My (tiny) handful of Chilenas

I tried not to read the other posts on Chilean women but couldn't help but read two of them before I started mine which got me to thinking that I am not all that fired up about this topic as I thought I was or as I was when I was studying here.  I think it's because when you're studying here, you're like a little puppy who's interested in anything and everything you can do that's Chilean with the highest goal being Chilean friends.  One of my friends on the same program with me ended up with her feelings seriously hurt at the end of 6 months because regardless of how hard she tried, she could never cross that line over to friendship with a Chilean (she stayed a year and actually succeeded with 1 or 2).  The rest of us either turned bitter or met wonderful guys so we didn't really care, or both.

Now, since I'm going to be in Chile for a few more years, I'm not all that interested in doing Chilean things because my life is already a Chilean thing.  I get way more excited when I meet other gringas in Chile because my day is 80% Chilean so maybe my initial bitterness turned to apathy and now it's just sort of nothing.  I totally agree that women everywhere can come off as bitchy and that Chileans come from a very closed society so those are 2 obstacles to overcome as a foreigner.  I have many ideas about other contributing factors, but I think almost everyone has mentioned them.  Instead of my confusing and indecisive analysis that may come off as pesada, I want to talk about a few of the amazing Chilean women in  my life here.  It may come off as incredibly cheesy and and a little pathetic because most of them are related to my boyfriend, but oh well!

First, Paulina, my boyfriend's mother.  She is one of the most amazing women I have ever met and someone I admire greatly.  She has raised her 3 children beautifully and without much emotional or financial support from their father.  She is the hardest worker I know but receives a crappy Chilean salary, yet I have never heard her complain once.  She is neither bitchy nor timid.  I see here almost daily for coffee and a crossword puzzle and it's by choice.  Since the day I met her (which incidentally was the day I met my boyfriend Italo as well), she opened up her home to me.  She is both a motherly figure and a friend here to me.  And she doesn't hate me for plucking her eldest son out of her house for the first time (or, at least not openly!).  Life for me in Chile would be different if it weren't for her.

Now, Mayo, mi cuñada.  She had me cracking up laughing even before we met.  And she was kind enough to try to speak in English my first months here so that I didn't feel so ashamed of my accent and funny enough for me to understand her Chilean sense of humor right away.  She is the most outgoing person I know and I genuinely enjoy spending quality time with her (she's playing wii right now in my apartment as I'm writing this).  She has befriended all of my family (seriously, even my sister's boyfriend who doesn't speak a word of Spanish) and is much better at keeping in touch with everyone than I am because that's just her nature.  She is another essential aspect of my life here.

In addition to Paulina and Mayo, I am in daily contact with some of the most admirable and kind women I have ever known and they all happen to be Chilean.  Having said that, I must also admit that when people say they haven't made very close friends here, I am the first to blurt out that it is next to impossible to make Chilena friends because Chilean women want nothing to do with us gringas.  I totally cheated and made friends out of in-laws and their friends, but I am perfectly content with that because I still think it's ridiculously hard to get a Chilean woman to trust you enough to be your friend, and I'm not interested in their playing hard to get!