The majority of this month was spent in celebration. September 18th is the Chilean Independence Day, meaning, this month included a vacation week, lots of fiestas, delicious food, and family!
In the first week, I got to celebrate my Grandma's birthday and talk with my father's side of the family more!
Grandma's Birthday!
As I mentioned that September was a month of fiestas, I should also mention that it is a month of fiesta preparations before all else! Not a single day passed in school where an effort was not being made in order to prepare for the school's celebration of the national Independence Day!
Me learning the Base Guitar to play in the Fiesta Huasa
The initial preparations included endless music classes repeating the same song, over, and over, and over, and over again...
Moment to explain...
I just typed a gosh darn essay explaining specific things for every single one of these pictures, and I went to post it only to find that it all had erased itself.
As I am lacking motivation to write another 6 pages... here is what happened in a nutshell!
We practiced my grades dance every day in school, and I was selected as one of the students to dance it in the Fiesta Huesa. Thus I had to buy a Cueca dress! I went shopping with my grandma and sister and bought a beautiful dress, black with red flowers (a typical design for the dress is a floral pattern).
On the day of the fiesta at the school, I walked to the school bright and early and dropped off my giant hoop skirt and shoes, then I headed out with some friends to go to a fair at the "estadio español" a little country club sort of place.
There was dancing and food and sweets and everything you could imagine!
I ended up helping out at a meat stand selling sausages and steak to the public... by far the best sausages I have ever had.
When it was close to time to dance, I went back to the school and put my dress on, then helped out by braiding literally 20 people's hair.
Let me tell you... it was HOT. A tent had been set up in the courtyard, and the moment that you set foot in there, the steam from 2 billion delicious Chilean delicacies being cooked burned your face off. And don't even get me started on the smell... YUMMM
All of the food that was served was native to chile, and delicious I might add.
When it was finally time to dance, my group was lead into the gym and did our thing I front of what I swear whas the whole gosh darn city. It was very fun :)
Me and my friends all hung out afterwards for quite some time, and it was a really awesome moment for me.
One thing that was really special that happened to me was within the tent. There was music played in there, meaning that the straw floor was open for dancing. I was jamming out with my friends to some Spanish classics, when I saw my host dad and sister dancing in one of the corners on the tent.
One of my favorite childhood memories was something called a daddy daughter dance. It was a little dance that my town would annually host when fathers and daughters would go to this barn in the center of our town and enjoy their own little formal evening dancing and eating ice cream. My daddy always made a big deal about asking me and my sisters each year with a cute little proposal-
The year that I remember most was the first year that my sisters were too old to go, so I had my daddio all to myself. It was a really special night for me!
Dancing with my sisters and him in public events became a normal daddy/daughter thing for us!
So when my host dad saw me smiling and watching, then invited me to join, it was a really really happy moment for me. Sort of like an official "you're in" sort of passage.
My bestie Vale took a video :)
^^first visit to my nanny's church!! Absolutely an awesome awesome place :)
To start out, the English department preformed a beautiful 2 1/2 hour long performance of High School Musical! Indeed it included all of the (offpitch) lovely classic songs, which were super fun to sing along to;)
The biggest change to take place during the month of August was how much closer I became with my friends. The relationships went from being friendly to actually missing spending time with one another. I will be entirely honest when I say that staying away from my life at home was really hard at first. Things happen, and I'm not there to help. It's not a good feeling to feel like you are missing out on your life. I'm not too sure if it wasn't in August or September that this event took place, but I heard about something that was happening at home regarding my really close friends, and it made me really really upset. I was about to call my best friend Sam at home to talk to her about it when I realized that I really just wanted to talk to Josefina.
Valentina Ortega y Jorge
So that's exactly what I did. I called up my new Chilean girly and cried to her over the phone explaining what what happening to me and how awful I was feeling.
It wasn't until after I got off the phone with her that I remembered that she doesn't speak English. I had just had a whole rant with her about my problems and it hadn't registered to me that I was blabbing in Spanish and she was responding to me in Spanish! Now I can say without a doubt that the Spanish I was using was definitely not even close to being completely correct, but it was the beginning of me moving into the stage of speaking without thinking.
