty good sunburn on one of my arms, contesting to the truth of that fact. However, yesterday was abnormally chilly and overcast, and unfortunately I found myself in a bummed out mood as a result. That’s pretty bad news, since I’m going to leave summer in a few weeks and plunge into the dark deep terrible horrible no good very bad misery of winter for the rest of my life. But that’s another story.

Anyhow, I was having a hard time making myself productive at home (I truly think as a result of the weather) so I went for a quick run to energize myself and then I went out to visit a few museums that are still on my list of places to visit in Santiago. First I went to the Palacio Cousiño, an elaborate early 1900’s mansion built by one of the richest families (still) in Chile. It had, for example, the first elevator in the country, central heating (which most homes still don’t have here, even mine), gas plumbing for the lights, hand painted specially designed for the house Italian floor tiles (you have to wear booties over your shoes when you visit), hundreds of special types of international marbles making up the stairs and fireplaces and everything…it was quite a spectacular. The family lived there for three generations, and then the home was used as a place for foreign dignitaries (kings, queens, presidents, the like) to stay while they were visiting Chile. Now it’s a national monument owned by the government for showing off to tourists like myself. (Although to be honest I don’t really consider myself a tourist anymore, I’ve been here long enough, but I’m not really a resident, either, since I’m leaving soon…I don’t know if I have a classification.)

Anyhow, after visiting the Palacio, I thought I’d go downtown and make a trip to the National History Museum, something I’d been meaning to do for some time.

Sidenote:
I started out that direction, initially taking the metro the wrong direction well, not exactly the wrong direction, but I had two different options to change to two different metro lines that would both eventually take me to the same place, and I chose the one that takes me about 6 stops farther. Not a big deal, though; I love taking the metro places. It’s a blast! There are always interesting people to watch, and usually I have some sort of random interaction with strangers, and I always listen to my iPod while I’m riding so it’s like a have a movie soundtrack to listen to through all of this. I think one of these days when I have some free time I’m going to get on the metro and ride to every single stop on the line, and then come back home, and call it a day.

Anyhow, the National History Museum is in the Plaza de Armas, right in the center of downtown. There are always a million interesting things going on down there—people selling sunglasses and baseball caps and fingernail clippers and belts and avacados and candied peanuts and fingernail polish and sewing needles and purses and jewelry…anything and everything on earth. Often times – especially during what I suppose are “peak” times like a Friday afternoon or the weekends- there are musical acts, people doing traditional Chilean dances, comedians, all sorts of things. I was a few blocks away and the museum was supposed to be closing in an hour, so I decided that instead of worrying about making it there and rushing through the museum I would just enjoy all of the things going on downtown, instead. I started wandering through the crowds of people, rather aimlessly, when a newly gathering group caught my eye. It was evident that a comedy show was about to start, and even though the comedians usually talk in such a very Chilean way, and rapidly, that it’s hard to understand, most often I at least stop and watch for a second to see if I can catch anything that’s going on. Anyhow, I found myself pretty much in the front row of this particular circle forming. As the comedian was getting started he made a point several times to tell all of the men to put the women towards the front, both so that they wouldn’t get their purses stolen and also so that he could have a better look or something cheesy like that. Anyhow, as he was saying all of this he was pointing out specific people in the audience and making slight jokes about them or saying they should step forward more and things like that. He pointed me out several times telling me to come more towards the front as he was doing all of that, and I ended up in the first row of people in the gathering crowd.

Often times as he was making jokes with people they were rather interactive-the people had to respond to his questions and things. For example, a very pregnant woman was standing with her husband holding her hand, and the comedian told him to put her in front of him so no one snatched her purse. As her husband moved positions and stood to hug her from behind the comedian asked the lady “And what’s your husband’s name?” “Enrique” “Oh, that’s nice. And is he here?” That sort of cheesy joke.

Anyhow, I don’t even remember how he started with me, but at some point the guy asked me a question and I had to respond. Thank God I understood him talking; like I said before sometimes they’re going so fast and with so many modismos that it’s pretty nearly impossible. However, I responded to whatever his question was and he caught on immediately that I’m not Chilean. Well, foreigners are always novel, of course, and somehow that little interaction ended up launching me right into the center of attention. The comedian started just by asking me various, normal questions, like what I’m doing here in Chile and if I like it and all of that. Apparently, however, his show usually involves a few audience participants, and me being exotically foreign clearly made me a prime candidate.

