Pucón, Chile.

Pucón, Chile.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Chao! (and ADVICE!)

I'm just not sure how to write this entry without being dramatic and sappy.


The last week was full of bittersweet "lasts."


I kept it together, mostly.  But with a few friends and with my host family I couldn't keep the tears back.  Whoever said it's better to have loved and lost... probably didn't write that immediately before or after losing.  Ha.  And even though we all know it's better than never to have loved at all (which I learn more with each period of my life), it still stinks.  It's a bazillion times harder leaving than it was to leave Yakima.  Because I knew I was going to be back.  But Chile... I don't know when I get to see those beautiful people again, and that's a major bummer.  Leaving was sad, really sad.  There's just no other way to say it.  But better to leave sad than happy to get out of there, I guess.


I got up early my last morning and went downstairs to just sit next to the fire by myself. Then I spent the remainder of the day eating.  My host family really does know how to eat.  One last slice of Marisol's bread, on last cazuela, one last pisco sour.  My host family gave me a Chilean cookbook, some chocolates, and a pretty wooden appetizer dish like the one we used every Sunday.  This was followed by lots of hugs and kisses and sweet words.  Then they took me one last time over my favorite bridge, past those crazy sea wolves and up to the bus station.  It was so different-seeming by now (and somehow so exactly the same-seeming) from that first rainy night when they picked me up.  The bus pulled out and I think I cried all the way to Temuco.


What a surreal year.  Like, really crazy.  It's sort of like a dream, but different. (that was profound, right?) Different because from the very beginning you know the exact hour you're going to wake up (10:00 a.m., July 20).  And different because these are real people you're talking to, and real choices you're making.  But sometimes it seems so far from the reality you've always known that it's hard to comprehend that it is, in fact, real.  That this is a real family you lived with, and those are real friends you made.  Real tests you took and real memories that keep popping up into your brain.

I learned a lot of things this year. That I can listen to Stan Getz for a whole year and never get sick of it.  And that I do get sick of Diana Krall's Christmas album, which we were still listening to when I left mid-July.  I learned the tango. (I also forgot it.)  And that you really should swallow some pills with a glass of water.  I learned how to hail a taxi.  How to count in French.  How to properly eat an artichoke.  And SO MANY OTHER THINGS.  I cannot believe how lucky I was to have this year.



THINGS I WILL MISS:
-people.
...also:
-laughing birds, and slobbering "sea wolves"
-simple "onces" of palta, pan y queso.
-baby mullets.
-nighttime walks in the fog
-berlines de manjar, trufas, and all the other delicious sweet things.
-great buses between cities
-setting the table
-cazuela
-Sunday afternoon table talk.
-rainboots, umbrellas, and RAIN.
-nights by the fireplace
-hot chocolate and special treatment from Café Moro
-not paying for gas



THINGS I WILL NOT MISS:
-Valdivian speed of walking
-laughing at jokes that I'm not sure if I get or not
-wet socks because I didn't wear my rainboots
-Telma's moods.
-not knowing if I'm supposed to cheek kiss you or just smile at you.
-that one TV music channel with harps and strings and synthesizers all over the place.


My Spanish has come so far.  I had a pretty solid base as far as verb conjugations and a handful of “useful vocabulary,”  but something happened  over the last few months that I didn’t even realize.  I just never noticed it happen.  Everyone says there will be a “click” moment where everything just sort of comes together.  (This did not happen.) But I somehow slid into that place where you think in Spanish, dream in Spanish, accidently try to speak Spanish to your English-speaking parents… without realizing it.  But it’s the truth.  It took me longer than most, maybe, but now I can be reading or listening to something for quite a while before I realize it’s not English.   I’ll be talking about something I read, and I can’t remember what language it was in.  This. Is. So. Cool.   There are still so many things that I can’t say the way that I would like to say them, and I’ve already decided I’m going to live in another Spanish-speaking country after school, but my ability to understand Spanish and think in it certainly happened while I was here.

I had a phenomenal year.  No way around it.  And so even though I am sad (<--understatement) to leave, I am SO grateful to have had the opportunity to have this year.  Now I just have more people and places I love, and that can't be too bad, right? And speaking of people and places I love, I will be home SO SOON! And I have to admit, I'm excited for that, too.  So, until my next adventure abroad...  a giant CHAO!




P.S. My own personal "Study Abroad Advice Column"


A few “consejos” for future study abroaders, while it’s fresh on my mind:

Start doing things, right from the beginning.  
Don’t think, “Oh, I’ll be here for months, I’ve got time to try that.”  Just get out and do new things, whether it be perusing stores downtown, exploring nearby hikes, or watching street musicians.  Don’t waste it, it flies!


Take pictures at the beginning!
Along the same lines, don’t wait to take pictures!  Pretty soon you might get so accustomed to things that you don’t remember what caught your attention at first.


Do things you’re not comfortable doing.
Go into that café by yourself.  Try buying those vegetables in the grocery store, even if you’re not sure where you weigh them.  Sign up for a dance class.  Take public transportation you’ve never used before.


