Kyle Hepp

July 29, 2007

After my last Very. Angry. Entry. I know bring you back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

First, I’ll give you all a little background information. My husband is a civil engineer and his current job title is Construction Project Engineer. Oh yeah, he’s a big deal. One of us has to make something of ourselves and my opportunities in this country are limited. That’s why I’m a professional blogger (no, really, two weeks ago I was offered a job as a contributing writer over at I’m Not Obsessed. I took it and it’s fun!) who doesn’t leave the house. Ever. So S. works for the company that is part of a department store duopoly here in Chile. They decided they wanted to expand their evil empire into supermarkets and hired him to oversee the construction of these new grocery stores.

Up until last week he spent almost 100% of his time at the store they are building in a very high class neighborhood. They say this grocery store will be the company’s crowning jewel. The aisles are big enough to fit five rich mommies across even with their double wides (strollers). The lighting isn’t harsh and fluorescent, it’s flattering. The customer service will be unbeatable in Chile (which means that you might be allowed to make returns and they won’t laugh in your face if you want to make a suggestion or a complaint). Instead of sending all the pretty ones for export, they’re going to keep the good Chilean fruits and veggies and sell them to Chilean people, imagine that. And to think that in the US all this time you’ve been receiving the premium Chilean produce, the cream of the crop, and you’re not even grateful are you? Shame on you!

This “jewel” of a supermarket was set to have it’s grand opening on Friday. But, special people (ME! ME! ME!) were invited in on Thursday afternoon for a pre-opening. That’s right, all the higher-ups’ wives were invited to do their grocery shopping before the store began to allow the pesky general public in, and my hubby bribed somebody to let me in too. We later found out I would’ve been let in even if my name wasn’t on the cool kid’s list…aside from Stepford wives, they were letting in foreigners (from 1st world countries only, thank you very much) and anyone who was staying at the Marriot hotel, which is VERY exclusive here in Santiago, and conveniently located next door to the “jewel.”

So I arrived at this special event and let me just say that I am so relieved I at least had the good sense to put on a clean pair of jeans brush my hair because I knew I’d be meeting S’s boss. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many attractive Chileans all in one place, and by attractive I mean rich, well-groomed, women with highlights and manicures (huge luxuries in a developing country), high heeled, gym going, no rollo de pan (Chilean speak for no love handles), designer label wearing, skinny little thangs!

I felt so out of place! But I did my best to put on a smile, shake my butt when I walked, and fill my cart with things we didn’t need and can’t afford so I could blend in too.

There were some amazing food stuffs at this grocery store, though. Items I had previously only seen in the US — dark chocolate Betty Crocker frosting (into the cart you go), Heinz Ketchup in a bottle, not a bag as is custom here (had to buy it for patriotic nostalgia’s sake), cous-cous (fun to say, fun to eat!), packets of hot chocolate (I swear, I didn’t even have to touch the box, it flew off the shelf and into my cart like a moth to a flame). Basically, anything I saw that made me say, “Ooooooh, I didn’t know you could get this in Chile,” came home with me.

I spent $100 dollars on “weas.” There really is no translation for this genius Chilean slang word. It’s sort of like our fuck. You can manipulate it to mean whatever you want it to mean. In this case we’ll translate weas to mean crap I should not have bought.

The whole shopping experience was really fun, I like to people watch and it was fun being in a different environment. While it was a brutal reminder of the tremendous income gap in Chile, it was also a reminder that for as much as I complain about being poor, comparatively, we really don’t have it too bad. That’s always a good thing to remember.

Oh yeah…I almost forgot to mention how proud I was of my hubby too! Everyone I met kept telling me what a fantastic job he’s done with this supermarket. I almost burst with pride for him. It’s always incredible for me to think that he has sufficient knowledge to build an entire supermarket without it collapsing (we hope). Impressive right?