Still, that’s no reason not to try to see the world through another perspective—and this is exactly what good students do when they study abroad. Over the course of the semester my students went through a powerful range of experiences in Santiago, which they bonded over—relationships with Chileans, spiritual awakenings, increased political awareness.
As predicted, one did go native. It wasn’t Anne, the smart, reserved young woman who already seemed half Chilean; it wasn’t sharp, slender Brooke, the fellow Pennsylvanian; it wasn’t even Sarah with the Colombian boyfriend. It was adventurous hippie chick Taylor. She’d fallen in love with Valparaiso, about an hour and a half away on the coast, Chile’s funkiest student town and the San Francisco of South America. So much in love that she didn’t make it back to Santiago too often for class. I’d noticed her increasingly long absences, and her fellow students were also concerned.
Immersion in a new culture can inspire huge changes, but so can reading. Any bookworm knows how a truly powerful book can motivate us toward major change. Give a woman an Austen novel and, if she takes it to heart, seriously takes it to heart, how will she behave? She’ll soul search about what she wants in a partner; she’ll evaluate how well she behaves toward her family; she’ll consider her role within her community and how well she treats people, no matter what their status in life; she’ll acknowledge the value of being true to herself, while being respectful of others; she’ll go out dancing once in a while; maybe she’ll even learn to sew.
But as a teacher, as a mentor, I hadn’t given Taylor Sense and Sensibility. I’d handed over Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries, the record of his youthful adventures exploring South America, a trip that spurred his political awakening. When Taylor finally resurfaced and I sat her down for a talk, she was apologetic for the missed classes but brimming over with enthusiasm for her summer plans: hitchhiking from Valparaiso, Chile, to Denver, Colorado.
All of the students in the travel literature class had read Guevara, but Taylor was the one who took his narrative to heart, seriously took it to heart. She wanted to explore more of Latin America, like Guevara. She wanted to put her faith in the kindness of strangers, like Guevara. She wanted to see if she had the fortitude to survive a lengthy, uncertain, wandering existence, like Guevara.
I was extremely impressed. And alarmed. Reading that particular book was only one part of what was driving Taylor to want a richer, more personal travel experience than what a well-run study abroad program could provide. Her time in Chile was central, as well as her own inquisitive, passionate nature. But clearly, the book was a catalyst. How could I explain the difference between Guevara’s world and ours? Guevara was a man in a machista culture, traveling with a trusted friend, using his native language. Taylor was an attractive young woman wanting to travel alone, using earnest but weak Spanish, and heading slowly home toward the country that—in some measure thanks to Che Guevara himself, after the Cuban Revolution—many latinos and latinas view as Public Enemy Number One.
“I really think I can do it,” Taylor said, her eyes bright with imagined adventure. Reading the skepticism on my face, she nodded vigorously. “I can do it!”
I consulted with well-traveled Sarah on the subject shortly before classes ended. “It scares the hell out of me just thinking about it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve been around Colombia with my boyfriend, and I’m no coward, but hitchhiking through that country would be suicide.”
“Please tell Taylor that, okay?” I urged. It’s not my job to discourage intrepid students from learning experiences, but I was feeling responsible for having introduced her, so to speak, to Guevara.
As classes wound up, Ramon hosted a farewell pizza party for the students at a Santiago restaurant, where we colonized the entire outdoor seating section. This was exactly the sort of gathering of noisy Americans (plus one Canadian) that I avoid like the plague while traveling. But we had a lot to celebrate—a wonderful semester, new friendships, and for the students, an imminent return home to their loved ones. I ditched my squeamishness about offending the locals for one night and joined the party, happy for the opportunity for personal good-byes. Matt the friendly Alaskan took a lot of ribbing as the student Most Frequently Robbed in Chile (grand total: three times). The poor guy really seemed to have had a sheet of paper saying “Mug me!” taped to his back, despite being tall and sturdy.
I made a point, as the revelry began to wind down, of taking Taylor aside again.
“I’ve got addresses of people in Ecuador you could probably stay with,” I told her. “If you email me, I’ll give them to you.” I’d recommended an abbreviated tour up the Pacific coast through Peru then back down to Santiago, to pick up the return airfare she had already paid for. Whether she would take that suggestion, ¿quién sabe? But I wanted to make sure she would take the initiative and pursue the contacts. The ball was in her court. Reading the right book at the right time can be a life-changing experience—so I had to hope for the best for her.
***
Saying good-bye to students is something you get used to as a teacher, comforted by the knowledge that the ones you’ve really influenced have a tendency to pop back up again, one way or another. Saying good-bye to Carmen Gloria was harder. She’d been a rock for me in Santiago, a warm, loving, hilarious, smartly dressed rock. She’d shown me around Santiago, she opened her home to me, and she’d even opened her parents’ beach house to me, as well. One of my nicest trips had been a long weekend of sight-seeing and gossiping at their home just south of Isla Negra, the site of Pablo Neruda’s fanciful shoreside home.
“You can’t leave Chile without seeing Isla Negra,” Carmen Gloria had insisted.
