"Is this real life?!?!??!"

The “in Santiago” part of the “Sophie in Santiago” blog is ending for good in four hours. This is all too big to think about. Since I can’t formulate coherent thoughts right now, I’m going to make a bulleted list of my incoherent thoughts:

• I’ve been planning my study abroad semester since my senior year of high school. Now it is over. I have used it as motivation and something to look forward to since I was seventeen—a semester of break from normalcy. I don’t think that I will be in this type of situation again.
• I will never have this type of experience again—living far away I mean. I don’t see myself ever living in a country other than the US permanently, which isn’t something I could have said four months ago.
• I leave for Brazil in four hours, where I will be meeting and staying with a few random relatives who I got in touch with via e-mail six months ago.
• I took my friends to the airport today—these are people who I have spent every day with (almost) for the past three and a half months. Although I’m pretty sure I will see almost all of them again, I highly doubt that we’ll ever all be together. Except at Kim’s wedding. (Kimi, I hope you still read this.)
• “Is this real life?!?!??!?” (The second most commonly used phrase of our program—after “It’s fine.”)
• There is a strong likelihood that I will never return to Chile. If I do, it will definitely be in a different context—I will be a tourist rather than a student. Chances are it will be in a long time.
• I will not be speaking in Spanish every day anymore (well, really that’s a three-weeks-from-now concern.) It’s pretty likely that if I do, people won’t be able to understand me because of Chile’s crazy dialect. They don’t exactly put “po” after every sentence anywhere else…
• There is a very strong likelihood that I will never see Mercedes again after tomorrow morning. I am trying not to think about this.

I’ll try to post from Brazil, Peru, and will definitely be posting reflections from home. For now, chau from Chile.

Update from Temuco

My new family in Chapod reminds me a bit of my family at home—particularly of my cousins on my mom’s side of the family—in that we basically do nothing except sit around the house, talk, eat, and laugh about everything that comes up in conversation. My host parents, Clorinda and Octavio, are warm, welcoming, and incredibly sweet. I have three host sisters: Loli, who is twenty-nine and has an adorable five-year-old daughter named Belen (she lives about twenty minutes away, but comes over for dinner a few times a week); Damaris, who is twenty-six and studies at university in Temuco; and Jemi, who is twenty and studies intercultural and bilingual education (and has the same love for the strange combination of folk music and rock music that I do). Damaris and Jemi live in Temuco during the week, but come home on weekends to be with their family.

I also have a host brother named Pato, who is, for lack of better terms, The Man. He is thirteen years old and bounces off walls like any other seventh grader, and is obsessed with Green Day. He is one of the happiest and most optimistic people I have come across in my life, which is definitely a good influence on me these days…

The primary school in Chapod is closing its seventh and eighth grade programs next year due to severe underenrollment (there would be 6 eighth graders, 2 seventh graders, and law states that eighth grade can’t be combined with other grades.) As a result, Pato has to find somewhere else to go to school. This wouldn’t be nearly as devastating if there were a school nearby that offered the programs, but the closest schools are an hour away, in Temuco—and Pato would have to be at school before the earliest bus from Chapod could get him there.

So, chances are that Pato will leave Chapod and go to live with his sisters in Temuco—but this gives way to a whole other host of issues: Damaris and Jemi don’t have room in their apartment for Pato, so they’ll have to get a bigger place; Pato will be alone for most of the day, and as a thirteen-year-old will have no one to make sure he does his homework, or cook him dinner, or look after him; the city of Temuco is much more dangerous than little Chapod, and thus Pato, though a mature kid, will be at much higher risk than if he were living at home with his mother.

His parents blame it on birth control. People are having fewer kids, so enrollment at schools is down—and this hurts schools in rural towns. (In a previous discussion, they were advocates of birth control—“If we didn’t use it, think how many kids we would have had!” said Clorinda.) Clorinda is one of ten siblings, which is not rare for her generation—one of my students’ grandmothers gave birth to sixteen children, as I learned from the student’s first composition.