Friendships come when people are comfortable with each other, which is why my friendships were blossoming. I had officially made it through a week of school and met all of my teachers. One of the MANY differences between Chilean schools and most schools in the USA is that when a teacher is sick, they do not find a substitute. Instead, the children keep themselves in their respective classrooms and listen to music or play games or talk!
That was a great time for me to loosen up with everybody. When we were singing karaoke at the top of our lungs and dancing around the room having rap battles.
Someone managed to get ahold of the recorders from the music room. Who knows why, but all of the guys in my class know how to play the titanic song on the recorder. They officially ruined that song:)
Speaking of music, I had my first music class with the funniest music teacher ever! Profe Mauri is absolutely hilarious and makes my mondays bearable!
Right away he asked me if I wanted to learn an instrument or if I would rather just learn the lyrics to the songs. One thing that should be set straight right now is that I like to work hard. I believe that hard work has its payoffs and I will always try to put in my best work to everything I do. Therefore, when I was given the opportunity to learn something new, I gladly took the opportunity. He taught me how to play the bass guitar, and told me he was impressed with how fast I caught on :)
Another important fact about me, I am a Christian, and my religion is incredibly important to me. Thus, being unable to attend church for a long time was making me feel a bit disconnected. So I began to watch the recorded sermons which were posted on my churches website in the United States! It seemed to be the solution I needed to keep myself rooted when I needed a bit of faith.
Speaking of the religious aspect of my trip, I finally learned a few of the prayers that my family sings before dinner each night. They go something like this-
Gracias Señor por este alimento,
My parents and Uncle Richie baptizing me before I left
Cinco panes y dos peces,
Como en el desierto
Amen
Dijimos gracias padre
por todo tu amor
por pan, ropa, y casa,
y por tu protección
amen
It is a really fun experience for me to be able to sing along with them each night as we eat dinner, or once, together!
This is my Nanny "Señora Sunny" (sue-knee)- she makes the best bread in the world. I love her very very much
This week, I attended my second Rotary event where I met the president of rotary here and the district governor! I met the district governor at the first orientation with all of the other exchange students in my district, but I got to know him much better when it was with less people.
All of the rotarians are very impressed with my Spanish and tell me that it has already grown a lot in less than a month!
The hard thing about progressing is that you rarely see yourself doing it. It is sometimes best to have a conversation or two every few month with a few select people who see you growing from afar and are there to re ensure you!
One of my favorite things about being in a new country is trying new food. As I have been looking through my old journal entries to write about what I did in those times, I ran across this quote: "they brought me a 'dessert' thing after dinner which consisted of some weird grain things, a lot of juice, and a peach- but the peaches are OLD and falling apart and... EW! Apparently it's really popular here! Raw fish+lemon, rotten peaches... these people eat some gosh darn funky stuff!"
And indeed, they are funky, but looking back at this now I'm laughing really hard because the "rotten peach" thing became something I would eat and enjoy on a daily basis in September!
Most of the food here is absolutely DELICIOUS, I will get more into that in the September posts...
My favorite thing to have as a treat is Leche con plátanos. It is literally just milk and bananas and a little bit of sugar blended together, but man it is RICO!!
Also, suprisingly, I have never tasted better sushi in my life.
I first tasted the sushi here when I went out with my friends after Jeans Day. Jeans day is a special day where the school allows the students to ditch their uniforms and come to school in regular clothing. In order to do so, each child pays less than a dollar to wear regular clothing to school. THEY PAY TO WEAR REGULAR CLOTHING! I think it's honestly pretty funny how excited they get!
Me and Vale goofing off!
Anyways, after Jeans Day, Jorge, Vale, Jo, and I went to the sushi shop down the road from my house, and brought the sushi back to the twins house.
We watched a movie and goofed off together while eating the greatest sushi ever made. That is a fact, not an opinion.
