Tortola

So I was horribly surprised this morning by the appearance of a gigantic spider in my room. I panicked, as is typical for me, but could not choke out the Spanish word for "spider" in time for my host mom to come in and kill it. The word, for your information, is "arana" with an accented "n". I was doubly spooked because my Lonely Planet guide informed me of the black widows present in Chile.

Anyways, as my mom came in my room, she suddenly noticed that there was an egg ("huevito") in the flower basket ("jardin" though it is barely a garden) outside the window of my room. A turtledove (tortolo) had decided to make a nest. I felt kind of sorry that the bird had decided to choose the window outside of my room to make a nest. My host mom was looking forward to having the nest and egg in her flower basket. I know this because in the first week I came here, she and I had a long, in depth conversation about how much she loves the turtledoves that land here and how she watches the eggs everyday as they grow.

The fact that I got an egg is not too much of a surprise to me. The turtledove did greet me early on in Chile. One day, the first week, the bird ran into my window, flapping its wings and scaring me half to death. Turns out that was a sign for "hey, I'm going to nest outside your window now". I'm honestly very happy. I'm really excited to see a little bird.

Here's the bird with an egg beneath.

As for the spider that caused me to notice the bird, my host mom filled my room with Raid so I think that it is probably dead.

Day 12

Today I had such a profound excursion.

Every weekday, my study abroad program CIEE instructs us students with little lecture about Chile with a professor/expert and then to a related field trip around Chile. For example, on Friday, our lecture was on Chilean Literature and Poetry, and we subsequently went to Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago--La Chascona. Today, our lecture was on Human Rights in Chile and about the systematic violation of human rights throughout Pinochet's entire military regime. We then went on a field trip to El Parque por la Paz en Villa Grimaldi and the Cementario General.

When I applied to study abroad in Chile, I noted the quietness of the country and its stability. I knew about the military coup, the death of Salvador Allende and the following dictatorship of Pinochet. What I didn't understand until I arrived in Chile was how difficult a topic Pinochet still is because of the profound changes he made in the economy (neoliberal + much more) and the democracy (he rewrote the Chilean constitution in 1980 to make it into systematic autocracy + much more). What I further did not know until I arrived in Chile were the number of people tortured and killed. I thought that "desaparecidos" (the disappeared) were only a phenomenon in Argentina. They are not.

When I saw El Parque por la Paz on my program's itinerary, I thought that it would be a quiet place like the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington. I did not anticipate to be standing on the grounds of a former torture center. I did not realize how many thousands of political prisoners were taken here. I did not know the many steps of torture. I did not prepare to be guided by someone who was tortured in the exact grounds we were stepping on; someone who knew "desaparecidos" who did not come back. I did not expect to be retaught how important treatment of human rights were.

And human rights are incredibly important. Stepping from place to place in a park that has barely any signs left of its bloodshed and brutality, I could not help thinking that something should be left behind. The torturers and the prisoners at the hundreds of torture center both suffered from being less than human. How could so many people go through a place and experience a physical and/or emotional loss of parts there without leaving something else behind? A ghost? A spirit? I really hope that some of the hidden history that occurred in Chile, history that some people buried, will come to light. Chile is still trying people for crimes committed 37 years ago to answer questions about thousands of people. Here's a wish for people can receive peace before everything, including themselves, turns to dust.

Day 5

So today, I went to a classroom in the University of Chile for my CIEE program. There, our instructors told us about important things to remember when selecting classes in Chile and how pivotal it was to make friends with Chileans. As soon as the words “pivotal” and “Chilean friends” came up, my heart started racing and I started to get nervous. The reasons for my nervousness were these: my Spanish is not as good here as in the States; I can’t conjugate; I can’t think correctly, and at any given time, I either say any given phrase quickly with mistakes or say the phrase very slowly with what I think is the right thing (about 50% is usually right). If I were a Chilean, I would be hard pressed to want to be friends with a stuttering thing like me. Also, although I try to avoid it, I can’t help being sucked into the chasm that is the English speaking classmate. It is a lovely yet tragic concept to be able to express yourself fully in English when in Spanish you are only capable of expressing half of what you want.

