¡Hola amigos, espero que estén bien! For all those in Santa Barbara, ¡ojala que su casa y su familia estén seguros y sanos! I’m going to try a new thing this week and not write a novel for a blog post, so bear with me as I try to condense my thoughts. I don’t know if it will work, but I’m going to give it my best shot. At this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Buenos Aires, Argentina in our quarter’s program trip. I’m really looking forward to that—we’ll be exploring the city, going to a tango show, visiting the house of Borges (a famous Argentine writer) and experiencing a bit of the vibrant Argentinean culture for 3 days.
I spent the weekend relaxing in the countryside with my host family. See, I have this promise I made to myself before I came to Chile that I’m never allowed to refuse an invitation to hang out by a Chilean. I’m here to meet Chileans, get to know the culture and speak Spanish, not to hang out with Stanford people, so I’m pushing myself extra hard to do that. So, while my friends were sleeping under the stars and hiking the Andes, I was celebrating my host sister’s 14th birthday and going to Bingo night in a small, rural Chilean town! But although this weekend was tame and quiet, I had a good time and I think it really helped my Spanish. There was no internet, no computer, no TV, no other gringos, and thus no English for me the entire weekend. I can really feel my Spanish drastically improve after my weekends with the host family, so I’m really glad I spent the weekend with them in Curacaví. It’s a very small rural town about 40 minutes outside of Santiago home to ranchers, our maid Rosita, and a few vacation homes. Saturday was Catalina’s 14th birthday, and we had family come over to the house to celebrate. I spent most of the afternoon hanging out with the family across the street—they have 11 and 19 year old boys, and they were very friendly, although they spent most of their time making fun of me and calling me “Gringo” nonstop. They live in a very, as my host family would say, ‘humble’ house with horses, about 7 dogs, a pack of turkeys, and it was an incredibly interesting cultural experience. You would never know they’re from the same country as my host family. While my host mom was taking an afternoon nap, they were cooking bread in their outdoor brick oven while the kids played with the dogs and the turkeys and listened to the futbol game on the radio. They were incredibly kind, and I had a great day with them. It was great getting a completely different experience from my taken-care-of life here in Las Condes, and I felt like I was getting a true taste of Chilean culture not stolen by globalization. The family, I’m sure, had never heard the words Facebook, didn’t know what Starbucks was, and had never Googled anything, let alone been on the internet. The whole town felt real and true to the culture, they had true Chilean pride, displayed the cultural characteristics I expected more of Chile, and it was a great change of pace.
On Saturday night the family invited me to go to mass with them, followed by a town bingo night at the local elementary school (which, my host mom took the time to point out, was a school for poor people.) So, even though I had a midterm to work on, I cannot refuse an invitation, so I went. Mass was interesting, although I had a very hard time understanding it—we were sitting in the back, so I could barely hear the priest, so that on top of my Spanish deficiencies didn’t match well with me understanding the service. But it was really interesting to see some more of the traditional lifestyle of Chileans. We walked over to the Bingo night after that, and it seemed like the entire town was out for it. The school cafeteria was filled to the brim with eager families trying to win the grand prize of 100,000 pesos (about $200). It was fun, I did a lot of people-watching, got called “Gringo” about a thousand more times, didn’t win anything, but enjoyed myself and got great practice with my Spanish numbers! I really felt like I got a true sense of Chile this weekend—one untouched by American and European influence, untouched by the English speaking world. I felt like I could really see Chileans and interact with them, and it felt so different from just interacting with my host family. I mean, it’s not like my family isn’t Chilean. They’ve been here for 3 or 4 generations. But, at times, it seems they are so touched by influences of other nations that any sense of Chilean culture gets washed away. I mean, we had pasta for dinner tonight. We live a block away from a McDonalds and Blockbuster and 2 blocks away from Starbucks. My host mom is on Facebook. They don’t identify with what I think of as Chilean a lot of the time because it doesn’t fit in with their social class. But this weekend, I really felt like I was being immersed in the Chilean culture, and although it was a very tame, relaxing and uneventful weekend, it was a weekend when I wasn’t a tourist, didn’t speak English, and learned the culture firsthand.
So on the theme of not refusing invitations, one of our Chilean friends from the language partner program invited us all to his birthday party last night. I headed over to his house after having dinner with my host family last night. It was a lot of fun once the party picked up a little after I got there. I got to talking with a bunch of Chileans, and felt very comfortable with my Spanish and my ability to converse with them. Most of them go to the Universidad de Chile, and an astounding number of them study engineering (I feel like almost every guy I meet here is studying engineering…no joke.) It was great being able to talk with some more Chileans, and I think we’re going to hang out in the future. We’re trying to get the rest of them to come to our Language partner program this Monday, so hopefully we’ll see a few of them there and keep hanging out with them in the future. The birthday party, for the most part, was exactly the same as one you’d see in the US (except for a different version of the Happy Birthday song, which I still need to learn.) But it was great spending the party speaking Spanish and meeting Chileans, and I had a great time!
I’m extremely glad I made myself promise never to refuse the invitation of a Chilean. It can be so easy sometimes to convince yourself you’re too tired, you have too much work, or that you simply don’t want to go. It is so tempting just to stay home, watch some TV, fall asleep early, or whatnot. But it’s so rewarding taking advantage of all of the cultural opportunities here. Of course, there are beautiful places to travel in Chile. And sleep and homework are important sometimes too. But I’m so glad that I can put those on the backburner on my priorities list while I’m here, and focus on spending time with Chileans whenever I have the chance. I mean, I still haven’t met as many Chileans as I was hoping, but all the time I’ve spent with them has been very rewarding, and I’m always glad I spent the time with them speaking Spanish, challenging myself to not make a fool of myself and being called “Gringo” instead of all the other things I could be doing.
Okay, well making this blog post short didn’t really work out. But believe it or not, I actually left out a lot that happened this week (Cinco de Mayo Mexican restaurant, exploring Mercado Central and Plaza de Armas in Santiago Centro, watching Slumdog Millionaire with my grandfather.) It’s been a great week and I’m really looking forward to the weekend in Buenos Aires.
In Chile, when a person sneezes once you say “salud”(health). When they sneeze three times the first sneeze is “salud”, the second is “dinero” (money), and the third sneeze is “amor”(love). I thought that would be a good way to sign off tonight. ¡Chau amigos! ¡Salud, dinero y amor a todos!
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