My project has changed significantly since my last post, due to research I’ve gathered and the amazing discussions I’ve had with the students at Liceo Guacolda. I’ve decided to stay there for the rest of the ISP period, and make my project less of a comparative study and more of a qualitative analysis.

I’ve learned a lot of really interesting things in the past week, but I think I’m going to wait to post in depth about my project until it’s done—but what I will say is that the students really seem to be enjoying the workshop, and every day they talk for more and more time. The two writing assignments that they’ve handed in are not only insightful, but incredibly personal—talking about things such as their grandmothers’ frustration with the role they had to fill as housewives to their mothers’ battles with depression (two entries) which is an amazing amount of trust to be given, considering I’ve known these students not even a week. I am eager to read what they write about themselves…

The ISP period has been a lot more work than I anticipated, and I feel bad because I haven’t been able to spend as much time with my family as I wanted to. I am literally spending 4 hours a day commuting (two hours to Liceo Guacolda, two hours back) as well as usually spending about 5 hours a day (if not more) working on the project itself—leading in-class dialogues; reading compositions; interviewing teachers, students, and others; transcribing class sessions, compositions, and interviews; planning for the next day…so I get home at the end of the day, completely spent, eat dinner, work more, and then sleep.

But, as exhausted as I am, I feel that, for the first time since I’ve been here, that I am challenging myself academically; that I am taking charge of my education; that I am doing something active with my time in Chile. I am initiating things, not just observing or taking part in scheduled activities. And I am positive that I am learning more these days—both in terms of Spanish language and Chilean/Mapuche history—than I would be learning inside a classroom anywhere, be it here in Chile or back at Hampshire.

Temuco-Bound!

I'm off to start the final leg of my program here in Chile--I'll be in Temuco for a bit over two weeks completing my project and traveling. I'll be living with a new family with Kim for the first eight days or so, and alone with the family for the rest of the time. I'll have pretty limited internet access, but will try to post when I can.

This week has been full of research. I've been looking up articles on traditional Mapuche education, the role of the Mapuche woman, women in Chile, etc. The two things that stuck out to me the most were a) traditional Mapuche education was discussion-based, and relied heavily on student-teacher and student-student dialogue, and b) 10.5% of Mapuche women are illiterate (as opposed to 6.9% of Mapuche men.)

I'm sad to leave Santiago, but I'm excited to go back to Temuco and breathe the fresh air...

Sophie in Buenos Aires

Last Wednesday, I unwillingly took part in a typical Chielan experience—I was robbed. I was carrying my cell phone in my sweater pocket at a market, felt a tug, looked down, and had no phone. I went to a mobile police unit, filed a police report, and went home. I am completely fine, no worries, but currently phoneless in Buenos Aires…although I am going to buy a new phone when I get back to Santiago.

We are in Buenos Aires for our last two weeks of the structured program, and it feels more like a vacation than work. We have interesting academic seminars, school visits, and educational excursions—more on those later—but we also have significantly more free time than we did in Santiago. It is really relaxing, and a good break for all of us before our Independent Study Projects begin.

I haven’t taken much time to talk about our group as a whole, although it has been a huge part of this experience. Brief overview: there are fifteen of us, fourteen girls and one guy, from all over the US. Hampshire is the only school doubly-represented (go Hamp!) and, although most go to schools on the East Coast, a few go to schools scattered across the Midwest and West. I feel really fortunate that in a group of fifteen, we all get along well enough to go out to dinner together, or to just hang out after class. I’m so happy that it’s worked out this way—that I feel comfortable with everyone, one-on-one or in a group; that I never feel self-conscious about my opinions on education or politics, even though they differ significantly from others’.

It’s really strange that, on November 6th, I will no longer be in this group to which I have become very accustomed, and that, chances are, I will be spending a significant amount of my ISP alone in Temuco. This is both exhilarating and nervewracking, but probably the best thing that will happen for my Spanish language skills.

