February 23

23 Feb 2014 Thurs.  Spent the day researching addresses and looking up inactive Elders and prospective Elders.  In the evening I drove to Illapel for district Presidency meeting while Carolyn stayed in Los Vilos.  On the way home, around midnight, I pulled over at the top of the mountain pass to look at the stars.  It was an unusually clear and dark night… dark except for the Milky Way with an unmistakable swath of bright white from horizon to horizon… and except for the trillions of other stars everywhere.  I have not seen a sky like that since camping as a kid in the back country of New Mexico when at that time there was little light pollution and other forms of pollution to block the starlight.  It is absolutely awe inspiring to see the heavens here on dark, clear nights. 

I can only begin to imagine what the view is like a few more hundred miles to the north of Chile, in the high desert where some of the most famous telescopes in the world have the clearest view from anywhere on earth.  That is because they are so high, and the desert there so dry (some places have never recorded any rainfall, ever) that the air is crystal clear, giving great views of the heavens. Wowzer.  

Ben and I once stopped in the Wyoming desert around 2 a.m. on our way to Utah, to look at the stars in the dark sky there. (Maybe it was Calvin.  No matter.  One of them can witness that it was a great sight that they will probably remember for a long time.)  Anyway, the difference between the dark sky here and that, is like the difference between the Charlotte NC sky and Wyoming.  (In Charlotte, there is so much humidity and light pollution that you only see a few of the brightest stars).  

Awesome.

February Update ~ Schramma

It is an interesting summer in Los Vilos. Since many of the vacationers arrive here from Santiago there is a larger number of ‘fair-skinned’ people with light eyes here. Evidently the Europeans were a big part of the early settlements of Chile, mainly in the southern parts. They became the wealthy land-owners and businessmen.  They are pure Chilean but look different than those here in the small, northern towns and country.

Here are a few random thoughts---

Transportation: Most do not have personal autos so they pay for a collectivo or taxi if it’s too far to walk or they have too much to carry. It’s important that they live within walking distance for daily life.

Housing: No urban sprawl here!  Even though there is lots of undeveloped land here (mountains and coastal) the towns remain very compact. People live with & on-top of each other.  A small dwelling will rent for ($200-300/month). They are very tiny casas. It is normal for the renter to remove everything before vacating, including any light fixtures, curtain rods, kitchen cabinets etc. Everything goes-

Technology: They all have and use internet (Facebook is huge here) and cell phones but they never seem to have enough calling minutes. Since an in-coming call is usually free or greatly reduced in cost, they like to receive calls but not to make them.  We find it interesting that the tiny houses hold upwards of 3 TV’s each. It’s common for every child to have their own electronic devices, including TV.  TV’s are one of the few things less expensive for purchase here.  All the movies (Disney included) and music is pirated but cheap. It is nothing to see hundreds of DVD’s in a box under the TV.

Utilities: don’t seem very expensive but they do monitor how much electricity & gas they use. They keep lights turned off and since most own at least one HUGE big-screen, they don’t leave them on unnecessarily. If they run out of gas they just shower in cold water. (We’ve enjoyed that experience on occasion)

Healthcare is government run (and very bad!)  The hospitals in all the towns are dirty and horrible. Everywhere you look you encounter maimed, crippled and blind folks and children. Diabetes goes un-attended and cancer is rampant!

Taxes are a flat 19% and are always included in the price of the item so there are no add-ons when you check out, except that you need to tip the bagger-kids and the bum who ‘helps’ you park your car in one of the 6 parking slots, if you’re shopping at the largest grocery store in town. (Unimarc)

Food is pricy but if you shop at the street feria, then it's a little cheaper (no receipts).  Everything from food and clothing to toiletries to office supplies is about twice what we would pay in the states.  As far as the clothing goes, even if it is a used item (think DI or Goodwill) if it’s in good shape, then it’s pricey. They love any clothing w/ European or American Brand names or words.  There was a woman at church wearing a T-shirt (dress standards are much more casual here) and on it written was: “I’m not knocked-up ~ I’m just fat!  She said she didn’t care what it meant, but that she liked the colors. I’ve seen men wearing Lady Viking’s and pink Susan G. Kohlman Mammogram shirts.  (And to think it used to bother me wearing black clothing with brown shoes or accessories, not anymore.)

Fleas: we know first-hand are miserable, little critters There are so many stray dogs roaming that it’s easy to get them and hard to get rid of them. People normally just put up with them and wait out the 2 months of summer, and then the cold temperatures put the fleas back to sleep for another year. We had our house ‘bombed’ yesterday to kill them.