Don’t limit yourself to English speakers.
I know it’s easy to hang out with the other kids from the states.  Do some things by yourself, though.  If you really want to learn the language, get away from English. (WARNING: this is hard because kids studying abroad tend to be SUPER COOL PEOPLE.  Be pointed about what you decide, though, based off of what is important to you.)


Don’t close yourself in your room. 
Now this would vary, I’m sure, from culture to culture and family to family, but I think that is valuable thing to think about: don’t lock yourself up in your room.  Even if you’re just using your laptop or reading or knitting… sit out where the people are!  Maybe take yourself to a new café every week.  Spend time around your family, and spend time in the city!  


Write about it!
Just between scraps of paper and my blog and e-mails I sent during this year, I've realized there are SO many little things I would have forgotten if I hadn't written them down.  So take the time to write about things, even if it's just for yourself, every now and then.  And even if it's just a bulleted list of things you did/saw/learned/thought were funny this week.  You will not regret it, I promise.


Ha! These are the people that accepted me so kindly as one of their own.

Smack dab in the middle of winter (note the glove) and I'm still picking daisies.

Some of the more animated host grandparents you'll ever meet.

Goodbye for now, charming Valdivian sidewalks.

I never tired of bringing my knitting to parties.

Dirt road reflections.

"Estamos mal en el liceo los 823."  A school on strike, a message imitating one from the famous 33 miners.

1 2 3 4, tell me that you love me more.  (I do, Foggy Gloom.  I do.)

Skits in conversation class. :-)

El chancho!  He sat at the table with me for many, many meals. 

Friday, July 1, 2011

I just do and don´t want to come home, that´s all.

"Your own Revlon red nails mesmerize you.  Their corresponding digits are busy transferring your chicken scratch to the computer screen.  You are numb and this is fascinating.  Yep, there they go.  You watch as they mindlessly carry your thoughts--no plagiarism here--from that weird, Chilean graph paper to this poor, over-worked machine.  And with the same cadence as always. Click-clickety, clickety, clickety-clack.  Pause.  Click-clickety, clickety, clickety-clack.  Hey, wait.  Fingers don´t even have minds. They just have bones and tendons and...  it's official.  You. Are. Tired."  --My Life, circa last night.

So, the newest is that the students are all on strike.  They would prefer free education, so... they've taken over the campus.  Like, it´s blocked off and they´re literally camping out in the buildings, no staff allowed.  I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to fix things, exactly, but this whole situation is sort of convenient/sort of bad.  

I'll start with the good.  Classes are cancelled indefinitely.  Conveniently, this is finals week, which means I now have more of a chance to study.  In fact, I thought I had to turn in a giant research paper today but just found out that it´s now due Monday, thanks to the strike.  I am grateful.  And after staying up amidst piles of books and research articles, drinking instant coffee all the live long night, I will tell you one thing: reading research in English feels just like laying my head down on a big, comfy, coherent pillow.  Although, regurgitating it in Spanish at 4 in the morning feels kind of like... well, I think that first verb already explained it nicely.  Anyway, so now I have a little time left to finish that up.

But now, the bad news:  as long as the university is taken ("en toma" in Spanish) by the students, there will be no final exams.  No final exams = no final grades = no credit if I have to return to the good ol' US of A before the strike's over.  Sometimes these things last months, I've been told.  So... there´s that.  However, my non-Chilean classes march on as if nothing were going on, so I know at least a 1/3 of my classes will be good for something.

Admittedly, these last couple of weeks haven´t been the highlight of the semester.  This is partially due to living closed up with my homework and partly due to the weirdness that is my emotions.  I just do and don´t want to come home, that´s all.

For the remainder of my time I just keep on learning, though. Things I learned this week:
1) the precise at which moment it becomes wiser to close your umbrella than to risk losing it to the wind.
2) that in Chilean Spanish, the teachers "take" the tests.  I could never figure out why we said that the students "gave" them but now that I understand the give and take relationship, it´s all starting to make sense...
3) that my host dad likes floral prints; my host mom prefers solids
4) that fingernail polish remover doesn't bleach bedspreads, but it can make the whole house smell really bad.
5) that "betarragas" are beets, not rutabagas.
and finally,
6) how to make the clothes dryer work.

I can’t stand to think about leaving yet, much less write about it.  So back to the cave with me, but I just needed a homework break.  Ánimo... here comes the weekend!
On top of one of the buildings of campus.  Finally starting to look wintery.

...but not too wintery.

Out to eat with my favorite Chilean family.

A protest on the bridge (notice the bus doesn't seem bothered).

Just a tree.  On one of my routes home from school. 

I have spent countless hours talking to this beautiful lady.

The university, "taken" by students.  

The elementary school where I was teaching English!

Host dad = tennis fanatic.

On my last day the kids in the school wrote notes to me all over the board! (no one could spell my name.)

Oh boy.  How cute is that.