Since arriving in Buenos Aires, I, along with other people from the group, have started to notice my English grammar and spelling going out the window. I think in English words but with Spanish grammar, for example: “I will go to the house of Kim at nineteen hours” or something like that. And I think about almost all of my conjunctions in Spanish nowadays—so if I come home saying “entonces” (so, anyway) all the time, please forgive me.

Entonces. If Santiago is a South American version of Brooklyn, then Buenos Aires is definitely Upper West Side Manhattan. There are trees and everyone is thin and beautiful. People always say it is very European, which it is—but it really reminds me of the area in Manhattan by Central Park.

I’m really enjoying living with my new host family—it is the polar opposite of living with Mercedes, but it is good just the same. I am living with a single mother, Andrea, and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Agostina, in a relatively large apartment in a nice area of the city. Agostina is studying musical comedy and circus arts, with a focus on trapeze, and is a lot of fun to hang out with. (Tonight I’m going to her dance class, where I will learn the “Thriller” dance!) I’ve met a few of her friends, who are all really nice, and we went to see some of her classmates in a show the other day—so I feel like I’m experiencing Buenos Aires differently than I’ve experienced Santiago. It is incredibly different living with someone my own age—good different, but it’s not that the alternative is bad.

Agostina and Andrea are both out of the house until pretty late at night, so I usually am the first to get home—which is fine with me, it’s just a big change from Mercedes, who is always around. Also, food isn’t nearly as big of a deal here—usually the family just eats dinner together, at around ten p.m.

That’s pretty much all that is going on these days—although tomorrow we will be going on a very special educational excursion, marching with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. We got to sit down for a chat with one of the original founders of the organization yesterday, which was amazing—and I will post about it soon…I definitely recommend reading about them, they are incredible women and their organization is one of the most interesting and influential human rights organizations in the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_of_the_Plaza_de_Mayo
http://www.madres.org/ (in Spanish)

Temuco Reflection

Ever since I’ve known enough to know that Yiddish is dying, I’ve been upset that I have scraped by in life without knowing much more than a schlep and an oy vey. My mom’s parents are fluent, but my mom and her brothers never learned much—and my cousins, my sister and I know nothing. I think the same thing has happened with Mapudungun, the traditional language of the Mapuche people. Parents teach their children Spanish first, because, frankly, it’s more useful in the world—and eventually, the old language is all but forgotten.

Perhaps the biggest surprise that awaited us in Chapod was the lack of traditional Mapuche culture that we had been learning about for weeks. We had been told that our host parents would speak limited Spanish, that Mapudungun would be their first language; we had been prepared to eat typical Mapuche foods, particularly lots of pork and lamb; and we had learned a bit about the Mapuche religion, which is very interesting (more on that later.) However, we arrived to families who no longer know Mapudungun, cook similar food to our host families in Santiago, and are devout Evangelicals.

The Evangelical Church came around a few generations back, and my family swears that it rid the community of some of its biggest problems, including effectively eliminating alcoholism in Chapod. But, with it went the Mapuche religion, and later Mapudungun. Kids now are scraping by with a mari mari (hello) and kofke (bread.) They learn English as their second language in schools, because it’s more of an asset in the global community than their own language. What will their kids have, if this generation is getting by with so few words? Probably the same as my kids will: a memory of a language so far past it seems almost irrelevant.

I see this as a net loss. But I am an outsider, so who am I to judge? I never saw the old ways, so how can I know if I’m idealizing them?

My host dad, Raul, is the principal of the elementary school we visited in Chapod, and a devout Evangelical. The family said or sang grace before all meals, and everyone was very involved in the Chapod’s one church. My host mom, Luci, like most of the women in the community, doesn’t work. My host sister, Mabel, is thirty-two and in her third year of university in the city of Temuco (where she studies music,) and she is very nice and friendly. My host brother, Ruly, was very interesting to say the least. He’s twenty-eight, and also in his third year of university, studying theater. He is one of the founders of a national theater company that educates youth about the four most present indigenous groups in Chile: the Penhuenche in the East, the Picunche in the North, the Huilliche in the South, and the Mapuche in the West. He’s also in a band called Kechu Werken with his cousins, the youngest of whom is thirteen years old…they do covers of Chilean music using traditional Chilean instruments.