Everything is very tiny here:  You purchase Cake by the piece, flavorless gum in super tiny packs, sheets of paper individually, and milk (no refrigerated milk here) in cartons from 1 to 3 cups. You drink yogurt. They don’t give you ‘twist ties’ on anything but rather tape packages shut or staple them.

List of things I’ve learned recently:

You can re-use dental floss. One-day contacts can be worn for up to a week. Saving things like empty TP rolls, wire from a used spiral notebook, nails found in the street, or any plastic bags is good. They can be used for other purposes and save you money.    These things don’t exist (perhaps they do in the big cities):

Clothes dryers; Curly Ribbon; Corn Syrup; pretzels; chocolate candy (it’s all only the flavor of chocolate & heavy on the wax)….well I could go on and on with this list but this entry is already too long. 

Next time I will write more about our gospel experiences and things that really matter, like how we are growing and changing our lives and (hopefully) others J   Love to you all! C-

February update ~ Schrammpa

5 Feb 2014 Wed.  Kelly and her Mom Mirella and one of Kelly’s old childhood friends, Luis came to Los Vilos to visit today.  Kelly and her Mom were baptized in Illapel soon after we arrived in July of last year.  

They arrived arrived around noon while we were still in our weekly district meeting with the missionaries.  Carolyn left to attend to them.  They decided they wanted to cook us almuerzo (lunch, but more like a big dinner).  Almuerzo is a big, formal affair every day.  They went and bought some fresh reineta (a mild, popular fish) and were busy cooking up a feast when I got home around 2 p.m.after the meeting.  

They called and told me my job  was to buy lemons on my walk home from the church. The chileans will always have fresh lemons on the table for almuerzo.  They squeeze them on everything. They had the table spread out with colorful food, mostly vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, corn cut off the cob, avocados, honeydew melon, prickly pear cactus fruit (called tunas).  The tunas are FULL of very hard seeds.  They say they’re good for your digestion and clean out your pipes.  The fish was wonderful.  The best reineta we’ve had, and we’ve had it a lot here. Luis, Kelly's friend, is not a member of the church but a very very nice guy.  

Afterwards, Kelly, Luis and Mirella walked along the beach in our back yard.  People from the "interior"  (the country is only 50 miles wide here so its not very far inland) or inland, like to come to the beach here because the weather is always about 20 deg. F. cooler than up in the mountain valleys.  We often get cold here on the coast, with the stiff, cool ocean breezes. The latitude is like southern california, but it stays very cool all summer. I don't think the temperature has gotten above the 70's in the day, and at night it goes below 50 at times. 

I went on visits w/ the branch president in the evening.  He seemed excited to go this week (maybe these visits are helping him get excited about getting out and visiting his “flock”) He seems to be listening to the things I’ve been telling him he should do.  He surprised me by telling me several things he had done (finally), such as dividing up responsibilities within his the presidency and making assignments to his counselors, setting up meeting schedules for presidency meeting, PEC, branch council, etc. Wow.  Just when you think nothing is going to stick. 

He also picked (on the spur of the moment) some very good people to visit, because they were all needing a visit for one reason or another:  Pete, a YSA who has been missing in action lately, Danny, ex missionary, recently married, 3 kids, on church probation needing interview which was arranged, Mary, new convert and her non-member husband we had never met.  She was suffering from a panic attack/ and severe depression and migraine and looked terrible.  Pam and kids, who was mad because when the missionaries went over to help her move a couch they told her they couldn’t go in (due to a mission rule) because her husband was not there and she was home alone (I guess her 3 kids don't count).  She sarcastically asked if WE were sure we were ALLOWED to come in. Pres. Alfaro gave her daughter a written copy of her patriarchal blessing. She’s only 12.

It is amazing to see how the Spirit of the Lord works with the priesthood leaders here like in any other place in the world. The branch president is a small old fisherman with little schooling who walks with a limp and has little self confidence in himself and little experience leading and directing others.  Yet none of that matters to the Lord.  He is the one who has been called to preside over this little branch of the church, and it is plain to see that the Lord inspires and directs him to reach out and accomplish his purposes.  Does he even realize it?  I don't think so, yet.  But I can see how the Lord does inspire him despite what others might say are many shortcomings. The more he tries, the more I see that he is inspired.

