Two Dark Days

     This week, both the United States and Chile observed September 11, a day with historic and tragic significance for both nations. In the U.S. we saw the 12th anniversary of an attack on our nation. Chile did as well, but their dark day was far less recent, happening over 40 years ago. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean government was overthrown in a violent military coup which resulten in the bombing of their capital building and the subsequent death of their president. After that day the country was put under the leadership of a militaristic dictator whose regime was responsible for the death and torture of thousands of Chileans and lasted nearly 20 years.
      From what I've seen, the day is remembered differently by our two cultures, but at the same time we share some similarities. For the United States, it is a day remembered, for the most part, quietly, even sadly. It is a day for a moment of silence and reflection on the pain and loss our country has suffered as well as respect for those who have helped to save and protect it. Recently, however, the idea of September 11 has been changing in the U.S. The day seems to be changing into one of action rather than mere reflection, encouraging voluntary service, and improvement of our communities and our nation.
     In Chile, September 11 is viewed both similarly but with some profound differences in the demonstration of these views. There are quite a few who look on the day with the same sort of quiet respect we see often in the United States. Many vigils are held, candles can be seen popping up in various locations, and people just a seem to carry themselves with a bit more reservation. However, just like in America, there is also a need to take action that can be seen by some. Protests. Riots. Expressions of a longing for change and progression, demanding compensation for the travesties of their past and the problems of the present. Anger at the suffering they endured. Since the death of the former dictator Augusto Pinochet a few years ago, these acts of political frustration have become less and less common, but they're still a part of the culture.
     Perhaps what is most...concerning about the Chilean reaction to this dark day in their history is that it's growing less and less. From my conversations with locals, with each year, there are fewer vigils, fewer protests and fewer people showing their remembrance. One of my professors was upset that the Chilean national soccer team had a match that day because it was a very clear manifestation that people were no longer viewing it as a day to remember, and are even celebrating other things.
      I mean, I can't say that it doesn't make sense. It was forty years ago, fewer and fewer people are around who it directly witnessed the day, though many suffered the effects long after. However, a country, just like a person, can't be asked to stay in mourning forever, and it makes me wonder how the United States will view 9/11 thirty years from now. Will we too begin to forget? Have we already? It also makes one question what is the right response to such events. Is it good/right to remember and act as we do forever and how does one move on from such atrocities as these? I guess we won't know until it's happened, but it's definitely a subject that deserves serious attention. All we can now is that now, we still feel the pain of loss and will for some time, and should continue to remember this day for as long as it feels right to us, not being hindered by the facts of the past, but not forgetting their importance and effects as we create our future.

Chilean Snacky Snacks (Vlog)

Again, the thingy isn't working, but the YouTube video of my latest vlog is now public! :D Yay. You can check it out here if you'd like.

Identity Crises

      So over the past few years, I have undergone a slight name change. For all of my primary and secondary school life I was known as Danny. I never DREAMED anyone would call me Dan, mostly because I only knew a few Dans and they were mostly old (or older) men. I had a hard time imagining the name for myself. However, when I went off to college, it just sort of...happened. I wasn’t sure how to introduce myself. Danny, suddenly felt really childish but I still sort of stuck to my preconceptions about Dans and Daniel felt altogether too stuffy. I didn’t know what to go with. In the end, I wasn’t the one who made the decision, it was the people around me. Some people started called me Danny, since that’s how I introduced myself for the first week or so. Others (probably the majority) naturally switched to Dan. Soon I found myself not thinking of Dan in a stuffy and old way, but began thinking of Dan as me. I don’t have a problem with Danny, I accept that there are some people who just know me as that, and it’s totally fine.

      However, in Chile, I’ve had yet another identity crisis. Dan is not a name her. It’s a verb. It means “they give.” Daniel IS a name here, but the way you pronounce it in Spanish is more or less “Danielle” (dah-nee-YELL or sometimes even dahn-JELL) which I have a hard time accepting as my name. I know that they use “Daniela” for Danielle, but still. It feels weird. There are also those who call me Danny which seems better, but I know that in their heads they probably spell it “Dani” since that makes most phonetic sense in Spanish, so again, the female version. It’s not a massive problem and it’s one that I’m quickly becoming accustomed to, but it’s difficult when meeting new people to have to introduce yourself with a name you don’t recognize. 

     I think it’s because names are very important to people. Without even thinking about it, we find ourselves assigning so much meaning to such small things as names. It helps us to define people and to make them easier to access. It’s such a common thing, we rarely take the time to think about what a name really is and what they really do for us. Without names we’d have a much harder time telling stories, relaying messages, even thinking about people because names help us distinguish people from one another in our own minds. It helps us to categorize and to recall information. So when the word you use to define yourself changes, it’s not a problem, it just takes some getting used to.

     So as I adjust to a new culture, I’m learning to adjust to a new name. It’s one of those little things that you didn’t think you’d have to deal with, but comes with the territory of being somewhere totally new. A territory that, with each passing day, seems to have another life lesson for me to learn. 

Duped. (Vlog)

So, I posted a new video blog. If you have interest in it click THIS link. I'm not sure why it's not letting me post it in the video window like last time. But it's not...so....just click it.

Erorrs.

Okay. So it's been about three weeks? Four weeks? I'm losing track. But in the time that I've been here, I can already tell that I'm learning more and more Spanish every day. However, you know what they say: "You learn from your mistakes." If this saying is true, then I should be a master at Spanish by now, because with these three or four or however-many weeks, I've made quite a few fantastic fumbles. So today, I'd like to share with you five of the follies for which I've fallen in the past four fantastic but failure-filled weeks:

1: "Two by Two" or "Like a Polaroid Picture"
One of my biggest problems when speaking Spanish (and occasionally in English) is that I will confuse  two words that sound very similar. For example, one when I was describing a situation from my Traditional Dances of Chile class to one of my Chilean friends, I wanted to tell her that we all had to get into pairs for a dance we'd learned. However, the word "pareja" meaning "pair" has slipped my mind and had been replaced by "pájaro"...meaning bird. So I told her that we all got into birds and started the dance. When talking with the same friend, later in that conversation, I was trying to ask what the word "shimmy" was in Spanish. She didn't recognize the English word, so I tried to explain in Spanish that "It's when you shake a part of your body. Like when you shake your shoulders" However, "hombros," the Spanish word for shoulders, is quite similar to "hombres" the Spanish word for men. So I explained that "It's when you shake your body. Like if you shake your men." Of course she thought this was hilarious and asked if it was common in the U.S. to get into birds and shake men.