I want so much to do the right thing here. I want to say the right words in Spanish; I want to pretend to be Chilean. Yesterday, I went to mass with my host mom. From the start of the day, a part of me wanted to go to mass to see the full Catholic tradition of Chile and to see the institution to which my host mother devotes her time (my host mom teaches people the necessary knowledge of the church in order for them to be baptized). And for the first five minutes of mass, I felt lovely. The church was beautiful, and the priest and his assistants seemed so saintly. Everyone stood in enjoyment of the ritual. But then I realized how muddled everything was with everything in Spanish. I couldn’t fake my way through the psalms and the prayers like I could in an English-speaking church. I felt so stupid, standing there, rigid, in the middle of the 11am Sunday mass while the people all around me felt the gravity of the church. I was so frustrated, burning with my desire to say the right phrases, to make the right motions and be a good girl while I was physically and mentally unable to do so that I could have burst into tears at any given moment in that mass. I couldn’t help the fact that I was an agnostic, Chinese American who doesn’t blend into a Catholic mass in Santiago, but I couldn’t help wanting to blend.

With my doubts about my inability to say and communicate the right thing wrapped in another nervous layer of needing a Chilean friend, I was anxious. I didn’t like feeling trapped by my shortcomings. Though my anxieties were shelved for a bit throughout the day, they stayed with me. Thus, at dinnertime, I expressed my worries about my Spanish and acquiring Chilean friends to my host mother. Thankfully, she was incredibly sweet and told me not to worry about it. She said that friends will accept me with my Spanish ability as it is right now and that if the people who I first approach refuse to accept me, I will find people who do. I’m so glad I communicated with her. My host mother is awesome because she manages to reduce my fears in a matter of minutes. With a sentence, she helped me. I still can’t help feeling frustrated with everything at times, but with her advice, she presented me with room I had to give myself to grow abroad.

I am here?

Day 2

So despite the fact that I am hearing some unintelligible Spanish music and the movements of a lovely Chilean women named Olga just outside of of my room, and despite the fact that I am still chilly while wearing long underwear, jeans, socks, boots, a cashmere turtleneck and my terry robe, I still find it hard to believe I am in Santiago, Chile.

I think perhaps it is because my journey was so long and drawn out or maybe because I am completely off any planned expectations of Chile that I feel this way. I have been told multiple times in my life about the idea of Spanish fatalism and the Catholic idea of uncontrollable time. I also have been told that in Chilean culture, I will actually feel the phenomena in the people. But I didn't think the idea of uncontrollable time and uncontrollable life would occur in my life as well, and I was surprised at how unexpectedly it showed up in my journey to Chile.

One of the rules I like to live my life by is to plan everything out as far as you can. For me, this applies to my schedule for the day and the week, for classes and for semester. Also included in this plan was my schedule for my arrival in Chile.

My planned schedule was:

On July 13th

1) leave Philadelphia at 5:59 pm, arrive in Atlanta at 8:40 pm

2) get pesos at the airport

3) leave Atlanta at 10 pm and arrive at Santiago, Chile at 7:20 am

4) get on my program (CIEE)'s bus

5) Be in Chile.

My reality was:

On July 13th

1) have the 5:59 pm Philadelphia flight delayed to 6:25pm, then delayed to 6:50pm, then realize that it was 7:30pm and that I still hadn't left the airport

2) leave Philly at 8pm and arrive at Atlanta at 10:50 pm, 50 minutes after my connection plane left

3) get a new flight ticket for 10pm on July 14th at 11:30 pm

4) call my lovely RayBay to pick me up at Atlanta at midnight

5) realize that I am now in Atlanta instead of Santiago at 8am on the 14th

6) wonder how I ended up taking a tour of CNN at Atlanta at 1:30 pm

7) coo over Stuffed Diseases with Ray Bay at Junkman's Daughter and utter the phrase "Scum is so cute!" at 5pm

8) Wonder if they have candied apples in Chile while eating a "Fuji Apple" at Atlanta's restaurant Silk

9) Board my plane at 9:30 pm and think I am finally going somewhere, then take 2 Nyquil pills to sleep though the 9 hour flight

10) Am forced off my plane back into the airport so that the plane mechanics can check a hydraulic problem at 10:30

11) Am drugged out of my mind and so, so, so drowsy at the airport where I stay for 3 hours until we get on a new airplane at 1 am

12) Land in Santiago Chile at 10:30 am

13) Arrive at the Rent A Home hotel at 11:30 am where I was supposed to be a whole 28 hours before then

14) Get a cell phone, eat lunch, talk about host families, meet host family, go to host family home, try to talk to host family while tired out of my mind, go to welcome dinner, drink Pisco Sour (official Chilean drink), drink wine (supposedly amazing in Chile), go back to host family home, sleep

15) Wake up at 8 am on Friday the 16th and wonder, How am I in Chile?

It is half sinking in now. Maybe I will get used to it soon. Or maybe it is simply the cold sinking into my fingers and my toes...