Kyle Hepp

September 9, 2008

I am so excited to bring the first edition of Expat Interviews to JMCS! And we’re definitely kicking things off right with Eileen Shea. She’s a stand up comedian, and I’ve been lucky enough to see her routine in person. Let me tell you right now that she is hilarious. But, you’ll be able to figure that out pretty quick after reading her interview.

Please give us some background on you and your situation in Chile. How old are you, how long have you been here, how long do you plan on staying, where are you from, are you married, what part of Chile do you live in?

When I arrived here in 1988 (it’s all a blur, I had 3 small kids) at the age of 36, I took advantage of the move to reinvent myself and do what I had wanted to do for years  become a stand-up comedian. Being a gringa actually helped, because Chilean women have often told me that I get away with saying things on stage they could never say. Also, I used the whole gringa schtick to my advantage, beginning with a monologue about what it is like to move to this country and get to know Chileans. I have lived in Santiago all these years because this is where the work has been.

Tell us your story! What originally brought you to the country?

I married a political exile who had been imprisoned in four different prisons and camps before seeking refuge in Canada, where I am from. We moved here while Pinochet was still in power and lived through the last year of the dictatorship and the process of the plebiscite, free elections and the return to democracy. They were passionate times. The extreme conditions, the repression and the fear translated into a lot of solidarity.

What do you do here? Describe a typical day in your life.

When I first got here, I went around with a list of the things I had to buy and the list included everything you need to set up a house. But a few months later, I was walking around with 2 lists  one of the things I still needed to buy and the other of the things I had already bought but that had broken or never worked in the first place. This turned out to be boot camp for life in Chile. A typical day in my life starts with a phone call to the bank to attempt to deal with an error on a statement, then perhaps a jaunt down to the cell phone company to try and get my cell phone to work (for the 8^th time this month). If I am feeling especially energetic, I might venture over to a repair shop for – oh, I don’t know, let’s see the lawnmower, the blender, the front door lock, the car, the fuse box and then lunch. After Lunch I might meet with a lawyer to discuss how I can collect from the accountant who, I discovered a few months ago, had been swindling us for years, or maybe I will stay at home in case the alarm repairman who promised to come each Monday for a month and never did just might show up after all.

When I complain about all the errands I have to do, my husband says there must be something wrong with me because I have a full-time job running these errands and yet many people manage to work full-time at something else and their lives don’t fall apart. I have no answer to this statement and no idea of how anyone manages to hold down a full-time job AND settle all of the problems that arise and fix all of the things that break and do all of the legwork and paperwork required to live a normal life. It is, after 20 years here, a complete mystery to me.

How does a typical day in your life differ from what life used to be like for you in your home country?

The best thing about my life in Chile is a lady called Rosa who holds down the fort for me while I am out trying to get a phone call to Taiwan I never made taken off my bill. Basically if my husband died I would be terribly sad but if Rosa left, I would kill myself. She goes on vacation every year for the month of February and when she returns on March 1, I get down on the ground and I kiss her feet. Had I known I was going to have Rosa in my life, I would have had more children. This is not a joke.

What do you love about living here?

The best thing about living here is the Chilean people. I love to laugh and I laugh all day here, all the time. Everywhere. Even on the bus. People are hilarious the whole country is a bunch of stand-up comedians.

What has been the hardest adjustment for you in moving abroad?

The toughest part is the poverty, the class system. the smog and the public transportation system in Santiago. I would recommend to anyone moving here that if they don’t have to live in the city, that they don’t.

A second-rate education for your kids is also one of the prices you pay to live in Chile. There is no really great school or university here and the level of education is abysmal. On the other hand, the human side is often far superior to anything I had experienced personally in small-town Quebec in the 50s and 60s and I don’t regret raising children here.

Another difficult thing about Chile is a cultural thing and it took me years to break the code: Chileans don’t, won’t or can’t say no, even when it is definitely no. If you don’t realize that, you end up wasting a lot of time and a lot of energy.

If you could change anything about your life in Chile, what would it be?

Now that we have the Internet, most of the things I used to miss living in Chile are accessible to me here AND I get to live in what has to be the best climate in the world. I get just about anything I want to read, listen to, wear or use on the net. I also read the newspaper from my hometown and watch the news, speak to my friends through Skype, upload videos for the family.

What do I miss? My mother. When you get to my age, your parents are getting old. And maybe they can’t travel anymore, and are beginning to have medical problems. And you don’t live down the street from them so you feel like you can’t help and that you are missing out in that you don’t get to see some of the people you love on a regular basis. Some of my friends’ parents have serious illnesses such as Alzheimer’s. imagine how it must feel to know that a parent is in an institution and you are thousands of miles away. Tough.

Please check out Eileen’s website…and if you decide you want to go see her live, let me know and I’ll happily go with you. Last time I watched her routine I laughed so hard I cried. If you’re bilingual and are married to a Chilean she’s a must-see…and I’m not just saying that because she did this interview for me!