Ferronlandia: From the Pueblo

When I was 16 I moved to Chile for a semester and was placed in a small city a bit south of Santiago called Rancagua. Neruda prose in mind, I was a bit shocked when I arrived here. The cement here is whiter than it should be, so when it's hot the sun hits you from above and below. There are few trees. A mall. A copper mine. Not much else. Luckily, there was a wonderful family here for me. And lots of pisco and fresh fruit and friends. My brother David is a cynical socialist who loves to argue, and mama Sonia is the loudest, chattiest Jewish mother you could ever meet. Seriously, she actually yells at you to "eat, eat!" as you are taking a bite.

Back in the day we used to go to a small town called Marchigue to visit the rest of the family. As my brother puts it, "the only thing fun to do in Marchigue is ring the doorbell." And indeed we did. But this time I was pleasantly surprised by a few new sources of entertainment:

1. Street food! Empanadas and Choripan. No comment on other chilean foods.

2. Live music. There was also a miss marchigue contest going on but I'll spare you the photos. Slightly disturbing.

3. Communists! Awesome.

4. This fancy library. Other small towns in Chile should also have new libraries like this, thanks to a country-wide initiative by Chile's first female president (yea girl!)

5. They even have sideshows now, just like in Oakland. JK, this is some kind of annual wheat harvest thing when they drive around in circles. Mostly an excuse for a party.

6. Finally, the home cookin. Everything on this plate came from my auntie's farm (even the lamb and the bread were cooked in the oven pictured below).