In the traditional Mapuche religion, there are two main forces present: el mapun, or the energy of the cosmos, and el chen, human energy and will. Both are present inside each human being, and both have a side that is male and a side that is female. In the Mapuche faith, woman came before man, and thus has a certain power—and 90% of Mapuche religious officials are women called machi, who are healers.

Taking this into account, I was shocked to find a very strong machismo attitude and an everpresent feeling of antifeminism while in Chapod. For the first time in my life, I was very aware of being in a “woman-in-the-kitchen, man-in-the-workplace” culture—and not only this, but a society where the man is valued more than the woman.

They start young. Annick, Lizzie, and I taught an English lesson in a fifth grade classroom of four students—two boys and two girls. The girls said close to nothing throughout the class, while the boys were clearly more animated and charismatic. The girls were shy, reluctant to share their opinions, and hesitant even when asked direct questions. “What do you want to learn about today?” Shrug. We talked about animals. “Do you have cats in your house?” One word answer.

In my family’s house, I saw it as well—my host mom was very timid, and barely spoke above a whisper to anyone. I rarely saw her outside of the kitchen or dining room, except when she was outside collecting eggs from her hens. It was clear that my host dad had all the power in their relationship, and he would oftentimes speak for her. While my host brother and host sister both attended the same university, Ruly lived in Temuco during the week, while Mabel commuted to school every day so she could be home to help her mother with the house.

In the community, even during program-sponsored activities, I saw even more. One activity we partook in was a game of palin, a traditional Mapuche sport which is kind of like field hockey. After everyone from SIT was given sticks, community members, including kids from the school were invited to join…but only males were given sticks. We were then asked to team up, and a ten-year-old girl, Carolina, who I had been talking to asked if she could be on our team, to which I said of course, although we didn’t have a stick for her. So I played for ten minutes or so to be polite, and then I asked Roberto if I could give Carolina my stick so she could play. He kind of shrugged, but gave me the go-ahead…so I gave her my stick and she played in the game.



I still feel weird about it. I feel weird that I asked and feel weird that I had to ask. It’s another big who am I question: Who am I as some gringa feminist, educated at a private college in the United States, raised in a completely different world, to come into Chapod, Chile and give a little girl a palin stick?

Don’t get me wrong though, I had an excellent time in Temuco. It was refreshing to be back in the countryside, to breathe fresh air, and to play soccer in a field where, every once in awhile, a pig would wander by. And, even though I witnessed a lot of things I perceive as negative, I think I’ve gained a lot of insight into a world that I had never even heard of before two months ago. Net gain? Maybe.

Learn to Count to Ten in a Dying Language (Mapudungun 101):

Kiñe - 1
Epu - 2
Küla - 3
Meli - 4
Kechu - 5
Kayu - 6
Regle - 7
Pura - 8
Ailla - 9
Mari - 10

Favorite Photos from Temuco:

Time

I don’t understand time, and I never have. One day twenty-four hours go by so slowly that it is hard to focus, other days speed by so quickly that I don’t know where the time went. Sometimes it’s a combination of the two. But twenty-four hours never feels like exactly twenty-four hours. I’ve never looked at a week and said, “That felt like a week.” There’s always a modifier—“That felt like a long week,” “That week felt like two days,” “I can’t believe how slowly that week went by!” It’s always been “Why is time going so slowly,” or “I can’t believe how quickly time has gone.”

I can’t believe how quickly time has gone. I have been in Chile for over six weeks, now. The first part of our program is finished, and with it our Spanish classes, our seminar at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, our first practicum, and the significant portion of our Santiago homestay.