2: "Greener Please!"
The following is not a problem I have with Spanish, but with the Chilean accent in Spanish. The language is more or less the same as what is taught in America (though with a few different words here and there), but understanding Chileans is especially difficult because they speak very fast and very slurred. It's not uncommon in the Chilean accent to drop final syllables of words or to take an "s" in the middle of a word and exchange it for a short exhalation (which may or may not be audible). This is what I assumed happened when one day my host mother asked if I could pick up some bananas on the way back from class. I agreed I would and then she added what I thought was"Necesitas comprar bananas mas duro." Translation: You need to buy harder bananas. This made sense, I thought since if you didn't want to eat them for some time it would be better to get greener ones so that they don't spoil right away. On my way back from class, I stopped by the market near my metro stop and bought one thousand pesos (about $2 USD) worth of the greenest bananas they had. When I got home and presented the verdant fruits to my host mom she gave me a strange look. "No te dije que necesitas comprar bananas mas duro?" (Didn't I tell you to buy harder bananas?) "Sí," I responded, "Pero esos fueron todo que tendieron." (Yes, but these were all they had). "Ah ya. Pues, la próxima vez compras unos mas duro." (Ah yes. Well, next time buy harder ones.) I was confused at this point. These were pretty hard and pretty green as well. So I asked, a little astounded "¿¿Más verde??" Then I realized what she'd been saying when she repeated it again, "No. Maduro!" Maduro means mature or ripe. I can't say that mistake is totally my fault since their accent does set the precedent for such errors to be made. Still, it was a rather humbling moment.

3: "You trust them how much??"
Some of our idioms in the U.S. carry over to other countries. Some do not. Occasionally I'd been trying some out in Spanish to see what did and did not translate. I don't do that anymore. Not since I once said, "I trust him about as far as I can throw him" (though the translation was probably much rougher). But then I learned. You don't say that. You just don't. "To throw someone" apparently means something ENTIRELY different here in Chile. Entirely different. I've stopped testing our phrases against theirs in common conversation now.

4: "Do you happen to have an artichoke?"
Sometimes, even I've learned that I confuse some words, the words keep mixing themselves up in my mind. "Enchufe" and "alcachofa" are two that do this for me still. I know that enchufe means outlet or plug-in. I also know that alcachofa means artichoke. That still hasn't seemed to stop me from embarrassing myself when asking café workers if there's an artichoke I can use for my computer.

5: "All in the family..."
Okay. This is one of the first mistakes that I made while speaking with my host family. And it's a big one. We were sitting around the table and they were asking me basic questions. Where am I from. Where do I go to school. What am I studying. Then someone asked how big my family is.  I was trying to explain that there were five people, me, my parents, and one brother and one sister, so I said, "5 personas. Mi madre y padre, y una hija y un hijo"
"¿Hijos?" My host mother asked
"Sí" (Yes)
"¿De tú?" asked my host brother. (Yours?)
"Claro que sí. Son mis hijos" (Of course. They are mine.)
I was fairly confused at this point, but so were they. Until my host mom repeated, more emphatically:
"¿Hijos?"
Then it hit me. Hijos means children. Not siblings. Hermanos are siblings.
"NO!! No! Hermanos! Una hermana y un hermano!"
Everyone laghed. I did too, though more uncomfortably than the others.

Aaaand that was how I met my host family. Good first impression, I think. Just a 20 year old with two kids who he's willing to leave for 5 and a half months. Glad that one got cleared up.

Anyway, this has been a fairly common occurrence in my life in the past 3-4 weeks and I've been trying to keep track of the best (and worst) mistakes I can find from both myself and from others. It's reassuring when I talk with some of my other foreign friends and find out that they've been making similar mistakes. Like what I'm doing isn't so dumb, and is just a natural part of the process. However natural and normal it may be, I hope this phase doesn't last for too much longer since I'm starting to worry what might unwittingly come out of my mouth next.

Things I've Learned from Non-Americans

I did not come to Chile to speak English, however, not surprisingly, my native tongue has still been a major part of my communication since I've spent a good deal of time around Americans. We can understand each other. We can joke, have fun, explore, etc. But, more and more and more I've been spending time with people who aren't from the U.S. Many of these people are Chilean, obviously, but there are also quite a few students from other countries studying in Chile at the same University as I. Since they don't speak English and I don't speak their native language, all we have is Spanish. They say it is extremely important for us, as people trying to learn a language, to practice it in every day situations. They tell us that that is how we learn the most. Well, through my talks with some Non-Estadounidenses (Spanish for American), my Spanish has improved, but I've come to understand some very interesting things:

