Kyle Hepp

January 20, 2008

True story. Somebody from India found this blog by googling, “how to mix sleeping pills in girl’s drink.” I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this person (from New Dehli, India) bought his wife a helicopter for her birthday and he’s trying to knock her out for the night so he can safely land it on the roof and surprise her the next morning. Or maybe…yeah…there’s a million reasons somebody might want to find out how to mix sleeping pills in a girl’s drink….

Let’s thank Google France for sending an a lonely Frenchman in Paris to my blog, by searching for “home fuck just married.” I wonder if that’s like home, as in, home from the honeymoon, fuck, as in oh fuck I just got married? Or does this guy want a “home fuck” with the person he “just married”?

Who comes up first if you type in husband sick “she works hard for her money ” -donna -summer in Google Canada? Yep, that would be moi. And sadly enough, the exact same person that googled Donna Summers, then googled “how to cross the street in Mexico” about five minutes later and found my blog, erroneously, for the second time in a row. If I were that person, looking for random things on google and continuing to run into the same damn blog about Chile no matter what I typed in, having nothing to do with what I were looking for…I’d think there was some kind of crazy Google conspiracy planning on helping this Just Married Chilean Style freak take over the world.

But, the absolute scariest search recently, was someone who googled my full name and found me. Who are you, and why are you googling me? If you’re from a fabulous magazine and you want to hire me to be a freelance travel writer for you…by all means, Google away! If you’re someone from my high school who’s trying to find what I’m up to now, just look me up on facebook, that’s way less stalkerish…

19 Comments

January 15, 2008

I’m sitting right here now, typing this, thinking that I may not post it. Why? Because I’m embarrassed that such a horrible thing almost happened to me. Because I still have a knot in my stomach, the fear is fresh. Because I don’t want to worry my mom or my friends. But in the end I will probably publish this because sharing a worry or fear with other people always seems to lighten my load somehow.

Today I was out running up the big hill. I’ve been doing this hill, or mountain as some of you called it after seeing the picture (hill sounds too small but mountain sounds too big. I’d say let’s call it a hiltain but I’m in no mood to be funny) for a few weeks now. Several people commented to me to make sure I was never out when it started getting dark as the hill with all it’s twists and turns can be pretty dangerous. That was just enough information to make me extra alert, as if I’m not already paranoid enough after getting mugged. So when I run, I wear my ipod but almost never actual listen to it because I want to be able to hear if people are coming up on me. The road up the hill is winding and it would be extremely easy for somebody to wait around a sharp bend or in the thick foliage and trees and greet an unsuspecting runner with an unhappy surprise. There are long stretches when you don’t pass other runners or cyclists, making someone like me an easy (and in this country, obvious) solitary prey. So even on the rare occasions that I chose to listen to music, I would do it at a low volume, always using only one earphone. I also carry pepper spray in one hand with my thumb under the trigger at all times.

Today was no exception. I was armed, prepared and alert. I had already made my way up and was walking down and then breaking into a jog whenever I saw anybody. I had a side cramp, but I always like to run when I see people even if they look totally harmless. I feel like running severely lowers your chances of being attached because you look more athletic and like a more difficult victim. (And yes, these are the kinds of things I think about constantly. I am PARANOID). I was walking down a hill, and as I came around the bend I noticed somebody standing off to the side of the road. He wasn’t exactly in the bushes, but he was trying to be inconspicuous and I could feel him watching me. He gave off completely malicious vibes. I had pits in my stomach, the knot that comes when something really bad is going to happen. He was watching me and I was watching him out of the corner of my eye. I sped to a jog, actually more like a run and tried to cross over to the other side of the street but he jumped out in front of me and said something truly vile. He growled, “Le dejaria bien culiada.” (I’d fuck you good). The second he had blocked my path I instinctively wielded my pepper spray out in front of my, held at eye level. He obviously didn’t know what it was because he didn’t try to shield himself. I moved left to try and get around and so did he.

I started screaming. Every single cuss word in my vocabulary came pouring out of my mouth in high pitched panic tones.

“FLAITE CULIADO, HIJO DE PUTA, CONCHA TU MADRE, ORDINARIO DE MIERDA!!!!” A little further down the path I noticed there was another runner, about to turn the next bend.