Tonight, Geoff’s family hosted a big fiesta for all of the students and their homestay families. It was really wonderful to finally meet everyone’s families—and was great to converse with new people—new patient people—in Spanish. And of course, because we’re in Chile, there was a dance party in the backyard—complete with Chilean, American, and British music (at one point “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles started playing), a conga line, and plenty of energy.

Tomorrow night, we leave for Temuco. We will be staying in a community called Chopod, living with one other student and a Mapuche family who may or may not have electricity or running water (and definitely don’t have internet…which will probably be my biggest struggle.) We will be attending workshops on intercultural and bilingual education, human rights, and the Mapadungun language. I am so excited for this portion of the trip—although I hear they eat even more in Temuco, and are still offended if you don’t eat everything. But I am very excited to get out of the city, and be back in the country—fresh air sounds fantastic. Below is a map of Chile—Santiago is in the second red area, Region Metropolitina, and Temuco is in the ninth region (Araucania.)



Also tomorrow night—Daylight Savings Time. As of right now, Chile is in the same time zone as New York, but beginning tomorrow we’ll be two hours apart (New York moves forward, Chile moves back.) As I said, I don’t understand time.

Catch-up!

I realize that I haven’t been posting as frequently as intended, and thus haven’t had time to write about a lot of important things—so this is essentially a catch-up post…

Fiestas de Patria

Fiestas de Patria, the Chilean Independence Day festivities, basically consist of a full week of festivals, parades, and parties, which were fun, but very tiring. Tracy and I went to one of many military parades over the weekend, where Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile, led all of the armed forces in a march around Parque Bernardo O’Higgins:



Everyone gets very into Patria; municipal schools and public universities are closed for the week, asados (barbeques) are on every corner (barbequed pork is the “official” food of Patria), kids and families dress up in traditional costume. Mercedes loves Patria, and we went to a fonda (fair) to watch the National Cueca Competition:

It surprises me that people who went through such horrible things at the hands of their country are still so patriotic. Mercedes proudly displays the Chilean flag on her balcony; it is the largest present in the apartment complex.

Sickness and Homesickness

I’ve been feeling kind of sick lately, which has put a damper on things. I’m exhausted most of the time, which is problematic when I want to go out at night and explore the city, but all I can do is sleep! Plus, a lot of things are going on at home and at Hampshire that I wish I could be there for—as in, protesting the prospect of Hampshire College turning into “Hampshire University” straying away from liberal arts education, as well as just really missing my friends and family a lot. Skype is great, but it’s hard to not be able to give people hugs through the computer. Don’t get me wrong, though—I’m having a great time here.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso is, without a doubt, the most colorful city I’ve ever seen. Murals adorn every wall, and the colors are reflected in the ocean and beautiful beaches. The people even wear more color than they do in Santiago!



(Alex surrounded by murals)

Our group visited two schools in the Valparaiso area—both municipal schools. The first we saw was an all-female technical school, Liceo Tecnica Feminina, where students complete a general track the first two years, and select one of five foci the last two: childcare, senior citizen care, design (like graphic design, but most of the time computers aren’t used), textiles (essentially sewing), and cooking. (Childcare and cooking are the most popular.) Of the 1,100 students in the school, 100 are mothers and 60 are currently pregnant. We spent a lot of time talking to students in the childcare program (four of the twenty-five or so students in the room were mothers, one seventeen-year-old had two children already) and discussed post-graduation goals, life in Valparaiso, and got many suggestions on what kind of food we should eat while there. I spoke in detail with four students, Tamara, Alexandra, Isabel, and Anjelica, who all said that they were happy to attend Liceo Tecninca Feminina, although some mentioned disappointment that the school wouldn’t prepare them for university (the school does not offer the standardized testing necessary for university acceptance, nor does the curriculum cover all of the material required, due to technical programs.) Tamara and Alexandra both wanted to be preschool teachers, and Isabel and Anjelica were interested in careers in education, as well. They had each spent a week working in a special school for children with autism, and had enjoyed that—Anjelica wanted to work there for awhile after she graduated in December.

