Trying to be a good Chilean housewife and a curious possible fate for Easter Island
23-24 April, 1972
Sunday 23 April 1972
Today has been a day of maximum effort. On the way to mass this morning Grant told me that Carlo had been moaning about me to Rosa’s husband [his brother Luis]. He carried on about how I couldn’t cook ot clean or do anything and he was going to throw us out soon. I think we got the backlash of the Irish couple leaving without paying or offering anything and I was furious at the injustice of it all.
As mentioned last week this was a cross cultural confusion I think. The Irish couple felt they had reciprocated by taking us to the hotel but Carlo thought they were paying guests.
I can cook well and clean more or less but I’m just not used to doing it in these ways here. I suppose too I rebel against Carlo’s view of the female who should stay at home all the time.
Anyway I resolved to commit myself utterly to housework for a bit and see what happens. I polished the floor in the living room this morning and very thoroughly cleaned the bathroom. I assisted with the lunch but it was beans so I couldn’t do it all.
I got into huge trouble with Carlo once for boiling dried beans without soaking them first. I didn’t know then that you had to. After that beans were off limits for me!
I washed and dried everything after lunch and tea and generally fussed about, to his surprise and pleasure I think. He’s been much nicer to me since.
What a strange mixture of defiance and submission this was and.the feminist in me balks at all this now. Who, after all won? Not me.
Some meat was bought last night supposedly from a cow who died of thirst. I wonder if I should let Mungo have any – it’s been raining a lot lately so I don’t understand how a cow could die of thirst.
We went to mass this morning but arrived rather late and I had to stand outside. I didn’t really feel I’d been at all and tonight it’s really pouring down with rain.
Grant has gone to visit his policeman friend in the hope of getting some spicy details.
Mungo and Christian played with my knitting needles for hours this afternoon. Mungo now walks several steps without falling over. He seemed a bit off colour this morning with slight diarrhea. I’ve given him mostly milk today because it’s easier to digest than most things I think. Carlo says I shouldn’t needless to say.
The rain is battering the roof and Carlos seems to have tuned in to a middle eastern station of some kind – or maybe Fiji. It’s Cairo. It’s queer. It makes me think of Turkey
I’d taught in Turkey for a year after uni..
Grant has repented, all by himself, of bullying me so much and has promised not to send me back to Australia no matter what. He says, quite rightly, that it doesn’t make things any easier to have that threat hanging over me.
The padre has told Grant an interesting bit of confidential information. Apparently plans have been made to sell the island to Japan for payment of all Chile’s overseas debts. The Japanese haven’t accepted because the debts are so huge. Apparently the ECA chickens are a sort of loan in kind from Germany and have to be paid for in five years.
Coca’s here today being a bit devilish. All the kids got very wet in the rain
Monday 24th April 1972
Before joining Julia 26, I think I need to explain the dilemma she, and any partner of an anthropologist is in. The first priority is to comply, to adopt the way of life the couple finds themselves in, even if it goes against the grain. The doctor’s mantra “Do no harm” was for Julia “Don’t rock the boat” because if she did she would jeopardise the work. The only way she could do this long term was to internalise the rules and, on some level, accept the mores of the culture in the interests of being able to observe it So perhaps, after all, it’s mistaken to consider Julia’s attitude as craven and unduly subservient even if it seems that way to me now.
I’m keeping up the good work at home. Washed the plastic strip curtain today with great zeal and made a stew out of “the cow that died of thirst” . I didn’t give any to Mungo but I had some and it was very good indeed.
I took Coca to Maria/Suzy’s house today but didn’t go in because she said many people had been there yesterday and it was very dirty. After that I called in on Grant at the padre’s house and then went on down to the co-operative where I bought chorizo, two apples, nine eggs and a kilo of grapes for 60 escudos. I took the eggs to the Chilean woman’s house who lent us some on Saturday.She wasn’t there but a nice intelligent red haired son of hers deciphered the situation and took the eggs for her.
On the way back to the church I decided to give the grapes to Georgina’s 90 year old mother with asthma.
Georgina’s mother Luisa wasn’t ninety though she looked very old and had borne twenty children She became very important to me as the diary will tell.
I delivered them to someone who could have been a son.
Then I sat in Grant’s office [at the padres house for a bit while Mungo slept on the floor. Read a bit of a book by Sir Harry Luke on travelling in the Pacific. Bookworms are getting into Father Sebastians library though. It’s a pity.
The old wooden house was termite ridden and dusty but a cosy refuge from time to time. Padre Melchior told me I could have a nap there any time.
When Mungo woke I got him a drink of water from the padre who is a sweet old man with a long beard and hardly any teeth. He spends his time in his garden or the kitchen which is a separate shed. He gave Mungo a chocolate. The kitchen was very ramshackle but has a fridge. Every house I’ve been to so far has a fridge except Rosa’s (Georgina’s brother’s wife who lived next door to us) which doesn’t have water either.
I met a nice young girl called Marcella on the way home. We talked a little in Spanish. As we passed Veronica’s house she rushed out in a swimsuit to say hallo. She doesn’t know where Soledad is now but says Victor is well and she told me that there was a film on at the FAC cinema tonight. Grant has promised that we shall all go.
I spent quite a while on my Spanish today while Mungo played with the wheelbarrow upside down. Carlo is painting the door white. He seems to read my thoughts sometimes. I was just thinking how much better the place would look with a spot of paint and he decides to put some on.
The old man has just come by with a bunch of bananas for us.
Old man Pacomio often brought us huge branches of bananas from his place. Not little supermarket sized bunches!