“Oye, esperame por favor!” I yelled out, please wait for me! He stopped, the guy blocking my path turned to look at him. I ran around him and he didn’t move. He was clearly caught off guard by how loud I was and I don’t think he had noticed there was another runner anywhere near. Truth be told, neither had I. I sprinted down to the runner now waiting for me. He asked if I was ok, I said yes. I wanted to cry but I held back the tears. He said “Ok, then we need to run faster. There are two of them and one of me.” I hadn’t noticed that my wannabe attacker had a friend but I glanced over my shoulder and noticed the runner was right. There were two of them standing menacingly higher up the hill watching us as we ran down. We sprinted the rest of the way down the hill, my lungs were burning and so were the runner’s, I could tell by how hard he was breathing. It was probably about a mile to the base of the hill. At the bottom, I thanked him and he didn’t say a word, just nodded and ran off down the street. It was obvious that he was not happy I had involved him. Chileans are not famous for putting their asses on the line for other people. But in the end, what counts is that he waited for me. I can’t fault him for being upset that a stranger had asked him to risk getting the shit kicked out of him to help her.

That man wanted to rape me. He had malice in his eyes. He had crazy in his eyes. He might have just raped me. Or he might have raped me and killed me. I don’t know, and I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to find out.

I know saying that probably sounds over dramatic. But that man was evil, I heard it in his voice and I saw the evil glint in his eyes.

From the base of the hill, I ran to Alameda, the largest street in all of Chile. Funny how just yesterday Alameda was the enemy and today it was the biggest relief to be walking down it surrounded by people. I felt certain that I could see the man everywhere even though I know he didn’t follow me. But I was still chilled with absolute horror from the disgusting way he looked at me. Hours later I am still jumpy and shaky and my heart will just start pounding for no reason.

I arrived home, looking over my shoulder every minute of the way, with my pepper spray clutched as tightly as if it were a lifeboat and the Titanic were going down. I pounded on the apartment door because my hands were trembling so much that I couldn’t undo my key from my shoelaces. S. opened up, I practically collapsed onto him and started sobbing.

I think I’m going to join the gym across the street. Right now I’m petrified just sitting in my own apartment. I can’t fathom a day in which I will feel ok to run by myself again. Honestly, who knows if I’ll go up the hill again even with my male running buddy. I feel like a little kid who’s afraid of the boogeyman. Only what might pop out from under the bed or in the closet and get me and hurt me, is real.

If you’re reading this and living in Santiago, or thinking about living here, don’t let these kinds of incidents stop you. But don’t come here like me, fooled by all the stories about how Santiago is the safest city in Latin America and has a lower murder rate than many cities in the U.S. Don’t let the modern facades of shiny new buildings lull you into false sense of security, making you feel like you’re at home. It’s fucking dangerous and you would be foolish to think otherwise. Let my naivety be a lesson.

38 Comments

January 13, 2008

“It’s amazing how just going to the grocery store is a mission for you.”

That’s what my boss said when I wrote her to tell her about my supermarket adventures. And it’s true. A lot of things when you live abroad, that would normally be quick errands, turn into “missions.”

This week I decided I needed to be more independent, so I would go to the grocery store by myself, meaning drive myself. I’ve driven in Santiago before, but always late at night when there is absolutely nobody on the roads. Never having lived in a truly large city before, I’m not used to a lot of traffic, let alone having to dodge double long buses, pedestrians, stray dogs, and horses.

I was beyond nervous before even leaving my building’s underground parking lot. As I went to turn out, I couldn’t see cars coming from my left because of a giant Coca-Cola semi-truck unloading at the Mexican restaurant next door. So I nudged the nose of the car out slowly, little by lit

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Angry horns blared, and that was the minute my attitude changed. I needed to eb aggressive. When in Chile, do as the Chileans do. So I just pulled out assuming that any cars would slam on their breaks or swerve and let me in. So I made it safely out onto a main street but I didn’t know where I needed to turn in order to get to the grocery store. I despise driving if I don’t know where I’m going! I felt really paranoid that I was going to miss the street, so I turned when I saw a sign that started with the same letter as the street I was looking for. From far away it looked like where I needed to go! Well, that was a huge mistake. I had ended up turning onto a one way dead end street. To get off it I had to go onto another one way street…and so on and so forth, until I ended up a good couple of kilometers in the wrong direction from where I needed to be headed.

Finally I found the street that I should’ve turned onto in the first place, but the only way to get to it was to put myself in a public transportation only lane.