And thus commenced what ended up being about an hour of me participating in this guy’s comedy show, helping him act out various scenarios and the like. Anyone reading this obviously knows me, and thus know that I don’t mind the occasional opportunity to ham it up and play along with fun stuff like that, so you can rest assured that I wasn’t a boring participant. A few examples of what we did….

I don’t remember what the ending idea of the joke was, but for part of one of his little shticks he wanted me to act like I was greeting my favorite movie star. He went on and on explaining to me that when famous American movie starts come to Chile all of the girls scream and cry and run to them and throw themselves at the movie starts, and on and on and on, and he wanted me to do the same. He was very thorough in explaining that on his cue I needed to run to him excitedly and cling to him. Uh, yeah right, I’m really going to do that to some slightly creepy street performer. When his cue came, I calmly walked up to him and shook his hand. Since I’d been playing along so well the whole time I think he half expected me to do what he’d told me to do, and the look of shock on his face when I didn’t was pretty funny. He tried a few more times to get me to do it, but each time I found another variation of a formal, polite greeting to use instead of running to him and leaping on him. When he started over slowly explaining to me again that he wanted me to act like a Chilean girl greeting an American rock star, as if maybe I hadn’t understood the first six times, I interrupted him and explained that he couldn’t possible expect a dignified American like myself to behave as crazy as a Chilean girl would. (It was in a joking manner, of course, after all he was cracking jokes about the US the whole time.)

After he passed his hat around to collect people’s coins in the audience, before the show was over, he noticed that someone had put in a rather large coin- $500 pesos. He made a big deal about how much he appreciated it, and said that we should do a special ceremony in thanks. He had me kneel down with him on a jacket, and put another jacket out in front, and then he started singing a song of thanks to God for giving him a $500 piece. Then, he sang (like the prayer-songs the priests do) “And as a demonstration of our faith we will stay here until you deliver us another $500…..(we sat for a minute while he looked around at the audience expectantly)….or maybe five $100’s…..” and we sat there for a bit until people started throwing their 100 peso coins towards the circle. There were two or three pieces on the jacket in front of us when someone else threw coin that didn’t land on the jacket “….it has to land on the jacket to count, Lord….” That little caveat turned out to be the real moneymaker, as we ended up waiting for quite a bit while people threw coins toward the center of the circle and they bounced off of the jacket. As we were sitting there, someone threw in a quarter. He stopped from the singing for a second and stared at it, surprised. “A quarter!” I said “Uh, clearly that belongs to me.” and I snatched it out of his hand and put it in my pocket. I guess it doesn’t sound that particularly funny right now, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

Anyhow, the “show” continued on for about an hour until finally he was done. Apparently he works in a bit of a group, taking advantage of the crowd that exists when one person finishes their show. Instead of just having the people disperse, someone else quickly steps in and starts their routine. The guy who I’d been acting with the whole time was saying thanks to the crowd and doing one last joke as the next people were coming in, and I don’t exactly remember what he said but after asking for a round of applause for me in thanks for being good natured and playing along he grabbed my arm and said “yeah, and now we’re off to go have dinner together” or something along those lines. Yeah, so everyone laughed and we left the circle, and I kept expecting him to let go of my arm and say goodbye and thanks and everything.

This, unfortunately, is where he turned into a creeper. Yeah, I thought he was joking when he said to the crowd that we were going to go have dinner, as I’m sure they did, too. Turns out he, however, didn’t think he was joking. We started to walk away and I said “Pues…ciao!” several times, and tried to pull away, and each time he said “ciao? Porque? Vamos a tomar una cerveza, por lo menos!” Sorry buddy, I don’t think so.

It ended up being a bit of an affair getting away from him, and I had to explain that I was engaged and my fiancé was waiting for me before he got the hint and reluctantly let me go.

Bummer that something as fun and lighthearted as participating in some street theater had to regress to the same old creepy Chilean men story, but as long as I forget how uncomfortable I felt at the very end it’s a good memory. Too bad I was alone, so I don’t have any pictures!