1. I don't speak Spanish with an American accent. I'm not quite sure how this can be true, but on numerous occasions, Chileans and other non-U.S.-ers have commented that I don't sound like other people from the States. I sound more like someone from Germany. Something about my R's. As Americans our R sound is very flat (Rrround the rrrough and rrrugged rrrrocks, the rrragged rrrascal rrrrrudely rrrrran), but in Spanish, the R is pronounced as either a rolled R (imagine a cat purring if you don't know what this sounds like), or, the more common version of the R is a sort of soft "flipped R" which sounds more like a gentle D (if you're confused, welcome to my life). Apparently, it's very difficult for most Americans to make this distinction and to reproduce it in their speak, especially early on. However, I have been told that I have it down. However when you remove that aspect of the American accent, but keep many of the other features of it, it results in what can be confused as a German accent. I guess. I don't really understand it to be honest, but my host family, an older Chilean woman who shared a collectivo with me, a group of French students, an even a German student have commented that they thought I was German. So...yeah. Weird, right?
2. Americans think that everyone else thinks more poorly of them than people actually do. I, for some time now, have been given the impression that all other countries look down on the United states. However, in my talks with non-Americans, I've found that, generally, that is not the case. Now, it IS true that we could use a little PR help in some aspects of our image. There is  a strong impression that Americans don't know geography, which, for many is probably at least sort of true. (Wanna prove me wrong? Point to Burundi on an unlabeled map. I dare you.) There's also a stereotype that we are too trusting in our government, also probably mostly true. Also, some Chileans are of the impression that Americans are (to put it lightly) "a tad easy". However, many of the things I thought they'd think about us, don't seem to be as prominent. For example, they recognize that there are SOME obese people in the states, but they don't think we're all fat and lazy. I was also afraid I'd run into the preconception that Americans are all loud, annoying, over-privileged, and brutish (because I was led to believe that that opinion exists) though two things seem to disprove this. First of all, some (not all) Chileans can be very loud themselves. Very loud. Very. The second and perhaps stronger proof against this that I've found is that the first way any non-American has described their idea of Americans is that we're generally friendly, quick to share our things, easy to smile and friendly, though perhaps a bit naive. When talking some new French friends of mine, they explained to me that the general consensus of the states has been improving, but even at it's worst it wasn't all that bad. We're seen, as one French student put it (in Spanish), the U.S. is like a "bastion of capitalism" that other countries look to and admire. I was first of all a little surprised to hear the word "bastión" in Spanish, but secondly surprised that the general consensus is so positive. I have to say, I'm okay with it, though I still want to prove the more negative stereotypes wrong.
3. Swearing is the first part of learning a new language...I guess. I know when I started learning Spanish (back in Grade School) a few of the kids had learned some...saltier Spanish words. The secret words spread through the Fourth Grade class like a virus until everyone knew which words to avoid saying...or which ones were perfect for certain circumstances. In Chile, things seem no different in this regard. One of my host brothers only speaks minimal English. Most of his English lexicon consists of the swears. F's and S's and B's and even a few C's spew from his lips like a fountain of foul-mouthedness. When I first encountered the French students whom I've mentioned a few times in this post, one of them was swearing in perfect English. I assumed he was American but realized the truth when I started a conversation in my native tongue. I'm not sure I can give a definitive rationale for this phenomenon, but I can't help but be reminded of young children who accidentally stumble on the perfectly horrible combination of syllables. They don't REALLY know what they're saying, but they know it gets a reaction and that's funny or entertaining or something. It's not so much the intent of the words that they care about, it's the reaction. Except unlike babies, these people DO know what they're saying (more or less), and it's far less cute.

I'm sure that as my experiences delving into a new language continue, I'll come across more of these unexpected and rather surprising discoveries. I suppose it's not so surprising that I'm learning things, but the surprise is what I'm learning. Before going to Chile, I was prepped with all sorts of information. I felt like I knew all that I could about going and that when I got here I'd learn about Chile and Spanish and Latin America and stuff like that. Little did I know that I could learn about myself and where I came from in the process.

Learning Experiences Part 2: Failure

Monday, July 30, 2012. Viña del Mar, Chile. 8:17 AM
     I woke up with a start. I had that feeling, you might know the one, where you open your eyes and instantly know something is off. That feeling that its lighter than it should be when you're supposed to wake up. The one that lets you immediately know you've overslept. I looked at my small black alarm clock on the nightstand next to my bed. "8:17," it read. Two minutes after my first class in Chile had started. Wonderful. I changed. Made sure my hair wasn't a birds nest. Grabbed my things. Quickly explained in to my host mother that I was late and wouldn't have time for breakfast. I ran to the corner,  hoping the right collectivo would pass by soon. A minute or two later I hailed the right cab and hopped in, 500 pesos in-hand to pay the driver, and requested to be dropped of at the university.
     Finally having a moment to sit down in the collectivo, I realized that something else was wrong. My face felt weird. And my stomach. And my head. "Oh great," I thought to myself, "I'm sick aren't I?" Sure enough I was sniffling the whole way to the college, my throat felt like it'd been thoroughly scrubbed with sandpaper, and my head was pounding something horrible.
      When I finally arrived at the building. I had a very difficult time finding my room. My class was in G 4-1 meaning the Gimpert Building, Floor 4, room 1. However, the Gimpert building shares an atrium with another building (which I don't know the name of, but it's initials are RC). So it's very easy to accidentally go to RC 4-1 instead of G 4-1 and then realize you're in the wrong classroom, and have to excuse yourself sheepishly. Once I finally made it to the room I was about 20 minutes late. Though, as we found out in orientation, Chilean classes are a bit more chill about this since they, as with most of Latin America, don't care so much about punctuality. So despite what would be terrible tardiness in the U.S., I wasn't even the last student to arrive to class. In the end there were five of us in that class. I was the only Gringo. Because of the small class size, the professor expected us all to respond individually to his questions. This made me feel very stupid. Normally I can understand most people when they speak Spanish, or at least catch most of what they say. Not in that class. The students especially spoke with very, very mumbly, thick Chilean accents. I was struggling to keep up the whole time, and my illness wasn't helping me focus at all.
     When the class finally ended and I felt sufficiently miserable about myself I had about an hour between classes, but my second class (one which I wasn't very interested in and which I was fairly certain wouldn't transfer as useful credits to my home university) was all the way in Viña del Mar, a good 45 minute drive or so from the main building and offices of the university so I tried to get there in plenty of time. I went to the information desk and asked the men there how I could get to the building I needed. I showed them my documents and they confirmed that the classroom I needed was in the building I'd presumed. They instructed me to buy a ticket from the cafeteria for one of the University's busses that go between the two locations. They told me the bus came every ten minutes or so.
     I followed their instructions to the letter.  I bought a ticket (which cost me about twenty cents, American), I went to the place they told me to wait, and I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. And I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. And I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. For about 30 minutes. By that point I KNEW I was going to be late for class. I went to the International Studies office across the street and confirmed that I'd done everything correctly. They said I had and that a bus should be coming. So I went out into the semi-warm of Chilean winter and waited for the bus some more. When it didn't show up for another 15 minutes I walked to the nearest metro station (only 2 blocks away) and took the train home. I knew that I'd probably end up dropping this class anyway since it wasn't very useful for me. I'd only signed up because we were instructed to sign up for more classes than we could take, since in the Chilean university system, it is normal to take tons of courses then trop them. This was one of my backups in case another class didn't work out.
     The train ride was short and I trudged back to my house, getting a little lightheaded from a couple of the uphill stretches and quickly arrived back in my bed. I took a long nap, and felt significantly better afterward. It was one of those moments when I remembered a few of the things I'd been told.