16 Feb 2014  We were in the middle of a family night when President Marambio called to see if we’d felt the earthquake that was quite a jolt in Illapel and he’d heard that the epicenter was Los Vilos.  It was about a 5 magnitude.  We did not feel it.  But we did hear a guitar in the other room fall over when it hit.  It was leaning up against the couch on the wood floor.  These 4 and 5 richter scale earthquakes happen all the time here.  We’ve felt 4 or 5 in the 7 months we’ve been here.  If I look on line, they are happening almost daily somewhere within a couple of hundred miles of here.  No one really pays much attention to them.

Since the weather has warmed a tad (from freezing to just cold), I’ve been plagued by flea bites.  Hot humid climates have mosquitos.  Here, cool and dry, I don’t think I’ve seen a single one. But they have millions of pulgas....fleas. You rarely see one, except the bite they leave.  At first I thought they were chiggers, because the bite and tremendous itch are very similar.  They leave a big welt, sometimes the size of a quarter.  Now I know they are flea bites.  They are so small you hardly ever see them.  I’ve only seen two. 

They are pretty darn aggravating, especially when you get about 50 bites in a single day.  There are millions of stray dogs all over, and they are flea bags.  You cannot walk anywhere without passing these dogs, and so it is very easy for fleas to get around and hop on your clothes without you seeing them and start munching.  Later you start feeling all the bites. Some people are allergic to the bites (me) and others are not (Carolyn), though she gets bit too, she rarely sees or feels it.  I am about to go crazy. 

One of the Elders gave me a flea collar his uncle sent him.  There are no flea collars here.  The Chileans don’t seem to be bothered by fleas, just the gringos.  This Elder said he no longer is allergic to fleas and they no longer bother him, but when they did, he would hang the flea collar in his closet and the smell would get on his clothes and keep the fleas off and from biting.  Hey, I’m willing to try anything at this point.  I had one in my fleece pajamas once and it bit me about 20 times in 20 minutes before I figured out what was going on.  I never found the bugger.  They can burrow down in thick material and even survive a washing that way. I put my PJs in a pot of boiling water.  I’m sure that got him.

Calvin had problems on his mission in one apartment in Italy with bedbugs.  He sent a picture of he and his companion covered with bedbug bites.  That is what my arms and legs and neck look like, only they’re flea bites.  At least there is hope.  Hope for colder weather.  Hope that I will become immune.  Hope that they get rid of all the stray dogs.... well, not much hope in that.  They love their stray dogs here.

January 3, 2014

23 Dec. 2013  Monday.  This morning I was pulling out from in front of the chapel when the District Leader and his companion stopped me and said he had the names to draw for our little missionary Christmas present gift exchange.  I reached in his little white plastic bag and a drew out a couple of names just as a Carabinero (national police) went buzzing by on his motorcycle.  He swerved around and came back and said “let me see what’s  in that bag!” The elder said “its just little pieces of paper!” “Let me see it!”  He looked in and then, embarrassed, sped off.  He probably was embarrassed because he’d thought he’d just uncovered an international drug smuggling operation involving the Mormon missionary/ preacher. The Elders were not dressed in white shirts and ties, but I was, because it was Pday and they’d come to the church to play soccer on the church’s court. It probably looked like I was buying drugs from some local youth! That’s my sixth encounter with the Carabineros.  5 of  6 have not  been too impressive.  

This town is a haven for drugs and other bad behavior though, we've been told by many people.  The few times we've been out very very late, such as leaving on the bus at 2:30 a.m. to travel to the Santiago Temple, for example, we see the night life.  At that hour, there are more people on the streets and out and about than at 2:30 p.m.

24 Dec. 2013.  Christmas eve is Noche Buena.  Here in Chile, it is the time for the real celebration.  Everyone stays up late and has a meal after midnight and opens all their presents.  We were invited to President and Sister Calderon’s house for noche Buena, in Salamanca.   They had us and the Saldivars and the Salamanca sister missionaries over for a nice, early dinner and program where we each bore our testimonies about the Savior.   We had to do that part quick so the sisters could get home by their 10:00 deadline.  Sister Calderon had pre-meal snacks, music, decorations, a big fancy cake afterwards and gifts.  They thanked us profusely for allowing them to carry on their tradition of 28 years of having the missionaries over for Noche Buena as a way of thanking the Lord for the many blessings he had given them.  It made us feel pretty humble.  We drove the Saldivar’s back to Illapel through the torn up mountain road, and then on to LV after midnight.  It was nice to travel that torn up road (they are widening it, so it is all torn up for about 20 miles) through the mountains with no construction stops for one lane traffic, for once.