We stopped in a seafood restaurant the first evening there. Our middle-aged waiter, discovering I was from the United States, became extra attentive. When Carmen Gloria went off to find a restroom, he hovered near the table speaking Spanish so rapid I only caught every third or fourth word. Was he enthusing over the local sights or some dessert I should try? Stumped, I nodded and smiled. Smiling in return, he pulled a slip of paper from his pad, wrote something, and held it out to me.
“Puchas!” Carmen Gloria, back from the bathroom, intercepted the paper and shooed the man away. She read it, rolled her eyes, and wagged it at me accusingly like a traffic ticket—the waiter had written down his name and phone number. “What did I tell you about Chilean men, Amy?!” She shook her head in amazement, then we both burst out laughing. I sure am a slow learner.
I was also surprised that Isla Negra is not, in fact, an island, but that was the only disappointment. While Neruda’s home in Santiago was sacked by the military when he died twelve days after the 1973 coup, Isla Negra was left alone, so his quirky collections of bottles, seashells, pipes, and nautical figureheads remained intact.
Apparently timid about actual sailing, Neruda nonetheless loved the ocean, and his grave, overlooking the pounding Pacific, is subtly designed to look like a ship heading out to sea. It’s a beautiful, dramatic spot, and I couldn’t help but feel the contrast with Austen’s simple grave—a worn paving stone on the floor of Winchester Cathedral. When I’d made my pilgrimage there, I’d crouched at one side to read the inscription, wincing to see less attentive visitors treading directly across it. The solemnity of the occasion had been further impaired by the fact that I couldn’t get that cheesy 1960s song “Winchester Cathedral” out of my head.
After touring Neruda’s house and hiking the grounds of Isla Negra, Carmen Gloria and I lingered in the outdoor café over our favorite cocktail, the famous Chilean pisco sour.
“You’ve got to come to the States and visit me,” I urged her. “You can’t really teach American culture until you dive into the middle of it, you know.”
“I know, I know!” she laughed and raised her glass. “So here’s to our next visit—in the USA!”
***
Cheryl, on
e of the close friends who attended my “Happy Fortieth” in Las Vegas, flew down for a visit shortly before I left. She was the first American friend I’d laid eyes on in nearly a year. It felt ridiculously good to see her and catch up on stateside news. As kind and patient as my new Chilean friends were, my uneven Spanish made every conversation challenging. Cheryl was a little bit of home. There’s nothing like relaxing into your own language with an old friend who knows you well and has seen you at your worst—and is still willing to travel thousands of miles to hang out.
“So what exactly is up with this man in Mexico?” she asked shortly after arriving.
“Boy do I wish I could answer that question.” I wasn’t holding back; we’d been in the dating trenches together. I honestly didn’t know what I should do about Diego, as close as we’d grown during our months together.
Cheryl, a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do with energy to burn, hauled my nerdy butt out for tourist activities I’d been meaning to get around to for months. We started with the San Cristobal funicular, scaling the summit to join the daring crowds taking the cable gondolas from one peak to another for the best views of Santiago.
After several days exploring the city we rented a car and headed west, then south. We braved the steep streets of Valparaiso, laughed over questionable accommodations in tiny towns, dodged Chileans herding animals on narrow rural roads, hunted down the famous murals in Chillán by Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, soaked in the idyllic hot springs of Pucón. I was thrilled to share a portion of my travels with such a good friend, and very sorry to see her go.
But my own departure loomed. There’s a mathematics to nesting, I’m sure, that explains how length of stay + space available = accumulating way too much stuff. Shortly before leaving I shipped six boxes of books to the States, along with various touristy tidbits. Cheryl had arrived with one suitcase and left with two, generously lugging back for me still more books, plus movies, Chilean board games, and summer clothing I’d no longer need.
I gave Diego the heads up that I was poised to move yet again. “Please, princesa, please be careful!” he wrote back. What little he’d heard about Paraguay had to do with their crime rate and government instability. How long it had been since we’d seen each other! Half a year had passed since I’d left sunny Puerto Vallarta and his cheerful company. It hardly seemed possible.
Since Diego knew I’d read Sense and Sensibility with the Chilean group, as we’d done together in Mexico, he was curious about the outcome. I was happy with both groups, but the differences were dramatic. The Chilean readers had taken a much less personal approach to the novel. Not surprisingly for a group of writers, they’d focused on Austen’s narrative voice, her use of irony, her social critique, and her capacity to wrap up a plot. I couldn’t help but think that the Mexican readers’ more personal reaction had been influenced by their tendency to connect literature with the Bible—to look for personal applications via parables and positive role models. Then again, there had been that wonderful private moment with Fernando, when he confessed that Elinor had lured him across the life/literature divide. Still waters, as I’d so often found in Chile, run deep.
I’d been thrilled with all four of the Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility groups, but now I was eager to branch into new territory at last in Paraguay—with Emma.
***
On my final day in Santiago I took a turn around the enormous central square, still present but already nostalgic. As I headed down a nearby pedestrian street, a bustling group of young Chileans hauling a video camera and sound equipment approached.
