Unusual Gardening Tools…

Santiago, Chile… late 1985. We had come to live in Santiago and had been in the process of looking for a house for a while. Nothing, according to my wife, was quite up to “snuff” and then, being already in frustration heaven, a friend of a friend of a friend… you know how this goes, told us of a ranch style (Chilean ranch, that is) house that was available…

-“What do you think?” asked my wife. “I haven’t seen anything I could come to call home” she added. Our arrival in Santiago had been shortchanged even before we made it there. On the home front, my wife had made it clear this move was not of her liking and that “my life would be made miserable”…  We had not been there for 4 weeks and she was already making good on her threat by, amongst other issues, nixing anything and everything we would inspect as a potential home.

On the work front, to compound the pressure rate, my corporate reception had been cool enough to be comfortable for the Antarctic penguins. My immediate supervisor, the corporate regional VP, had unilaterally switched gears on me shortly before I was to come (and well after I had turned in my letter of resignation to my then employer) changing my job description so the Home Office folks in the US would be out of the communication loop (my loop, that is). I refused to accept this change and so informed the Home Office corporate VP; he proceeded to direct the regional VP to take me as originally contracted. I should have known better but… what can I tell you? The changes were already in motion. Mr. Regional VP was waiting for me, with all guns drawn; he was “The Boss” in those demesnes and was going to show me I shouldn’t trifle with him; also known as the “Little Emperor” (Thinking Caligula here)…behind his back, of course. Very different image than the one projected during the recruiting process.

Anyway, back to the house issue; one Saturday afternoon a friend told us about this ranch house in suburban Santiago. In “Las Alturas del Conde”, a nice development some 35 minutes away from the city, into the foothills of the Andes.  The house was described as “cozy ranch style, open and very comfortable”. Sounded like a small house that needed work… and so I said to our friend.

A "street" on Feria Los Dominicos.
Beautiful, made to order traditional items

-“Well, it is a one story, three bedroom house but it has a very large patio, and I’ve been told the owners are willing to add a master BB with a 2 year rental contract”

-“Who own this house?” Simple, logical question, right?

_”Don’t know” she continued, “The realtor has told our friend the house belongs to a trust; she has all the powers to make the rental decisions”

Hmm… not that there weren’t trusts in Chile, their legal system was very sophisticated but, this was not the usual structure for a rental situation. After talking about the house, we were given the name and phone number of the R’nC (realtor in charge). This was left in the hands of my wife; she was the one whose final decision (for a while longer, anyway) would determine if we would take the rental or not. So, she would make the call on Monday and, if everything was OK, a meeting would set up for a visit to the house.

Iglesia Los Dominicos
Las Condes.

The rest of the weekend went by quickly and on Monday afternoon I was informed that we had a scheduled visit to the ranch house on Wednesday afternoon at 3:30pm. On Tuesday afternoon, I actually took a ride into the area and stole a quick glance at the house. My original concerns were fueled up when I saw a couple of armed guards in front of the house; not at a war ready position but, nonetheless present. When arriving at home, my thoughts were somewhat discretionary and said nothing about my findings and concerns to my wife. We would go see the house, as scheduled, and then make some decisions.

The house was an open, L shaped construction, the longer leg of the L facing the street and containing the 3 bedrooms and two baths. The elbow, or corner of the two legs, held the living and dining room, the shorter leg being the storage room, kitchen and live-in help quarters. On the inside of the L, and facing the back part of the house, there was a full covered porch, about 8 feet deep. The new master bedroom and bath, once built, would change the basic form into an open, square “C”, completing another short leg, directly opposite the dining room/kitchen short leg. All this we saw from the plans the realtor brought with her to an initial meeting a few blocks away from the house; in order to actually go inside, she had to call ahead and make “arrangements” so we could go into the house and check it out.  Hmmm… once again…

She called, we went. As we got off the cars, the guys I had seen yesterday were not to be seen outside. We went in and were taken into the longer leg, the one with the bedrooms, being clearly told by an assistant that we could not go into the last bedroom, since it was currently occupied and the person was asleep. This was no problem, since it was, according to the plans, pretty much the same as the other two, just a little bigger.

Actually, the plans did not prepare us for the actual home. It was open, airy and very friendly. The entrance way was bordered by several flowering rose bushes, really beautiful. The construction was that of a typical Chilean open ranch, but definitely with all modern niceties. When we went outside (had not gone to the kitchen yet) the porch overlooked a fairly large backyard, which went to a wooden fence and this fence, in turn, had served as a planting guide many years ago, for what now was a row of 7 huge, gorgeous weeping willows; their long falling branches just swaying lazily in the breeze. In the far back (actually, not that far) the beginnings of the foothills of the Alps gave a grand view. As I was taking this in, my wife went into the kitchen and came back with a somewhat questioning look, telling me there were a couple of uniformed workers there who seemed to have some special tools, probably to make holes in the ground in the back, to plant something or other. OK, I said… then went into the kitchen myself …

A View From the Back Porch...

Well, I guess if they had wanted to open holes in the ground for planting seeds, or other bigger things, they would have had no problems whatsoever… Sitting at the kitchen table were the two guys whom I had seen the day before, with their “gardening” tools at hand; these might be better known in some circles as AK47’s. After muttering a rather restrained “What the H…” I grabbed a hold of the realtor and brought her with me to the outside… once there and after she had a chance to tuck her shirttails back in I asked, very gently I thought…”Where are we and why are these guys here with weapons? “Whose house is this?” She looked at me and just said “It belongs to a government official and these guys are here because his son is using that back room”… Knowing what I did already about local politics, it was understandable to have the hired muscle but, still, it was somewhat unnerving.  We were reassured the guys were only there because the “son” was indeed asleep in that back room at the moment.

Despite this minor incident we went ahead and rented the house, and it turned out to be a good choice. Once the Master was built, it had plenty of room, it was private and very comfortable but… the grand piece… the views from the back porch were just incredible.

Oh yeah… The government official’s name? Gen. Augusto Pinochet; the house belonged to him and his daughter Jacqueline.

Very interesting gardening tools indeed!!

Be Well... Be Back!!