Chile has streets, divided by these big bumper things that you can’t cross, which separate bus/taxi lanes from the regular car lanes. I was in a bus lane, looking desperately for a way out. I knew the bus lane meant certain death for my tiny little red compact car when up against a massive fume spewing Transantiago machine. The problem with the bus lanes is that the buses regularly change lanes without looking-they’re so huge they expect you to watch out for them. But when you’re in the special bus lane, you have no way to swerve and avoid them because of the barriers the city put up blocking the bus lane from the regular lanes.

The worst happened. A bus tried to change lanes without seeing me. I laid on the horn, closed my eyes, and prayed for the bus. He missed! Then at the next stoplight the driver thoroughly cursed me out. It’s ok, I deserved it. I was infringing on his buses only territory.

I found a way out of the bus lane and eventually made it to the grocery store. All good right? WRONG! You’re forgetting…I still had to get home.

So on the way back I turned out of the supermarket going the exact same way I came in, to get back to the main street I ha

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A car cajoling straight at me had to slam on it’s breaks. What’s going on? I looked around confused, only to see a man who was watering his garden, drop his hose and run out onto the street and start making motions like a traffic control director at an airport. Oooooh, he wanted me to turn around. One way street. Woops!

With my life and my groceries intact I turned around and headed in the right direction on the one way street. Only problem is that it was the wrong direction from where I needed to be going and it wasn’t a main street either. It was just a little side street, that led to another one way side street and another. I ended up taking a completely roundabout way home, taking the main street in all of Santiago, which runs from one end of the city all the way to the other, the dreaded Alameda. At any given time on that street there are anywhere from 4-6 lanes of traffic in each direction, including crazy bus lanes. S. had specifically given me directions to avoid that street because he feared for my life if I made the attempt to drive it. But, I had no choice. After the roundabout one way streets led me back through, it was the one familiar route I knew would take me home.

Let’s just say that my trip down Alameda involved the following scenarios:

1. Getting stuck in a left hand only turn lane, then narrowly avoiding getting rear ended trying to get out of it.
2. An idiot pedestrian who ran out in front of oncoming traffic making me have to slam on my brakes to avoid running him over(actually reminding me of the time I was with my family driving us to my apartment in Santiago, when a homeless guy was standing in one of the lanes in a one way high way in a TUNNEL. There are no ledges to stand on to get out of the way. I swerved around him but I’m pretty sure somebody eventually had to have run him over. There was just no way around it).
3. A truck who pulled a Chilean (cars here do this ALL the time) and just stopped in the middle of the road to start loading and unloading workers, regardless of the fact that they’re on the busiest street in all of Chile and there are hundreds of cars behind him trying to get by. So therefore, I pulled, well, another Chilean, and just created a new lane where there wasn’t one. Chileans also do that all the time. The white dividing lines on the road aren’t necessarily strict lane markers, they’re more like general suggested guidelines. If you can squish your car in between cars that are already within the lines of other lanes, well, then you just created yourself a new lane and there’s nothing wrong with that! How many cars can squeeze into one lane in Santiago? The answer to that question is always-the more the merrier!

But, I made it back and I’m alive. Next week I’m driving to a get together that’s pretty far from where I live. So this story about my driving adventures will be continued I’m sure…

18 Comments

January 9, 2008

I finally got my act together and cleaned up the apartment so that it would look acceptable in pictures. Get ready for a long post with way too many photos I had to use my fisheye because I don’t own any other kind of wide angle lens. Needless to say, the fisheye lens really distorts things (and makes everything look way bigger than it is). The place is a one bedroom, it’s about 35 square meters. We thought about renting two bedrooms but didn’t end up finding a two bedroom we liked, and I’m so glad! When we moved into this place we realized we don’t even have enough stuff to fill up a one bedroom. Half our kitchen cabinets are empty, and in the bedroom, the only furniture we have is a bed. Neither of us are pack rats either so every time we consider buying a night stand or another dresser, we both just kind of shrug it off, like why bother when we don’t really need it.

First off, the little details that I love:

The remote control holder in the armrest of the futon is so convenient:

Here’s the actual futon itself, which was an incredibly generous gift from my in-laws (we picked it out and they paid for it).

The light fixtures move and can be pointed in any which way, so it makes for some dramatic lighting.

We paid extra just to get our glorious fridge in silver rather than white.

Our patio is just big enough to fit two chairs, where we sit and talk in the evenings when S. gets home from work.

I’m kind of obsessed with this wine holder. It’s so cool!