First from orientation sessions: Interchange students often get sick when arriving to a new country, especially when switching between north and south hemispheres. The stress on one's body is often too much and it will force you to rest it. I saw it happening all around me, but assumed I'd be immune. I wasn't.

Second from previous students I'd talked to: The first three weeks are the worst. I don't know if they meant of the whole trip or of classes, but I'm hoping that was bottoming out there. Everyone I've talked to says the first few weeks are just confusing and stressful, but somewhere around the 3 week mark, everything really clicks and begins to make sense on a consistent basis.

Third from my dad (that fountain of wisdom): He emailed me the following quote from C. K. Chesterton this week (without knowing what was going on in my life at that moment): "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." It doesn't make the sickness go away, but it makes it more bearable. It's another piece of the adventure. I mean you can't have anything exciting without a little bump along the way now and again.

    It's been an oddly disappointing feeling, especially after I thought I was doing so well. Though it wasn't the fact that I was having a problem that bothered me quite as much, it was the particular issues I was having that got me down. I knew I'd have some difficulty with the language but I'd hoped I'd pick it up faster (though I have to keep reminding myself I've only been here barely two weeks). And as for getting sick, I thought that if I'd have a "bump in the road" while on an "adventure" in South America that I could at least manage to have a little more interesting difficulty than the common cold and being late for class. I mean, I'm not asking for any more misfortune (since as  my friends can attest, it seems to find me regardless), but I guess I'd imagined the problems being something a bit more adventurous, like having to face a criminal warlord while trying to decode the last clue to find the sunken ship my new friend's ancestors had lost (yes I recently saw "The Adventures of TinTin," why do you ask?).
     So I guess what I've learned from all this is that (A) no matter how good things seem, they can turn around in an instant (with one flip of an alarm's switch), and (B) adventures of all sizes should be embraced, be it a big or a small (though you might not want to share the small ones as much as the big ones, since to be honest, they don't make for very interesting reads. In fact, I'm surprised you've gotten so far in this blog post) So, here's to adventure. Here's to changing outlooks on life. And here's to whatever combination of the two might be just around the corner (waiting to smack you in the face with a baseball bat).

P.S. I realized how dumb I was sounding part way through there and had to quickmeme the situation #firstworldproblems
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qdcrj/

Learning Experiences Part 1: Success

This weekend was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Where to begin. Friday maybe?

Sure, we'll start there

      Friday: After we finished up with our final orientation sessions and registered for classes (hyper stressful!) our program director, Lizette took those of us who were interested to a youth group meeting at her church. We arrived to find the praise band singing and it was a really great time.
      Then was the message. It was also good, but less so. Not because it was bad or boring or wasn't relevant or anything. I'm sure it probably was. I just couldn't really understand it. I mean, it was in Spanish. It was fast. I tried my best. I didn't get it. I felt better when the other Americans couldn't either. I understood it was about time because he kept saying "tiempo." That was about it. We got a quick summary from our director later who explained it was about how our timing and God's timing are sometimes very different. Afterwards there was a quick meeting of some of us exchange students and the youth leaders. After this, some of us Americans and a few of the Chilean youths went out to eat  at, where else, McDonalds.
      I ordered "Mac Nooguts" as they call them and fries. The McDonald's was actually really nice for a McDonalds. Maybe foreign ones are like that. I don't know. I don't visit overseas American fast food chains all that often. Anyway, as I went upstairs to join the group. It was such a good time. We were laughing and talking. We got along like we'd known each other for years. Everything was clicking. Translating was easy when it was so natural. For those of you who have learned to speak another language, may you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that when learning a language, at first you have to hear in one language, but think in your native tongue. This is how it's been for me most of my Spanish-speaking life (about 8 years I think?), but that night I wasn't hearing Spanish and having to translate in my head to what it meant in English. I heard in Spanish and it just was in my head in Spanish. And I could respond without thinking my response in English first, translating, then sending it through my face hole. It felt like all my years of Spanish studying had finally come to mean something. I was elated.
     I was especially happy, because that night, I understood my first real joke in Spanish and, for the first time, made a joke in a foreign language. Now, when I say joke, I don't mean the formal type that follow the lines of "A [blank] walked into a bar..." or "What do you get when [blank]," What I mean, is I added a piece of humor to our conversation. Now for those of you who know me personally, you might understand why this is so important for me. Being able to make jokes and be humorous is a HUGE part of how I communicate and form relationships with people. I feel like if I weren't able to joke with people, they wouldn't be able to understand who I really am. It's exciting and encouraging to know that I'm sort of regaining this ability.
     Later that evening, my friend Christina and I were heading back to our homes in the same neighborhood when she, apparently in as good a mood as I, said, "You know, I think I'm starting to love it here." I couldn't have put it better. We had walked the few blocks from the McDonalds to a main central plaza where we could hail a collectivo to our homes. We navigated the city like pros. This place, like the language, was beginning to feel less foreign and more familiar.
     The next day was a glorious relief. The week up to that point had been scheduled to bursting, with seemingly every minute packed with some thing to do or another. But on Saturday, there was nothing. I slept in. Walked around the city a bit. Chilled. It was great. That afternoon I received a text on my new phone. (Oh yeah, I have a phone here now. It's super simple, no camera, no full keypad, just the necessary buttons to call and text. Since most Chileans use a pay-as-you-go plan it's super cheap to own too, which is especially nice.) It was one of the Chilean girls from the night before. She said a few of the exchange students were going to go to her house that evening to watch the first two Christian Bale Batman movies. I agreed (of course) and later that night found myself yet again in good company.
     At one point in the evening, after we'd finished "Batman Begins" and then agreed that we didn't really want to watch the next one that same night, one of our American friends, Jordan, found a spider on the ceiling. It was kind of small and dark brown with long spindly legs. It descended from its perch on the rough white ceiling and began to descend slowly on a strand of silk. Jordan, being a brave individual who likes creepy things like spiders was about to reach for the spider to pick it up and play with it. I've always kind of admired people who can do that. I can't. I hate spiders. I think they're interesting to examine. But only when dead, under glass, or online. Anyway, as he reached out, several of the Chileans exclaimed "Araña de Rincón!" Directly translated, this means "Spider of the Corner," and Jordan didn't seemed bothered that this spider had come from the corner and didn't really flinch.
     Because of my (somewhat) irrational fear of the eight-legged monsters, had Googled "Chilean Spiders" before the trip, just to know what I'd be up against here. There are numerous spiders in Chile, but only a few really notable ones. There is the Mouse spider, The Chilean Rose Tarantula (I didn't even have the courage to open the wikipedia page on that one, thinking that some things are better left unknown), and the Chilean Recluse Spider, or as it's known in Spanish: La Araña de Rincón. It's a more deadly cousin of the North American Brown Recluse Spider, and can cause necrosis of the skin around the bite, leading to possible tissue and muscle death which can lead to gangrene and may require amputation of the affected area. It's also been known to cause death in several cases due to renal failure or other complications. So basically it's horrible. And he was about to touch it.
      Knowing this, I calmly looked at him and stated, "WAIT NO THATS A POISONOUS SPIDER ITS THE CHILEAN RECLUSE IT CAN KILL YOU OR TAKE SOME FINGERS DON'T TOUCH IT." That did the trick. We killed it with two placemats. Ever since, anything that brushes against me or moves in the corner of my eye causes me to flinch. And I have to check under my covers every night, just to make sure there's not some vengeful relative of the dead arachnid, looking to seek revenge (What? What do you mean I let my imagination run away with me?). We had a fun time the rest of the evening though, playing Dutch Blitz, a semi-obscure card game I had grown up with and was apparently fairly popular in Chile (who knew?)
       On Sunday church was good (the music was great, while the sermon, yet again, lost me). I talked with my parents that evening and went to bed early. Classes would begin the next day, and I had a class at 8:15. I knew I would want to be early and there on time. I made sure my alarm was set to the right time and switched the on/off switch on the top of my small batter powered alarm clock so I'd be ready for the next day. I fell asleep quickly and slept soundly, calmed and reassured by my recent progress and the relaxing and fun weekend that had just ended.

