Well, the Fondas was a bit of a hoot. Fondas? What’s that? Or as Manuel would say ‘qué’?

A Fonda is a cheap eating place or a stall selling food or drinks or whatever. (No relation to Jane Fonda!)

So the Fondas (ie plural of the word) is the title chosen for the September 18th Independence Day festival, and the fondas were there in vast numbers selling typical Chilean fare such as perros calientes, kebabs, papas fritas, empanadas…. hmmmmmm

Now, one of those is a Spanish thing, but the others aren’t. The first is a hot dog (a banger, ie a food-like substance, enclosed in awful bread with coloured sauce on it), a kebab is a kebab, (and some of them had giant chunks of dead cow or pig threaded 5 or 6 abreast on a stick!), papas fritas is hot chips (papa is the local abbreviation of patates, but it also means ‘the pope’, and fritas means, yep, you guessed it.). That just leaves the only Spanish thing, empanadas, a pastie like thing with meat or cheese or whatever inside. I had eaten them in Seville in Spain when I was there, and they were delicious, with flaky pastry and succulent innards. The ones here, or should I say the one that I tried at the party at the school last Friday, are nothing like that. Thick cardboardial pastry and not very appealing filling.

There were lots of fondas selling beer, wine, terremotos and piscas (a lemony booze, but too sweet for me). And icecream places (helados), and trinkets and other assorted stuff. So much for the food.

Then there were some big spaces for bands, which seemed to do a gig for an hour at a time, going on until the early hours of the morning. I watched one, which had dancers as well…it didn’t seem Chilean though, more Charleston. Good moves and music.

It was all a bit like the Agricultural Show, but without the dodgem cars, the octopus, chacha or Ferris wheel, or animals and best lemon sponge, but with better music and more booze. At least I can say I’ve been there.

When I left, after a few hours into the afternoon, the people were streaming in by the thousands, going through the frisking-for-weapons, the hand-held metal detectors and past the very stern eyes of the carabineros.

On the same day, Monday, the Plaza de Armas was almost completely sealed off, as was anything that looked like a street surrounding it. The carabineros (gun carrying police in khaki uniforms and grim faces, and the female ones sporting false eyelashes, a ton of makeup and a look that would make you stand up straight and pull your shoulders back) standing at every corner and only letting the Suits, recently decanted from legions of shiny official cars, enter the area. What was going on? I surmised that there was a big Mass at the cathedral (they were cleaning it madly when I dropped in on Sunday afternoon) where the powers that be were to be giving thanks for the Republic. I suspect that the President and other heavies were there, hence the plethora of securities.

I strolled down to the Plaza later on when the brass had left, and watched a group of young blokes doing street theatre things, a lot of what seemed to be highly sexualised banter with the huge crowd, and some impressive physical things…

These guys have been doing shows every day that I have been in the plaza. Always very physical and high camp as well. I haven’t seen the golden guy for a few days.

The big celebration for the Glorious Army, which took place on Tuesday was a of a fizzer for me. I got to the Parque O’Higgins a half an hour before the start time, but had not reckoned on the thousands who were there before me, and the extremely slow entry because of the security checks on everyone passing through. So the queue was over 2 km I guessed, bent in the middle and folded back on itself, so the start and the end were at roughly the same place. The half that was heading toward the gate moved glacially, the other half, going away from the gate moved more quickly, so I guess the position of the bend was moving away at a medium pace. Each queue was 4 or so people wide.

As I shuffled along I realised that I would have to continue to the halfway point, because the barricades that lined the street side were impassable. So I shuffled on, and on, and on.

Finally I reached the point of inflection. What to do?

Spend another half hour or more shuffling in the other direction, getting to the arena where the soldiers were going to strut, and be behind countless others craning for a look at more than just the military heads, prey to every known and unknown virus or infection that was in the air, and being the unwilling casualty or a terrorist’s bomb. No…I can rationalise anything!

So I escaped the line, and just as I did the 21 cannon blast announced the start of the show…small dogs cowered, children screamed and the alarms of several nearby cars got activated.

And that was that. I walked the one hour trek to get home and collapsed on the bed for a nap.

The lessons have been going well. The double sessions to make up for the lessons missed on Monday and Tuesday have been intense, once with Fernando, the founder of the school, once with Sebastian, very energetic and not letting any grammatical slip ups go through to the keeper, and the rest with the lovely Catalina, (not named after the flying boat, but I’m sure is equally at home on the water as in the air).

I seem to be doing well talking, which leads them to turn up the pace, vocabulary and grammatical complexity a bit. But I do think I’m understanding more, so it’s worth it.

I’ve found a couple of restaurants where I can lunch and enjoy it, and whose salads are more than acidified iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato. Here’s one such meal…

And the vegan hummus salad at the other, which was not as pofacedly austere as I had expected…

It’s Thursday 21st as I prepare to publish this. Tomorrow there’s just one 90 minute lesson which will be a relief for the information oppressed mind.

The weather continues to be sub 20 degrees, but fine.

I trust you are all enjoying life wherever you are.

Hasta La proxima,

T