[Chile] best emails ever

[I wrote this on November 30th, and for some reason didn't publish it.]

More awesome messages from my friend at school that I feel compelled to share:

If I understand right, you're in Chiloé, and I'm envious. I imagine you are eating every strange thing they give you, and taking photos like a delinquent.

Since Christmas is coming, I would like a gift from there, but something specific. It could be a freshly made curanto [seafood stew], but as it would arrive cold, it's better that I ask for the following. Go get a pen and paper, it's detailed.

[instructions for the vegetable-dyed wool yarn I'm supposed to find]

I want to make myself a scarf or necklace of wool, and your support of my cause would be an act of mercy in my life. Here's a link so you know what yarn looks like and you don't bring me a sheep: http://lamagiadechiloe.blogspot.com/2008/05/lana-teida-con-vegetales.html

If you can't buy the yarn, you can leave me 5 dollars to buy my Christmas present.

I sincerely hope you're having fun in the South of my daydreams. Enjoy it for me, and post lots of photos.

I don't miss you and it's good that you're gone, and your profile photo is horrible.

And then today, in response to this photo:

I saw the photos, and your "mystery plant" is called nalca, and it grows in damp places. On my family's land, it grows by the shore of the lake, and has a taste like an acidic apple, and they make chicha [a sweet alcoholic beverage] from it. (Don't drink chicha down South there, you won't remember your name, or you might think you're kissing the pincoya [Chilote female water spirit] when it's actually a sheep.) The plant is good for salad, or to eat solo with salt if you're really, really hungry.

Please keep publishing photos, and I will be a tourist from my chair.

The mystery plant is Chilean rhubarb, Gunnera tinctoria (unrelated to real rhubarb).

I do have good friends.