me and my friend Derek
Our Group
Outdoors goes ANDES!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Happy Birthday to Me!
This is it. My last day as a teenager. So last night I decided to write down a list of things I didn't know about myself (or knew very little about) before these 3 weeks here in Chile. They are as follows:
1. I love eggs. Love them. Even when they're all running and gooey and gross looking. I was skeptical the first time I was served a fried egg here, and now I day dream about them. Seriously.
2. I have really missed eating meat. I'm with a mostly vegetarian family but we eat meat now and again, and I eat it whenever it's offered. I love being a vegetarian. I love how it makes my body feel and everything about... But jeez oh man, I am a carnivore.
3. I like to run. (This I discovered at camp right before Chile...) It's just so great! I haven't gotten sore or injured yet! (fingers crossed.)
4. I can get homesick too. -- #1 symptom of culture shock. I think this would be less of a big deal for me if I were coming home in December like everybody else, but I'm staying until July. I think the cold weather might also be figuring in to all of this. There are some nights where I think about what I'd be doing on a warm Asheville night.
5. I like the United States. I've had a good public education and I've lived my entire USA life thusfar without being robbed, assaulted, or nervous, really, about my location. Thanks, gringos.
6. I could live the rest of my life without central heating. It's a luxery, granted, but doing without it is completely doable.
7. I'm starved for an artistic outlet. I want to get back into writing/drawing/music/anything! Being surrounded by paintings/painters/artists around Valparaiso is really nagging at me to get my creative juices flowing.
8. I have just about the most anal pinky toes in the world. I can no longer wear any shoe without them hurting. What's that about? They huuurrrt, Charlie!
9. I feel strangely at home in the places I would claim to despise the most. Explanation: There's a huge supermarket (4 stories) called "Jumbo" (rhymes with Roombo) -- which is essentially set up like Walmart. Who knew that the smells of a supermarket, the sting of fluorescent lighting, and the bulk materialism would EVER give me comfort? Ever?! And those of you who know me well know that I hate Walmart and supercenters like it. How strange!
10. I could dance and dance and dance all night long. Ok, this I knew. I've being going to tango classes, salsa, meringue (sp?), etc and I've even gotten to semi-perform some swing. More on this when I have more time. I'm late to my salsa class!
When I post again I'll be 20! Tomorrow I'll spend my birthday snowboarding on the beautiful Chilean slopes. Wish me luck!
For those of you who are frustrated with my lack of posts/emails, I do not get consistent email access. What I post in here is typically what I write in my journal. If you've emailed me questions, I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible, but that may be a little bit longer than you expect. I'm doing my best though! Cheers!
Monday, August 10, 2009
"To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know."
-The Poisonwood Bible
Dad, this quote made me think of you and your speeches. Perhaps you can incorporate it sometime.
One thing that I haven't been able to get over is how much I am stared at everyday. I'm so clearly a foreigner because of my light blue eyes, my "blonde" hair, and the way that I walk and dress. I'm not used to standing out. This is funny because one of my friends is an American who grew up in Thailand so he feels weird when he comes to the states and he doesn't stand out. A few days ago I was in the back seat of my neighbor's car on the way to the local market, and the man in charge of showing us where to park looked in the window and said to me, "Que lindos ojos tienes." -- What pretty eyes you have. Yes, this is taken as a compliment but it also feels like a target placed right between my eyes. It's immediately obvious when Americans/foreigners are walking around on the streets. I don't remember being this conscious of being a stranger in Argentina, but then again I was much younger. I live in fear of taking out my camera, my purse, even my metro pass, believing that someone is watching and waiting to snatch it from me. These fears spawn from the stories I've hear from my host mother and from Carlos, the man running our program, talking about friends who've had their cell phones ripped out of their hands, and people whose backpacks have been snatched right off of their backs. Thus, when I'm carrying my computer I wear it in front of me with a clasp buckled behind (the advice of my host mother) so that if someone tried to grab it, I'd go down too. But it's pretty embarrassing because I attract enough attention just being an "estadounidense" or a "United Stator", but when I tromp along like a timid pregnant woman, I really draw eyes. Oh well, anything to be safe and to not lose anything more! These precautions may seem extreme but one of the first things they did to the exchange students when we arrived was to sit us down and scare the pants off of us with stories of a past exchange student getting roofied and leaping from the window of a strange apartment, wearing nothing but bed sheets and breaking her leg. Pues, I've been duly lectured. So now we're all terrified to even go out at night.