I forgot to mention sneaking Carolyn’s Christmas present, a juicer, into the back of the car while she was going to the bathroom at the Saldivar’s house.  I then snuck it into the house under her nose before we went to bed and put it by the couch under the tree.  She never suspected anything. The Saldivar’s wrapped it (not with Carolyn’s paper… she checks stuff like that) and hid it for 3 weeks in their house.

25 Dec. 2013  Carolyn was awfully surprised to have a Christmas present, and especially the juicer she’d been longing for for 6 months.  The lack of a juicer was the reason for so many ills… not feeling good, not having energy, not sleeping good, gaining weight, not speaking Spanish good (j/k), etc., but she had finally given up pestering for one, and even yesterday had mentioned that “it’d be too much trouble washing the fruit and vegetables in chlorox solution to have a juicer anyway.”  Well she forgot all that real quick when she saw it.  Luckily I’d stocked up on plenty of fruit and veggies so she was happy as could be.  But she couldn’t figure out WHERE that present had come from, and why she hadn’t seen it.  That was pretty funny.  She almost believed it was really from Santa (j/k).

We FaceTimed with most of the kids today in between preparing Christmas dinner for Saldivars (other mature missionary couple, assigned in Illapel), the Q’s, and Mirella and Kelly…. This is NOT a Chilean tradition, dinner on Christmas day…well, technically they have a big dinner on Christmas day, but it is always like 1 a.m. in the morning.  We agreed with the Saldivar’s before T day that the Saldivar’s would cook Tday turkey dinner and we’d do one for Christmas, just to kind of bring a little of home to Chile.

Dinner was ready at the appointed time of 4 pm, but at 5:15 we were still waiting for 4 of our guests to arrive.  “We’re living right now” they had said a half hour earlier.  We got going about 6 pm just as Elder Villatoro and Hidalgo showed up to use our laptops to Skype home and talk to their families.  These two elders, if stacked on top of each other, would barely be as tall as me.  Hidalgo from Colombia out for just a couple of months, and Villatoro the District leader from Guatamala, both great missionaries.  So we had a very busy, full, little house. We had lots of deserts which the Elders hung around for, and TWO red jellos, one made by Kelly, which was the hit of all the deserts.  Our carrot  cake was delicious and just like home, but the Chileans could not eat much of it….too rich with too much cream cheese frosting. 

It was a wonderful day to reflect on our Savior’s birth and life and gifts to us.  We hardly missed not being “home” we were so busy all day, and because we were able to talk/video chat with each of our parents, kids and grandkids throughout the day.

26 Dec. 2013 Thurs.  To Illapel in the afternoon before district presidency meeting.  While running errands, we had one of those series of “coincidences” that really adds up to being a small miracle when you think about it.  

We were walking down an unfamiliar street to reach a shop from an unfamiliar direction.  Sister B. hollered at us from down the street.  She had just stepped onto the street leaving work and saw us.  We exchanged greeting and she asked where we were going and informed us we’d already passed the shop and needed to backtrack a block and turn left.  She walked with us on her way to meet her husband, who is not a member of the church, but someone we had wanted to meet for a long time. All his kids are members.  They’re all waiting patiently (Sister B for tens of years) for him to join.

Even though his wife is very active in the church, he has not been very receptive to church members.  Carolyn mentioned to her it was hot, and that she liked the ice cream stand in the plaza.  When we parted ways, Carolyn bought her 100% cotton yarn she’d been looking for, and then we walked around the corner to a different store a block from the plaza to try THEIR ice cream.  Then, into this same store, walked Sister B. with her husband.  We finally get to meet the missing husband!  We all buy ice cream (we got chocolate dipped soft serve (which WAS very very soft, but WAS NOT chocolate… more like brown wax, ughh, would have thrown them away if we had not been with Sister B. and her husband), and walked to the plaza together and tried to eat our ice cream before completely dripped onto the  plaza tiled walkways.  We were not successful. But all the stray dogs were happy to lick up the melted ice cream.  The interesting part is that I was able to strike up a conversation with sister B’s husband about his work.  He’s into mining (a 4 man gold mine owned by his cousin is his present work)  He is the dynamite man. He showed me his explosives license.  He’s been mining (blowing up dyanamite) for 30 years, big and small mines.  I also have a background in mining with JMH corp., so I had lots of questions and he was enthusiastically answering all of them. Our conversation ended with an invitation to his house, and another invitation for them to come to our house and watch the New Year’s eve fireworks.

