Scary, Chilean Revelations

(Notice that I am bringing back my blog. I felt threatened by the German's prolificness with her blog. This country has made me more reckless, more easy going, más floja, and way more competitive. So suck it, German!) Let's get started.

Since I have been in Chile, I have only had one terrifying experience (el partido de futbol). Wait, I take that back. Every time I get into a car I am always afraid of imminent death (for more on why I feel this way, check out the German's blog: ). Anyway, in general (excluding cars, buses, and football games) I feel pretty safe here in Chile. And as it turns out, Chile's violent crime rate is much lower than the United States and considering Berkeley was just rated the 41st most dangerous city in the United States, I feel coddled and protected in my tiny little Chilean town. But that being said, this past week, I have had two very scary facts reveled to me. They are as follows:

1.Poisonous, murderous, spiders live in every Chilean house.

So I was with my Chilean Thursday night when he told me about the Chilean recluse spider. Luckily, my limited Spanish spared me some of the gruesome details but basically, there is a tiny brown spider that can kill you. And it probably lives in your house. So shake out your clothes before you put them on.

2.Gypsies just moved to my town

Tonight (tonight being Saturday, October 3rd at 11:30 pm), I went to the German's house to celebrate the birthday of the maisas (fraternal twins in Spanish. I have no idea if I have spelled that correctly.) As usual, it was awesome. I love that family. I ate too many completos and cake and drank too much Canada Dry with lemon (delicious, by the way). All in all, a fantastic evening.
UNLESS, you count the terrifying story of the gypsies. I don't even remember how we came upon the subject, but first, let me describe the German's house. So I live in the campo but I live like two feet away from the plaza. I like to tell myself that this makes me a little bit more “cosmopolitan”. The German lives very close to me, but every time I am at her house I feel like I am in the middle of nowhere. It's only one street away from me, but she lives at the end of her street, very close to a cerro (hill) which makes the campo-feeling that much more...campo. It also doesn't help that there are two huge empty lots close to her house. Murdered people are probably buried there.
So we're sitting at the dinner table when the German's family reveals to me that gypsies have moved to town and they've set up a tent in one of the empty lots. I don't know how I didn't notice on my walk there this evening, but I was instantly petrified. Gypsies? In my town? Gyspies are so scary! They throw fake babies at you in Rome, they hand you cards with a sob story to distract you as they rob you, they are...nomadic. Gyspsies scare me. I think it goes back to the days when I was afraid of clowns. Clowns are nomadic too. And also scary.
Then of course, the story has to get much worse. Turns out that not only do the carabineros not care that the gypsies have set up shop in town and are stealing TV, BUT the gypsies in Chile traffic children! That's right, they steal babies! And do you know why they steal babies? They steal babies to sell off to circuses! I know, it seems crazy, but it's true!
Needless to say, on my walk home tonight, as I silently crept past the gypsy tent and saw the light from their TV, I felt like running.
It didn't help either that as I was shutting the gate to their house, the German and her host sister said, “Watch out for the gypsies...”
Gypsies are scary.