The second school we saw was a municipal elementary school in a rural town an hour outside of the city. What surprised me the most was the contrast between this school and the rural schools I had seen in Nicaragua. I guess I had a preconceived notion of what education in rural farming communities was—but this school was actually very “modern.” They had an abundance of materials, innovative special education integration programs, school gardens, and small class sizes (16 students in a class with one professor, although the levels were mixed (first and second grade in the same classroom, third, forth, and fifth, etc.)) Even though we went to the school on a Saturday, three students and one alum (who was now in high school) came to talk to us, and all were very happy with the school. The principal was very welcoming, and took us on a tour of the school’s five classrooms, explaining along the way different types of intelligence, how the school has no violence, and how every graduated student is bussed, for free, to the closest high school a few towns over.

High Holy Days in Santiago

On the morning of the parade in Parque O’Higgins, Tracy and I went to Rosh Hashannah Services at Comunidad Isrealista Sefardi de Chile, a conservative Sephardic synagogue in a Santiago suburb. When we arrived at the gate, a security guard started talking to us, and we explained that we were exchange students who wanted to attend services for Rosh Hashannah. He then began to interrogate us: When did you get here? How long are you staying? Where are you from? What is your home synagogue? What movement? etc. We handed over drivers’ licenses, student ids, and cell phones (so they could confirm Tracy’s homestay.) Two women, who breezed through security with tickets, apparently complained to the president of the congregation that there were two gringas outside who weren’t being let in, and she came outside to chat with us. She was really kind about the whole ordeal—she explained, slowly enough for us to understand, that this was just a security precaution and she didn’t want us to feel unwelcome. As they were scanning our IDs, we talked for a bit about what we were doing in Chile, our home synagogues, and the fact that she was the first female president of the synagogue, where women still can’t read from the Torah. All in all, this ordeal took about forty-five minutes, but it was worth it—the president then walked us into the synagogue, helped us find seats, and invited us back for Yom Kippur.

Getting into the synagogue for Yom Kippur was much easier—they remembered us, and let us and our two other friends breeze through security. The Kol Nidre service was beautiful and incredibly moving. The rabbi began by asking us to put our arms around the people next to us, and there was something really special about having one arm around Susannah, a college student from the US, and the other arm around a random middle-aged Chilean woman, while the rabbi sang the blessing over the talit. The music was incredible—there were no instruments involved, just voice—and the rabbi and three cantors sang everything in a four-part harmony (with help from a choir during Kol Nidre.) I don’t consider myself to be a very religious person, but it was very comforting to be sitting five thousand miles away from home, singing songs I’ve grown up singing, in a language that isn’t English or Spanish, even if I don’t believe in all of the words.

Those are pretty much the big things that have been going on here. Tonight, Mercedes and I made strawberry jam and are going to begin a new puzzle of Pablo Neruda’s house in Valparaiso (I didn’t write about that before, but we went to La Sebastiana, and it was beautiful—by far my favorite of Neruda’s houses!) We have a lot of adventures planned for next week, which I’ll write about as they come along. It’s hard to believe that our time in Santiago is almost up—we spend most of October traveling, and then I’ll be spending most of November in a rural community in Southern Chile. Then December will roll around and I’ll be coming home. Time is going so quickly, and so slowly at the same time!

A Long Week

I think my least favorite part of being a language learner is the miscommunications that are inevitable in almost every conversation. Luckily they're usually small, such as putting something back in the wrong place, or saying somethign grammatically incorrect which changes the meaning of the sentence--but later turns into a funny joke. However, when it's a combination of linguistic and cultural miscommunications, things tend to turn very stressful very quickly.