The Saldivar’s have been trying forever to make friends with this man and hopefully help bring the family together.  But the Lord works in mysterious ways and figured out a way to work through us even though we were from a different city. It was kind of mind boggling to think of how many things had to have gone just right to meet up with Sister B. in that weird place and time, just when she’d be with her husband, and then bring the 4 of us together in that one little out-of-the-way store that also sold ice cream, (like all the other 50 stores within the two block area, which all also sell ice cream) where we met Sister B., and then to have the mining connection and have to talk (while we sat and ate our dripping ice cream), and strike up a very nice friendship…That is the kind of thing there is no way to plan in advance.   We’ll invite the Saldivar’s to the firework show as well so they can become better friends.

Just for the record, it was interesting that these four men, extract the gold from the ore they mine and pulverize into powder, by using a process using liquid mercury, which I assume will float off all particles that are not heavy enough to sink, such as, only, gold.  This month they will clear $36K USD because they have no big expenses.  Last month it was only $8K, because they had lots of bills due.  Their biggest expense is diesel fuel.  I think he said they expect to yield a half kilo of pure gold once they purify later this week all the ore they’ve been processing this month.  Apparently Chile makes it very easy to stake a claim and be granted mineral rights by the state.  There is some safety oversight by a government agency, but it did not sound onerous like MSHA and OSHA in the USA. He says with $20-30 USD you could easily get into business for yourself, like this 4 person mine.  They also have a copper mine that they switch back and forth on, between gold and copper, depending on the prices of gold and copper. You’d never know this man was part owner in a gold mine.  He and his wife and 3 teenage kids live in a house (hut) about the size of two Chevrolet Suburbans.  I kept thinking about those guys on the cable series “gold rush”, thinking they should be down here instead of up in Alaska or in some jungle somewhere. 

Combarbala

Combarbala-

I know we have mentioned the little town Combarbala. We’ve been there several times on P-day. It is located higher up the mountains where they have lots of mining.   The air is dry and arid thus making visibility keen.  Chile is well-known for their observatories.  A few months ago on a previous trip there we stayed late into the night hours and toured the observatory.  We loved seeing the planets. Saturn’s rings were especially neat.  We learned a little about the constellations in the southern hemisphere. 

Combarbala has a beautiful old Catholic church right next to the town plaza.  It is in need of repairs but that only made it more interesting to peek inside.  The small feria (like a little flea market in the street) was fun to visit. You can purchase handmade articles or pickled cauliflower and fresh produce. We bought some apricots and cherries. We also saw some pretty good deals on base-ball  caps that had “Falcons of Atlanta” embroidered along with a bowl-game & date.  Probably these caps were either left-overs that never sold or the caps they had PRE-made in case the Falcons won the game, but when they didn’t they got sold off cheap.  If you ever wonder where many of the old things you contribute to charities or Goodwill etc. end up it could well be here!  I’ve seen so many peach/mauve/blue painted wooden geese and ducks and birdhouses from the 1980’s for sale on the streets (literally—not even a table to set them on) for sale here.

We usually stop for Almuerzo while we’re out.  Typical lunches here begin with Pan (bread). Then arrives the salad (normally they do NOT mix them, but rather set the vegetables on your plate). You will find sliced tomatoes (pealed of course) next to a few slices of avocado, next to shredded lettuce, and maybe a few beets.  Next up is ‘carne’ either pork or chicken served with rice or noodles.  That’s it. We usually get some type of juice such as Watts’ apricot drink. 

Here are a few photos! 

We stopped to locate a bathroom on our way out of town. We asked at the catholic ‘rectory’ or office next to the church and the employee let us use theirs.  Have you ever shared a bathroom with a coffin? 

    

Here is a photo of a man selling weed in Combarbala:

Recently, we found another interesting church on a Cliff overhanging the ocean. It is an ‘open air’ church.  It was locked but we took a picture thru the window/hole.

Meet Betty

12/17/2013   MEET BETTY!            

