The US in Chile

Roberto, our Academic Director, likes to say that Chile is a country of contradictions—a mix of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, climate ranging from tundra to the tropics.

One comparison that’s been apparent to me in the past few days has been one of great cultural pride contrasted with significant Americanization. I wasn’t really expecting Chile to be too Americanized—I figured it had its own history, its own culture, and had been warned that the general sentiment was pretty anti-American (although I later learned this applied more to the Bush Administration than to Americans in general—and people here tend to like Obama.) Besides, I figured, Chile is one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America, so it had no reason to idolize the US as a place of prosperity. So I was surprised to come here and find that I could only buy American brands of shampoo and toothpaste.

Santiago is scattered with McDonald’s, Burger King, and Starbucks franchises—although at McDonald’s, they serve avocado. TV shows from the States (such as the Suite Life of Zack and Cody, the Fairly OddParents, and That’s So Raven) are on television all the time. I took a cab to a neighborhood called Nunoa to meet some friends, and Radar by Britney Spears was playing on the radio. (Digression: the cab company was able to understand my location and where I needed to go! Success!)

Our class went to visit a colegio (primary school, first grade through eighth) on Friday for our first “educational excursion.” The school was located in La Victoria, a poverty-stricken area of Santiago with an amazing view of the Andes mountains. The school boasts academic excellence in a community ridden with drug abuse, alcoholism, and neglect.

The kids danced the cueca (a traditional Chilean dance) for us and then asked if we knew the Jonas Brothers. They showed us their math and reading workbooks and their Hannah Montana pencils. They shared drawings of Winnie-the-Pooh and his friend Igor (Eeyore.)

The biggest sense of Chilean pride I’ve seen thus far is that of support for La Roja, the Chilean futbol (soccer) team. Yesterday we played in a World Cup qualifier game, and everyone in the entire country (or, everyone in our program and their homestay families) watched us tie with Venezuela 2-2. This was a huge problem, as Chile is ranked #2 in Latin America, and Venezuela #6—and the country is currently in recovery…but we’re playing Brazil on Wednesday (ranked #1) which should be an exciting match.

But pride is also evident in smaller ways—for example, yesterday it rained excessively, and Mercedes and I cooked sopaipillas, which are little cakes made from squash dough and covered in honey and orange peel sauce. “It’s tradition to cook these when it rains,” she told me, “so when we go to the supermarket there probably won’t be a lot of squash left.” When we got there, there was some squash, but not a lot—so I guess it didn’t matter that we were surrounded by Hellman’s mayonnaise or Coca-Cola. People all over were making sopaipillas and sitting at home and watching the game.

(I have taken a lot of photos and posted them on Facebook—so if we’re not Facebook friends, you can check them out here.)

New Things

I started out thinking it was only my mother, then I thought it was Jewish mothers, but now I’m beginning to realize that it’s just mothers—wherever you go, mothers always try to feed you.

This has been slightly problematic since I’ve been here. I don’t eat that much—or rather, I eat a lot, but I eat small things throughout the day and don’t usually sit down for big meals other than breakfast. But that doesn’t exactly fly here—where there’s culturally very little breakfast, a huge late lunch, and a big dinner late at night (10:00). And there’s very little snacking.

Mercedes packs me a lunch every day for school, and it is always delicious—but huge. Yesterday, I was literally given enough food for three meals. Mercedes made this incredible stew, and I ate as much as I could, and gave the rest to other people in the program who didn’t bring lunch or wanted to try it, so I wouldn’t have to throw anything away. It’s harder when I’m at home though—I always try to ask for small portions, but at the same time I really don’t want to be offensive. As soon as I finish, there is always pressure to eat more: Are you sure you don’t want something else? Eat something! You don’t eat enough; you’ll get too skinny. And it’s not just Mercedes—her niece came over the other day and kept handing me cookies. I would say no thanks, but she would literally ask every two minutes if I was hungry…so I just kept eating them. I guess it’s good that I walk 30 minutes to and from class every day…

Classes are moving along this week—it’s been getting a bit easier every day, but it’s still pretty difficult to understand what everyone is saying. We have three hours of Spanish class in the morning at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, and then we come back to CasaSIT (our school building) for our thematic seminars. Spanish class is going well; I’m learning a lot very quickly. The thematic seminars begin on Monday, but we’ve had introductory lessons about the history of education in Chile, and I felt completely lost. Luckily, a bunch of my classmates felt the same way and we went over everything after class—in English. I kind of felt like I was cheating, but I’d rather leave with a full understanding of the material.