Regression and Return

      Here are the steps to how we, the students of the International Studies Abroad program in Valparaiso, Chile, reverted to what can only be described as "a preschooler-like state", and how with one big bang we all came back.

1: The Language - We, much like preschoolers, are only just learning finer points of the language being spoken around us. Most of us can hold a basic conversation, but with some difficulty. Our words are disjointed, we make huge grammatical errors, we often have to ask what some bigger words mean, and our attention span for the language has severe limits. I've heard many people admit (myself included) that after listening to someone speaking rapid Spanish for a few minutes, we have a hard time staying focused on understanding what they're saying, and after a while longer, the translating parts of our brains shut down entirely. This has made the big people explaining things very confusing and has led to our dependence on them for lots of things, especially reminding us of where we have to be and when.

2: Host Mothers - As with preschoolers, we don't exactly know how to get around on our own, so our new families have been helping us the past week get onto the right busses, take the right taxis, turn on the right corner, and (if necessary) hold our hand while crossing the street. We walk with them on our way to school, and wait for our name to be called by our program director so we know they're there to pick us up after. When my host mom asked me tonight if I was going to be able to get to the meeting point for our program tomorrow, I had to prove (for about 20 minutes) that I knew where I was going and what types of transportation to take.

       To make matters more preschooler-ish, we're packed sack lunches every day this week as we're still getting oriented to everything, so when it's time for almuerzo we all pull out our lunch boxes and ask, "So what did your mom pack you?" Yesterday, I even heard someone say, "I'll trade you my chocolate marshmallow for your apples and manjar!"

3: Fatigue - This is perhaps the largest factor that made us revert to our younger selves: We're all so tired! Since we're coming from the United States in the peak of summer, where the days are long, switching to the southern hemisphere means we're arriving in the dead of winter. Because of this, none of us are receiving the amount of sunlight and therefore, as our program director explained to us, the melanin in our skin isn't helping our body metabolize as much Vitamin D as we're used to (and if you didn't know, Vitamin D is key to alertness, vibrancy, and general good temper) . Since the shift is normally slow from summer to winter, we don't notice it like this, but the shock has us all a bit sleepy, even if we get 8+ hours of sleep. Not to mention, since we've arrive, we've been hyper busy! Since we've arrived we gone on like a zillion walking tours of the city, ridden on who-knows-how-many buses, seen innumerable streets, famous landmarks, majestic vistas, and had only a little free time. With all of this going on, I began hearing many complaints that people were tired of doing things and that they just wanted, for once, some time to sleep sometime in the middle of the day rather than doing something we didn't want. That's when I knew the transformation was complete. We were all cranky preschoolers who just needed our naptime. 

4: The Descent - Today, we were visiting different buildings of the university, being shown one tall grey building in a distant area of the city, riding on a bus for about half and hour, then seeing another one and being led around it a bit. We were all grumbly about it. No one saw the point, since they'd given us a sheet explaining everything anyway, and we were so tired our brains weren't really translating at their peak and what we understood was likely to be forgotten. When we made our final stop, they were about to lead us around when one of the guides looked at us, rapidly tossed out a soft Spanish sentence to the other and then announced that instead we were just going to go back to our meeting point at the main office of the International Program. One girl commented, "I think they all saw our grouch faces and decided something better." So we all piled back on our buses, ready to go back to the office for yet another orientation meeting. We were all grumbling about the prospect of forcing ourselves into a semi-awake position for another hour of meeting when it happened.