There’s a tiny little alcove that is supposed to hold a microwave but I’d rather use it to display spices. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved different spices. Also, I like the silverware thing that we got. It’s fun to have forks and knives out hanging as part of the deco, rather than hidden away in a drawer!

Here is poor S.’s tiny little closet.

And here’s my giant closet…MWAHAHAHA! As you can tell, we’re both extremely neat and organized people

Both the bedroom and the living room open onto the little patio.

The bar serves as a kitchen table and a work desk for me

The furniture we brought from our old house conveniently matches the floors and countertops perfectly! You can see the paintings that we haven’t hung up yet, mostly because we don’t want to put holes in the wall.

Bedroom:

Bathroom:

Bird’s eye view of the bathroom:

(and right after this photo was taken, if you were in the apartment you would’ve heard my shrieking “OH MY GOD MY HAIR IS ON FIRE!!!” at the top of my lungs. The light bulbs in our bathroom create some serious heat. Good to know.)

Here’s what things look like when you first walk in.

And here’s from the other side, looking in from outside on the patio.

One last view of the kitchen and then we’re done.

22 Comments

January 7, 2008

A few weeks ago my camera was broken and I was desperate to get it fixed in time for our trip down to Pucon to climb the volcano. I mean, why would I climb a stinkin’ volcano if I don’t have my camera?!? So as soon as my camera broke, I ran down (literally) to the Canon repair store, which is conveniently located just a 20 minute jog from my new apartment. The guy at the front desk told me that unfortunately it takes two weeks just for them to give you appraisal and then another two weeks to actually fix the camera. This information had been previously confirmed to me by a friend who had taken his camera in a few months before. Even though I was sweaty and disgusting since I had jogged there at around high noon, I could tell the guy giving me the information was sort of checking me out so I batted my eyes a few times and asked him if there was any way he could put it in rush, because I was taking a big trip down South and that would just be such a sweet thing for him to do for a poor little gringa. He acquiesced and said he would be it on rush order at no extra cost. And just in case I needed anything else, his name is Jose Araya, and I should feel free to call him if I need ANYTHING AT ALL. I got my camera back within a week.

About 10 years ago, I arrived in Chile as an exchange student for the first time. I went to live with a family of humble beginnings in the neighborhood Puente Alto of Santiago, and attended colegio (high school) every day with my host sister, Natalia Compagnon Soto. She was nice but we didn’t have very much in common and I actually ended up getting along better with her friends. When I left Chile we were on good terms though. Her family planned to send her to the U.S. on her summer vacation, just as I had come to Chile on mine. Natalia’s aunt and uncle were actually the ones who were going to pay for her flight and everything. She arrived in the U.S. and even though she was supposed to stay for 2 or 3 months, she never unpacked. She refused to speak English at all. And I totally understand that for a few days. Arriving in a foreign country is intimidating and even more so if you don’t feel comfortable speaking in a language that you have had very little practice with. But, after the first week she still didn’t want to try. I took her to school with me one day. She was supposed to come every day. But she didn’t want to. Instead she stayed home and would call my mom every day to have her order a pizza to be delivered. I can’t remember how long she lasted, but she didn’t stay with us for very long. I’m really not sure why she hated everything so much. But she went back to Chile a few months earlier than she was supposed to and after that I never heard from her again.

Now you’re probably wondering about the significance of the above two stories. Really there is no significance, just that I learned interesting things about both these people recently.

The first guy, Jose Araya, is on a new reality show down here called Amor Ciego. It’s a dating program, sort of like the Bachelor, except it’s one super hot ex-model girl trying to find a date in a group of normal looking men. Not one of them is super-hot. Not even the Canon guy. I hope he wins!

And my old host-sister is now engaged to the President, Michelle Bachelet’s son. They’re getting married in March and she’s having his baby in August. I found out a long time ago that they were dating. It’s a funny story, actually. Flipping through channels one night, I happened across the tail end of a program showing Natalia playing paintball and I was like HOLY SHIT I KNOW THAT GIRL!!! I was freaking out, but I only caught the last two seconds of the show so I figured they were doing a story on paintball and she just happened to be a player. Or something like that. Then, like a month later, I was rolling up old newspapers at the beach house to start a fire. They were REALLY old, like from last year. One fell to the floor and I saw her picture again! I was so surprised, so I salvaged the newspaper from the fire and read the story on her only to find out she’s dating the son of the most important woman in the whole country.

Pretty random, right?

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