It's good that we've had the pants scared off of us because now we know to be about as cautious as all of the Chileans. But just as the Chileans do, it's important to stay calm and to live. If we let the fear of being robbed/assaulted cloud our minds without having immediate personal experience (I'm not counting my experience), how the heck are we going to live here at all!? So we have to live as we would, just with a little voice in our ears telling us to be cautious.
I feel like I've maybe painted a scary picture of Chile for those of you at home reading this and thinking that I should high tail it on out of here (Mom.) Nope, I'm just documenting what is immediately on my mind, and how it feels different. I start classes today! This doesn't feel like I'm really in college. Things will start rolling along soon.
The classes I have are:
- Spanish Communication and Chilean Culture
- Communicational Strategies: Grammar and Composition
- Phonetics
- Latin American Literature
- Cultures in Contact (a class with half North American students, half Chilean students, in search of the similarities and differences between the cultures)
Most days I don't have to be in class until 12:45pm. Wonderful.
Friday, August 7, 2009
So there's this super cute cat here in my host family's house. She lives outside on the patio, but doesn't actually belong here. She has just been staying for a while because we feed her. SO CUTE. I wish she could stay but Yoly says she'll be leaving soon because we can 't have another pet in the house (we already have the dog, Columba.) Ian loves the cat and is always secretly letting her in to play with the ball on a string that we made for her. She's still very much a kitten (several months old) and will play with anything you show her, from the fringe of my scarf to my stationary foot. Yoly thinks she's adorable as well, but realizes we can't keep her. She buzzes whenever you acknowledge her existence. Yoly doesn't like that she "hace caca en el patio. Phewwww!" She loves to sit under our drying towels and bat at them until they fall down. Columba (the cute golden-haired dog) is currently at Yoly's daughter's house, so I'm glad to have "la gata" hanging around to love and pet on.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
¡Por fín! ¡Estoy en Chile!
Prepare yourselves for a long entry.
First of all, you always tell yourself that unsafe things only happen to stupid tourists. And when I believed that was true, I obviously didn´t know what it is like to be bombarded with people speaking Spanish to me all at once, asking me where I was supposed to go, and did I want a taxi? Ok, so it all happened like this. I was supposed to meet a bus driver from the University of Viña del Mar to pick me up and take me safely to Viña. But I wasn´t sure when I was supposed to meet him because of all the confusion the day before. And apparently there was a very important email that I didn´t see at all until yesterday, which could had solved all of my problems. Anyway, I walked into the main area of the Santiago airport looking for the bus driver. It was about 9:30ish in the morning. I was approached by a very official looking man who carried a walkie-talkie, like all of the other men who worked at the airport. He asked me where I was supposed to be and I told him I was waiting for someone. He said, very convincingly, well, it looks like they are not coming to pick you up. The fact that maybe they would forget me was already on my mind because I was arriving a day late without all of the rest of the international students. So he offered to use his cell phone to call Alejandra (the woman in charge of my program.) He dialed the number and proceeded to act like he was speaking with her (Alejandra told me yesterday that he never actually did get a hold of her.) Then he told methat there had been a change in plan, so to speak, and that I needed to take a taxi to Viña del Mar. All of my instincts were screaming at me to go back to the main terminal, but then he motioned for me to follow him and started to walk swiftly towards outside with one of my suitcases. Of course, I had to follow him. Trust me, I knew this was a bad situation, but I was thinking, (just as he wanted me to think) well, if he spoke with her and there WAS a change of plan and no one is coming to pick me up, I do need to take a taxi. So he asked me how much money I had and I showed him. He said, no that´s not enough. You need to withdraw from this ATM. At which point he had me go to the ATM and withdraw the equivalent of $400. (WAY too much for the taxi ride to Viña, but it´s easy to confuse foreigners because the currency exchange is so different.) I didn´t understand how much it was, it was so confusing and happened so fast. Then he paid the taxi and I was on my way to Viña del Mar, to be dropped off at the University.