Vale is the friend who has thus far been closest to me. She is super positive all of the time, and incredibly patient with me. She is definitely the kind of friend that I can whole heartedly say I was lucky to find.
This was the first time that I walked somewhere other than home from school on my own. I was SUPER proud of myself because even though the house is really close to me, (.2 miles to be exact) I still did it without a map in hand.
In this time period, I still wasn't aloud to use the bus alone, so walking .2 miles was a big deal for my freedom.
Freedom is one of the things that I would love to say is easy to find when you are on your own, but I can easily say that it is incredibly frustrating to be "on your own, but still in a different family's household. I am a daughter to two sets of parents, and that means my daughterly responsibilities of rule following are rotted from two completely different cultures.
This month I wrote my first rant in my diary where I was incredibly frustrated with some of the things I had made clear were important to me that seemed to be pushed aside continuously. It felt that day as though I was taking a trip for independence, yet I was being babysat the whole time.
I have noticed that this tends to be a common theme for me. I have the greatest time ever while enjoying my new life in this country, then I will have a random day that is really hard. Then the next day I'm back to living life! It's quite the pattern.
One of the things that I was frustrated about was that I was not able to be practicing taekwondo because we had yet to find a studio and I had to have the sport approved through rotary. So finally, I talked with my host parents with a sit down conversation to find a place for me to try, and alas I got to go to my first taekwondo class in Chile!!!!
It was awesome to see the differences between the ways that they practice the sport I love. It felt so nice to get back into the pattern of working out. Sadly, rotary said that I had to do some paperwork and have my parents approve the sport before I could continue to practice. So, that was that for my taekwondo practicing days.
Sadly, near the end of the month, I got sick with a cold and instead of going to school, I sat in bed all day drinking tea.
Being sick on an exchange is very counter productive because you don't have many people to be practicing the language with when everyone else is at school or work, and there are not many new cultural experiences you can have from your bed.
When I finally returned to school, I had a very memorable conversation with my girls in class about animal sounds. The language barrier not only affects people I guess, because a Spanish dog vs English ones are saying different things!!!
Looking back at this video, I think it is really funny that I could barely get across the point of what I wanted to say. Pollo vs gallo was a comparison I didn't even know existed.
I was added to an instagram page from my school that (I didn't know at the time) was an anonymous account which made "matches" of people in the school!
Right away, my picture popped up matched with another kid in my class- it's just a joke, but I thought it was really cool that people were already accepting me into a part of their school after no more than 2 weeks!
Although I already knew the family and house mighty well after the first week, we realized that on official "first night questions time" never actually took place! Most of the many questions I pondered were already tossed at my papa in the first car ride to the house, therefore, the laughably terrible reenactment of what it would be like if I didn't know the family yet and was meeting them for first night questions didn't cover too many new topics. However, that night was a HUGE confidence booster for me, as the whole conversation was in Spanish. Although I was not the one saying much, I was actually understanding! It may seem like that is something that is easy to do after training your language skills leading up to the trip, but in reality, the accents, vocabulary, speed, slang, and raspy voices are things you can not prepare yourself for. For me, this small victory was a very promising sign that I was going to make it through the trip after all!
Americano!!!
Restaurant with Fernanda's friends!
I got along well enough with Fernanda's friends that they invited me out to a restaurant and to walk around the other side of Concepción!
Me, Feña, Lucy
It makes me incredibly happy that two of their names are Nacho :)
In the photo above, Nacho 1 (Nacho Libre), Nacho 2 (Negro), Lucy, Feña, Fran, Téte, and I are pictured. Those are the people who I can remember the names of! Chibi (Martin) also later joined us! As I had yet to start school in this time, it was awesome to be able to socialize with people out of the house!
La Féria
personal appearance in the Newspaper!
Pictured above is an incredibly satisfying display of fruits that was displayed at the "Féria" the first time I went with my dad! The Féria is a mini market thatis set up right on the corner of our street every Saturday. It is where we buy our fresh fruits, sea food, bread, veggies, anything you can imagine! They sell clothing and house goods as well!