She pops over to visit us every so often. She is a faithful member of the church but a bit eccentric. Yes, she knows the magnification sticker is still on her glasses and that they are broken. Yes, she is wearing a bathrobe. Yes that is a ‘health mask’ around her neck which she always uses—it’s pretty dirty. Her house key is on a rubber band around her wrist. She wears many layers of colorful clothing and the crocks on her feet cover huge woolen socks. She always drags along her little cart on wheels. She loves to do community service.  She helps with the music school here and learned they were not using the funds which had been donated properly.  Last week she brought some legal documents over to our house for help translating them from English into Spanish.  It was a $50,000 grant from the Ford Foundation for the school but she knew they would use the money for whatever they wished unless she intervened.  It took some long hours (legal language) but she was so proud when she marched herself (all decked out but in a better way than this normal photo of her) down to the mayor’s office and presented the translation saying that they would be monitored and inspected to make sure the funds were being used appropriately!  She also visits the hospital frequently and tracks down family members who may not know their relative is in a coma for the last month in a hospital here in Los Vilos. She is not afraid to tackle anything. She is special and just like a character from a movie or story book.  We love Betty Rojo because she is ‘the spice of life’ even if it is hard to set aside time for her.

Shellfish

4 Dec. 2013

Lunch, or almuerzo, is the biggest and most important meal of the day here.  A family we know well wanted to serve userizos (sea urchin) for lunch. They kept saying it is the most famous and sought-after dish in Chile, and all foreigners say it is Chile’s most delicious dish, and that it usually goes for $60 USD a plate.  They had happened into a big sack bag of sea urchins from a fisherman friend.  So they prepared them and brought them over in a bowl so we could eat lunch at our house, because their house is so very small there is no room for guests.   “They were alive a few minutes ago” he said.  Erizos are served cold, raw and “cooked” in the juice they’re served in.  You eat them with toasted bread.  They’re cold and slimy. 

They were horrible to put it mildly.  But we couldn’t let the family know because they were so pleased to be able to serve us this delicacy.  They bowl of erizos literally looked like a bowl of vomit. The prepared sea urchins look like salmon-colored human tongues in the slimy vomit.  They’re real soft and squish easily in your mouth if pressed with your tongue. They’re prepared by covering with a half quart of fresh lemon juice, to which is added lots of chopped raw onion, cilantro, garlic and salt.  

Carolyn kept spiting hers out in her napkin on the sly and getting up from the table to check on things while she threw it away and got more napkins.  The sneaky little devil. 

The family figured out that she didn’t like them too much.  She said “I like the sauce better than the other stuff” (the “good part”) … which technically was not a lie because she never said she liked the urchins.  The sauce, like I mentioned, was like vomit, only slippery-er, kind of like mucous.   It was hard to distinguish from the urchins, because they were so soft and a lot broke down and became part of the sauce. 

Well, I had to eat my whole serving so they wouldn’t feel too bad.  Of course they made sure was twice as big as theirs. I had to be careful not to gulp it down too fast to avoid the taste, because then I knew they’d try to serve me more.  We said we’d save Carolyn’s bowl for later.  I bagged up the leftovers for them to take home, but they insisted I put it with Carolyn’s leftover and eat it for breakfast.  Mmmm.  Yummmm. For breakfast too!  They had more at home, they said.

A couple of hours later, about the time we had a family coming over for a lesson/Christmas project, I started feeling real sick to my stomach.  We have only one bathroom in our really small little house, and its right in the living room practically where everyone was busy making a Christmas candy countdown chain.  With the bathroom door shut, you can actually see people in the living room because there is no door jamb.  With the  door open, you could reach out and touch people in the living room, the house is that small. 

So I kept trying to think how and where I could go be sick without startling this family with young kids. Like, going outside around the other side of the house and throwing up.  But then, no, I make a whole lot of noise when I throw up and they would still hear me because the windows were all open and the wall around the house would echo really loud any noise I made.   Maybe I could sneak out and run down the beach a ways and throw up.  But, no,  what if I needed the toilet too, like really bad at the same time?  All these things were running through my mind.  The other family finally left just in time for me to run back in to the bathroom and be sick for a couple of hours.

The next day, the guy asks me how I slept.  He says sea urchin are an aphrodisiac, and give you lots of energy like caffeine.  Thus he couldn’t sleep all night.  Once my stomach quit hurting, I slept pretty good actually, about 12 hours after eating those things.  I was left wondering if he got sick too, and was just trying to see if we did too.  

Carolyn and I decided that the next time someone asked us if we liked shellfish (which means just about anything, here), we would both say quickly absolutely not. 

The only other time we’ve been served shellfish, which is a local specialty because there is such a variety of shellfish harvested by the local fisherman and consumed by the tourists here and shipped all over Chile.  We also had a hard time getting the locos down.  Locos are kind of like small abalones.