GLOBAL EDUCATION
Suzanne Adam and her husband, Santiago Gordon, vacation among the snowy peaks of Patagonia.
LIVING AT WORLD’S END Gardening beneath the Andes By Suzanne Adam
I
’ve lived a greater portion of my life in Chile than in the States, yet my connection with my American homeland remains strong. I often recall Wallace Stegner’s thoughts on the subject: “Whatever landscape a child is exposed to early on, that will be the sort of gauze through which he or she will see the world afterwards.” Chile in the year of my arrival, 1972, was immersed in social, economic, and political turmoil, beleaguered by protest marches, strikes, and shortages of food and basic necessities. A year later, a military coup ousted president Salvador Allende, and for the next 18 years we lived under a military dictatorship. Adjusting to the novelty of another country, making do with shortages, and holding a full-time teaching job kept me occupied. At first, standing in long lines at the supermarket to buy a chicken didn’t leave space to think about missing the family, friends, and places I’d left behind. The severe food shortage posed great challenges for cooks. When I arrived in Chile, I found here most of the same fruits and vegetables as in California, the climates being so similar. Short
on meatless recipes, I bought a small cookbook of simple, traditional Chilean dishes. I’d make tuna-and-Swiss-chard casseroles, shepherd’s pie, and fish croquettes. My mother-in-law explained how to soak dogfish shark in milk to eliminate the ammonia odor and gave me her recipe for lemon pudding. Although I enjoy typical Chilean dishes, like empanadas and pastel de choclo—a corn pie—I haven’t had the motivation to take on their time-consuming preparation. But friends and family here claim that I make great salads, especially basic tossed salad and dressing, a skill I learned from my mother. At Christmas they know I’ll be preparing my grandmother’s recipe of Scottish shortbread. However, I soon discovered that most Chileans have their maids do the cooking. While I was teaching full time, we employed a live-in maid, a situation with which I never became comfortable. Since my retirement, we are fortunate to have part-time help, and I admit I leave most of the cooking to her. It gives me more time to devote to my garden.
26 | WorldView ∙ Winter 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association
Pruning the bougainvillea This morning the frost is still sparkling on the ground and rooftops as Oscar, our occasional gardener, pulls up in his 1992 beige Volkswagen van. I hear the van chugging to a stop, and I sigh with relief. He’s arrived. I say “occasional” because he is a no-show more often than not, which is not unusual here in Chile, where gardeners tend to be as unpredictable as spring weather. I put up with his unreliable ways because I like him. He and I are botanical soul mates. Clad in baggy khaki pants, blue flannel shirt, and baseball cap, Oscar slides open the van’s side door. He’s brought me a present, un regalo, he says, pulling out a rectangular plastic flower pot planted with a variety of herbs: mint, cilantro, thyme, oregano, dwarf celery. Surprised and pleased, I thank him, though I suspect it’s his way of apologizing for his absences. Problems kept him away, he says, poking at the dichondra, declaring it’s looking good. Just wait till spring, he says. The garden will be beautiful. He clops about in his thick work boots, leaving a trail of mud clods on the patio. Oscar put this garden in for me last spring and takes an interest in how everything is faring. Planning and planting it was our mutual labor of love. High up on the ladder, he wrestles with the thorny bougainvillea, snips away, and tosses the branches down to the ground, and we chat. I ask him about insect-repelling plants and those that will attract ladybugs. Many of the same flowers and trees grow here as in California. I just had to learn their Spanish names. Oscar runs a small nursery and brings me plants he knows I’ll like such as the California poppies he put in the front yard and the black-eyed Susans trailing up the back wall. I bring him coffee (three teaspoons of sugar) and wire to tie up bundles of branches. Oscar is not a big man, but he’s strong and fit. He breaks up the branches with his rough hands, dirt caked underneath his fingernails. I ask him why he doesn’t wear gloves. He works better with his bare