I was quite the popular attraction at the market, and believe that this was the first time that I actually understood what my cat-callers were saying... at least my language is improving!
I attended my first rotary event this week which was an incredibly fancy dinner welcoming me and Mischa (another student from Greenland who speaks no Spanish yet) and to send off Monserrat and Javier (the two outbound students). The meeting itself happened before Monsé left, but the paper didn't come out until the following Saturday.
Me and Fer!
beautiful image of my host parents at age 16! They got married at 19 and 20!
Me and Josefa
I had already met my grandparents from saying goodbye to Monse at the airport, however this week was the first time I was able to talk with them in the house! They brought out many old photo albums to look through and told many wonderful stories to go along with each:)
Papa also whipped out a book that he had stored in his room of the "Seasons in New England"! I got to loom through it and suprisingly, there were photos of my town in the winter and fall sections!
We talked for a while and watched "La Columbiana" (which is very dramatic I might add). They all got a good laugh out of it when my grandma (Lela) was explaining to me that the girl in the show is "embarazada", and my response was "who? Me?"... embarazada means pregnant:) there's a little insight to the life of an exchange year:)
Later that week, I finally was able to buy my school uniform, meaning I would at last get the chance to socialize with people my age!
August 16th, the fateful day of schooling!!!!!!!
I convinced papa to come into the school with me so that we could learn more information from the principal about where I should go and what corse I would be in! I was initially told that I would be put in primero medio, or the freshman class, simply to attempt to límate the risk of me having to be in uncomfortable party situations where my friends were drinking and I didn't want to (as I told my principal off the bat that I was not going to be a part of the drinking/smoking culture). However, after hearing that I will be going back into my Junior year in the United States I stead of repeating Sophomore year, we decided that I should be put into an environment where I can still be taking in the curriculum as I learn the language. Thus, with a little paperwork, I was switched into 2mB (Sophmore year).
Now, since the seasons in the United States and Chile are swapped (summer here is December and January) the school years also follow that pattern. Therefore, I was placed into the second half of Sophmore year, I will stay for the summer, the first half of Junior year here as well, then return to start my junior year at home! Confusing... I know:)
Because there was such a last minute switch in my grade, that meant that the students in my class as well as the teachers had no clue that an exchange student would be joining them. Man I wish I had been recording their faces.
The doors to each classroom are glass, thus the teachers can see who is knocking to enter. The principal and inspector walked me up to the second floor and across the hall to the 2mB room, and knocked on the door. Now, since there were two large men I front of me while entering, I got to hear the immediate gasps and chatters and see all of their faces right after turning the corner. The greatest sound ever:)
Everyone was so excited, and were all smiling and whispering "es una gringa". The principal eventually calmed them down enough to give me an introduction speech, telling them my name, how I am a straight A student in the United States (meaning no one is aloud to question my intelligence based on the grades I might receive when talking tests in a different language), and that I practice Taekwondo, meaning the boys outta watch out!
Probé Juan (my Lenguaje teacher) told me where would be best for me to sit. That ended up being right in the front row with a group of beautiful beautiful girls (who later would turn out to be my best friends!)
Profs Juan tried to continue to teach the class normally, but to no avail as there was no way he would be able to get a word out above the charter that was taking place between the students:)
First day friends! (Josefina, Valentina, Javiera, Valentina 2, Sofie) Josefina dns Valentina are twins, try and guess which ones they are in the first picture!
The day finished up as any new blonde girls first day of school in an ocean of brown haired Chileans. Lots of looks, smiles, high fives, questions, introductions, you get the idea:)
Not going to lie, I was famous as famous can be through the first few weeks of school, and sometimes I forget that I haven't had the chance to get to know everybody, so I get occasional visits from ecstatic 5th graders!
Indeed, a blond in a sea of browns:)
Vale did this, not me, but what's done is done and at least I can consider the vandalism a cute memory!
never too old for a sea-saw (spelling's not my strong suit, forgive me if that was wrong)
My dearest Vale!
