1/29/2009 - "Una Poca de Gracia" - A Little Bit of Grace

A creative, non-fiction story about one of my experiences as an AFS student in Chile during the 1964 Summer Program.

By S. S. Fager

I could not decide whether to be frightened or just amazed. I have traveled on trains in Chile, in Europe, and in the United States, but at no other time have I seen anything like the crowds waiting in Temuco that August morning long ago. As the turn-of-the-century steam locomotive slowed, what seemed like hordes of people continued to run across the tracks just in front of the engine. At least two hundred townspeople filled the station in a scene that glowed golden-white in the intense Chilean sun.

At all of the other train stations in southern Chile where the Express had stopped earlier that day, the sandwich and drink vendors shouted “Comidas!,” “Naranja Crush!,” or “Café!” even before the ancient steam engine had come to a stop. At every one of the other towns, the pottery and basket sellers, wearing the black and brown clothes of the working classes, waited next to hand-made beige clay containers of many sizes and baskets woven especially for carrying items as different as flowers, eggs, laundry, and children. At each of the previous stops, a few elderly passengers had climbed up the metal stairs to enter one of the train cars. Only a few passengers left the train. If they did, it was only for a moment to examine the cheese and avocado sandwiches for sale or to haggle with the merchants over spending the outrageous price of fifteen centavos for a bottle of Coca-Cola. A couple of travelers bought souvenirs before they returned to the red padded seats and warm woolen blue blankets in the first-class cars. But at the Temuco station that morning, the shouts of the vendors were lost in the noise of the crowd. Children, teenagers, adults, and elderly townspeople were all shouting “Adios,” and “Good-bye,” and “Chau,” and even an occasional “Aufwiedersehen.”

A beautiful middle-aged senora stood at the center of the throng, hugging the arm of an American teenager. By the time the now creeping Rapido had come to a stop, the senora was wiping away tears. Although his face was shaded by the cowboy hat typically worn by the Chilean huaso, I could see that the boy was Mike. It didn’t seem possible but there he was, in clear view at the center of all the commotion in Temuco.

The farewell was a stark contrast to the lukewarm reception Mike had received from the other American exchange students in Chile only two months before. He had been quick to introduce himself as the American from Los Angeles, which was “definitely the coolest city” in the “coolest state.” He had bragged—about the L.A. weather, beaches, girls, sports teams – and he had seemed self-absorbed and even offensive at times to the American students traveling with him on the train from Santiago to Temuco. And then, within a few days of Mike’s arrival, stories about his host family began circulating through the other American students. It seemed clear, at least to some of them, that Mike was not going to be the right fit for his Chilean family, especially for his host mother.

As the train stopped, the noise outside the coaches increased. American Tourister suitcases, large farewell bouquets of traditional Chilean copihues, departing American exchange students, and Chilean host families carrying luggage boarded at every train car entrance. From out of the confusion, a brightly wrapped package was passed to Mike and he freed his arm from the senora’s embrace and opened the gift. A black woolen manta, the traditional, large Chilean poncho that the huasos wore in the coldest foothills of the Andes evoked his gleeful shout.

Mike boarded the train wearing the heavy wool poncho. “I can’t believe the Almas gave me a manta. I really wanted to buy one myself but they were too expensive.”

It really was a wonderful manta, roomy, warm, and certainly costing far more that the $80 American dollars that the Program permitted each of us to have as spending money for our two-month exchange student experience. Because of his dark curly hair, his dark eyes, his subtle sideburns, his Chilean huaso hat, and his black manta, Mike now looked more like a Chilean joven than an American teenager. And even though the train car seemed warm to me in my light navy blue wool sweater and gray woolen slacks, Mike, still wearing a manta that was warm enough for anyone to withstand the coldest mountain winds, was happily unaware of the steam arising from the heating vents in the car.