5: The Comeback - The bus lurched to a stop. We'd been travelling along fine until all of a sudden, in the middle of the highway the traffic came to a halt. It was odd. It wasn't rush hour. It didn't seem to have any reason to it. I knew when I rode to the office that morning there was more traffic built up than usual, but I just accredited it to peak hour traffic. Word quickly passed through the bus that someone heard from someone that there had been a crash some miles ahead. Apparently (and I never heard real confirmation of this), there had been an accident somewhere near our destination where a public transit bus had collided with a bridge or an overpass support or something and they were afraid to move it because they didn't want anything to collapse so they'd shut off the street. We weren't sure what to do this information, since, by the time it passed to everyone, we'd been blocked in on all sides by the gridlock. 

     We were stuck. 

     We were told that our meeting had been canceled for the afternoon and pushed to the next day. Needless to say, no one was upset by that. Then, without much addressing the issue, we began to fall asleep. One by one we curled up in our bus seats and took in sunlight, and sleep, two of the things our bodies had been craving. A few of the sliding windows were slightly open, letting the cool seaside breeze blow through the bus, making us all curl up inside our coats and scarves (that our mothers always insist that we wear even thought it's really not that cold). 

     No one seemed too sure how long we actually slept, but as the traffic began to move again, many people were commenting that they felt like they'd slept for hours and much more rested. We ate our packed lunches on the bus and with that began having a brief respite from all the Spanish and had conversations about things other than how tired we were or how little we wanted to go to the next meeting. Instead, we talked about our families, the things we'd liked on the trip, what we were looking forward to. The bad mood and childishness had broken. The cranky preschoolers had gone and the college students had finally returned. It just took a crash and a traffic jam to bring us back.

Los Cuatro Fantasticos

      In the past few days, I've been picking up on some of the, como se dice, quirks of Chilean society. Of course there are the little ones, like how the women kiss people they've just met on the cheek, or how they add "po" as a sort of semimeaningless syllable to the ends of random words, but I've made a big discovery. The Chileans love The Beatles, or should I say Los Bitols. Now, I suppose you're thinking, "Well everyone likes The Beatles," or "Of course, they were a worldwide phenomenon," but I'm not talking, small scale, was-a-big-thing-in-the-60s-and-70s kind of thing. I'm talking about a cultural obsession with the fab four. 

     How did I come to this conclusion? Well it all started a few days ago in Santiago. Our student group was eating in the central market of the city at a fish restaurant, where I had a strange soup con mariscos varios (various seafood), which basically meant a random assortment of mussels, clams, shrimp and a few pieces of fish, stewed in a warm broth. As we were eating, I noticed two Chilenos approach the massive group of tables, toting guitars. They started playing and I realized I knew the tune. It was "Love, Love me do," and the duo began singing a slightly 'Chileanized' version of the song which was beautiful and a little sad. They finished and a few people clapped and they began another song, this time "She loves you (jah, jah, jah)." I thought it was a little strange that they were playing such old songs and that we'd come over 5,000 miles to hear someone play such non-traditionally Chilean music.  I don't know, maybe that's just me, but I mean, when you think being serenaded by men with guitars in an open air restaurant in South America, you don't exactly imagine them singing "You know it's up to you / I think it's only fair / Pride can hurt you too / Apologize to her." I assumed it was just an isolated thing, I mean they were older gentlemen, and the thought passed as soon as they started coming around, asking Gringos for some money for their performance.

     A couple of days later, the group went to a beautiful little bohemian artisan's camp in an old monastery outside Santiago. There were tons of little shops, all selling handmade trinkets like little pieces of jewelry or small toys or fantastic brick-oven-baked-empanadas. The buildings were old and Spanish-looking with clay roofs and a quiet brook running through. There were also numerous cats and dogs that belonged to the shop owners and a good number of trees along the soft dirt paths so there was always ample shade. When we entered however, there was a man outside one of the shops near the entrance who was sitting behind a large harp. At first, the almost surreally tranquil setting had us mesmerized and the harp was just another pristine facet to the jewel that was the artisan's camp. Then I realized he was playing a song I knew. He wasn't singing, but he was playing both the melody and harmony to "Hey, Jude." It was funny. Different people covering The Beatles twice in only a couple of days. I didn't mind. When he got to the "Na na na," part it was actually really cool sounding. I walked around the camp with some others and then we returned to the entrance to meet our group. The man and his harp had gone, but in his place there was a concert band, complete with trumpets, flutes, tubas, and all the required instrumentalists. The first song we heard them playing "When I'm Sixty-Four." 

This was especially endearing since it's a fairly clarinet heavy song already, but also because the band was made up almost entirely of senior citizens. It was fun to listen to, but by that point, I was starting to realize something was up. When they finished, they played a few other songs, including the Star Trek Theme which was pretty cool as well as a few other well-recognizable classics.

      In Valparaiso, my suspicions arose again. I was talking with my host brother and he was talking about a band they went to go see who was very good but also very funny. It was a Beatle's tribute band who was Chilean, but pretended that they couldn't speak or understand Spanish and that they were actually British. Then later I was talking with my host family about music. I told them I sang in the choir, and my school's jazz group. They asked what kind of music we played and I told them it was mostly vocal jazz, but also a bit of popular music. To that my host mother exclaimed "¿¿Como Los Bitols??" I explained that it was more of a modern popular music sort of thing, but she loved the idea that we sang Beatles songs and we talked about some of their hits for a while, including "Hey Yude," and "All ju need is Love." 

It was curious. I'm not sure I have an explanation for the continuation of the British invasion here in South America, but the fab four's fanbase is still alive and well here in Chile. For example, there is a large amount of very intricate graffiti here in Valparaiso, especially when representing social uprising and change. In several of these street murals I've seen images of John Lennon, which isn't terribly surprising, but at the same time, there are more influential people in the realm of social change they could've chosen. Another time I was listening to a Chilean radio station on one of the busses we were riding from place to place, when I heard the modern British boy band hit "What makes you beautiful" by One Direction, immediately followed by "Hello Goodbye." I don't know if someone recently distributed a ton of free copies of their Number One Hits album or if it's always been this way, but regardless, the British invasion made it to Chile, and it's apparently here to stay.

Valparaiso, the Jewel of the Pacific

     I think I’ve decided that occasionally this blog might have to be in Spanglish because I don’t know all the words I need and can’t quite express every idea I have in Spanish, but I find the latin lexicon rapidly creeping into my interactions with other students. So if I include a few spanish palabras o frases don’t be sorprendido. 

