Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve updated. The good news is that I’m done with my finals! So long, sophomore year. It’s been great, but now I have to enter the years of upperclassmen-ness, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. These past two years have flown by too quickly, and I don’t want to think about that fact that I will, unless I go to grad school immediately, have to enter the real world two years from now. And the fact that I’ll come back to Stanford in the fall and be an upperclassmen, be the person looked up to and asked for help, is just a weird thought. But, since the past two weeks have been riddled by finals (a presentation on Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a presentation on the Nueva Canción Chilena, a 15-minute Spanish skit, an in-class final, a take home final, and a 15 page research paper (written in Spanish) about the history and inequality of the Chilean education system), I haven’t updated my blog at all, so I 1) apologize for keeping everyone out of the loop on my life and 2) have a lot to talk about.
My quarter abroad is officially over. The rest of the Stanford students have left to their respective summer destinations, I’ve moved out of my host family’s apartment, and I’m now laying in my new bed in my house in Viña del Mar, very close to where I’ll be working this summer in Valparaíso. I’m living this summer in a residencia, which is basically a hostel where people stay in for long periods of time. It’s owned and run by a very nice lady, who lives here with her 2 kids about my age. And there are 7 college students who are living here with me—5 Chileans and 2 Colombians. I’ve met most of the housemates and they all seem really cool, and I think I’m really going to love living here. It’s going to be a very social environment, everyone eats meals together, there’s a living room to watch TV, so I’m really happy about that. I’m going to get to speak a lot of Spanish these next few months, which I’m also really happy about. With the Stanford students here, it was really easy to revert to speaking English because it’s so much more comfortable. But this summer, I’ll be speaking Spanish all day at my internship and all night at my house, where I’m going to push myself to be extra social so that I’m always talking. I want to completely and utterly immerse myself in the language this summer. My Spanish has improved since I’ve arrived in Chile, but not nearly enough to a point that I’m happy with. I mean, I can converse, I can understand mostly everything (when people speak clearly) and I can, most of the time, get my point across. I’ve even dreamt in Spanish a few times. But I really want to leave here comfortable and fluent, and I know this summer is going to do wonders for that.
It’s crazy to think how much I’ve done in the last 11 weeks in Chile. I’ve swam in the ocean, hiked in the Andes, river rafted through the Andes, climbed a volcano in the south, surfed the sand dunes in the north, watched a tango show in Buenos Aires, took a 17 hour bus ride through the south, explored the ins and outs of Santiago, spent relaxing weekends with my host family…the list goes on. I truly have not spent an entire weekend in Santiago yet. Not even my first weekend—there’s always been at least one day that I’ve spent in a different city. It’s a bit sad, and a bit relieving, to know that this summer will be completely the opposite. I’m almost completely out of money, so I will be living a very relaxing and quiet life. But I’m completely excited for that—not traveling every weekend will give me the chance to spend more time at the house speaking Spanish, to read books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and to just plain relax before the craziness of next year begins. And living a more regular lifestyle will help me live more like a true Chilean, as opposed to a gringo tourist, so that will be good as well.
I left off a few weeks ago about to leave for Chiloe, an island in the south of Chile, so I’ll start off this time recounting my Chilote adventures. Chiloe is South America’s second largest island (after Tierra del Fuego), and lies about halfway between Santiago and the southern tip of Chile on the northern end of the Patagonia region. We took an early morning plane to Puerto Montt, the closest big city on the mainland, and then a 4 hour bus and ferry, to Castro, the biggest city on the island. The relative seclusion of Chiloe has enabled it to stick to more traditional roots—I felt a bit like I had walked back a few dozen years in time. Chilote people still believe, somewhat heavily, in mythology, and the myths of the island somewhat dominate a lot of their culture. And the climate there—constantly raining or cloudy, gives it a bit of a mysterious and mystical feel. Thanks to the rain, the land is completely green, and there are hills, farms and beaches everywhere. The island is split up into quite a few small, spread out fishing villages and wooden rowboats dominate the coastline. It’s a somewhat different culture and lifestyle than mainland Chile—as I said, it’s about 50 years back in time, the houses are extremely colorful, there are beautiful wooden churches spread throughout the island, and a very coastal feel. The cuisine is dominated by seafood (seafood empanadas, seafood soup, etc.) Many of the houses on the waterfront are put up on stilts that make them a very beautiful (and picturesque) sight to see. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. We spent the first day walking around Castro, admiring the stilted houses and the colorful wooden boats, and getting to know the city. The next day we set out to some local artisans markets, explored some of the beaches, had breakfast at a local market and took a ferry to some of the smaller islands that make up Chiloe. The rest of the group left that night to go to the national park on the western side of the island, but I headed back early to Santiago to get ready for finals and to give a presentation in one of my classes. It’s a long story, but I ended up taking a 17 hour bus ride back to Santiago instead of flying, so that was fun. I mean, how many people can say they’ve taken a 17 hour bus ride through southern Chile? Alone? But it really wasn’t that exciting. Thankfully, my bus didn’t break down (it would have been the 3rd time), and I slept most of the way there.
For the past 2 weeks since then I’ve mostly been working, working, working. Don’t get me wrong—it hasn’t been nearly as stressful or work-heavy as a normal school quarter, but it’s been a lot of work nonetheless. Other than spending last Saturday in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar searching out a place to live for the summer, I’ve just stayed in Santiago and worked on finals, just finishing last Friday.
Oh, except for going to the Chile vs. Bolivia World Cup qualifying game last Wednesday! That was definitely one of my favorite experiences so far in Chile. From buying cheap Chilean flags and futbol jerseys outside the stadium to chanting “Vamos, Vamos chilenos, esta noche tenemos que ganar!” with 70000 Chileans, to seeing the Chilean team win 4-0 and pretty much guarantee themselves a spot in the World Cup, it was an amazing night. And quite an eye into Chilean culture as well. For one, it reminded me of how intolerant Chileans are. For example, one of their cheers went like this (in Spanish, of course): the Chileans were all jumping up and down (all 70000 of them) and started saying, “anyone who isn’t jumping is a Bolivian maricón”. Maricón is a very negative term for homosexual, so it was basically a group of 70000 Chileans calling the Bolivians maricónes. Oh, if that happened in the US…They did the jumping chant again other times, and one time changed it to something like “Jump if you have an ocean”, making fun of the fact that Bolivia lost all of its coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific over a hundred years ago, a loss that continues to plague Bolivia’s economy. So other than making fun of Bolivian maricónes and lack of coastline, watching the game was an incredible and exciting sight. I’ll try to put up some pictures of the game in a few days. After watching that game, I really feel a lot more Chilean and a lot less gringo. I mean, I was cheering for Chile with everyone else, mostly singing and cheering along with the Chileans for the whole night and celebrated when Chile won. It made me feel quite a bit like I was really a part of the Chilean culture, and not just a tourist. It was an incredible experience and I’m hoping to go to another game by the time I leave on August 16th.
Okay, well that’s where I’ll leave it for today, I think that’s enough for you guys to read. After a 2 day break from finals, I’m starting my internship tomorrow at 9AM, which I’m really excited about. Still not sure exactly what to expect or what I’ll be doing, but I’m positive it will be a great experience! I’ll not only get to meet the people I’m working with, but a lot of the micro-business owners we work with, and get a very different glimpse into Chile that way. I’ll update in the next few days with more info on my first few days in my new home and work, so stay tuned!
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