Everyone in the program seems great so far. The other night we all went out to dinner after class, ordered random items off the menu, drank delicious Chilean wine, and got to know each other. Everyone is so interesting! Our academic directors are great as well, and they make it very easy for us to ask questions (we all think that they secretly speak English and are just very good liars!)

The other night, I did something that I’ve been warned against by my parents and friends and the program directors—I walked home from CasaSIT alone in the dark (I left around 9:30, after our dinner.) In my defense, I tried to call a taxi, but when I called they couldn’t understand what I was saying, or my location, so I gave up. I thought I’d be walking half of the trip with Jackie, one of my friends from the program, but it turns out we took different routes, and only walked together for about four blocks. I wish I could say the experience it was liberating and empowering, but I was pretty nervous the whole time. My nerves made me feel incredibly sexist more than anything else. I tried to walk where there were other women walking, and was always more on edge when a man was walking behind me than a woman or a group of men and women. I guess it makes sense, but it was just a bit disheartening to realize that I’ve given in to thinking this way. Anyway, I made it home just fine, although hopefully my Spanish will improve enough so that cab companies can understand my location…

On a more positive note, Mercedes and I have been working on two New York City jigsaw puzzles for the past week, and we finished them last night! Mercedes is awesome at puzzles. Pictures:

(Mercedes is on the far right, with her niece Sandra and her great niece, Marcela)

(Mercedes and the wonderful finished product!)

Home!

I’ve officially moved into my new home here in Santiago! I’m living with a woman named Mercedes, who is in her sixties, in her apartment in Santiago Central (downtown Santiago.) Mercedes is absolutely wonderful. For the past two days, we’ve been walking around Santiago and she’s been showing me interesting places and how to get around the city. I am her eleventh homestay chica, so I think she has this whole first-few-days thing down.

Mercedes is a really incredible person—besides being a wonderful homestay mom, she is a writer (she has written a novel, a memoir, and a lot of unpublished poetry (although one of her poems is in an anthology), a mother of four and grandmother of nine, and a political and human rights activist. She has an amazing story, although I don’t know all of it—I do know a bit about her husband, Ivan. Ivan was a socialist, and was assassinated by the government in 1973, about ten days after Pinochet took over. Mercedes was left alone with three young children, and was still pregnant with her youngest son at the time (or he had just been born). This is the subject of her memoir, and I really look forward to reading it one day when my Spanish is good enough. (I’ve been looking for a link to the book, but I can’t find one. I will post when I do.) I know that she’s still very politically involved, which is exciting because there’s a big presidential election coming up in December, and I’m very excited to learn a lot about the political situation here. Even with this background, Mercedes is very upbeat and happy—she laughs a lot, and is very kind and patient with me and my poor Spanish skills.

Yesterday, when we were walking around, we saw a wedding and sat in on the ceremony…I felt a bit like I was in Wedding Crashers, but in a completely benevolent way. It was a really beautiful ceremony, and I understood bits and pieces…and the bride and groom were very happy. This was the first first wedding I’ve been to—the rest have been second weddings—so it was really exciting. Mercedes kept joking that we should put on party dresses and follow the guests to the after party!

Today we walked around for a bit and saw one of Pablo Neruda’s other houses—turns out he has three: Isla Negra, the one we saw as a group a few days ago, Las Caschona, here in Santiago, and Sebastiana, which is in Valparaiso, a bit north of here. (As a side note, Las Chascona was the nickname of Neruda’s third wife, Matilda, and it has something to do with her crazy curly hair…I’ve finally found a word to describe the texture of my hair! It doesn’t translate very well, though, I don’t think.)

I had my first big Spanish challenge today—trying to buy a phone card to call home. I still have no idea what happened in that exchange, or how to use the card, but I do know that I can’t use it to call the States and that it cost 5,000 pesos (a bit less than $10.) Thank goodness Mercedes was there to help out with that one. I have my Spanish placement test tomorrow morning, and I’m a bit nervous…but I figure that whatever level I wind up placing in I’m going to improve a whole lot. Even over the past two days I felt strong improvement, and I’ve been learning a lot of vocabulary.

That's all for now! I have internet in the apartment (it was less challenging to get WiFi internet for my computer than a phone card) so I will probably be posting more frequently than I thought! Buenos noches!

Por Fin, En Chile!

Hola, todos! I am blogging now from a very colorful hotel room in Algarrobo, Chile, a small town about an hour outside of Santiago. We are right on the Pacific ocean, and the beach is beautiful…but the weather is way colder than I thought it would be. According to my Celsius-Fahrenheit converter it is currently 73.4 degrees outside, but that is a lie. It feels like it’s about 50, and we’re all bundled up in sweaters and hats and crowded around a space heater. But regardless, things here are great, and I am very happy I chose to spend my semester here in Chile.


