Imagine pausing your car at a stop light on a busy city corner at night. Suddenly, a slap on your window startles you and you look up to see two drunk men staggering beside your car. There are asking for money, presumably to buy yet another drink. You refuse, hoping they won’t become belligerent, and anxiously watch for the light to turn green. When it does you carefully accelerate, paying close attention to their unsteady steps so as to not run one over if he happens to stumble in front of the car … this is simply one fact of life in Chile!
Or imagine you are driving down a very busy street in broad daylight. Suddenly you see a pair of legs sticking out practically into the road in front of you, and you swerve to avoid them. Turning your head to see what is going on, you discover a man lying under his small wooden cart full of miscellaneous items. He isn’t hurt, or dead, just out cold drunk. This is a true story! It happened to us the other day, and we didn’t know whether to call the police or what, because honestly he was going to get run over by some driver who didn’t see him in the road. We talked to one of the Chilean guards at our school, and the guard going off duty at the time was going to ride his bike over and see if he could get this guy off the road before he got hurt.
If it isn’t drunks, it’s dogs. They run wild on practically every street corner. Big ones, small ones, hairy ones, bald ones, white ones, blacks ones, and every size and color and shape in between. Often you are the unfortunate witness to two dogs “bouncing” (as the girls innocently call it) whenever and wherever they happen to feel like it. Or, you might get unexpected visitors in your front yard, if they’re small enough to fit under the front fence. My neighbor got an unexpected visitor inside her house (even upstairs!) by leaving her front door open, and only happened to notice because she had freshly washed the floor and she discovered paw prints all over the clean surface. Yikes!
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