I had a great time with Mercedes, her daughter Caty, and her grandsons Nestor and Camilo last weekend in San Antonio. A really great time, in fact. But when Mercedes said we’d be returning to Santiago “early on Sunday, around ten,” I assumed that we’d be returning early, around ten—am. Because of this, I didn’t bring any of my homework with me, and when I realized my mistake on Sunday around noon, I began to get a bit stressed. Luckily I was able to call a friend, who gave me the homework assignments that I could do without my materials, and I was able to complete some of the work before late that evening—and luckily Mercedes understood my frustration and we left a bit earlier, and arrived back home early, around eight (pm.)

Regardless, San Antonio was fantastic. It’s a beautiful city in general. It is a coastal city; and generally poor—most of the people who live there are artisans or fishermen, although Caty is a psychologist. But color is everywhere—in the houses, in the vegetation, in the clothes the people wear. In the morning, I taught the boys how to make panqueques gringos (pancakes) which was a blast, and later I tried to teach them how to play Go Fish, but Nestor didn’t really get it and Camilo kept cheating (I think it’s a general truth that kids will try to cheat you when playing Go Fish. They always do…) Later, we went to a seaside market where literally hundreds of pelicans and sea lions perch and wait for tourists and fishermen to throw them food. It was an incredible sight:



This week has been very busy, but in a good way—full of interesting and fun things. Tuesday was Ana’s birthday, and we had multiple celebrations. In the middle of Spanish class, the two levels joined together to carrate (party) with a special lunch topped off with delicious chocolate cake. We sang Cumpleanos Feliz (Happy Birthday) about thirty times before getting it right, and then proceeded to sing and dance to other songs we’ve been learning in class. That night, went over to Ana’s house for empanadas and pisco sours. (There are three things every Chilean drinks: black tea, Coca-Cola, and pisco sours. I feel like I have been talking a lot about pisco sours and need to explain: they’re one part pisco, one part lemon or lime juice, and one part sugar. They’re really delicious.) Ana’s family was really sweet, and I’ve heard a lot about them, so I was excited to finally meet them. It was interesting, also, to see the different environments in which we’re living—Ana lives with her host mother, her mother’s boyfriend, and two younger siblings (aged four and two years) in a large house in Nunoa, a suburb of Santiago. Needless to say, this is a very different situation than mine—Mercedes and I live in a small apartment in the city, and life with two kids under the age of five is pretty much the exact opposite of a very calm, one-on-one environment with a sixty-eight-year-old.

On Wednesday, I went with Mercedes to a meeting of the Writers’ Society of Chile (she’s a member there) and was invited by the professor to participate in that day’s workshop. The topic: nonverbal storytelling (perfect for Spanish language learners!) and a lecture on Pablo Neruda (perfect because he's a Chilean writer I've actually read!) Everyone spoke really slowly, as many writers tend to, so I was able to understand pretty much everything that was going on, although I had problems expressing my own thoughts, as usual. It was incredible—it was only me and a bunch of published Chilean writers telling stories with our bodies, and then verbalizing them, and talking about what we saw in others’ work. I have a feeling that this will be one of the more memorable events of my stay in Santiago, and I hope to attend at least one more workshop before I leave--hopefully I'll be able to write in Spanish by then!

Wednesday night, Roberto invited all of us over to his house for dinner and, yes, pisco sours. We got there at 8:30, and dinner wasn’t served until after midnight—but it didn’t matter, because we actually got to meet and talk with Chileans our age. Roberto’s sons and nephews were there, and they introduced us to some of their friends, and we danced and chatted with them, and each other, and Roberto’s parents (who are completely adorable—they performed the cueca and a tango number for us.) No one left until 1:30 am. I was one of the first people to leave, and felt incredibly lame, but I almost fell asleep in the cab, and didn’t get home until about 2. Luckily, class on Thursday didn’t start until 11, so I was able to get some shut-eye…

Today began Patria (Independence Day) activities, and they’ll be continuing throughout the weekend, so I’ll post about that soon. I will say, for now, that I ate more food today than one ever should in twenty-four hours, and that I tried pork for the second time in my life (l’shana tova!)

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!

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.