As my newly sprouted friendships began to grow, people started to ask more about me, my life, my family, hobbies, everything. Remember how I said that I wanted to take this year to grow more comfortable in my own skin? Well the first real experience I had of that was when I returned home from school that day and happened to come across a clip from a movie (who knows which one)- the video showed a voice over on top of a girl walking into a school and through the halls. I think I can take away the theme of the movie being that she switches schools every two months because of her parents jobs, so she began to mess around with it.
The voice over said something along the lines of "the best part of switching schools is that you can be whoever you want to be. You can say you have done anything you want to say, and people are too lazy to look into your past and se if it's true or not." Then the video went on to show her walking through the hall in various outfits telling various stories to new groups of people.
As fake of a life that would be to live, it was a very cool thought to know that nobody here knows me. No one knows my family or my history or my friends back at home, and if I really wanted to, I could make myself be anyone I wanted to be.
Obviously to me this was all theoretical, but as I continued to dream of the things that I could possibly say, I realized that my real life is still he story I would rather tell.
That made me incredibly greatful, that God has given me such amazing opportunities that I wouldn't want to tell anyone anyone different. He blessed me with such a diverse, but tightly bound family, that I am excited to be able to tell everyone I meet about how hard it was to leave them because of how great they are! Now that's what I call a life confidence boost!
I keep this picture around just because I love how honest my face is, showing the amount of confusion I was in with the language
Back to the growing friendships... The Friday of that week, I was walking home from school again with Valentina and Jorge when I got really excited over a little playground I saw across the street, because I mea, who doesn't love playgrounds.
So, they decided to show me a beautiful, really old playground that is located right behind the plaza that I pass walking home from school daily. We went right away and they didn't hesitate to join me acting like 4 year olds swinging from the monkey bars. Now that's what I call friendship, am I right or am I right!
You can never be too old for playgrounds.
A few other fun things that happened this week,
I witnessed that the little green walking men on the crosswalk signs ACTUALLY MOVE THEIR LITTLE FEET WHEN ITS TIME TO WALK! I actually got so gosh darn excited about that, it's not even funny!
I tried my first empanada:) YUM
Visited many shopping centers and grocery stores
Judged a Spanish debate on my second day of school informo the of the whole school
Sang karaoke during math class
Began to learn another cultural dance similar to the Cueca in gym class
Secret Cupid!!!!
And papa woke me up the following Saturday with hot chocolate in bed:)
Oh what a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day!!! I packed up all of my belongings in the morning and began to bring them into the main hall when I looked across the camp site to see these three beautiful faces looking around!
Right away, I recognized them from the photo I had received months earlier (and looked at almost every day leading up to the trip). Without hesitation, they recognized me as well, so I dropped all of my bags on the ground and ran to give them hugs!
My mom and older sister Fernanda are not pictured with me because they had to stay behind to clean up the house and make lunch, but I was taken home with my papa, Monserrat, and Josefa. Josefa is 12, Monserrat was 16 at the time, and Papa, well, I'm not too sure about that one ;)
I was the first student to be picked up, which I later found out was because the next Saturday is when The general public moves its clocks forwards an hour. However, my host dad had messed up the dates, and therefore came to get me at 12:00 instead of 1:00!
Stunning flag I was greeted with! (Made by Feña)
The drive from the site we stated at (I believe it is named, Salto del Laja, in Los Angeles) to our house was about two hours. Enough time for an ice cream stop at a Copec on the way (gas station) and to get to know each other pretty well! I asked enough questions to drive them insane, that much I am sure of!
The house that I am blessed to be able to stay at is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! They have a pool, a projector as a TV, enough rooms for me to sleep in my own space. The house is based off of natural tones and there is a lot of stone structures with green plants, and I just have to say, whoever designed this house did a fantastic job with the colors.
I would sleep in the guest bedroom for the first few days, before the departure of Monserrat (she is going to the United States on an exchange) after that, I will be staying in the central area of the house in her bedroom.
My favorite part of the guest room would have to be the view from the window. It looks out over the pool and the staircase-garden. It is absolutely beautiful, and I think it still might be my favorite part of the house even though I no longer sleep there.
