The revenge of winter

I was thinking of regaling you all by recounting the interesting happenings of this weekend’s travels south with Matt and Christine. It was full of silly happenings of the typical Chilean ilk, such as, when Chileans (yes, multiple) are asked why a bank whose name is blatantly written BBVA, it is called B-B-U-V-A and the answer is “oh, well, it used to be a Chilean bank and then it was bought up by a Spanish bank and now it is called B-B-U-V-A.”
But no, this week’s topic of conversation is much more sober. For a while now I have been harbouring the suspicion that Chileans are overly and unnecessarily paranoid about crime and security. Pretty much any store you go into—including pharmacies, bookstores, department stores, and post offices—will, without fail, have one or more security guards on watch, milling around, uncomfortably eying you as you browse merchandise. Most stores (including wool and bookstores), many hostels, and even many of the different institutes at the uni have a complicated system of bells and locking mechanisms whereby you have to get buzzed in and out of the building or part of the building. There must be about 50 (loud, obnoxious, and completely irreverent of the fact that people like to sleep at night) dogs in a one block radius of my house which I have been informed are for protection from “delinquents.” The tía also religiously attends not only church services, but also the neighbourhood watch meetings and they recently had brighter lights put in down our street. The family also leaves at least one light on and the radio blaring whenever they leave the house (which can be very deceiving for little me, who comes home hoping for onces only to find the house empty) and also have a dog. I have also been warned many times to never, ever put ANYTHING of value in my pockets in case I get pick-pocketed.
Deciding that I, in my 1.5 months here, was not in any position to really judge the perceived persecution mania of Chileans, I bought a newspaper and scanned it for a crime section which might detail what sorts of crimes are committed here in Valdivia. I didn’t find a crime section, but I did find that the local newspaper, the Diario Austral, is little more than a tabloid and was very saddened by the lack of inspired writing. (Inspired writing, what am I talking about, I probably wouldn’t be able to recognize inspired Spanish if it hit me like a brick in the face). The jury was still in deliberation on crime last time I checked.
Well, apparently, between ten to five and ten to six on Friday, someone entered the house here on little old Calle San Martín and stole all the tía’s gold jewelry, “plata” (which I assume meant cash and not silver since they were intending to pay their rent with it, and as far as I can tell, solid silver is no longer an equitable form of payment here) and my brother’s jacket (it was raining and the thieves don’t like rain either). The neighbours of course, saw nothing, and the thieves apparently rang the doorbell to make sure no one was home (or so I am told by my tía) and then jumped the wall (I told you it was easy) and opened a window (which are usually cracked because otherwise the windows are dripping with condensation on cold days) and climbed in, rifling through drawers and scanning surfaces for valuables. I had (stupidly?) left my laptop out on my bedside rolly table thing and I had a bunch of US cash and passports stashed away and my first thoughts went to them, which would have been easy to carry off, but my tía was more worried about my gold jewelry (not like I would know if anything had been lifted anyways). But luckily all was safe and sound, “gracias a Dios” (thanks be to God), seems these were pretty small time thieves.
I guess I was wrong about crime. I almost wish I had been here this weekend, so I would be forced to swallow my thoughts (can you swallow those?) and feel ashamed for presuming that I know better than my Chilean counterparts. But at least it probably won’t happen again, right, what are the chances? Lancelot, who was sleeping through the whole robbery, is now chained up outside his doghouse (he normally sleeps in the garage) so that he can now be a proper mascota and fend off would be robbers.


Score:
Maddy-1
La mascota-0