     After three and a half days in Santiago, the group travelled to Valparaiso. We left yesterday in the afternoon and arrived in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar just as the sun was setting. I was swept away by EVERYTHING. The buildings were so different than anything I’d seen. It’s like the Chileans have collected things from all over the world and made a city out of it. There are buildings that seem to be inspired by German architecture while some seem to be Asian or Victorian or French or Spanish or Latin American or from somewhere in the Tropics or the Old West or from Modern America. And no two buildings are exactly the same color or shape. Red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet, magenta, cyan, chartreuse, fuchsia, tan, maroon, cerulean, goldenrod, and everything in between. The full spectrum can be found on the hillsides of Valparaiso. Bathed in the light of the setting sun, the whole spectacle shone even more vibrantly. Then there was the ocean. Golden. Sparkly. Awesome. We finally reached our destination at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso (PUCV) where we would meet our host families. 

      My host mother met me there and we took a taxi to my new home in Viña del Mar (which is just to the north of Valparaiso, but really still the same city). It was nothing short of astounding when I arrived. It is on the bottom (but not ground) floor of an apartment building and very large. What’s more, its just a stone’s throw from the ocean. There are many windows that face the ocean to the northwest. I can hear the sound of its waves and the whoosh of passing cars blending together as I type. While getting introduced to this new house I met part of the rest of my host family, while several others are out on vacation. We were eating dinner together with my host mother Ester, my host brother Luchito, his apolola (a Chilean term for girlfriend), Javiera, and their friend Marco. After we finished eating we went up to the rooftop terrace to look at the city. It was a breathtaking sight with the lights of the city all around us, but more surprising, we could see the stars overhead. I realized this was the first time I’d seen any of these stars being in the Southern Hemisphere and all (and in Santiago it was so smoggy and bright, you couldn’t really make any out).

     This morning I got up in plenty of time so that mi madre chilena and I could take a collectivo (a cheap shared taxi that follows a certain, preset route) to PUCV. There the group of students reunited and took a Spanish placement exam to find out what level of classes we could take. I felt horrible about how it went afterward, knowing I’d done horribly. Everything on the test was things I know I’d heard of or sort of known at some point, but it was all very specific and tough to answer. Many of us commented afterward that our brains just shut down about halfway through, being too fatigued from the assault of Spanish grammar on our still adjusting minds. Later in the day there was a short tour of one of the city’s piers, a quick introduction to the tsunami evacuation route (yikes), and plenty of time for walking around, just soaking in the city. After that, some of us prepared for our Oral Exam where we knew we’d have to answer a few questions before receiving our test results so we quick looked up some obscure difficult verbs we might throw into the conversation to seem more proficient if we felt it was going badly (my favorite one we found was mojar meaning “to wet” or mojarse meaning “to wet oneself” and I imagined trying to work that into the interview at some point, but later decided it was probably ill-advised). When the time came, it was pretty simple. One professor from the college was there and talked to us one-on-one about our family and our home and basic stuff. 

     Then we got our results which were given to us in Spanish which, given how they present the information, it was an odd mix of ups and downs, made more confusing by the language barrier. I found I’d gotten a 38 on the test. Then I found out it wasn’t out of 100, which was a relief. Then, I found out it was out of 68, which wasn’t so great. But THEN they decided to reveal it wasn’t graded like a normal test (at least in The States) and getting 50% was about average, because they made it to be exceedingly difficult. So since I got a 55% that was actually pretty good and that I’d tested into advanced level classes, which is what I had been shooting for. Needless to say I came out of the little meeting, both confused and relieved...I think. I’m actually still not totally sure how to feel about it. Pretty good. I think. No lo se.

     All in all, the past few days have been a crazy blur of more and more new things. New sights to see, new people to meet, and a new language to learn. But with all these new things there have been quite a few mistakes that we’ve made along the way.  But that’s a topic for another day since I could go on and on about this, but I've already gone on long enough. Tambien, estoy cansado y necesito dormir. Pues, hasta luego!

First impressions.

     Though they say they offer more legroom, airlines lie to those of us taller than 6'5". My night on a Delta flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Santiago, Chile erased any doubt from my mind that "more" legroom was meant anything real. This "more" is probably the same "more" that pizza chains use to advertise that they now have "more" cheese on their pies, or the "more" insurance companies assure you that you'll save. Yeah. It wasn't so bad until about hour 3 of the flight when serious knee and thigh cramping began. This was about the time everyone on the flight fully realized that we would have to sleep on this flight and call it a good night's rest (good and rest both being relative terms).
     Our flight left Atlanta at about 11, the night of Wednesday, July 18. After a cramped night we arrived in Santiago at about 8 in the morning. Running on minimal sleep we bumbled off the plane, grumbled through the immense customs line, and fumbled through the cash exchange as we quickly tried to convert how much 483 pesos actually meant (more or less one dollar US). We were greeted by a representative from the International Studies Abroad program who spoke to us only in Spanish and greeted us with a customary kiss on the cheek.
      As Gringos (slang for white non-latinoamericanos, sometimes derogatory, sometimes friendly, sometimes neutral) the other international students and I responded with adequate levels of discomfort to this kiss. I apparently pulled away too soon and was corrected in Spanish "Solo es un beso" and that apparently we weren't done since we hadn't made sufficient contact...I guess. Another guy in our group said he went in for a second one on the other cheek, also apparently wrong, as was it for one female student to "bear hug" our director who only wanted a little peck on the cheek. There has also been the problem getting accustomed to Chilean Spanish, which is, in a word: slurrysuperfast. At one point I was asked, "¿Como fue tu abuelo?" meaning "How was your flight?" I heard "¿Como fue tu vuelo?" meaning, "How was your grandfather?" Thinking this must've been some customary thing, I responded what roughly translates to, "Well, I think he's fine...?" I wasn't the only student with a vuelo/abuelo confusion, since one girl (the bear hugger) was asked her flight number by a customs agent and she responded by giving her grandpa's name. Needless to say, we all have a long way to go before we're anywhere near fluency.
    All in all, the past two days here have been nothing short of incredible and overwhelming. So far we've ridden the metro twice, visited the Presidential Palace (where the tour guide was all but unintelligible to most of us), gone to a mountaintop to view the city/see an chapel/view a massive statue of the Virgin Mary, eaten bread with oil and vinegar about six times now, seen the incredibly massive Catedral de Santiago, and repeated about 1000 times the phrase, "Guys....we're in Chile."
     So far we've mostly been doing orientation-style things, with a few excursions in between. So far we've been meeting our fellow international students here in Santiago, but we'll be moving into our host family homes when we arrive in Valparaiso/Viña del Mar on Sunday. I'm looking forward to so many things on this trip, I can't even begin to express my excitement! As for now, it's late and I need to go to bed because breakfast here, unlike in The States, is just about mandatory since people don't eat a noon meal here. It's more like a 1:00 or even 2:30 meal, so even if you catch breakfast you're still feeling pretty peckish by the time lunch rolls around. So, hasta luego, adiós!