First bus ride!
The next day, Fernanda and Josefa invited me to go into the center of Concepción with them so that I could get to know a little bit of the city and what it's like to navigate it in a
bus!
Apparently it's best to always sit in the back because there is a little button you can push to make the driver stop when you need him to, therefore you can avoid awkward conversations (that's at least what Feña told me :)
We went into the center initially because Josefa loves to dance, thus, we wanted to see how she would do in an actual class (she ended up hating the class, but hey, it was worth a shot)
We stayed and watched her dance for a while, but ended up leaving half way through so that I could see the plaza and markets and buildings.
Still haven't really figured out what this building is, but I will at some point!
Church in the center of Concepción
The architecture in the city is very beautiful, and there are a lot of lovely parks and plazas with little shops and boutiques!
We went to the shopping market which, like in most cities, was incredibly crowded and expensive. Nonetheless, the city is a beautiful one, and I'm sure I will spend a lot of time here this next year!
I ended up coming into the center of the city almost every day that week for various reasons, mostly having to do with their incredibly cheap, delicious ice cream :)
ICE CREAMMMM
Yummmy
MORE ICE CREAM!
Might be hard to believe, but that deliciously, scrumptious, large pile of happiness that you currently are witnessing was less than $2. NO JOKE! How amazing is that! Man I am going to gain so much weight this year!
Okay, okay. As I said in my first post in this blog, all of these events are long gone in my mind. Time travels last the speed of light when you are busy, and you can trust me when I say, I have been quite the busy bee these past few months.
As I a, realizing that I would love to go into indeoth detains about every event that I have experienced, I will spend my whole,e trip sitting here typing. Therefore, to handle my time wisely, I'm just going to keep it short and simple for these next few catch up posts.
Startinggggggggg NOW!
I met many of Fernanda's close friends who were kind enough to show me around the University of Concepción, including the museums and the Plaza Peru!
Lucy and Feña on the bus!
Vogue, vogue, vogue
Me at the Art museum
I already can tell, we will get along mighty fine!
To finish up the journey through the first week of the year, we had to say goodbye to the incredibly sweet Monserrat Perez-Silva. Although I only had known her for a week, I still consider saying goodbye to her the hardest/saddest thing I have had happen to me through this trip (3 months in).
Final goodbye
Monse was treated in the airport by all of her close friends from school, her family, grandparents, church friends... all of her goodbyes were together and sad and tear filled.
Having only known her for a short amount of time, I figured my goodbyes would be sad, as she has been incredibly kind to me, but I did not expect to feel the intense emotion that hit me.
Her leaving was like I was leaving again.
It is very clear that she loves her family dearly, just as I do for mine, thus I imagine that she felt similar to the way I did when saying my final goodbyes to them. Absolutely awful.
Going away dinner for Monse
All of the family gathered together in the house before getting in the car to pray together. At this point, I will admit that I honestly didn't understand as much as I made it seem like I did, but that prayer, I somehow understood each and every word, without hesitation. As much as it was a prayer for Monserrat, the prayer was equally about me. They prayed for out safety, for us to feel secure in our homes, to find ourselves on our journies, and to show the world the love of Jesus Christ.
I was already sobbing before leaving the driveway just from knowing how lucky I am to be staying with a family who loves the lord and will be there to help my grow in my faith through the year.
The beautiful family
Even after all of her goodbyes were said, and she had gone through security, everyone waited my the window crying until she was long gone through the door.
One thing that I remember ever so clearly from that day is my papa. He didn't shed a single tear while at the airport. the words that he said when I asked him about how he was still so put together still stay in the back of my mind. He basically just said, it's only for one year, and after that, I will have the rest of my life to speak with my daughter and be near her.
As dimunitaive as that makes a full year seem, it is too true to discribe. The time that I have with my family is time that I must cherish, as time flies fast. But I also must not forget that the time will fly wether I am with them or not. Thus, I mustn't dwell on the fact that they are far, for a year is short, and I only have this experience for one of them.