What I didn´t know is that there are TWO universities that are part of la Universidad del Viña del Mar. So when we arrived at UVM and there was no one waiting for me, I knew I was up shit creek. The guards at the university were very confused about my arrival and didn´t know who to call because they didn´thave cell phones and for some reason their land line couldn´t call Alejandra´s cell phone. Eventually I found the number for my host mother and was able to call her and have the guards tell her where I was. They sent a man with a baby in the back of his tiny carto come get me and take me to Yoly´s (my host mother´s house.) So finally, around 2 in the afternoon, I arrived at my host family´s house, safe and sound and in one piece (but with significantly less money.) In hindsight, it was SO obvious that he was scamming me. I feel so freaking stupid to have fallen for something like that. I spent the entire taxi ride assuming that I was going to die. That I was going to be mugged, raped, and killed somewhere on the side of the road in Chile. I´m just glad that I´m safe now. And boy have I learned my lesson.
In lighter news, my host family is practically perfect. I live with a woman named Yoly (Pronounced jo-ley), who is a vegetarian astrologist painter who meditates. She also loves identifying trees, drinking tea made from herbs from her garden, and eating chocolate. Perfect. She has an 18-year-old son naamed Ian who is the definition of a gentle soul. He´s an animal person who loves math and his mother. Their relationship is so sweet! Also with us right now is Lucho (Yoly´s brother) and his girl friend Pili (sp?) and Yoly´s niece, Juanita. Yoly´s dog is named Columba and she loves to get under my covers at night and curl up next to me. This morning when I got up I tried to pull Columba out to make the bed. I made the bed and took a shower, and when I got back there was a very cute Columba sized lump in my bed. ¡Que linda es!
One of the other exchange students (Reneé) lives just a few houses down, so we´ve pretty much done everything together. We had a fun time going through the mall searching for pantuflas (slippers) for me. I have such big feet that not even male slippers would fit me! But I found some super cheap ones yesterday at a shop on the street.
I had my oral and written Spanish exams yesterday and I feel like they went very smoothly. I´m already very confident with my Spanish, for the most part. I feel like I can communicate most things. The part that I´m trying to work on is to disguise my accent and speak with confidence so that taxi drivers and other shop owners won´t take advantage of the fact that I´m a foreigner and overcharge me (very common.) The hard part is trying to understand people who don´t enunciate at all. For example, when I was buying my slippers yesterday, the shop owner was a Spanish speaking Asian man. I thought, how unfair! It is difficult enough to understand Spanish, but with an Asian accent it´s almost impossible!
I like Chile very much, especially my host family. I´m here, I´m safe, and I´ve learned a big lesson in taking serious precautions towards safety. Lucho is a martial arts instructor... I´m going to try to get him to teach me some self defense moves. I know that anyone who reads this is likely to think, "Gosh, how stupid is she? Talking to and giving money to strangers?!" But seriously, you never know until it´s hapening to you. Trust me, me siento como una gringa más estupida que un saco de rocas.
¡Chau!