I am going to backtrack for a bit and talk about the process of actually getting here. After spending all day Tuesday trying not to vomit from nervousness, I woke up on Wednesday morning incredibly excited to leave. With one notable exception with a bank issue and a near-breakdown mid-afternoon, I was ready to go, ready to get on the ten-hour plane, and ready to begin this semester-long adventure. Essentially I was sick of the nerves, and knew that as soon as I got here they would go away.

As soon as I got to the gate, I began chatting with two other girls from the program and the Miss Universe contestant from Tanzania (who is not on our program, but was waiting for a plane at our gate). All three were very nice and easy to talk to! It turned out that the other two girls (as well as most of the people on the program) have the same worries I do, which was comforting. The two (Lizzie and Kim) were actually two of the only people from the program who I had really spoken to before, so it was funny that we were all on the same plane.

The actual plane ride wasn't horrible, but it was ten hours overnight and I didn't exactly sleep. But I did watch Grease in Spanish, which was fantastic--although the songs were in English, which was disappointing.

The past two days have been filled with orientation and getting-to-know-you activities. It's really fascinating, because even though everyone involved in the program is interested in the themes of education and social change, our specific interests lie in completely different areas. One girl is interested in bilingual education and speech pathology, and another is studying peace studies and thinks that education is a clear route to peace, and another is interested in human rights in indigenous communities. We’ve been speaking a lot of Spanish during orientation, although we’re still speaking English to each other. My Spanish is better than I thought, but still not great, so I’m excited for that to begin improving. And the food is delicious!


Interesting Facts I Have Learned about Chile in the Past Two Days:

• Chile has fifteen separate regions, two of which are very new.
• Chile is one of the most developed and one of the wealthiest countries in South America; however the rich/poor divide is among the worst in the world (it comes in 10th place). It is as follows:
  
  • The richest 20% of the country has 64% of the country’s wealth
  • The poorest 20% of the country has 3.2% of the country’s wealth
  • The poorest 40% of the country has only 9.6% of the country’s wealth.
• Chile is the world’s largest producer of copper
• 10% of the current Chilean population is Mapuche, an indigenous people who live in a region in Northern Chile
• Under Allende, Chile was a socialist country, and offered many socialized programs. But after the coup de 1973, Pinochet changed the Chilean constitution to change the role of the state to a subsidiary of programs (such as educational programs) rather than a provider.
• Chilean gas is imported from Bolivia, via Argentina—so it is very, very expensive.
• The Jewish community in Chile is one of the largest in Latin America, but it's very much unseen. Chile isn't very religious in general; although it is technically a Catholic country, the majority of the people--particularly those in Santiago--observe Catholicism as tradition rather than belief.
  
• The concept of sexual harassment is very new in Chile—the only law in place in the country was instituted in 2005, and only deals with boss/employee relations. (Can you tell we had a discussion about sexual harassment and machismo?)
• Chileans speak very quickly.

After orientation, the group took a trip to Pablo Neruda’s house. It was amazing for two main reasons: first being the obvious, it was incredible to see where he sat and wrote his poetry and came up with his ideas; and the second was because he was absolutely insane and collected everything. We have a store in the town where I grew up called the Eclectic Collector—and I swear it must have been inspired by Neruda. He collected, among other things: masks, pipes, miniature models of guitars, alcohol bottles, ships-in-bottles, and seashells.


Tomorrow we will meet our homestay families, and I am very excited. Right now I have very little information about my family, so I will post about them when I know more. Hasta luego!

Four Days and Counting

I am writing this post from a hotel room in Chicago, where I will be spending the next few days hanging out with my family (my mom's side) for the last time before my Chilean adventure begins. Wednesday was my grandma's 75th birthday (happy birthday, Bubbe!!) so we're all gathered here to celebrate and spend some time together before we all go back to different parts of the world. It's funny, because seemingly everyone in my generation on this side of my family is beginning something huge right now--three cousins are entering new schools (high school, college, a new college), my sister is applying to college, another cousin is applying to law school; there are new jobs, new apartments, and big trips planned--so I am in very good company in terms of feeling the whole dichotomy of nerves and excitement.

I would say that my biggest worry at this point is being away from my family for so long. I know that five months isn't really that long, but thinking about it, it feels like ages. (Five months ago, I was just returning back to Amherst from Spring Break--I don't even remember what I did!) I know that when I go away I will be missing things. If my sister applies early decision to a college and gets accepted, I will miss the entire college application process. I may be happy to miss out on all the stress, but there is a very strong possibility that I won't be there when she gets her first acceptance letter, and I probably won't be on the other end of an immediate excited screaming phone call, either.