Two years before, the Almas’ only daughter, Maria, had been hit by a car near the town plaza while she was walking home from her colegio. The beautiful, sweet sixteen year-old had died instantly. Soon after the funeral at the Temuco Cathedral, Senora Alma put away all of the family pictures and all of Maria’s clothes, including her favorite azure scarf. The Senora stopped talking about Maria, and family dinners, which previously had been the highlight of each day for the Almas, still started with prayers but often ended with tears rolling down Senora Alma’s cheeks. Maria’s friends were no longer welcomed at the Almas. The Senora was seen in public only as she walked to church or to her daughter’s graveside. And then after many months of witnessing the family’s self-imposed isolation, the town was startled to hear that the Almas had volunteered to host an exchange student from the United States.

Mike with his outgoing, Beach Boy personality had announced his own arrival in the town, first at the Temuco train station and then in the entrance hall of the Almas’ house. And yet to everyone’s surprise, his extroverted nature began to permeate the heartbroken interior of Almas’ home. He started by entertaining the family with his sunny California stories and he soon captured the heart of his host mother with, as she described, his “endearing” machismo.

Within a week of his arrival at the beautifully decorated but emotionally barren house, Senora Alma began talking about Maria, first with Mike and then with her husband and sons. Then, on a drizzling Saturday afternoon in early July, she welcomed Marisol and Julieta, Maria’s closest friends, to come for sopaipillas with chancaca sauce, the traditional pumpkin fritters with rich brown sugar syrup, that generations of Chilean mamas have prepared to help their children feel safe and warm during dank Chilean winters. She then unpacked the old leather chest in the corner of the attic and brought out her Maria’s photographs to share with even greater numbers of Chilean teenagers who had once again begun visiting the house. And within a more few weeks, the Almas’ had became the hangout for everyone in Maria’s former, and now Mike’s current, high school class. They came for onces, the Chilean tea time, to drink Fanta, to eat galletitas McKay, and to listen to the latest Beatles songs like “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” played loudly in English and the newer Chilean songs, like “Mi Amor Divino,” played even more loudly in Spanish. Senora Alma was just returning home from the cemetery during a cool late July afternoon when she first noticed Mike’s tenor voice crooning “La Bamba” along with his Chilean classmates during onces in the living room. As she heard him sing “se necesita una poca de gracia,” Senora Alma found herself smiling while tears began rolling down her cheeks. And she kept on discovering herself smiling and intermittently happily crying for the rest of the evening, even and especially as she murmured her prayers just before she went to sleep that night.

And then, it was suddenly the third week of August, time for Mike to return to the Temuco station, to board the train back to Santiago, to go home to Los Angeles. But after two years of sadness and two months of happiness, for his host family and particularly for Senora Alma, “our Yanqui” had already come home, for the first time, and had made it feel like home again.

And now, at the tumultuous Temuco train station, I watched the final despidirse. The Almas were the last ones to leave their hijito, and only after the conductor finally asked them to get off the train before the immediate departure. As Mike gently hugged his host papa and mama good-bye, I could see that he knew he had to leave them in just a few seconds and yet perhaps for many years.

The Almas descended the steep gray metal coach steps and waited tearfully on the train platform to see Mike for just a few more seconds. He continued to wave to them while he stood just outside the coach vestibule. As the train lurched forward and Temuco faded away, he finally entered the passenger coach. He greeted the other Americans, who were already in the reserved first-class passenger car, and flashed his dazzling Southern California smile, now almost completely enveloped by his broad-brimmed Chilean hat and his broad-shouldered Chilean manta.

I have often thought back to that day on the platform in Temuco. Of all of the exchange students getting on the train that afternoon, Mike was the one that everyone in the crowd in Temuco had hugged as they noisily shouted, “Chau, Miguel!” And standing beside him in the intense sunlight was his Mama, wearing a cherished azure scarf and saying good-bye to her “still very fresco” son who had come to her all the way from the City of the Angels.

About the Author
Sam Fager, M.D., M.B.A., J.D., participated in the Americans Abroad Program in Osorno, Chile in the 1964 Summer Program. He is currently a health care consultant in Villanova, Pennsylvania and is on the Medical Staff of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He most recently visited Chile in 2005 to attend his Chilean host mother’s 90th birthday party. Although he has written scientific articles previously, this story of another AFS student’s effect on a Chilean host family is his first creative non-fiction story.