First of all, you always tell yourself that unsafe things only happen to stupid tourists. And when I believed that was true, I obviously didn´t know what it is like to be bombarded with people speaking Spanish to me all at once, asking me where I was supposed to go, and did I want a taxi? Ok, so it all happened like this. I was supposed to meet a bus driver from the University of Viña del Mar to pick me up and take me safely to Viña. But I wasn´t sure when I was supposed to meet him because of all the confusion the day before. And apparently there was a very important email that I didn´t see at all until yesterday, which could had solved all of my problems. Anyway, I walked into the main area of the Santiago airport looking for the bus driver. It was about 9:30ish in the morning. I was approached by a very official looking man who carried a walkie-talkie, like all of the other men who worked at the airport. He asked me where I was supposed to be and I told him I was waiting for someone. He said, very convincingly, well, it looks like they are not coming to pick you up. The fact that maybe they would forget me was already on my mind because I was arriving a day late without all of the rest of the international students. So he offered to use his cell phone to call Alejandra (the woman in charge of my program.) He dialed the number and proceeded to act like he was speaking with her (Alejandra told me yesterday that he never actually did get a hold of her.) Then he told methat there had been a change in plan, so to speak, and that I needed to take a taxi to Viña del Mar. All of my instincts were screaming at me to go back to the main terminal, but then he motioned for me to follow him and started to walk swiftly towards outside with one of my suitcases. Of course, I had to follow him. Trust me, I knew this was a bad situation, but I was thinking, (just as he wanted me to think) well, if he spoke with her and there WAS a change of plan and no one is coming to pick me up, I do need to take a taxi. So he asked me how much money I had and I showed him. He said, no that´s not enough. You need to withdraw from this ATM. At which point he had me go to the ATM and withdraw the equivalent of $400. (WAY too much for the taxi ride to Viña, but it´s easy to confuse foreigners because the currency exchange is so different.) I didn´t understand how much it was, it was so confusing and happened so fast. Then he paid the taxi and I was on my way to Viña del Mar, to be dropped off at the University.
What I didn´t know is that there are TWO universities that are part of la Universidad del Viña del Mar. So when we arrived at UVM and there was no one waiting for me, I knew I was up shit creek. The guards at the university were very confused about my arrival and didn´t know who to call because they didn´thave cell phones and for some reason their land line couldn´t call Alejandra´s cell phone. Eventually I found the number for my host mother and was able to call her and have the guards tell her where I was. They sent a man with a baby in the back of his tiny carto come get me and take me to Yoly´s (my host mother´s house.) So finally, around 2 in the afternoon, I arrived at my host family´s house, safe and sound and in one piece (but with significantly less money.) In hindsight, it was SO obvious that he was scamming me. I feel so freaking stupid to have fallen for something like that. I spent the entire taxi ride assuming that I was going to die. That I was going to be mugged, raped, and killed somewhere on the side of the road in Chile. I´m just glad that I´m safe now. And boy have I learned my lesson.
In lighter news, my host family is practically perfect. I live with a woman named Yoly (Pronounced jo-ley), who is a vegetarian astrologist painter who meditates. She also loves identifying trees, drinking tea made from herbs from her garden, and eating chocolate. Perfect. She has an 18-year-old son naamed Ian who is the definition of a gentle soul. He´s an animal person who loves math and his mother. Their relationship is so sweet! Also with us right now is Lucho (Yoly´s brother) and his girl friend Pili (sp?) and Yoly´s niece, Juanita. Yoly´s dog is named Columba and she loves to get under my covers at night and curl up next to me. This morning when I got up I tried to pull Columba out to make the bed. I made the bed and took a shower, and when I got back there was a very cute Columba sized lump in my bed. ¡Que linda es!
One of the other exchange students (Reneé) lives just a few houses down, so we´ve pretty much done everything together. We had a fun time going through the mall searching for pantuflas (slippers) for me. I have such big feet that not even male slippers would fit me! But I found some super cheap ones yesterday at a shop on the street.
I had my oral and written Spanish exams yesterday and I feel like they went very smoothly. I´m already very confident with my Spanish, for the most part. I feel like I can communicate most things. The part that I´m trying to work on is to disguise my accent and speak with confidence so that taxi drivers and other shop owners won´t take advantage of the fact that I´m a foreigner and overcharge me (very common.) The hard part is trying to understand people who don´t enunciate at all. For example, when I was buying my slippers yesterday, the shop owner was a Spanish speaking Asian man. I thought, how unfair! It is difficult enough to understand Spanish, but with an Asian accent it´s almost impossible!
I like Chile very much, especially my host family. I´m here, I´m safe, and I´ve learned a big lesson in taking serious precautions towards safety. Lucho is a martial arts instructor... I´m going to try to get him to teach me some self defense moves. I know that anyone who reads this is likely to think, "Gosh, how stupid is she? Talking to and giving money to strangers?!" But seriously, you never know until it´s hapening to you. Trust me, me siento como una gringa más estupida que un saco de rocas.
¡Chau!
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