So this is my life now. Okay.

     For the past few months, I've been telling people my plans. At college, if anyone asked about summer plans I'd mention it. When I got home, every person at church asked "So are you home for the summer, orrrrr....?" and I'd have to explain. When my friends would forget, and I would have to remind them, I confirmed these plans. I've said it so many times to so many people; I've said it with such assurance, too. So...how did it not hit me until today? Maybe its the confirmation I (finally) received from the consulate, or maybe it's the realization that I need new luggage, or the fact that the number of days has finally hit single digits. Whatever it is, the reality of the situation has hit me: in seven days I will leave my home in southeastern Nebraska and fly to South America, where I will be staying in Valparaiso de Chile for the next four months.
     I had that moment where I had to sit myself down and say, "This is actually happening. It's a real thing. It's a really, really scary real thing." I'm going to be in a country where I know no one. It's a country where I only sort of speak the language (my mother says I'm more fluent than I give myself credit, but no matter how much I've studied, I don't feel quite ready). Not to mention, I'll be living in a city larger (and filled with far more petty theft) than I've ever lived in for any period of time. But as my dad pointed out today, even getting to this point, has not been exactly a cake walk, but God has had his hand in every step along the way.
     First, there was the application. I showed interest in the study abroad program this semester, but didn't know what to do. So I talked with my Spanish professor about it. We agreed it would be good to talk with my advisor as well.  However, by the time I'd been able to meet with my (truly wonderful) Spanish professor and then the two of us meet with my (equally wonderful) advisor I barely had time left to get the application in, but I had just enough time to get it in before the deadline. I received my acceptance from the International Studies program, leaving just enough time to finish all the paperwork and required orientation material from my college's International Studies Office.
     But that wasn't all, no not nearly. Then there was the waiting. Waiting for the FBI Background Check to come back. As soon as I was able, I sent the application form away. They said 4-8 weeks. That's a huge window. And the bigger the window, the longer to start to worry. At three weeks I was hopeful that the clearance would arrive in the mail in time. At four weeks I was a little nervous. At five weeks I was downright anxious. By six weeks I was a little more than a (very disappointed) kid at Christmas whenever the mail would come: "Is it here!?!! Is it here?!!!" Finally I was given a phone number to call to check on the status. They told me it would be another week or so, but the deadline for the visa application was approaching so I knew I had to do something. I talked with my contacts at the international studies program and they said that if I talked with the consulate, they would often work around the lack of an FBI clearance if I would bring it with me upon collection of the Visa. I called the consulate. They would indeed.
     So, yet another application was mailed away, this time to Chicago, where they said I would receive email confirmation of the packet's arrival. The USPS was tracking this package and they said it arrived in two days. This was fine since it was well ahead of the final deadline for visa application submission. I didn't get any confirmation from the consulate though. So I emailed them, sure that they'd have some information. Nothing. No response came. So I waited. And stewed with worry. My FBI background check came in the mean time, but I had bigger fish to fry at that point. And of course by fry I mean worry about. And of course by fish I meant application packets. A good week passed before I finally received any response from the consulate. By that point, the deadline was ONE day from passing and I was praying that I would be able to go. They finally told me it'd been received and that it was marked the day it arrived so if the USPS said it was there a week ago, they'd be sure to consider that when looking at deadlines. Then they said the processing time would be about two weeks.
     Two weeks?! I could only hope that by two weeks they meant from the time the packet was received, because if it meant the day I got the email confirmation of the packet's delivery, I'd be spending the entire 24 hour period before I left for South America in transit between my home, Chicago (since you apparently have to pick visas up in person, who knew right?), then to Omaha where I was scheduled to fly out!
     Let me tell you, I was a worrying machine. If worrying were an Olympic event, I'd be in London right now, preparing (probably by worrying about how I'd do). It was then, about two days ago, when I  was emailed by the consulate telling me my application had been approved that I finally could breathe a sigh of relief. But it wasn't until my dad said something, that I remembered how wrong I'd been going about this. He said that maybe all this stress before hand was God's way of showing me that he was in control. That he would take care of me and that everything was going to work out. I had been praying that it would all work out, that deadlines would be met, that I would be in the right place at the right time, but I realized, I wasn't so much asking as I was openly worrying at God. Instead, I should've trusted His timing, not hoped that my own hyper-vigilance would somehow save me. I needed to let go. I was reminded of that one passage in Matthew chapter 6:


²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Could I, by worrying ensure the safe arrival of the applications? Could I, have gotten myself to Chile by stressing and making myself sick? No. That part just made me worried, stressed, and sick. God had my back the whole time.

I know this has been said a billion times, I've heard it about half a million as many and I'm sure to hear half a million more iterations, but the things that really matter (and the things that really don't) are all in God's control. I needed to put my life in His hands. I mean it already was, I just had to accept that. So when I sat myself down today, suddenly struck with the reality of my situation, I said to myself, "This is actually happening. It's a real thing. It's a really, really scary real thing. But God's got this. So this is my life now. Okay. I'll let You take care of me, because you always have and always will." So though I don't know what He has been preparing me for with this ordeal, I don't need to worry about it. God will make sure that it all works out, according to His plan. So this is my life now. And I'm not worried.