What's your story, Gringo?

Ok, three men walk into a bar...

It's a classic first line. But instead of telling a joke, I'll insert what happened next. "Holy shit, those guys are huge!" Cousin Andrea Bones Jane nearly spits piscola in disbelief.

---

To be blunt, Chileans are short. Jayanthian in stature, they average no taller than 5'4'', with outliers struggling to top six feet. At 6'3'' it's needless to say that I'm a giant in this land, but being a Tall isn't the only thing that screams "Gringo!" Additionally, I'm "blonde," green-eyed, look ten years older than I am (according to my wicked wicked students); lack a mullet; and am incapable of eating a mayo, ketchup, mustard, and guacamole-slathered hot dog without consequently slathering myself in said condiments.

Like the Chileans, I know Gringo when I see Gringo, and I can spot my brethren from a mile away. Time and time again the story goes:

From a sea of dark jeans and raincoats, a blonde emerges. She's wearing something other than black, and her pace is quicker than the ubiquitous sidewalk-blockers in her midst. For an instant our eyes meet, that moment of mutual recognition. But what to do in this all-too-common circumstance? I can't stop the person and gawk, "OMG, another American!" A wink to national brotherhood would be awkward. Out of options, I glance away and keep walking, mental note taken.

And then I wonder, "Where in the States is she from; why is she here in Valdivia; one of the new Michigan exchange students; or a teacher with 'English Opens Doors'; or have I totally missed the mark, failing once again to identify one of those elusive beer-brewing Germans who grant southern Chile its Rhineland flavor?" To summarize, "What's her story?"

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It's no secret that everyone has a story to tell. But language can complicate this given. In Spanish, I can spend hours gabbing about food, travel, and reality television, but telling a story is a different matter. It requires me to...err...conjugate verbs to past tenses and visit the never-ending "preterite vs. imperfect" debates. Add to that the complexities of tone, dialog, and entertainment, and things get downright rough. In English, I pride myself on being a fluent storyteller, but in Spanish, my tales fall flat. Same goes for listening. Talk to me in Spanish about "Keeping up with the Kardashians," and I'm all ears; tell me a story about the time your dog ran away, or worse, a joke, and I'm lost.

In the midst of these storytelling droughts, we have a tendency to turn to speakers of our native tongue. To the luck, or perhaps disadvantage, of English-speakers around the world, this is almost always an easy task. Valdivia is crawling with Americans; Santiago is packed with Anglo-hablantes; and then there's that mecca for backpacking Europeans, San Pedro de Atacama. The problem with the Gringo surplus, however, in addition to being positively rotten for Spanish acquisition, is that it drowns out the variety and uniqueness of the storytelling traveler.

The stunning similarity among backpackers' itineraries, choices of hostel, and index of cookie-cutter travel stories never fails to amaze me. It should be no surprise, however, considering that everyone on the backpack-track holds near and dear the exact same travel guides. A common sight throughout South America and all that is known in touristic oases like San Pedro: a tall, light-skinned, light-haired, light-eyed foreigner fumbling through his Lonely Planet, taking breaks to tell the same story, over and over again:

"Oh, well, we went to this cocaine jail in La Paz, really cool, then we took a bike-ride on the Death Road, but you want to be really careful which outfitter you hire for that, then we spent five days on the Uyuni Salt Flats, absolutely stunning scenery, but the tour guides were driving drunk, and look at this neat picture, the salt tricks the eye's depth perception. Oh man, Bolivia was awesome, but now we're in San Pedro for a few days, I can't wait to go sand-boarding, and then it's off to Argentina."

The same story. Over and over again. It's a monotony that has led me to seek out Chileans willing to tell stories of their own. To the difficulty of understanding Spanish tales, I say it's worth the hardship to be saved from the umpteenth rendition of "A Gap-Year in South America." A plague of robotic backpackers is what I expected in Peru and other hip Latin American destinations, but it's something I always thought lacking in Chile.

In that respect, as in so many others, Chile is decidedly un-South American. San Pedro aside, foreigners come here for odd and unique reasons. There was the Swedish girl I met who had come to see the Andes because of her life-long obsession with the plane-crash/cannibalism epic Alive; the middle-aged nurse from New York who wanted to learn Spanish to better communicate with her patients (too bad nobody told her Puerto Ricans don't speak Chilean); and we can't forget the corps of English-teaching Fulbrighters, who are so valiantly postponing 'real life' by hiding behind the picket-lines of Chilean higher education.

And then, there are these guys:

---

"Look! Look! They. Are. Huge!" Bones could hardly contain her astonishment.

The trio of talls took a seat at the table next to us. Andrea and I couldn't help but stare...and listen: English! And not your typical English, but an odd combination of AAEV (African-American English Vernacular, of course) and Heartland twang.

"Umm...where are you guys from," Bones asked.

The white giant responded, introducing the two lofty African-Americans across the table, "Well, I'm from Oklahoma, he's from San Diego, and that guy over there, he's from Ohio,"

"Uhh...what are you guys doing here?" It's always an awkward question, but I had to ask it.

"Playing basketball."

"What, like you're on a tour of South America or something?"

"No, we play for Castro."

I turned and looked outside the bar. Castro's Plaza de Armas was particularly gloomy on that night, drowning in a sudden, yet hardly unexpected, downpour. Barely visible through the torrents, a bright yellow (and salmon trimmed) church seemed to glow on the other end the square, reminding me how unique, and perhaps odd, this town really was. This was Castro, the principle city of Chiloe, an archipelago in many ways isolated from the mainland of Chile. With its historical wooden churches, vibrant local mythology, and gently rolling but weather-gnarled landscapes, Chiloe comprises the least Chilean corner of the least South American country on the continent.

And yet on this night, such a familiar sight: locals seeking refuge from the cold rain, downing pisco sours and munching on fries, interrupted by the entrance of a few thirsty foreigners. Something was different, however, about these particular gringos. Collectively topping 20 feet, and two-thirds black, the trio of basquetboleros was about the most conspicuous thing you ever saw in this here land of short monochromatic mestizos.

"So, what's your story?" I couldn't help but issue the cliched query.

How do American basketball players end up playing for the local team in Castro, freaking Chile? What was it like living here? Did they understand what anyone was saying? Were they stared at all the time?

The questions raced through my head. Being an "other" living in a "not-so-other" town in Chile (Valdivia really is Athens, relocated to coastal Oregon, sea lions added for effect) with a more-or-less decent grasp of Spanish, I couldn't imagine what these giant-like monolinguals were going through in this rarest of Chilean towns.

Unfortunately, they answered curtly, having just arrived in town a few days earlier. Turns out their story was a young one, perhaps too young to make for interesting conversation, even in their native tongues.

My story, on the other hand, is a little more developed, in English and in Spanish. Seven months abroad leads to a sizable stockpile of stories, both mental and blogged, which in turn become an anthology that I can only hope is more interesting than that reviled "My Gap Year in South America" by 18-year-old Backpacking Briton McAnybody.

Even with my cache of cuentos, however, one topic always seems to rise to the top. As is its subject matter, this topic can be all-consuming. It is to where I've turned time and time again, in sickness and in health, in good conversation and when I have nothing else to say, rain or shine: The Weather.

And it's where we turned that night in the Castro bar.

"Well...it rains here all the time, and it sure is cold...none of the gyms have heaters either." Los Tres Basquetboleros lamented.

I nodded, sympathetically.

Story of my Chile.