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!