Even at school, I talk to my parents almost every day. I know it's odd for a twenty-something, but I don't feel any need to break the pattern. Unfortunately, I'll have to learn to settle for weekly phone calls and as-frequent-as-possible e-mails for a bit. I've set up a Skype account, and my dad bought a webcam yesterday, so tomorrow we're going to figure out his Skype...which should be interesting. (If anyone has Skype, leave me your username in the comments section and I'll add you!)

Big target of nervousness #2: Today while waiting in the airport, I was trying to do one of our reccomended reading assignments. It is a very interesting article by Cristian Cox about the changes in Chile's educational system from the 1980s to about 2000 (a PDF can be found here). However, it is all in Spanish--and it took me over an hour to read the two-and-a-half page introduction. I have twenty pages to go, and this is just one assignment. It's been like when I was trying to read William Faulkner--I read the same sentence over and over, I look up words, I reread the sentence to make sure I understand, and then I reread the sentence before it to make sure things make sense, etc. Fortunately, I understand the articles I'm reading now more than I understood Faulkner--but still it's a struggle to finish. And I know I'm in for a semester of intense readings such as these. I hope I have some free time.

Random Things I Will Really Miss From the US When Abroad:

• The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday New York Times crossword puzzles
• Cheeseburgers (ironically)
• Q104.3's Twelve O'Clock Beatles Block
• Law and Order: SVU nightly marathons
  
• Hour-long phone conversations where absolutely nothing is spoken about

I am excited, I swear--the excitement's just being overshaddowed a bit right now by the crazy-nerves.

Itinerary

August 26: Depart from JFK, 8:00 PM
August 27: Arrive in Santiago, 6:50 AM
August 27-31: Orientation in Santiago
September 1-October 4: Homestay in Santiago, classes & seminars in Santiago, local excursions and 3-day trip to Valparaiso
October 5-12: Excursion to Temuco
October 13-17: Workshops and preparation for Argentina
October 18-November 1: Homestay in Buenos Aires, seminars & workshops in Buenos Aires, Independent Study Project (ISP) preparation
November 1-31: ISP in Chile, somewhere
December 1-8: ISP Presentations and final retreat
December 9: Program ends. Fly to Uruguay? Brazil?
December 9-20: Time in Uruguay? Brazil? Argentina again? Not sure. Wind up flying to Peru on or before December 20.
December 20-30: Peruvian adventure with Mom
December 30-January 3: ??????? New Year's in Peru? New Year's in Nicaragua? Travel somewhere new?
January 3-January 17: Nicaragua, hopefully.
January 17: Fly back to NY from wherever I may be
January 24: Arrive at Hampshire for Spring Semester

Nine Days To Go!

As the countdown of days until departure rolls into single digits, I am getting to be more nervous than I anticipated.

Things I am Nervous About:

• Being away from the people I care about for an extensive period of time. Not seeing my best friend for a year (she's doing Spring and Summer abroad in China). Not talking to my family regularly.
• Living with a new family, adjusting to their rules and the mores of Chilean life.
• The Spanish. I'm not nearly fluent enough--communicating is going to be difficult for at least a few weeks.
• Still nervous about accidentally breaking some cultural taboo unintentionally and winding up offending someone...
• Post-program travel. Do I really want to spend two months traveling around after three months away?
• The required readings are difficult--which means that classes are going to be difficult. Which is fine; I enjoy an academic challenge. But the fact that everything's in Spanish complicates things a great deal.
• Grades, tests, and the possibility of lecture classes. I've been away from those things for a long time now, and I'm not looking forward to getting back to them. I don't want to become ridiculously competitive over grades, but I want to do well. I feel a lot of pressure to get all As, because these grades will be some of few that will show up on my Hampshire transcript--and I want grad schools to be interested enough in me to read my evaluations. As for tests--I get quite anxious about them, and am very unpracticed in both the actual test-taking and the studying beforehand. I'd rather write a paper.

Things I am Excited For:

• Travel. To see five new countries, and return to one that is home away from home.Meeting new people. The people I've spoken to from the program seem really nice so far, and I can't wait to meet them face to face. Meeting my family in Uruguay and Brazil.
• To finally be fluent in another language.
• My independent study project--I'll write more about this after meeting with the Academic Director in Chile and getting everything approved.
• Classes. To learn new things that I wouldn't have the opportunity to study in depth in the US.

This should really be a Venn Diagram--there are so many overlaps.