“Excuse me!” one of them asked, “Would you mind being interviewed for a student project?”
Normally I’d run like hell from strangers with a camera, but I had free time—and they were students, after all. It was my “employment,” as Edward Ferrars would say, to help students. “I’m an estado unidense, and my Spanish isn’t the world’s best,” I warned them. “Will that still work for you?”
Looking surprised, they went into a quick huddle, which resulted in a unanimous “Why not?”
“We’re doing a project about ethics and values,” the student with the camera explained, slowing his speech down noticeably. A microphone appeared in front of my face. “Do you think Chileans these days have good ethics and values? And if so, which ones?”
Puchas! What an enormous question. My months in Chile ran on fast-forward through my mind.
“Patience and kindness,” I found myself saying. “Chileans have been very patient with me—with the way I use the language, with all the cultural differences I had to negotiate. I’ve lived here for five months, and I’ve definitely benefited from people’s patience and kindness.” There was Ramon at the university, the doormen at my building (unsolicited frenching aside), Carmen Gloria and her endless generosity, the poets who’d shared their time and their insights—and even this young stranger himself, who had slowed down his rapid-fire Chilean Spanish to help me out.
I was tempted to dive into an explanation of Jane Austen, my reason for being in Chile in the first place, and the role that “good ethics and values” play in her novels.
“Will that do?” I asked instead, deciding not to be a camera hog.
“Super!”
No way of knowing, in the end, if my little speech would make it into their film or wind up on the cutting room floor. But I do know that they all set off after their next subject looking content. Energized by some positive feedback, they had carried on with their project; a new country and a new Austen novel on the horizon, I was ready to carry on with mine.
In which the author makes a few more bad assumptions, gives a talk on Austen for some inquisitive Paraguayan middle-schoolers, rides a rocking horse, buys still more books, follows the footsteps of some Nazis, and finally, enjoys a film adaptation of Emma with the lively friends and family of her hosts and then gets an Emma reading group surprise.
Chapter Thirteen
People who haven’t read Austen often assume that her novels are all the same. There’s some dancing, some dialogue, some mix-ups, then a happy ending. My students in California once organized a debate over this very question, à la Cher in Clueless: “Are, like, all of Jane Austen’s novels totally the same, or what?” Arguments raged back and forth for close to an hour until Rickie the baseball player silenced the room with the cry “TOP RAMEN!”
Rickie liked my teaching style and signed up for something with me every semester. That fall, the only course that fit his schedule was Jane Austen. He’d sighed and registered, braving the taunts of his teammates the entire semester for reading “chick lit” (getting drafted by the Cleveland Indians shortly thereafter no doubt dulled the pain).
He’d listened to the opposition’s points, frowning with concentration until that moment when he literally threw his hands in the air like a preacher who’s seen the light and shouted the name of the cheap packaged noodles so many students survive on. “That’s it! She’s Top Ramen!” Dumbstruck, we all waited for him to work through the thought because clearly, from the startled expressions of his debate partners, this was not part of their plan. “There’s chicken, and there’s shrimp,” Rickie said, scanning our faces urgently, leaning forward and clutching his desk. “There’s vegetarian. And there’s beef. But they’re all Top Ramen! Chicken and shrimp and beef aren’t the same, but they’re all Top Ramen!”
Indeed. A nice analogy for how Austen’s works fit within a genre—they’re all comic romances—yet each remains distinctive. People who assume “read one, you’ve read them all” are missing out on the wonderful differences between chicken and shrimp and beef.
Austen readers should be particularly sensitive to avoiding assumptions, since that’s one of Austen’s most important lessons. I’d known this when I set out from the United States yet had to relearn the lesson in various colorful ways throughout my tra
vels. And now I’d reached country number five-out-of-six, still making an “ass” out of “u” and “me”—but mostly out of me.
I’d assumed that a plane ticket and a passport were enough to get me out of Chile and into Paraguay. Wrong. I made it through Chilean customs and was about to board the flight when the man taking boarding passes noticed that I had no visa in my passport. “You can’t buy it at the Asunción airport,” he said, shooting down my next assumption and hustling me out of the line. “Go to the embassy here in Santiago.”
The folks in the hotel where I’d spent my (intended) final night in Chile had assumed they’d already seen the last of me, but they were wrong, too. The Paraguayan embassy didn’t open again until the next day so, too embarrassed to let Carmen Gloria or anybody else know I’d failed to make my exit, I holed up in my room reading until I could get my visa and secure another flight.
“Don’t worry about it!” Martín assured me the next night as I apologized yet again to my hosts for my day-late arrival, finally seated in their comfortable living room in the correct country. Dorrie smiled and added, “You see how close we are to the airport! The joke around here is that you just have to listen for the plane to land then get in the car.”
Coquetta, the family boxer, was ecstatic at the appearance of another person to spoil her. She had the barest stump of a tail, and wagging it in greeting set her entire back end into rapid, comic motion. Then she flopped onto her back, confident that no one could see her belly without wanting to rub it.
All Roads Lead to Austen Page 21
